As a side note - but NBA related - check this out:
Jason Kidd’s son looks like he’s about ready to freak the fuck out. The kid’s head is the size of a watermelon and he’s got a thicker mustache than I do. I seriously don’t even know how old he is.
There was a better picture in SI after All-Star weekend, but this one should do.
Stevo I’m in total agreement with your take on Flip. It’s time for him to go, but I gotta disagree with your RIP/Chauncy for T-Mac. Dude is in his 20s and has chronic back problems. I sometimes seriously question the guys desire. I think he was satisfied with that 22 game winning streak. I mean we all knew it going in that they peaked too early and they would be done come the first round of the playoffs.
I would not get rid of RIP for anything. Dude is a great player and still relatively young. Late 20s I think. If he won the title at UCONN in 99 gotta be around 29-30 I would say. I do think that Sheed has got to go and it’s time for Chauncey to move on while he still has some value. They have some nice young pieces, but damn they blew alot of opportunities to keep a younger core for a while.
Here’s just a few mistakes I think that Dumars made
Detroit clearly needs to rebuild. Would you rather be good or strive to be great? I think they are in the position where the Pacers were after they made the Finals in 2000. Team is getting old, has already peaked as a group, probably best to get younger and try to remain competitive.
As for the NBA Finals I gotta go with the Lakers in 6. Even after watching portions of Game 1 (the Cubs season is just too good to be missing any pitches right now). Boston winning Game 1 doesn’t really do anything for me. It’s the feel out game. If Boston doesn’t win that game I think there in trouble. I seriously think that LA wins Game 2.
On a sidenote I’m sick of the whole I’m injured beyond belief, but I come back moments later a la Willis Reed.
Also that four point play by Pierce was more of an offensive foul than the call that went against him in Detroit.
One more NBA thought. I think ABC/ESPN does a poor job with their coverage. The end all being their commentators and pre/post game crew. TNT is far and away the model for excellence when it comes to broadcasting the NBA.
Let’s look at this: ABC/ESPN Pre/half-time/Post game crew.
Stuart Scott anchoring- meh I’ve heard enough boo-yahs to last a life time. Also don’ t you think if Stu was big say 10 years ago he be the Ahmad Rashad type where he hangs on every word Jordan has to say.
Jon Barry-Dude was a mediocre player and follows suit in broadcasting. At least if your a mediocre player give us some humor like Tom Tolbert did.
Michael Wilbon-I like Wilbon. I don’t really consider Wilbon a basketball expert. At least put Stephen A. in there so he can talk garbage.
On to ESPN/ABC announce team.
Mike Breen-Seriously they can do better than this guy. I mean throw Dan Shulman out there. There’s no way Breen even competes with TNT’s third guy: Dick Stockton. You remember Stockton. Oh yeah he used to be the voice of CBS for years when the NBA was golden. Not to mention that Marv Albert is still the man as well as Kevin Harlan is better than Breen.
Mark Jackson-Alright gotta admit loved this guy as a PG, but wow is he dry. Always has good points, but I want more enthusiasm.
Jeff Van Gundy-Now this little rascal does amuse me a little. Listening to him sometimes makes you wonder how in the hell the guy was a head coach. These two need to create the good TV that Bill Walton and Snapper Jones would give us. Go at back and forth a little more and disagree on every point. Walton was genius at this.
I don’t even think I need to recap TNT’s broadcasters. They are in a league by themselves. I mean Ernie, Kenny, and Barkley own all pregame and postgame shows. I seriously will seek these guys out on a random Thursday night just too hear what Chuck has to say.
TNT’s first team: Marv Albert and Doug Collins (Western Conference finals)
Normally: Marv Albert, The Czar of the telestrator and Reggie Miller. Marv and Fratello have great chemistry and Reggie is getting better with each brodcast.
Second team: Kevin Harlan and Doug Collins. Collins is seriously a good color guy. I seriously think he is the best NBA color commentator today. I love Hubie, but he’s getting a little out there and tends to agree with the refs too much. I’ll tell you what he never agreed with any refs when he was coaching.
