Basketball blog with takes on basketball and anything related to basketball . . . as well as a haven for jingoists everywhere - in America.

 
Diminished returns

Most of the article, by Ric Bucher, is on Michael Jordan and questioning what difference, if any, he's made with the Wizards. He made some valid points, but Michael Jordan doesn't interest me just because he is MJ (as many you may have noticed the lack of posts including MJ). The interesting part is at the end. Apparently, Troy Murphy and Jason Richardson are unhappy playing for the Warriors (wonder why?). This is bad news for the Warriors. Take away those two and you have no upside or star quality talent outside of maybe Gilbert Arenas. Antawn Jamison is overrated and is not the kind of player that can carry a team. The rest of the team is glorified role players (Adonal Foyle anyone?). If those two leave the Warriors will be the Clippers of years past (if they aren't already). Bad times. Baaaaad times.

For the record, if you want to know the real rumors in the NBA you go to Ric Bucher. Take that David Aldridge!

--posted by Tim at 7:40 PM | | Permalink

 
Cal Ranked 21st in Associated Press Top 25

On the strength of a home sweep of UCLA and USC, the Bears have cracked the top 25 finally. I know before I criticized the non conference schedule they played, but now . . . I am still right. But the conference wins are what got the Bears ranked. The Bears have split with UCLA, Stanford, and Oregon and swept USC. With two games to go and that big win over USC, I like the Bears odds of making the tournament. I can realistically see the Pac-10 getting 6 teams in but it is too early to tell who those 6 teams are, especially with the Pac-10 having a conference tournament this year. You gotta like the chances of one of the top 6 teams (Oregon, Cal, Arizona, USC, Stanford and UCLA) winning the tournament in which case those 6 would likely make the NCAA tournament. If someone sneaks up and wins the conference tournament though, all bets are off and one of those 6 is not going dancing. The possibilities make my head spin. Either way, barring a total meltdown in the last two games and Pac-10 tournament, the 21st ranked California Golden Bears will be making a trip to the NCAA tournament. Go bears!!!

--posted by Tim at 10:21 AM | | Permalink

 
Jackson Tests His Players

Phil Jackson is one of the most unusual people in the NBA. One of the questions on this test was that "the player is asked to put himself at the center of the Laker universe and then draw in where all the players are in relation to him." Phillip Freud Jackson is definitly an NBA oddball, but there is no arguing with all those rings.


--posted by Tim at 10:02 AM | | Permalink

 
Shawn Kemp's Drug Problem

Don't worry, this isn't gonna be Tim on a soap box giving a big social commentary (this doesn't mean no social commentary at all though). This actually stemmed from the comments on the last post. Ben Matasar and I were having a discussion about the effects of the possible ban of Shawn Kemp from the NBA would be on the Blazers salary cap. This prompted a discussion of what the head officials in the Blazers organization were probably thinking. Ben brought up that Kemp probably had plenty of money even if he did get banned. I pointed out that he could have spent much of that on cocaine. This is what led to what you are about to see. I wanted to see if he actually would have plenty of money, so Ben and I did a little research, I did some math and came up with what Shawn Kemp would have left after taxes, child support and cocaine. I will proceed to walk you through the calculations. The results surprised me.

First, the important numbers and where they were obtained from:
--Kemp's Estimated Cocaine Use in grams per day: 1 gram estimated from Binge cocaine self-administration by humans: smoked cocaine by Ward AS, Haney M, Fischman MW, Foltin RW
--Average price per gram of cocaine in Great Britain: 50.55 British pounds obtained from the Independent Drug Monitoring Unit in Great Britain (this was the best I could find to approximate cocaine prices)
--Conversion Rate from British Pounds to US Dollars: 1.43/$1 from x-rates.com
--Number of kids Kemp has: 7
--Child Support payed per kid per month: $20,000 Estimated from this article on newsnet5.com
--Kemp's 2001/2002 salary: $12.66M from InsideHoops.com
--Amount of salary lost to taxes: 50%

Now onto the calculations. We begin by doing the taxes. The 50% loss to taxes leaves Kemp with $6.33M. Then the calculation for the child support.
--------->7 kids x $20,000/(month x kid) x 12 months/year = $1.68M
This leaves Kemp with $4.65M. But now comes the part that stunned me, the calculation for the money spent on drugs.
--------->1g/day x 365 day/yr x 50.55 pounds/g x $1.43/pound = $26,384.57
That is a tiny dent in Kemp's money and only drops him to about $4.624M. I thought the cocaine would cost considerably more.

