Yardbarker: Fabricio Oberto

James Gist taken in the NBA Draft

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:57:05 -0500

I just have a few small wishes in this world, and several of them have to do with Maryland alumni making it at the professional level of their respective sports. This spring, I was denied this privilege when linebacker Erin Henderson, the defensive star on Maryland's football squad, went undrafted due to injury concerns. Last night, I was surprised to see this wish fulfilled when James Gist was selected 57th overall by the San Antonio Spurs.

Fabricio Oberto and Sasha Vujacic square off in catfight

Fri, 30 May 2008 13:40:13 -0500

Sasha Vujacic would later say his grimacing face wasn't so much a result of the fierce punishment being inflicted by his hair rival, Fabricio Oberto, but rather the STAPLES Center's staunch refusal to play Madonna's mystifying single, 4 Minutes....

AccuScore - Lakers - Spurs Preview

Tue, 20 May 2008 19:23:58 -0500

The Spurs just keep on winning. They might not be stylish, pretty, or popular, but San Antonio just gets it done behind the big man in the middle, Tim Duncan. The Lakers on the other hand are the glamour team of the NBA. They are young, and play an appealing brand of basketball led by Kobe Bryant. Los Angeles wants another ring, but they will have to go through the champions to get it. Who will survive the rugged West? Let's break it down.

Video - David West taunts Fabricio Oberto

Mon, 05 May 2008 22:28:08 -0500

It's better than slapping Dirk Nowitzki's face, but David West is playing with fire.

Top 30 NBA Centers

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:15:50 -0500

When it comes down to the best center in the NBA, there's no question that Dwight Howard is #1, with Yao Ming finishing second. Howard's averaging a 22 PPG and 18.2 RPG and 3.8 BPG in the playoffs, numbers that haven't been seen since Wilt Chamberlain. The other 4 positions will be posted over the week. Player (Current Team/Former Team) PPG, RPG, APG, SPG, BPG * = Best in Category (R) = Rookie Blocks 1.5+ Shown Blocks and Steals Shown if both are 1+ 1. Dwight Howard (ORL) 20.7, 14.2*, 1.3, 2.2 BPG 59.9% FG 2. Yao Ming (HOU) 22*, 10.8, 2.3, 2 BPG 3. Pau Gasol (LAL/MEM) 18.9, 8.4, 3.2, 1, 1.5, 58.9% FG (LAL) 4. Al Jefferson (MIN) 21, 11.1, 1.4, 1.5 BPG 5. Chris Kaman (LAC) 15.7, 12.7, 1.9, 2.8 BPG 6. Marcus Camby (DEN) 9.1, 13.1, 3.3, 1.1 , 3.6* 7. Andrew Bogut (MIL) 14.3, 9.8, 2.6, 1.7 BPG 8. Andrew Bynum 13.1, 10.2, 1.7, 2.1 BPG, 63.6% FG (35 games) 9. Zydrunas Ilgauskas (CLE) 14.1, 9.3, 1.4, 1.6 BPG 10. Tyson Chandler (NOH) 11.8, 11.7, 0.2 11. Samuel Dalembert (PHI) 10.5, 10.4, 0.5, 2.3 BPG 12. Brad Miller (SAC) 13.4, 9.5, 3.7*, 1, 1 13. Shaquille O'Neal (PHX/MIA) 13.6, 9.1, 1.7, 59.3% FG (Season) 14. Andris Biedrins (GSW) 10.5, 9.8, 1 15. (R) Al Horford (ATL) 10.2, 9.6, 1.5 16. Rasheed Wallace (DET) 12.7, 6.6, 1.8, 1.2, 1.7 17. Mehmet Okur (UTA) 14.5, 7.7, 2 18. Brendan Haywood (WAS) 10.6, 7.2, 0.9, 1.7 BPG 19. Troy Murphy (IND) 12.2, 7.2, 2.2 20. Kendrick Perkins (BOS) 7, 6.1, 1.1, 1.5 BPG, 61.6% FG* (Season) 21. Eddy Curry (NYK) 13.7, 4.2, 0.5 22. Josh Boone (NJN) 8.2, 7.3, 0.8 23. Andrea Bargnani (TOR) 10.2, 3.7, 1.1 24. Nazr Mohammed (CHA/DET) 7.6, 6, 0.9, 61.7% FG (CHA) 25. Darko Milicic (MEM) 7.2, 6.1, 0.8, 1.6 BPG 26. Erick Dampier (DAL) 6.1, 7.5, 0.9, 1.5 BPG 27. Joel Przybilla (POR) 4.8, 8.4, 0.4 28. (R) Joakim Noah (CHI) 6.1, 5.6, 1.1 29. Fabricio Oberto (SAS) 4.6, 5.2, 1.2, 60.8% FG 30. Mark Blount (MIA/MIN) 8.4, 3.8, 0.6 31. Johan Petro (SEA) 6, 5.1, 0.4