Third Team: Dick Stockton and whoever. Still better than ABC’s top team.
At least bring back Bill Walton. Alot of people don’t like him, but he seriously cracked me up (unless he was doing my teams game). I mean comments during a January Warriors Clippers game: This could be the greatest game in the history of Western civilization are just too priceless to pass up. He is a little out there, but he normally has good basketball takes at least.
Wow…Fee threw a lot out there…let’s see.
First, I just kind of threw that T-Mac thing out there…I’d be amazed if it really happened. Plus it’s FAR more likely that it would be Rip/Sheed instead of Chauncey if it actually happened. As for T-Mac, I don’t think they lost because they were “satisfied”…they lost because the team just wasn’t that good to begin with. They only got into the playoffs at all due to the 22-game win streak and would have missed out without it. They really missed Yao’s scoring and the rest of the team aside from T-Mac are really just a bunch of bench players with inflated stats since they had higher minutes (Landry was great but looked green at times). T-Mac can go for 30 in any given game, he’s a decent defender and I think he’d be more-than-motivated to win on a winning team that could actually win a playoff series. Yes, the back issues are a problem but you’re really not going to be able to trade for a superstar unless there’s some sort of issue with him. I mentioned Elton Brand and he’s got major injury questions as well…you’ve got to take a gamble on these guys sometimes. The only other big-time scorer other than T-Mac that we could get is maybe Carmelo and I don’t want nothing to do with him. I really think that the 2004 team was an aborration since teams basically NEVER win a title unless they have a Hall-of-Fame caliber player. We need one.
As for Rip, don’t get me wrong…I TOTALLY agree with you. I ONLY included Rip because he would have to be part of that deal with T-Mac to make it work. We couldn’t roll out a lineup of Chauncey, Rip, Tay, T-Mac and Dyess…it wouldn’t work…Rip would HAVE to be part of that deal. I LOVE Rip and if I had to chose one guy for us to keep from the starters, it would be him. I think people totally take his 20-25 points a game for granted. It’s amazing how poor those Pistons look on offense when he’s out of the game. Plus he’s maybe the only player who still plays just as well as he did five years ago and appears to still be trying hard in every game. His defense is shaky sometimes but I’ll deal with that.
Joe D’s mistakes? Nowadays, the Memo deal looks bad. Back then, it made sense. Sheed still had five good years left, he had just been a major part of the 2004 title, he looked completely rejuvenated now that he was off the Blazers, and Memo was an inconsistent bench player who may or may not eventually get it. Even now, Memo tends to disappear in games. I can’t blame Joe D on that.
The Darko pick was horrendous, no doubt, though, to be fair, let
Am I the only one who thinks Paul Pierce was faking his knee injury last night? Phil Jackson alluded to it as well.
He went from being carried off the court then wheeled into the locker room in a wheelchair to playing again in about 15 minutes?
Ooooo! I LOVE the
Forgot to mention last night’s game. Nice of Pierce to have the fakest injury in the history of man. Just ridiculous. He was carried off like his career had just ended and there was a priest present to perform the last rites on Pierce and then he waltzes back on three minutes later and is dancing on the court like nothing happened and buries back to back threes.
Even better was Pierce mentioning that he felt his “knee” pop, not realizing that Perkins’ foot came down on his ankle…he didn’t even remember what part of his leg was hurt.
The worst thing? Perkins actually had a LEGIT injury and limped off the court and then didn’t play for the rest of the game and NO ONE even mentioned it…I even read a recap of the game and it wasn’t mentioned there. Instead we got people comparing Pierce to Willis Reed…spare me, people. Pierce’s fake injury basically cheapened Perkin’s legit one.
I LOVED Phil Jackson’s comments on it where he compared the injury to “breaking a shoelace or a drawstring on your shorts.” Just awesome. I already heard jokes on the radio today that Mr. Miyagi was back there to magically rub Pierce’s ankle…it’s obviously the only explaination. “He’s going to fight! Paul Pierce LaRusa is going to fight!!”
