San Antonio is the modern day example of a team that can compete and rebuild at the same time. After winning their first championship in the lockout shortened season in 1999, they filtered out their older talent such as David Robinson, Avery Johnson and Sean Elliot and replaced them with Rasho Nesterovic, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili to surround franchise cornerstone Tim Duncan. When the Spurs won their second ring in 2003, they were calling the season a “rebuilding year.” Of course rebuilding on the fly is easier when you have Duncan roaming the pivot, but in this regard, San Antonio is still the standard to which most NBA teams aspire.
Category: NBA
NBA
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So crazy it just might work
Last July I mocked my crazy friend Neal in a column for suggesting that Danny Ainge would be interested in re-acquiring Antoine Walker. Last Thursday Neal called me and instructed me to promptly give him “mad props.” Here, I’m doing it, but I just have to say that in Neal’s five or so years as an imaginary NBA general manager, he has traded every player in the league at least twice. Poor guys like Jason Williams, Mark Blount and Brent Barry have been moved so much in his bizarro world that none of them have any idea where they were originally born. Not that Neal has any idea where he is most of the time, either, but that’s an issue for the good people at the Betty Ford Clinic, not me.
Back at the ranch, my point is that Walker’s return to the Fleet or the Golden Palace or, god forbid, the Derek Jeter center, was simply the most ridiculous concept one could ever dream up. Until it happened, that is.
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NBA Power Rankings March 1st 2005
The NBA Power Rankings are back! Thanks to all who voted for the NBA Midseason awards last week.
As usual, all comments and complaints are welcomed.
Few things that happen in the NBA surprise me. When Gary Payton was first traded to the Celtics in the off-season, I knew exactly why the move was made. When Vince Carter was traded to the Nets for next to nothing, I disagreed, but understood the thinking of the Toronto brass. When Chris Webber was traded to the Sixers for three overpaid power forwards, I believed that the Kings could have gotten more for the man who made Sacramento a basketball power, but the reasoning for the trade was clear to me.
When I found out that Antoine Walker had been traded back to the Celtics my jaw dropped and I’m still trying to figure out exactly how and why it happened.
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Reversal of Fortune
Now that the champagne bottles are all empty, and all the guests have gone home, the Golden State Warriors and their fans can now go back to living their normal lives. As is the case every year, Warriors fans worked themselves into a frenzy over which player their team might acquire before the trade deadline, all based on some hot rumor they received from their mailman who knows someone who knows someone’s cousin. But today is different from every other post-deadline Friday: there’s no hangover. Warriors fans woke up Friday morning and the hottie was still in their bed. This wasn’t just some dream we had about a 6-foot bowling ball of a point guard who would dunk over his own mother if she was guarding the lane. No, this really happened. The Warriors made a franchise-altering trade in February, and for once, we’re not the ones who took it on the chin.
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NBA Midseason Awards 2004-2005
Co-Written By Johnny Rockets
In case you didn’t notice, there will be no NBA Power Rankings this week. Replacing the rankings this week, will be the NBA Midseason awards. As usual all comments, beefs, complaints, whines, moans, and groans are appreciated. Enjoy!!
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Breaking Down the Celtics
When evaluating the play of the Boston Celtics at the All-Star break, it’s important to recall what Danny Ainge told us to expect from this year’s club following the disastrous 2003-04 campaign: Ainge said that this season the team would be better than last, but they were still at least a couple years away from competing for the Eastern Conference crown.
By Sean Quinn
People talk too much. People talk too much about the wrong things. People wrongly anoint young talented, yet unproven, stars as the greatest of all time. People smear Michael Jordan’s legacy as if it were a can of finger paint and the new age NBA is a fresh canvas. People talk about Steve Nash, Shaquille O’Neal, Tim Duncan, LeBron James, and rightfully so. But people don’t talk, and certainly don’t talk enough, about Allen Iverson, and they should be.
By Ryan McGowan
A couple of months ago, I was playing cards at home with a few buddies in our usual Thursday night game. For whatever reason, we decided to put on my roommate’s DVD copy of Larry Bird: A Basketball Legend, a video on which at least four questions on the tenth-grade MCAS exam should be based. (Perhaps a compare-and-contrast essay topic in which the student has to dissect the Bird-Magic rivalry in the context of the greater cultural Boston-L.A. rivalry, for some interdisciplinary learning.)
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Weekly Musings: All Star Edition
The All-Star beak is approaching, and with it the trade deadline. So far the NBA Rumor Mill hasn’t been churning like the Musings had hoped. Some teams have to decide now whether or not they’re in it to win it (Boston, Philly). Other teams need to make decisions on impending free-agents and expiring contracts (Milwaukee, Minnesota) and the rest will sort things out after the season. Let’s take a look at some teams that could be players during All-Star Weekend and some players that could be stars.