Working For The Weekend

I have to agree with you, Zee. Kobe was being a total douche bag over the weekend. There's no reason for him to have 10 shot attempts in the first quarter alone. And there's no reason for him trying to outshine Shaq in potentially his farewell all-star game. This isn't the Kobe Bryant show. That's just another example of why Kobe rubs people the wrong way. Both literally and figuratively. Hah! It was a nice gesture to give Shaq Co-MVP honors, even if he did not deserve the award. I can't help but wonder if the ending was predetermined and the voting was rigged. Kobe and Shaq reuniting for one last time, and them sharing the MVP honors? It sounds too good to be true. It's like a hollywood ending. Shaq's line of 17 pts, 5 rebs and 1 blk in only 10 minutes of action is mighty impressive.



Chris Paul's performance was mighty underrated. He almost had a triple-double. 14 pts, 14 asts, 7 rebs and 3 stls. I think he should have been named MVP; or at least, been in the running. But I guess CP3 has no shot of winning the award unless the all-star game is held in Oklahoma. He's not the media darling that Lebron, Dwight, Kobe and Shaq are. On the flip side, Joe Johnson had a horrible performance. In 21 minutes, he has 5 turnovers and 0 points on 0-4 shooting. Hilariously bad for an all-star game. He was the only player not to score on both squads. The West just dominated this game. They made a bold statement. I blame it partly on the league for picking horrible all-star replacements for the East squad. I mean the team already had too many guards, and they replace Bosh with Mo Williams. Come on! No make-up calls! Don't add the guy just to appease Lebron.

I was pretty bored with all-star weekend this year. But I say that just about every year, and I still go out and watch it. Heh. Let's start with Friday night's events. I won't even comment on the Celebrity game. That was just pure garbage. It reminded me of those old Rock-N-Jock games they used to show on MTV. Except this one was not entertaining. WNBA players + NBA Legends + Harlem Globetrotters + Celebrities = Yuck! The Rookies vs Sophomores game was pretty nice though. I remember talking to Zee last week and saying that the Sophomores stood no chance at winning unless Durant went for like 50. Kevin was pretty close to that hitting 46 points, a new record in the event. We both agreed that the rookie squad was more talented, but they just did not play with the same focus or urgency as the sophomores. Durant did a great job of setting the tone and taking over the game. He showed everyone that he deserves to play in the big game. He's a superstar in the making. Beasley put on a nice show, too. I still have no idea why they invite players (Wade and Howard) to coach the teams. But I must say that Lebron as a commentator is a nice fit. He knows his stuff.



Saturday was hit or miss. But more miss than hit. Heh. The inaugural H-O-R-S-E, I mean G-E-I-C-O event was disappointing. The players lacked creativity and it quickly turned into a 3pt shootout. None of the players looked like they wanted to be out there, especially Kevin Durant the eventual winner. He showed like 0 emotion and charisma, and looks like this generation's Tim Duncan. Next year, I hope they invite some cocky players like Rasheed Wallace or Gilbert Arenas to hype up the event more. Guys who will actually try some trick shots. The commentating by Kenny Smith and Chris Webber was pretty funny, though. I will skip over the Shooting Stars and the Skills Challenge events. Those are just a waste of time. The 3pt shootout was alright. I liked it better when the shooters would face off with one another on opposite ends of the court. But now, the players just take turns going. It was hilarious when Kenny Smith said that Daequan Cook had 0% chance of winning the contest. Not only did he win the contest but he had the top 2 scores of the night. What an idiot. They need to pick better players for this event also. Everyone knew guys like Bibby and Granger had no chance at winning. They aren't pure shooters.

Lastly, the slam dunk contest was pretty weak. The judges were on crack, too. Why oh why did they have famous Suns players judging the contest instead of players who actually know something about dunking? They gave perfect scores to some undeserving dunks. And its clear that Rudy and JR had no chance at making the final. Nate vs Dwight was their goal before the event even started. Also I don't understand why they only had 4 contestants. That number seems to go down every year. But back to the dunks, JR's double bounce windmill dunk was aight. But Sonny Weems screwed him over on his second dunk attempt. Rudy's dunks were both underrated. His second attempt when he took a pass of the backboard, grabbed it out of bounds and scooping in a one-handed jam on the other side of the rim was a work of art. He definitely did better than Nate in the first round. I liked how Rudy wore a jersey of Fernando Martin, who was the first Spanish player in the league, but none of the commentators knew who he was. I think one of them jokingly asked if Martin was a reference to Ricky Martin. Hah!



