By David J. Cohen
It’s official. Operation Keep Isiah As Far Away From the Knicks As Possible is finally under way. New Knicks President Donnie Walsh has sent Isiah on a scouting mission.
Category: NBA
NBA
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Boston Paper Champions?
Rebuilding a franchise is the most difficult and stressful aspect of being a general manager. If a GM does it wrong, it could take a decade to recover from previous screw ups. In order to rebuild a team back to being competitive, management must draft well and make the appropriate financial moves. Sometimes that means trading away old players and stocking your team with some ‘young guns’. In today’s world some franchises purposely tank to receive a high draft pick in order to select that “franchise player” who then is expected to build your team to greatness.
However for the Boston Celtics it only took one trade for them to become the doormat in the NBA to one of the best in the NBA. On a late July day, Celtics General Manager Danny Ainge shocked the basketball world when he pulled off possibly the biggest trade in NBA history. The Celtics traded for future hall of famer Kevin Garnett and one of the most accurate 3-point shooters in the game, Ray Allen.
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The playoffs are buzzing…
The NBA Playoffs have, in some ways, been very similar to years past. The Spurs stole away the Suns hopes of glory with methodical, albeit boring, execution. Tracy McGrady and the Rockets were once again ousted in the first round (will someone please tell this guy to stop walking under ladders while spilling salt and kicking black cats?). The Pistons steady D led them through a surprisingly tough series. But this year, the playoffs also have something they have lacked in recent years; the buzz of an exciting, young, and effective team. It’s the buzz of a team that plays the game unselfishly, and goes all out on every play. It’s the buzz of a team that is high-flying and entertaining, but also has the capacity to actually make a championship run. It’s the buzz of the Hornets.
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Tainted Legacy
0 for 7.
For all of Tracy Mcgrady’s achievements, this is the one figure that might inevitably define his legacy.
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Steve Kerr’s Unnecessary Gamble
If Steve Kerr wants to reap the fruits of his highly controversial trade for Shaquille O’Neal, letting go of Mike D’Antoni is a move he should not, under any circumstances, make.
Have you ever tried to get your girlfriend or wife to watch a basketball game with you on T.V.? You would swear you were pulling teeth, right? Well, I had to sit through a “Desperate Housewives” marathon, along with “The Hills”. The only redeeming factor is that they have some good looking chicks on there. I don’t get why basketball is so foreign to some women. It has world class athletes, drama, and is a relatively easy sport. My girlfriend is the worst at trying to speak metaphorically. She makes me more confused than when I start sometimes. Recently, she tried to explain “D-H” to me using metaphors that I can’t honestly even remember. I looked at her the same cocked-head way a dog looks at something strange. She challenged me to describe the NBA to her in terms she would understand. So I did. I thought I would share.
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Striking Gold
Mitch Kupchak learned a lot from his mentor Jerry West. With the trade of Pau Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies to the Los Angeles Lakers, you can say that Kupchak also learned the art of fleecing other teams from Jerry West.
For us who weren’t around when West dominated the NBA in the 60’s, the only memory we have of him was his cunning guile and craftiness as the general manager of the Lakers during the late 90’s. After all, he was the one who signed Shaquille O’Neal away from Orlando and duped the then-Charlotte Hornets to trade their 1996 first round draft pick – a tall, skinny high school kid from Philadelphia – for Vlade Divac.
Jerry West made the Lakers a championship contender with those moves. And now – after a history of questionable moves – the apprentice finally made the trade that would make his teacher proud.
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Enter the Matrix
The American Airlines Arena didn’t have a three-story billboard of himself. There weren’t any balloons, water guns, and certainly no black SUV’s with Superman-inspired rims.
What there was, however, was a long table with a requisite Miami Heat backdrop, a few chairs, and a couple of unopened bottled waters.
And that’s about it.
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Devil in a Blue Jersey
Used to be, the two months between the Super Bowl and baseball’s opening day was the worst time of year. The Warriors were always dead and buried by February, so we in the Bay Area were forced to sit and wait for 60 days until the A’s and Giants returned and restored hope to our lives. The Warriors are the only good team in the neighborhood now, but that hasn’t stopped them from trying to inject some life into these two months anyway.
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The Main Event
“Did you see the Warriors game last night?”
Used to be, if someone asked you that at work in the morning, it was followed by something like “Tracy McGrady dunked on six Warriors at once”, or “some of the fans ran onto the court and beat the Warriors in a pickup game”. But no more! Finally, regular-season Warriors games are now events for all the right reasons- most importantly, the team wins most of them. And they’re winning in style now, stealing the close games against good teams that they used to squander, and running teams in the bottom half of the standings right out of the gym.