NBA 2011 Opening Night Notes

Hand gesture ... TECHNICAL!!!

The Heat lost and the Lakers won. Get used to hearing that once the playoffs roll around.

With all eyes on LeBron for his Miami Heat debut, he proved the old adage that you can take the King out of Cleveland, but you can't take the underachievement out of his teammates. I've heard that since I was a kid and never quite understood it until last night. James attempted to carry the team with his shooting touch in the second half and wound up with 31 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, and 8 turnovers in a loss to the defending Eastern Conference champs. Those were the kind of stat lines that Kobe initially got killed for in his early post-Shaq seasons. But oh well, it was just one game against a tough defense and Miami's got 81 more games to figure out how to creatively come up short before the postseason begins. Having the rest of his team shoot a collective 38% from the field? That's just unoriginal. Props to Chris Bosh for being scared to death by his twin Predator KG (8 points on 3-11 shooting) and Dwyane Wade for having a rusty hamstring (4-16 shooting and 6 turnovers). With James Jones slated to get all of Mike Miller's shots, it's going to be a long road to recovery hinging on that thumb.

Two Celtics notes: Shaq gained 100 pounds since his Cavalier postseason debut and Paul Pierce pulled off a day one version of his oh-my-God-I'm-injured-and-embarrassed-in-a-heap-on-the-ground-so-I-better-be-dragged-back-to-the-locker-room-so-I-can-make-my-triumphant-reentrance-two-minutes-later-with-no-ill-effects-of-my-potential-career-ending-injury shtick. It's pretty much what he's known for now.

Now onto the Lakers-Rockets! Yao is gonna be good, even in his limited minutes. He managed to foul out in his short stay, but he did all of the incredibly Ming-y things last night that made him such a pivotal force before his foot collapsed. Kevin Martin will effortlessly thrive as mass point producer as long as he has Yao and Brad Miller at the high post looking for him on cuts. He's always been a great scorer, but now he'll prolly finally be efficient. Aaron Brooks resumed his role as a Laker killer with 24 points and 9 assists, so that was refreshingly painful.

But the Lakers found a way to prevail. Shannon Brown pulled off his best Kobe impression in the fourth and notched 4 threes to finish with 16 late points. Thankfully, Kobe also pulled off his best Kobe impersonation throughout the first three quarters and managed 27 points, 5 rebounds, 7 assists, and only 1 turnover. I was gonna write a column about how stupid it was for everyone and their mom acting like KB's crappy preseason shooting was an actual issue that proved his decline with age, but Kobe replied last night with his game and a win so I wouldn't have to. They're the two-time defending world champions, three-time defending western conference champions, and now they've upgraded their roster. Steve Blake surprisingly took over for Derek Fisher in crunch time and knocked in the dagger to add to the last of his three triples on the night. Matt Barnes worked his butt off and forced some action while he was in there, pulling down 5 boards and finishing with a +12 plus/minus score in his 16 minutes of playing time. Theo Ratliff notched two blocks in his limited time and will continue to do that every night in relieving Pau until Bynum makes his way back. The Lakers have their eyes past the Heat already. Get ready for the three-peat.

Oh, and Gasol had 29 points and 11 rebounds. That's pretty good too. And nobody cares about the Suns-Blazers.

... and Free Enes.

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2010-2011 Boston Celtics

I was quick to make fun of the Celtics standing pat and adding Jermaine the Drain in the early going of the offseason, but I've come around. I like the roster now. Who cares if they're older than the local 40-and-up church league squad that play every Thursday night from 7:15 to 8:10 on a running clock. They also probably have the most All-Star appearances of any random team ever. They have talent out the wazoo, regardless of if any of that talent will need offseason wazoo surgery.

