If you are a true fan of the NBA and the ESPN (and let’s face it, with the lockout and all, there are few of us left) then you and your friends had to be among the thousands of people screaming at ESPN’s Ranking of every single player in an NBA uniform.

My friends and I were among them, including a long-distance email chain that has since spurred what amounts to a 200-email conversation over whether Tony Parker is an elite point guard.

With arguments like that going on in my real life, I thought I would also bring those same conversations to my fake life: the internet! So from here on out, we are going to take ESPN Rankings (as well as some other sources) and compare some of the best players in the league against other players and see whether or not ESPN got the rankings right. That series of posts will be creatively named “NBA One on One.”

But before we do a deep dive into any two players, I wanted to give you all an overall feel, in “Five Points of Contention,” of how I (and some of my friends) feel about ESPN’s rankings.

Point of Contention #1: Is LeBron James the Best Player in the NBA?
After what happened to LeBron in the NBA Finals against the Dallas Mavericks, most people have moved away from calling LeBron James the best player in the NBA. However, when you’re trying to do an objective analysis of a player’s ability, it’s almost impossible to rank LeBron James anywhere but #1. ESPN analysts were asked to rank players based on their abilities on a scale from 1 to 10. You can’t give LeBron James a 9 and then give somebody else a 10, so it makes sense that he would be ranked #1. Even knowing how the grading was done though, I can’t excuse the rankings because the system was flawed. LeBron James can’t be deemed the best player in the NBA when on the biggest stage, he didn’t even show up.

A Friend’s Take: “LeBron James failed his final. Sure, he was talkative, diligent, and turned all of his homework in on time during the semester, but when you bomb the final, I can’t give you an “A” for effort.”

Point of Contention #2: Is Chris Paul (#4) actually better than Derrick Rose (#8)?
It’s actually a trickier question than one might have thought. Looking at the season as a whole last year, these two guys were actually pretty even in terms of what they produced. That being said, Paul’s team is a lot worst without him than the Bulls are without Rose. That did, however, swing a little more in Rose’s favor after the All-Star break, when Rose turned up his game a notch and Paul’s knee injury caused Paul to fall from his November and December performance. Thus, as it stands at this very point and time, Rose is the better player. But the argument for whom to take could easily come down to which type of point guard you want for your team, which makes this question even harder.

A Friend’s Take: “Derrick Rose was the MVP. Need I say more?”

Point of Contention #3: I love Time Duncan (#19), but he’s way too high.
Tim Duncan wasn’t Tim Duncan last season. He was just some old guy who would appear to have a lot of potential if he were 22 or 23 years old. At his advanced age, Duncan just isn’t going to be dominant player any more, no matter how fundamentally sound he is. He was very serviceable on the boards, which is why he will always have a starting job in this league, but his offense and defense are so mediocre now, that it’s impossible to justify saying that in league wide draft, any GM would take Duncan in the first round.

A Friend’s Take: “If Duncan is better than Zach Randolph (#20), how did the Spurs lose to Memphis in the first round?”

Point of Contention #4: Do people know who LaMarcus Aldridge (#23) is?
Playing in the Great Northwest really has cost Aldridge a lot of exposure and lot of advertising dollars. The man is far better than his #23 ranking would suggest. If you asked the Boston Celtics to trade Paul Pierce (#21), Kevin Garnett (#22) or Rajon Rondo (#17) for Aldridge, they pull the trigger on each of those three options, right? Aldridge was a beast this season, and he’s far better than Kevin Love (#16), who is only ranked that high because of his fraudulent double-double record.

A Friend’s Take: “Aldridge is the quintessential Matt Forte. He does a lot of different things well, and his “failure” to excel at one thing cost him “prestige” in the eyes of many NBA followers.”

Point of Contention #5: I hate to be that guy, but isn’t Dirk Nowitzki (#5) the best player in the NBA?
Ask yourself this question: if Dirk Nowtizki and LeBron James switch teams and perform the exact same way they did in the NBA Finals, don’t the Miami Heat win the championship instead of the Mavericks? I think so. So if Dirk could win the Finals with his cast of characters and then switch with LeBron and beat James with the Heat’s cast, that to me says that Dirk is the best player. This debate is actually how the whole “LeBron flunked the final” analogy came up. We know Dirk doesn’t usually do that well on tests throughout the semester, but on the standardized test that is the Finals, Dirk scored in the 99 percentile and LeBron was an average 70 percentile test taker at best. If the NBA Finals were the GMAT, Dirk would be at Harvard Business School and LeBron would be going to the business school at Clown College.

A Friend’s Take: “I can’t say Dirk is the best player in the NBA, but at this stagnant point in time when no NBA games are being played or have been played since Dirk hoisted up the trophy and the NBA MVP award, I have to say that Dirk is better than LeBron James.”

The post "NBA One on One: A Look At ESPN’s NBARank" was originally published at TSW.

The NBA lockout is at full gear now. Once you reach a point where business men begin finger-pointing, you know the talks are heating up.

And we definitively reached the point of finger-pointing a couple days ago, when NBA commissioner David Stern literally pointed a finger at Dwyane Wade. Wade admonished Stern for doing so, and let him know exactly how he felt about being treated like a child.

This my friends, represents the most interesting story to come out of the NBA lockout thus far.

Having said that, it will only get better. The fact is that some of the NBA’s teams are losing money at a rapid pace. Operating losses for as many as a third of the teams are being reported, and many of those teams would lose far fewer dollars if there was no NBA season than if they agreed to a deal that resembled the current revenue sharing agreement.

That really puts the owners in the best position. When financially speaking, it is better to sit the season out than embark on another season where the revenues aren’t in your favor; it’s very hard to negotiate with you. The players are quickly realizing that, and you can kind of see the tides turning. The players are turning against one another, as their agents have seemingly taken a definitive stance, and NBA Player reps like Derek Fisher have already had to go out of their way to admonish agents’ actions and intentions.

One has to wonder though, why are the agents going out of their way to get involved in these labor talks? They have asked, or at least hinted at, the players union decertifying as a means to put pressure on the owners. The NBA players’ rep, Billy Hunter, seemingly wants little to do with that, since he would then lose power, and he doesn’t have the same unified backing that the NFL Players rep, DeMaurice Smith, had going into the NFLPA’s decertification.

The player’s agents also wrote a letter telling players to refuse any deal that would relinquish any part of the 57% of revenue they currently receive. Meanwhile, David Stern and the NBA are doing their best to negotiate at 46% revenue split. The NBA agents have to know that at 57% revenue split just isn’t going to happen. As I mentioned, the NBA owners have no reason to play a season this year if such a deal were to happen. So unless the NBA agents are intent on seeing their clients lose a full year of salary, there is no way that their real intent is to have the players strive for nothing less than 57% of revenue.

The NBA agents could, however, see an opportunity for a power grab. Billy Hunter has always been on somewhat shaky ground during his tenure as the head of the NBPA. He doesn’t have the cache that DeMaurice Smith has, and he has made some huge concessions over the years, including the age-requirement. Thus, it’s reasonable to believe that the NBA agents want to get Hunter out of the way. Intrinsically, he doesn’t bother the daily activities of agents, but a lack of leadership at the top, coupled with decertification, would allow the agents to get involved in the negotiation process, while also giving them a chance to put their stamp on this collective bargaining deal.

Of course, the agents’ stance could also be a move to put their foot in the ground on the stance that the NBA owners will fold. After all, losing one season is not big deal if you were going to lose money, but losing 1.5 to 2 seasons, starts to eat away at the value of franchises, and in turn, the wealth of the owners. It’s hard to believe that NBA agents could be so farsighted in a business where their players have relatively short careers, but if there goal really is to continue to have 57% of the revenue go to the players, then a prolonged lockout is about the only way that ever begins to happen.

Whatever their motives, the NBA lockout has now become about more than just players and owners, now the agents seemingly have an agenda that has to be accounted for and reported on. As much as you would like to assume they have the interests of their players in mind, one can only imagine what opportunities lay for them on the shaky ground that is the NBA’s current foundation.

The post "NBA Lockout: What Are the Agents Out To Get?" was originally published at TSW.

When it was 3rd and 21 in last week’s Monday Night Football game between the Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins, Tony Romo came through for his team, when he ran away from the blitz to create enough time for his injured receiver to break open from the not so steel-curtain defense of cornerback Deangelo Hall.

It was a great play for Romo, one that will go down as one of his most courageous. And given that he had jacked up ribs and no receivers around him, the entire game can viewed as somewhat of a “legend-maker” for Romo.

But that’s only if he ever becomes a legend. When I text messaged my Dallas Cowboys fan for a brother after Romo made that play, he promptly exclaimed that very fact, that Romo was indeed headed for legendary status and that this game was the first step towards it. I quickly reminded my brother that in front of Tony Romo, in the line for legendary status, is both Eli Manning and Trent Dilfer—and they have lawn chairs on hand.

That’s not to say Romo isn’t a better talent than both of those guys, because he certainly is. But do you know really is a legend? Tom Brady. John Elway. Joe Montana. Peyton Manning. Those guys are legends, and Tony Romo is no Peyton Manning.

In fact, there was a great example of just how un-legendary and how un-Manning-like Romo really is. Down on the goal line, the game on the line, and the Cowboys looking for their first touchdown of the game, Romo had inexperienced receivers that didn’t seem to know the formations or the routes. And on 3rd and goal, faced with having to score a touchdown or kick yet another field goal, the play resulted in Romo mis-throwing a receiver who ran the wrong route.

Now, for any normal quarterback, that is perfectly understandable, and I do not fault Romo in the least for his receivers failing to run the right routes throughout the entirety of the game. After all, he’s been out all week, likely placing an entire cow on his ribs for the last few days, he shouldn’t also be tasked with having to teach his receivers the finer art of—well, receiving.

Or should he?

As faultless as Romo is for his receivers’ lack of knowledge, that crap never happens to Peyton Manning. Sure, he and a receiver will have a miscommunication from time to time, Peyton will throw a hissy-fit in front of the camera, and 9 times out of 10, it was probably Peyton who was right. But that doesn’t happen 10 or 12 times a game like it did to Romo the other night, and believe me, Manning has had his fair share of injured receivers. Yet for some reason, when you throw an Austin Collie, a Pierre Garcon, an Anthony Gonzalez and a Jacob Tamme in front of Peyton Manning, they don’t just run the right routes, they become all-world wide receivers.

That’s what makes Manning, and his other peers, legends and so-called “leader guys.” They actually lead their receivers not just to wins, but to performances beyond their means. Dan LeBatard always jokes that if you lined up a shopping cart at tight end and had the left tackle give it a push down the field at the start of every play, Manning would make the shopping cart a 1,000 yard receiver. On the flip-side, Romo would yell, scream and embarrass the shopping cart 12 times per game, throw an interception in the direction of the shopping cart, and lose the game.

Am I being unfair? Not really. Again, it’s not Romo’s fault that his best receivers that night were injured, and the remaining ones didn’t know how to play football. But the great ones, the ones that demonstrate true leadership, make others rise to their level of excellence. It’s why Rob Grownkoski is the best fantasy football option in the world right now, and it’s why Jordy Nelson is practically Pro Bowl bound. Their quarterbacks make lesser plays better players, and they do it over a season, during the playoffs, or even in as small a sample size as a one-game spin-off, in which all other 10 starters have been stricken by the 3 hour flu just before kickoff.

That’s not what Romo does. It’s not what he did Monday Night. What Romo did Monday night was single-handedly get a victory, despite everybody around him messing up. But that’s not what the great quarterbacks do. That’s not what the Hall of Fame quarterbacks do. With those guys, you can’t tell that they are doing all of the heavy lifting, because the demand the best out of everyone around them, and the lackluster crap that went on with Romo’s receivers on Monday night is not something you see Brady and Manning dealing with throughout an entire game—ever.

But big ups to Romo. He came through Monday night. He is a great quarterback, one of the top 10 in the league. But legend? Hall of Famer? Leader guy? Peyton Manning? Those things he is not.

The post "Romo Was Great, But Leader Guy He Isn’t" was originally published at TSW.

When I say to you that the caddy has little to do with how well a golfer performs, I don’t suppose that what would then arise from your head is a fiery smoke, produced by the raging inferno churning deep within your brain as you try to process how on earth I could possibly insult the righteousness of the caddy profession like that.

Glad we can agree on that.

However, if I were to suggest that the manager of a major league baseball team had just about as much to do with his team winning as a caddy does, you probably would be a little bit upset.

If I took it a step farther and said that an NBA coach is no more to his team than Steve Williams was to Tiger Woods, that too might inspire you to confront me.

And if I even dared suggest that a purveyor of America’s pastime, a head coach of NFL football, was nothing more than the football equivalent of a guy who carries around a bag all day, you might be enraged enough to hurt me.

Before you go too crazy with that 2×4, let me assure that is not “exactly” what I think of the “coaching” profession. But I will assert that there is little more to coaching than there is to what the caddy does. And no matter what your retort is, I can almost assuredly connect something a head coach of a professional sports team does to that of what a caddy does in golf.

A caddy gives advice to his golfer. A head coach advises his players.

A caddy helps pick the tools the golfer will use in the act. A coach chooses the overall equipment requirements of his team—within the overall regulations of the league, of course.

A caddy tells the golfer where to hit the ball. A coach tells a player where to hit, throw or shoot the ball.

A coach chooses the play, but sometimes the player audibles out of it. A caddy defines the best route for a putt, and a golfer sometimes overturns the caddy.

The only real differences between a caddy and a head coach are the fact that a head coach is given institutional control and the head coach is responsible for more than one player.

Those are the only two things that separate the caddy profession from the head coaching profession. Well, that and the whole “carry my bags” thing.

Yet, with those mere two differences, we as a public are immediately ready to castigate the very person who suggest that the a coach is nothing more than an overpowering caddy with at least two players dumb enough to listen to him. And it’s those two differences that allowed us to go to town on Steve Williams, Woods’ former caddy, when dare suggested that he was the impetus behind Tiger’s and Adam Scott’s success. However, when a head coach is given all the glory in the world, we say nothing. In the wake of three Super Bowls in four years, we gave Bill Belichick lifetime immunity from football criticism, skepticism and maybe even a rule or two (i.e., “Spygate”).

Despite the only difference between Williams and Belichick is that Belichick has to manage a group of players and he actually calls the plays. But in every other way, they are the same. When Belichick was designing the game plan, Williams is out reading the greens. When Belichick was working one-on-one with Tom Brady, Williams was out measuring Tiger’s distance with the 3 iron. When Belichick was calling plays, Williams was calling shots. When Steve Williams won tournaments, it was coincidentally with one of the best golfers in the history of the world. When Belichick win Super Bowls, it was coincidentally with one of the best quarterbacks in the history of the world. We don’t get off this merry go-round of similarities until we get to the point where Tiger Woods fires Steve Williams in a situation where Belichick makes Tom Brady take a pay cut.

So I guess the question is, if we as a society, myself included, are going to have such disdain for the caddy vs. coach comparison, what are we putting value in? Is it the managerial role that coaches are granted by the organization? Is that the value? That really isn’t a skill so much as an earned privilege. Sure, you have to be a good manager in order to maintain such control over multiple people, but how much do we think that lends to the winning of football, basketball and baseball games? Sure, you can’t have the inmates running the asylum and win a Super Bowl, but you can be darn to close to it. Just ask the 90’s Cowboys, the 80’s Bears or the 70’s Steelers. With a history of anarchy succeeding like that in the sanctity that is the National Football League, I’m not sure I can grand the coach so much respect for being given control of something as a means to win football games.

I will say that being in charge of designing an offense, shuffling players around and implementing strategy is a skill set becoming of winning coaches, and it may fall into line with being the manager, but doesn’t a caddy strategize for a course in the same way?

I’m not sure I can buy the “manager” argument that puts the coach ahead of the caddy, so maybe it’s the institutional control. Coaches aren’t in charge of just players, but the strategy, implementation of strategy and the execution of it. We blame coaches when a play doesn’t work. We don’t blame a caddy when a swing doesn’t go through. We blame Belichick when he goes for it on 4th down and loses the game, but we don’t blame Steve Williams when Tiger tries to get to the green ahead of regulation and the ball lands in the water. For some reason, when the athletes fail in team sports, we feel as if the coach’s organization of multiple players caused the poor result, not the players themselves. And that my friend is the difference.

That’s the difference we see between coaches and caddies that we can’t let go of. The caddy has no blame, and with that he gets no reward. We can’t celebrate Steve Williams when he is on the winning team with Adam Scott, because we wouldn’t massacre him, or even know if we should, had he cost Scott the win with one of his “suggestions.” It’s a matter of risk-reward. The head coach puts his neck out there, and if he fails, fans chop it off. If he wins, he’s hoisted as the all-knowing leader of athletes.

Fact is though; coaches neutralize each other, whereas caddies can’t. A bad coach on one team increases the odds of success for a good coach on the other. The good coach comes out looking as if he has more of an impact than he did, because his suggestions are directly pitted against the suggestions of the opposing, but worse off, head coach on the side of the field. A caddy’s suggestions are not weighed directly against another’s, only against an index score that can’t fight back. So when a caddy has a better suggestion than the other caddy, we can extricate the suggestion from one point to another and say he out-suggested the other golfer’s caddy. But with a coach, it’s right there on film. Belichick calls a screen against your blitz, and I can tell you why Belichick is the better coach.

But inherently, institutional control and direct competition aside, the jobs of a coach and a caddy are the same—or at least they have a similar effect on the outcome of their respective sports. Personally, and perhaps to fault and in spite of my own argument, I will continue to prop up the NFL coach for the “nuance” involved in designing plays that work and putting 11 people in a position to win against schemes that can beat a superiorly athletic team.

However, when you start going down the line to basketball, soccer, hockey coaches and baseball coaches, it’s hard not see the delineation from caddy to coach. Very hard indeed.

The post "Coach v. Caddy: Is Steve Williams the Belichick of the PGA?" was originally published at TSW.

Kevin Kolb is a lot of things. He is strong-armed, quick-footed, coachable and patient.

But is he a franchise savior?

In trading for Kevin Kolb this past week, the Arizona Cardinals made one thing abundantly clear; they are placing the entire franchise on the back of Kevin Kolb. Of course, the coaches will give you the usual spiel about how the team is not built around any single individual and that it takes 50-people to make this thing work. However, if football and sports were 100% about the team, then individuals wouldn’t be traded for groups of other individuals and/or draft picks the way they are. And if Kolb wasn’t worth more than 1/50th of the Cardinals on-field potential, they would not have traded their starting cornerback and a draft pick to Philadelphia just to get what was a second-string quarterback a season ago.

Given that the Cardinals gave up so much to get Kolb, the pressure is on. Fans who knew they had a 10-year starter in cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie are going to expect a lot out of Kolb and question whether he was worth if from the first game of NFL Week 1.

And who can blame them?

Not many Pro-Bowl caliber defensive players pass through Arizona, so to give one up for a guy who has not played an entire season worth of football since 2006 when he was in college seems pretty risky.

And it is.

Head coach Ken Whisenhunt knows he has essentially staked his coaching career on this decision. Sure, the guys who enabled this trade from their cushy seats in the press box are the ones who let this stuff happens, but often times their careers are less-tarnished by the results of the trades than the very people who had nothing to do with pulling the trigger on the acquisition.

So now Whisenhunt must turn what has, to this point, been nothing more than potential into a solid, starting, NFL quarterback. That’s a hard job to do; but it’s not one that Whisenhunt hasn’t had success with in the past. It was Whisenhunt who made Ben Roethlisberger one of the most successful young quarterbacks in the history of the NFL. As the Pittsburgh Steelers young offensive coordinator, Whisenhunt got Roethlisberger to win his first 15 games as a rookie starting quarterback, and then he helped Big Ben get a ring in 2006.

Since then, the grass has not been as green. Turning potential-laden Arizona quarterbacks into budding, young stars has proven a difficult task. Whether it was Matt Leinart or an even more seasons Derrick Anderson, Whisenhunt’s quarterback struggles have sank his team. In two seasons with Kurt Warner as the full-time starter, the Cardinals and Whisenhunt enjoyed 4 playoff victories. In the remaining two seasons, the Cardinals have managed a 13-19 season and no trips to the postseason.

And now Kevin Kolb is going to turn it around…right?

Truth be told, one of the best ways to draw interest in a team is to be the Eagles backup quarterback. First it was AJ Feeley, for whom the Miami Dolphins paid a pretty penny to take off the Eagles hands. Then it was Jeff Garcia, who was soon courted by Tampa Bay for big dollars to start for the Buccaneers. Once Donovan McNabb was slated to become the backup, the Eagles got big draft picks for #5 via the Washington Redskins. And now we have Kevin Kolb, for which the Cardinals traded away their most reliable defensive player.

But if Kolb turns out to produce the same results that the other Andy Reid rejects have produced, his Arizona career will be short-lived. Feeley was a failure in Miami and got benched. Jeff Garcia lasted all of one season and was down in South Florida. And Donovan McNabb is now on his 3rd team in 18 months.

Kolb is different though, right? After all, unlike Feeley, Kolb was a high, blue-chip draft pick with division 1 size and talent. Oh wait, he went in the second round?

Yeah, but unlike Garcia, Kolb can see in the pocket and doesn’t break it unless unnecessary. Come again? Kolb got sacked 7% of the time last season.

Okay, but Kolb is much more accurate than McNabb ever was.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

We have a winner. Kolb is more accurate at the age of 27 than McNabb was. Then again, Kolb also had DeSean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin, Brent Celeck and LeSean McCoy to throw to last season and threw for 60%. McNabb’s quality receivers list consisted of Chad Lewis, Charles Johnson and Duce Staley and he compiled 58% of his passes.

I do not want to be Debbie-downer here, but the history of the Eagles backup quarterback doesn’t bode well for the Cardinal and Ken Whisenhunt’s job security. Maybe it’s the Eagles system, maybe it’s Andy Reid constantly being in a QB’s face, or maybe it’s just a coincidence. Either way, 3, 6, 15 and 20 seasons from now, people will be making historical judgments on the basis of this trade and whether Kolb was worth it.

All I can say is that I doubt Kolb will be at that party.

The post "Can Kevin Kolb Actually Deliver in the Dessert?" was originally published at TSW.

One of the reasons for this year’s NFL lockout is that football players are some of the most expendable athletes there are in all of professional sports. They may be the toughest, fastest, most athletic athletes there are in sports, but just about every player can be replaced without changing the way you or I enjoy watching the game of football.

That said, there are still some players that are quite indispensable. Peyton Manning really can’t be replaced. It does the Tennessee Titans no good to get rid of Chris Johnson. Losing Troy Polamalu would change the entire structure of the Pittsburgh Steelers defense. And as the San Diego Chargers found out last season, letting Vincent Jackson sit out the season kept their team out of the playoffs in what is a very, weak, weak division.

On the flip side of that, there are several players out there that are very expendable—and I’m not just talking about the 51st guy on the roster. I’m talking about bona fide starters and guys with names that every ardent NFL football fan has heard of. Many of these guys are going to find out just how expendable they are once this lockout is over and free agency turns into a game of musical chairs. So without further adieu, here are the NFL’s ten most expendable players as we enter into the 2011 NFL season.

Tony Gonzalez, TE, Atlanta Falcons
There’s no question, that in the history or tight ends, Tony Gonzalez might be the least replaceable guy in the annals of American football. However, Tony is old now. Very old. And his ability to get open and change the game as a receiver has made him very expendable as of late. With just 70 receptions, 656 receiving yards and 6 touchdowns, Gonzalez isn’t just expendable to the Falcons, he’s expendable in fantasy football leagues across America! The fact that he was never the best blocker in the world doesn’t help him cause. Tony just better hope the Falcons can’t pick up a healthy Todd Heap or something like that on the free agent market, or else he could see his playing time, or worse yet—his roster spot, become something of the past.

Kevin Kolb, QB, Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles backup quarterback has a lot of value on the trade market right now, and so he’s probably one of the more obviously expendable players in the league right now. With Michael Vick as the Eagles starter, Andy Reid knows that he can’t invest too much time and money into a guy who is not the future of the team right now. Sure, Vick is an injury-case waiting to happen, but a solid backup quarterback (ehemm, Brett Favre) is not a hard thing to find—especially for a guy like Reid, who makes solid backups out of ant hills on a yearly basis.

Reggie Bush, RB, New Orleans Saints
Reggie Bush was a star at USC, but he has been everything but since entering the NFL. He’s not the best runner on his team—hell, he isn’t one of the five best runners on the team. As a receiver out of the backfield, he’s great, but he’s no threat to run the ball (just 4.2 yards per carry on 36 attempts last year), then teams don’t account for his rushing ability and his receiving skills are accounted for by the opposing defense. Let’s face it; as long as the Saints can sign a running back—any running back—there’s no chance that Reggie Bush is getting that $12 million salary on his current contract, and he will be cut or that contract will be restructured to reflect his true value once free agency begins after the lockout is over.

Jermichael Finley, TE, Green Bay Packers
At its roots, the term expendable means I don’t need you to do what I do. Well, the Green Bay Packers job is to win football games, and that they did last season—all the way to the Super Bowl. They did it without Finley too, who was on the IR during the Packers run to the championship. In that time, the Packers found a worthwhile tight end in Donald Lee, who essentially did everything quarterback Aaron Rodgers asked of him. That begs the question, who was making Finley look so good prior to the injury? Was it Finley’s talents or Rodgers’ arm? Maybe it was a little bit of both, but the latter certainly found a way to compensate without Finley when he wasn’t just expendable, but nonexistent during the Packers championship season.