Spurs Take Game 1

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:10:03 -0500

Tim Duncan scored 40 points and added 14 assists, with teammate Manu Ginobili scoring the deciding shot in double overtime in San Antonio's 117-115 home win over the Phoenix Suns. The Spurs, defending NBA champions, take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series, a rematch of a heated battle in last year's postseason. The next game will be Tuesday night in San Antonio. Ginobili scored eight of his 24 points in the second overtime period. Tony Parker had 26 points for the Spurs, while Michael Finley hit a pair of clutch three-pointers near the end of regulation to help the Spurs force overtime. San Antonio trailed most of the game, by as many as 16 points, taking its first lead with just under two minutes left in the fourth quarter. Victoria native Steve Nash had 25 assists and 13 assist for the Suns. Nash made a three-pointer from the corner to tie the game at 115, but Ginobili drove through the Phoenix lane for the winning shot with under two seconds left. Amare Stoudemire was a force for Phoenix with 33 points. In his playoff debut with the Suns, Shaquille O'Neal helped create room for Stoudemire and contributed 11 points, five rebounds and four blocks. "We had a lot of opportunities to win," O'Neal said. "You can't make mistakes against a team like that especially here in this building." While the Spurs briefly held the lead late in the fourth, they were down 93-90 with 1:10 to go after Leandro Barbosa's fast-break layup. Finley hit his three-pointer with 15 seconds left to force overtime. Nash scored seven points to begin the first overtime for the Suns, but Duncan helped San Antonio claw back, with Stoudemire taking a crucial offensive foul for charging. Duncan drained a three-pointer, his first of the playoffs, with three seconds left to send the game into a second extra period. "I didn't know what was going to happen, honestly," Duncan said. "Manu turned the corner, Shaq just totally leaves me and stayed with Manu." With the Spurs leading by two with just over a minute left in double overtime, Nash missed a three-pointer and Boris Diaw couldn't convert a layup on successive possessions. Nash hit for three on Phoenix's last gasp, but Ginobili soon responded. Last year's series between the clubs was a pitched battle. After San Antonio's Robert Horry fouled Nash hard in Game 4, a melee led to suspensions for Stoudemire and Boris Diaw. San Antonio wrapped up the series in six games. The Spurs won four championships between 1999 and 2007, but have never won in successive seasons.

The Knicks Need To Evolve With The TImes

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 09:24:18 -0500

If you look on the majority of the playoff teams in the NBA and especially in the West you see at least one highly useful player from outside the United States. Is it a coincidence that the Knicks stink and have zero players from outside the United States? I think not. Is it a coincidence that the Western Conference dominates the entire Eastern Conference except the Pistons and Celtics? I think not.

Worst of the Week (Feb.26-Mar. 2)

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:08:58 -0500

These guys should feel guilty when they go to the bank this week.

Week 19 NBA Fantasy Pickups

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 17:35:09 -0500

With only 3 more weeks left in standard Yahoo Fantasy Basketball Head-to-Head Leagues and managers still battling for playoff position, I thought I'd take a shorter-term focus and look closely at 5-8 players that I think are primed to do particularly well in NBA Week 19. I used two excellent tools from Fantasy Basketball Monster--its Schedule Grid and its NBA Ease (Team Difficulty) Rankings-- in conducting this analysis.

The Fantasy Basketball Stock Watch

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:17:59 -0500

Well, All-Star Weekend has come and gone, however, the debate on the "Superman" dunk (was it a dunk or not?) still rages on. As fantasy basketball players, we have bigger concerns on our mind. For one, what are the fantasy effects of all of the blockbuster deals this season? Also, are there any second-half sleepers out there to help you in your league's stretch run? Here is a look at those questions and more.

Monroe: Guest Spurs Odenizer

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:41:05 -0500

We Odenize the San Antonio Spurs, all straight-faced, cold-blooded and final. Our guest odenizer is Spurs expert Mike Monroe, who provided us with an EXCLUSIVE email about what the team might end up doing.

The Nuggets' Best 8 Players Are Exactly as Good as the Spurs' Best 8, But...

