It’s been nearly 12 hours since Miami beat Dallas to win the NBA finals and there’s still no word out of Mark Cuban. Ordinarily I can take or leave what people have to say about whatever, but I can’t wait to get Cuban’s reaction to the series.
Did I mention that I picked Miami to win back in November? We’ll ignore that I was convinced for the bulk of the season that Detroit and San Antonio were the teams to beat.
Back in November I made predictions about this year’s NBA season. The year is almost over, so along with going back to having my Thursday nights free — I’ll miss you Earnie, Kenny and Charles! — I can see if I had any sense at all earlier on in the year.
Western Conference finals: San Antonio Spurs over Houston Rockets (Dallas Mavericks over Phoenix Suns)
0-2!
The Rockets didn’t even make the playoffs. I was sure that this was going to be the year when Yao and McGrady finally got it together to be the next Shaq and Kobe. Not so much. McGrady spend a big chunk of the season going through personal problems that limited him on the court, and Yao is still soft. Next year. Next year….
San Antonio looked all year like they’d be solid and hold up at least half of my prediction, but they ran in to the slightly less dinged-up Mavs in the Semis and went fishing. Still, I’d pick them again if I had it to do over again.
Eastern Conference finals: Miami Heat over Indiana Pacers (Miami Heat over Detroit Pistons)
I was half right here, which is pretty good, although I will admit to being pretty sure during the season that Detroit was the team to beat. Lesson: it’s hard to go wrong betting with a 7’1″, 350lb. dude with a great big chip on his sholder. Forget everything they say about D-Wade. Shaq is the reason Miami is where they are today. They’d have been out in the quarters agains the Bulls without him.
Indiana just has the worst of luck every year. If it’s not Ron Artest jumping on to the stands, beating the hell out of some dude and getting half the team suspended, it’s Ron Artest deciding that he doesn’t want to play and keeping his team an all-star quality player down for half of the season. Wait a second, they don’t have bad luck, they had Ron Artest. D’oh!
NBA finals: Miami Heat over San Antonio Spurs (Heat v. Mavs, TBD)
If Miami wins can I consider myself correct here? Three quarters correct? Half? Eh.
Worst record: New Orleans Hornets (Portland Trailblazers)
Damn you, Chris Paul. The Hornets should have really, really sucked this year. Their city was under water and they didn’t really have any competent players. Leave it to some silly rookie to come in and average 16 points, eight assists and two steals per game.
The Blazers, on the other hand, are in complete disarray. It’s an ownership question, really. If you’re going to have a software billionaire own your team, you need one who made their cash flipping a silly company to Yahoo, not building up one of the most important corporations in the world. Shame on you, Paul Allen, for working hard instead of getting lucky.
Most Valuable Player: LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers (Steve Nash)
This was a crazy year for the MVP race. I can see why Nash won — half of his team had career years with him at the healm — but an equally good case could have been made for several others. LeBron and Kobe both carried teams that probably shouldn’t have even been in the playoffs to very respectable performances. Elton Brand took the freaking Clippers to the second round, and is the nicest guy in basketball to boot. Tony Parker got a team with two banged up superstars — Tim Duncan and MANU GINOBILI — to the conference semis and the second best record in the league. Etc. etc. The one call I’ll make for next year is that LeBron will definitely be the MVP. You heard it here first.
Rookie of the Year: No strong opinion. I’ll say Wayne Simien, Miami Heat (Chris Paul, NO/OKc Hornets)
I’ll take homer picks for 1,000, Alex. The Kansas standout barely played. I’m not quite sure what I was thinking going with a big playing behind Shaq, Walker, ‘Zo and Haslem. Oh well. At least I only made one homer pick.
Coach of the Year: Phil Jackson, Los Angeles Lakers (Avery Johnson, Dallas Mavericks)
Did I say one homer pick? I meant two homer picks. This was the hear when the Zen Master was supposed to take the rag tag group of misfits that is the Los Angeles Lakers to the NBA Finals and beat Shaq and start a second three-peat. Yeah. Perhaps not. He did get them to the playoffs, which for that group is pretty impressive.
Defensive Player of the Year: Ron Artest, Indiana Pacers (Ben Wallace, Detroit Pistons)
You know, I think the only reason he doesn’t win this award is because he’s a troublemaker. Ben Wallace won again. (Which is a sham in and of itself, because even if Artest wasn’t the better defensive player — and he was — Bruce Bowen was easily the more important stopper.) It’s like all you have to do is throw a few punches at fans and WHAMMO, no more awards for you. Oh well.
Sixth Man Award: Antoine Walker, Miami Heat (Mike Miller, Memphis Grizzlies)
‘Tonie didn’t come on strong until the end of the year, but still it was probably dumb to pick him because of the whole playing-with-Shaq factor. (You don’t win awards when you’re on Shaq’s team.) If Corey Maggette agrees to come off the bench next year, he’ll be a lock for the award.