Nick Barnett, LB, Green Bay Packers
See “Jermichael Finley.”

Ricky Williams, RB, Miami Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins actually have a need at running back. As good as Williams and Ronnie Brown have been in the past, they are no longer dependable for 16 games, especially behind a non-veteran offensive line. Williams will likely get the door during free agency, as the Dolphins seek to get a younger, more explosive backfield.

Roy Williams, WR, Dallas Cowboys
Roy Williams is one of the highest paid receivers in the NFL, and yet he’s one of the worst. He’s not even the second best wide receiver on the team, and he was slated to be the first when he was initially traded for a couple of seasons ago. Now the Dallas Cowboys are struggling to get back under the newly proposed cap after a season without one. It’s very likely that Roy-boy is sent packing if the Cowboys have a hard time restructuring his or other players’ contracts.

Kyle Orton, QB, Denver Broncos
Kyle Orton has put up the yardage in Denver, but unfortunately, he may become a victim of young-person potential. The Broncos were moving the ball early last season, but they weren’t winning games. And with a new regime in place, who wants to go with the old quarterback who can’t win? That makes Tim Tebow the likely starter in Denver this season, and it makes Orton a casualty of Tebow’s potential. He may or may not get cut, but he’s not leading that team out of the locker room in NFL Week 1.

Dallas Clark, TE, Indianapolis Colts
Again, we face the question of, “who’s making the player?” The player himself or the all-world quarterback? Peyton Manning has made many a receiver look like a Pro Bowler in his day, but some guys never get attached with that label. We all just assume that Reggie Wayne and Marvin Harrison were good receivers all along, they just happen to play with Manning. We also make the same assumption of Dallas Clark. But can we be sure that’s the case—especially with Clark? When Clark went down last season, Jacob Tamme looked like the reincarnation of Ben Coates after being an unheard of entity the year before. That leads me to believe that anybody can play tight end in the Colts system, and if I were Clark this season, I’d do my best to show I was worthy of keeping around—because I’m not 100% sure that he is.

Casey Hampton, NT, Pittsburgh Steelers
Last but not least is one of our generation’s best nose tackles. He never got a lot of credit or publicity, because of the nature of his position, but Casey Hampton was one of the best that ever did it. Keyword: “was.” Bless his soul, but Hampton isn’t what he used to be. In 15 games last season, Hampton had just 20 tackles and a sack. To put that in perspective, he had more than twice as many tackles and sacks a season ago. At 33 years old, it’s natural that Hampton is on the decline. But being on the decline makes you more expendable, and the Steelers would be better off getting a younger, more athletic player to take some snaps away from Hampton during the 2011 NFL football season.

The post "The NFL’s Ten Most Expendable Players – 2011" was originally published at TSW.

Miami Herald’s Dan LeBatard has said it over and over about his hometown fans lucky acquiring of the Big Three: “Miami doesn’t deserve this.”

And Dan is right. The city of Miami didn’t deserve to get three of the NBA’s best 15 players. They are a fan base that shows up late, if not infrequently to games. The town itself is not inclined to celebrate, love or appreciate basketball. And the fans would much rather spend their time on South Beach at a party then at American Airlines Arena—and you know what? So would I!

Of all the fan bases in America, Miamians are among the least deserving of a basketball franchise’s instant rise to relevance. And Americans are just as non-deserving of a World Cup winning Women’s Soccer team.

Hell, Americans aren’t deserving of a World Cup-winning soccer team of any gender! We don’t love soccer. We don’t appreciate soccer. And that’s why I don’t feel sorry for the country or myself after watching our women’s team lose to Japan on penalty kicks in the World Cup final.

Sure, at the end of the day, who’s deserving of anything when it comes to the bird’s eye-view relevance of sports? But relative to the support, care and energy other nations put into their soccer teams, Americans are lucky if we deserve to even be in the tournament—never mind win it.

Now, the earnest soccer fan may disagree with me, and rightfully so. After all, he or she as an individual certainly deserves a championship-caliber soccer team if they put forth the kind of passion and energy other top soccer nations do. However, as with the game of soccer, being a fan is a team sport. In the NFL, if your city doesn’t collectively come together to support the team at the stadium with its dollars, you don’t get to watch the game on television. In college basketball arenas across the nation, it’s practically against the law to sit down before the home team scores. And in baseball, if the road team hits a game-defining homerun into the stands, you better throw that damn ball back on to the field and join your fellow fans in booing the home team.

That same team-mentality is required of US soccer fans if they really want to deserve a championship. If Americans want to feel entitled (and we love being entitled!) to a great team every World Cup, every year and every game, then we need to put the same kind of energy into soccer that we put into the NBA and NFL.

Of course, we have been trying to do that for years in America. I actually grew up playing soccer. Among all the organized sports I wound up playing during my childhood, soccer was my first and possibly my best. I love soccer. Or at least I used to. The second I made my Varsity football team in high school and saw the fun, excitement and athletes involved in the sport of football, I abandoned soccer like an open bar that suddenly starts charging for liquor.

So perhaps I do not even deserve to see the USA Women’s team win a soccer championship. Don’t get me wrong, the women on the team deserve to win. They put in the time, energy and effort that’s required of them to do so. But as fans, Americans do not deserve soccer success. We just started paying attention to women’s soccer five minutes ago, and all of a sudden the entire country jumped on the bandwagon—myself included. But bandwagoners do not deserve medals, championships and world bragging rights. That belongs to the faithful, like the Brazilians, the Germans and apparently, the Japanese.

Some of you may view this as treason. Here I am, a “so-called” American, telling the world that America didn’t deserve to see its country’s team win, and you think I’m being un-American in doing so. But you only think that because we were so close. Had we been eliminated two weeks ago, or if we didn’t make the tournament, you wouldn’t even read this article. And that’s understandable, because we don’t really care about soccer, men’s or women’s, in this country.

Now we can get to a point where we do deserve soccer glory. We can start watching soccer on prime time television, going to MLS games and buying Landon Donovan’s jersey instead of Donovan McNabb’s. But until we get there, I will continue to say that we don’t deserve the women’s soccer team we have, never mind the one that won the World Cup in 1999. I wish, hope and even pray we will win despite our lack of allegiance, but as with any other aspect of life, I expect nothing I have yet to earn.

The post "Women’s World Cup: Truth Be Told, We Didn’t Deserve It" was originally published at TSW.

We were doing our best to refrain from lockout talk on TheSportsWatchers.com… until now. But we just couldn’t help ourselves.

However, recent transactions have made it abundantly clear how the players can get some leverage in the NBA labor talks and bring the owners closer to their side of the debate. Quite frankly, this idea could save the 2010-2011 NBA season, and TheSportsWatchers.com does not mind taking credit for it either.

Truthfully, we didn’t come up with the idea. The player that actually came up with it is Deron Williams, who decided to take a $5 million offer to play in Turkey should there be no NBA season, or if the season does not start on time. Of course, if you want to take it a step further, the player who actually came up with going overseas as a negotiating ploy is Josh Childress, who left contract purgatory in Atlanta to take a more lucrative pay day in Europe.

If you don’t see where I’m going with this yet, let me put it out there. NBA Players should start signing contingency contracts to play overseas. Not just some NBA players, all NBA players. Granted, international basketball does not have the profits or revenues to support the full salaries of all NBA players, but they do have the space. If the NBA’s best decide to take some pay cuts, like Deron Williams has, they can effectively get 250-300 players playing overseas and strike a big blow to the NBA and its owners.

I reiterate that there has to be a lot of players involved in this strategy. Williams going off to play in Turkey by himself is not going to do much. While he is exactly the type of player that can get the owners attention, he needs both the Kobe Bryant’s and the Shannon Browns of the world to make this an effective negotiating ploy.

But I see no reason for other players not to join him. First of all, all they would be signing up to do is play basketball. Seems to me like that should be easy enough for basketball players. Second of all, they would be supplementing their incomes. If the players are going to avoid folding for as long as possible, it would be smart to start getting paid once those NBA checks stop getting signed in early November. Lastly, the only downside to playing in Europe, when considering the alternative, is being away from your family. I don’t know the numbers on the two-parent households in the NBA, but the guys without a wife and kids at home, at the very least, should be all about the opportunity to live and work in Europe for a while. And they don’t have to worry about being underpaid or overworked; they have great pro-labor laws in Europe!

With so much incentive to play overseas, I don’t see why the players don’t jump on board and really give the owners something to think about. Now, I know what you’re saying, “How does this actually affect the owners’ ability to negotiate?”

It’s simple. If the players are making relatively “good” money overseas instead of sitting here making nothing like the owners had anticipated, it puts the players in a position of power. Currently, with the overwhelming majority of NBA players lacking any sustainable income from sources outside of basketball, it is pretty hard for them to negotiate when all they can do to make a living is shoot hoops. The owners, on the other hand, have the ability to make money in a myriad of ways, and they stand to lose less money if they miss this upcoming NBA season than if they operate at the same margins they operated at for the last several years.

Negotiating leverage or not, the owners are never going to agree to a deal that forces them to continue to lose money. The players and their representative, Billy Hunter, will eventually have to realize that, whether they want to or not. But if the NBPA wants to fight back on anything beyond a reasonable amount of profit for the owners, they have to have something to fall back on. The owners will not budge against a group of powerless people. Eventually, people who do not make money will fold, and they know that. People making some money, even if it’s a fraction of what they made before, are likely to hold out a lot longer than they would without income—and the owners know that too.

While the owners can afford to lose a season, two seasons is out of the questions. And with the incredible international popularity of basketball (do you have any idea what a Chinese team might pay to have Kobe Bryant on the squad?), it’s not impossible to see players sacrificing NBA life to take a stance—especially if the high-money earners are willing to take that chance.

Is it a fool-proof plan? Of course not. There are going to be a lot of players that are against leaving the NBA and U.S. to play overseas. But if the players are smart negotiators, they will recognize that signing contingency contracts with European teams is the only realistic negotiating ploy they have. If the owners see all of their players making money elsewhere, they will be more likely to meet the players somewhere in the middle. If they see a bunch of guys crying about supporting their families and paying their bills, they know they are in the driver’s seat and will be willing to hold out even longer.

Players, Deron Williams gave you all the game plan; it’s up to you all to execute it.

The post "NBA Lockout Gameplan: Players Should Go Overseas" was originally published at TSW.

I am not unlike most of you out there, women included, when I say that I was not all that drawn in by the Women’s World Cup when it initially began. I know that the immediate accusation against me admitting that is that I have a sexist agenda, and that I am not giving the same chance to female soccer players that I give to male soccer players.

Let me assure you, however, that I am anything but sexist. My lack of initial interest in women’s soccer has nothing to do with the fact that women are in the game, but only with the fact that the best people in the world are not.

It’s an issue of athletic talent, not a player’s gender.

It’s more or less the same reason most sports fans don’t watch women’s basketball. Same game, same sport, and same consequences as men’s basketball, only instead of dunking, there are a lot more jump shots, and dominate players stand out more than Dennis Rodman at a Baptizing ceremony. To put it simply, the lower standard athleticism makes watching women’s soccer less interesting.

However, after USA’s win over Brazil today, athleticism matters no more.

Today, women’s soccer quite possibly gave us the game of the year. They beat the heavily favored Brazilian Women’s soccer team in the quarterfinals of the World Cup, and they did it in about as dramatic a fashion as one can dream up.

First, the US took the initial 1-0 lead on an “own goal” by Brazil. Then the U.S. gave up a goal to Brazil on the second attempt of a penalty kick in regulation. The game would go into extra time, where Brazil caught the US looking for the referees and scored a goal from inside the goalie’s box. But the US women’s soccer team responded with a beautiful cross into the box, where Abby Wambach headed the soccer ball into the net, which tied the game in what was the latest goal ever scored in the history of the World Cup.

In penalty kicks, the US made all five of their kicks, and USA’s namesake, Hope Solo, performed a solo act; blocking one of Brazil’s penalty kicks to give USA the win.

Oh, and did I mention that the US was down a man after Brazil’s first goal?

This was an absolutely amazing game. It was full of physicality, skill and will power. Of course, having grown up around female athletes, I never doubted that any of those traits existed in women’s sports. What I doubted was the exemplary play late in the game and the incredible circumstances surrounding the game. Admittedly, those are not things that are indicative of male sports alone, but rarely do we see games of this magnitude play out like this in female sports. Usually, the better team wins in convincing fashion because of a sheer difference in talent, which is rarely the situation in male sports.

But not today.

Today, U.S. Women’s soccer did more than advance to the semi-finals of the World Cup; they advanced the sport of women’s soccer, and soccer in general, in this nation.

So you can rest assure that I won’t be chilling at Hudson River Café the next time this team takes the field in a meaningful game. I will be watching Wambach, Solo and the rest do their thing for the rest of this World Cup and World Cups of the future. Granted, it’s unlikely we will see one of the three remaining games play out the way it did between USA and Brazil, but at least now I know it’s a possibility.

The post "Zo Knows: Women’s Soccer Is Worth Watching" was originally published at TSW.

I am not one to spend too much time on NFL and NBA lockout talk. Thankfully, we at TheSportsWatchers.com averted an idea to focus most of our summer content on that very subject, even though we knew it would be a wildly searched for topic. Despite our owner’s love for all things media and business, we could not muster up the strength or passion to give you details on the latest meeting between owners and players. Thus, we give you our regularly scheduled programming: sports!

One question that everybody is asking themselves as they prepare for their yet-to-be-determined fantasy football seasons is whether or not Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick will be as awesome a football player in the 2011 NFL football season as he was in 2010.

However, posing such a question is more than an issue of can he repeat himself. It’s also an issue of, was he that good in the first place?

As wonderful as some of the numbers Vick put up last season were, he fizzled out in the latter half of his season. Then if you take into account some of the unprecedented nature of Vick’s numbers, you may wonder just how likely he is to be the MVP candidate he was a season ago.

Let’s start by looking at just how good Vick was in 2011. When it comes to quarterbacks, I only care about five things: completion percentage, adjusted yards/attempt, touchdown percentage, interception percentage and passing yards per game—just so I can get an idea of how prolific a quarterback is. In those categories, Vick ranked 10th in completion percentage, 5th in adjusted yards/attempt, 6th in touchdown percentage, 4th in interception percentage, and 9th in passing yards per game.

Not bad, but to put that in perspective, 2010 NFL MVP Tom Brady finished 4th, 1st, 1st, 1st and 13th. As for Aaron Rodgers, he finished 5th, 3rd, 4th, 10th and 7th.

I think it’s safe to say, from looking at those numbers alone, Michael Vick was no Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady, albeit, he wasn’t that far away from the latter either. However, Vick was two-dimensional. He was as prolific a runner as he was a passer in 2010, and the numbers bare that. Vick rushed for 9 touchdowns in 2010 and 667 yards, the sixth most ever by a quarterback in NFL history.

So it suffices to say, while he wasn’t better than the MVP of the regular season or of the Super Bowl, Vick was still pretty damn good. Not the best quarterback in the game by any stretch, but a guy teams needed to prepare for, and he was someone that lifted his team to amazing heights, especially when the opposing team was loose with their pass rush.

But as good as Vick was overall, his game was questionable at a very distinct point in the season: the second half of it! To be more exact, it was Vick’s own personal second half of the season that saw him fade off. After coming back from the rib injury, Vick was not the same quarterback that he had been in his first six games.

In those first six games of Vick’s 2010 NFL season, Vick scored 15 touchdowns, had zero turnovers and averaged 8.8 yards per pass attempt. However, in Vick’s second six games, Vick did manage to score 15 touchdowns again, but he was much less efficient. He caused 9 turnovers during that period, and his average yards per attempt dropped by over a yard.

Essentially, Vick played like a Hall of Famer in the first six games and he played like the Vick of old in the final six. Which guy is he? One can’t be too sure. But there are a few stats out there that may help us predict the future.

For starters, Vick is unlikely to be the guy we saw in the second part of his season. First, the interceptions and turnovers came under immense pressure from the defense. Part of it was a banged-up offensive line, part of it was bad coaching, and part of it was Vick’s lack of preparedness for the blitz—which we had seen to some extent back in Atlanta. Well, you can rest assure that the Eagles is line is healthier than it was a season ago, Coach Andy Reid will have to prepare the offense for the blitz, and if Vick wants this long-term contract, he better learn to get rid of the ball and avoid injury.

Secondly, Vick isn’t necessarily going to have the success on the ground he had last year. My God, 9 rushing touchdowns is a lot for a quarterback. In fact, it’s the third-most ever by a quarterback. But rushing touchdowns for a quarterback are very happenstance. They don’t run the ball enough to consistently score on the ground, and the 1-yard sneak-ins are completely situational occurrences—not an ability! Besides, history shows us that no quarterback has ever rushed for 5 touchdowns or more came back to rush for more than five touchdowns the following season. In fact, the only quarterbacks to reach 5 after a stellar touchdown-rushing season the year before are Kordell Stewart and Daunte Culpepper. While Vick is undeniably the best rushing quarterback of all-time, the odds say he’s not likely to produce on the ground as much as he did in 2010.

So I have one point in favor of Vick replicating his stats; he will be more prepared for the blitz he saw in the second half of last season. I also have one point against Vick; his rushing touchdowns are likely to be cut in half. So what’s the completely unscientific tiebreaker?

Competition.

As it stands now, there hasn’t been any player movement in the NFL, and with a prologanted lock-out being a likely scenario, who really thinks that there will be a whole lot of wheeling and dealing by the time the season starts? If things stay pretty much as is, the Philadelphia Eagles, themselves included, are in one of the worst defensive divisions in football. The New York Giants were 17th, the Washington Redskins were 21st and the Dallas Cowboys were 31st. Those teams were just bad, particularly bad at defending the pass without much hope of being any better in 2011.

Thus, I fully expect Michael Vick to take advantage of these suspect defenses. Yes, they have a year of Vick in the Philly system on the books now, but it’s not as if he was running some well-oiled machine out there—he was adlibbing, making plays and being an athlete. He will continue to do that in 2011, and for six games against the NFC East, he will look like a Hall of Famer. Against the rest, he won’t be nearly as bad as he was during the second half of the season. Bet against Vick if you want to, but when the allegedly-upcoming 2011 season is all said and done, Vick should be one of the best five quarterbacks in the league.

The post "Can Michael Vick Do It Again?" was originally published at TSW.

I’m a stat guy, but as most would agree, stats do not tell the entire story. That is why the NBA Playoffs is a conundrum for basketball stat geeks.

Why?

Well, it’s a numbers game.

As a stat guy, I shouldn’t let a relatively small sample size trump the findings of a large sample size—especially if that large sample size embodies—well, everything.

However, with the NBA Playoffs, that’s exactly what stat geeks have to do. As much as we want to take into account an 82-game season, the fact is, players and teams change the way they play in the playoffs, making much of the stats collected during the regular worthless.

Because of that, the end of a postseason has more of an effect on the NBA landscape than it does in any other major sports league. Case and point: LeBron James. Entering the playoffs, I thought he was the best player in the NBA. Now I don’t know if LeBron James is the best player on his team. His shaky performance in just six games was so staggering against the height of NBA competition that I have to change my opinion of where he ranks as a player.

How much so though?

Here are the top 10 players in the NBA:

1. Dwyane Wade, Miami Heat
Call me crazy. Call me irrational. Call me stupid. But don’t call me out of line here. You know and I know that one of the many questions about LeBron’s move to the Miami Heat was whether or not he would remain the best player on his own team. But the regular season nipped that thought in the bud, as LeBron James finished well ahead of Dwyane Wade in the NBA 2011 MVP Vote.

However, once the NBA Playoffs rolled around, it was a different story. All of a sudden, Wade was gaining on LeBron. The lowly Philadelphia 76ers aside, Wade had a great series against the Boston Celtics, while LeBron James closed them out. LeBron James basically took care of the Chicago Bulls himself, but Wade was the man in the NBA Finals. When it was all said and done though, LeBron failed to be “LeBron” when the game was on the line in fourth quarter of the championship round.

While most people like to say that each of the first three quarters matter as much as the fourth quarter, the fact is that much of basketball comes down to whose hands you want the ball in for the final 5 minutes of the game. Not within the final minute. Not in the last ten seconds. Not the final shot. For me, the best basketball players are the ones that do a variety of things for your team throughout the final 5 minutes of a game. The entirety of that final five minutes gives us a better idea of how a player plays in the clutch. The way those other “clutch” scenarios play out are a mere result of luck, and any judgment from those random moments is irrational and nonsensical.

In the 2011 NBA Finals, LeBron James faded in the fourth quarter on basketball’s biggest stage. You can’t be the basketball player if you can’t impose your talent when it counts. In the Finals, we saw Wade, Jason Terry, and of course, Dirk Nowitzki produce in the fourth quarter and make plays in the final five minutes that led their teams to victory. Removing Terry from this equation, as good as Nowitzki was, he was no more efficient than Wade in the Finals, and he only plays one side of the ball. Thus, for the second time in his career, Wade was the best player in the Finals after already being among the top 3 players in the league. So without further adieu, I now anoint Dwyane Wade as the best player in the NBA.

As for the rest of the list, here is how it all pans out.

2. Dwight Howard, Orlando Magic
Dwight Howard should have been the MVP this past season. He was the best defensive player in the league, and he was one of the most efficient offensive players. Without him, the Orlando Magic would have looked like the Golden State Warriors—at best. His improved offensive game (he averaged more points this season than he ever has) helped elevate him above LeBron James for now. If he continues to develop, he can stay ahead of LeBron for the time-being.

3. LeBron James, Miami Heat
Sorry, LeBron, you just weren’t clutch enough. I suppose if you had shown up in the fourth quarters of the NBA Finals, you would still be #1 in my book. Remember all of those “Kobe vs. LeBron” articles we ran? We gave you the nod every time. While we still “might” take you over Kobe, it’s pretty clear that you’re not even the lead dog on your own team anymore.

4. Chris Paul, New Orleans Hornets
Chris Paul bounced back nicely this year, and for a second, the Hornets looked like they would be a threat in the West. Still, he needs way more help. Did you see the scrubs he was playing with? Put Paul alongside someone who can actually shoot better than he can, and he my shoot up this list in no time.

5. Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers
I will admit it; statistically, I’m down on Kobe Bryant. He has shown signs of deterioration for a long time now, and these injuries only demonstrate what age can do to you. However, emotionally, I think he may bounce back. He doesn’t need a surgery and he didn’t play 100 games this season. Maybe he can make a comeback and surpass of some of his perimeter brethren. The numbers, however, suggest he won’t. That said, he’s still better than the guy that knocked him out of the NBA playoffs this past season.

6. Dirk Nowitzki, Dallas Mavericks
Let’s not jump to conclusions. Dirk was the best player in the NBA throughout the playoffs, but he’s not the best player in the NBA. As I mentioned, statistically, he was outplayed by Dwyane Wade, who went through an injury. And I can’t rank Dirk ahead of guys who can affect the game defensively in a way that Nowitzki wasn’t capable of doing in middle school. Even if this were purely an offensive contest, the only person I could move Dirk ahead of is Dwight Howard, and even that’s close.

7. Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City Thunder
Durant is a beast, but he only has one gear. Unfortunately for him, the Dallas Mavericks shut that gear down. He’ll have to learn from Dirk how to stop little guys from taking him out of his game. And he does take a play out of Dirk’s playbook, he should come back with a much more varied offensive game and have his best season ever, just like Dirk did after being embarrassed in the 2006 NBA Finals, coming back to win the MVP in 2007.

8. Derrick Rose, Chicago Bulls
No, Rose did not deserve the MVP. He shouldn’t have even been second, third or fourth. Listen, he’s a great player, top 10 as you can see, but he’s not that efficient and he doesn’t play much defense. He’s Allen Iverson in his prime, maybe a little better, but Iverson at his greatest was never LeBron, Wade or Howard.

9. Zach Randolph, Memphis Grizzlies
This may seem like an overreaction to Randolph’s play during the NBA 2011 Playoffs, but it’s not. Randolph’s numbers suggest he is the second best big man in the league. Yes, he’s not that great at defense, but he was so damn efficient his past season and he rebounds like crazy on a team with a bunch of good rebounders. Pau Gasol would be here, but he disappeared in the postseason. Amare Stoudemire would be head of him as well, but he plays no defense and doesn’t rebound. And believe it or not, I’d rank Tim Duncan ahead of him as well, if it weren’t for the fact that Randolph’s offensive game has a higher ceiling from game to game than Duncan’s does right now.

10. Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City Thunder
Westbrook might actually be better than Derrick Rose. Yeah, I said it. If he weren’t sharing the spotlight with Kevin Durant, who knows what his numbers would be. Hell, he already approximates Rose’s production. It’s just a mater of whether or not Westbrook could carry the load every night like that. He certainly showed that he wanted to during the regular and post seasons, as his usage-rate significantly hurt Durant’s chances at an MVP season. But if this guy grows up this off-season and learns how and when to be aggressive, there may come a time next year when the media realizes either Rose isn’t the best point guard in the league or that Westbrook is every bit as good as Rose.

The post "The NBA’s Best Players… It’s A Numbers Game" was originally published at TSW.

When I was watching Game 1 of the NBA Playoffs Eastern Conference Finals, I couldn’t help but think about how much was being asked of Dwyane Wade and LeBron James to win the game for the Miami Heat. Ultimately, they lost, handedly, and neither of those two players came up big. On the contrary, Chris Bosh, the third-great player on the team, poured in 30 points. It was a great effort from the big man, unfortunately and understandably, he doesn’t have as many of those great nights as he did when he was the best player on his team.

