May 04

Derrick Rose to Receive League MVP Award

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It has been announced that Derrick Rose is this year’s recipient of the NBA’s Most Valuable Player Award.  Rose is the youngest player to ever win this award.  He now joins the ranks of Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and many more players who have received this award.

This year’s Chicago Bulls team was one of the surprise teams in the NBA.  Under the direction of head coach Tom Thibodeau, the Bulls earned the best record in the league, marking a huge improvement over previous years.  Rose has been the leader of the team on the court, and has been the driving force in that improvement.

I have been hopeful that Rose would win the MVP award this year.  I think that from year to year the definition of how players earn this award is changed.  For instance, a few years ago when Steve Nash won consecutive MVP awards, he was rewarded because he made his teammates better, thus making him invaluable to his team’s success.  I felt at that time that it should have gone to Kobe because he single-handedly led his team, which featured players such as Smush Parker and Kwame Brown as starters, to the playoffs and was far and away the best player in the world, thus making him the most valuable to his otherwise terrible team.  Since Kobe won his first and only MVP award, Lebron James has gone on to win two consecutive MVPs.  The criteria for which James won his awards was because he was viewed as the best player in the league.

This year, I was afraid that James would win a third consecutive MVP not because he continued to outperform everyone else statistically, but because there was some sentiment that he deserved to win because his old team was so terrible.  The argument became that he must have been so great, that he managed to take a terrible team to the playoffs.  Sound familiar?  Anyway, I felt that was a stupid reason to give an award away, simply because of how terrible his old team was without him. Congratulations D-Rose.  You deserve it.

May 04

I’m So Done With Shaq’s Icy Hot Commercials

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Is anybody else fed up with these ads by Shaquille O’neal in which he endorses how effective Icy Hot is?

If Icy Hot is so effective, then why does Shaq play like two minutes a season before succumbing to injury?

Seriously, the last time Shaq made any real contribution to a team for more than a quarter of a game was when he played for the Miami Heat and helped them, primarily through the efforts of Dwayne Wade, to win their franchise’s first NBA championship.

In fact, if memory serves me correctly, the last time he managed to play a full season was when he was with the Los Angeles Lakers, and led them to three consecutive championships.  Even then, he sat out most of the season, usually until after Christmas, just in time for the playoffs to roll around.

I swear, every time he changes teams, it seems like he updates that commercial, and with every team change it becomes more and more apparent that father time does not want him to play anymore.

Icy Hot should find another candidate who has actually played through pain, that might be a good endorsement for how effective their product is.  Because as of right now, I’m not convinced it is all that effective.  I think that a good spokesperson would be someone like Paul Pierce, Dwayne Wade, or Kobe Bryant.  All of those guys have one championships fairly recently, and each one has had to battle through injury at some point in their career.  As of right now, they are all still playing.  The same cannot be said for Shaq.

May 03

Sacramento Kings to Remain in Sacramento

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The Sacramento Kings will remain in Sacramento, for now.

After a the announcement by the Kings’ owners, the Maloof brothers, the mayor of Sacramento, Kevin Johnson, expressed the community’s gratitude at being given one more year to provide a new venue for the Kings to play.

The Kings’ fans have been some of the loudest in the league over the past decade.  They were notorious for bringing in cow bells and other noise making devices which made it difficult for opposing teams to concentrate and hear each other on the court.

The Maloofs have said that if there is not a definitive plan on the table for a new stadium at some point during this next year, they will relocate the team to Anaheim, Calif.

If the Kings do end up relocating to Anaheim, that would put three professional basketball teams in very close proximity to one another.  The Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers already share a building.  The Lakers have owned the town, but the recent addition of Blake Griffin has brought some energy to the Clippers’ fan base.  However it would seem foolish to have a third team competing with the Lakers and Clippers for a fan base when they already have such a strong fan base.

Personally, I hope they stay in Sacramento.  However if they do move, I think they should look to move outside California.  California already has four professional basketball teams, more than any other state.  I think that there are other markets around the country that would more than welcome a basketball team.

May 03

Lakers come up short

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The Los Angeles Lakers blew a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter in the first game of their second round series against the Dallas Mavericks.  Kobe Bryant had 36 points in the loss, and failed to hit what would have been the game-winning shot.

