Let me try to explain what happened in the Tuesday political election. The Republican Party over the last decade has been like the San Antonio Spurs, with Bush's time in office running nearly parallel to the Spurs' successes and shortcomings. The first two Spurs championships were like Bush's 2000 election victory and the right after 9-11, everybody-loves-George-W-Bush era. In 2004 Bush is re-elected in an incredibly close race against Jon Kerry, 2005 Spurs fight the Pistons through a hard fought seven game series. In 2007, the surge in Iraq proves to be successful and Bush gets a boost in the polls while the '07 Spurs surge past the Cavaliers in a 4-0 sweep. But then came 2008, the housing crisis, the bail-out, the still shitty war(s), and the rise of the Democratic Party with unbeatable candidate Barack Obama.
The 2008 election with John McCain and Sarah Palin as the presidential ticket running against the stadium filling, hope inspiring, Barack Obama would be as if the San Antonio Spurs were playing the Miami Heat, with Chris Paul, in the NBA Finals. But it wouldn't be just that, it'd be if the Spurs took their aging core and said, "You know what, let's add Greg Ostertag at center, bring back Scottie Pippin to play small forward, and see if we can get some minutes from the 45 year old David Robinson off the bench." The Republicans did the same, instead of getting younger, let's bring in John McCain as our new symbol of youth to combat Obama, and with the high percentage chance that he might die in office, let's have our back-up be Sarah Palin who by November 2nd, 2008 was seen by most of the country as the Tina Fey version from SNL. It'd be like Greg Poppovich going into the playoffs with his aging team and saying, "You know what, I might not make it through the playoffs, I'm not feeling well and if I can't coach anymore my wife is going to fill in for me. Now she hasn't exactly coached before, but she seems to know a lot about basketball and she's secretly pretty hot." The matchup would be considered to be an easy victory for the Miami Heat, a guaranteed 4 game sweep. However, in reality, the 2008 election was like that San Antonio Spurs team actually pushing the Heat to a hard fought 6 or 7 game series. At the end of the day, McCain still got 47% of the national vote against Barack Obama even though it should have been a blow out.
This stat alone should've sent fear through the democratic party that after 8 years of President Bush who they deemed to be the worst president ever and then the replacement being a 70 + year old man who had so little charisma he made John Kerry seem interesting, AND his replacement, was Tina Fey, how could Obama, the Miami Heat of the political world (tons of talent but does he have the experience?) win by so little? And no, just like the negative reaction to The Decision, the negative hype surrounding Obama is not race based, America as a whole may simply lean more toward the right than the left. If a lousy candidate like John McCain can get 47% of the vote against someone as dominant in the campaign as Obama it makes you wonder what would happen if the Republicans put forth a charismatic candidate in 2012 (Marco Rubio will be a 100x bigger name than his point guard counterpart Ricky in 10 years).
Politics is like sports in that two years can change everything. Two years ago the Republican Party seemed to be dead, the Democrats had control over everything, but then with the boost of the Tea Party (think Celtics getting the Big 3 and saving the Boston franchise) everything switched back in 2010. However, politics is not like sports in that sports are actually fun to watch. Final political ego trip here before I get into the actual interesting topic of the NBA, I think the founding fathers created the perfect system in that parties seem to gain and lose power every 2-4 years so that no drastic changes can ever be made by ego trippin’ senators and congressmen. This framework that keeps power out of the hands of the politicians and in the hands of the people is the best kept secret of why this country works :)
So on to the NBA, here are the top 10 story-lines from the exciting, dominating World Series Baseball in the ratings, first week of the living up to the hype season.
10. Figured Out the long overdue comparison of the Maggette-QRichardson-Al Harrington three-headed same guy monster:
There are three semi red-headed actors out there who I'm convinced are the same guy:
Alan Tudyk, the boss in Knocked Up, the pirate in Dodgeball, the guy in the British Death at a Funeral Simon, is not Simon Pegg, the lead from Shaun of Dead and Run Fatboy Run, nor is he Principal Cutler i.e. Andrew Daly from East Bound and Down.
Roll the tape, how are these two not the same guy?
Principal Cutler: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-RPu8GHqes
(Side note, Kristen Wiig is quietly the funniest actress out there she needs a starring role, which she is going to get, in an Apatow film, watchout for it. And also, can someone tell me if Kenny Powers season 2 is any good?? The HBO universe is an entirely separate world)
Here's the week one stats of the Q-Tip Richardson, Magette, and Al Harrington triple headed same guy monster.
Magette: 16 ppg, 5 rpg (23 min-why the hell so low?)
Richardson: 4.5 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 3 apg (24 min-multiply by two he’s at 9, 13, and 6 range) surprisingly low, he’s the Andrew Daly of the crew.
Harrington: 16.3 ppg, 6.0 rpg, (26 min-why so low?)
If the Magic are going to stay in contention with the top 3 in the NBA, Richardson needs to give them more than 4.5 points per game.
