The Hoop and The Harm

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.

The season hasn’t even started yet and the Heat already have serious injury concerns. Combined with the fact that they have started the preseason 0-4, we may be on the verge of a meltdown in South Beach.

Yi Jianlian made his Bucks debut in a team scrimmage last Saturday only three days after arriving in the U.S. He had 10 points, 5 rebounds and a block. Not too shabby, Yi. But you have to think the Bucks will need a lot more than 10 points and 5 boards a game to turn it around this season.

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.

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.