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 02:20:25 -0500

It's time to see how the Nuggets stack up against the boogeyman, the San Antonio Spurs. ABOUT THE REAL PLAYER RATING 1 The real player rating is calculated for the top 300 players ranked according to gross player rating. 2 A player must have at least 8 minutes per game to be included. 3 A player must have played in at least 1/4 of the number of games that the player or players who have played in the most games have played to be included. 4 Real Player Rating = Gross Player Rating / Minutes Per Game. 5 Gross Player Rating is the net total of the following: ADD THE FOLLOWING Points Rebounds 1.4 X Assists Steals 1.4 X Blocks # of Field Goals Made 0.5 X # of 3-Pointers Made 0.25 X # of Free Throws Made SUBTRACT THE FOLLOWING 0.7 X Turnovers 0.8 X # of Missed Field Goals 0.8 X # of Missed Free Throws The Real Player Rating reflects reality better than the gross player rating, since it washes out differences in playing times among the players. The straight up player rankings are obviously heavily affected by how many playing minutes the various players get. With many teams, you can rely on the coach to give his various players roughly the playing time that makes the most sense for his team. Unfortunately, some coaches bring other factors besides actual performance into their rotation decisions. Therefore, it makes good sense to introduce a new and extremely important statistic that Nuggets 1 calls the Real Per Minute Player Rating. As the name implies, this is the gross ESPN player rating divided by the number of minutes. The statistic is called Real Player Rating for short. This statistic allows anyone to see whether or not players who play only a small number of minutes are doing better than their low gross rating will indicate. You can spot diamond in the rough players who are not getting all the respect and playing time due to them. At the same time, it will allow anyone to see whether players with a lot of minutes are playing worse than, as well as, or better than their gross rating shows. In summary, the Real Player Rating allows the reader, at a glance, to see exactly how well each player is doing without regard to playing time, which is subject to coaching error and subjective and less important factors such as a player's personality. The Real Player Rating provides the real truth-pure knowledge not available anywhere else. Rank, Player, Team, Pos., Real Player Rating DENVER NUGGETS 13 Carmelo Anthony, Den SF 1.024 19 Allen Iverson, Den G 1.002 29 Marcus Camby, Den C 0.948 101 J.R. Smith, Den SG 0.776 112 Kenyon Martin, Den PF 0.764 116 Linas Kleiza, Den GF 0.759 146 Anthony Carter, Den PG 0.708 225 Eduardo Najera, Den F 0.606 SAN ANTONIO SPURS 8 Tim Duncan, SA FC 1.116 10 Manu Ginobili, SA SG 1.090 22 Tony Parker, SA PG 0.994 125 Brent Barry, SA G 0.740 133 Fabricio Oberto, SA C 0.727 151 Matt Bonner, SA FC 0.705 219 Ime Udoka, SA SF 0.616 234 Michael Finley, SA GF 0.595 248 Francisco Elson, SA FC 0.573 270 Jacque Vaughn, SA PG 0.527 289 Bruce Bowen, SA SF 0.412 Now if you compare the 8 Nuggets who are among the 290 NBA players good enough to be ranked to the BEST 8 Spurs, by taking the averages of the player ratings, this is what you get: Nuggets: 0.823 Spurs: 0.823 The two teams best 8 players are exactly equal as of December 28, 2007. But that's it for the Nuggets. The Spurs have three more players who are ready right now to play in the playoffs and the Nuggets technically have none. On the bright side, both Nene and Chucky Atkins are back from long injury outs and, as long as these two get back into gear, the Nuggets will have 9, only 1 fewer than the Spurs. However, if George Karl goes ballistic again and benches anyone for the playoffs, then the Spurs would enjoy the 10-8 advantage in players ready to bring home another series win for San Antonio, as if they need one. In any event, no matter how many good players Karl has on paper, he usually can only figure out a way to use 8 of them effectively in games anyway, and sometimes only 7. Coach Greg Popovich of the Spurs almost always makes use of 9 players in individual games, and sometimes even 10. The other caution to keep in mind is that neither this nor any other statistic measures the intensity and quality of defending, and everyone knows that the Spurs have some of the best defenders in the NBA, whereas the Nuggets are just a little above average in made you miss defending at best. The full NBA real player rankings are at the link. They were posted earlier on December 28, 2007.

The Nuggets Can't Deal With a 1-Game Kenyon Martin Suspension and Get Blown Out at San Antonio 102-91

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 04:04:27 -0500

The San Antonio Spurs defeated the Denver Nuggets 102-91, but the game was essentially over after 3 quarters, when the score was 92-68. Starting power forward Kenyon Martin's 1 game flagrant foul suspension, along with an off rebounding night from Marcus Camby, who had way too much to handle from C Fabricio Oberto, who was huge, and PF Tim Duncan, destroyed the Nuggets rebounding and made a Spurs victory all but certain. Kenyon Martin was removed from the squad at exactly the worst possible time, right after Camby and company had started to trust K-Mart to be a big factor on the boards. Just when Camby was accustomed to finally getting some real help on rebounding, that help was taken away by David Stern who, after waiting until the cows came home, finally announced Kenyon's 1 game suspension on the day of the Spurs game, Saturday, even though the game in which the flagrant foul happened was Wednesday evening. The Spurs had no trouble routing the Nuggets even though PF Tim Duncan played just 20 minutes and PG Tony Parker didn't play at all due to a sprain. This would just about offset the unavailablity of PF Kenyon Martin, PF Nene, and PG Chucky Atkins for the Nuggets. So the only thing you can logically conclude is that the Nuggets have no chance if they meet the Spurs again in the playoffs, unless the way the Nuggets are managed radically changes. I guess we'll have to hope that the Suns knock off the Spurs before the Nuggets ever have to play them. How's that for optimism in the face of disaster? The above two paragraphs are the first and the last paragraph of the full Nuggets report, which is at the link.