Even though Bosh scored 30, he’s still the third-wheel on the Miami Heat. However, when he first came to Miami, this vehicle was supposed to be a tricycle. But since last July, it has turned into more of a bicycle, with the occasional spare tire—you know, just in case.

So it dawned on me, despite Bosh being the wonderfully talented player that he was presumed to be coming in the 2011 NBA basketball season, is Chris Bosh really nothing more to James and Wade than what Horace Grant was to Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen?

The numbers don’t lie.

Before I get to the details, I will point out that the statistics I’m using are a little favorable to Horace Grant in this argument, but not because of me—I’m just trying to make the most accurate assessment that I can. So for Chris Bosh’s numbers, I’m using this season—the lone season in which he’s comparable to Horace Grant as the supporting actor on his team. For Grant, I’m using his 1991-1992 season with the Chicago Bulls in order to get him at his prime, when he was contributing to a championship-caliber team. That is also when Grant was 26, which happens to be the same age Bosh was going into this season. Still, by selecting one of Grant’s best years, in which he was also in his fifth season with Scottie and Jordan, I’m picking a year when Grant was comfortable with the offense, as opposed to the year I’m choosing for Bosh, when he probably hasn’t settled in as the third-man on this Miami Heat basketball team.

My defense for using Grant’s 5th season in the NBA is twofold. Firstly, I’m asking the question is Bosh better than Grant (as a third-man), so why not compare Bosh against one of Grant’s best seasons? And secondly, they’re the same age in this comparison, so it actually hits both of them in their athletic prime, despite the fact that Bosh’s numbers might “stabilize” once he gets used to playing with LeBron and Wade.

On to the comparison…

Scoring
Per 36 minutes, Bosh was an 18.5 points per game player this season, while Grant was 14.5 point per game scorer. Clearly, Bosh is more prolific. However, he takes four more shots per game than Grant does, so we can’t give him the nod quite yet.

A closer look at the numbers shows that Grant was far more efficient when it comes to shooting the ball. Grant had the higher field-goal percentage, 57.8% vs. Bosh’s 49.6%. Some will say that’s because Bosh shoots the outside shot, but Grant was an effective outside shooter as well. Unfortunately, I don’t have the numbers on “jumpers” for Grant as I do for Bosh, so I can’t give either player the “jump-shooting” advantage Thus, I have to go with the collective total of the shots they took, and even when you account for free-throws, Grant was a better scorer with a true-shooting percentage of 61% vs. Bosh’s 57%.
Scoring Advantage: Horace Grant

Rebounding
Both Bosh’s and Grant’s rebounding numbers are hurt by the fact that they played with wingmen that could rebound the ball extremely well for their positions. Not to mention, their wingmen were very efficient shooters, so it didn’t leave as much to clean up off the offensive glass either. Still, when you look at rebounding percentage, we can get a pretty good glimpse at whether or not a player is a good rebounder. So as far as total rebound percentage goes, Grant has the advantage, having pulled in 16% of every rebound grabbed when he was on the floor. On the contrary, Bosh grabs just 13% of all the rebounds.

However, I don’t often like to put too much weight on offensive rebounds, especially since Bosh takes four more shots per game than Grant, and thus has four less opportunities to grab a rebound each game. So when you focus on defensive rebounding, Bosh has the edge, pulling in 20% of defensive rebounds, whereas Grant pulled in just 18% of the defensive rebounds during the 1991-1992 NBA season.
Rebounding Advantage: Chris Bosh

Passing
Passing is much more of a subjective measurement than it is an objective measurement. So I will give my subjective take on this in a second. First, objectively, the stats say that Grant was more involved in assisting his teammates than Bosh has been this season. Grant assisted on 10.0% of the fields while on the court, and Bosh assisted in 8.9%. It’s fairly close, there as well as in volume, as Grant averaged just 0.8 assists more per 36 minutes. As close as it is though, Grant still has the advantage—objectively speaking.

Subjectively, I still give the nod to Grant. Maybe it’s just because he’s less of a scorer, but he was much more of a pass-first guy than Bosh is. Again, this could be because Bosh is just now getting comfortable playing in this role. Then again, Grant averaged more than Bosh’s 1.9 assists per 36 minutes in his first year as a starter with Mike and Scottie. So even subjectively, I give the nod to Horace Grant.
Passing Advantage: Horace Grant

Efficiency
We will keep this short; especially since this is objective stat has subjectivity built into it. That said, Grant was the more “efficient” player, with PER of 20.6 vs. Bosh’s 19.4 this past season.
Efficiency Advantage: Horace Grant

Defense
Again, defense is more of a subjective category. And while I would love to tell you that my memory of Grant as a wonderful defender of the power-forward position, I don’t recall how much of that was him versus how much of that was Michael and Scottie. That said, Bosh has a lot of help too, but I have watched them play recently and am still able to judge Bosh’s defense individually. Thankfully for Bosh, I don’t have a good enough memory to isolate Grant’s defensive ability in a subjective fashion.

Objectively, the numbers still favor Grant. Grant is the better shot blocker, the better theft and he had a “slightly” better defensive rating—which measures how much the other team scores when said player is on the court.
Defensive Advantage: Horace Grant

Overall Effect on Game:
Here we look at “Overall Rating,” which really is a fancy plus-minus calculation. Ideally, plus-minus measures everything a player contributes. So whether it’s setting screens or hustle plays, if it helps the team win on the scoreboard, it is reflected in the stat. Unfortunately, it doesn’t account for the other players on the court. Obviously, if Grant plays a good number of minutes with out Jordan and Pippen on the floor, and Bosh only plays with Wade and LeBron on the floor, then clearly, Bosh would have the better Overall Rating. There is a stat called “adjusted plus-minus,” which accounts for such a phenomenon, but again, that statistic is not available for NBA players from Grant’s generation.

So what do the numbers say? Per 100 possessions, Grant’s Bulls were 30 points better than the opposition whenever Grant was on the basketball court. Conversely, Bosh’s Heat are a mere 12 points better than the opposition when he was on the floor. Again, these numbers can be skewed by the type of players on the court and their coach’s respective player rotations. But I would venture to say that a difference that great, along with the numbers we have already discussed, speak highly of one Mr. Horace Grant.
Plus-Minus Advantage: Horace Grant

Playoffs
Last and least, we go to the NBA playoffs. I say “least,” because clearly we don’t have an entire postseason on record for Bosh. But if you want to know where this ship is headed, it’s certainly not in Bosh’s favor. In fact, the only thing Bosh has done better than Grant this postseason is rebound the ball better. Yes, he’s scoring 6.2 more points per game, but he’s doing it less efficiently than Grant scored his 11. That might suggests that Bosh’s scoring is more important to the Heat than Grant’s was to the Bulls, however, Bosh is taking 5 more shots per playoff game to get those 6 extra points—that’s not efficient at all.
NBA Playoff Advantage: Horace Grant

I think it’s pretty clear, that at the very least, Bosh isn’t any better than Horace Grant was a third-man. Maybe he’s a little more prolific, but in being so, he’s less efficient and turns the ball over more—something I didn’t mention when going over the earlier stats. However, I will admit that Grant did have the advantage of always being a third-man and never having to adjust from being the best guy on a team all his life in the very season I’m using for statistical purposes.

Thus, this question begs to be asked again after next season, when “comfort” can no longer be used as an excuse. Until then though, this analysis begs to ask the question, why did Grant make $1.75 million that season, while Bosh is making $14.5 million this season?

Yes, there’s inflation and league growth to account for, but it doesn’t account for the nearly $13 million difference between those salaries. I’m not saying Chris Bosh is overpaid, but maybe both his and Grant’s NBA values were much closer the average of their respective salaries.

The post "Is Chris Bosh Better than Horace Grant?" was originally published at TSW.

I’m writing this post just hours before the start of the Chicago Bulls vs. Miami Heat NBA Playoff Series. It’s a rather risky time to write something like this, as I could have the facts thrown in my face in a matter of moments. However, the fact is, that no matter what happens in Game 1 of these Eastern Conference Finals, Kyle Korver—yes, that Kyle Korver—will play a major role in determining which team goes on to the 2011 NBA Finals.

In fact, Kyle Korver is a member of the Chicago Bulls best five-man unit during these 2011 NBA Playoffs. This unit involves Derrick Rose, Luol Deng, Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah and accounts for the second-most minutes of any five-man unit on the Bulls. While the first unit plays more than twice as long in terms of minutes, the adjusted plus-minus ratio of that squad is negative and has a much lower Overall and Offensive rating.

So why is Korver so vital to the Bulls?

Well, on a team that finished just 11th among NBA offenses in terms of efficiency, the Bulls aren’t exactly experts on how to put the basketball in the hoop. They struggle doing so—which is part of the reason Derrick Rose looks so damn awesome on this team, because he gets to take all of the shots while the rest of his offensive inefficient teammates take a back seat.

However, when Korver comes into the game, not only is he a spot-up shooter, he’s instant offense. He doesn’t play starters’ minutes, but when he’s on the floor, he’s the Bulls fourth leading scorer per minute, and that’s nothing to laugh at. They run curls for Korver, they let Korver throw it into the post, and of course, he’ll shoot the quick three on the delayed break. To put it simply, Korver is one of the Bulls best options to get high-percentage shots, and the Bulls do indeed take advantage of that.

But in this series, it’s going to be hard to get Korver on the floor. He doesn’t exactly play great defense, and with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade playing 40-42 minutes per game at the only two positions Korver can defend, how on Earth will they justify putting him on the basketball court?

They can’t, and they probably won’t.

Last round, against the Atlanta Hawks, the Chicago Bulls played Kyle Korver significantly fewer minutes than his average, and Korver only played 5 minutes in Game 5. Like the Heat, the Hawks have highly-productive players at the 2 and 3 positions, and that forced Korver to the bench more often than he’s used to. Against the Heat, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James pose an even bigger threat than Jamal Crawford and Joe Johnson do, making it extremely hard to get Korver his regular minutes this series.

So where’s the missing offense from the bench going to come from?

Keith Bogans?

Luol Deng?

Ronnie Brewer?

I wish I could tell you where it’s going to come from if the Bulls do indeed decide to play Korver less, but the numbers suggest that the only viable option is Derrick Rose. He’s already doing so much, as he’s near the top of the NBA in usage rate. To ask him to shoot the ball more, especially when he’s not all that efficient, is asking too much of him. But if he doesn’t, who will? In looking at the data, nobody stands out as an answer to the question. And when the data fails to show an answer, chances are there isn’t one.

The post "The Kyle Korver Complication" was originally published at TSW.

There are countless physically-imposing, scary players in sports. I know that I don’t want to get into any kind of altercation with the likes of Ray Lewis, Kendrick Perkins, AJ Hawk or Manny Pacquiao.

But that’s not what I’m talking about here.

When I think of the scariest players in sports, I’m talking about the players that scare you as a fan of the opposing team. What are those players, moments in games, circumstances or plays that concern every fan when they see a game-changing superstar in a particular situation?

Here is a list of the Top 5 Scariest Players in sports from the last decade.

Ray Allen, NBA – Is there anything more joy-sucking than when you see Ray Allen spring across the baseline, turn and catch the ball with nobody even near of him? As a New York Knicks fan, my heart stopped every single time Ray Allen caught the ball after alluding his defender via several screens. He just shoots way too well from three-point land to be left wide-0open, and yet he gets open all the time. It makes watching your favorite NBA team play him about as uneasy a viewing experience a basketball fan can have. Especially when it happens in the fourth quarter or on a last-minute shot. No fan wants to see Ray Allen wide open from behind the arc with the basketball in his hands—it’s just one of those situations that doesn’t end well for the opposition.

Randy Moss, NFL – He’s well past his prime now, but there was time when if the football was thrown in the air, deep down the sideline, to the side of the field Randy Moss was lined up on, it was as good as (in the words of Randy Moss) “straight cash, homie.” No fan of the opposition ever wanted to see Randy Moss in single coverage, and to the NFL’s credit, very rarely did that happen. But sooner or later, throughout some point in a game against the Minnesota Vikings or New England Patriots, the coach of your favorite football team would opt to blitz or run three-deep zone, resulting Moss going one-on-one with what was usually a terrified cornerback. And when Daunte Culpepper or Tom Brady would throw a bomb down the field to the side of the field Moss was on, your mind was probably going crazy, just hoping for a “simple” 50-yard catch, all the while knowing that it would probably result in a touchdown.

Shaquille O’Neal, NBA – You may have to go back a ways for this one, but there was a time when if Shaquille O’Neal caught the ball on the block, it was as good as two points. Even during his days in Miami, Shaq shot careers highs in terms of field goal percentage. Sure, some of what Shaq brought in scariness from the block was negated by the joy you had in seeing him go to the free-throw line. But from 2000-2002, Shaq was one of the most efficient basketball players the NBA has ever seen, and I’m not exaggerating that one bit.

Peyton Manning, NFL – There are a few quarterbacks out there with more “actual” fourth quarter comebacks, i.e., John Elway, Dan Marino, Joe Montana and Johnny Unitas. But over the last decade, there’s no doubt who the king of the fourth quarterback is. I’m not sure what the number is right now, but according to a 2009 Pro Football Reference article, Peyton Manning has had more fourth-quarter comebacks than anybody else in the NFL right now. And when you’re the fan of the opposing team that’s up by less than one score and Peyton Manning walks on to the field, you cannot help but think of how he is going to manage to comeback and beat your team. Simply put, Manning is a precise, deep-throwing, defense-dissecting pocket passer. And when the game is on the line, he calls only the plays that he knows will work to his offense’s advantage. While the Indianapolis Colts have certainly had their fair share of fourth quarter losses, Manning has dolled out more than his fair share of heartache, making him the most feared quarterback in the NFL.

Mariano Rivera, MLB – When looking at baseball players, it was hard to determine what exactly gives a player’s opposing fans the most to worry about. Hitters certainly can end games with one swing of a bat—but then again, that rarely happens. And starting pitchers can routinely hold a team’s entire offense to 1 or 2 runs for 8 or 9 innings. But a closer, as lackluster and undemanding as their job actually is, is put in the best position to strike fear in a fan’s mind. Because when Mariano Rivera comes jogging out of the bullpen, in pursuit of the pitcher’s mound and with a lead at his disposal, it’s hard for any fan to imagine themselves coming away with a win. Essentially, for over a decade, whenever Rivera came out to the mound, the game was over. From his placement to his trailing cutter, Rivera just couldn’t be hit. He got out after out and saved game after game. Sure, hitters and starters have been just as dominant as Rivera has. But for the better part of the last two decades, the sight of Rivera essentially meant the game was over, and for a fan of a team that’s losing, there is nothing scarier than that.

Honorable Mention: Tiger Woods
I don’t actually consider golf much of a sport; otherwise, Woods would be among my top 5. For goodness sake, he doesn’t just scare fans, he scares the people he’s playing against. That’s a level of fear unprecedented in most sports, nevermind individual competition.

The post "The Scariest Players in Sports" was originally published at TSW.

Last night, when the Celtics loss to the Heat 98-90 in Game 4, it was the end of an era.

I know the series isn’t over. I know the fighting Boston Celtics are still alive. I know they wouldn’t be the first team in the history of the NBA Playoffs to come back from a 3-1 series deficit.

But I also know that for all intents and purposes, this basketball series is over.

I hope—I just hope—that the Boston Celtics make the rest of their series with the Miami Heat worth watching, because I won’t put it past this aging team to quit in Game 5 in Miami. Sure, you would automatically think they’re interested in playing this thing out to the finish. But if I told you that the Los Angeles Lakers were going to lose by more than 30 points against the Dallas Mavericks, you would have asked me how much money I had on me and conjured up a bet.

The reality is that reality has already set in. In fact, it set in a long time ago. Long before Dwyane Wade made Ray Allen spin around in circles. Long before LeBron James batted Kevin Garnett’s dunk attempt away. Long before Wade dropped damn near 40 points on the Celtics head in Game 2.

Reality really set in when these three guys got together back in July. Reality set in when LeBron James made Paul Pierce about as offensively efficient as Paul Revere in two out of the last three postseasons. Reality set in when Dwyane Wade lit up the Celtics for 40+ in last years postseason. Reality set in when Chris Bosh was worth more on the open market than Kevin Garnett. The fact is, Boston’s big three knew long before their loss in Game 4 that they weren’t capable of beating a young threesome like the one the Miami Heat have assembled. They knew this was coming a long time ago. And even though there were bumps in the road, losing streaks, and even beat downs from the Celtics themselves, one thing was always in LeBron’s, Wade’s and Bosh’s favor, and that one thing was Father Time.

And time is up for Boston.

This thing went one year longer than it was designed to go anyway. When these three guys got together in the summer of 2007, it wasn’t supposed to last forever. Hell, some wondered if it would last a season given Pierce’s string of injuries and Kevin Garnett’s mileage. But here we were in early 2011, and the Celtics were atop the NBA standings, looking like the best team in the NBA. And here they are in the Eastern Conference Playoffs, a legitimate NBA Finals contender.

So kudos to them. This three-man group went four whole seasons displaying the basketball talent worthy of a championship. Unfortunately, Miami did the same thing they did four years ago. Miami got three stars—younger ones at that—and are beating the Celtics at their own game.

For Celtics fans who think a comeback is in order, I’m sorry to have to be the one to write the obituary. Sure, this is an easy stance I’m taking. I’m a nobody blogger playing the odds of a team down 3-1 with its best stars hobbled by injuries and age.

But easy stance or not, the truth is the truth. And when Paul Pierce’s desperation shot at the end of regulation clanked off the glass, courtesy of LeBron James’ defense, the truth set in that the “the” Truth, the Big Ticket and Jesus Shuttlesworth have had their final take as the dominant trio they once were.

The post "Zo Knows: It’s the End of an Era in Boston" was originally published at TSW.

Prior to the 2010-2011 NBA Basketball season, Carlos Boozer went on a strong campaign to get out the message that he is one of the best power forwards in the game. He was asked many times about where he thought he ranked among today’s best four-men. I even heard him on a New York radio station claiming that he was better than David Lee.

I didn’t argue with him when he said it, but I might be inclined to argue with him after the paltry, injury-plagued season he put before us during the last six months. Then again, David Lee is no longer playing, so let’s compare Boozer to the other premiere power forward still in the playoffs, Chris Bosh.

First, let’s look at the regular season.

While in Boozer’s defense, he did have to deal with some injuries, I have to take him for what he is. Boozer is fast-approaching 30, has always been injury-riddled, and quite frankly, he’s known for that. So while I want to give you that tid-bit of information as you look at the statistics, I must say, I could care less how Boozer’s injury may have affected his play.

There’s almost little questioning that Boozer was the better rebounder this season. Boozer pulled in 23% of all defensive rebounds this season, while Bosh pulled in just 20%, and overall, Boozer pulled in 17% of all rebounds, while Bosh pulled in just 13. In addition, Boozer is the more consistent rebounder. In 77 starts, Bosh had 28 double-doubles, and Boozer had 30 double-doubles in just 59 starters.

Unfortunately for Boozer, rebounding is about his only edge against Chris Bosh.

Per game, Boozer was giving the Chicago Bulls 17.5 points per game during the regular season. Bosh, who is the third wheel for the Miami Heat, scored nearly 19 points per game. From the floor, Boozer was more efficient at producing points whenever he shot the basketball, however, when you factor in free throws using true-shooting percentage, Boozer was the more efficient shooting power forward.

As for the intangibles, Boozer had a better assist ratio, but Bosh was a better shot blocker, thief and caretaker of the ball this past NBA regular season.

Now on to the 2011 NBA Playoffs.

While we are still miles away from the Bulls and Heat facing off in the Eastern Conference Finals, it’s possible that these two guys, who essentially battled for money this past summer, will square off. And if you look at the playoff stats as they stand now, Bosh will dominate Chris Bosh.

To put it simply, in six games, Carlos Boozer has looked like boo-boo. He is averaging just 10.7 points per game on 39% shooting from the field. He has been to the line just an average of 2 times per game. He has had on only double-double, while averaging less than 10 rebounds per game (albeit, he only played 15 minutes in route of the Indiana Pacers in Game 5 last series). Last but not least, he played five of his games against Tyler Hansbrough, a player making considerably less money than him, and he was outperformed night-in and night out.

As for Bosh—well, let’s just say LeBron James made the right “decision.” In the playoffs, Bosh is averaging 17.7 points per game on 46% shooting. He’s getting to the free throw line at twice the clip of Carlos Boozer. In addition, Bosh has surprisingly showed up on defense, as exhibited by his great play against Indiana and his impending matchup against Joakim Noah.

I could get deeper into the analysis of these two guys. For starters:

1. Boozer’s PER of 10.1 is worse than that of Thaddeus Young, Carl Landry and Marcus Camby
2. Bosh has a top 10 PER among all power-forwards this postseason
3. Bush’s true-shooting percentage has been almost 14-points higher than that of Boozer’s, and with the kind of shot selection Boozer is taking, I hope to keep it that way.

Sorry, Boozer, these numbers just don’t add up for a guy who demanded a premium dollar last off-season. You’re supposed to be the best big man on the floor when you step out of the lockerrom. Get’er done Boozer, or else I will continue to call you out!

The post "Call Out: Carlos Boozer, Stand Up!" was originally published at TSW.

Sunday afternoon failed to produce the same results the Boston Celtics had experienced the previous two Sundays. In their series with the New York Knicks, the Celtics had a nice comeback victory two Sundays ago, and last week, the Celtics closed the Knicks out in convincing fashion.

But this Sunday was different. This Sunday was the start of a new series, one that we have all been waiting for. Sunday was Game 1 of the Boston Celtics vs. Miami Heat series, the one we have dreamed about since LeBron James made his “decision” last July. Game 1 certainly provided exciting plays, physical play, intense defense, intense emotions, and otherwise, great NBA playoff emotion. Unfortunately, it did not produce a great game, and Miami won 99-90.

For much of the game, the Miami Heat dominated the Celtics. After averaging just 13 points against the Celtics in their four previous meetings during the regular season, Dwyane Wade put up 38 points on just 21 shots against a Celtics defense that often holds high-scoring wing players to incredibly inefficient performances. Team-wise, the Heat led the Celtics by as much as 19 points in the third quarter. The Celtics made some runs here and there, and even got the lead down to 8 late in the fourth quarter after Paul Pierce had been tossed out of the game with his second technical foul. But in actuality, the Heat were never in danger of losing this game.

So why did the Heat prevail?

In what is sure to be one of the most scrutinized Round 2, Game 1’s in the history of the NBA Playoffs, here are three reasons why Miami won this game, and will likely go on to win this series.

#1. Dwyane Wade was unstoppable.
As I mentioned in our “Heat-Celtics” keys to victory post, Wade has to show up in order for the Heat to win this series. Now, 38 points in the series opener is certainly one way to do that. But in addition to that, Wade played “better” defense against Ray Allen, who despite scoring 25 points on just 13 shots, was at least pushed off the three-point line by Wade more often than he had been in their previous meetings. It’s unlikely that Wade’s jump shot will be as accurate as it was this game for the remainder of this series. However, if he keeps playing defense like he did, he can possibly minimize the damage that Ray inflicts upon the Heat.

#2. Where the hell was Kevin Garnett?
Listen, everyone is destined for a bad night, but Round 2 of the NBA Playoffs is not a time to play so below your averages that I don’t even recognize you. The Celtics started the game giving the ball to Kevin Garnett in the post. Garnett has the best matchup, scoring-wise, as Bosh shouldn’t be able to guard him down on the block—or at least hasn’t done so in the past. Yet, with Bosh on him for most of the game, Garnett was held to just 3 for 9 shooting, 6 points and 8 rebounds. Garnett did not get to the free throw line once, and for 37 minutes of play, Garnett looked like somebody else. Granted, he did do a pretty stellar job on defense, subsequently holding Chris Bosh to just 7 points on 3 for 10 shooting. But the Celtics can’t win this series if Garnett isn’t better than Bosh. We already know that the Heat have the best two players on the court. But if Miami winds up 3 of the best 5 performances in this series, it’s lights out for Boston.

#3. Paul Pierce can’t get abused…or thrown out of the game!
Maybe I wasn’t clear with my keys to victory. When I said that Paul Pierce couldn’t afford to get abused by LeBron James in this series, I didn’t mean he could just not play and get tossed out of the game. And while I wholeheartedly disagree with the referee’s decision to give Pierce a second technical foul (one the NBA says was given for taunting), Pierce never should have gotten that first technical—so I don’t exactly feel all that sorry for him. Before he got thrown off the court though, Pierce wasn’t spectacular. He had hit a couple of jumpers just before leaving, but he was a mere 6 of 14 for 19 points, had 4 turnovers and let LeBron play an extremely efficient game. Now that I’m sure my statements no longer need further explanation, the Boston Celtics are far more likely to win this series if Paul Pierce is on the basketball court.

The post "Heat Romp Celtics; The Hungry Take Game 1" was originally published at TSW.

Play Chris Paul!

I don’t like second guessing coaches—okay, I take that back. I love second-guessing coaches. And the fact that Monty Williams, head coach of the New Orleans Hornets, found it in his heart to site Chris Paul as much as he did last night is atrocious.

In Williams defense, it is not his fault that the Hornets were outrebounded by the Los Angeles Lakers by 17 boards in a 106-90 loss in Game of the series. Still, it was Willaims decision to take Paul out of the game at the beginning of the second quarter, and boy did he pay for it.

