Why Basketball is Contagious and Profound

I can’t explain why, but in 2002 while I was putting hardwood flooring into our new house in San Diego, I watched the NCAA finals, and I caught the basketball bug. Carmello, LeBron, and Wade went to the NBA and my attention followed.

I got NBA league pass and watched at least one game a night for the next few seasons.

I watched NBA TV news, read NBA news on NBA.com, watch NBA classic games, bought books by Bill Russell, Jack McCallum, Phil Jackson, and John Wooden.

I became a fanatic.

I started a basketball blog. I watched the NBA draft, the summer league, and FIBA. You name it…

I coached a church league team for a while, bought books on drills and plays, tried to understand Tex and Phil’s triangle offense. We actually practiced. We won some games.

I’m even fascinated by NBA TV coverage of team practice sessions. Yeah, what a nerd.

In my previous job I was honored to get to serve Bill Walton as a customer- I arranged to get them some free samples and gear from an energy gel company they liked. I struck up an occasional email correspondence with him, and his wife sent me a family Christmas card to thank me for the gifts. I also got to share with Bill the story of how I recently met Bill Russell at SEA-TAC just before the Celtics-Lakers finals. It was thrilling to me to have communicated with two Hall of Fame centers!

To me, basketball is a number of things:

• It's not an all-star game. It requires team play, organization, planning, intelligence, and athleticism.
  
• Watching teams win and lose and players succeed and fail both professionally and personally has taught me about the importance of
  
• Character
• Preparation
• Dedication
• Strategy
• The will to win
• speaking of which, you should check out the John Wooden Pyramid of Success (pdf)
  
• I watch players and coaches to learn how to succeed in my own life.

And so should you my friend.

Not to mention the cool dunks. Those are great too. ;-)

The Sad State of the League I Love... NBA 2008

Is it just me, or is there very little NBA worth watching this year?

Don't get me wrong- I'm following the Boston Three Party's every move, and it's clearly a party of more than just three...

But here's my detailed analysis of why the NBA sucks right now and what exactly sucks about it.

NUMBER ONE, my biggest beef with the NBA and network TV: they choose the games too far ahead of time to know which ones will be worth watching (or they're choosing the less interesting games for other commercial reasons). My estimate is that less than half of the nationally televised games are the most interesting ones. Case in point: the most statistically significant game since the shot clock era started, the one between Detroit and Boston on Jan 5, 2008 (read an article about it), was only available to us super-devoted league pass subscribers.

But hats off to the NBA for making league pass available online- killer!

One team worth watching is the L.A. Lakers because of the ascendancy of Bynum- this is a good team now, so watching them compete against the better teams with Kobe ready for the 4th quarter is still fun.

In the regular season, it's hard to care about the TEAMS THAT WILL WIN LOTS OF GAMES BUT WHO CARES IF THEY LOSE IN THE FIRST ROUND OF THE PLAYOFFS:

• Dallas Mavericks- Dirk, Steve should have had 3 MVP's and you and everyone else knows it.
  
• San Antonio Spurs- These guys are great, but there are still about three teams I'd rather see champions- Boston, Phoenix, and L.A.
  
• Phoenix Suns- I love you guys but how many heartbreaking post-seasons can I take?
  
• Maybe the Utah Jazz, but they're not as good as last year, and Denver seems to have peaked as well.
  
• Maybe you could put Detroit and Boston in this category, but Boston's fun to watch. Detroit can take any game and make it a grind-out bore-fest. Not that that's not good basketball- Spurs vs Pistons is great basketball but not entertaining. LA pr Phoenix vs Boston- now that's fun AND great!
  

Teams that are ok to watch for stellar play from young stars: Portland, Seattle, New Orleans, Orlando. But still kinda blah when you take their whole teams and the fact that most of these teams lose a lot.

Houston also seems to have peaked because T-Mac and Yao are not the right star combo, and can't both stay healthy anyway.

Golden State plays fun basketball, but I admit I haven't gotten around to watching them- I guess I still feel like it would be a let down compared to their mind-blowing playoff run last year.

TEAMS THAT SUCK SO WHY WATCH THEM:

• Atlanta Hawks
  
• New York Knicks
• Memphis Grizzlies
• Milwaukee
• Minnesota
• Philadelphia
• Indiana
• In fact there's too many to mention here and I have to go look at the list of teams to remember some of them, they suck so much, they're just fading into obscurity
• And I probably would have put Charlotte on here if they hadn't just dealt Boston their 4th loss of the season tonight. Dang it!

New Celtics Show Championship Poise Against Raptors

The Celtics are who I'm most excited about watching right now- and I'm happy to say that my concerns were unfounded (that beyond the big three of Garnett, Pierce, and Allen they'd be insufficient).

• James Posey is taking charges and hitting free throws and three's as he's done since his time with the Grizzlies.
• Rajon Rondo was faster than T.J. Ford at times, though maybe not quicker.
• Kendrick Perkins is playing well.
• Scalabrine is, what can I say, Scalabrine- a hometown favorite, reliable, you gotta love him.
  

To win this game in overtime, the Celtics not only had to be better than the Raptors on the road, but also beat the officials- I knew I was rooting for Boston so I'd be inclined to think calls against them were unfair, but this was just ridiculous- it wasn't called the same way on both ends of the floor.

