By David J. Cohen
With the playoffs rolling around it’s time to figure out who will lose to the Pistons in the NBA finals.
Category: NBA
NBA
By David J. Cohen
The Sixers season is over. Once again they will fall short of the playoffs. And with it begins the talk of whether Sixers G Allen Iverson should be traded both for his sake and for the team’s sake. And as the debate rages on the same image of Iverson is portrayed. He’s selfish. The ball must always go through his hands. He has to get his shots or he’s unhappy. He is built up as a great scorer, but as one that cannot help a contender because of his inability to share the ball. Professional NBA analysts and fans across the nation share a similar idea and see a similar image of Iverson as a player. This idea of Iverson is considered a fact of life. It’s the accepted belief of Allen Iverson as a ball-hog.
It’s the biggest myth in the NBA today.
With an 82-game season, it is pretty difficult to not know who the MVP of the season is. If one reviews past years and looks at Shaquille O’Neal’s, Kevin Garnett’s, and Tim Duncan’s dominance during their respective MVP seasons, the word destiny seems to be attributed to their receiving the honor. However, this season is not so clear cut. The winner is not going to be known until the end of the season.
Initially, no one would discredit Steve Nash’s efforts in leading the Amare Stoudemire-less Suns to practically a no contest Pacific Division Title.
Well, you’re looking at an author who thinks Lebron might be honored instead if Nash is not careful.
by Matt Wells
The high-flying Phoenix Suns combined with last night’s opponent, the Toronto Raptors, to score 266 points in a 140-126 victory for the Suns. This was done in regulation and it was done without their superstar center, Amare Stoudemire.
This tremendous output makes me ask this question: did the Suns really need Stoudemire to come back sooner than expected? The answer is a simple “no,” and they may have done Amare more harm than good by rushing him back.
Categories
2006 Free Agency
A hectic schedule begins in three weeks for the NBA. Sixteen teams will work tirelessly in hopes of capturing the coveted NBA Championship while managements will begin to debate and alter the future of their respective franchises. The advent of the postseason foreshadows the offseason which is of utmost concern for managements who desperately need to make changes to their squads or merely just retain players. There’s gold in dem hills aka the free agent market this year. Who are the significant free agents? Who will stay with their current club, and who will offer their services in a different jersey?
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NBA 2005-2006 Season Awards
With the playoffs in less than a month, it is time to honor those individuals for their performance during the season.
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Fantasy Surprises: Flukes and Phenoms
With this week being the last week of fantasy basketball, I thought I would review this NBA season in terms of the fantasy world. What players turned out to be fantasy busts? What players had breakout seasons? What trades and/or other major events shook the fantasy world?
Notes to readers: For the purpose of this article, I played on the Yahoo! game under Head-to-Head scoring. In addition, listed next to all honorable mentions are the reasons why they did not make the cut.
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Lakers BY the Year 2008
I remember the Laker glory days. In 2000, Phil Jackson joined the team as the head coach, and all of a sudden, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal lead their team to a 67-15 season. Despite the scare they received from the Trailblazers (they rallied from a fifteen point deficit in the fourth quarter), the Lakers won their first championship since the Magic Johnson era. Two more champions would arrive in Tinseltown in 2001 and 2002 with the team only facing competition from the Sacramento Kings in the 2002 Western Conference Finals. They were the most feared team in all of basketball.
History would rear its ugly head during the Lakers run for a fourth championships. The Lakers had a roller coaster season capped by a twenty-point blowout by the Spurs in the second round of the playoffs. Derek Fisher’s tears appeared to signal the end of the Lakers’ championship run. However, determined to keep the team together, management enlisted the aid of veterans Karl Malone and Gary Payton in 2004, creating a fabulous four sometimes dubbed “The Four Beatles.” Though they captured the Pacific title despite an assortment of injuries to Bryant, O’Neal, and Malone, the team was demolished by the Pistons in what was the biggest upset in all of NBA history. The Pistons would not only beat the Lakers but also destroy the dynasty. O’Neal left for Miami during the offseason, and the Lakers rebuilt under Kobe Bryant and a new Lakers team composed of Mihm, Odom, Butler, and Atkins. Despite an average 13-9 start, the Lakers missed the playoffs for the first time in eleven years.
In 2005, Jackson once again returned as the Lakers head coach. He, like the rest of the Lakers organization, expects the team to compete in three years. Currently, the Lakers are overachieving as the seventh seed, but is this really an accurate prediction? Will the Lakers ever return to their past glory?
Categories
How Could You Not Vote for Nash?
A first time entry stating why Steve Nash should be this years NBA MVP.
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Olympics 2008: Project Redemption
Olympic dreams of capturing gold were more akin to reality ever since NBA players represented the USA basketball team. The 1992 Dream Team in which the average margin of victory was forty points and head coach Chuck Daly never called a single timeout was a testament to the superiority of American basketball. USA would continue to dominate basketball in following games until the Athens Olympics in 2004. The USA team captured a disappointing bronze and was considered by many failures. Two reasons accounted for the outcome: the world basketball teams vastly improved and the group selected were chosen based on individual skill. As a result, the USA incurred heavy losses to foreign ball clubs that played as a team. USA basketball had dominated for so long that not much thought was taken to select an Olympic squad.
Now knowing that the Olympic team can no longer be composed of just the best players but role players as well, a committee under Jerry Colangelo has decided to undertake the responsibility of creating a team that will commit to three years, compete in the World Championship and the Beijing Olympics, and restore USA’s basketball reputation. Last week, twenty-three players were selected to compete for the twelve spots. Project Redemption had begun.