2010-2011 Boston Celtics

Point Guard: Rajon Rondo/Delonte West/Avery Bradley
Shooting Guard: Ray Allen/Nate Robinson/Von Wafer
Small Forward: Paul Pierce/Marquis Daniels
Power Forward: Kevin Garnett/Jermaine O'Neal/Glen Davis
Center: Kendrick Perkins/Shaquille O'Neal

If healthy (if healthy (if healthy (if healthy (IF HEALTHY)))), the Celts have one of the all-time front courts in league history. Between the returning trio of KG, Perkins, and Big Baby plus the additions of the O'Neal brothers-from-other-mothers, there should never be a lay-up that isn't blocked or a rebound that isn't gobbled up. If one of those two things occurs on any of these guys' collective watches, they should be swapped out for their bench mates immediately. Jermaine and Kevin have spent the last decade pairing up against each other in the East vs. West starting line-up with Shaq buddying up with whichever one was in his ever-changing conference at the time. These guys are all capable of putting up monster production on any given night, impacting the game at a dominant level from the paint, and yet they still have the biggest safety net of any frontline in the league even if any of them don't show up. It might even be better that Perk is gonna miss a good chunk of the early going because that gives the O'Neals more minutes to feel out how they're going to fit in with the rest of this former championship collective.

Their guard rotation ain't that shabby either. Though they gave up on longtime Celtic Tony Allen and grandpa Michael Finley, they brought back former Boston draftee Delonte West, drafted potential lead guard stud Avery Bradley, and took a chance on streaky gunner Von Wafer. Delonte is probably the only one of the three who's gonna get quality clock this season, but he naturally gets to slide back in with Pierce, Rondo (his '07 back-up), and Allen (the guy he was traded for). I do think this is the year, though, where Paul Pierce has to relinquish top-dog status to Rondo. Rajon is the future (as well as the current) of this team and everyone needs to be on the same page recognizing that. The tempo, the offensive attack, and the initial line of defense will all be dictated by him. I know that there's a lot of people in the camp that loaded teams don't necessarily need to pinpoint one guy as the man, but I'm not one of those people. Pierce, Allen, Garnett, and Shaq all need to know that this is Rondo's team. That's all.

Bringing it back to the biggest of the big men, I think Shaq can have a solid impact on this team. And I mean way more than he did on the Cavs. When paired with Garnett at his best, you have the ultimate defensive combo of the monstrous anchor and the active help-side shot blocker. Plus they're two of the premier low post passers of their generation. There's no reason they can't emulate a Divac-Webber type intent in their passing game; it's one of the few basketball skills that age shouldn't deter at all. This should help Ray Ray coming off screen, Rondo off back cuts, and even Pierce in iso situations simply because of the threat of it. Shaq's much more suited for a deliberate slow down offense like Doc Rivers implements than he was in the let-LeBron-create-everything offense of Cleveland. On both sides of the floor I expect Shaq to have an impact. You don't have to have that much faith in the legs of the oldest guy in the game today, but I just know that he knows how to play the game. So he'll fit in. Trust me.

At the very worst, this Celtics team looks to be a whole lot more consistent. There were stretches last season where they legitimately looked terrible. They had some downright shameful home losses that set them up for their little-to-no expectations in the playoffs. That's pretty much the only way you can have a championship starting line-up and still have people who are innately surprised when they made it out of the second round. Health will be the annoying redundant keyword all season, but I have them increasing their win total by 7 games (still 9 less than their winning '08 season) and actually beating the Miami Heat to return to their third championship series in the last four years. But guess who they lose to? Deja vu ...

Prediction
Regular Season: 57-25
Playoffs: Eliminated in NBA Finals

... and do the John Wall.

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The 2011 Trio (8/24/10 Update)

With any other situation, I would say it's too early and ridiculous to look ahead an entire year for a sports club. I don't wanna hear how the Heat are gonna 7-peat until 2017 when LeBron's still never won a single title. But with the University of Kentucky basketball team? Coach Cal has forced us to.