I’d say something about Mike Miller, but eh. Memphis.
Most Improved Player: Marko Jaric, Minnesota Timberwolves (Boris Diaw, Phoenix Suns)
OK so I can’t complain about this one. Diaw — playing center at 6’8″, which is crazy in and of itself — is the #2 reason — behind Nash — for the Sun’s success. Without one more big to step up there with Marion they would have been way too small and wouldn’t have stood a chance. Further, how can you deny the wonder of a center putting up back-to-back triple doubles?
Maybe this was a third homer pick? Jaric was a Clipper last year, traded for Sam I Am in a deal that probably cemented Clippers’ GM Elgin Baylor as executive of the year.
Executive of the Year: Pat Riley, Miami Heat (Elgin Baylor, Los Angeles Clippers)
The only thing more bizarre than the Clippers making the playoffs is anybody ascoiated with their front office winning an award. They’ve been the most derided group in basketball — perhaps in sports in general — for years and years and years. Elgin’s off-season moves to bring in Cassell and Mobley, his commitment to keep Brand and Maggette and his draft picks over the last few years — in particular Chris Kaman and Shaun Livingston — have build a damn good team. I’ve got them up there with San Antonio and Dallas next year.
Riley, however, could end up the ultimate winner. His team is in the finals and is definitely peaking, and his off-season acquisitions of Posey, Walker, White-Chocolate and Payton are a big part of how they got there. (To say nothing of stealing Shaq from the Lakers two years back.)
Well, another NBA season come and gone. It’ll be tough to find something to do on Thursday nights, but I think I can persevere. Well, at least until the draft. And the World Games this summer. And training camp….
Dan Wetzen laments the horrid scheduling in this year’s NBA playoffs
Detroit and Cleveland tipped at 3:30 p.m. ET Sunday and not because the Pistons put up the best record in the league this year – “it wasn’t us,” Pistons guard Chauncey Billups said. No, it was LeBron James and LeBron James only.
Meanwhile, San Antonio, merely the defending NBA champion trying for its third title in four seasons, got to play fellow 60-game winner Dallas in the early game, which tipped off at noon in Texas. A thriller to the finish in the Mavericks-Spurs game was as predictable as an easy Pistons victory, and that’s what happened. Too bad anyone west of the Mississippi had to skip church to see it in its entirety.
I couldn’t agree more. For all intents and purposes, Dallas v. San Antonio is the western conference finals. (For the record: Go Clippers!) Why not put it in prime time? This is as bad as putting the Kobe v. Shaq game on in prime time over Detroit v. San Antonio — last year’s and likely this year’s finals matchup — for the Christmas day game.
From the Lakers vs. Suns Game 5 Recap:
Bryant was tossed by referee Leon Wood after complaining that a hard foul against Brown should have been called flagrant.
“He didn’t like my toneage, if that’s a word.” Bryant said. “He’s the decider. Is that a word, decider?”
From tonight Clippers game vs the Nuggets, Lawler said, regarding the Nuggets:
They’ve only made their last seven [shots]. That ties an NBA record for most shots made in seven attempts.
Update: This would be the night that the Clippers break “Lawler’s Law.” The law states quite simply that the first team to 100 wins. (This holds true over 90% of the time in Clippers games.) Denver, up at the half by 20 and by 22 at one point, reached 100 before the Clippers but eventually lost in one of the most exciting games I’ve seen all year.
So the NBA has this horrible scheme where the divison winners are seeded 1-3 in the conference tournament. This year proves this out to be horrible shite, as the two best teams in the western conference — the Spurs and the Mavs — are in the same conference. One of them will be the 1 seed while the other will be relegated to the 4.
Now, this isn’t so bad in the first round for the 4 seed, as they’ll still have home court on account of their better record. However, we will (most likley) see what should be the conference finals in the semis second, and what of the “battle” for the 5th seed? Mark Cuban walks through the regretable scenario on his blog.
What happens if both the Grizz and Clips clinch homecourt advantage over the Nuggets ?. Put another way, its possible that, and Im just picking numbers here, the Grizz and Clips are tied with 4 games to play, and both teams know that the team that loses more of those 4 games gets home court advantage against the Nuggets. The team that wins more, gets the Mavs or Spurs starting on the road.
Honestly, I can’t see why both teams wouldn’t throw games in order to get home court in the first round. The Clippers haven’t been in the playoffs since the Eisenhower administration, so they’ll take all the home playoff games they can get. The Grizz have been a little better of late, but they’re basically in the same boat.
I really hope the NBA gets it together next year and does away with this whole division-champs-must-be-1-through-3 thing.