As a Lakers fan, the start to this series scares me.  The Mavericks are a very good team with a lot of very savvy veterans.  Their bench has been very consistent averaging 40 points per game.  The Lakers have been up and down so far in the playoffs.  It seems like one night they look like the defending champs, and the next night they play down to their competition.

Pau Gasol needs to step up and play like the All-Star that he is.  When he is playing up to his full potential, he is one of the most dangerous power forwards in the league.

Dirk Nowitzki has played extremely well this year, and is also one of the best big men in the league.  Nowitzki has struggled traditionally against the Lakers, however, in a seven game series, the match-up of Nowitzki and Gasol is an interesting one.  On the one hand, Gasol has the advantage down low in the post, but Nowitzki can play more on the perimeter, which makes the defensive assignment for each a difficult one.

If the Mavericks can protect their home court against the Lakers, who are one of the best road playoff teams in the league, then the Mavericks may be the favorite to come out of the west and move on to the championship round.

Apr 21

Kobe calls out Gasol

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I have been interning at a radio station, and this morning the producer of the show brought up an interesting point.  No current athlete besides Kobe Bryant openly criticizes their teammates the way he does.

Kobe has repeatedly called out teammate Pau Gasol for being too soft.  After a very poor performance resulting in the loss of the first game against the New Orleans Hornets, Kobe called out Gasol.

There is no other player in the NBA, or any other major professional sport for that matter, who openly calls out their teammates in the media.

I have a few ideas on why this is.  First, Kobe has spent almost all of his career being coached by Phil Jackson.  Jackson has been notorious for using the media as a coaching tool throughout his career.  It is no secret that Kobe has great respect for Jackson and his coaching methods.  It is likely that Kobe has taken a page out of Jackson’s book of coaching and has learned to use the media to motivate his teammates.

My second thought on why Kobe can and does openly criticize his teammates is because of Kobe’s work ethic and mentality in a game.  Kobe is always in attack mode during a game.  He has an almost unparalleled work ethic, and when he sees or perceives that someone not playing with the same intensity as he is, he will call them out.

The combinations of these two things probably has led or contributed to Kobe calling out his teammates.  Why haven’t other players done this?  I think because there aren’t many players who have the ability to do so.  Not many players have the same work ethic that Kobe does, and also not many players have been coached by Jackson for as long as Kobe has.

Apr 21

Oklahoma City Thunder

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Is there a team that is better placed than the Oklahoma City Thunder to be a perpetual contender over the next decade?  I think not.

The combination of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook is one of the best tandems in the league today.

Last year, they managed to take the eventual champion Los Angeles Lakers to six games before losing the series.  This year, they are up 2-0 on the Denver Nuggets.  They are firing on all cylinders.

Last night in a win against the Nuggets, they had five players score in double figures, and they received 37 points from their bench.  Despite shooting only 43.9%, the Thunder were able to pull off 17-point win. They are in complete control of the series at this point, and will look to make a deep run in the playoffs.

If the Thunder continue to keep their core group of young players together, they could be the team of the decade.

Apr 20

Carmelo Anthony vs. Kobe Bryant…vs. Michael Jordan???

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I will make no secret about it.  I am a Los Angeles Lakers fan.  As a result, I am also a Kobe Bryant fan.  I tend to react very negatively when people criticize Kobe.  I suppose that is the nature of being a fan.  However, I do think that, in general, I am able to see both sides of an argument, even if I believe in one view over another.  For instance, in the debate that has and probably will continue to rage over who was a better player in their prime, Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan, I truly believe that Jordan was the better overall player.  I think that there are facets of Kobe’s game that are better.

Here is another for instance.  I was at the game on December 20, 2005 when Kobe scored 62 points in three quarters of play against the Dallas Mavericks.  At the time that he took himself out of the game, he had single-handedly outscored the entire Mavericks team.  I remember watching as Kobe launched three-pointer after three-pointer, and with every possession down the court, Kobe seemed to take a step back each time until he missed a shot.  It wasn’t until after about four or five makes that he missed a three-pointer.

So what I am saying is, I believe that Kobe has, or had, a better range than Jordan did.

