mcinerney

Beat LA…Beat LA….Beat LA…

There are a bunch of sites claiming the Wolves will select Brook Lopez with the third overall pick. Please tell me McFale won’t do it. Please tell me this is all just speculation. Please tell me the decision makers remember Felton Spencer, Luc Longley and Paul Grant. Nothing can make it more clear than these two videos. You will notice in the first one, they do not show the ball going through the hoop once. Not once. The second one is a video of OJ Mayo, who I believe should be the #3 pick at this point.

Brook Lopez (likes comic books and basketball isn’t his life):

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcRTPptPAic

OJ Mayo (his life is basketball):

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdOTelhqVYw

This is an older clip of a shooting contest between Gilbert Arenas (Hibachi) vs. DeShawn Stevenson. If you have 10 minutes, watch this. Gilbert Arenas shoots one handed and makes 76 / 100 three pointers. DeShawn Stevenson goes second while Arenas tries to distract him. DeShawn Stevenson needs to go 10 for his last 10 to win. He makes the first five, then misses. He just walks off the court. He made 71 / 96. This is “office safe” to watch.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn6O42a5vl8

Something has to be done, right? Obviously for the Suns the Shaq trade didn’t work. They traded for him specifically to have an inside presence against the Spurs. That obviously failed miserably. Tim Duncan is clearly on the downside of his career. However, he averaged 24.8ppg, 13.8rpg, 2.6apg and 2.8bpg the five playoff games vs. Phoenix. For the season, his averages were 19.3ppg, 11.3rpg, 2.8apg and 1.95bpg. I don’t think Shaq helped. Steve Nash just can’t stop Tony Parker either. I like Steve Nash and really like how he plays. I just don’t think he has the physical ability to stay in front of Tony Parker. Parker averaged 11 more points per game in the playoffs than he did in the regular season.

Is it time to break up the Suns? I think so. Good luck finding a taker for Shaq. He has two years left at $20 million per year. Nash has one year left at $12.2 million and a team option for a second year. Boris Diaw, the guy who averaged less than nine points, five rebounds, and four assists per game during the season, is still owed three more years at $9 million per year with a player option for the fourth. If they could find a way to unload Shaq this summer they have a “chip and a chair” to turn things around.

Phoenix is the team who traded Joe Johnson for Diaw and pieces and also traded Luol Deng for a box of Wheaties (what turned out to be Nate Robinson and Jackson Vroman).

The Mavs basically traded Devin Harris for Jason Kidd (yes, Keith Van Horn somehow made millions of dollars in this trade too). In the Mavs first round series, Jason Kidd was able to hold Chris Paul to 24.6ppg, 12apg, 5.6rpg and 2spg. In other words, if New Orleans could play Dallas every game Chris Paul would be a first ballot Hall-of-Famer by the All-Star Break, 2009. But Jason Kidd scored too. 8.6ppg, 7.5rpg and 6.8apg. AND “ason” (which is Jason with no “J”) shot 42% from the field. What do you do when you aren’t shooting well? You get to the free-throw line. Jason Kidd got to the line eight times per game? No. Eight times in FIVE games. With Dallas, Kidd averaged 9.9ppg, 9.5apg and 6.4rpg. Kidd will make $21 million next season. With the Nets, Devin Harris averaged 15.4ppg, 6.5apg and 3.2rpg. Harris made $3.9 million this season.

Kidd has one more season at $21 million. Nowitzki is owed $38 million the next two years with a player option for a third year. Josh Howard has two more years at $10+ million per year with a team option for a third year. Jason Terry is owed $41 million for the next four years. Erick Dampier has three years and $30+ million left on his contract. On a positive note, Dampier is only slight below his career average of 8.1 ppg (he averaged 6ppg this year).

On second thought, maybe the Mavs don’t need to break it up. Michael Finley ($18.5 million), Shawn Bradley ($5.2 million) and Juwan Howard ($1.2 million) come off the books this summer. The Mavs have $68.1 million tied up next year for Kidd, Nowitzki, Howard, Dampier and Terry.

As a Timberwolves fan who had to suffer through poor management and decisions for so many years. I will enjoy watching these two franchises struggle for the next few years.

May 19th, 2004. I witnessed the single worst sporting event of my life at the same time I was witnessing the greatest sporting event of my life. It was Game 7 of the NBA Western Conference Playoffs. It was a close game that the Wolves ended up winning 83-80 when Chris Webber missed a tying three at the buzzer. It was the worst sporting event I had ever seen because it was so stressful. It was the best sporting event I had ever seen because the Wolves won, KG had one of the most dominant Game 7 performances ever and the Wolves were going to the Western Conference Finals. Sometimes it feels like yesterday. At other times it feels like decades ago.

The NBA Playoffs are about to begin. I was reading Bill Simmons’ annual article on who should be the NBA MVP (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080416), and I started thinking…..The feeling I had when Chris Webber missed that three and KG jumped up on the scorer’s table to salute the fans…I will never have that feeling again. Never. It is too bad Bill Simmons spent so many years saying Tim Duncan was better than KG. He missed the six straight years KG averaged 21-11-5.

KG is in Boston now and the Wolves are hoping for some luck in the lottery. I’m rooting for the Celtics and KG to win the Championship, but it just won’t be the same as it would have been in 2004. I will never love watching a player the way I loved watching KG in a Wolves uniform. I will never be 25-35 years old again.

Times change and priorities change as well. I guess that is how it is supposed to work. I’m still a sports fan, but clearly my priorities in life have changed.

One day the Wolves may win the NBA Championship. They may have a charismatic leader that plays all out on both ends of the floor every night. This leader may make others play harder just by existing. He may scare his teammates into doing everything they can to help the team win. And if I’m 104 years old sitting in a rocking chair when this happens, I’ll be happy without question. But a second after I digest the championship, I will be thinking, “what a great time to be 25-35 years old.”

The feeling I had May 19th, 2004….I will never have that feeling again.

Here is the recap of that game from ESPN:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=240519016

Look at the details of this (boxscore):
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=240519016
KG finished with 32 points, 21 rebounds, 2 assists, 4 steals and 5 blocks. As impressive as those stats are, they don’t tell the story of how well he played that game. They don’t show the block on Brad Miller’s layup with less than 10 seconds to play. They don’t show the three KG knocked down as the shot clock expired with just over three minutes to go. And they don’t show the 19,944 people who were chest-bumping and hugging like they had been friends for decades.

The feeling I had that night when Webber’s shot spun out…I will never have that feeling again.