Busy with family, I didn’t get to watch both of yesterday’s NBA games. I saw the second half of Lakers @ Heat, which was about what I expected. (I had the Heat by 10, so I guess it was a little off, but still.) The good game, however, was on earlier and was the one that I completely missed. (NBA – San Antonio Spurs/Detroit Pistons Recap Sunday December 25, 2005 – Yahoo! Sports)
The recap, however, provided a great deal of entertainment. Here’s a quote from San Antonio’s coach, who is by far one of the most amusing interviews in the league:
“We’re very honored, but we realize it is a great responsibility to play in the JV game,” San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich joked before the game. “We have to do a good job to make sure the fans stay around to watch the varsity game.”
Hilarious! Detroit and San Antonio are far and away the best teams in the league, yet they’re hugely overshadowed by the Kobe/Shaq soap opera. It pleases me when this sort of thing is taken in stride and joked at by the rest of the league, especially the teams getting the short end of the media attention stick.
I can’t wait to watch these two teams in the finals. (At this point, I’m pretty sure that my preseason prediction of Miami making the finals was wrong. Sorry, Shaq.) With Pop on one side and ‘Sheed on the other, it’ll be another year of great interviews.
When The Kid and I went to the Clips games over the weekend, I learned two important things. First, all of the Clippers’ starting five are on the NBA All-Star ballot. Second, you can vote for the All-Star team once a day. I’m going to vote for all five Clippers every day and I encourage the rest of you to do the same. They’re the best team in the Pacific division and for my money the most fun to watch of any team in the league.
We now return to our regularly scheduled nonsense.
The Kid and I went to see the Clippers whip up on the Heat last night. It was a great game. EB is definitely a front-runner for MVP this year.
The craziest part of the game came between the 3rd and 4th quarters. The brought a guy out to shoot from half-court to try to win a car. They asked him how he was feeling and he said “nervous.” He totally seemed like it, too. I bet I would be as well if I was trying to make a half-court shot in front of over 19,000 people.
The announcer was trying to get him to turn around and face the basket so he could take the shot, and he just up and threw it backwards over his head. IT WENT IN. He hadn’t even turned around to watch it yet, and it was through the hoop and everybody in the arena was screaming and jumping around.
Here’s a brief story and picture: Richard Tran, a 22-year-old junior high school math teacher, from Santa Ana… – NBA – Yahoo! Sports.
Have you ever been a couple days in with a few days still to go on something that turned out to not be quite as funny as you thought it would be? Yeah, me too. Maybe it’s because I’ve done the two boring sports — baseball and American football — that I don’t really like. It seems like both previous tournaments came out the same way: at the end of the day, it was either indians or giants winning the day.
Well, I’ve got a sure-fire cure for this minor literary malaise: The WNBA! They have all sorts of nuts names that the NFL would never even consider. Plus they don’t have that many teams, so I can get through this one relatively quickly. Here goes!
Sting v. bye
A slow start, but we’ll make it through this. Sting
Sun v. bye
OK, so we have to do two of these. No big. Sun
Shock v. bye
Who puts 13 teams in a league?! Geez! Shock
Comets v. Mystics
All right! This is some action! I’m all the way for anything even vaguely magical winning, but I’m pretty sure that if a comet ran in to a wizard or what have you, it’d be game over. Comets
Fever v. Storm
A storm is immune to any sort of health-related ailment. Storm
Sparks v. Silver Stars
What temperature does silver melt at? I’ve got to think that it’s a lot higher than what you’d get off any sort of sparks. Silver Stars
Lynx v. Monarchs
Lynx are small and stealthy enough to steak past any sort of palace guard, and they’ve got CLAWS AND TEETH to rip in to some monarch flesh! Lynx
Mercury v. Liberty
Liberty is a wonderful thing. It’s part of what our country is based on. Mercury, on the other hand, has those rad shoes with wings on them. You can’t top rad shoes. Mercury
Sting v. Storm
I don’t care if you’ve got a whole swarm of hornets or a big fist full or scorpions. There’s nothing with a stinger that a little lightning and hail can’t take care of. Storm
Sun v. Silver Stars
Sparks wouldn’t do it, but I bet you the sun could melt the hell out of all the silver in the world. Sun
Shock v. Mercury
Speedy as he is, Mercury would be out like a light if you ran a current through him. Shock
Comets v. Lynx
Stealthy cats with claws and what have you don’t do so well when giant balls of ice and rock and metal from space run in to them. Comets
Sun v. Storm
I’ve been watching for months now and I’ve not seen a storm permanently block out the sun. Sun
Shock v. Comets
Science has yet to study the effect of electricity on comets, but we know exactly what would happen if you ran a comet in to some sort of generator or power plant or battery or something like that. Comets
Sun v. Comets
The comet has had some impressive wins so far. It’s got an impact that’s hard to ignore, what with its traveling through space at zillions of miles an hour and being made of heavy, hard stuff. Those are impressive stats.
The Sun, on the other hand, is a giant, burning ball of gas. It’s surface temperature is almost 6,000K. That’s really hot. I’m pretty sure that a comet would melt or explode or something like that before it got within 100 miles of the sun. So this contest, really, is an easy call.
The Connecticut Sun are your WNBA Champions
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