Who needs tickets?

Spurs add gritty defender who can guard big bodies and seem poised for title run

So the San Antonio Spurs finally did it, they gave in to the pressure and made a trade to get bigger and be better suited to face centers Pau Gasol of the L.A Lakers and Shaquille O’neal of the Phoenix Suns. This was a no-brainer. It was obvious that the Spurs had to do something no matter how confident they were about their actual roster. They didn’t have many holes in their team but they just could not stand still as they kept seeing their biggest opponents grow larger each day.

First the Lakers acquired Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies. Less than a week later, the Suns countered by landing O’Neal from the Miami Heat. Not to be left behind, the Dallas Mavericks grabbed all-star point guard Jason Kidd from the New Jersey Nets for five players and two first-round draft picks.

So now, it was the Spurs’ turn. In the deal San Antonio acquired veteran forward Kurt Thomas from the Seattle SuperSonics on Wednesday night for guard Brent Barry, center Francisco Elson and a 2009 first-round draft pick.

Read more

The Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday completed a trade to get point guard Jason Kidd from the New Jersey Nets. After Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns revamped themselves with Pau Gasol and Shaquille O’neal respectively it was obvious the Mavericks had to do something just to keep pace, but if Mavericks fans are thinking that this move puts their team above the Lakers, Suns, or even defending champion San Antonio Spurs they are going to be disappointed.

Here’s the deal: in exchange for the 35-year-old Kidd Dallas sent to the the Nets point guard Devin Harris, center DeSagana Diop, swingman Maurice Ager, forward Trenton Hassell, retired forward Keith Van Horn, $three million in cash and the first-round draft picks this June and in 2010. As part of the trade the Nets also sent forward Malik Allen and swingman Antoine Wright to Dallas.
Read more

Rest of the teams will have to improve soon just to keep pace

 After the Phoenix Suns traded with the Miami Heat for Shaquille O’neal and the Lakers acquired Pau Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies it would only be logical to expect that teams like the San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks make a move before the trade deadline passes. 

Many rumors have been heard since those trades as to whom could be next player sent to a championship contender in the loaded Western Conference, where just getting into the plyoffs is going to be a daunting task, but none of them have actually taken place. 

 To help counter the effect of those marquee trades moves like Ben Wallace from the Chicago Bulls to the Utah Jazz have been mentioned, but probably the potential trade everyone keeps talking about is that of point guard Jason Kidd going from the New Jersey Nets to the Mavericks.    
Read more

The Miami Heat on Tuesday completed a trade that sent 35-year-old Shaquille O’Neal to the Phoenix Suns for Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks. Needless to say the criticism has been widespread. Most fans, league executives and radio show hosts and callers have dissed this trade and think that the Suns ended up on the losing side of the equation.

Shaq after all is past the prime of his career, injury prone and hardly mobile enough to fit the run-and-gun offense of the Suns. Nowadays when Shaq’s healthy he can at best produce occasional spells of productivity and when he is not he becomes nothing but a big liability with a huge salary contract.

But hard as it may be to believe there are those who believe that this was a good move for the Suns. Most of the arguments that I’ve heard sum up to this: The Suns were not going to win a title playing attractive, fast-paced basketball because they were a terrible defensive team that always flopped in the playoffs and now Shaq, supposedly, will change all that. Read more

The Memphis Girizzlies traded Pau Gasol to the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday for two first-round draft picks and the draft rights to his brother, Marc. The Lakers’ acquisition of Gasol, a 7-foot center, figures to change the look of the team and instantly makes them, at least on paper, one of the early favorites to win the crown of the Western Conference, along with the Dallas Mavericks, Phoenix Suns and San Antonio Spurs. For more details and analysis of this basketball trade I share with you a video from ESPN’s Pardon The Interruption.

How about those Celtics struggling lately? Well, don’t loose your sleep over them. The NBA season is a marathon, so don’t expect the Celtics to maintain the same pace for the whole campaign. This was a team that was destroying opponents during the first two months of the season and only had three losses. It is very tough to do that, and even though the Celtics are now among the NBA’s elite this is the first season that this roster is playing together.

 Only very special teams like the Michael Jordan’s Bulls were capable of sustaining that kind of pace for a whole season and ended eventually with 72 victories. And although these Celtics are good, they are not that good; however is very safe to say that this Celtics team can have between 65 and 67 victories by the end of the regular season .

Some Celtic fans are panicking not because of the number of losses (they now have four in the month of January alone) but because of some of the opponents to whom Boston has lost (Charlotte, Toronto and twice to Washington).