Now this is by no means fact. The estimates are rough and the research was done quickly. This also ignores his daily and monthly expenses, such as mortgage, utilities, insurance, etc., which are sure to be more expensive than your's or mine. Still $4.624M is a lot of money. So the moral of the story is that an NBA player who is averaging 13.6 minutes, 5.8 points and 3.2 rebounds per game can afford to drop about $1.75M on child suport and cocaine and still have more money left than what most of us will make in a lifetime. Gotta love that.

--posted by Tim at 11:32 PM | | Permalink

 
Muscle tear in Camby's hip slow to heal

Never saw this coming . . . well actually anybody who follows basketball saw this coming. Marcus Camby has averaged 58.8 games played per season over the course of his career (excluding this year) which comes to 71.7% of his teams games per season. That is not good. For a guy who is supposed to be one of the Knicks keys to success, that just won't cut it. Now don't get the impression that I blame Camby for the Knicks woes. There is plenty of blame to go around for that. But so far Camby has played only 29 of the Knicks 54 games and will "be on crutches for three weeks and then re-evaluated." Allow me to translate. Even if Marcus can lose the crutches after three weeks, he still has to rehab. That is a minimum of 11 games just to get off the crutches. That puts Camby's max games played this year at 46 without counting the rehab time. There is also a story on the AP wire that Camby is expected to miss the rest of the regular season, in which case he would finish with a mere 29 games played. The point here is that Camby is made of paper mache and that if the Knicks think they can build around him they are kidding themselves. He has talent, but he can't stay healthy. You can't build a team around a guy who is gonna miss over a quarter of every season.

--posted by Tim at 9:48 PM | | Permalink

 
A Look at the Trade Deadline From The End of the Bench
You knew it was coming. I couldn't let the trade deadline pass without putting my two cents in. So without further ado, let's do this.

Nuggets - Mavericks
The Details: Nick Van Exel, Raef Lafrentz, Avery Johnson, Tariq Abdul-Wahad for Juwan Howard, Tim Hardaway, Donnell Harvey, cash (rumored to be 2M) and a first rounder in the upcoming draft.
Tim says: They may need to play the games with two balls in Dallas now. Van Exel says PT won't be a problem, but I doubt that. The over/under on him complaining about minutes is 3 weeks. I'm taking the under. The Lafrentz pickup was what made this trade do-able from Dallas' end. Apparently Don Nelson plans on using a lineup of Steve Nash, Van Exel, Michael Finley, Dirk Nowitzki and Lafrentz. Great on paper, but we'll see what they can do on the court. I couldn't confirm the rumor that defense is now optional in Dallas. For Denver this was about clearing cap space from the contract mess Dan Issel left. The players Denver got aren't gonna help much anyway. Hardaway can't play more than 25 minutes a game with those knees, Howard is decent, and who is Donnell Harvey. This move was about cap space, cash and the draft pick. When you consider the cap space thing, Denver makes out better than it first appears. Probably a good deal for both sides as long as the Nuggets don't screw up with the draft pick or go Bulls during free agency.

Pacers-Bulls
The Details: Jalen Rose, Travis Best, Norm Richardson and a conditional second rounder for Brad Miller, Ron Mercer, Ron Artest and Kevin Ollie.
Tim Says: The only players that really count are Rose, Best, Miller and Artest. Mercer is just here to make the salary cap numbers work and so that the Bulls can dump some salary while they take on Rose's big deal. The Bulls figure if people won't voluntarily come here, we can make them stay. The obvious winner in this is Indiana. Miller will let Jermaine O'Neal play the 4 and Artest will add a big defensive boost off the bench. Ollie and Mercer will look good in their uniforms. The Bulls . . . well they're the Bulls. They'll still be terrible, but now they'll be less terrible.

Suns-Celtics
The Details: Rodney Rogers and Tony Delk for Joe Johnson, Milt Palacio and Randy Brown
Tim Says: I can see the white flag flying over Phoenix from 1300 miles away. Milt Palacio? Randy Brown? Joe Johnson has potential but he has struggled badly since his good start. Rogers and Delk will be a big help to the Celtics, who are in a fight for playoff position in the East. If Rogers can find the all around game that won him the Sixth Man Award, he will be an even bigger help. The Celts need Rogers to be more of a force on the boards to go along with his scoring. Delk will provide dependable ball handling and scoring behind Kenny Anderson. Judging this trade is easy. Game, set, match Celtics.