9. Surprise Success of Chris Paul and the Hornets?
Chris Paul has returned strong and is leading the Hornets to a really impressive start to the season. Now this isn’t like the Hawks who have risen to the top of the league by winning against bad teams, the Hornets have beaten the Spurs, Nuggets, Bucks, and Rockets, all four who may be playoff teams. Not sure how this will play into the whole Chris Paul wanting out of New Orleans thing and I’m extremely interested to see how well, or if, the Hornets can hang with Miami tonight.
8. Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah looking great
The Chicago Bulls are looking smarter and smarter for keeping Noah and not trading him away for Carmelo. Noah is leading the league right now with 14.8 rebounds per game and D-Rose, who is producing 3 or 4 top 10 level hilights a night, is second in the league in scoring with 26.8 a game. Taj Gibson is showing that he is a worthy starting power forward and will provide depth at the position when Boozer returns. Luol Deng averages 19.8 a night and Korver is slowly finding his rhythm. The Bulls have had an extremely rough opening schedule, watch for them to improve throughout the year and their record to balance out.
7. Greg Oden Not Signed To An Extension
This is actually a fairly intriguing storyline. When, the total of 82 games, Oden is healthy he’s actually done pretty well. He rebounds, blocks, and alters shots even though his offense is lacking. If he doesn’t have a breakout year and still remains as this risky but still only 23 year old prospect I think someone may pick him up in a steal of a deal.
What if the market value for the shaky Greg Oden is somewhere around 2 years at 2 million a year and say the Miami Heat end up winning the NBA Title. How crazy/logical would it be for the Heat to swoop in and pick him up? Worst case scenario he doesn’t pan out and the Heat rely on their shaky list of centers that were good enough to win the title. Best-case scenario, they now have two MVP level guys, a good power forward and a dominant defensive center. Throw in Chris Paul and the Heat empire would not lose a game for years. But in actuality, watch for one of the bad teams in the NBA to overspend and Oden disappear for the rest of his career.
5. Don’t Panic on the Thunder’s 3-2 start, Durant-Westbrook-Green thriving, Celebration after beating Detroit was too much, and the Utah Jazz exposed their low post problems
I saw an article posted on Yahoo where the writer was panicking that we put too much hype on this young team and that they’re really struggling this year and oh my God oh my God what are we going to do!? I guess I was unaware of this disappointing start. To me I look at the Thunder and see two impressive victories over the Bulls (#6 team in the league) and the Trailblazers (#9 I believe?) a way too close victory over the Pistons which they celebrated like they won an NBA finals game, a very disappointing loss to the Clippers and a pounding to the Jazz that exposed their lack of post presence.
Durant, Westbrook, and Green, as of now, are the best three player combination in the league. Before the season started I was convinced the best 1-2 punch was either Kobe-Gasol or Wade-LeBron, and that the best three player punch would be the obvious Miami Heat answer. But as of 5 games into the season, it is hard to take that away from this Oklahoma City Thunder three. Here’s the comparison between the Heat and Thunder’s big 3:
OKC: Kevin Durant 4th in the league in scoring, Westbrook 13th in the league, and Jeff Green 32nd
Heat: D-Wade 15th, LeBron 22nd, Chris Bosh 90th (not a typo, more on this later)
Problem with the Thunder though and evidence was shown in the Clippers and Jazz game is team’s with low post threats will tear them apart. Why this doesn’t bode well for the Thunder is the Celtics, Lakers are loaded here and Western playoffs the Thunder could be matched up with a Jazz, Mavericks, or Spurs team that will challenge Green, Ibaka, Kristic, and Aldrich. The stars on OKC can run with anyone, James Harden is one of the best 6th men in the league, but can their post stack up with the elites?
4. Tony Parker signs extension, James Anderson playing well
I was very surprised to read that Tony Parker signed on for four more years in San Antonio. I feel like this means Eva Longoria is going to leave him soon. The move makes sense from a basketball stand point I’m just surprised Eva didn’t convince him to go out to New York.
And just to toot my own horn a little, before the season I raved about rookie James Anderson having an under the radar success in the NBA. I was spot on, he’s 8th in the league in rookie scoring behind those you’d expect him to be behind (Blake Griffin, John Wall, Cousins, Favors, Johnson, Fields, Turner). With Griffin not being from his draft class, Anderson is knocking on the door of the top 5 from the 2010 draft. He is scoring about 7 ppg right now in only 20 min of action and I fully expect both those numbers to rise throughout the year.
3. The Miami Heat
I don’t want to say the dominance of the Miami Heat, mainly because their victories, with the exception of the Magic, have been over the NBA’s bad teams and let’s be honest I struggle to fight past my own hatred of this team to attempt to say anything nice about them. But here’s what I find interesting about this team.
The Defense. It looks incredible. I think all of us expected this team to be Wade, LeBron, Bosh each scoring 25+ a game with the little guys drilling threes around them running up scoreboards to 120 every night. This team is built differently, and much to my dismay, they are built for a championship. They are #1 in the league right now in scoring defense holding teams to an anemic 84 ppg. The Heat’s commitment to defense is how the great teams win titles and what’s scary is the offense will only get better with them learning how to play with each other.