For the 2011-2012 college basketball season, UK is coming fresh off of a surprise Final Four appearance. But the NBA bell tolled and ripped the Wildcat fans' hearts out for a second straight year as Enes Kanter was drafted with the top pick, a decision that had been guaranteed since his end-of-the-season utter dominance in SEC play. Terrence Jones and Brandon Knight cemented the arrival of the 1-and-done era by going 3rd and 7th in the lottery as well. The big surprise was the fact that DeAndre Liggins broke through as the unquestioned leader of the squad and showed such a marked improvement in his long-range marksmanship and slashing ability that he was scooped up late in the first round by a championship contender banking on him filling out into a James Posey-type intangible stud.

This leaves the Wildcats heavily reliant on recruiting once again. There are pretty much two guarantees with Coach Cal: we will have the number one class year-in-and-year-out and we will have plenty of scholarships open after the NBA absorbs half our roster year-in-and-year-out. But 2012 will be the year that everyone understands that it's worth it.

Michael Gilchrist - 6'6", 190 lb.
#1 overall player, #1 SF (ESPN)
#3 overall player, #1 SF (Rivals)
#5 overall player, #1 SF (Scout)

Marquis Teague - 6'2", 170 lb.
#2 overall player, #1 PG (Rivals)
#3 overall player, #1 PG (ESPN)
#6 overall player, #1 PG (Scout)

Anthony Davis - 6'10", 220 lb.
#1 overall player, #1 PF (Scout)
#6 overall player, #3 PF (Rivals)
#12 overall player, #4 PF (ESPN)

The recruiting game is getting ridiculous. Cal is the best there is. Period. He targets in on the all-world talent specifically catered to his system and gets them. It's as simple as that. These 2011 recruits form a trio that you will hear about everyday for the entire year, right up until the NBA Draft where they're all selected in the top 10. Gilchrist has been the best player in all of high school ball since his sophomore summer AAU circuit and is said to have the skill set of a Kobe Bryant/Kevin Durant hybrid. Teague has the blinding speed and attacking ability in the same mold of Devin Harris to where he gets any and everywhere he wants with the ball. Davis is the late bloomer of the group with the ridiculously long frame whose talents range across the board to cement his comparisons as a player somewhere in-between Kevin Garnett and Antonio McDyess. A good majority of recruiting analysts have even come out of the woodwork to vouch for Davis as the newly crowned best player in his class, even over Gilchrist. The three of them together could change the dynamics of talent in college basketball altogether. Never has such a highly touted freshman trio ever been assembled. We're not talking a collective of multiple top 50 talents here; we're talking possibly three of the top five players in the NCAA altogether at that point under the tutelage of one coach while wearing Kentucky blue and white. Coach Cal defeated the entire system. You no longer hope for that five-star messiah to come in and change your program with his NBA skill level once every few years. You expect at least four of them (plus some) putting their name on the Letter of Intent papers every single year.

And Kentucky's still at least slightly in the picture for 2011 recruits Quincy Miller (PF, Rivals #5/Scout #2/ ESPN #4), Austin Rivers (SG, #1/3/2), Adonis Thomas (SF, #15/11/15), LeBryan Nash (SF, #4/12/10), and Tony Wroten (PG, #20/27/24). Depending on his performance in prep school this year, you may even be able to pencil DeAndre Daniels (PF, #9/34/28) on our 2012 roster. Hopefully we can also pull a late coup off and grab local talent Chane Behanan (PF, #23/29/73). I like our chances with pulling at least one more of those guys. Sky's the limit. And an NCAA championship banner is the sky, by the way. There'll always be someone who complains about the lack of tradition or development of players who leave school early to the pros, but once #8 is hanging in the rafters in Rupp ... I think they'll quite down at least for a little bit.

... and do the John Wall.

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Lakers x 16

So I heard that the Los Angeles Lakers won one of those championship things or something. That's pretty nice.