When Paul left the game at the end of the first quarter, the Hornets were up by 9 points. When Paul came back into the game mid-way through the second quarter, the Hornets were down by 1 point. And that my friends, is where the game was lost.

Now it’s easy to point out that Paul still had a plus/minus of -7 for the game, but most of that was accrued during the fourth quarter, long after the Hornets had relinquished the lead. And anybody who watched that game could tell you that the Hornets were in bad need of Paul’s presence during that second quarter, as the offense went to crap for a good six minutes, and it never recovered after that.

The Hornets 19 points in the second quarter was a direct reflection of the Paul’s absence. Not only did not having Paul on the floor take away from the Hornets offensive efficiency, but it also diminished their defensive efficiency. When Paul was on the floor early on in the game, it forced Kobe Bryant to pay more attention to the point guard position, and it actually made Kobe guard Trevor Ariza a little more closely. However, without Paul on the floor to make Ariza an offensive threat, Kobe didn’t have to spend too much energy on the defensive end, and that allowed him to find his groove in the second quarter.

I will reiterate, however, that head coach Monty Williams can point to many other problems with his team last night. The team only shot 66% at the free throw line, Jarrett Jack was essentially worthless, and Chris Paul himself had just 5 assists after a 7-assists first quarter. But for me, and many other “basketball minds” out there, you have to think that had Paul played those crucial minutes early in the second quarter, his team might have won, or at least kept this close.

In fact, Paul should have played the entire game. Shoot, he playd 41 minutes, what’s the reach in going the other 7 minutes? Besides, if Monty Williams uses his timeouts correctly, there’s nary a problem making a 7-minute increase in one players on-court time.

So, Williams, you know what to do now! Play Paul every 48 minutes of the game. He’s your best player and offense looks ghastly without him on the floor! I suppose you could go with the alternative, but that certainly will cost you a spot in the second round of the 2011 NBA Playoffs.

The post "Hey, Monty, Play Chris Paul!" was originally published at TSW.

In a couple of the days, the 2011 NBA playoffs are really going to begin. Sure, this has been one of the best first rounds in the history of the game, but it’s still the first round. And as I much as I care for the Indiana Pacers and Denver Nuggets of the world, it’s time to see the matches we all have wanted to see all season long.

And thanks to the lowly New York Knicks and the hapless Philadelphia 76ers, this season’s most anticipated postseason matchup appears to be headed our way. The Miami Heat and the Boston Celtics will square off for seven of what I’m not afraid to call the best basketball games of the 2011 NBA season. It’s going to be tough, arduous, slow, defensive, start-studded basketball, and I am going to love every moment of it.

I could sit here and predict who was going to win the series and how many games they are going to win it in, but you can go to my pre-postseason NBA predictions for that. Instead, I am going to take this opportunity to pick out the four things that will determine this series. As one might expect with five potential Hall of Famers on the court, we have a lot of big names weighing in on this discussion.

#1. Dwyane Wade must be efficient.
In the four games that the Heat have played the Boston Celtics, the Heat are 1-3. In those three games against Boston, Wade has been atrocious. Not just bad, but “the Heat would be better off with him on the bench” bad. In those three games, he shot just 26% from the field. Even when you throw in the fourth game in which he was 4 for 12 from the field, he shot just 28% in all of his games with the Celtics. A lot of it has to do with the fact that Wade has to guard Ray Allen. Allen loves to run around picks—hell, he just loves to run. That likely tires Wade out and takes his legs away from him on the offensive end. Unfortunately, the Heat will need him to be above a 28% shooter if Miami is going to win this series.

#2. Jermaine O’Neal must be BIG.
As a Knicks fan, during the first round, I honestly thought I had been taken back to 2002, when Jermaine O’Neal was actually good. In all likelihood, O’Neal was only able to be as effective as he was against a porous Knicks front line, because he surely wasn’t that effective a season ago, when he was playing for Miami. Then again, Doc Rivers claims O’Neal was a beast on the defensive end, so perhaps that’s where his value is. Well, he sure enough better demonstrate that value, because low-and-behold, Jermaine, not Shaq, is the O’Neal that has to be the force inside for the Celtics. The Heat have two weak spots, center and point guard. Boston wins one of those by default, but if they leave that center spot up for grabs, they are giving the Heat an edge that may win them the series.

#3. LeBron James has to come through in the clutch.
I know that the entire Miami Heat team has failed in the last few seconds of games this season, but to me, that lone stat is rather arbitrary. I don’t even know exactly what the stat is, but you know which one I’m talking about. The one where we see that the Heat suck at making shots in the last 10 seconds of a close game. Well duh! That’s a hard shot to make, especially when everyone knows who is getting the ball. My bigger concern is how they play in the last five minutes of games. Are they going to let LeBron stand way back at the top of the key and iso, or are they going to give Wade the ball on the wing? It will likely be a combination of both, and to be honest, LeBron is going to have the better matchup. He has to come through for the city of Miami, or he really will have let his team and that franchise down. There are no more excuses for LeBron. He has more help than dozens of Hall of Famers and champions before him have had. If he doesn’t come through and deliver in big moments this season, there’s no reason to believe he will do it consistently enough in the future.

#4. Paul Pierce cannot get abused.
Speaking of LeBron James, he has often had his way with Paul Pierce. Even in last year’s debacle in Cleveland, LeBron’s presence on Boston’s defensive end kept Pierce limited on the offensive end. Well, Pierce can’t afford to slip away in this series. There’s too much firepower on both teams for certain players to go missing in action for long periods of time, or as has been the case in previous Pierce-LeBron matchups, for the entire series. Pierce can’t let defending LeBron result in losing his shot. Sure, LeBron is bigger, stronger, faster and younger, but Pierce has to find a way to use his help more effectively and not take punches from LeBron all night. You will never win a fight without throwing any punches, so no matter what LeBron does on one end of the court, Pierce must throw a couple of blows (i.e., hit shots) on the other end.

The post "Boston Celtics vs. Miami Heat Series Keys" was originally published at TSW.

Those two guys around him aren't soft!

I know that the NBA isn’t exactly the NFL when it comes to being tough, forceful and physical. Still, while the product on the court won’t ever be as physical as the product the NFL puts on the field, does that mean my announcers have to be “soft?”

I confess; I don’t like Mike Tirico and Mike Breen as announcers. As people, I’m sure they’re fine, but as announcers, they get on my last nerve. It’s probably not the smartest thing in the world for me to say, especially since I hope my career leads to prominence in the media and entertainment worlds, and I could possibly be working for, with, under or over one of those two lead play-by-play announcers.

But I can’t help what I feel. Whenever I’m watching an NBA game on ESPN and something that’s not apropos happens, one of those two guys, Breen or Tirico, always takes the “politically correct” side that darts away from the tough NBA player for the “soft” approach to sports. For example, Kenyon Martin made a big play that essentially closed out a game on the road late in the 2011 NBA season, and after making the play, Martin started spewing some expletives in the general direction of the entire crowd. Breen immediately jumped all over Martin for using those words in a “family” environment like an NBA game. But in my opinion, he has every right to say whatever he wants in his place of work, so long as its acceptable to the people he works for. And last time I checked, the NBA isn’t handing out fines for saying curse words during the game.

Then there is Mike Tirico. To be fair, I can’t even give you a concrete example of what I’m talking about, but oh boy do they exist. I can’t even begin to guess just how many times Tirico has criticized an NBA getting in a scuffle, getting a technical foul or losing their temper. He just has this “almighty” approach to judging basketball players on the court, to the point where he seemingly forgets that this is an emotional sport. Which is quite convenient for him to do, especially since he has been known to let his emotions get in the way of Mike Tirico, the “almighty.”

I hate to say it, but those guys are kind of soft. It’s one thing to stand up for what’s right, but it’s another thing to criticize something because it isn’t ideal. Sure, kids might be better off not hearing Martin spew out curse words after a big play, but then again, it might not have an affect on them at all if the kind of places they find themselves in have 25-year old men at the height of their emotions.

Thankfully, the players on the court aren’t as soft as the announcers—most of the time. Then again, we have a few players in the NBA, who are often called soft, and it is deservedly so.

Chris Bosh is one of those guys who gets labeled soft, and this season has kind of proven that label to be quite accurate. Much like Tirico and Breen, Bosh has “recently” found the spotlight. And upon arriving in the spotlight, his game has fettered away. Specifically, his defensive rebounding percentage has dropped from 25% last season to 20% this season. We could say that some of that is because he’s playing with better rebounding guards in LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, however, the quality of big men around him, which would have much profounder impact on his rebounding numbers, has dropped precipitously in the rebounding department. Now does a lack of rebounding make a player soft? In my book, “Yes.” And for as great a player as Bosh is, he kind of deserves the soft label.

But then there is a guy like Amare Stoudemire. A guy who makes all of the wonderful dunks, the occasional “huge” block, and for the most part, looks the part of tough guy in comparison to other NBA forwards. As a result, Stoudemire is rarely a guy who gets labeled soft. However, when it comes to playing defense, Stoudemire isn’t very good at it. In fact, he sucks at it. And that’s hard for me to say as a Knicks fan, but the proof was in the pudding last night, when Stoudemire looked like a civ, back spasms or not, on the defensive side of the court. This is why it’s quite hilarious that Stoudemire is fresh off calling Pau Gasol soft. It’s also convenient that he did it in a season when there’s no chance of him seeing Gasol in the playoffs. I didn’t see him call him soft last season when the Los Angeles Lakers beat his Phoenix Suns brains in. Then again, he did call Lamar Odom lucky, only few minutes after Odom had grabbed 19 points and 19 rebounds while Amare was on the court. Amare Stoudemire…soft!

Last but not least, how about another player we just saw last night in Day 7 of the NBA Playoffs, Josh Smith of the Atlanta Hawks. He’s not the guy most people would go out of their way to call soft-especially since he’s considered such a versatile defensive player and decent rebounder at 8.9 rebounds per game. However, it’s on the offensive end that Smith’s softness prevails. For a guy with his size and athleticism, he spends way too much time shooting jumpers and three-pointers. Zydrunas Ilgauskas has been labeled soft throughout his career because of his propensity to take outside shots, despite his value as a defender in his younger days, so we shouldn’t give Smith a pass either. Almost two-thirds of Smith’s game, 63%, is via the jumper. Compare that 63% to Stoudemire, Bosh, Gasol and another “soft” player like Dirk Nowitzki, and Smith fits right in with those guys as big men who shoot the ball from the outside way too much. Josh Smith…soft.

The post "NBA Playoff Confessions Day 7: I Could Do Without “Soft” In My NBA" was originally published at TSW.

When I was in college and high school, all of my better games were reserved for the road. Granted, I didn’t play in front of the enormous crowds that some major college programs and Professional NFL and NBA teams play in front of, but I definitely was in places that anybody would consider hostile environments.

So why was I better on the road than I was away from home? Factually, there is nothing that could tell you why; there’s only the stats that will tell you that it indeed happened. In my mind, however, I know exactly why I played better on the road. It’s because I wanted to prove everybody wrong. And quite frankly, whenever I played in front of my home crowd, it never dawned on me that anybody on my side would doubt me. It was those haters on the road that I knew had disdain for me, and so I had disdain for them. And while no one can statistically measure motivation, there’s no doubt that mine was higher whenever I walked out of the visitor’s locker room.

In the NBA, however, that just isn’t the case. Players and teams play better at home, and you don’t have to look past your average NBA Standings page to find that out. The best team in the NBA during the 2011 season was the Chicago Bulls. They won 75% of all their regular season games. However, they won 87% of their games at home and only 63% of their games on the road. Case and point: the best team in the NBA played more like the fourth best team in the Eastern Conference if you only measure their road games.

But why is that? Why does a group of professional NBA players, who are among the top 1% of people in the world that play that sport, have its performance altered so drastically when they play in front of a group of people rooting against them?

Again, objectively speaking, there’s no answer for this. There are no “actual” reasons why a player should be affected by people booing them. All of the basketball statisticians in the world disagree on why players play differently at home than they do on the road, and rarely do you see these numbers people disagree so fervently. The one thing they can agree on is with information like the one I just gave the Bulls—that for whatever reason; teams do play better at home.

That really makes gambling on the 2011 NBA Playoffs a ridiculous notion. For the first two games of a series, it’s actually quite easy to make predictions. After all, the favored team is at home, so we think the style of the game will be in the better team’s favor, and we can make our bets with that assumption, even accounting for the upset or a close game if we know the teams are fairly evenly matched. However, when the series shifts to the underdog’s home floor, what in the hell are you supposed to do then?

In looking at the lines for Thursdays NBA playoff games, you will see that the #3 seed, the Dallas Mavericks, is slated to lose to the #6 seeded Portland Trailblazers by 6 points. This goes against the very fact that Dallas is considered the favorite, and it’s all because Portland is playing at home. But it’s not just that Portland is favored to win the game despite being the underdog in the series, but it’s also ludicrous that they were favored to win by six points. If you look at the fact that Dallas was favored by 3.5 points when they were at home, that means Vegas (and the people who make the bets) are telling you that Portland will play 9.5 points better at home than they will on the road.

While logically that makes sense given the history of the NBA, a bettor can’t do anything with that information. How is someone who just won money off of betting Dallas to beat Portland by at least 4 points supposed to bet on the exact opposite happening because of a change in scenery?

I couldn’t do it, and I imagine there is a lot less action on Game 3’s in the NBA Playoffs. There’s just too much one doesn’t know. Is the underdog of the series actually going to play better at home? Is the favored team actually going to play worse? Sure, their regular season performances suggest that those are indeed the scenarios that will play out when the series goes from one arena to the next, but the postseason is a different monster, and teams like Indiana all of a sudden start playing defense.

So, I confess, I don’t get home court advantage. I know that statistically speaking, I have to recognize that it exists, but like all of the gamblers out there, I have no idea when and where it’s going to rear its ugly head. Frankly, I think all gamblers would be better off to avoid placing bets money on Game 3’s, such as the one coming up between Boston and New York in which the Knicks are actually favored to win at home. Seriously? Even as a Knicks fan, I can’t put money on that one!

The post "NBA Playoff Confessions Day 6: I Preferred Playing on the Road" was originally published at TSW.

Anybody born within five years of 1984 has to have watched an episode of “Underdog” or two growing up—even though the show was in complete re-runs by the 1980’s. Sure, it wasn’t the most popular cartoon among the Saturday morning favorites, but much like the name suggests, it was an extremely underrated cult classic among young children and pre-teens.

I know that I personally liked. In fact, I confess; I still like Underdog. I watch clips of it online to this day, mainly to refresh my memory on scenes I watch regularly. Part of my continued infatuation for the cartoon is its simplistic writing and ironic plots. But the main reason I like watching Underdog is because it is literally an underdog story. The cartoon is all about a superhero that’s not so super. Despite his supernatural powers, Underdog isn’t as strong, fast or smart as his life-saving contemporaries. He is always prone for a mistake and never gets things right the first time, yet more often than not, he was capable of coming through with a win.

My love for the cartoon has carried over into my love for sports. I can’t help but root for the underdog. The only time I don’t root for the underdog is when one of my favorite teams is the favorite. Outside of that, and maybe the Olympics, I mine as well say that I’m a fan of the underdog. Who wants to see the favorite win? They always win—that’s why they’re the favorite!

The underdog in sports, much like the cartoon, is usually lacking something. In the case of my New York Knicks and this Boston Celtics series, the Knicks lack a consistent outside shooter and scorer that can stretch the Celtics defense. In the Los Angeles Lakers and New Orleans Hornets series, New Orleans lacks a strong interior presence. And in the Miami Heat and Philadelphia 76ers series, the 76ers lack a true star player (and no, Andre Iguodala does not count).

But you know what? It’s bigger than that.

My love for the underdog isn’t just about the less-blessed coming up big; it’s about the instant community built around the underdog. You see it in the NCAA Basketball Tournament all the time. The favored seed usually has more fans in the house. But let the game get close with four minutes left in the match, and all of a sudden everybody in the arena, and bars across the nation, is cheering  for Cinderella.

The same thing happens in the NBA Playoffs. If you didn’t find yourself rooting for Tyler Hansbrough and the Indiana Pacers during Game 1 of their series with the Chicago Bulls, then you must be a Bulls fan. If a part of you didn’t get goose bumps when the Memphis Grizzlies beat San Antonio in Game 1, you must have had money on the Spurs. And if you weren’t on the edge of your seat when Chris Paul was leading the underdog New Orleans Hornets over the Los Angeles Lakers—well, you just don’t know sports or basketball.

And the 2011 NBA Playoffs appear to be the year of the underdog. In an NBA season that began with the focus all about a new trio of players and another team going for a trio of championships, the postseason is full of talent-challenged teams fulfilling the role of the underdog. Between Pacers-Bulls, Grizz-Spurs, Hornets-Lakers and Celtics-Knicks, if you don’t like basketball this season, you either really hate the underdog, or just don’t like basketball.

I don’t fall into either category, and I don’t mind admitting that I’m about to ride out to this Underdog theme song when I leave work.

The post "NBA Playoff Confessions Day 5: I Still Like to Watch Underdog" was originally published at TSW.

Who doesn’t want to give 100% effort all of the time?

Of course, everybody wants to, it’s just not possible to give 100% effort 100% of the time. In fact, I believe that’s exactly why they created the 80/20 rule. I literally believe that you’re supposed to give 100% of your effort only 20% of the time. If you did anymore, you’d probably burn out or become one of those overachievers that can’t ever stop overachieving. And who wants to do that?

Just take our nation’s presidents. They take vacations all the damn time, but they don’t take a whole lot of days off during the campaign trail.

How about restaurants? Sure, they try to give you the best of service 24 hours a day, but the truth is that if you show up during non-peak hours and they’re understaffed, good luck having your usual dining experience.

So I confess; I don’t give 100% all of the time. Maybe, it’s my background as an athlete. Yes, I gave all of my effort during every snap of football that I played in high school and college. But during the other four days of practice during the week, I didn’t go full board all the time, and I certainly didn’t put forth the effort on those days that I did on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons. If I did, I wouldn’t have had a body to go into the game with after four days of all-out practicing.

Hell, even with my daily confessions and my effort to watch as much NBA Playoff basketball as possible, I have slacked off. After the New York Knicks lost on Tuesday night, I didn’t stick around at the bar and watch the Atlanta Falcons play. Nah, I got on the damn subway, angrily, and went home, waited until I settled in, and then watched the rest of Dallas vs. Portland.

Unfortunately, people expect more from their athletes. They expect 100% effort all of the time. Sports fans will light the radio and internet airwaves on fire if they catch a player slacking off in 3rd quarter of the 21st game of the NBA Regular season. And they expect this constant effort from their athletes, even when most of them don’t care enough about their jobs to put forth half the effort athletes put forth in a single game.

But that’s what the NBA Playoffs are for. The NBA Playoffs are when you get your 100% effort. There’s no more “let’s wait until the fourth quarter and exert our dominance” during the postseason. NBA basketball teams give it their all in these situations, which by the way, makes it increasingly difficult to bet on these damn games. Who the hell thought the Indiana Pacers would decided to play defense in their 83rd and 84th game, but not the other 82? Who foresaw the Memphis Grizzlies beating the #1 seed in the Western Conference? I mean, these are things that no one would have predicted the day before the playoffs started, but once the playoffs started and the games began to mean something, the regular season stats did not mean much of anything.

And I’m perfectly okay with that.

Call me an athletic homer if you want to, but I don’t need my basketball players going 100% all night every night. That crap is hard. Harder than you think. Why else do 20-something year olds not play as well on the second half of a back-to-back? It’s because that first game, 100% effort or not, takes a lot out of players. If NBA games were so easy, players would play all 48 minutes, wouldn’t they?

So let it go. No more complaining from those of you who don’t like the NBA. Granted, not many of you would read this post anyway, because you’re too busy talking about how NBA Players don’t try hard enough. Truth be told though, most people don’t exert as much energy as NBA players do. And while it would be an easy stance to take, I’m not going to sit here and say that the millions of dollars they earn make up for the physical toil they volunteer for.

I’d much rather say they earn their paycheck the same way you do, by putting forth the effort their employers require of them—sometimes more, sometimes less, but never 100% all of the time.

The post "NBA Playoff Confessions Day 4: I Didn’t Give it 100%" was originally published at TSW.

Maybe this has something to do with the fact that I grew up wanting to be the same type of basketball player that Charles Barkley was. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that I loved how Barkley told me that he wasn’t my role model. And maybe this has even more to do with the fact that Barkley is the most entertaining sports personality there is in or out of the game right now.

But whatever it is, I’m embarrassed to say this but, I’m confessing that I’d rather be Charles Barkley.

If you don’t already know what that is in response to, it’s based on a question oft asked by many sports writers to players during the NBA Playoffs. Actually, it’s more of a hypothetical proposition, a la the “Indecent Proposal” scenario that every couple had to play back in the 90′s with their significant other. The proposition is as such, “Would you rather be Charles Barkley, get all the fame, glory, stats and win nothing, or would you rather be Robert Horry, a 5th or 6th man on seven different NBA championship teams?”

It’s a hell of question, one that really requires some deep introspection. Obviously, the politically correct thing to say is that you’d rather be Robert Horry, because in this scenario, Horry gets the wins and comes across as more of a “I’ll do anything for the team,” sort of guy. But that’s just the politically correct thing to say. The real answer, in actuality, will differ from person to person. Some people don’t want all the glory. Some people don’t want all the fame. Some people will do anything to be a part of triumphant organization, and some people will do anything to be triumphant at their organization.

But to go back to my point, I fall in the camp of the latter–when it comes to basketball that is. I’d much rather be Charles than Horry. Personalities aside, Barkley lived the life he wanted to lead. He had the commercials, the women, the TV time, the money, the resounding respect of his peers and the ability to do as he pleased on the basketball court. Robert Horry, more or less, had luck on his side. Sure, Horry made sure to get with the Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs when they gave him a good chance to win titles. However, he had already won two championships in Houston, where he was  an instrumental part of the team, and he had absolutely no choice in the matter since he was drafted by the Rockets. In addition, Horry’s championships had very little to do with him outside of a few well-timed three-pointers.

I know what you’re saying about me though, “He’s one of those guys! Ballhog!” Yeah, I don’t know about that though. I think you’re a lot like me. You want to say you’d rather be Horry, but perhaps you don’t know what you’d be giving up. Horry didn’t have a line of TV gigs waiting for him upon retirement. Horry didn’t make $9 million in one season like Barkley did at his high point. And do we even talk about Horry any more? Isn’t he completely irrelevant to anything going on in sports right now?

So how did this issue come up for me while watching the Miami/Philly series and the Chicago/Indiana game? Well, I couldn’t help but think that among all the great players we saw playing on the court tonight, one of those guys may never win a championship. Derrick Rose is good, but if he doesn’t beat LeBron James and the Miami Heat with this squad, he may never have this exact same talent around him ever again. And the opposite is true too. If LeBron, Wade and Bosh can’t win the NBA championship this season, who knows how things will work out season after season as the Heat get older?

In fact, let’s stick with that hypothetical. If LeBron loses to Chicago in the Eastern Conference Finals, do you want to be him or do you want to be Lamar Odom–sans the reality show? Again, I’d rather be LeBron James, a bonafide superstar that gets everything he wants and misses out on few opportunities of importance to him. Yes, Lamar Odom is rich, has two championship rings and a famous wife. Yet at the end of the day, I still saw him sitting in his car, sad that he didn’t make the All-Star team–yet again.

Of course, Lamar has experienced another feeling that LeBron simply hasn’t–winning. Then again, I’m sure LeBron can teach Lamar a thing or two about the life of  a superstar.

It’s just a matter of being willing to be mediocre at a really good company, or being a star-performer at a not-as-great company. Yes, in real life, you can have it both ways. Michael Jordan was the man on his team, and he got the championships. Barkley had his shots at it too, he just failed…miserably.

Still, if forced to choose from living the life of Barkley or Horry, I’m going with Barkley 100 times out of 100. He got the talent and everything that comes with it. Horry got the rings as one of the greatest co-signers in the history of the NBA and will be forgotten about in five years.

Call me a maverick, selfish, ball-hog, or whatever else you’d like to call me. But you know that deep down inside, you too would chose the life of Barkley. Outside of a few errs in judgment on the basketball court, Barkley has been able to do whatever he wants to do in life. Robert Horry hasn’t, and if you don’t believe me, just ask yourself what he’s doing right now.

The post "NBA Playoff Confessions Day 3: I’d Rather Be Barkley" was originally published at TSW.

I confess. I’m a hopeless romantic. Even though I grew up a fairly normal-looking guy and was the captain of my high school football team in the state of Texas, I always went after the girl that didn’t want me. And I don’t mean once or twice, but always. And it’s not as if I didn’t have any mutual-feeling options, I just seemed to be more interested in the girl that wanted nothing to do with me—even in the oft occurrence that there was a seemingly more “attractive” option to choose from.

Call it self-destruction, self-hatred, lack of self-esteem, or a flat out love for the thrill of the chase; I was more interested in the female that had no interest in me.

Apparently, that has carried over into other areas of my life. I love spicy food, even though it doesn’t love me three hours later. I tried like hell to work at NBC for four years, even though both Disney and CBS were the ones who gave me opportunities. And to top it all off, I graduated college in the summer of 2006 wanting to go into the journalism industry and be a newspaper writer like good old Michael Wilbon of PTI fame. That same summer of 2006 also happened to be the very year The Economist wrote its famed article, “Who killed the newspaper?”