However, the Heat’s team defensive stats are going to be a little inflated because of whom they are opening the season playing. So far their 4 wins have been against Philadelphia (bad), Magic (good, but shot horrendously in the game), New Jersey (really bad), and Minnesota (extremely bad). And then with the Celtics, Boston is not a high scoring team so their 84 ppg defense wasn’t threatened. The Heat will obliterate the league’s bad teams and they can only be judged by probably 15 games this season. November 9 Utah, November 11 Boston, and November 24 at Orlando, if the Heat go 3-0 through those then the league is really in trouble.
Also, it needs to be noted that this team is not three super-stars. The problem with the hype surrounding Miami is that Bosh was put at the same level as Wade and LeBron. He’s not. He’s actually far from it. Dwyane Wade and LeBron James are incredible, they are both in the top 3 players in the NBA, and a case can be made that their pairing is better than Jordan and Pippen (Jordan better than Wade, LeBron better than Pippen). But the comparisons to the 72 win Bulls team, in my mind, end there. Chris Bosh is not elite. He’s a really good power forward, but he’s not elite. Right now he’s 90th in the league in scoring, number 89 is Glenn Big Baby Davis. Carlos Arroyo is 68th in the league in assists, and none of Miami’s centers would make the Celtics team. Moving forward I think the Heat should just put the ball in LeBron’s hands a la Magic Johnson, have Mike Miller/Jones/House run around the court ready to hit threes, Wade ready to drive to the rim, Bosh setting screens and making his midrange shot and the center just staying out of the way. The Heat are clearly a top 3 team in the league, that’s not going to change, but they do not have 3 superstars, they just have 2 really really incredible superstars.
2. Boston Celtics
I was amazed after game 1 of the season when the I wanna say Craig Sager asked Rajon Rondo, “So are the Heat the team to beat in the East?”
…
Did he not watch the game? Now I don’t want to get too carried away, it was a home game for Boston, they’ve played together now for 3 going on 4 years and Miami’s core had not played 3 minutes together, but as I pointed out above where the Heat get credit for having one more superstar than they actually have, Boston is not given credit for the superstar they have running the point. I was nervous going into this season at putting Rondo as the #1 point guard, but I’m willing to go a step further and say, as of now, Rondo is the MVP of the league. He is shattering assist records with an unreal 82 assists after 5 games. 82! I got the chance to see him live in person at the Palace and I left that game impressed but wondering if he had 11 or 12 assists. I get home and read he had 17 and 0 turnovers. Sixteen, seventeen assist games have become normal for Rondo. Here’s his stat line this season:
Rajon Rondo: 11.6 ppg, 16.4 apg, 6 rpg, 2.3 steals
Here’s Steve Nash’s from his MVP 2005-2006 season
Steve Nash: 15.5 ppg, 11.5 apg, 3.3 rpg, 0.8 steals
Yes, it is early, and just like that pitcher on the Colorado Rockies stats tend to lower as the year goes on, but right now Rondo is playing point guard at John Stockton levels.
The mistake made when people analyze the Celtics vs Heat is they compare the Boston big 3 vs the Miami new 3. Boston is not the Big 3 anymore, they are now Rondo’s team. When you look at the Celtics as an MVP point guard surrounded by Pierce, Allen, and Garnett and a list of solid centers, that is why they are the 2nd best team in the league, minutes away from being #1. I don’t know if an MVP caliber point guard has ever had a better supporting cast than Rondo. Nash’s Suns teams, no, Stockton’s Jazz teams, no, Chris Paul’s Hornets, no. If I were holding a tryout for a 12 man team and the rosters of Boston and Miami came in, my team would look like this:
PG: Rajon Rondo, Nate Robinson
SG: D-Wade, Ray Allen, Mike Miller
SF: LeBron James, Paul Pierce
PF: Kevin Garnett, Chris Bosh, Big Baby Davis
C: Perkins, Shaq,
8 Celtics, 4 Heat. If the Celtics had kept Tony Allen from last year it would have been 9 and 3. I stand by the Celtics as best in the East because of their MVP caliber point guard, the aging but still solid Big 3 who as a big 3 may be past their time, but as a supporting cast no one can match, and solid depth at the post. But still at the end of the day they remain a little behind…
1. Los Angeles Lakers
They’ve gotten even better. Game 1 of the season they showed why they re-signed Shannon Brown and brought in Steve Blake. Theo Ratliff and rookie Carracter have proven to be solid additions at the post and Kobe Gasol still look great, Kobe putting up an impressive 30, 10, 10 the other night. Take the championship team from last year add a solid backup point guard, an Odom playing better, more depth at the post, Matt Barnes, and eventually Andrew Bynum and that is why the Lakers are undefeated showing no signs of losing anytime soon. How come the Lakers are out of the 72 win talk?
Great Week 1, great to have basketball back, excited for the rest of the season.
No comments:
Post a Comment