The Hoop and The Harm

If the 40 plus points and the acrobatic moves are not enough to convince you that Kobe should be sought after by every team in the NBA, I challenge you to sit down and watch a Lakers game from start to finish. If you don’t agree with me after that I welcome your criticism and replies.

Kobe is everywhere on the court always making his team better. He is the best defender never to win defensive player of the year. Usually overlooked by the scoring Kobe has lightning quick hands and tips more balls than I can remember seeing. He is in on every play offensively as well. Just his presence on the court makes the defense scared automatically making his team better.

I don’t want to just go on and on about everything I like about Kobe. I want you to watch a complete game see for your self and if you disagree I welcome a debate. I can be reached at hoopsbrendan@yahoo.com

Brendan Howe

This year was supposed to bring around a bit of a change in the motor city where the pistons are coming off of 5 straight conference finals appearances. With most everybody feeling that there was a sense of boredom with the same old Pistons there was a lot of debate about shipping out some of the starters in a big trade to try and give the organization a boost. Piston’s president Joe Dumars decided to stay with the same core but introduce a youth movement at the same time.

Through the development of Dumars’ pet project Amir Johnson and his two new rookies from the current draft class(Rodney Stuckey and Arron Afflalo) along with Jason Maxiell we were going to see an influx of youth to go with the battle tested experince that Chauncey Billups and company bring to the table.

Things were looking good and people were excited. Stuckey impresses everyone through summer ball and the preseason. Afflalo was a pleasant surprise to a lot of people and we had seen in spurts what Maxiell and Johnson could provide. It seemed as though Dumars might have made the right moves or lack there of to give the Pistons a shot at a sixth conference championship appearance and possibly another ring.

With where things sit now it looks like we will have to wait to see how realistic those expectation are. Stuckey broke his non-shooting hand in the final preseason game setting him back most likely six weeks. Johnson had been nursing a sore left ankle through preseason and was supposed to be ready to go but will now miss at least the first two games with a sore left achilles. Not very good timing for the fans waiting to see what the youth can do.

We will still get to see if Dumars has found the right balance to get this team where he wants it( at Championship level). We are just forced to wait and be patient. And if you know anything about Detroit sports fans, patience is not our strong suit. Dumars better hope this is the extent of setbacks and that the youth proves to be as good as he has advertised because after the Darko fiasco, pistons fans are not as forgiving of one of there all time legends as they used to be.

No country has been affected by the globalization of the NBA quite like China. With the Cavaliers in town - er, in country - to play the Orlando Magic, LeBron James was introduced to quite possibly billions of new friends. And as if he hasn’t had enough to think about this offseason, apparently China views LeBron James as a spoiled brat. Attempts to reach China for clarification were unsuccessful; insert your favorite ‘Sorry, Wong number!’ joke here.

Actually, according to NBA.com, when ‘King James’ is translated into Chinese, it comes out as ‘Little Emperor’. Which is fine, according to this article. But perhaps unknown to that writer (but conveniently, not to this one), ‘Little Emperor’ is not exactly a compliment. But don’t take my word for it, take Wikipedia’s.

I guess now I understand how he sees no problem in going to a Yankees-Indians playoff game - in Cleveland - wearing a Yankees hat. After all, the Little Emperor’s gotta support the Evil Empire.

I got the chance to check out today’s preseason match up between the two and wanted to mention a few things.

The Celtics big three look pretty good together.  There were some flashes of great ball movement between the three.  As a team, they definitely need to shoot the 3 a lot better, but that will obviously improve.  It seemed as though some of the guys were surprised at the number of looks they got.  Also, the entire team needs to step up on defense.  They gave up way too many wide-open looks and offensive rebounds to the Raptors, but again that will work itself out.  Overall, a lot to be excited about in Boston.

The Raptors big stand out today was Jose Calderon.  Bosh was looking his beastly self, but Calderon seems to have reached a new level in his game.  The Raptors too can use some work on defense, but that seems more attributed to not knowing what to expect from the C’s big three.  While this was only the first preseason game, you can see that these two teams will be battling throughout this year for the Atlantic title.

Box Score 

As reported here, on the first day of training camp Joakim Noah ran drills as part of the Bulls starting five. My response……. AWESOME! On draft day, I was ecstatic they picked him up. His fire and grit has Scott Skiles written all over it. He was born for this system and will thrive on it. Mark my words. He may not end up being a starter, at least not yet, but this kid is poised for success on this Bulls squad.

Beno Udrih, Spurs guard, broke his finger in training camp today. He will wear a cast for a few weeks, and be fairly useless for 3-4 weeks, says Popovich. So what else is new? This changes nothing for the Spurs or really anything, expect make me laugh that this was even news-worthy.

Just a quick note about the parallels I can see from today’s Mets fans and last May’s Mavs fans. Both teams had strikingly similar finals/world series runs followed the next year by historical and embarrassing flame-outs that fell way below expectations and shocked the sports world. More than anything today, I hear the same cries from Mets fans for various players and managers jobs that Mavs fans had last May, but I think the Mets could learn a lesson from the Mavs and not blowup the team just because of their recent meltdown that led to missing the division title by 1 game. For the most part, this team is the same team came within one out of the World Series last year and was far and away the best team in the NL. And up until the last few weeks, they continued to look the part. Time will tell whether or not the Mavs were wise to basically stand pat this off-season after their equally disgusting meltdown against the Warriors in last year’s playoffs, but at this point I gotta believe that was the wise move. I mean let’s get real. The mavs cruised to 67 wins last season and were 2 and a quarter games from an NBA title the previous year. This is the only roster to have beaten the Spurs in the playoffs in recent years. So on the eve of training camp in Big D, things are looking good, and believe me Mets fans, with some patience in the off-season, a similar fate awaits.