Although these defeats are dissapointing I don’t think Celtic fans have anything to worry about. Now that their team is among the league’s best it is easy for the other teams to be motivated and pump themselves up when facing the C’s, while on the other hand the Celtics may overlook some of the matches when they face “weaker” teams.

What the Celtics have to do is learn from their mistakes and change their attitude when facing these teams they have overlooked in the past. They have to understand that now every night they will have to play their best because all the other teams will try to prove themselselves and their home fans that they can beat the mighty Celtics.

If they do this, the Celtics will even learn from these defeats and will mature, a process that is necessary for every team with new key players on their rosters. A process that will eventually help them achieve the chemistry and toughness that is necessary to hopefully reach the NBA Finals for the first time since 1987.

In case you didn’t realize it, the New York Knicks are bad. Like “9 week old milk in your fridge” bad. Last night was the pinnacle of it all with a 104-59 loss to the Celtics who were actually trying to take it easy on them in the second half. The Celtics benched Garnett midway through the third quarter and then sat Ray Allen and Paul Pierce for the fourth. Boston could have easily won this game by 50 or more, but deliberately did their best to make it less embarrassing. Still, Isiah and those Knicks can find a way to make themselves look foolish in ways that nobody else can. They’re putting in less effort than a possum hanging from a tree, so be thankful Knicks fans because it could have been a lot worse!

There’s nothing quite like Thanksgiving weekend.  Turkey, stuffing, yams, drunken relatives, and football.   If you’re a typical American like us, then you came limping into the office this morning because you tried to re-live your glory days on the gridiron over the weekend, only to be tackled repeatedly by a younger, more agile family member.  Still,  your performance was comparable to other, more esteemed athletes from this past week.  You were gunning the ball like Eli Manning, clutch like Gus Frerotte, as dominant as the Patriots against the Eagles, and you remain as undefeated as University of Kansas.  Hey, at least we have plenty of solid sports for you to watch this week.
Boston Celtics versus New York Knicks (Thursday, 8 p.m. EST)

Two franchises with dissatisfied fans.  The Knicks are in complete disarray with no hope for the future.  The Celtics haven’t won a championship 12 games into the season and that just won’t cut it in Boston anymore.  Sidenote: Starbury is threatening to go to the press with dirt on Isiah if he doesn’t play at least 52 minutes in this 48 minute game.

Division Championship Week in College Football (Saturday)

Missouri versus Oklahoma.  LSU versus Tennessee.  Virginia Tech versus Boston College.  West Virginia versus Pitt (not a championship, but still important). Coming off of “Rivalry Week”, these teams face a far more powerful enemy now - the BCS.  Good luck gentlemen, and may the possibly best but probably not teams earn that bid!

Green Bay Packers versus Dallas Cowboys (Thursday, 8:15 p.m. EST)

The matchup everyone has been waiting for.  Two great quarterbacks with similar styles of play - one that’s been to the Super Bowl and one that aspires to someday get there.  The wily old veteran against the up-and-coming kid.  If the starters get hurt, we could finally see these guys go head-to-head - Brad Johnson and Aaron Rodgers. Think about it.

Missouri versus Arkansas (Wednesday, 8:05 p.m. EST)

What a matchup this would be!…..if it were football.  Unfortunately, it’s basketball and neither of these teams are all that good this year. But hey, it’s Wednesday and there’s not much else on.

Shrek the Halls (Tuesday, 8 p.m. EST)

The first Christmas special of the year features the big green ogre that hasn’t been funny since the first installment over four years ago.  Just missing the cut was “Saved by the Jingle Bell”, “Prancing with the Stars”, and “The Miss-tletoe America Pageant”.

I was on a mission this morning to find out if the NBA season was underway yet or not. I had to do a great deal of digging, hours at the library, flipping through some files, researching on the world wide web. It’s not obvious that the NBA season started, but it did - like 2 weeks ago. It was especially tough to figure out because no giant brawls have happened yet to fill the media’s time. But there were a few things that helped me figure out that the NBA was already a few games into the regular season….
10. The players are putting in about 10% more effort than they were in preseason. It’s not an easy thing to decipher, but if you look real closely, you will occasionally see someone diving for a loose ball or taking a charge. That stuff would never happen in the preseason.

9. All the hype around the NBA has stopped. The most interesting part of the NBA season is the off-season. Ironically, we know that the NBA must have started because no one is talking about it anymore.

8. The Houston Rockets are being hyped as contenders. There is no way anyone would consider this ridiculous notion unless the Rockets had won a few games to start the year and the media was jumping the gun. Houston now has 6 wins and 1 loss. CHAMPIONSHIP!