This season was somehow the most emotionally insane for me. Maybe it was just by default as Ron Artest's general craziness must've transferred to me since I was so elated at his signing and completely sure that he would never have a blow-up this season. That moment-by-moment tension could have done it. Or maybe it was the 17 games apiece missed by Pau and Bynum conjoined with the constant fear of Andrew's inevitable new season-ending knee injury. Or maybe it was the fact that Kobe made less than a hundred three-pointers for only the second time in the last eight seasons (with the other being the '04 trial year). Or maybe it was the fact that we needed literally 7 game winners to drop from Kobe's dislocated/fractured/crippled/arthritic fingertips that, record-wise, would have dropped us from 1st place to out of the play-offs in the West. Or maybe it was the fact that Shannon Brown actually became a 20-minute-a-night rotation player when his only reliable basketball skill is dunking on a fastbreak. Or maybe it was because we never had a single late season stretch that you could point to and proclaim as a reason that the Lakers were the best team in the 2009-2010 season. I don't know. Regardless ... I was stressed.

The prevailing talk before the first round was whether the Lakers could possibly be considered the underdogs while facing the eighth seed in the West. While Kobe & Co. may not have exactly dominated their way through the final two weeks of the regular season, the fact that the conversation was held at all is ridiculous. Kevin Durant is nice and all, but he's the future. Kobe is the now. And while everyone was waiting for LeBron James to claim his (apparently) inevitable first championship, Kobe was putting in work. Spanning over the course of the first three series, the Black Mamba put up six games stringing together 32, 31, 30, 35, 32, and 40 points, all in winning efforts. The Thunder were supposed to be the up-and-comers with enough firepower to surprise the champs. The Jazz were supposed to be the rough-and-tumble band of misfits led by D-Will and Booze who could have been the best team in the West if not for the injury bug. The Suns were supposed to be the revamped run-and-gun, 2-time MVP-led squad that dominated the second half of the season and were poised to break into the Finals. The Lakers knocked them all out without so much as sniffing an elimination game. Of course we needed a set of miracle game-winning rebound-putbacks by Pau and Ron Ron off of Kobe misfires to achieve that feat, but I'll take it.

And then we had to face the dumb Celtics. I'll have a soft spot for Rondo due to his UK-loyalty forever, but I still hate them. All of them. Every screen is moving, every call is b*tched at, and every conceivable level of arrogance is surpassed. The perception is that the Boston trio is a band of winners, even though they have 16 seasons of missing the playoffs between them. They're old, they're fake, and they're one hit wonders. But oh well. Even though the Lakers decided to wait until the Finals to have their first series deficit at 2-3 going back to L.A. for the final two games ... we still won. That's all that matters.

This year was a big deal for Kobe and the rest of the team. We unfortunately needed this title for affirmation. It was nice that Bryant won his first title without Shaq last season, but it wasn't as sweet as it should have been because it was against the Orlando Magic. Kobe didn't directly eliminate LeBron in the Finals and Kobe didn't exact revenge against the Celtics' defense that stifled him a year prior. If the Lake Show had lost these Finals, it would have validated the detractors who claimed that L.A. won by default of Kevin Garnett's knee injury. This championship had to be had because it was figuratively worth two of them. With the win, Kobe forcibly cemented his status in the ring of the game's all-time winners. He has more hardware than Shaq and Duncan (his modern era competitors). He matched Magic. He's one under Michael. It's his most important to date. It gives him the opportunity to step onto the same plateau as anyone not on the 1960s Celtics or named Robert Horry with one more perfect season. While LeBron James is still ringlessly fighting the expectations of his career in worst-case scenario fashion, Kobe is fighting his way into the upper echelon of all-time great and creating a resume that will eventually be inarguable.

This season was my absolute favorite in my seven years of keeping up with every microcosm of the NBA. It ended in an end-all, be-all Game 7 that was perfect for every terrible reason that a sloppily-played, nerve-inducing, highly-physical game can be played. And the Lakers won. My guys. It's the reward for all of my own personal (literal) sweat and (figurative) blood that I shed during the year-long grind of fandom. I care. Probably more than I should. But this year's Laker squad made it worth it. Sucks to be a Celtics fan. We got revenge. You all are dismantling and starting over with Rondo within the next calendar year. I got a summer to just relax.

