This is a few days old but mysteriously got little to no play across the blogosphere -- as this goes to press, BallHype is showing only two links: Dime and MVN Outsider. That's surprising, because I'll be damned if it's not one of the funniest NBA bloopers I've seen all year. Who the hell was Eddie Jones looking at? The ref? Was Byron Scott messing with his concentration? Whatever he was thinking, the end result was just silly, and almost (but not quite) as bad as Lamar Odom's dribbling the ball in-bounds last year.
Try making a list of the game's great little guys, and you'll end up with a pretty short list. Even the great "little players" haven't been all that little -- Jerry West, Michael Jordan, Oscar Robertson and Dwyane Wade all stand at least 6-4, making them taller than the vast majority of the general population.
The list of recent stars below that height is smaller still. Isiah Thomas. John Stockton. Allen Iverson. Steve Nash.
Say what? Oh yes. The New Orleans guard is putting together a season that, provided he keeps it up, will put him in the pantheon of the league's greatest little guys. This is getting shockingly little attention because Paul hasn't been on national TV and plays before crowds that would have trouble filling a U-Haul, but his production this season has been nothing short of spectacular.
Don't look now, but it looks like the league's Cinderella team has turned in pumpkins. The Orlando Magic were one of the NBA's biggest surprises in the first several weeks of the season, opening the year with 16 wins in the first 20 games, which tied a franchise record. But ever since then, the team has dropped five of six, including a heartbreaking 111-108 game in Dallas on Monday.
Who would you rather have? The reckless, risk-your-body-for-the-love-of-the-game scoring machine that was Allen Iverson on the Sixers or the think-the-game-out-more Allen Iverson that is currently on the Nuggets?
It's never too soon to think about this season's Dunk Contest. Especially not when Nick Young is actively campaigning for a spot, and Dwight Howard has already announced his plans to return.
Howard is a no-brainer. He's the breakout story of the season, which is a weird thing to say about someone who has already been an All-Star. Last year's crown should have been his, and both he and the league know it. Even if he doesn't pull out the basket-kissing dunk, Howard should be the favorite for '08.
Could the timing have been better? Just two days after we asked where his swag went, he goes and wins the game by himself. Granted, he shot just 38% for the night (8-21) and made only one of five three-pointers, but still, if anything can shake him out of a season-long slump, the confidence boost that comes with draining a game-winner has to rank high on the list.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Baseball's winter meetings have turned into the sport's version of Us Weekly. They're supposed to be glitzy and glamorous, and they end up full of bad rumors, tainted innuendo and very little of consequence. Sure, the Tigers pulled off the move of the meetings with a trade that shook the American League, and that places them square atop the list of winners. Their partners in that deal, the Marlins, head the cavalcade of losers – though not because of the players they received. Here are the rest of their brethren in triumph and disappointment.
LeBron James' sprained finger on his left hand is becoming a serious problem for the Cavaliers. It's bad enough that the injury is a pretty weak excuse to be sitting out four games and counting -- and that the team doesn't even try during these contests -- but now it appears that LeBron might miss several games because of it.
In today's edition of "Analysts Speeding Toward the Far Reaches of Absurdity," popular (in corners) statistician David Berri tells us Andrew Bynum is better than Kobe Bryant right now. (Hat tip: TrueHoop.) He states (hopefully sarcastically) Bynum should be the guy upset over the lack of star power around him, and Bynum should be invoking Kobe's name in vain in front of some dudes with a video camera in a market parking lot. Sigh.
I was at this game, which was otherwise horrible, so I might have a vested interest in thinking this matters. But Matt Watson swears it's "objectively funny," and MJD particularly liked "Squatch running like a forest fire was about to burn his house down." And wouldn't you know, the video was put on YouTube by the one, the only, Stop Mike Lupica. So even if the action was a total waste of time, at least I can tell my kids that I saw this bit of history happen.
The Jazz routed the Lakers last night, thanks in no small part to a big time performance from Deron Williams. Williams went for 35 points, and had this ridiculous highlight where he crosses over Derek Fisher twice - on the same play.
New York, November 30 -- The NBA today denied a game protest filed by the Dallas Mavericks over their 111-107 loss to the Indiana Pacers on November 23.
The Mavericks filed the protest because a basket by Indiana's Troy Murphy with 9:59 remaining in the second quarter was mistakenly recorded as a 3-point field goal instead of a 2-point field goal (making the score 41-25 in Indiana's favor), and the Mavericks contended that this extra point had a clear impact on the outcome of the game.
LeBron James has had a pretty strong start to the season. As Ziller already pointed out, LeBron's definitely not coasting at this point, and based on the drop in talent on the Cavs, he's right there at the top of the list of early MVP candidates. Last night though, in a revenge game for the Pistons, LeBron sprained his finger on his left hand, and sat out the entire second half. The result? A five-point game at halftime turned into a 35-point win for the Pistons. Was LeBron really that affected by the injury on his non-shooting hand, or was he making a not-so-subtle statement that without him, the Cavs are maybe the worst team in the league?
From a Grant Wahl article in Sports Illustrated from a couple of weeks ago:
The biggest question is whether Mayo will shoot USC out of games. At the McDonald's All-American game in Louisville in March, Mayo went 4 for 17, clanging the potential game-winner in the final seconds. But Mayo says he has enough confidence to keep firing, a lesson his idol, Kobe Bryant, reinforced last summer during the final moments of a deadlocked pickup game in L.A. Mayo had made three straight shots, but he passed up the deciding jumper, feeding an open shooter instead. Mayo's teammate missed; Bryant's team won. Afterward, Bryant pulled Mayo aside and offered some advice: "When you've got it going like that, take the shot!"
"Let me take you back to a place called Last Year's Dunk Contest. Dwight Howard put a sticker on the backboard and just generally stole the show, but the title went to the bland Gerald Green. There hadn't been a farce like this since ... Nate Robinson over Andre Iguodala, one year earlier. At the time, Howard indicated disgust with the outcome, and seemed done with these silly contests. Now, that's changed."
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