Of course, my inclination for loving something sure to only hurt me carried over into sports. I am a Philadelphia Eagles fan. I am a Philadelphia Flyers fan. I heart the Philadelphia Phillies, who up until recently were devastatingly disappointing. And lastly, I will confess that my favorite NBA team is the New York Knicks.

In fact, I’m so disillusioned by unrequited sports love, that I will also confess that I think the New York Knicks can beat the Boston Celtics in the first round of the 2011 NBA Playoffs.

Yes, I still believe that, even after today’s game, when the Knicks (mainly Carmelo Anthony) collapsed in the second half, and gave the Celtics a 1-0 lead in the Knicks first NBA Playoff series in seven years.

Now, I’ll be the first to say that if you asked me to bet my life on it, or predict who was going to win the series, I would pick Boston 100 times out of 100, as our Eastern Conference NBA Playoff predictions would confirm. But much like when I was 16 and there was a pretty, young girl that I knew wasn’t interested in me, I hope and believe the Knicks actually have a shot at scoring a win this series—four of them to be exact.

I know. I know. It’s crazy. The Knicks can’t play defense. They can’t rebound. And their shot selection at the end of basketball games is atrocious, as was exhibited in their Game 1 loss against the Boston Celtics. Still, there’s a part of me that won’t let my hopes for the Knicks die. As objective and fact-driven as I try to be when conveying my sports thoughts and opinions to TheSportsWatchers.com readers, my emotions always get in the way when it comes to the Knicks.

As I think about it though, I’m sure my confession about the Knicks winning this series isn’t all that surprising. I’m just another hopeless romantic sports fan rooting for my favorite team, the one that “nobody else is giving a chance.” I’m just another guy in a long line of people wearing rose-shaded glasses, and I don’t even like roses.

But I do like the Knicks. I like them so much that I’m allowing myself to go against every journalistic principle of mine and present to you a feeling of emotion backed up by nary a single piece of evidence that supports my stance. That’s what hopeless romantics do though. We beat ourselves up with our own emotions until the truth punches us in the face. And while I’m sure my “fist to the head” is at the end of this tunnel we call the Celtics-Knicks series, I will continue to hope; blindly, irresponsibly and evidence-less. That’s my confession on Day 2 of the NBA Playoffs.

The post "NBA Playoff Confessions, Day 2: I’m A Hopeless Romantic" was originally published at TSW.

It is my intention to write each and every day during the 2011 NBA Playoffs.

That’s how much I love the sport!

That’s how much TheSportsWatchers.com loves the sport!

And that’s how much you all who read my crappy blog must obviously love the sport!

But I don’t want to use this daily diary to give you your “Daily Dime” as ESPN does, or as a number of multi-faceted news organizations can do 1,000 times better than I can. Instead, I’m more interested in confessing something related to the each of the day’s NBA Playoff games.

What exactly will I be confessing?

Well, everyday will bring its own revelations, but rest assure, we certainly have some things in mind. For example, with the Chicago Bulls set to play today, one of the things I will lead the 2011 NBA Playoff Confessions series with is the fact that I don’t like roses.

I don’t think Derrick Rose was the best basketball player during the 2011 NBA season.

Of course, you’ve seen me bring up Derrick Rose before, but as the 2011 NBA Playoffs open, it has become quite clear who is going to win the MVP Race, no matter how erroneous the voters appear to be.

Derrick Rose is not the MVP by any measure. He isn’t the best offensive player in the NBA. He isn’t the best defensive player in the NBA. There are several good players who have a bigger impact on the scoreboard for their teams than Rose does. And on top of all that, Rose is not even the best player at his position.

I say all of that to prove my point, and trust me, the stats back me up. What the stats don’t measure is how quick Rose is with the basketball, how prolific he has been in some games this season, and how big he has come up with in a couple of fourth quarters.

Conversely, the stats will tell you that despite Rose’s quickness, he’s bad at defense player (the second worst on his team in point differential), he’s been average in his shooting (55% True shooting percentage) despite his high scoring numbers, and he’s been wildly inaccurate and turnover prone in “clutch” moments.

So I confess; I’m not a Derrick Rose fan. And it’s not that I don’t think that he’s good, it’s just that Rose hasn’t earned this unbelievable praise that he has been given just because he has improved so immensely.

The NBA MVP?

Are we serious people? He’s been good, and the Chicago Bulls will go far in the playoffs, but Rose is not LeBron James. He’s not Kobe Bryant. Hell, he’s not even Chris Paul yet. He’s a great offensive player on the best defensive team in the NBA, and so he manages to stand out.

The post "NBA Playoff Confessions Day 1: I’m No fan of Rose’s" was originally published at TSW.

The Eastern Conference has been full of surprises this year, which makes our 2011 NBA Playoff Predictions all that much harder to make.

So what have been some of the surprises?

For starters, the Chicago Bulls are the best team in the Eastern Conference; nobody saw that being the case after all the events that took place this summer. Then how about the Orland Magic being a middling four-seed? Yes, they won 50 games, but their inclusion as one of the elite teams in the NBA seems to have expired. And then there are the Philadelphia 76ers. This team was left for dead entering the season and even a few weeks into it. Now they have been one of the best teams in the East since the All-Star break and could be well on their way to making some playoff noise.

So what is our prediction for how this year’s NBA Playoffs will play out? Let’s get to it, round by round.

First Round Predictions:

Chicago Bulls vs. Indiana Pacers
These two teams are about as unevenly matched as possible. The Bulls dominate the Pacers at every position except for one, small forward, where Danny Granger has a decided advantage over Luol Deng. And while I’m sure the Bulls can overcome that with Derrick Rose’s advantage over the Pacers point guards, it will be a much easier series if Deng can step up and counter Granger. But even if he doesn’t, Bulls still win. Our prediction is that Bulls close this out in 5, 4-1.

Orlando Magic vs. Atlanta Hawks
Last year, these two teams were the #2 and #3 seeds playing each other a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals. This year, they are both middling #4 and #5 seeds that are expected to get thumped in the second round. While many may have the Magic winning this series in easy fashion, the four regular season series games between these two teams suggest otherwise. The Hawks have taken three out of four from the Magic, with a couple of easy wins. And while Dwight Howard is the best player on the court, the Hawks may have the next three or four best players. That said, I’m going to go with the numbers, which show that the Magic have an average point differentia of plus-5.3, while the Hawks have a point differential of minus-0.6. Statistically speaking, this series shouldn’t even be close, so I’ll go against what I’ve seen and let the numbers take hold of my prediction. Orlando wins, 4-1.

Miami Heat vs. Philadelphia 76ers
This match isn’t set in stone as April 11, 2011, however, we don’t think the Heat will lose for the rest of the season, and the New York Knicks have a tiebreaker over Philly. But I digress. The Heat are just better than the 76ers at their own game. Both teams like to run and both teams play great perimeter defense. But at the end of the day, the Heat have Dwyane Wade and LeBron James running, while the 76ers have Andre Igoudala. See what I’m saying? Heat win, 4-1.

Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks
This is a tough one for me since, admittedly, I am a New York Knicks fan. And as I write this, knowing that the Celtics and Knicks play on Wednesday, on the last game of the season, I’m not afraid to say that the Knicks can play with these Celtics. They can’t play with the same Celtics that were in first place going into the All-Star break. But they can play with the Celtics. Especially since over their last 20 games, the Celtics scoring margin is a mere plus-1.55, while over the Knicks last 20 games, their scoring margin is plus-2.45. On top of that, the Celtics lone “big” man is Jermaine O’Neal, and if Shaquille O’Neal isn’t back for the postseason, the Knicks could dominate inside with Amare Stoudemire. Don’t get it twisted though; I’m not going to go pick the underachieving Knicks to win this series. I’m just saying, that if they did play up their abilities, and the Celtics play like that have over the last 20 games, the Knicks could win this series. But they won’t. Celtics win, 4-3.

Second Round Predictions:

Chicago Bulls vs. Orlando Magic
The best thing about this series is that we have a complete clashing of styles. The Bulls like to slow the pace and get to the basket, while the Magic like to run and shoot threes. On top of that, their offensive styles are in complete contrast with their best players. Rose would be better in perimeter game the Magic offer, while Howard is better suited for the motion offense the Bulls like to run. As a result, I have no idea what these games are going to look like, other than the fact that they will look awesome! Because I don’t know what how the demeanor of the NBA Playoffs will affect the style of this game, again I’m going to lean on the numbers that say the Bulls have been much better in their last 20 games than the Magic have. So Bulls win, 4-2.

Miami Heat vs. Boston Celtics
Everybody wants to say that losing Kendrick Perkins will costs the Celtics this series. I don’t see it that way, especially since the Celtics didn’t even have Perkins win they were winning the majority of those game. Again, I will point to Shaquille O’Neal, who has the third best adjusted plus/minus on the Celtics team. For me, it’s pretty simple. If Shaq plays, the Big three can do their thing on the perimeter and win this series. If he doesn’t, the Big Three will have a hard time stopping the Heat’s Big Three from getting into the paint and doing their thing. It’s been a long time since a team could rely on Shaquille O’Neal, so I’m going with the Heat in this one. Miami wins, 4-3.

Eastern Conference Finals

Chicago Bulls vs. Miami Heat
As you all know, the Miami Heat have lost to the Chicago Bulls three times. However, they have lost by a combined total of less than 8 points, and all of the games have come down to the last two are three possessions. Now, it is quite possible that the Heat are bad in close game situations. Yes, I am a firm believer in the fact that winning 5-point games is not a matter of skill, but one of luck. However, if I flip a coin 20 times, and I only get heads three times, I’m going to start to question the validity of that coin. And with the Heat’s close game record being less than optimal, I have to believe that their stagnation at the end of games is causing them to lose the close contests, and I haven’t seen any signs of them fixing that problem. However, I don’t like the Bulls late-game strategy either. As good as Rose has been, he is not the MVP, and he is not that good late in games. In fact, he shoots just 39% down the stretch of close games, and he turns the ball over way more than an MVP point guard should in that situation.

What bodes in Miami’s favor is the fact that we have yet to see them nearly at their best. Currently, the Three Kings average about 35 minutes a piece. However, when the Heat reach the 2011 NBA Playoffs, you can be assured that they will average about 40 minutes per game. That’s a very significant increase, especially when you consider the players they are replacing. Forty minutes a game means guys like Juwan Howard, Joel Anthony, James Jones and Mike Bibby can spend more time on the bench. Bringing in LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade for those games will increase the team’s efficiency tremendously. Thus, I like the Miami Heat to win the Eastern Conference Finals over the Chicago Bulls, 4-2.

The post "NBA Playoff Predictions: Eastern Conference" was originally published at TSW.

The 2011 NBA MVP race has more hot air than the space Rose clears on this dunk.

In this MVP Race for 2011, the consensus appears to be that Derrick Rose is the game’s Most Valuable Player. Unfortunately, every statistic in the world disputes that notion. And for those of you who don’t want to hear about the stats, then I’ve have an alternative argument for you later in this article.

But first, the numbers!

Something is wrong with the NBA, when a player can win Eastern Conference Player of the Month, in the all too important month of March, when he shoots a meager 41.6% from the field and makes only 29.6% of his three-pointers while shooting 6.1 threes per game. Well, that’s what Derrick Rose accomplished in March, and yet, the writers, who appear destined to give the MVP to Rose for the mere fact that they have either been bored or disdained by LeBron James.

It’s quite the amazing phenomenon.

Beyond his March numbers though, Rose just isn’t the best player in the NBA, and he’s not even the best player this season. Yes, his team appears to have been the best team in the Eastern Conference this year, but the NBA MVP Race shouldn’t be about what a player’s team is doing, but about what a player is doing for his team. And that’s what’s being ignored by anybody who says that Derrick Rose deserves the MVP.

The numbers clearly show that LeBron James is the better player. LeBron is averaging better than 26, 7 and 7. Derrick Rose is averaging 25, 8 and 4. Advantage: LeBron, albeit not a deafening advantage, but still an advantage for the two-time MVP. Of course, LeBron is playing a minute more per than Rose, so maybe there’s something there that tilts things back Rose’s way?

Not so fast my friend!

Using the Player Efficiency Rating (PER), which accounts for time spent on the court, LeBron James is the most efficient player in the NBA. He has a much higher true-shooting percentage than Rose. He gets less than 2 percentage points fewer assists per possession than Rose. And LeBron rebounds significantly better than him.

Of course, you can also throw Dwight Howard into the mix. Howard’s is averaging 23, 1, 14 and 2 blocks per game. He has the second highest PER in the NBA. In fact, you can go ahead and put Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant and even Kevin Love ahead of the Rose train when it comes to pure numbers.

As for some more numbers that destroy the arguments of Rose supporters, how about Rose’s “value” to the team? Everybody has this crazy notion that just because we use the term “Most Valuable Player,” that somehow we really want to give the award to a player that gives his team the most value! It’s ridiculous. When that term was “created,” everybody knows that it was intended to go to the best player in the NBA. However, being the contrarians that we are, people have now dubbed this award to mean most valuable to a team, or most valuable to an offense, or most valuable to an offense on a defensive team in first place. The meaning of value has become so convoluted, that I don’t even know what people mean by it any more.

However, if you want to look at “value” intrinsically, here are some stats for your ass. Basketballvalue.com uses a metric called “adjusted plus/minus.” I’m sure you are familiar with the fact that plus/minus measures the scoring margin of a player when he is on the floor. Well, adjusted plus/minus metric simply accounts for the players that said player is on the court with, because obviously, one’s scoring margin on the court is severely altered by the players on the court with him.

When you apply these stats to the top MVP candidates, we see that Dwight Howard has APM (adjusted plus/minus) of 12.99. LeBron James has an APM of 9.76. And the MVP Race favorite, Derrick Rose, has an APM of 8.51. However, none of these guys are tops in the league. Chris Paul actually leads the league with an APM of 17.61, and LaMarcus Aldridge has an APM of 16.29. What do these numbers tell us? Well, they certainly allow us to see which players are affecting their teams most, albeit, not a perfect measurement since regression models are needed to account for other players on the court, some players always play with other players, and sample sizes bigger than one season are needed to limit the standard era. Nonetheless, it’s a good way to look at things to see a good measurement of a player’s value, and in this case, Rose, who ranks 20th on this list, does not appear to be the most valuable player in this “value” statistic.

Okay, but you’re tired of the numbers, right? All you know is that Derrick Rose is the best player on the best team in the Eastern Conference. What you know is that Rose, who is player with far less talent around him than LeBron James is, has a better record than the Big Three, the Big Four and Big Man down in Orlando. Certainly, I can’t argue with that logic, and there is something to be said for it.

But I post to you two points.

First, Chicago is not a good offensive team. They rank 13th in offensive efficiency, the indisputable measurement of how good a team is offensively. That 13th ranking puts them behind Golden State, Houston and the lowly Phoenix Suns. But isn’t Rose supposed to be the engine on the Chicago Bulls offense? What’s happening there when the league’s MVP has a mediocre offense and yet they have the best team in the East?

I’ll tell you what’s happening. The Bulls are winning games on defense! The Bulls, by measure of the undisputed defensive efficiency rating, are the best defensive team in the NBA. Oh but wait, doesn’t Rose suck at defense? Yes, he does! In fact, the Bulls are exactly 8 points worse per 100 possessions on defense when Rose is on the court compared to when is off it. Now, some of that has to do with the fact that Rose sits out during garbage time and yada, yada, yada. But if you want to go there, than let’s compare him to other players that have been a part of there fair share of blowouts, like LeBron and Howard, who’s teams are defensively more efficient with them on the court.

Thus, for all that credit you’re giving Rose for “leading” the Bulls, he’s probably the worse defender on a team that wins based on its defense. I don’t know about you, but such a notion does not connote value in my mind.

Last but not least on this Derrick Rose trashing campaign is the fact that Rose can be replaced. For all of this “value” he allegedly has, how many players can I replace Rose with and still have a great Bulls team, if not a better one? Obviously, Chris Paul, Deron Williams and even an aging Steve Nash could fill the roll. AS for some candidates that aren’t even the most important players on their teams, both Rajon Rondo and Russell Westbrook would keep the Bulls just as good as they are now if they replaced Rose. And to add fuel to the fire, Tony Parker, Stephen Curry and even Ramon Sessions have high enough True-Shooting Percentages and Assists ratios that suggest that they could make the Bulls offense better than it is now, and as we know, Rose’s defense isn’t anything to live up to.

As for LeBron and Howard, who are you going to replace them with? Not a soul. Not a soul. Which is why I’m okay with giving the award to either one of those guys, but the notion of giving it to Rose is quite ridiculous. Yes, he’s a great player. Maybe even a Top 10 player. But he’s not even the best player at his position. He’s just on a really good team that plays really good defense. He can shine on offense, because everyone around him offensively is only slightly above average. Put him on the Heat, and his abilities would take a backseat. Put him on a team that needs defense, and they’d be even worse.

Sorry, I love, Rose, even though it doesn’t sound like it. But he’s not the best player in the NBA, and statistically, he fails to qualify as the most “valuable” player, too. If you want to give him the award because it sounds nice, then you’re voting on a story, not a player. And if that’s how you want to vote, writers, then in the words of Dennis Green, “go ahead and crown’em.”

The post "MVP Race 2011: Is Derrick Rose Basketball’s Best?" was originally published at TSW.

It probably wasn’t Kemba Walker’s best college basketball game. Hell, it wasn’t even close. His 16 points on 5 of 19 shooting in last night’s NCAA Basketball National Championship Game was far from some of the spectacular shooting days he put together during this 11-game run that began back in mid-March. Even in inefficiency, Walker was still the man. Walker helped manage the offense from the point, spearheaded an aggressive perimeter defense and at the meager height of 6-1, he grabbed 9 rebounds in a game where defense and rebounding was essential.

That kind of effort is why it was only befitting that Walker and his Connecticut Huskies cut down the nets after being Butler 53-41. Walker’s shooting excellence, energy and all-around effort in the last 11 games of the season are maybe something we haven’t seen before in college basketball.

Granted, I’m a little younger than most seasoned writers out there, but it’s hard for me to imagine that in 11-straight elimination games, any other player in the basketball history has been as clutch and on-point as Kemba Walker has. From last-minute shots, to straight up buzzer beaters, Walker has done it all, and he did it all from the perimeter, something which, as we saw last night, is always a part of one’s game that a basketball player can rely on.

But I suppose when your shot is as sweet as Walker’s, hot streaks aren’t hard to come by. While Walkers 0-4 3-point shooting in the nation’s biggest game didn’t impress anybody watching him for the first time last night, let it be known that Walker is still a baler. The man by no means is a 3-point assassin, as his 3-point percentage for the season was a paltry 33%. However, when it comes to putting points up on the board, Walker comparisons are better suited for Allen Iverson than they are Ray Allen.

At the end of each game, Walker isn’t always going to have the sexiest shooting percentages. In fact, his 0 of 4 from three-point land last night was quite comparable to his 1 of 5 against Kentucky, his 1 of 7 against Arizona and his 0 of 3 against Louisville in the Big East Championship Game. His field goal percentage won’t be all that impressive either, as he shoots a mundane 42% from the field for his career.

But in the game of basketball, where putting the ball in the whole is the ultimate goal, prolificacy is the next best thing after efficiency—and boy is Kemba prolific! All you have to do is look at the point totals to see that. His last 11 point totals, mind you that these were produced in one-and-done games, reads something like 16, 18, 20, 36, 33, 18, 19, 33, 24, 28 and 26. And for good measure, his point total twelve games ago was 36 against top-ranked Notre Dame.

Of course, at 6-1 and lacking the shooting expertise and pure athleticism that most NBA scouts would like to see from someone that size, Kemba Walker will get labeled a scrap-player, one destined to fight his way off the bench in the NBA and prove that he can contribute. Sure, he’ll get drafted early in the 2011 NBA Draft because his stock could be no higher. But without the pure athleticism of say an Allen Iverson or Nate Robinson, Walker will still have to prove himself at the next level.

But being a player from the Bronx, who had to fight his way into Jim Calhoun’s good graces, I don’t doubt that Walker will find a way to show his next coach exactly what it is that he can do on the basketball court. CBS color analyst Clark Kellogg says this all the time: “If you have game, it will travel.” Walker definitely has game, and it will travel to the NBA. Doubt that if you may, but what you can’t doubt is the championship-like prolificacy that Walker displayed in his last 11 games. And if you need any kind of reminder, just watch the video of him cutting down those championship nets as the NCAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.

The post "NBA Draft Ready: Kemba Walker Caps Run of a Lifetime" was originally published at TSW.

The NCAA Basketball Championship Game is tonight. Usually, when giving out championship predictions, I have no fear about what we’re projecting. I try to use the numbers and our perception of the game to come to a decision, and we let the chips fall where they may.

However, this game is different. This game is special. This game has two entities that just won’t die. Nobody thought Connecticut, the #3 seed in tonight’s championship game, would be entering the NCAA Championship Game having won the Big East Tournament and five straight games in addition to that. As for Butler, the #8 seed in tonight’s game, a lot of people didn’t think they could beat Old Dominion, which seemed apparent when they were down a point with only a few moments left in their Round 1 matchup.

Whether it was their first game or their second, most people thought that the five wins in five days would catch up with the Connecticut Huskies and send those basketball players reeling for oxygen back to Stores, Connecticut before too long. But when that didn’t happen in the first weekend, people should not have been surprised that Kemba Walker and UCONN came to play in the Sweet 16 and the Elite 8. They’re college kids, not senior citizens; four days of rest will certainly suffice.

Still, the emotion they overcame, by being forgettable at-large bid contenders entering the Big East Tournament to being on the verge of one of the greatest college basketball runs in the history of the sport, is a lot to deal with. Whether it was Kemba looking like his legs had given out half way through Big East play, to questionable losses on the road to sub-par Big East schools, Connecticut was about as championship-worthy as a dried up Kenny Powers, and yet here they are, championship game bound.

But don’t forget Butler. How many times have they been counted out this season? From being deemed doomed from the beginning when they lost their underclassmen “superstar” to the 2010 NBA Draft, to their failures in the Horizon League, where they weren’t even the best team in a mid-major conference, it seemed like Butler may not even make the NCAA Tournament at one point, never mind win the damn thing. But after essentially four upset wins and a victory over a red-hot VCU team in the Final Four, Butler is riding a roller coast of emotion that probably started the second Gordon Hayward’s last chance attempt at winning the championship game over Duke bounced off the backboard.

So the question is, with both teams riding a wave of emotion, will either of these teams sputter out in front a national audience, or will they will both rise to the occasion just one more time and put on a show for the ages? Even with a myriad of permutations in between those two options, each scenario feels quite plausible. Butler has a great knack of playing good basketball even when they aren’t playing good basketball. That is, when their shots aren’t going down on offense, hustle on the offensive boards and at the defensive end is so consistent, that they can easily overcome a long stretch of field goal shooting woes.

As for UCONN, they have on the most exciting players in the nation, and when he’s on, he’s almost impossible to stop. And for as much credit as Butler gets for its defense, UCONN is seemingly just as good at that end of the basketball court too, as was proven when they held Kentucky to 21 points in first half of Saturday’s Final Four game.

Both UCONN and Butler rode their strengths on the court to get to the championship game, but it’s their emotions that helped pave the way. Say what you will about the production of motivation on the court, motivation will drive a player to prepare more and focus more than he ever has in the past. In these cases, motivation drove Butler to that defensive focus that they had seemingly gotten away from during a long stretch in the Horizon League. And UCONN has seemingly gotten too caught up in Kemba Walker fever and needed some Big East smack downs to get them back to playing the team basketball they needed to help Kemba be at his best.

Now, I’m not saying that motivation actually willed UCONN to 10 straight unbelievable wins, but it sure did help in the preparation process, and that preparation has showed in the execution of each of tonight’s championship contenders.

Of course, luck had something to do with it, as well.

But no matter how this game plays out in terms of luck or performance, you can rest assure that emotions will determine the winner. Neither team has faced severe, basketball agony in the last month, and that lack of defeat almost always translates into unmitigated confidence. But what happens to a team’s confidence when faced with the realization that with five minutes left, only one team’s dreams are going to come true. The Butler players know all too well what that feeling is like, and they have to be scared to death of seeing that happen again. UCONN players were recruited by Jim Calhoun just for moments like this, so they have to be a little bit emotional about realizing their dreams too.

While it’s always said that emotions and visions of grandeur dissipate when players step in between the lines, the later it is in the game, the more likely those feelings are to creep back into a players minds. Will emotions affect the outcome of the game? Maybe. Maybe not. But chances are, emotions will run wild, and with one game to go in the college basketball runs of a lifetime, each team knows that while emotions helped get them to this point, emotions might bring their seasons to an end.

The post "NCAA Basketball Championship Game: UCONN, Butler and Emotions Collide" was originally published at TSW.

Your bracket is messed up! So what!

Let’s face it, when it comes to picking teams in the NCAA Tournament, it’s about as lucky as winning the lottery. You can’t predict these things; the odds are against you.

The better thing to worry about now is if these damn games will be worth watching on Saturday. With all due respect to VCU and Butler, the Final Four underdogs that I rooted for in every contest this tournament, they aren’t “sexy” teams that I want to necessarily watch at college basketball’s highest level.

Obviously, their stories are amazing, and if I lived to see a #11 seed like VCU cut down the nets next Monday after the NCAA Basketball championship game, it would be rather amazing. But I don’t know any of the players on that team, and I don’t know that I will know any of them after the game on Monday. At least Butler has 1, maybe as many as 2, potential NBA players, but even those guys are long shots. And when it comes to historical, championship basketball, I want to see names that I know and care about. I don’t want to get invested in people that will come and go out my life.