Day 47 of 170: If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say Marcus Camby, Don't Say Anything at All

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 13:59:29 -0500

A fantasy rundown of day 47 (12/15/07) in the NBA.

Upsets All Around NBA, Kings (5-9) Beat Spurs (12-3) 112-99

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 16:52:27 -0500

It was the night of the underdog. Knicks beat the Jazz, T'Wolves beat the Hornets, Wizards beat the Magic, and the Warriors beat the Suns. But this game, former Spur Beno Udrih headlined a great win facing his former team for the first time. They shouldn't have traded him just yet. I started following the game after halftime. It was 52-48 with the Kings leading and the Spurs were riding on a 10-0 run through the break. Everybody knows that the Spurs will make a run on you, no matter how many points they're down by. That explains why they have 4 championships. Kevin Martin who was quiet in the first half scored 8 points in the 3rd quarter, but he only finished with 10 points. While his scoring avearge drops to 24, his rebound average goes up to 5. He needs to learn to balance both. Mikki Moore was hot throughout the game. He had 13 points on 6/6 shooting, finished with 17 points on 8/9 shooting, and had 4 rebounds and 2 blocked shots. Kings' rookie center Spencer Hawes showcased his skill against Tim Duncan with 7 points and 3 rebounds.But the 3rd quarter wasn't over yet as Spurs rookie Darius Washington sparked the Spurs run into the 4th quarter with a long buzzer beating 3 pointer to end the quarter. All of a sudden the Spurs bench started to contribute. Michael Finley who started but rode the bench scoreless, had 9 points, all 3 pointers in the 4th quarter. Manu Ginobili came off with the same point total, along with game high of 7 assists. Brent Barry, Matt Bonner and Ime Udoka all contributors off the bench. Tony Parker, whose wife Eva Longoria attended the game, had 12 points 7 assists and 7 rebounds. Eva is one of the loudest Spurs fans you will hear. She's temporarily on vacation with the writers' strike going on right now in Hollywood, so why not travel with your husband? Anyway, the Spurs were coming back like they usually do to win the game, jumping on the Kings missed opportunities early in the 4th quarter, but that would all change. Beno Udrih would lead the Kings to the victory scoring a career high 27 points, 4 rebounds, a steal and a blocked shot. This occasionally offensive-minded point guard may not be one of the best in the NBA, but on a good night, he'll play like one. Center Brad Miller, who has the game of a power forward, played like a point guard getting 17 points, 10 rebounds, a game high 7 assists and 2 blocked shots. One assist went behind the back for a John Salmons lay-up. The 4th quarter highlight reel kept on rolling with Ron Artest, scoring 20 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and a block. One impressive move was when the shot clock was going down to 2 and the whole crowd told Artest to shoot, and his short turnaround jumper beat the buzzer to help put the game out of reach. Another highlight was his assist to Moore where he drove in passed it behind his back and Moore caught it, jumped in the air, and slammed over Tim Duncan. Duncan struggled through the night getting a team high 15 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists and a block. No one should take this victory for granted because this is by far the best win they've had, and it might be the best win that they'll have of the season. The Kings played against the 2007 champions in the middle of a Spurs 5 game winning streak looking to beat the Kings for the 8th time in a row. Instead, they got their first win against the Spurs since Game 4 of the 2005 playoffs. Kings' rookie coach Reggie Theus gets props for this one, organizing the Kings into a very effective zone defensive to stop one of the best teams in the league. Slowly but surely, he's growing to be a good NBA coach. The Kings are now 5-2 at home and have established Arco as still one of the toughest places to play on the road. Both losses were withing 2 points. But the Kings are 0-7 on the road, but if they can learn from this game and bring that intensity on the road, they might make a run at some teams. They've won games against lthe Sonics, T'Wolves, Knicks, and Pistons by 10 points or less and lost to the Cavs, Suns, T'Wolves and Blazers by 6 points or less. This game could be used by many teams for film not to find out how to stop the Sacramento Kings, but how to stop the San Antonio Spurs.