As for the game, Kobe stunk and that’s about it. The Lakers got out-rebounded but that was to be expected since they weren’t the best rebounding team anyway. Game 2 should be pretty interesting, especially if the Lakers make more shots. That was some sweet defense from Boston though…could be a tougher series than I thought…
The most amazing thing to me is how Garnett ALWAYS plays down to his average. ALWAYS. He’s always 25-12 every game. Never more. Never less. EVERY game. He VERY rarely deviates from that. He had 16 points in the first half on only nine shots and could have been on pace for a big game and then spent much of the third quarter not shooting and then missed a majority of his shots in the 4th. It’s like he purposely plays so he ONLY gets around 25 points and nothing more or less. It’s almost amazing how he plays to average every game.
Stevo
Biggest come back in finals history! That game was so kick ass in so many ways not the least of wich was seeing the looks on all of the super celebrity phonys as the Lakers staged their monumental collapse…Priceless!
^haha yeah it was pretty great I guess.
even better for a Bostonian I’m sure.
great avatar btw…Sa-sa-sa-sa-sasha
Some dude called sports radio today and said Sasha wears the same headband his wife does to aroebics
oh yeah, PHG your avatar is way cooler
Uh oh…another long, rambling post on the Finals…
Maybe it
Champions! Sorry it goes against the NBA standard but the C’s coaching, front office and players were clearly better then the Lakers, Sorry Phil Jakisiiissin Pow! maybe Bryan Scalabrini will walk through your door next season, Go CCCCCCCCSSSSSSS
Congrats to KG, Pierce and Allen!
The rest of the team can kiss my ass!!
GO STONES!!!
I’ve liked Ray Allen (and Rip Hamilton) since his UCONN days. Allen might even break Reggie’s 3-point record if he stays healthy enough.
I’m also glad that someone other than myself thought KG’s interview/celebration was…weird.
Awful Announcing and SI’s Hot Clicks have commented on it, and I’m sure other blogs/sites will follow suit.
But he deserved it, so it’s all good.
KG was a man possessed once they won. It was almost like a Mike Tyson rant, but “happy”, as KG said he felt at the time.
Yeah, I can’t blame any of these guys on their celebration. Basically their entire lives have been geared toward achieving what they got last night so, I say they’re allowed to go nuts for a little while.
Allen and Garnett are nice but Pierce surely deserved it…he’s squashed a few trades that would have sent him to better teams but he stuck with it, especially when the front office gave him virtually nothing to work with.
Still…the whole thing doesn’t seem right. Bad GMs aren’t supposed to get rings, bad coaches aren’t supposed to get rings and teams that are thrown together in one year aren’t supposed to win either. Although while the trades kind of fell in Ainge’s lap, I’ll give him credit for getting guys like Posey, PJ Brown and House who were solid pickups in the offseason. Ainge has been largely bad with one or two moments of brilliance and I guess he had a few of those moments in a row this year. And Doc Rivers nearly blew it in the first two rounds but his substitutions and rotation become much more logical in the later two rounds.
The more I watched those Lakers, I realized that maybe they shouldn’t have been the team representing the West…I’d say it’s on Phil Jackson that they even got THAT far. Did you SEE that offense they were running?..It looked like a frickin college offense with three guys on the perimeter with NO ONE moving and no one getting open. I thought that the Bynum injury would eventually kill them but it didn’t happen until the Finals when they faced a legit rebounding team. I wonder if Bynum would have changed things…
By the way, can the Kobe/Jordan comparisons please stop now? Please? Can the media stop it. He’s not Jordan. No way Jordan lets himself be punked in two straight finals appearances.
Stevo
holy crap KG made a complete fool of himself last night after the game. I’m kinda glad he won it, but jesus.
a completely retarded interview. pull it together buddy. its basketball. the most stupid game of all the professional sports.
and Kobe being near the level of Jordan is preposterous.