Excluding the dunk over Dwight Howard, I thought Nate Robinson's dunk weren't too memorable. I liked his celebration dance, however. Hah! The dunk off of Chandler's back was especially weak. How is that an impressive dunk? He used his back like a trampoline which makes the dunk even easier to finish. But the above dunk was enough to win the contest for him. The green jersey and ball, the nickname KrypoNate was a nice touch though. It was the best dunk of the night. The dunk contest is not about athletic creativity anymore. It's all about putting on a good show, using the right props, switching jerseys, and stuff like that. Dwight had some nasty dunks though. The 12' foot dunk was crazy. I think he could have gone like another foot or something, too. Also the one-handed jam off the side of the backboard and the 180 degree windmill dunk from out of bounds were both nice. But his last dunk didn't leave a good impression. The free throw dunk looked horrible from a 7 footer. He needed to finish off on a bang rather than a whimper if he wanted to win the event. All in all, a decent event. But Dwight just could not live up to the monster hype and expectations that he set for himself.

Are you kidding me?!?

Normally during the all star game, there's an unwritten rule that usually happens when a superstar/marquee player is doing one of two things: Either wrapping up his career, playing in his teams arena (in some cases not all). That unwritten rule is to get that player the ball, let him score, repeat. End result of this being to get him the MVP award...er Bill Russell Trophy when the game is concluded. Now last night was the perfect way to send the Big Cactus, Big Aristotle, Big etc, etc off with a nice parting gift of the games MVP award. And for the most part, it seemed as if the west had their sights set on this outcome, correction MOST of the west squad had their minds set on that outcome about I'd say about 99 percent of them did.

But it seemed as if Kobe didn't get the memo, hey Kob we get it, you're a superstar player who can score whenever you want, but seriously man, let someone else shine for once. Normally I'm a huge Kobe/Lakers fan, but between Kobe almost breaking the All-Star single quarter shot attempt record in the first quarter of the game, and Phil Jackson making the west team play zone defense (Really?, Seriously? Zone in an All-Star game?!) I'm really disappointed in them both taking a lot of the excitement outta the game on Sunday. And because it would've been a travesty of justice for Shaq not to get the hardware for this game, the NBA thought it'd be cute to do this:




















Part of me wished Shaq would've just cracked Kobe over the head for not allowing him to shine in his possible final ASG appearance. But thinking about it, hasn't this been the pattern of their relationship? Both would produce, and when one should have deferred to the other and gone with the plan, one didn't, leading to a selfish out for one's self mentality. And one only needed to look at half of the game to see that on display, pretty much if Kobe got his hands on the ball, he was shooting it.

This isn't the first (or last) occasion Kobe has had to have people talk about his inability to compute logic when it comes to playing with others, and this is eventually why Lebron James has, and will continue to get so much more support than Kobe does from fans, and talking heads alike, who want to anoint him the best in the game ASAP. Realizing strengths and weaknesses, and learning to win with your team as opposed to trying to outgun your opponent by yourself is what will always set the two apart. Real classy Kob, real classy.

Priceless....

Just a quick post, I know that this has been posted everywhere, but this was why we'll miss the big fella so much once he's hung his up his sneakers for good.




There will truly never be another Shaq.

The Bynum Effect

Since Andrew Bynum has gone down with a damaged MCL, the Lakers have:

1) Won 6 straight games on the road.

2) Halted yet another Boston Celtics double-digit winning streak.

3) Hung the first home loss on a Cavs team that hadn't sniffed a loss at the Q since last season.

All these milestones weren't supposed to happen according to some pundits, who because of the loss of the big fella in the middle were supposed to fold up and allow the tougher, stronger teams from the big bad eastern conference to run all over them.

But some interesting things happened along the way:



1) 61 aka the Roger Maris game.

Mr Kobe Bryant solidified his spot as the League's best player by dropping 61 big ones on your New York Knicks, setting the all time scoring record in that building along the way. (Sidebar: Pau Gasol had 31 in that game as well, but no one spoke about it.)

