Around The Association 2-17-10

Well, we are sneaking up to trade deadline time. This usually means a great deal of rumors with most, if not all, never panning out. Some years the trade-deadline-buzz flat out fails to deliver. It is following that same path this year. While talk of Amare to Cleveland or Ray Allen being exiled abound, we are left with some lack luster news. The Clippers got rid of Marcus Camby for Scott Blake and Travis Outlaw.

While the trade does get the Blazers a Center that isn’t currently in crutches or naked on the internet, it doesn’t lift them into the playoff picture at all. From the Clippers standpoint… Wow, did you see that..? I actually stopped caring mid-sentence there.

Meanwhile, some teams are on the hot seat to make a trade. Boston is going through some growing pains. They seem to be a bit old or too dysfunctional to challenge for the title as currently designed. I guess things look that way when you lose half time leads to the lowly Hornets. They remind me of Carrie Fisher in When Harry Met Sally… You could see the inevitable aging happen on screen, right before your eyes. And so it is with the Celtics. With every game, they look more and more like a middle-aged white woman.

Ron Artest Is Ready To Lose It

If you’re anything like me you have been waiting patiently for a blow up from Ron Artest. We were almost treated to one late last week. Ron-Ron took offense to being held up by Joey Graham and almost socked his face.

The above clip is particularly delightful for a number of reasons. My favorites are as follows:

Joel Myers reaction of “ooo” when Artest spun and fired the haymaker is priceless. In that instant he was really saying. “No Ron, for the love of god they will suspend you for the entire season!”

But what is magical is the debate between Stu Lantz, the color commentator for the Lakers and Joel Myers on why there was a technical. When Myers fails to illustrate that almost hitting someone with a closed fist isn’t enough, they decide it’s the playful shove of the face that did it in the end.

Either way I am now glued to the TV for every game, as I am sure Artest is one ticky-tack foul away from going mailman on everyone.

Arenas & Crittenton Banned For Season

Gilbert Arenas is still waiting to hear the full extent of his fate, but that’s not the case with Javaris Crittenton. The Wizards guard reached a plea deal with prosecutors that was accepted by the judge, resulting in one year’s worth of unsupervised probation.

As for Arenas, he’s still waiting to get setenced… but seeing as how he was charged with a felony, it certainly won’t be as soft of a punishment.

Either way, Commisioner Stern threw the league book at booth, banning them for the remainder of the season!

Around the Association 1-23-2009

All-Stars
Proving once again that the general populace can be trusted with not even the slightest of responsibilities, Allen Iverson was voted into the Eastern Conference All-Stars. The NBA did side step embarrassment when Tracy McGrady was finally outpaced in voting. This did not deter the public at large from voting in Iverson as a starter in this year’s festivities. Granted the East is this year’s equivalent of the short yellow bus, but there are more deserving guards in the Association.

Iverson has played a grand total of 19 games. Those 19 games were not grand or spectacular. Allen Iverson is a mediocre player attempting 14 shots a night. What happened to the glory days of chucking up 25-30 a game? Diminished skills are not the only reason he should be watching from home February 14th. Karma should have a say as well. He mentally and physically quit on the Grizzlies forcing them to trade him away. Time and again this type of action gets rewarded in sports. Iverson gets a homecoming to the team that started his career, as well as an undeserved All-Star bid.

Blake Griffin
Blake had successful knee surgery which will keep him resting 4-6 months. He hopes to be back and training by summer. This should give him ample time to get well enough to re-injure himself before the start of the 2010-2011 season.

Dunks
This week, the lineup for the Slam Dunk contest was finalized. It is by far the worst lineup to date. All participants can dunk with creativity I am sure. But there is not a celebrity amongst them. Nate Robinson will return, again. It was tremendous to see what he did the first and second times around. But I get it now. You’re small. You dunk. Congratulations!

In what reeks of desperation, the NBA will have a dunk off between Eric Gordon and DeMar DeRozan for the final dunk spot. Really, a play-in game for the Dunk Contest. How has the play-in idea worked for the NCAA?

Looks Like The Joke’s On Gilbert Arenas!

Hey everyone, nothing to worry about as Gilbert Arenas and Javarus Crittenton were only joking around… well, at least Arenas was. And the guns weren’t even loaded, so really, there’s nothing to worry about.
Right?
Someone wanna tell David Stern that?
Or maybe he did himself with that “Guns Up” salute before last night’s game.
Way to go, Gilbert! Way to go!

Around The Association 12-18-09

Kobe is playing with stomach aches and broken fingers. Referees are missing blatant calls and calling ones that don’t exist. It must be another week in the NBA.

Kobe
Kobe had 42 points against the Bulls Tuesday night – not very impressive for a man with his skill set. What is astonishing is that he did it with a fractured finger on his shooting hand. What is even more remarkable is that he was having er, um, digestive problems all day. I remember I ate a bad calzone once. I immediately lost five pounds, shook uncontrollably, and slept for a week. Kobe Bryant decided to drop 40 points on the Bulls while his stomach had the taco gurgles. Oh the next day he hit the game winner against the Bucks. I am definitely underachieving in life.

Hall-of-Fame Jerry Colangelo, Naismith’s newly elected chairman of the board is toying with the notion of allowing the fans and media to have a say in who makes it into the Basketball Hall-of-Fame. He said the fans would be “involved,” which many are hoping means the results would be made public much like the NBA and MLB do. What makes me cringe is having the fans actually have even a modicum of say in who makes it into the Hall. These are the people that are voting Tracy McGrady into 2nd place in All-Star voting this year. This just in, T-Mac has not played at all this season.

