I just returned from a vacation in the sunny Dominican Republic, and it appears a lot has gone down in my absence.
NBA Trades- The trading deadline has come and gone, and the final deals in the NBA have been completed. Traded players are beginning to find their way into a flow with their new teams. Pau Gasol and the Lakers are currently at the top of the West, and Kobe Bryants finger injury is not holding the team back. Jason Kidd is dishing out assists, including a season high 17 yesterday, for a Mavs team that has won 2 of 3 since his arrival. Shaq and the Suns are still working out the kinks, though they did beat the Celtics. The addition of Bobby Jackson, who is reunited with his former coach from the Sacreamento Kings Rick Adelman, payed dividends for the red-hot Houston Rockets.
In a move designed to help, would you believe, a team from the East, the Cleveland Cavs dropped some flotsam in a big 11 player deal. They brought in Ben Wallace, Wally Szerbiac (or however you spell it), Delonte West, and Joe Smith. Big Ben, Big Z, and Varejo should be particularly pesky on the boards when Lebron goes one-on-five in big spots.
As for my hometown NY Knicks, I am not sure what adjective I should use for the Knicks failure to swing any deals. “Shocking”? “Appalling”? “Astounding”? Unfortunately, I think the most apt term is “unsurprising”. The fact that Isiah Thomas is still employed as the GM of one of the marquee franchises in the NBA (at least in terms of city, profitability, and potential fanbase) is beyond belief. However, in the scheme of things, this lack of any quantifiable progress is par for the course in this debacle of a team.
All-Star Weekend- Some interesting things happened in New Orleans during All-Star Saturday.
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Jason Kapono won back-to-back titles in the three-point shoot-out. Kapono set the final round record with a 25, which is some darn good shooting. He has a nice flat-footed white-boy jumper that is built for wide-open looks. (Lots of hyphenated words in that paragraph)
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San Antonio won the Shooting Stars contest which requires a current NBA player, former NBA player, and WNBA player from a city to make 6 shots from various spots on the court. The final shot is a half-cout heave. Who were the dead-eye shooters for San Antonio? None other than reputed marksmen Tim Duncan and David Robinson. Robinson even made his halfcourt shot without jumping, almost like a long free throw. The NBA could probably lose this event without much complaint. Maybe go the route Bill Simmons suggested and just keep the half-court shoot-out.
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The Dunk contest featured some really innovative dunks, especially from Dwight Howard, who was the eventual champion. Two years ago Andre Igodala had a dunk where Allen Iverson threw the ball off the back-side of the backboard and Igodala caught it and threw it down on the front side. This year, Howard threw the ball to himself and windmilled it on the other side. He also had a dunk where he bounced the ball off the floor, bounced the ball off the backboard with his left hand while in mid-air, and then dunked with his right. This was very innovative, and something I have never seen. His biggest reaction came when he put on a Superman cape and took off his jersey to reveal a Superman t-shirt. He ran and took off from a step inside the free throw line, caught an alley-oop off the floor from teammate Jameer Nelson, and got so high in the air that he ended up throwing the ball down through the net. In my opinion, the pagentry and sheer magnitude of the attempt overwhelmed the fact that it technically was not a dunk. Former champ Gerald Green also had some excellent dunks, including one where he blew out a lit candle inside a cupcake on the back of the rim before dunking, and a highly underrated dunk where he went between his legs while barefoot. Unfortunately, we didn’t get much out of Rudy Gay, who staged a campaign on YouTube to get dunk ideas from fans, or Jamario Moon, whose opening round salvo was more skill than show. Overall, the dunk contest was exciting, and went a long way toward repairing the event’s sagging reputation.
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The Rookie-Sophmore Challenge again went to the Sophs, as it always has. The second-years are much more accustomed to the NBA game, and have better conditioning that many of the Rookies, who must feel exhausted after playing many more games than their college season. Standouts from the game included Al Horford of the Hawks, Rudy Gay of the Grizzlies, Brandon Roy (who pulled double duty in the Soph game and the big show) Daniel Gibson of the Cavs setting the record for 3-pointers made, and Sean Williams of the Nets with the highlight of the game, see below
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The All-Star Game itself was an exciting affair, coming down to the wire. The East prevailed thanks to some late sharpshooting from Ray Allen, and the MVP play of Lebron James.
Early on, the East ran out to the lead, and never trailed until the end of the 4th quarter. Lebron and Dwight Howard played dunk-o-rama, and Jason Kidd was the orchestrator in perhaps his final appearance as a player for the East. Chris Paul showed out for his hometown fans, and helped lead the West’s charge back. Below are some of the highlights from the game, including Lebron’s ”that’s quite enough of that” game clinching dunk.
Baseball- I know that as a “sports writer” I should probably weigh in on the Roger Clemens situation. Unfortunately, I just don’t feel like writing on it until we get all the facts, if we ever do. To paraphrase Mark McGwire, “I’m not here to write about the past”.
What I am focused on is this upcoming season. The Yankee universe is very different than in recent years. The Joe managing the team is Girardi and not Torre. The big move of the offseason was the move that wasn’t. The Mets were the NY team that got the big-money free agent. The Yankees, according to A-Rod, are not coming into the season as the prohibitive favorite.
A full Yankee preview…etc, will be coming up soon. Its good to be back.