That’s what makes the NCAA Basketball Tournament great, right? The fact that throughout the entire first four days of the tournament, the fun thing to do is to root for the underdog and watch some young basketball player make a name for himself for a couple of days. Then during the second weekend, we typically watch any remaining underdogs get their heads beat in like they stole something and don’t belong. It’s that ultimate little man hope, big man thrive theory. We all love to see the underdog win, until he’s up against our favored team. Then we want to see that underdog beat down.

But this year, with VCU and Butler intruding into the Final Four, along with Kentucky and UCONN, the underdogs won the battle. And what we potentially have brewing here is a Georgetown-Villanova situation, where in which Villanova knocked off Patrick Ewing and the highly-favored Georgetown Hoyas in the 1985 NCAA Basketball Tournament Championship Game.

Will this Final Four play out like that and as worthwhile and as memorably? It certainly has a chance to do so. #8 Butler and #11 VCU play each other on Saturday, to assure basketball nation that a mid-major school will play for the NCAA championship on Monday. And with UCONN and Kentucky coming out of the other side of the bracket, we also assure ourselves that a historical basketball power will be on the other side of the eventual underdog winner.

Thus, the story lines have written themselves for the championship game before we even get there. Much like last year’s game between Butler and Duke, we have a battle between David and Goliath, only this time, David’s got a little swagger. Butler has too much senior experience to be even mildly intimidated by the names on a jersey. Furthermore, VCU has the balls of a bull, as they exhibited when they knocked off the #2 overall team in the tournament over the weekend. In fact, VCU reminds me a lot of that 1985 Villanova team. They were bold and brash with a brazen, young, head basketball coach and some guys that could really shoot the lights out of a basketball arena. And if VCU does advance to the championship game, and when we do get that David vs. Goliath matchup, it’s hard to imagine this year’s Final Four not being worth the watch. Because even if I have to invest my emotions in a couple of guys I will never see play basketball again, sometimes the magnitude of the moment is strong enough to live on forever. Just ask that 1985 Villanova team.

The post "Zo Knows: The 2011 Final Four Is Worth Watching" was originally published at TSW.

How far away are we from Shaka Smart, head basketball coach of Final Four-bound Virginia Commonwealth University, announcing that he is going to be leaving his current gig for a bigger program somewhere in the SEC or ACC?

Three weeks?

Two Weeks?

Before the Final Four is even over?

Let’s face the facts; it is only a matter of time before this seemingly “genius” head coach is contacted by every major school with a vacancy, as well as a few who still have head basketball coaches. Shaka Smart has done more than any program could ask of a coach; he has made an irrelevant basketball program the talk of the nation. Before the 2011 NCAA Tournament started, all people wanted to talk about was how VCU didn’t even deserve to be among the NCAA’s last four teams in. Now they’re among the last teams to be in the NCAA tournament, and the conversation has turned from giant mistake to giant killers.

However, with success comes some sort of growth. Granted, Lindsay Lohan has had all kinds of career success and hasn’t grown one iota since her childhood, but she’s probably a better actor than she was 15 years ago, and such is the case with Smart—or at least that’s the perception. Whether or not Smart is any better of a coach now than he was a year ago, when VCU wasn’t even considered good enough for the NIT, the perception is that Smart is a better coach. And with this apparent growth will come job offer after job offer. And eventually, Smart will accept one of these gigs so he can be more relevant, make more money and have more success on and off the court.

And he is right to do so. Why would anyone stay in a place that did not offer them a level playing field? Shaka’s VCU team is clearly as good as any team in the nation, but they were probably a committee member’s brain fart away from not being in the 2011 NCAA Tournament and the rest of the basketball world not even knowing who the hell this Shaka Smart guy is. But if Smart goes on to coach at Tennessee, Miami, Arkansas, USC or Clemson, he will undoubtedly have several games a year to be on national television, recruit top tier talent and always have a fair shot at making the NCAA Tournament.

That’s not the case if he stays at VCU. If Smart stays he risks never reaching this moment again. Certainly, going on to coach at a bigger school doesn’t mean he’ll necessarily be Final Four bond either, but coaching at VCU means having to win the conference tournament every year just to assure that his mid-major program gets in the big dance, and you can’t make the Final Four if you don’t make the beginning 68.

Of course, critics will judge Smart for leaving behind the program that gave him an opportunity. They will judge him for preaching team and commitment to his players all season and then leaving them the second a better opportunity rolls around. But that’s life. We grow and we move on. If Smart wants to be the best at his profession then he needs to be at a program that has a chance to recruit the best players in his profession, and that program is not VCU. Don’t worry, his basketball players should understand. Sure, the freshmen and sophomores he recently recruited will be upset, but they will get over it. As members of Generation Y, or whatever generation they’re apart of, they will switch jobs some 87 times before they \retire, always opting for the better opportunity that sets them and their families up in the best way possible.

That’s what Smart is doing, and it is perfectly okay. He is about to achieve the highest level of success he probably can VCU, and this season will go down as the most memorable there is for all VCU students and alumni. He gave them a great year, and they should give him a warm goodbye. Because it’s not a question of if he’ll go to another basketball program, but if he’ll go to another basketball program, and that’s the case whether or not Mr. Smart is intelligent enough to cut down these nets at the end of the Final Four.

The post "Shaka Smart Out" was originally published at TSW.

The debate itself is ridiculous. Jalen Rose made some comments with racial undertones that reflected the way he felt two decades ago. Grant Hill responded to what he considered hurtful comments, which is more than appropriate, given not-so-positive things were said about him.

But as inflammatory as some may have found Rose’s use of the term “Uncle Tom” in The Fab Five documentary, Rose was clearly not attacking Hill in the present tense. And as hurt and offended by being labeled an Uncle Tom in the documentary as he was, Grant Hill made it a point to say in his New York Times opinion piece that Rose and the Fab Five are his friends.

However, I will go ahead and indulge in this heated argument for a couple of paragraphs. Let’s say Hill and Rose really were at each other’s throats over some comments made in a documentary—comments Rose already apologized to Hill for, albeit via the 21st century equivalent of a telegram, Twitter. If they really were caught up in this debate, can’t they still both be right? Rose said that as a 19-year old, he felt that black, Duke basketball players were Uncle Toms—the key there being that he felt that way two decades ago, not now. And if that’s how he felt then, he’s only being honest about his feelings. As people, we grow, we mature and we learn the arrogance of our ways. Jalen never said that he feels that same way about Duke players today. The fact that Rose’s words are being misconstrued to suggest that he is currently stereotyping a certain type of black person, or in the words of Jason Whitlock, he is preaching in favor of self-hate among black people, is a completely ludicrous notion. Jalen is simply expressing a way that he felt in the past!

To that point though, Grant Hill can be right, too. Grant Hill feels Jalen did not go far enough to express that he no longer feels that Hill nor his Duke brethren are Uncle Toms. Jalen was the executive producer of The Fab Five documentary, and he has had many opportunities to step away from the comments in various media platforms and interviews. The fact that I have yet to have heard Jalen express a clear disdain for the way he felt about black, Duke, basketball players allows me to understand why Hill, and those in his position, may be taken aback by Jalen’s comments.

So I guess that’s what we’re arguing about. While Rose and Hill took to film and the NYTimes to express their sentiments at the highest levels of media possible, the rest of us want to pretend as if there is some real verbal feud going on between these two people that have suggested nothing about their relationship other than the fact that they have been friends since they were teenagers. But we, myself included as I write this piece, are taking these differing viewpoints to mean that there is a clear divide between Jalen and Grant, and between the groups of black people they are seen to represent.

But that’s not what we should be talking about! What we should be talking about is how the Fab Five documentary made many, many points about the state of NCAA basketball in the early 90’s and the way that five, young, black kids came together and became life long best friends. Not to mention, the documentary spoke to the exploitation of the college athlete, the state of poor black individuals, cultural divides, personal failings, collective triumphs and an eventual fall from grace. Instead, we as a nation, one that many people love to say is beyond race, find a way to hang on to the most polarizing mention of race in the film.

The fact is that, Barack Obama or no Barack Obama, race is still king in this country. It affects our lives everyday. The second Rose broke out the trigger word “Uncle Tom,” I could hear the smattering of keyboards across the nation getting ready for their 750-word columns. Race is just an easy topic to use as a fuel for a debate, even though sports writers, who are typically white Americans, fail to address the topic with the same objectivity and lack of caution that they address most other topics with. Thus, instead of talking about whether Jalen is right in saying that Duke recruits a certain type of player, the headlines focus on the use of an uncomfortable and hurtful word, that while dangerous, is by no means strong enough for me to accept our nation’s unwillingness to have a more thoughtful discussion.

However, while I read article after article about Rose’s use of the word “Uncle Tom,” I don’t feel sorry for Rose. He has been given opportunity to make it clear that he no longer thinks Duke players are Uncle Toms, and he hasn’t used those opportunities to do so. Why? I’m not sure, only Rose can tell you that. But since he hasn’t done so, I can’t worry about how all of this backlash is affecting him.

That being said, Rose shouldn’t have to make himself any clearer than he already has. So while I don’t feel sorry for the backlash he has received, I still don’t feel the backlash is deserved. Again, watch the documentary. Listen to what Rose has said since then. In 1991, Rose thought Duke players were Uncle Toms. In 2011, there is no evidence that Rose feels that way. Show me the evidence (ehemm, Jason Whitlock), and I’ll concede to the fact that Rose should be more contrite. But in my opinion, we as an English-speaking people have past and present tense in the English language for a reason, and to have to explain ourselves past the point of structuring our sentences in a way that any 4th grader can understand, is something I find foolish and unnecessary.

Another thing I find foolish though is why we aren’t looking more into what Rose actually said. As opposed to getting hung up on the word “Uncle Tom,” why have we failed to prolifically discuss why head basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, or Coach K, didn’t recruit Jalen Rose? Was it because Rose was from the inner-city? Was it because Rose didn’t go to private school? These are legitimate questions to ask, and ones that certainly broach upon some semblance of truth about Duke’s recruiting standards. I’m not even saying that Coach K is wrong for not recruiting Rose, but if talking about whether Rose thinks Hill is an Uncle Tom is worthy of my time, than certainly a discussion over Duke’s pristine image and a seemingly lack of diversity in certain aspects of the recruiting are worthy a conversation.

But no. What gets covered on television, radio, the internet, and now my blog, are the two inflammatory words that are oft used as conversational fire-starters. And while I find our unwillingness to go further into the documentary and get past some mean words said 20 years ago, I understand that the issue of race continues to be a polarizing issue, one that has transcended from blacks defending blacks and whites defending whites, to people taking the sides they legitimately feel responsible to. Sixty years ago that wasn’t the case, and now, perhaps through fire-starting conversations like these, we have reached a different place.

So even though these conversations fail to explore deeper, more though-provoking issues, they still have some value in that they expose emotions and get us talking about a sensitive issue. I only wish that at the end of this discussion, and look back and realize that this wasn’t about Rose vs. Hill, or about how bad of a person Rose is for saying something and how good of a person Grant is for defending Duke. This really is about race in America and why we are overly sensitive to it. These aren’t always the most thoughtful conversations, but they serve a purpose, and perhaps, just maybe, it’s okay if we have more of them.

The post "Rose vs. Hill: Not a Fight I’m Interested In" was originally published at TSW.

Bruce Pearl was fired from Tennessee yesterday after having led the Volunteers to the NCAA Tournament this year and a 145-61 record during his time in Knoxville. Pearl was fired because of NCAA charges that claimed unethical conduct on the part of Pearl after learning that he committed violations in September of 2010 and even in this very month, March 2011.

However, Pearl was not fired because of his team’s performance on the court. While Tennessee has had a couple of unsavory finishes in the tournament during Pearl’s reign, Pearl’s record at Tennessee is beyond reproach. In one of the few men’s basketball programs that is overshadowed by that of their female counterparts, Pearl’s Tennessee Volunteers reeked havoc on the SEC during his six seasons, and he missed out on a trip to the 2010 Final Four by just a single point.

Thus, there is no questioning that he is a good basketball coach, or at the very least, a good recruiter of basketball players. And while his method of reaching out to basketball players may be under question, there is no doubt that he is still capable of brining in highly-sought after contact, the same way he did when he was at Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he compiled a 51-13 record and took the mid-major program to a Sweet 16 in 2005.

So if the question isn’t can he coach, then the question must be who will he coach for next? Because, undoubtedly, we have not seen the last of Pearl walking an NCAA basketball sideline. And undoubtedly, there are plenty of fledgling basketball programs out there looking to turn their mediocre seasons into NCAA Tournament bids and Sweet 16 finishes. Pearl has proven that he can do that at the mid-major and major level, leaving a wealth of opportunities for a man who was just fired from what appeared to be his dream job.

One contender for Bruce Pearl would have to be SEC rival Arkansas, who just fired John Pelphrey. Arkansas is a program that has had some moderate talent come through its doors over the years but has failed to capitalize on it by getting in the NCAA Tournament and building off what would be some incredible national television exposure. Pearl immediately brings national coverage to the program, and probably a pool full of talent as well. The added advantage of coming to another SEC school is that Pearl already knows the players to go after, the states to target and the high coaches asses to kiss. That of course makes some other SEC schools, with or without coaches, viable destinations for Pearl as well.

Then there’s even further south, at the University of Miami. Miami had a new athletic director and fledgling basketball program. Now while I hate to talk about a coaching spot that isn’t open, it’s fair to say that the boosters at Miami would be more than happy to throw the money—I mean attention—basketball’s way if they can bring in a big-name coach like Pearl. One can only imagine what kind of talent Pearl can get to come to a nightlife paradise like Miami if he can get young 18-year olds to come to Knoxville Tennessee. Coach in place or not, one has to imagine that word is already out on South Beach that Miami is interested in Bruce Pearl.

But how about out West? The Pac-10 has continued to struggle, and the entire balance of power in that region could be disrupted if one big-name coach comes over there with a lot of wind behind his sails. From Washington to Oregon, to USC and up the freeway to Stanford, Bruce Pearl would be a marked improvement on a plethora of the Pac 10 programs.

The only caveat to hiring Bruce Pearl is that his immediate future is unknown. Pearl will contest charges from September, and the recent charge from earlier this month is too new to speculate on. That being said, it would seem unlikely at this point that Pearl would see any punishment that is too crazy. At most, we’re talking about a year’s suspension. Realistically, we’re talking about some recruiting limitations. And the latter is the charge, and if possible college programs get word that is the case, Pearl will be hired probably before the Final Four is even tipped. He’s too good to stay off the sidelines for too long. And as long as he commits to keeping high school recruits out of his backyard, we will see him coaching very soon.

The post "Bruce Pearl Will Coach Again…But Where?" was originally published at TSW.

If you’re like most NCAA Basketball Tournament fans, you don’t get a chance to watch a ton of college basketball during the regular season. It’s not your fault, the 2011 NCAA basketball season operated at a very inopportune time of the year.

For starters, it starts during football season, which basically makes it wholly irrelevant for the better part of its season. Secondly, college basketball starts after the NBA basketball season gets going, which also diminishes its entertainment appeal, especially since it’s up against the same product, only a better version of it. And lastly, college basketball has its most exciting points of the season during busy parts of the year—the early season tournaments and conference play start during Christmas break, and championship week is often during or right before Spring Break.

Given that, it’s easy to see that NCAA basketball was not set up by businessmen. That being said, you don’t have to watch the regular season to participate in all of the gambling fun. If you want to win your office pool, bet some games on the side, or just look like you know what the hell you’re talking about, we have some NCAA sleeper picks that you should definitely consider when you’re trying to find that upset pick that makes you look smarter than everybody else in your office!

#12 Richmond Spiders over #5 Vanderbilt Commodores
This is probably one of the most potential upsets out there that nobody is talking about. Richmond is a very talented, senior-led team that is capable of beating a lot of college basketball’s brass. Justin Harper and Kevin Anderson have put up some impressive scoring numbers during the 2011 season, and Vanderbilt isn’t exactly one of college basketball’s best defensive teams. And the 6’10” Harper will also make things really difficult for Vandy down low, where he averages 7 rebounds, scores from the block and can’t be fouled because he shoots 79% from the free throw line. I like #12 Richmond to capture this win as one of our favorites to be a 2011 NCAA sleeper pick.

#11 Gonzaga over #6 St. John’s
The Red Storm may have gotten away with a travel and an out-of-bounds call in the Big East Tournament, but no such miracle will save them in the 2011 NCAA Tournament. St. John’s won’t be able to handle the inside-outside presence of a Gonzaga team that is playing their best basketball of the season right now. Marquise Carter is probably going to be the best basketball player on the floor in this game, especially since St. John’s will not have DJ Kennedy for the remainder of the season. While Paris Horne should help St. John’s keep this one close, I like Gonzaga (and what amounts to home court advantage in Colorado) to eek out a win.

#10 Penn State over #7 Temple
Every basketball fans knows the adage, “live by the three, die by the three.” Well, that’s essentially what this game will come down to. Temple loves the outside shot, including long two-pointers, and they have thrived on that all season, which is why they earned a #7 seed in the first place. However, with Scootie Randall hobbled by a foot injury, Temple’s outside shooting definitely takes a hit, as Randall is a 37% shooter from beyond the arc. In Temple’s favor though is the fact that Penn State is very susceptible to the three-point ball. They could very well get caught up in the excellent ball movement by Temple and give up one too many open looks from three-point land. However, my money is on the fact that Randall’s injury sets him back, and that Penn State is able to play Temple’s other shooters a little closer. Thus, I predict the Nittany Lions to run Temple off the three-point line and take away all of those looks. And as long as PSU remains solid on offense, they should get the win.

#4 Wisconsin over #13 Belmont
This is not an upset, but I do want to address this game for one reason—all of you are crazy! This has been floated around as one of the sexy picks for an upset, but it really shouldn’t be viewed as such. Wisconsin is a very good basketball team, and they are being mired in a sea of doubt just because they failed to break the 40-point barrier on Saturday. Listen folks, that was just a bad game, and it won’t carry on into the 2011 NCAA Tournament (or so I believe!). Wisconsin, while not known for scoring a lot of points, is one of the most efficient basketball teams in the NCAA Tournament. They should have no problem scoring against a Belmont team that isn’t nearly as effective on the offensive or defensive end. So if you penciled this one is as your “Giant Killer” upset victory, you just better be glad it was in pencil.

The post "NCAA Basketball Tournament Predictions: Thursday First Round Upsets" was originally published at TSW.

This is said every year: “Be prepared to tear up your NCAA Tournament brackets after the first weekend.”

And usually, that is indeed the case. But I can only think of one year, the NCAA Tournament from a season ago, where chalk wasn’t the predominant theme by the time the Final Four rolled around.

Daring to be controversial, I am again going to say that the 2011 NCAA Tournament will result in you tearing up your bracket by the time the weekend ends. However, to take it a step farther, and to let you in on a little secret, if you go chalk, chances are your bracket won’t even survive the Dinner break on Friday.

This tournament is bound for upsets. While my buddy Dennis Johnson thinks that the “March Madness” in the 2011 NCAA tournament went out the window with the NCAA committee’s terrible seeding, I on the other hand, think not even their misdoing can mess this tournament up. In the words of ESPN’s Jay Bilas, this tournament is idiot-proof.

It was also Bilas who said that this is the weakest NCAA Tournament field in the history of college basketball. He’s a lot older than me, so I will take his word for it on this one. And if Bilas is right, expect upset city all Thursday and Friday long—only in grave proportions.

For you bracket busters who are looking for the latest 2011 NCAA sleeper pick in all four of the tournament’s regions, this tournament was made for you. For the gamble-aholics that love picking the underdog to win straight up, this may be your best year yet.

Just look at the potential in this tournament for madness. A lot of people think Texas’ athleticism matches up well with Duke, who is in their same region; however, Texas might not even get out of the first round if they lose to #13 Oakland, a team that boast a big front line with Keith Benson (a surefire NBA talent) anchoring the middle. Then you have a team like Pittsburgh, for which many people think has the easiest road of all the #1 seeds in the tournament. Still, Pittsburgh’s poor offense could see them take an early bow in the Round of 32 if they can’t handle the efficient scoring of the Butler Bulldog offense. And what about everybody’s favorite, BYU, which got a #3 seed but are without their second best player for the remainder of the NCAAs?

Chaos!

I will admit. The seeding in this tournament made the propensity for a chalk-like Final Four scenario possible. Again, I point to Pittsburgh’s easy run, a clear path for Ohio State and also, a possible walk-into the Final Four for the Duke Blue Devils. A few bounces of the basketball, and that’s what we will have. But a few rotations the other way might have us headed for the freakiest of NCAA Tournaments, and so long as I’m watching them, I couldn’t ask for anything more.

The post "March Madness 2011: NCAA Bracket of Doom" was originally published at TSW.

In February, I wrote a piece touting how much of a crazy NCAA Basketball Tournament this year’s college playoffs would be. Of course, I wasn’t the only one. Many prognosticators (ehemm, Jay Bilas), said the same thing, as this year’s field of 68 is probably one of the weakest fields in the history of the NCAA Tournament. The #1 seeds aren’t all that great, and the teams that just made the college basketball tournament are capable of beating any otherwise paltry teams in the field.

However, in looking at the 2011 NCAA bracket, it’s pretty hard to sit hear and start circling seeds ranked below #6 or #7 again and again. For whatever reason, an NCAA basketball tournament that was sure to go the way of the wild, wild West, appears to be headed for chalk city.

We’ll get to the particulars in just a second, but let’s get one issue out of the way. Obviously, we all know that part of March Madness is cleaning up whatever it is that those crazy folks in Indiana come up with when they’re done seeding and selecting the teams. So it comes as no surprise that the committee made yet another egregious mistake in their selection process.

The huge mistake was including UAB and VCU in this year’s tournament. Neither team was even in contention by most people’s account. Joe Lunardi, of ESPN’s Bracketology fame, did not even have those two teams on the bubble. But instead of keeping those teams out, the committee kept the likes of Colorado, which had 6 top 50 wins, including two wins over #5 seed Kansas State. The committee also decided that Virginia Tech, which had 2 wins over Top 50 opponents, did not belong in the tournament. While it’s easy to make an argument against VT, it’s impossible to make one against them and then include UAB and VCU in the mix. When asked to explain the apparent disconnection on an interview on ESPN’s Bracketology, head of the selection process, Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith, failed to back up any of his answers with statements about each team’s resume.

But I digress. While the omission of Colorado is almost laughable, that wasn’t going to make or break this tournament. Seeding, however, did.

Then again, I don’t have too much of a problem with the seeding, and maybe when it’s all said and done, I will be wrong about all of this. But in looking at the 2011 NCAA bracket, it would appear to me that by the time we get to the Sweet 16, most of the tourney will be chalk. Granted, it’s impossible to say with certainty that such a situation will be the case, but this bracket looks no less uncomfortable to fill out than in year’s past, when much of the teams were a lot more defined talent-wise.

Coming into Selection Sunday, I was expecting to look at my bracket and see seven or eight low seeds make it into the Sweet 16, and at least two or three make it to the Elite 8. But given how things shook out, I have chalk from the round of 32 on, and it’s hard to go against it given a lot of the matchups.

Now, I know some of you are looking at the same bracket and are having a much different experience, and I hope you and your selections are right. I don’t want a basketball tournament full of the same old college basketball teams advancing. I want anarchy. I just don’t see anarchy in the future of the 2011 NCAA bracket.

So call me crazy. Call me silly. Hell, call me weak for printing and filling out such a populous bracket. Just know that while my head sees chalk, my heart is in the right place. I want anarchy like the rest of you, but I also want to win this damn office pool!

The post "2011 NCAA Bracket: Will the March Madness Continue?" was originally published at TSW.

The NCAA Basketball brackets are out and before you can even pick your final four, you have to know who the college basketball sleeper picks are for the 2011 tournament. Well, look no further! We have four teams that you should pencil in for a couple of extra wins in the 2011 bracket.

Not Much of a Sleeper Pick (a team seeded 1 through 4):
Louisville Cardinals – #4 Seed
It’s pretty damn hard to pick a team seeded #1 through #4 and come up with a sleeper pick. From the very nature of their seed, all teams seeded 1 to 4 are among the top 16 teams in the nation and should have a shot at the NCAA Tournament championship. However, for NCAA basketball fans that have not watched a lot of basketball this season, the Louisville Cardinals are probably not among the favorites to win the championship. Well, they should be. This team was not in the Big East Tournament Championship game for no reason, which is why their eventual loss to red-hot UCONN came down to the final shot of the game. Besides, Louisville has all the makings of sleeper pick destined to perform better than their seed suggests. As a Rick Pitino team, they love to press and they love to shoot the three. Each of those attributes make even the best of teams susceptible to a loss, which is why I like Louisville and three-point ace Preston Knowles to go a lot further than most people have them going and busting a few NCAA brackets in the process.