Who am I kidding? I'm already stressed out again over the draft and free agency. Here we go again ...

... and do the John Wall.

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Part Four: The Defining Tease

But nothing solved my lack of cable that first season. It kinda sucked a lot as NBC's jingle-worthy NBA contract was long-gone from the masterful Bob Costas days of league action. All I got was the occasional ABC Sunday double-header. Stupid near monopoly by ESPN and TNT stealing my thunder. So the sneaking around ensued. I had to make up as many excuses as possible to go to Garrett's house and catch a game. If we were camping, why don't we drive out to a restaurant that, I don't know, has a TV? I had to beeeeg to stay up and bum on the couch for a super late night game when we stayed the weekend with my aunt in Frankfort. I know it's a school night, but how does B-Dub's sound at 10 pm? I had to make visits to see Caroline more than just a weekend thing to bum her TV, too. Every week it was a mission to get to view this immaculate game I was so terribly elated with.

The regular season was tough. With our quad HoFers (Hall of Famers), we were immediately tagged to possibly be the successors of those '96 Payton-beating Bulls in all-time wins. It started beautifully ... until Karl Malone got hurt for the very first time in his entire fricking life. Scott Williams, the most irrelevant player to ever get in the league, decided he overzealously just had to compensate for his lack of significance by jumping for the only time in his career to defend a jump shot and just had land on top of The Mailman's knee. Jerk. No one knew then, but it would cost him much of the season and get reaggravated literally a game before the NBA Finals. That left us ... *sigh* ... Slava Medvedenko (intended to be read irritatingly slow, syllable-by-syllable) as our next power forward option. Doomed.

Here's the 2004 season fast-forwarded, which toyed with every emotion I didn't know I had. Kobe had one of most classic endings ever to the regular season, with playoff seeding on the line. In regulation, Kobe flung off Ruben Patterson for an absolutely disgusting way-too-far-away off-balance three pointer to send the game into overtime. And if only to outdo himself, Kobe came off a screen at the buzzer of the second overtime to hit another fade-away three over the switching shot blocker Theo Ratliff which gave them the improbable season-ending win. This leap-frogged them from the 4th seed to 2nd seed as the Pacific Division champs, only behind the (soon to expire) T-Wolves and a much more favorable schedule. This somehow positively capped a regular season of Bryant stupidity involving (... of course ...) the rape trial and shot selection questioning which all came boiling over during a game against Sacramento where Kobe seemingly refused to shoot the ball under any circumstances in the first half. Just to prove a point. Ugggh. But I knew we'd get it straight in the playoffs. We had to. This was my adopted franchise!

We made short work of the then-rising Houston Rockets with the human log Yao Ming and soon-to-be-nonexistant Steve Francis. I specifically remember a nail-biting where the Lake Show played entirely perfect defense on a crazy long 24 second sequence where Houston had one last shot for the game, ending on a back-up option kick-out to Jim Jackson which was heavily contested (and thankfully missed) by our rotating defender. Those are the kinds of missed opportunities by underdog teams that legitimately kick them in the butt and they rarely recover from. But who cares about H-Town? We had to take a cab up I-(something or another) to San Antonio for the defending champs.

And the rusty boot-pokies (or Spurs, if you wanna be all proper) blitzed us. I mean, I hate football as well as unnecessary inter-sport references, but they absolutely knocked the wind out of us with Tony Parker getting any and every uncontested lay-up he cared for along with Tim Duncan being all boring and efficient like usual. Most people called for Shaq or Karl to simply club the Frenchman in the face for the rest of the series to deter his lay-upnicity. While they did adjust to body him up better from that point on, it just turned out that all the Lakers needed was a classic miracle for the ages by the player everyone least expected. You know, one of those.