Warriors-Timberwolves
The Details: Marc Jackson for Dean Garrett and a future 2nd rounder
Tim Says: Oh, the mistakes that were made leading up to this trade. The Warriors made a huge mistake by not playing Jackson. That is an easy way to lower a guys value. But they were not the only ones to make mistakes. Jackson made two. the first was, he thinks he is better than he really is. 6-10 and being a good perimeter shooter is nice, but when you are 6-10, 270 lbs. you need to be grabbing more than 7.5 boards a game like he did last year. Add that on to his suspect defense you have some serious doubts. Jackson's second mistake was all the complaining he did. All that accomplished was getting him labeled a malcontent ala Nick Van Exel. Jackson wants to play but he won't be getting 30 minutes a game. He can get in line behind Rasha Nesterovic, Joe Smith and Gary Trent. The Warriors could have gotten a lot more than a journeyman center and a 2nd rounder if they would've been actually playing Jackson this whole time. Leave it to the Warriors to mess things up. They've officially replaced the Clippers as the laughing stock of the NBA.

--posted by Tim at 9:52 PM | | Permalink

 
Reason Number 21 That I Hate David Aldridge
The following quote is how he started his latest column entitled Mavs among big haves, Nuggets are not

"And in the end, you all come back here.

Eight months of people making up stuff and outright lying to you, and you come back here to get answers. Eight months of reading that the Knicks are getting Shaq, or Duncan, or KG for Charlie Ward, or hearing that Marc Jackson was going to Memphis, or Phoenix, and you come back here to find out why it didn't happen.

That's all right. That's why I'm here."

Could he be a little more arrogant? He is the Peter Gammons of basketball - and that is NOT a compliment.

--posted by Tim at 8:51 PM | | Permalink

 
Williams distraught, sleepless since incident

This is just bizarre. I'm not sure what else to say about it. Another fun fact about Jayson Williams is presented on the right part of this article. Apparently Williams almost shot New York Jets receiver Wayne Chrebet before while on his skeet shooting range. Bad times For Jayson. Bad times.

--posted by Tim at 3:14 PM | | Permalink

 
Scalabrine makes real rookie mistake for Nets on Sunday

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Fool forgot his jersey. How do you forget to put on your jersey? If you're Brian Scalabrine, wouldn't you notice that you were feeling your warmups on your barechest? How stupid must he be feeling right now?

--posted by Tim at 10:36 PM | | Permalink

 
Majerle says he'll retire after this season

Dan Majerle is still in the NBA? It must be in spirit because he hasn't broken double figures in points since mid-January and has only done it 4 times all year. He has 9 "DNP-Coach's Decision"s and is averaging 12 minutes a game. I think I speak for everyone when I say, don't let the door hit you on the way out Dan and take Tim Hardaway with you.

--posted by Tim at 1:21 AM | | Permalink

 
Dear diary: More Chuck, less gimmicks

Bill Simmons did a diary of All-Star Saturday. Give it a read. Don't worry though, his focuses on different stuff than mine did.

--posted by Tim at 8:43 PM | | Permalink

 
Marbury Sorry

He is very, very sorry. He made a terrible mistake . . . blah blah blah. My guess is that he's sorry he got caught. He just doesn't understand the dangers of doing extreme sports while under the influence.

--posted by Tim at 2:53 PM | | Permalink

 
Since I actually sat and watched all the Saturday Night festivities, I'll give you the report of it as I saw it from my desk chair. A warning before we start. This is a lengthy post. Get a soda and some chips before proceeding past this point.


The 3 on 3 Hoop It Up
Don't Quit Your Day Job:
Kenny Smith just got totally embarassed in the first game of the 3 on 3. When Justin Timberlake is driving you right and hitting a fade-away on you, you're hurting.

You Were Better Than Kenny, But . . . :
The celebrities were actually respectable. Both Timberlake and Brian McKnight hit the shots for posesion to start the first set of games. You already know of Timberlake's abuse of Kenny Smith and Tom Cavanaugh (from NBC's "Ed") hit a nice jumper in his game where the Kings beat the Lakers.

Perhaps There Was a Mismatch:
Moses Malone was just dominant in the first game. Maybe it was due to his obscene height advantage over the likes of Cuttino Mobley and whoever that WNBA player was.

Isn't He Like 106?:
Someone should've gotten a hand in Sarunas Marciulionis face. He hella torched that Laker team. He hasn't lost his touch since his NBA days.

Tim Takes One for the Team:
Why are Hall and Oates on my TV screen? Don't say I never did anything for you guys.

What's Goin' On Here?
Why didn't Tom Cavanaugh get any PT in the overtime? I really wanted to see that big Ed - Timberlake matchup.