That said, there has been some criticism of Kobe about how he hasn’t dominated playoff games the way that Jordan did.  I simply wish to point out one thing.  I’m not saying Kobe is equal to Jordan, however, consider this.  Carmelo Anthony just dropped 42 points on Tuesday against the Boston Celtics yet his team, the New York Knicks, wound up losing.  He thoroughly dominated the game and placed his team on his back to try and carry them to victory.  Yet he couldn’t do it alone.

Kobe, on the other hand, has tried to win a championship while being the most dominant player on the court.  He did this and failed in 2008 against the Celtics when he was the league’s MVP.

The last two championships that he has won, he has used his teammates, primarily Pau Gasol.  While he has still been the best player on his team, he no longer tries to single-handedly win games.  There are times when he has elevated his game when his teammates are struggling.  But this is nothing compared to 2005-2006 when he scored 81 points in a single game.  He has legitimate players on his team who can help him win.

My point in all of this is that the comparison of Kobe to Jordan is a little silly.  They play a similar style of game, however they are on teams with much different dynamics.  The only way that we could truly compare them as players, I suppose, is if you gave both of them an opportunity to play with each other’s team.  In other words, put Kobe on those Bulls teams from the 1990s, or put Jordan on one of the recent Lakers teams and see how their play is altered.  They play different roles.  So by saying Jordan dominated and Kobe doesn’t, is a little like comparing apples to oranges.  They played at different times with different teamss

Apr 16

Tom O’Connor

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The Athletic Director of George Mason University, Tom O’Connor, spoke on Thursday at Mason about the student-athletes at Mason.  He did not just talk about the success of the athletes on the field, but also on developing them into successful citizens off the field.

O’Connor emphasized three key points in reference to the Athletic Department’s philosophy on sports: quality & balance; sportsmanship; and fun.

It seems as if character often gets overlooked when people are evaluating athletes and coaches.  It is more rare to find a Tim Tebow than to find a Manny Ramirez.  More often than not teams will look to hire, draft, or recruit coaches and players merely based on what they can do on the field with little regard for what they can do off the field.

It is reasons like that which make me admire so much people like Tebow, Tony Dungy, or Joe Gibbs.  People like them haven’t just looked for the easy way to the top, but rather they have done it the right way, and in the process have affected the lives of others.

O’Connor said that this is what Mason athletics is striving to do.

“We would rather have a coach or administrator lose a game the right way,” O’Connor said, “than win doing it the wrong way.”

When you consider that the collective GPA of the student-athletes is higher than the collective GPA for non-athletes, it becomes easy to see that Mason is striving not just to say the right things, but to do them as well.

According to O’Connor, it is more important to teach the student-athletes to be good citizens than just good athletes.

Consider that Jim Calhoun and the University of Connecticut just won the national title for men’s basketball, and that Calhoun has already been suspended for a series of games next year for recruiting violations, and you can understand why it is a breath of fresh air to see a program that has had success in doing it the right way.

Mar 10

Kevin Love makes history

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Kevin Love has officially surpassed Moses Malone for the longest streak of double-doubles in 37 years.  Love has now recorded a double-double in 52 consecutive games.  This is no small accomplishment, especially when you consider that he is not your prototypical post player.

Love, who played one year at UCLA, has morphed into a very solid player.  This year he earned the honor of participating in the All-Star game as the replacement for Yao Ming.

What is amazing about this accomplishment is that Love is so different physically than big men like Dwight Howard.  Love is not the best athlete on the court most nights, but what he lacks in athleticism he more that makes up for in fundamentals and mental capacity.  Love is not a “high-flyer.”  In stead, Love manages to box out other players and put himself in a position to get rebounds and score off of missed shots.

Despite his team’s poor record, the future is bright for the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Mar 10

MVP

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Even Michael Jordan has weighed in on who he thinks should win the MVP award this year.  Derrick Rose has played at an extremely high level this year, forcing his way into the conversation for who is this year’s MVP.  For the past few weeks, Lebron James has been the favorite to win a third consecutive MVP award.  However, given the recent struggles of the Miami Heat, that notion has changed.

Rose has carried the Chicago Bulls to the second best record in the Eastern Conference despite injuries to key big men.

The argument for Lebron winning again is partially due to how poorly his former team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, have played this season.  But as I see it, that is no reason to give the MVP award to someone.  There is no denying that Lebron is talented.  However, this season has really been Rose’s coming out party as he has become one of the premier players in the league.

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