Creamsicles
Kevin Durant unveiled his new line of Basketball shoes in a game against Dallas Wednesday night. They look as if Nike went to Nerf and said gives us the first thing that comes to mind. I tried to watch the game but between Durant bricking shots and the whole team wearing these atrocities my eyes stopped working for two hours. I didn’t go blind necessarily. My eyes just refused to capture the images on the screen. It was actually the only pleasant part of the game.

A.I… Always Interesting

When certain athletes take to the podium they excite well beyond any news conference should. Allen Iverson is one of those athletes. Possibly outdoing his “practice” rant. Allen Iverson openly wept at the prospect of becoming a 76er yet again. He is happy. Philadelphia wants him back. Win-Win, Case closed right?

This might be the case if Iverson were a different person, but he is not. You can be assured; A.I. will take 25 shots a night and completely forget that there is a specific offense in place. He will force one on one situations multiple times a game. The coaching staff will boil and this will only be the start.

Once Lou Williams comes back from a broken jaw, the decision by Eddie Jordan to bench or start Iverson will commence. That is when we will find whether Iverson has truly changed or not.

I haven’t been the biggest Shaquille O’Neal supporter but his recent stint with the Cavs illustrates how the aging athlete should act. He accepts his role as role player to LeBron James. Iverson should realize that his best days are behind him and he should play for team first. It may be something he has never done but it is the only way he stretches this one year contract into another payday. My favorite quote from the day was “I want to retire here.” Well you may have to buddy. No NBA team wants a former All Star that causes headaches instead of producing wins.

Around The Association 12-1-09

Iverson

Sources reported that the Sixers and Allen Iverson met for two hours on Monday. I’m still not sure what took two hours. Iverson is looking for a starting job and the Sixers are looking for anything to spark life into their 5 and 12 team. This is a no-brainer. Allow Iverson to come back and end his career where it all began and sell a couple more jerseys while they’re at it.

Nets

The New Jersey Nets are staring history straight in the face. Their historic march to the worst team in the NBA is well on the way. Their first real test is Wednesday against the formidable Dallas Mavericks. This will be the first test of their ineptitude. A loss Wednesday would clinch the worst start in history at 0-18. After that, all that remains is eight. That is how many wins they must finish with to clinch the worst overall season, surpassing the 9-73, 1972-73 76ers. Their magic number is 57.

Vandeweghe

Rumor has it that GM Kiki Vandeweghe will take over the head coaching job for the New Jersey Nets. Del Harris will be a coach alongside Vandeweghe who has limited bench experience. This begs the question, why not just have Del Harris as the head coach. It makes it a lot easier to fire the head coach when he is not also the general manager. The Nets should take this lesson from the Knicks during the less than desirable Isaiah Thomas era.

Wallace Fined

While it is not news when Rasheed Wallace gets a tech, it may be news when I out and out agree with him. Wallace received a fine for his “verbal abuse” of referees after the Toronto game on Friday night. His frustration with flopping and ticky-tack fouls happens to also be the annoyance of all that watch NBA games. The NBA needs to allow for a tad more emotion than is allowed. You have grown men playing a physical sport. Things are meant to get heated. That’s when the sport is at its best. Officials are too quick with the whistles. Sadly, I don’t see a revolution starting with a Rasheed Wallace sound bite.

The NBA’s Haves and Have Nots

We are enough games into the 2009-2010 season to have some semblance of the pedigree of each team. While many in the middle will fight and claw for the last remaining playoff spots, these few teams will not have to worry. They will either be locked in as one or two seeds or so far out of the picture they are talking lottery.

The Haves

Lakers – Kobe is playing horse during games and Adam Morrison is getting playing time. That latter happens when Phil Jackson is goofing around.

Nuggets – The old adage was that you needed two or more superstars to contend for an NBA title. Denver is doing it with only one legitimate All-Star. The Nuggets will make the Lakers earn another bid to the Finals. Chris Anderson may be the best big man defender in the league and his hair is not the least bit annoying.

Suns – By now you probably heard that the Suns are good again. Some may not buy the longevity of their success but no one can deny that this team can score at an unbelievable clip. Channing Frye has been a nice surprise. He may not be what they need as a rebounder but he can run, shoot, and pass. That’s about all Phoenix ever does anyway.

Hawks – I had almost forgotten that Atlanta had an NBA team. Last year the Hawks demanded people take notice when they bounced Miami in the first round. They seem to be building on that momentum this season. It will take some doing but I will try to get used to the hawks being near the top of their conference.

Magic – Superman isn’t exactly playing up to his potential to start the season. I’m confident he will be closer to the 20 and 14 he was producing last year in the next few weeks. In the meantime Vince Carter seems competent enough to do a little more scoring.

The Have-Nots

Timberwolves – We knew they were going to suck. Rambis knew they were going to suck. It can be safe to assume now that Ricky Rubio had an inkling that they would suck. Good thing they drafted 18 point guards.

Nets- The only good news is that they were once rumored to be in the running to net LeBron next year. I guess that’s something.

Knicks – It’s teams like New York that make me thank god the NBA does not mandate every teams have an All-Star as is done in MLB. It’s a scary thought but I believe the Knicks want to be the worst team in NBA history. What other explanation could there be for Nate Robinson scoring on his own basket. Really I think they will revisit the whole Iverson thing in about 10-12 losses.

Clippers – On Paper they look great. When healthy this team could play with anyone. I included the Clippers here because I firmly believe that god has it in for sinners, dinosaurs, and the Clippers.

Down But Bot Out

Spurs and Celtics– Here is a drinking game. Take a shot every time the word healthy is used alongside these teams. Your liver will can vacation after the season.

Kobe Bryant… Jedi Baller!

The Sports Report Girl, marveling at the shot Kobe Bryant made against James Hardin of the Thunder, wonders if Kobe is studying The Force! But is he a Jedi or a Sith?

Feel the power of the Dark Side, Kobe!

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