7. I keep hearing these really annoying voices. Oh that’s right, it’s Bill Walton and Stephen A. Smith.

6. They stopped showing really bad NHL regular season highlights on Sportscenter and replaced them with really bad NBA regular season highlights.

5. The Eastern Conference is already terrible again. Three of the top six contenders in the East - Washington, Miami, and Chicago - are a combined 3-15.

4. I’m in last place in my rotisserie fantasy basketball league. What do you expect after missing the first two weeks of the season? I should probably take Greg Oden and Adam Morrison out of my starting lineup now. Oh, and I’m gonna drop Allan Houston and Reggie Miller…

3. People are trying to give me 76ers tickets for free. I live in Philly and yesterday, the bag boy at my grocery store asked me if I wanted paper, plastic, or upper bowl seats to a Sixers game. I went with plastic. (caption for the photo below: Four lucky fans were selected to play for the Philadelphia 76ers this year)

2. My daily dose of “Everybody Loves Raymond” is being reduced. I usually try to catch the 6:00 and 6:30 showing on Fox followed by the 7:00 episode on TNT, but lately there’s been a lot more Charles Barkley and a lot less Ray Romano.

1. Gilbert Arenas says the season started on his blog. If Gilbert says it happened, then it must be true.

Maybe I’m blinded by love, but I refuse to hear what my associate Pettey is talking about.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the NBA at all.  In fact, with all the media overkill, the league has never been better. What people like Pettey don’t understand is that the NBA has very little to do with what happens on the court.  It’s about the drama, baby.  The NBA is like “As the World Turns” for men. So don’t tell me that someone like Tim Donaghy is going to ruin the league that I adore.  He just adds to the plot. He’s like Ralphie on the Sopranos - you hated him, but he really made the show better.

Here’s a few more reasons why the NBA is better off than it’s ever been.

The Next Jordan

In no other league does a player get hyped up more before he’s ever set foot on the court than in the NBA.  Here’s a list of players who have carried the title of The Next Jordan: Kobe Bryant, Vince Carter, Allen Iverson, Dwayne Wade, LeBron James, Harold Miner, Penny Hardaway, Grant Hill, Jerry Stackhouse, Tracy McGrady, and your mother.  While some of these players are great in their own right, they will never ever live up to the expectations put on them by being labeled the next Jordan.  My favorite people on this list are the busts.  Guys like Jerry Stackhouse and Vince Carter crumbled under the weight of the pressure and frankly, that makes for good television.  But “The Next Jordan” also has its good stories.  The fact that Lebron James is almost as good as his hype was when he was 17 is remarkable.  Sidenote: The only one on that list who was nicknamed after Michael was Harold Miner (aka Baby Jordan).

The Offseason

The offseason of the NBA is arguably better than the actual season.  I’m totally okay with that.  Let’s review this year: Kobe demanding a trade, Kevin Garnett being traded to the Celtics, Greg Oden and Kevin Durant getting drafted, Greg Oden then getting a devestating injury to end his year before it started, Isiah Thomas’s court case, Shawn Marion not being happy in Phoenix, and Tim Donaghy rigging games.  I also heard that Kevin Garnett is having Steve Nash’s baby, and Dirk Nowitzki is PISSED about it.

Gilbert Arenas

I’m a die hard Wizards fan, but even if I wasn’t, I would still love this man.  He shouts out “Hibachi” when he shoots.  He plays online poker at halftime of every game to keep his competitive edge.  He beat teammate Deshawn Stevenson in a 3-point shooting contest while doing it one handed without having his feet leave the ground…and then put it on youtube.  He writes a blog where he tells stories about his girlfriend and him getting into a fight.  He hit a game winning shot from 5 feet behind the 3-point line and didn’t even watch it go in.  He is on the cover of NBA Live ‘08 and claims to play it ten hours a day.  I’m telling you, this guy is special…Helen Keller special.

TNT

Flat out the best sports coverage on TV today.  Ernie Johnson and Kenny Smith are great.  If you can get past the fact that Charles Barkley loves himself, you can see that he has no fear of calling players/teams out for lack of effort.  Also, one of TNT’s best assets is that it doesn’t have a sponsor for every single thing in its broadcast like ESPN.  (By the way, go to www.ticketsofamerica.com for the best seats to all your favorite sporting events!)

Fantasy Basketball

No, it’s not nearly as good as fantasy football or baseball.  But what the heck am I supposed to do with myself during January and February?  Those are the dog days of winter, and as a professional bum I need things to occupy my time.  Changing my fantasy basketball lineup everyday fills that precious gap between toasting my pop tarts and organizing my sock drawer.