What's Goin' On Here? Part II:
A trophy presentation? For the 3 on 3 competition? Why? Oh yeah, and the Kings won.

Tim Takes One for the Team - Part II:
McFadden and Whitehead? Who are these guys? Someone better remove the sharp objects from the room. You guys are gonna owe me big if this keeps up.


From Downtown: The 3PT Shootout
I Appologize:
To Wesley Person, I'm sorry. After I complained about his presence in the competition, he starts out by dropping 21/30 in the first round. If you could see me, my tail would be between my legs.

Who let Liam Gallagher into the contest?
Steve Nash needs to mix in a haircut. He should cut it and donate it to the needy, such as Mike Miller. Dude looks he got in a fight with the lawn mower and lost.

3 by the Numbers:
- Combined score of Steve Smith and Paul Pierce = 16
- Wesley Person's first round score = 21
- Total number of airballs in first round = 4
- Number of those by finalist Steve Nash = 2

And the Winner Is . . . :
Peja Stojakovic. I must admit, I was just hoping it wasn't Wesley Person.


Above the Rim: The Dunk Contest
An Editorial Note:
This is the worst format ever. 4 guys with head to head rounds and a stupid wheel with dunks form the past that they must re-create. I am all for Bill Simmons' idea of ditching the dunk contest and starting a HORSE tournament.

Help Me!
This is painful to watch for the most part, but the Gilbert Arenas - Jason Richardson miss in the first round was impressive despite the miss. Arenas goes between his legs in mid-air and leaves it for Richardson who gets way up, but ends up hitting the back of the rim. Go to NBA.com and see it.

Worst Decision:
A tie between Gerald Wallace and Steve Francis. Why would you use Chris Webber in your partner dunk? Quit being cheap and fly in Mike Bibby. And to Stevie Franchise - why use Cuttino Mobley? Even Franchise passes more than Mobley.

Can You Say Black Sox?
It wouldn't be an NBA event without a conspiracy theory now would it? The fix is in for Sacramento. Wallace beats Francis in the dunk contest because Stevie gets a dunk he can't do off the wheel. And that came after Stojakovic on the Shootout and the Kings won the 3 on 3. They couldn't let Wallace win the whole dunk contest or it would be too obvious.

Tonight's Theme Is . . . :
Repetition. Between that stupid wheel and the guys using their own attempts to re-do dunks from the past it got pretty boring. Bring on HORSE!


In Summary
Best Line: "That dunk had the flu - it was sick!" - Kenny Smith on Jason Richardson's contest winning last dunk.

Worst Shoes:
I was sure Paul Pierce had this one on lock down . . . until Chris Webber strolled onto the court. One word for those shoes - atrocious.

Best Part of the Night:
This one is easy. The harrassment that Kenny Smith got after Justin Timberlake dropped that J in his eye was easily my favorite part. Even Hubie Brown was doggin' on Kenny. A close second was the comedy that was Craig Sager's jacket. Hey Craig, the costume department for Miami Vice called. They want their jacket back.

Biggest Revelation of the Night:
Danny Ainge is almost as bad as Bill Walton. No one is as bad as Walton, but Ainge comes pretty close.


Watching the whole night of festivities wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It wasn't good either. I probably wouldn't watch the whole thing straight through again - unless they get the HORSE competition going and get some stars in it. I'd watch that for hours on end. Go HORSE!

--posted by Tim at 9:16 PM | | Permalink

 
Doggin the NBA on the Road to Philly

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! So many great lines in here I couldn't pick just one. I have never read a Ralph Wiley column before, but if he can keep up this effort he will be in Bill Simmons territory very soon. The Toni Kukoc line may be my favorite. I officially dub Toni the "Croatian Postmaster".

--posted by Tim at 10:27 AM | | Permalink

 
3 Point Shoootout

So I called David Stern and he said the only reason Wesley Person is in the shootout is because Reggie Miller is scheduled for a hip replacement surgery. I told him I understood, seeing how Reggie is 82 years old and all.

--posted by Tim at 10:13 AM | | Permalink

 
Marbury arrested for Extreme DUI

Stephon Marbury got arrested early Friday morning for an Extreme DUI. I didn't just make that up either. An Extreme DUI? Is that when someone gets caught bungee jumping drunk?

--posted by Tim at 10:11 AM | | Permalink

 
Three Point Shootout Roster

Wesley Person?!?!?!?! Just cause he is related to Chuck Person doesn't mean he is good. Hell, if Wes got in my invitation must have gotten lost in the mail. I'll call my buddy Davey Stern in the morning.

--posted by Tim at 9:36 PM | | Permalink