2) Someone woke Lamar Odom up.

Seriously, I hate that it took Drew tearing his knee up for this to happen but L.O. woke up Sunday in Cleveland and went to town, showing a toughness I hadn't seen since ..... um ..... Miami? Ok, ok, Lamar has never been lauded for his toughness, but hey 28 pts, 17 rebounds is always gonna be a good look in an important game like last Sunday's contest. Follow that up with a 12 point, 18 rebound effort against the hapless Thunder yesterday and one would think Lamar has finally stopped hitting that snooze button, either that or he realized that he'll be a free agent at the end of the season and this may be the nice chance to rack up some big $$. Whatever it is, his uptick in minutes, coupled with the production is most welcome in La-La land.




3) Pau expletive Gasol.

My man rated PG turned in some NC-17 performances for the majority of the first half of the season. If the Lakers happen to win the chip this year, (all signs point to Si) then Dr Jerry Buss needs to send his next 3 years of draft picks to the Memphis Grizzlies in exchange for nothing at all. If he wants to push the issue, maybe some tickets to Graceland, but that's it. For the 2008-09 campaign, Gasol is putting up averages of 18 ppg, 9 rpg and close to 4 dimes per contest. And that was WITH Bynum in the lineup. What happens now that Drew is out for the rest of the regular season? Buckets, that's what.



What does this rambling post teach us class? Well, it should put the league on notice that the Lakers have learned from last year, and have grown as a result. They now know what is expected of them, and what they have to do to make it to the promised land, with or without the services of a Mr Andrew Lee Bynum.

Hey Now, You're An All-Star

How in the world does Bruce Bowen almost get voted into the All Star game? That baffles the mind. He was the third highest vote getter amongst forwards in the Western conference with nearly 1.4 million, and was edged out by Amare Stoudemire by less than 70,000 votes for the second spot. While I admit, it would have been hilarious had Bruce Bowen been voted an All Star starter, there is seriously something wrong with the current fan voting process. Apparently, fans are either stupider than I thought, or they are intentionally trying to sabotage the voting process. Was there some underground movement that I missed out on to vote Bruce Bowen into the all star game? Does he have some sort of regional or international support that I'm not aware of? Speaking of which... behind the strength of China, Yi Jianlian also was nearly voted into the all star game. He finished approximately 200,000 votes behind Kevin Garnett, however, for a spot in the Eastern Conference starting lineup. Wow.

But that's not even the worst of it. I hate it when fans vote for injured players. I don't care if they are charismatic, have the best blog, have the most commercials or the sweetest kicks; if they aren't playing any games, they should not be getting any votes. Why are they even on the ballot? For example, Gilbert Arenas got over 600,000 votes for the all star game, and he hasn't even played a single game this year. He got more votes than Danny Granger or Joe Johnson. What's up with that? It will be interesting to see if the NBA makes any changes to the all star voting process during the offseason. Everyone is going to be throwing out their outlandish ideas for fixing the voting process, but I think the main problem they have are their ballots. They should exclude injured players and players who are contributing minimally to their teams. That would have prevented (or at least reduced) the number of votes that Bowen or Yi or Arenas would get.



Western Conference Starters:

C - Yao Ming
F - Tim Duncan
F - Amare Stoudemire
G - Kobe Bryant
G - Chris Paul

Eastern Conference Starters:

C - Dwight Howard
F - Lebron James
F - Kevin Garnett
G - Dwyane Wade
G - Allen Iverson

With that said, I actually don't have too many complaints about the starters who were actually selected. I think all of them are deserving, except maybe Iverson. He's really had an off year since the trade to Detriot. But I just don't think that Michael Curry knows how to properly utilize Iverson in their offensive and defensive schemes. Iverson, for the most part, has been a good soldier and done whatever they've asked of him. But the fans will vote for whoever they like, and popularity doesn't always correlate to quality of play. I'm a bit surprised to see Duncan voted as a starter. I always thought his "boring" style of play did not appeal to the common fan. And it's nice to Dwyane Wade bounce back from an injury-riddled year and make the all star game, and for Chris Paul to be voted an all star starter for the first time in his career. He's a beast on the floor and its nice to see the fans recognize that. On a side note, there were 5 players who received more votes than Yao Ming this year. What this means is that either China's voting has less of an impact on the results than people think, or that China is not as biased in their voting as some experts might suggest. The last I heard is that Kobe Bryant is the most popular player in China, for example.