Paul Pierce didn't have a stellar game, but he's gotta feel great that that's ok now. I think it's still sinking in for him... I think he's still adjusting mentally to not having to be the guy all the time anymore.

Garnett was Garnett- amazing- he out-Boshed Bosh in overtime. His intensity and passion are always exhilarating to witness.

Despite losing the picture on NBA league pass, I got to hear Ray Allen hit the winning three with 2.6 seconds to go. Ray has been incredible, clutch, shooting a very high percentage- and though some of the Celtics ads feature Garnett and Pierce over Ray, I think Ray's performance shows that's unfair.

Their next game against the tough and fast Denver Nuggets playing a mile high will be a big test for them.

The Lamest Thing NBA Commentators Say...

After a player makes a play, they say,

"He can do that."

or

"That's what he does."

Really.

How insightful.

Manu Kicks Amare in the Nuts

Yeah it happened last night (Phoenix Suns vs. San Antonio Spurs) - I DVR'd it and watched it tonight. This isn't an uncommon thing for Manu to do... not that it's always a rack-job but he tends to become the home crowd's least favorite visiting player. See the video of Amare getting racked and a technical foul!

This is just two days after he gets a black eye from Kobe while blocking him- on the replay (Kobe hits Manu video), that doesn't look too accidental on Kobe's part, but you gotta wonder Manu is always in so many plays like that. Not to take anything away from Manu, a great player, and proven, but you only like a guy like that when he's on your team.

Similar guy is Raja Bell. I like him, but I know he drives other teams nuts, and he clothes-lined Kobe in the 2006 playoffs last year (that's a take down!). Not to mention faking getting the elbow from Kobe.

On a related note, Phoenix only has a chance in the playoffs if Raja and Nash stay healthy. Mainly because they're the most consistent clutch players on the team. They get better the higher the competition level gets and the later in the game it gets.

Warrior-Spurs 4th Quarter, A Thing of Beauty

Warriors versus the 2 time champion Spurs who are undefeated on the road... GSW a team that's been a bit of a whipping boy in the last few years- Don Nelson comes in, some new players, but 3 significant injured players including Baron Davis- game tied at halftime- you expect the Spurs to clamp down and disappoint these NoCal fans... but the 12-0 run in the first half of the 4th quarter got me all choked up.

As Barnett said, "I can't tell you what an impact (Andris Biedrens) has had on this game." He blocked 6 shots- he's the first true Duncan-stopper I've yet seen, not just blocking but jumping out to deny post passes as well. He had pretty much a perfect game.

The zone D worked pretty well , and the Warriors' hustle and will to win was exceptional, especially because they could have been intimidated by the Spurs and their road record momentum, but they weren't.

You might even say the Spurs choked. The reliance on 3 point attempts, the mental errors... there were plenty of bad calls, probably more against the Warriors. This was not the indomitable Spurs you'd expect. Statistically the major difference in the game was shooting %.

Oh and did I mention the Warriors just demolished another leading team, the Utah Jazz?

Lakers - Jazz November 25 2006

This was an amazing game- close the whole way, avg point diff was probably 3 or 4 at most most of the time- lots of blocks, tussles on the floor, Kwame Brown continued to show gradual improvement (know how I know he's improving? Not just the main stats, but his increasing free throw percentage- free throws, as you probably know, are mostly psychological- his confidence is growing).

There was an electrifying sequence at about 3:00 to go in the 4th quarter- Lakers lost the ball after two sets of opposing players went to the floor for it, Deron Williams had a run out but Kobe Bryant came down 'oh no you're not gonna have this' jumped up met him at the top a palm on each side of the ball, clean block no call.

Clutch shooting by Williams in the 4th- a two and a three- the two came right after being blocked, he grabbed it, dribbled and shot again, made it as if the block hadn't happened Both teams wanted it bad and you could tell by their defense.

And of course- Boozer- 31 and 16- just a man on the offensive boards... playing the way Utah wanted him to when they gave him the big contract.

Tenacious, persistent, scrapping, resolute will - wow, one of the better games that you'll see this season, guaranteed.

Suns, Jazz; Ok, ok, they're not the only two teams worth watching

Especially when you have a few days off and NBA league pass. The Hornets-Suns game was fun; two fast break teams, and wow the Suns actually played some effective defense, limiting them to 13 points in the 4th quarter.


Utah, as everyone knows, is rolling- 8 straight wins, what a start. I haven't mentioned it because I wasn't surprised. They were good in the preseason, and there was no reason to expect Deron Williams not to be even more stellar this season- combine one of the best up and coming young point guards (who has no trouble scoring either) with a strong effective frontline (Boozer and Okur), of course all-star (has he been one yet? If not why not?) Kirilenko blocking 3 shots a game... you've got a recipe for domination. Boozer is playing all-star caliber basketball as well. Throw in a dazzling rookie Ronnie Brewer and a veteran champion Derek Fisher and more than sufficient FG Matt Harpring coming off the bench... yikes- we're talking 2nd round if not Western Finals potential. Of course, the season is early, and of course they have to stay healthy.