NBA
With the NBA offseason nearly underway, here’s a look at the three biggest issues the Warriors need to address this summer:
1. Point guard
Bill Walsh used to say that it was better to get rid of a player one year too early, rather than one year too late. Golden State, renowned for being a progressive organization, is way ahead of the curve on this one.
Oakland doesn’t get much publicity as a sports town, but the capital of the East Bay is one of the few cities in America to house a team in each of the three major sports (Take that, San Francisco! You too, hockey!). But faced with the prospect of losing two-thirds of its teams, Oakland is now in the middle of a sporting crisis.
On Monday, Ed Stefanski will have a press conference and introduce Eddie Jordan as the new Sixers head coach. And, as with most things Sixers related, the hiring of Eddie Jordan will be greeted by a collective yawn from Philly sports fans.
It’s not that Eddie Jordan is a bad coach. Unfortunately, he’s not a good enough coach to get butts in seats at the empty Wachovia Center. In fact, you could argue that Eddie Jordan is the perfect fit for the Sixers. His career coaching record is 230-288 and in his last three years with the Wizards (not including 2008-2009), he steered Washington to a 126-120 record and lost in the first round of the playoffs from 2005 to 2008. That’s Sixers basketball right there.
The 2009 NBA playoffs have been a total blast. Full of hard fouls, close games, and buzzer beaters, they have been an absolute pleasure to watch thus far. And luckily, the conference finals haven’t been any different.
But rather than bore you with statistical breakdowns or genuinely intuitive and knowledgeable articles about these crucial series, I will once again be your source for the number one way Americans (namely anyone who is amused by my postings in particular) choose to get their information… with pretty pictures from the internet!
So enjoy this post of the NBA conference finals in pictures, and thank me for not asking you to strain your brainpower later…
In recent weeks, the Warriors have come under fire from the media and fans alike, after one of their employees admitted to posing as a season ticket holder on internet message boards. The team has been ridiculed not only for their duplicity, but for their inability to execute successfully
execute such a simple plan.
Rather than lampoon the team as so many others have done, I decided to seek some retribution. One afternoon last week, armed with nothing but a smile and a fake identity, I sought to give the team a taste of their own medicine. This is the tale of how I infiltrated the Warriors organization.
By: Maurice K Dixon
By just glancing through this file, three numbers stand out: 61, 52 and 55.
Sorry but these aren’t approximate win totals from three of Mike D’Antoni’s four successful seasons in Phoenix. Nor are they attached to an Al Harrington offensive outburst, David Lee’s double-double total or a rough count of verbal altercations Nate Robinson has been involved in this season.
Unfortunately, for New Yorkers, none of these numbers are tied to the New York Knicks’ win column for the previous three seasons or this past regular season.
Forget the two wins the Sixers managed in this first round series against the Orlando magic. They stole one while the Magic were napping. Then they held serve in their first home game for the second win. But when it came down to gut check time, this Sixers team showed exactly why they dropped six out of seven heading into the playoffs, with the sole win coming against a Cleveland team resting their starters. No direction. No leadership. No defensive clue.
The good news Sixers fans is that there’s some silver lining to this embarrassing 25 point loss at home to the Magic without two of their starters. (By the way, this was the easiest game to call, you only had to look back at what the Sixers did against OKC without Kevin Durant and Jeff Green for the blueprint of what this team was all about.) The silver lining is that Ed Stefanski will have to shake up this roster in the offseason if he expects to make any gains into ticket sales for a team that ranks 23rd in the league, sharing the bottom third in attendance with moribund franchises like the LA Clippers, the Milwaukee Bucks, and the Minnesota Timberwolves.
by Trevor Freeman
The time between the end of the NCAA Tournament and the beginning of the NBA playoffs has felt longer than usual, but maybe that is because I cannot remember an NBA postseason that had more riveting subplots. KG out. LeBron versus Kobe shaping up as a Finals possibility. Genuine sleepers led by superstars like Dwyane Wade and Chris Paul sitting on the lower half of the seeding table. There are tasty first-round matchups up and down the bracket. With the playoffs gearing up, we decided to wade into the fray and breakdown the postseason. Without further ado, here is our rankings beginning at sixteen and rolling through to our championship favorite.
By: Maurice K Dixon
How do you define it? One of those moments when something just hits you and you’re like “that’s funny (but not comical) or interesting.” I became cognizant of something that had been developing for a while now that wasn’t new just new to me.
Identifying another connection between the oft-injured Tracy McGrady and a finally healthy yet aged Grant Hill placed a look of puzzlement on my face. Wrinkles found their way onto my forehead because of the irony involving these two players.
By Ryan McGowan
Neil Swidey and Michael Connelly have a lot in common, it seems. Both grew up in Boston or the surrounding area, write for local media outlets (Swidey for the Boston Globe and Connelly for the Boston Herald, and both have recently written books about sports, culture, and racial issues involving the city and its basketball tradition. One thing they don’t have in common: Swidey’s book The Assist: Hoops, Hope, and the Game of their Lives is a must-read, while Connelly’s Rebound! Basketball, Busing, Larry Bird, and the Rebirth of Boston pretty much sucks.