Things get a little dicier when it comes to selecting the all star reserves. There are only 7 spots and usually there are many players worthy of the selection. My complaints about the current system is that coaches always reward team success. You can be a B-grade player on a winning team and make the all star games. But an A-grade player on a losing team will usually get snubbed. I understand the argument that great players make their teammates better. But sometimes you are just stuck on a hopeless team. Putting up great numbers on a bad team takes as much skill as on a good team. Further more, I don't like it when coaches select like 3-4 players from the same team. I hated it when the coaches picked nearly the entire Detriot Pistons starting lineup a couple years back. Yes, their team was playing well. But not all of them deserve all star recognition. Second, I also dislike how coaches are biased towards veterans and established players. Young players and rookies rarely get a fair shot at making the all-star game. All star selections should be based solely on their current play, and should not factor in past seasons. I don't like seeing the same players selected every year based off of reputation and status, at the expense of other players.



Western Conference Reserves:

C - Shaquille O'Neal
F - Pau Gasol
F - Dirk Nowitzki
F - David West
G - Chauncey Billups
G - Tony Parker
G - Brandon Roy

F - Al Jefferson
G - Kevin Durant

The name that immediately stands out is David West. I didn't think he was deserving of the all star selection last year, and I don't think that he is deserving this year. He's a PF that gives you only 7 rebounds and 1 block. He's a fine young player, but not in the same class as his peers. The two snubbed players that I think have the best case for making the Western Conference all star team are Kevin Durant and Al Jefferson. I think they were left off of the team because they are on losing teams and they are young players. Both guys are putting up all-star numbers, though. Al Jefferson: 23 points, 10.5 rebounds, 1.5 blocks, 49% FG. Kevin Durant: 25 points, 6.5 rebounds, 47% FG and 86% FT and nearly 1 3PT, 1 block, and 1 steal. If I had to take off another player it would be Tony Parker. Not because he hasn't played great, but because he missed roughly 10 games in November. A prerequisite of all-star selection is playing in over 80% of the games. By that logic, guys like Deron Williams and Melo are out of the picture. 2 players I would like to point out in particular are Shaq and Billups. I've been really impressed with Shaq's career revival in Phoenix. I didn't think he still had it in him. He's still amongst the league's best centers. And Billups has done a brilliant jump making that Denver franchise relevant again. Who knew that trading away Iverson for Billups would elevate this team from struggling to make the playoffs to a division leader? Crazy.



Eastern Conference Reserves:

C - Chris Bosh
F - Danny Granger
F - Rashard Lewis
F - Paul Pierce
G - Devin Harris
G - Joe Johnson
G - Jameer Nelson

F - Antawn Jamison

Let me first start off by saying that I'm happy to see Granger and Harris on the list. I was worried that they would get snubbed because they are on losing teams and are both young players. Both players have elevated themselves to the top of their respective positions. Check out their stats. Granger: 25.5 points, 2.5 3PT, 88% FT, 1.1 steals, 1.4 blocks, 5 rebounds, 3.5 assists. He's the complete package. Harris: 21.5 points, 6.5 assists, 1.5 steals, 82% FT. This reserve squad is definitely lacking in size, however. Chris Bosh is a tweener at the center position. I don't like that there are 3 Orlando Magic players on the all star team. And arguably their most important player: Turkoglu, is not one of those 3. I would take Rashard Lewis off of the team; who is not much more than a shooter. I was a little iffy about Jameer Nelson initially, but I think he's comparable to Mo Williams. So I'm OK with the pick. Zee seems to think that Mo Williams was a big time snub. Sure he's been a huge part of Cleveland's rise to the top of the league, but his numbers aren't that great. You could make a case for Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison or Caron Butler making the all star team. This reserve squad doesn't need any more high-scoring swingmen, though, so I would probably pick Jamison to play the PF spot. I would like to give a shoutout to David Lee. He barely missed the squad, but I think he's a beast. Lee: 16 points 11.5 rebounds, 1 steal, 57% FG and 75% FT for a big man. Paul Pierce is a borderline all star. But if I use team success as a tiebreaker, I think he deserves his spot. Just barely.