So we’d somehow tied the series up 2-2. Who knew? It was Game 5 back on their turf. Pivotal, ya know? Crazy great contested game leading all the way to an exhausted Kobe go-ahead jumper off a classic Karl Malone screen with under a minute to go. Then the Spurs come down and we play crazy defense on them and force an inbounds with only a few second on the shot clock. Great position, right? And all Tim Duncan does is catch the ball out of his range, taking a bobbling couple of dribbles leading into a falling one-handed jumper/floater/turd of a shot that just so happens to fall through the net to give them the lead with nothing but 0.4 seconds left on the game clock. Zero-point-four seconds. Four-tenths-of-a-second. Fantastic.

So I guess Phil drew up a play or whatnot. I assume coaches do or say something inspirational to rally the troops in impossible situations. Anyways, masterful inbounder Gary Payton claps the ball on the wing, everyone starts in motion, and Gregg Pop-a-zit queues a quick timeout. Ugh. Re-do. Masterful inbounder Gary Payton claps the ball on the wing, everyone starts in motion, and Phil Jax queues a quick timeout. Ugh. Re-do. Masterful inbounder Gary Payton claps the ball on the wing, everyone starts in motion, and no one calls a timeout this time. Shaq and Karl run this double screen set in the paint to free up Kobe for a flash out at the three point line. But he’s covered. Dually, Shaq tries to rub off into an attempt for an alley-oop, but it’s covered. Karl falls back to towards a possible hole around the free throw, but … yep … it’s covered. Hmmm … has it been five seconds yet? Apparently not. There’s seemingly no one to go to, but out of nowhere … nowhere … Derek Fisher (who knew he was even in the game?) flares out directly towards GP who by now has to let go off the ball. In one motion, after seemingly hours of suspense, Fisher catches it mid-turn and lefty flings it a mile up in the air. To make a .4 second story even shorter … it swished. Pandemonium 2004! I think I screamed at that moment for (I hope) the only time in my life. Without even meaning to I launched out of my bed and found myself running up and down the hall at like midnight or whatever. One of the single greatest moments I can ever remember.

The Spurs were dead after that one. Of course they lost in L.A. on the Game 6 closeout. We were on a juggernaut rampage now and no one would get in our way. Not even the league-leading Timberwolves. In a series where Kevin Garnett cussed a lot, Latrell Sprewell had cornrows a lot, Sam Cassell looked like Gollum a lot, Michael Olowakandi lacked basketball skills a lot, and Oliver Miller prolly ate doughnuts a lot, the Lakers prevailed in six. That’s all you really need to know. It went a game longer than it should have, but even after Karl Malone left the series a little gimpy, everyone knew the inexperienced Eastern champ (by default of conference suckiness) Pistons would be no match for us. We had four HoFers (if you needed reminding)! They had a ragamuffin band of unwanted parts that couldn’t put points on the board and barely had an all-star résumé between them. Case closed. Cancel the Finals and hand out the rings.

Now this minor little part of the story is so painful that I refuse to relive it piece by piece. It was now into June of the summer after my 8th grade year and I had my one church camp of the year leaving a day after Game 3 where the Lakers were down 1-2 in the series. I was devastated to have to leave after the previous night’s game where I literally turned the TV off and tried to go to sleep after the third quarter of a pathetically mediocre Laker showing (but I couldn’t handle it a half hour later and turned it back on, just to see them in the same exact hole with seconds left). But so be it. With all my instantaneous obsession with the NBA, I somehow had just enough sense left to know God could take precedence over what was going on in the basketball world. Begrudgingly so. But I swore I was going to camp without the burden of the Finals outcome and wouldn’t be sneaking around to find out the scores over the week. But the jerk camp leaders who had TVs and cell phones for nighttime use just haaad to talk about the games the mornings after anyway. Ugh. The website prolly didn’t exist back then, but FML.

[to be continued]

... but do take my word for it.

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