Getting Stretchy (a team seeded 5 through 8):
Kansas State Wildcats – #5 Seed
While I would love to go with George Mason (ranked 8), they were ranked way too high and have to face Ohio State in the second round—assuming they advance in the first place. Thus, our nod goes to Kansas State, a team with plenty of NCAA Tournament experience after putting up a strong run last season. But in the 2011 Bracket, they have an even better draw, getting the likes Utah State, Belmont and possibly Pittsburgh in the Sweet 16. I smell an upset of Pittsburgh in a potential Sweet 16 game against Pitt, who has been exposed by superstar guards in the past (e.g. Kemba Walker—ouch!). Jacob Pullen has a whole lot of Kemba Walker in him, and given what he was able to do to Pittsburgh in Madison Square Garden, I like Kansas State’s chances in this part of the bracket. In fact, the way it’s looking, Kansas State could be in the 2011 NCAA Tournament Final Four when it’s all said and done.

The Home Stretch Sleeper Pick (a team seeded 9 through 12):
Gonzaga Bulldogs – #11 Seed
Here is where the fun with the NCAA sleeper picks begins! Our favorite among the #9 through #11 seeds is Gonzaga, a team that has been playing some of its best basketball as of late, and will prove to be a tough out for whomever they face in the NCAA Tournament. For starters, an opening game with #6 St. Johns in the second round is very favorable for Gonzaga, who with Marquise Carter and company should be too athletic and big for a smallish St. John’s team that may have overachieved during the regular season. Expect Gonzaga to go pretty deep into the tournament. We have them, at the very least, in the Sweet 16, with potential wins over a depleted #3 BYU and possibly an overrated #2 seed in Florida.

The “Stretchiest” of Sleeper Picks (a team seeded 13 through 16):
Oakland Golden Grizzlies – #13 Seed
It’s pretty hard picking a #13 seed or higher, because we’re past the point of the at-large bids, meaning all of the other teams are not really among the nation’s best squads. That being said, if ever there were a mid-major that only got in the tournament because of an automatic bid that could advance in the NCAA Tournament, it’s definitely Oakland. The Golden Grizzlies have big man Keith Benson in the middle, and he is a force. The #4 Texas Longhorns, who Oakland faces in the second round, do not have anyone with Benson’s talents. If he gets loose and Texas decides not to play defense, as they have been want to do, this game could venture into upset territory. To be honest, we still have Texas winning this game, but among the lowest seeds in the tournament, Oakland enters the tourney with the best chance of winning. And if they do, they may be the best sleeper pick of the 2011 NCAA Tournament with that lone win.

The post "NCAA Sleeper Picks: 2011 Tournament Bracket Busters" was originally published at TSW.

The Miami Heat finally got back on track. After beating the Los Angeles Lakers in a hard-fought basketball game, the Heat followed that up with the utter destruction of the late-surging Memphis Grizzlies on Saturday. However, the Heat’s gain was the Lakers loss. And Kobe Bryant was not happy about it.

After the game on Thursday, Kobe “Bean” Bryant had a post-game shoot-around—by himself!

That’s right! A 14-year veteran, 32-year old, 13-time all-star had a post game shoot-around by himself, after he loss to the Miami Heat on national television. Kobe said it was the first time he had a post-game shoot-around in 7 years, but that the agony of that defeat affected him so immensely that he immediately had to improve upon his game.

Of course, any intelligent person will tell you that a post-game shoot-around won’t do much for Kobe Bryant. First of all, he’s 32-years old; thus, his body was far too tired to truly handle a productive shoot-around after playing a game that went right down to the wire.

Secondly, Kobe has been in the NBA for 14 years and hadn’t found the need to have a post-game shoot-around in the last seven seasons. You know why? Because there isn’t much he can do to improve his shot at this point in his life—especially not when he’s entering the shoot-around with a body that was clearly fatigued throughout the entire fourth quarter of that game.

Lastly, what good does shooting by himself do him at this point in the season? Let’s face it, Kobe gets enough personal workout time in during the day, and he surely gets plenty of shots up during a game. There’s nothing Kobe can do in a gym by himself and after a game that’s going to make the Lakers better. If he wants to do that, he should have had all of the Lakers out their taking shots and improving their games. While the loss to Miami was in part a result of Kobe’s poor night, if he had some better interior help, we would have seen the Lakers win that game.

Then again, Kobe knows that. You know how I know Kobe knows that? Because anybody you talk to who is close with Kobe Bryant will tell you that Kobe is one of the most calculating individuals in NBA basketball history. Kobe doesn’t do anything without thinking about the outcome, consequences and prospects of a single, public act. Ever since the rape charges against him, Kobe’s public persona has been as manicured as women’s nails. And there are instances that attest to that. From getting Shaq out of LA but not saying anything about it, to new grimace-look he developed a couple of postseasons ago, Kobe makes his mark on the public what he wants it to be, including arranging sit down dinners with reporters when he was trying to get his image back in line.

So what’s the motivation behind a post-game shoot-around? That’s simple. He wanted to change the narrative around the very game that he just lost.

If Kobe is one thing, it’s prideful. The man doesn’t like being outscored, and he hates taking a backseat to anyone, even if they are on his team (i.e. Phil Jackson, Shaquille O’Neal). You can only imagine how mad it makes him that this whole experiment in Miami is forcing him and his team to take a backseat to LeBron James and the Heat. And to lost to them on national television? Oh no! Kobe wasn’t having it.

So in a move to make the story about him and to “defend his honor,” Kobe went back on to the court, after the game, and took shots. Mind you, he didn’t do this after his basketball ego should have been shook in Cleveland when the Cavaliers put a whooping’ on him. Instead, Kobe saved his post-game antics for Miami, when TNT and ESPN were in the house and every basketball fan in America was watching.

How convenient.

Listen, Kobe is a great basketball player, but the next person to tell me he is a great guy is worthy of having his own bubble popped. Kobe has a problem with being second fiddle. But it’s one thing to be mad about Miami taking precedence over his last 2 NBA championships, but it’s another to try and steal attention away from somebody after you severely got outplayed by Dwyane Wade on the court. Kobe’s decision to go shoot around after the game like a young Jesus Shuttlesworth trying to get picked up by a top-flight Division I program is foolish. Kobe needs to be a man about his loss, and go back to his locker room and cry about it. Just like the Miami Heat would have done.

The post "Kobe Bryant Doing Work…After the Game" was originally published at TSW.

I would love to sit here and tell you how bad the Miami Heat are. As happy as I was to see the spectacle of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh do what they did last summer, like most of America, I too joined the collective groan as I realized how unappetizing it would become to listen to these three guys try to boost their egos—even if in the process they gave up stats, money and adoration to do so.

And as much as I would love to see the first season of this experiment come crashing to a sobering end in the playoffs, the chances of that are extremely unlikely.

To put it simply, the Miami Heat’s recent losing streak has not show too many flaws that one can say are truly representative of what the Miami Heat are capable of doing. For example, much of Heat’s losing has had to do with their opponents’ three point-shooting. Miami’s opponents are hitting 43.2% of their threes during Miami’s five-game losing streak. To put that in perspective, the best three-point shooting team in the league, the San Antonio Spurs, shoots 40.1% from behind the arc. This means that collectively, the Heat have seen three-point shooting that is almost 7.7% better than the NBA’s best, and is 22% better than the median NBA team.

That, my friend, is unlucky.

Of course, some of you will say it’s the Heat’s defense, but that’s entirely unfair, given that the Heat are one of the five best teams in the league defensively, and even with the last five losses included, the Heat are the 7th best team in the NBA at defending the three-point line. That just stresses how much luck goes into defending the three-pointer, because at the end of the day, good NBA players can always get off a good jumper unless you crowd them to point of sacrificing the drive. Essentially, defending the three comes down to whether or not the other team is making them, and if they are and they keep shooting it, ala the Orlando Magic comeback last Thursday, there’s not TOO much an NBA team, even as good as the Heat, can do about it.

But don’t worry, Heat fans, the luck will run out, and teams rarely shoot as many threes in the post-season as they do in the regular season anyway. I don’t like saying things like the stats will come back to their statistical mean, because people who say that, rarely ever admit when that doesn’t happen, and as a stat guy, it happens a lot more than most stat guys would like to suggest.

Another thing that can solace Heat fans is this whole 1-18 shooting by Miami when they are tied or down by 1-3 points with 30 seconds left in the game. I could make those Larry Bird shots from the McDonald’s commercials at a better rate than 1 for 18, so that stat is just a tremendous outlier. If you think LeBron James driving to the rim against Carmelo Anthony or Joakim Noah is a 1 for 18 proposition, you’re only kidding yourself.

Now a smart basketball fan might suggests that the 1 for 18 is more indicative of a stagnant, late-game offense, and the defense’s ability to hone in on LeBron James on the final play of the game. That no doubt has contributed to that woeful percentage, but it still shouldn’t be this bad. Over the last five years, LeBron James, by just about every statistical measure out there, is among the leaders in clutch stats. (I won’t even give you the stats myself, because for most people, if you don’t seem them for yourself, you won’t believe them. Well, the stats are at 82games.com, and I dare you to find any measurement of clutch and come back with one that does not have LeBron ranked among the Top 10.) How did LeBron achieve this high-level of late-game performance?

Well, as the 1 for 18 mark connotes, he didn’t do it in Miami, where he has a lot of help. Instead, those stats were achieved in Cleveland, where the players around him were worse, but the plays were the same. In Cleveland, LeBron did the same thing in the clutch. He backed the ball out to basically half-court and he took his player one-on-one. He’s doing the same thing in Miami with better players around him, and it just hasn’t worked out yet. I am in no means a LeBron apologist, but in the examples noted above (the drives against Carmelo and Joakim), one could argue LeBron was fouled, but of course, another might argue that LeBron just choked. Either way, this same method has proven to work for LeBron in the past, which is why I think it will work for him again in the future. Now, the Heat could help him by having a little more backside movement on the play so guys like Amare Stoudemire can’t swoop over and block the shot, but perhaps neither Miami fans or Miami haters believe Coach Erik Spoelstra can make that happen.

However, to that point, even if LeBron delivers more often, it does appear that the Heat are not that capable at winning close games. With a record of 5-13 in games decided by 5 points or less, we can statistically reject the notion that the Heat have a 50% chance of winning close games, which is the general hypothesis made by basketball sabermetricians. In fact, it is even more likely that the Heat are no better than a 39% winning team in close situations.

Still, Heat fans need not worry. Even if the Heat win close games at 39% clip, it should not affect their chances to win the playoffs too much. All of their playoff games won’t be decided that few points, and if they win 40% of the ones that are, their chances of winning a given playoff series aren’t much worse than they are if the Heat had a 50% chance of winning those games.

So buck up, Miami! It’s been a while since you had a team to root for, so jump off the bandwagon now! Your team may have failed you as of late, but the numbers and history show that none of this means they will fail you later in the NBA Playoffs.

The post "Miami Heat’s Losing Steak Not Indicative of Postseason Play" was originally published at TSW.

Last night, four teams punched their way into the tournament. St. Peter’s upset Iona to get into the tournament. Gonzaga beat the regular season WCC champion St. Mary’s. Old Dominion held off VCU late in the game. And Wofford is a surprising NCAA Tournament-maker as well.

Of course, nobody expects any of those teams to do anything in the NCAA tournament this season. But for those four teams, the lives of their players have already been changed. For the rest of their existence on this earth, they will be able to say that they played in the NCAA Tournament as some of the best amateur basketball players in the country. It’s quite a feat, and it is always worth the celebratory two-step dance that follows the tournament-clinching victory.

As nice as it is to see those teams in the field, neither of them provided that wonderful March-moment last night. VCU almost did it. Had they been able to take that game over when they had the ball and were 1-point down with a few minutes to play, the victory would have come after being down 18 points in the second half. But alas, they couldn’t pull off the comeback, upset victory that has made March Madness one of the best periods there is in March.

We do, however, enter into some familiar territory today, and we do so at an arena that has been known to produce a dramatic moment or two.

The Big East Tournament gets under way today. The league with 16 teams and almost as many NCAA hopefuls has their first game at noon today, when UCONN faces off against DePaul. That game should be a blow out in favor of UCONN, but in this tournament, one can never be too sure. UCONN has Kemba Walker though and should come away with a win, but if he fails to be on point, this game could be up for grabs.

Then we have Seton Hall vs. Rutgers at 2pm. In case you don’t already know it, Seton Hall had one of the most lackluster off-seasons and seasons in the history of sports. We’re talking about a year full of suspensions, gun charges and dismissals, and that’s before a basketball even dropped. They belong on Broadway, and thus it is fitting that their tournament lives will depend on a strong showing in New York City’s Madison Square Garden. Jeremey Hazell should be more than enough to get this team past Rutgers this afternoon.

Tonight we get some teams that are truly on that proverbial bubble. Villanova squares off against USF at 7pm, in a game that should determine whether or not Villanova is worth a damn. Sure, most people have them in the tournament already based on some of their big wins this season, however, it’s their losses to crap teams that have them in the position of being the 10th seed in the Big East. Another surprising loss to a bad team like USF might leave the Villanova Wildcats disappointed on Selection Sunday.

Lastly, Marquette will face off against Providence. This is the #11 vs. #14 seed in the Big East Tournament, but unlike what the seedings suggest, this game will not be a close one. Marquette’s Jimmy Butler is the best thing going on the court tonight, and Providence really has no answer. Besides, even though both teams are desperate, Marquette’s desperation is founded in reality. The only reality out there for Providence is a reality check, because they aren’t winning this game or getting into the NCAA Basketball Tournament either.

The post "March Madness: Championship Week Continues with Big East Tournament" was originally published at TSW.

I know there were a few NCAA Tournament deciding games over the weekend, but if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around, does anybody hear it?

Fact is, March Madness starts this week, with big games from conferences that we have actually heard of. So while I mean no disrespect to UNC Asheville, Belmont, Morehead State and Harvard, who only potentially has won a berth to the NCAA Tournament, this week is when March Madness begins, and boy do we have some things to look forward to.

Ivy League
Speaking of the Ivy League, there is the potential for a one-game playoff for the Ivy League title, which would be a very rare occurrence in Men’s college basketball. Because the Ivy League said to hell with an season-ending tournament, a potential tie between Harvard and Princeton could result in the necessarily of a one-game playoff between those two teams, if Princeton wins Tuesday against their rivals t the south, Pennsylvania. That means, believe it or not, the Ivy League has two games that will affect the national landscape during the final week of the season after going the league’s entire existence without such a thing. How cool is that?

West Coast Conference
Another great conference tournament to pay attention to this week (well on Monday, the championship game is tonight)  is the West Cost Conference tournament, where again, Saint Mary’s looks like the team to beat. However, Gonzaga has come on strong during the second half of the season, and they possibly could make a game of it against the regular season WCC champs. St. Mary’s. St. Mary’s and Gonzaga have become quite the rivals over the past couple of years, and given where this conference championship game may be headed, I think the rivalry shall continue and make for a really interesting game this evening!

Colonial Athletic Association
The top seed in the CAA Tournament is out, after George Mason went down to VCU in the conference semis. Many think George Mason is in, and that as a result, the CAA may be stealing an extra bid, especially if VCU goes on to knock of Old Dominion, a team thought to be on the bubble of the tournament already. The CAA Championship game is Monday night at 7pm. If you’re looking to make a bet on this game, it’s tough to go against the fact that this game is being played a mile away from VCU’s campus in Richmond, Virginia.

Big East
The Big East is alive in well with as many as 11 potential bids up for grabs this year. A lot of things would have to play out perfectly in this 16-team tournament for this conference to get all 11 bids, but there is the chance hat could happen. Pittsburgh is the regular season Big East champion, but they aren’t even the favorites to win this tournament. Notre Dame is on fire, and appears as if they can beat any team in the league. And while UCONN has had its struggles, it’s very hard to count out what highlight moments Kemba Walker is capable of unleashing upon the Madison Square Garden audience. Big East games kick off this Tuesday, and I assure you, that we will probably see some instantaneous magic then. The opening round tournament game I’d be on the look for is that “vaunted” #12 vs. #13 game between Seton Hall and Rutgers—it has the makings of March Madness written all over it.

Obviously, there are plenty of other games and tournaments to watch this week. Please leave any comments about some big games and tourney matchups that you’re on the lookout for during championship week. And as usual, we’re watching sports 24/7, which means we will be watching college basketball at all hours of the night this week. Follow us on Twitter at @SportsWatcher and get the latest on what’s going in college basketball!

The post "March Madness Starts Now" was originally published at TSW.

When the Boston Celtics decided to trade Kendrick Perkins to the Oklahoma City Thunder, along with sending Semih Erden and Luke Harangody away, they made a clear decision to get smaller. In return for those players, the Celtics got Jeff Green and some draft picks. Neither of which will help the Celtics grab rebounds this postseason, but it does position them for the future.

So why the disregard for big men this postseason?

It’s quite evident that the Celtics are doing one of two things here. On the one hand, Boston could be convinced that a healthy Shaquille O’Neal and a healthy Jermaine O’Neal should be all they need to hold down the frontline, so long as Kevin Garnett and Glen Davis stay healthy as well. On the other hand, because we all know that neither of the O’Neals is all that dependable health wise, the Celtics just might not be afraid of any of the teams that still play a traditional four-man and a have an above-average center.

Enter the Los Angeles Lakers and the Orlando Magic.

Those are the two teams with considerable size, albeit, the Magic aren’t as big as they used to be, but they still have Dwight Howard, who is going to be a problem for any team that doesn’t have someone that can at least slow him down.

Boston’s trade, however, says that they aren’t worried about Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol or Andrew Bynum. And damn you too, Lamar Odom! With this trade, the Celtics are basically saying that neither the Lakers nor the Magic pose a threat to them. Nevermind actually having to contend with them, a trade like this suggest the Celtics don’t even think either team will make it far enough in the NBA playoffs to face them.

On paper, that’s not a bad bet to make. The Orlando Magic are the Eastern Conference’s fourth best team right now, and given their up-and-down nature all season, that team could lose to the Atlanta Falcons in the first round. Even if they get past them though, the Orlando Magic are so down from what they were two years ago when they went to the NBA Finals, that the Celtics would be able to handle them with or without Kendrick Perkins.

As for the Lakers, Kobe Bryant and his teammates might be no better than the fourth best team in the West. The two teams form Texas appear to be duking it out for the #1 seed, and the Oklahoma City Thunder will look pretty threatening once they get their trade acquisitions (Perkins and Nazr Mohammed) in the rotation. Thus, the chance of the Lakers coming out of the West certainly aren’t what they were this time a year ago, and given that they may have to play two or even three tough series on the road this postseason, makes it all the more likely that they will not reach the 2011 NBA Finals.

But if Boston’s bet is that they don’t have to worry about the teams with size, then that means they are preparing themselves for teams without it; namely, the Miami Heat. This is a pretty smart bet, unless it isn’t. The Miami Heat, fresh of losses to the Chicago Bulls and New York Knicks, certainly don’t have any girth in the middle right now, but they aren’t necessarily looking like the team to beat. Sure, they could be the main obstacle between the Celtics and the NBA Finals, but an NBA Playoff loss to the Bulls is pretty likely as well.

However, should it be Miami, the Bulls or Atlanta that the Celtics have to worry about, a player like Jeff Green, along with the possible addition of Troy Murphy, certainly does help against small-ball teams. Both players can shoot the three and space the floor. I’m not so sure either one of them can play a lick of defense, but maybe the Celtics aren’t worried about that.

Of course, that’s just another bet the Celtics are making. They think their core defensive philosophy and execution can overcome the slights of Green and possibly Murphy. If they bet right, the team with the best record in the East for most of this NBA season should be on their way to another NBA Finals. If they bet wrong, it’s the other teams in the East that would have benefited the most from this trade, and then Paul Pierce will have a response to his only comment on the Perkins trade, “I hope they know what they’re doing.”

The post "Celtics, Going With Perimeter Game, Bet on Miami and the Bulls" was originally published at TSW.

The New York Knicks made the NBA trade of the season when they got Carmelo Anthony from the Denver Nuggets.

But at what cost?

Forget about the players the Knicks gave up, what about the money?

Prior to the Carmelo trade, the Knicks got the chance to sit in a room with Anthony and have a conversation with they player to see where his mind was at. Clearly, in the interest of the Knicks, Knicks brass must have asked Carmelo whether he was willing to wait out the season and allow the Knicks to sign him without having to give up anybody in a trade.

Clearly, the answer was no. It had to be. Otherwise, the Knicks would not have traded four starters to land one guy.

So the question is, why? Why would Carmelo say no to that? Especially when waiting to go to New York in free agency was in the best interest of the Knicks, which means it was in the best interest of Carmelo’s on-court success, should the Knicks be the team he goes to.

As is the answer to most things, the reason Carmelo forced the Knicks to pay too much for Carmelo is because of money.

Money won out again, as it usually does in the NBA. Carmelo did not want to go into this off-season without a new deal, knowing that possible NBA CBA talks could result in him losing as much as $30 million over the life of his next contract, during a time that would be his prime earning years. Carmelo didn’t want to risk losing that much money just to make his future team better, so he told the Knicks to make a trade for him now or that he would indeed sign a contract extension to assure himself the 3-year, $65 million deal that he had left on the table for quite some time.

So we have a quintessential, “he did it for the money” situation here. Carmelo tapped the Knicks of all their talent so he could get his money and have his way. Now, I’m not going to get into whether or not that was the right thing to do, because I can’t sit here and judge a man for demanding his worth. However, I will compare Carmelo to some of his NBA basketball contemporaries.

It wasn’t even a year ago that LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh all decidedly took less money to play with the Miami Heat. If you don’t recall the particulars, let me tell you what they are. LeBron James and Chris Bosh could have signed six-year contracts worth $125 million. Dwyane Wade could have signed a contract worth even more since he wasn’t changing teams. Instead, Bosh and LeBron signed contracts worth $15 million less than the max, giving them each $110 million, 6-year deals. Wade took an even bigger cut, signing at $107 million for six years.

To add to that, they didn’t just take those cuts to play with each other, they took those cuts to bring in additional role players. Pat Riley first got the three to take less money to bring in Mike Miller. And Dwyane Wade implored Bosh and LeBron to take even less money to keep Udonis Haslem, and to demonstrate his belief that Haslem would be a stellar addition to the team, Wade volunteered to give up more money than Bosh and LeBron.

That’s what the three stars of the Miami Heat did to do everything in their power to put together the best team they could this past off-season. However, Carmelo took another route.

When faced with the opportunity to risk some cash, albeit an unknown amount, Carmelo essentially said, “No thank you.” He said “no thank you” to having Danillo Gallinari hit threes. He said “no thank you” to having Wilson Chandler play defense with him. ‘Melo even said “no thank you” to having a big man like Timofy Mozgov or a quintessential Mike D’Antoni point guard like Raymond Felton.

Carmelo did, however, say “thank you” to a boatload of cash and a stripped down Knicks team, which last night, wasn’t even better than the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Again, I’m not questioning Carmelo’s decision, it’s totally understandable to take the option with more money over less—everybody across the world makes similar decisions everyday. However, in this new NBA, in which three of the NBA’s top 15 players decidedly took less money to make the best team possible makes it hard for players to make money-based decisions that will help their team win championships.

Speaking of championships, perhaps that’s something Carmelo didn’t consider when opting for more money. Moving past the fact that Carmelo’s decision resulted in the loss of valuable Knicks players, how about the fact that Carmelo’s large contract may prevent the Knicks from landing the third superstar that they need in order to win a championship over the Boston Celtics, Miami Heat and Chicago Bulls. Of course, Amare Stoudemire’s contract is just as much of an issue, but Stoudemire was never in a real position to choose to talent over income. Carmelo was explicitly faced with the decision of letting the Knicks keep their players or at least signing for less than the max. He chose neither.

So, I leave you with this question? Did Carmelo’s thirst for money cost him and the New York Knicks organization a championship? It’s quite possible that it did. Only an NBA Finals victory will give us the true answer to that question, but much like the likelihood of the Knicks having the room to sign a third superstar, the Knicks odds to win a championship under a new CBA aren’t looking too good in the wake of the Carmelo Anthony trade.

The post "Carmelo’s Thirst for Cash Contradicts Miami’s Thirst to Win" was originally published at TSW.

It was the legendary boxing promoter Bob Arum that once said, “Yesterday, I was lying. Today I’m telling the truth.” At the time he said that, it was misconstrued as him saying something whimsical about being a little deceitful. But in actuality, there was nothing deceitful about that. The man changed his mind. Sure, it was overnight, but sometimes things happen that fast.

Now, I have stood by the Miami Heat for much longer than one night. Since the beginning of the season, I have touted them as the favorite to win the NBA Championship. Now, I have had my doubts, but I haven’t backed off my statement that they are the favorites.

Until today.

Call me a liar. Call me a flip-flopper. Call me Bob Arum. Whatever it is you want to call me, just don’t call me late for supper—although, that might help me shed a few pounds.

Truth be told, I was right there with the Heat and LeBron James until last night, when they lost to the Chicago Bulls for the second time.

Now, by no means am I saying that the Heat can’t win the championship, but I’m no longer going to sit here and say they are favorites. They just aren’t that good. Hell, and with reports having surfaced that the Heat were floating Mike Miller around as a trade piece, it is clear that the Heat don’t think they are that good. And teams that are THAT good don’t lose to the Chicago Bulls in the fashion that they did, for the second time around. Time to face the Heat, Heat fans; your team isn’t nearly as dominate as we thought they might be.

Losing to the Bulls in a close game, however, is not the sole reason I’m backing off my prediction. I still think the Heat with Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh are the better team. I’m backing off my prediction because of the way they lost. Here the Heat are, 50-something games into the season, and they have an 8-man rotation in which their top three players all played 40 minutes are more. Meanwhile, the Bulls threw 10 players at the Miami Heat, only one player eclipsed the 40-minute mark, and that guy wasn’t even named Derrick Rose.

On top of that, both LeBron and Wade were really productive last night against the Bulls. Wade had 34 points on 24 shots, and LeBron had 29, 10 and 5 assists. The lone bad performer was Chris Bosh, who was 1 for 18 with 9 rebounds, and while he will probably never have another game like that in his life, it was more than evident that the Bulls interior defense had no problem guarding Bosh, and the Bulls big men were just too tough for Bosh to handle in the post.

The fact that the Heat cared about this game enough to play their three stars 120 minutes and still couldn’t win a game against the Bulls shows how beatable they are. All this time my theory has been that in a seven game series, with everything on the line, the Heat can’t lose four out of seven games. But that’s not true, and it was made apparent last night. That game was played with a playoff intensity and strategy. Wade and LeBron don’t play those kinds of minutes without having a playoff-like interest in winning that game. And Joakim Noah for the Bulls doesn’t play 27 minutes in his first game back unless somebody on that Bulls team really wanted to beat the Heat.

Thus, the Heat’s loss proves they are beatable. Again, that doesn’t mean they can’t win it, but the nod to the Boston Celtics and the Chicago Bulls is looking all that much better right now. And I certainly don’t think the Heat stand a chance against the Dallas Mavericks or the San Antonio Spurs as presently constructed here after the trade deadline.

My other point of contention concerning the Heat is their MVP. A little a while ago, and with some foolishness, it appears that we wrote a piece stating how LeBron James is the clear-cut MVP. Now, I actually do stand by that selection, because LeBron James is the best player in the NBA, and I don’t think the MVP should be determined in this “value” metric that we have created as a means to make this more of a team award than an individual award. That being said, it’s hard to justify giving the award to LeBron James, if Derrick Rose, in every instance, proves his Bulls to be a better team than the Miami Heat.

The Bulls aren’t supposed to beat the Heat twice, once without Noah, and have essentially the same record as the Heat. But that’s the case. And with that being the case, how can I say that LeBron James is better than Derrick Rose when Rose is doing more with less talent around him?

I can’t say that.

So sorry, Miami Heat fans. In the same article that I’m casting doubts about your team, I’m casting doubts about your best player. I still think he’s the best player in the NBA, but if Derrick Rose has a better record at the end of the season, I might have to change my mind on that. I am putting a lot of emphasis on last night’s game? Yes. Too much? Perhaps. But I can’t help the fact. And the facts are that the Bulls have beaten Miami twice. The Mavericks have beaten them twice. The Celtics have beaten them twice. And Rose and the Bulls are one-game back of the Heat and LeBron, and they aren’t the team that raised three 100 million players out of a stage prior to the season.

So call it a knee-jerk reaction. Call it crazy. And call me a liar. Just don’t call me later, when you realize that the Heat just aren’t living up to expectations, and other teams, like the Chicago Bulls, are exceeding them.

The post "Miami Heat Cause Me to Rethink My Stance on NBA Finals and MVP" was originally published at TSW.

With everything that has gone down with the latest NBA Trade involving New York Knicks and Carmelo Anthony, nobody can stop talking about how great of a team the Knicks are going have in two or three years from now. That’s all fine and dandy, because after all, this trade was clearly more about the future than it was about this season. On the other hand, there are already reports out there that New York Knicks GM Donnie Walsh’s job might be on the line, and his job is on the line, than coach Mike D’Antoni’s job is on the line.

However, if the Knicks have a spectacular finish to the end of this NBA 2010-2011 season, both Walsh and D’Antoni can keep there jobs…for now.

So do the New York Knicks have the makings of a legitimate NBA Basketball team right now?

Let’s examine.

For starters, the Knicks do benefit tremendously from adding Chauncey Billups to this deal. While Felton was having a great year and accounted for 6 more minutes per game than Billups during the first stretech of the season, this worn-down Knicks team needs a guy who is “effective.” It doesn’t get much more effective than Chauncey Billups, who with a true-shooting percentage of 63.3%, is one of the most effective shooters in the game. Because Billups takes so many three-pointers, while shooting 50%, and he also gets to the free throw line very frequently relative to the number of shots he takes, a Billups’ jump-shot is about the most valuable jump-shot in the league on a shot by shot basis.

That’s a great thing to have at the point guard position, especially with Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony drawing most of the attention from the defense. You think the pick-n-roll with Stoudemire and Felton looked nice, wait until we see it with Billups. It may not look as beautiful as it did with the spryer Felton running the point, but the shots Billups take will register more points than the ones Felton took, and that’s not debatable.

As for the Knicks bench, it’s really not as bad as one might think. I quick look at the roster reveals that all but one of the Knicks role players don’t have a positive Average Win Over Replacement Player rating. That bodes well for a team that already has so many estimated wins from its two big stars. Much like the Miami Heat, if Stoudemire and Carmelo can produce at highly efficient rates, all the role players on the team have to do is be as good as they have been in the past, when they weren’t playing with two talents like those guys.

So exactly are the Knicks depending on? Well, there’s Landry Fields, the lone semi-starter from the pre-Carmelo Knicks. He is a great rebounder, shoots the three-point ball respectably, plays great defense and is a great rebounder from his wing position—something the Knicks need desperately given the lack of a center and Stoudemire’s poor rebounding.

Shawne Williams will also see his minutes increased, and he could really help the Knicks. In a Mike D’Antoni system in which spreading the floor is crucial, Williams can do some serious damage with his three-point accuracy.

Of course, the Knicks also managed to hold on to Toney Douglas. Douglas is another great defender for the Knicks. While his outside shooting is a tad bit too streaky, he can run the point and is in the shape necessary to alleviate some of the lost minutes created by Felton’s departure.

Then there’s the collective bunch. No offense to the role players above, but the Knicks will ride or die with a 6-man rotation, and fill in the holes where they need them. Those holes include interior defense, which is where Ronny Turiaf fits in. Another hole filled is in the wing-defense area, where the newly acquired Corey Brewer can contribute. And the Knicks could see some added rebounding and defense from Shelden Williams and Renaldo Balkman if the want to risk it.

Last but not least are New York’s big two. Their weaknesses are plentiful. Neither player can rebound. Neither player shoots the 3-ball all that well. Each basketball player lacks the effort to play defense. And both ‘Melo and Stoudemire need to take too many shots just to get their scores.

However, scoring is scoring, and every NBA team could use more of it. ESPN.com ran the numbers on the Knicks’ team based on the PER and the WARP of all the players. The result had Stoudemire and Anthony averaging about the same number of points—approximately 25 a game. Now that’s a lot of points between the two of them (about 50), and with that kind of concentrated scoring power, the Knicks role players aren’t as needed as one might think.

With all the calculations factored away, statistics have the Knicks finishing the season with 47 wins. That premise wouldn’t be far from what fans expected of the old Knicks team. Now ‘Melo just has to walk into Madison Square Garden and exceed previous expectations. Who knows what the new ones are? But it would appear that even with a nation of serfs on the Knicks roster, Melo, Billups and Stoudemire, along with Fields and Douglass, are good enough for this team to get better and contend in the playoffs. If they win a first-round series, everybody keeps their job (except for the cheaters), the Carmelo Anthony trade was successful, and the Knicks , officially, “are back.”

However, if the losses start coming, and the Knicks winning percentage post-Anthony-trade looks like it’s floating with the Mendoza line, you can kiss Walsh, D’Antoni, some popcorn boys and the camera operator’s job good bye. They will all be replaced, most likely by Isiah Thomas, who’s getting all sorts of publicity for maybe or maybe not having a hand in this ultimate NBA trade. And if that happens, one can only imagine that Thomas will return the Knicks to the very state he left the team in. Certainly, that wouldn’t be a fun team to watch, and with a mere 3-year contract on the books, Anthony may just force his way out of town…again.

The post "Will Anthony Trade Cause or Prevent Coach/Front Office Firings?" was originally published at TSW.

It finally went down. Carmelo Anthony is a member of the New York Knicks.

In an NBA trade that was months in the making, both the Denver Nuggets and the Knicks finally decided it was time to play “let’s make a deal.” The Knicks, in my opinion, got robbed, giving up four starters for Carmelo Anthony. But let’s face it; they would have been killed if they had lost out on Anthony just to hold on to Timofey Mozgov.

So what exactly does the trade consist of?

In this trade, the New York Knicks got Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups, Shelden Williams, Anthony Carter, Corey Brewer and Renaldo Balkman.

The Denver Nuggets received Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton, Danilo Gallinari, Timofey Mozgov, the Knicks 2014 first-round draft pick, the Golden State Warriors 2012 second-round pick and the Warriors 2013 second-round pick, along with $3 million in cash.

The third-party in this, the Minnesota Timberwolves, picked up Eddy Curry’s expiring contract and Anthony Randolph.

So who came out on top?

Putting the Timberwolves aside, the New York Knicks came away with Carmelo Anthony. So at the end of the day, they have the best player in the deal, and there is an old adage in NBA basketball that says if you got the best player, you won the trade. However, the problem with that line of thinking is that is exactly what Isiah Thomas achieved throughout his tenure with the Knicks. I’m not saying that Zeke ever brought in somebody with the promise of Anthony’s talents, but nine times out of ten, when Thomas made a trade, he got the best player in the deal, and you see where that philosophy got the Knicks.

Then again, it’s not as if I have to argue this point to everybody in the New York Knicks front office. As reports have suggested, Team President Donnie Walsh and Head Coach Mike D’Antoni were not in favor of this trade. Then again, Walsh and D’Antoni haven’t done much with the New York Knicks since arriving there, other than signing the lone major free agent available to them last summer by giving him more money than anybody else was willing to pay him. Still, their concerns are valid. The Knicks were the fifth best offense in the NBA so far this season, and to give way four of the five starters that made that possible is definitely questionable.

As for the Nuggets, they got a ton of players and assets in this trade. The only problem is that I’m not sure those players/assets are worth very much. While Chandler, Gallinari, Felton and Mozgov looked good in D’Antoni’s system, I’m not so sure they just weren’t the beneficiaries of being looters in a riot. D’Antoni’s mad-dash offense always results in enhancing the statistical performance of its players. Just look back at D’Antoni’s days with Phoenix and remember the great performances by Tim Thomas, Boris Diaw, Leandro Barbosa and Raja Bell. All of them have done nothing since leaving Phoenix, and they hadn’t done much of anything before getting there either. So who is to say that just because the Nuggets got four Knicks starters that any of those players are any good? Not me.

However, chances are, by the time I finish writing this article, the Nuggets may have moved half the players they received from the Knicks—if not all of them. Certainly, there are good teams out there in search of a quality point guard. Hell, the Miami Heat could certainly benefit from having Raymond Felton at the point instead of Carlos Arroyo. And when it comes to do-it-all wing men, Chandler’s exploits could be utilized by the Los Angeles Lakers or the Chicago Bulls. If the Nuggets can parlay some of these Knicks acquisitions into first round NBA draft picks or VERY promising young players, perhaps they come out looking a little bit better than they did the second after this trade with the Knicks went down.

At the end of the day though, if I were to guess which team is going to be better for the rest of this season, I would have to say it’s the Knicks with Billups at the point and with Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony at the forward positions. Next year, the Knicks will again have the better team. Projecting out two years from now, perhaps after the Knicks scoop up another superstar point guard like Deron Williams or Chris Paul, the Knicks will likely be the better team. And unless the Nuggets acquire a transcending player in the NBA Draft really soon, I would guess that the Knicks will be the better team five years from now, barring significant injuries.

Thus, it looks as if the “best player in the trade” theory wins out in this scenario. As much as I think the Knicks got robbed in this trade, it’s hard to argue with the notion that they have two great players they can build around, and it’s much easier to conjure up role players than it is to conjure up superstars. Knicks owner Jimmy Dolan made the decision that he needed to get Carmelo. Certainly, Isiah would have made this move, and some reports suggest that Isiah did make this move. Either way, for the next five years, most GMs would want to be in the Knicks position and not that of the Nuggets. And for that reason, the Knicks win this trade, but given what they had to give up, it was one heck of a crappy way to win it.

The post "Carmelo Anthony Traded to NY Knicks" was originally published at TSW.

Alright, New York Knicks fans. It looks like you are going to get what you asked for. You are going to have your chance at Carmelo Anthony, even if it means selling your souls to do it.

It was just last week that the video above was released. In it, New Yorkers, a questionable bunch of New Yorkers might I add, told an ESPN reporter that the Knicks needed to get Anthony no matter what.

Well, “no matter what” appears to be the Knicks stance. Over NBA All-star Weekend, the Knicks offered the Denver Nuggets the whole kitten-caboodle. After months and months of drawing a line in the sand stating that they were not going to give up both Wilson Chandler and Danillo Gallinari, the Knicks have offered both of their promising young wings to the Nuggets in return for Anthony. In addition, the Knicks will also ship a first round pick and Eddy Curry to the Nuggets. Not to mention, the Nuggets are currently asking for Timofey Mozgov. And as part of secondary trade, the Nuggets have offered Chauncey Billups for Raymond Felton, which would help the Nuggets get under the salary cap for the year.

So to reiterate, the Knicks would get:

Chauncey Billups
Carmelo Anthony
Bench players to make the trade cap-friendly

The Nuggets would get:

Wilson Chandler
Danillo Gallinari
Raymond Felton
Eddy Curry
First-round Pick
Timofey Mozgov (maybe)

That my friend is called highway robbery!

Don’t’ get me wrong, Carmelo Anthony is a better offensive player than all of those guys. But even if I were to agree with the notion that he’s worth all of these players in a relatively normal situation, he certainly isn’t worth that much talent when the team trading him is afraid of losing him for nothing the second that season is over.

In fairness to the Knicks though, they did get screwed by the Nuggets and the New Jersey Nets. The Nuggets, in all likelihood, reached out to New Jersey and told the Nets that they should get back in the trade talks unless they wanted to see their cross-river rivals land Carmelo Anthony in the off-season for nothing. It was a great tactical move on the part of the Nets to jump back in this thing, especially since the two franchises have been taking jabs at one another since Mikhail Prokhorov purchased the team last summer.

Of course, the real masterminds here were the Nuggets. By bringing New Jersey back into the fold and reportedly allowing Anthony to talk with the Nets, they made it seem as if Anthony was willing to go to New Jersey. The Knicks, having seen videos like the one at the start of this post, know that they can’t afford to see Anthony playing in Brooklyn a year-and-a-half from now. So the Knicks upped their offer and will be left with what amounts to two all-stars and an aging point guard when it’s all said and done.

On the flip side, the Knicks are unlikely to maintain all of their talent even if Anthony waits until the off-season to join the team. The Knicks have no intention of keeping Eddy Curry around. Moreover, to sign Anthony, the Knicks probably would have to release Wilson Chandler. While they possibly could do a sign-and-trade with the Nuggets to keep Chandler, that would mean giving up somebody. That likely somebody, however, would have to be a player of remote interest to the Nuggets; i.e. Wilson Chandler.

So, one way to look at this is to say that the Knicks are giving up Gallinari, Felton, possibly Mozgov and a first round pick for Anthony and Billups given that they would lose Chandler anyway. That’s the argument some people are making to back this trade, but I still have one point of contention with that.

Carmelo Anthony should want to keep as much talent on the Knicks as possible. After all, it’s he who is going to get a lot of blame for the Knicks downfalls when they are incapable of beating the Miami Heat, Chicago Bulls, and possibly the aging Boston Celtics, during Anthony’s first couple of years in the Eastern Conference. Having players like Gallinari and Chandler on the Knicks roster are beneficial to Anthony and his soon-to-be teammate, Amare Stoudemire, since neither of these so-called forwards can rebound worth a damn.

However, money is a funny thing. And there are so many variables that could mess with Anthony’s money. The new Collective Bargaining Agreement could insert hard caps, salary limitations and the elimination of many player benefits. These possible insertions into the CBA could subtract as much as $20 million from the Anthony’s salary over the next three years. Now, forgive me from sitting here with less than $20 million in my pocket and making a comment about Anthony’s money, but I would think that he’s willing to sacrifice that to play with a contender, which is what the Knicks could possibly be with him, Amare, Chandler, Gallinari, Mozgov and Felton. Even if the Knicks can’t compete with that rotation, they could turn those pieces into other pieces. But no matter what they do, giving up the kitchen sink for one guy won’t get them on the Heat or the Bulls level anytime soon.

But there is one more caveat, and it has nothing to do with money. Carmelo may not even care about the money, if what his real concern is that he may not be able to leave Denver this off-season. If Anthony truly wants to go to New York and is forced to wait until this off-season to do it, it’s quite possible that he may not have the option. Once the new CBA is all said and done, there may be a new clause that introduces the franchise tag to the NBA. If that’s the case, the Nuggets could then tag Anthony and keep him Denver until somebody offers them what they want. Of course, the franchise tag is only something that has been brought up, and given the uneven value of a player in basketball, as opposed to in the NFL, it would be hard to come up with “fair compensation” for a franchise player (e.g. two first round picks for a franchise player in the NFL) in the NBA.

The risk of having to stay in Denver for another year would probably do considerable damage to Anthony’s psyche. If that’s what he’s afraid of, then I can understand why he might want to force the Knicks to trade for him now.

However, the Knicks have more insider information that either Carmelo Anthony or myself. As the NBA’s most valuable team, they have a pretty good feel (if not influence) as to what the future CBA will look like. If they couldn’t convince Anthony to get on board with them given the information they have available, it’s their own poor negotiating skills they have to blame. That is ultimately why I have to deem this trade proposal by the Knicks an absolute failure on the part of their front office. Sure, in the long run, the Knicks win, because they can only get better with Carmelo and Stoudemire on the same team.

However, if they can’t get the right pieces around those two guys before their respective primes evaporate, Knicks fans will look back at this trade and wonder what would have happened had they waited to get Anthony in the summer. While waiting means possibly losing out on Carmelo, a wise person once told me something very valuable the day after I got rejected by a girl for the first time: “There are plenty of fish in the sea.” And while Carmelo may be in a special category, but he’s not alone in that category, and I don’t think anything is worth giving up everything. Unless your name is Michael Jeffrey Jordan or Tim Duncan in their primes, no one player has been that solely responsible for a team’s ability to win championships.

The post "Carmelo Anthony Trade Talks: Knicks are offering too much" was originally published at TSW.

Say what you want about Carmelo Anthony, but don’t say he’s not beloved by his NBA brethren.

If there’s one question that all NBA general managers, players and fans are asking themselves right now, it’s “Where will ‘Melo go?”

Talk of acquiring the basketball super star in a trade is heating up as we approach the NBA’s trade deadline on February 24, 2011. All sorts of teams are in the mix, including the self-proclaimed “we’re out of it” New Jersey Nets, who reportedly are meeting with Carmelo Anthony during the NBA’s All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles.

Of course, there are other teams in the mix, most notably the New York Knicks, who appear to have the ability to pull the trigger on a trade if they want to; they just have to be willing to sacrifice everything and anything to get Anthony if they succumb to the pressure.

However, there are some dark-horse contenders out there, which could make the race for Anthony even more troublesome for the pack-leading Knicks. And if any of these outside-chance teams begin to peak Carmelo’s interest, the Knicks may have to give up the entire kitchen sink or risk missing out on a tremendous basketball talent…again!

So who’s now in the mix to acquire Carmelo Anthony before the trade deadline passes next week. Here is a synopsis of the top four teams in the running.

New York Knicks
Obviously, the New York Knicks are the leaders in this race. It appears that the Denver Nuggets have made it quite clear as to what arrangement of players and draft picks they want from the Knicks, and for all intents and purposes, the Knicks can afford to pay the alleged price of Eddy Curry, Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton, Landry Fields, Roger Mason and a first round pick that they don’t have—yet. It’s a steep price to pay, however, Chauncey Billups would be a part of that deal, and that would give the Knicks the two best offensive players from the best offense in the league—yes, I’m talking about Denver.

New Jersey Nets
When you call a press conference to announce that you’re NOT going to do anything, one would think that you mean business. But as it is in any business, the Nets were never out of this race until the race was over. The Nets have reportedly been talking to the Nuggets over the past several days, and as it stood over a month ago, if Carmelo were willing to sign an extension with the team, the Nets offer of Derrick Favors, multiple first-round picks and Troy Murphy’s contract appear to be good enough to win over the hearts and minds of Denver’s front office. Now if only the Nets can win Carmelo’s heart, they will have pulled the ultimate coup d’etat against the Knicks.

Houston Rockets
The Rockets are a fringe choice to win over Melo before the trade deadline, but they certainly have the pieces to make an offer to Denver. The Nuggets would give up a first-round draft pick, Yao Min’s contract, and a couple of their stud young guys, most likely, Chase Buddinger, Patrick Patterson or Jordan Hill. Of course, this is all a moot point if Carmelo Anthony doesn’t want to play for the Rockets, but playing basketball in Houston wouldn’t exactly be the hardest thing for Carmelo Anthony to get over.

Dallas Mavericks
Mark Cuban recently announced that he was very unlikely to complete a deal before the NBA’s trade deadline on February 24th. However, it’s not over till it’s over, and the Mavericks certainly have the pieces to make things interesting. Irregardless of what the Mavericks might offer the Nuggets, they have the pieces to make this happen without losing too much, if any, front line talent. Cuban knows the clock is ticking on this aging Dallas Mavericks team, and he may be willing to give away whatever it takes to land the NBA’s most desired trade piece. That being said, Anthony probably won’t sign an extension with the Mavericks—or so we think. If things look bleak around the 23rd, and his Knicks aren’t putting up an offer that will get him out of Denver, Melo might reconsider. Even if he doesn’t, Cuban just might be hard-pressed enough to rent Anthony for the remainder of the NBA season and see if he can get his Mavericks and Dirk Nowitzki that championship that has alluded them for so long—the same championship they might not otherwise get without some help.

The post "Where will ‘Melo Go?: Carmelo Anthony trade talk rumors are heating up" was originally published at TSW.

On his radio show in New York (and as noted in the video above), Stephen A. Smith let it be known that he is going to call for people’s jobs if the New York Knicks don’t have Carmelo Anthony on the roster at the end of the day on February 24, 2011, the NBA’s trade deadline. Of course, Stephen A. Smith can’t actually fire anybody, but if we could threaten Donny Walsh with the possibility of having to listen to an hour long scolding from Screaming Stephen A, maybe we could see some progress on these trade talks.

Then again, do we really need progress? Is it even progress at all?

Right now, the New York Knicks are essentially a slightly better than .500 team, and that’s what they will be at the end of the season if things are what they are today. As the roster stands, the Knicks can probably beat any team in the league in a one-game sample size, and they can lose to any team in the NBA in a one-game sample size. Their weaknesses are rebounding, defense and interior scoring when Amare Stoudemire is not in the game or is in foul trouble. The Knicks positives are three-point shooting, shot-blocking and good offensive movement.

Now, if you bring Carmelo Anthony into that mix, you’re not exactly helping us in areas of need. Carmelo’s a great scorer, and may alleviate some of the inside-scoring problems for the Knicks when Amare’s out, but Melo’s three-point shooting is atrocious, and that’s unacceptable in a Mike D’antoni style offense. Not to mention, Anthony needs the ball in his hands, and with high-caliber point guard like Raymond Felton on the team, Anthony’s need for the ball, coupled with Stoudemire’s, may stagnate an offense that has moved the ball well all season long. And of course, on the defensive side of the basketball court, Carmelo Anthony makes the New York Knicks worst than they already are. He can’t defend a 3-year old toddler on the perimeter, and his rebounding, as good as it can be at times, is spotty at best on average.

Let’s face it, as presently constructed, the addition of Carmelo Anthony to this team, coupled with loss of somebody like Wilson Chandler or Raymond Felton, is too high of a price for the Knicks to play. It’s quite possible, that should the sixth place Knicks make that trade, they could miss the playoffs. It’s not likely, but given how shaky the Knicks are right now and how much worse Anthony makes the Knicks in some spots, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Knicks finished the season 41-41 and missed the postseason after depleting their team in a Carmelo Anthony trade.

What Knicks fans and Stephen A. Smith do not want to admit is that their basketball team is actually better off if it holds off and waits to get Carmelo Anthony in the off-season, when they may also have a shot at trading for Chris Paul. Granted, that may be a pie-in-the-sky scenario, but nobody wants to see this team take a step back in the mist of the season, and a Carmelo Anthony trade could end in such a tragedy.

So what’s the best alternative to trading for Anthony? Standing still.

Sometimes it’s okay to go the pace. The New York Knicks aren’t winning the NBA championship just by adding Carmelo. They aren’t winning the championship if Chauncey Billups comes with him, as was reported of a potential trade a few days ago. So why go trading for a piece that won’t even have the kind of positive effect on a team that receiving a player of Carmelo’s caliber should have?

The Knicks, and Knicks fans, including Stephen A., need to just chill out and let the Knicks wait until the off-season to sign Carmelo. Of course, with a new collective bargaining agreement and free agency waiting for Anthony, nothing is guaranteed when Anthony hits the free agent market this summer. However, there’s also nothing guaranteed to the Knicks by getting him at such a steep cost. If the Knicks are going to be a great team centered on Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony, there needs to be other pieces involved. The reported trades on the table don’t have the Knicks keeping or attaining enough of those other pieces. Without them, it makes acquiring Carmelo via trade pointless and the fans crazy. Let Carmelo yoke this thing out in Denver for the rest of the season, New Yorkers. It’s what’s best for you, even if Carmelo never winds up being a New York Knick.

The post "Carmelo Anthony to Knicks? Not so fast…" was originally published at TSW.