Blazers Draft Day Recap

After a full weekend to fully digest the Blazers draft day I have deemed myself ready to write a semi-coherent draft analysis for the Blazers. The format is as follows; Blazers pre-draft, my opinion of what the Blazers should have targeted pre-draft, analysis of the trade, and lastly my analysis of the Blazes draft picks.

Pre-draft Blazers “depth chart” (starters in bold)

Point Guards- Andre Miller, Patty Mills, Armon Johnson

Shooting Guards- Wesley Mathews, Brandon Roy, Rudy Fernandez, Elliot Willliams

Small Forwards- Gerald Wallace, Nicolas Batum, Luke Babbitt

Power Forwards- LaMarcus Aldridge

Centers- Marcus Camby

Free Agents from 2010/2011 Team- Greg Oden (Restricted), Chris Johnson, Earl Barron

Pre-Draft Needs- With the Blazers having the 21st and 51st pick

1. Big Man in particular a Power Forward- The Blazers needing a big man from the above “depth chart” is pretty obvious as entering Thursday’s draft there were only Aldridge and Camby for the big men under contract for the 2011/2012 season. Of course Greg Oden is a restricted free agent whom I would expect the Blazers to resign if the price tag doesn’t get to ridiculous but he has only played 81 games out of a possible 246 games, translation he’s an injury waiting to happen. Also expected back is reserve center Chris Johnson who performed pretty well in limited time last year. Assuming both Oden and Johnson resign with the Blazers that would give them four big men in theory but Oden obviously can’t be counted on due to injury risk and just last year Johnson was toiling away in the D-League. On top of that while Camby is still an above average NBA Center he is basically guaranteed to miss 15 games a season with some sort of injury. Going under the assumption that both Johnson and Oden resign that gives the Blazers a total of four big men, which is a decent number, but out of these four big men only one, Aldridge, is capable of playing the power forward position at a high level. Gerald Wallace played a fair amount of power forward for the Blazers after coming over from Charlotte and had some success but has mentioned that he prefers not to play power forward because of the extra wear and tear he receives going up against bigger players. Wallace versatility to play power forward in the small lineup does ease some concerns over the fact that on paper Aldridge is the only “real” power forward but having only one true player at a position indicates a roster flaw. For the Blazers this meant that when Aldridge came off the court or shifted to center they were almost always giving up size at power forward and at times got destroyed on the glass. This is why all the draft pundits and myself thought the Blazers would be targeting a power forward. No I’m not forgetting that the LaMarcus Aldridge is the Blazers best player and plays power forward but for depth I thought the Blazers had to draft a real power forward, with size and bulk that could play solid defense and rebound well, in other words some that doesn’t shy away from physical contact. Morehead State’s Kenneth Faried was the player that fit this description to a T and as a result many draft pundits and myself thought Faried would be the player the Blazers would target. The other power forwards that were projected to be available in the mid to late first round range were Purdue’s JaJuan Johnson and Georgia’s Trey Thompkins. Johnson doesn’t really fit the description of a “banger”, as he is an extremely skinny power forward, so much so that leading up the draft there was talk that he would have to move to small forward in the NBA due to his lack of bulk. If Faried was off the board Thompkins would be the next power forward that fit the mold of a more physical presence at power forward as he possessed great size, 6’10” 239 pounds, and put up solid numbers during his junior campaign at Georgia with averages of 16.4 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 1.5 blocks per game.

2. Point Guard of the Future

The other major need that the Blazers needed to address was a future point guard given the fact that Andre Miller was 35 years old and only had one year left on his contract. The other internal options on the Blazers, Patty Mills and Armon Johnson, were average last year but the Blazers would be in serious trouble if either Johnson or Mills were called on to start at this moment. This is not to say that Mills and Johnson don’t have potential, mainly referring to Johnson here, but if the Blazers wanted to seriously contend an upgrade would be needed over what is currently on the roster at point guard. Of course it goes without saying that teams probably shouldn't rely on rookie/sophomore guards to contend for titles but with a 35 year old point guard you have to at least begin thinking about the future at the point
guard position for the Blazers. What also goes without saying is that the
Blazers would like to upgrade their shooting ability at the point guard
position as shooting is something that Andre Miller just doesn't provide.
With that in mind here are the options that were thought to be picked in the
mid to late first round and a brief profile of them. Nolan Smith, obviously
more on him later, a four year star on Duke profiled as more of a combo
guard but showed the ability to lead an offense at a high level from the
point guard spot throughout his four years at Duke. Next is Reggie Jackson the
explosive scorer from Boston College was another viable option although he
came with some serious question marks as he didn't participate in any
workouts throughout the pre-draft process. Lastly there was Norris Cole
from Cleveland State who profiled as more of a true point guard. Cole put
up monster stats this past season but was knocked for the lack of
competition he faced as well as his cold outside shooting in his senior
season. As mentioned above I was strongly in favor of the Blazers drafting
a big man with their first pick but if they went in the point guard
direction I would have gone with Cole because he was regarded as a true
point guard compared to Smith and Jackson who were more regarded for their
scoring capabilities.

3. Shooter

Shooter is a very broad description for a pick but let's face it the Blazers
need help with their perimeter shooting based on last year's results. This
shooter pick would be ideally what the second round pick would be used for
as the Blazers had more glaring holes, big man and point guard, to address
in the first round. Wesley Mathews was the only Blazer starter at the tail
end of last season that scared other teams from the perimeter. For simple
floor spacing purposes this is a problem as we saw in the Dallas series were
the Mavericks packed the paint and dared the Blazers to shoot from the
outside. The pre draft bench options are marginally better with Rudy
Fernandez, Nicolas Batum, and Patty Mills all boasting respectable
three-point strokes. Respectable might be stretching it in Fernandez's case
as he struggled mightily with his outside stroke to the tune of a three
point shooting percentage of 32.1%. Batum has a good-looking shot but was
pretty streaky during the series en route to shooting a respectable 34.5%
from behind the arc this past season. Backup point guard Patty Mills
compared to Andre Miller might as well be Steve Kerr but really doesn't play
enough to make a serious difference in the outside shooting department. As
you can see not a great arsenal of outside shooters so a second round pick
spent on a shooting specialist would be a smart pick in my eyes. Second
round options that had sweet shooting outside strokes were; Isaiah Thomas,
David Lighty, Jon Diebler, and E'Twaun Moore.

Trade- Blazer grade B-

The biggest move of the draft night turned out to be the three-way trade
between the Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets, and Portland Trail-Blazers.
The Blazers sent Andre Miller, the rights to Jordan Hamilton (26th pick),
and a future second round pick to the Nuggets as well as Rudy Fernandez and
the rights to 2007 first round pick Petteri Koponen to Dallas. In return
the Blazers received Raymond Felton from Denver and the rights to the 57th
overall pick from Dallas. A relatively complicated trade that boils down to
the Nuggets and Blazers switching point guards and also the Blazers
jettisoning Fernandez. It was pretty obvious leading up to the draft that
the Blazers were going to deal Miller as they were very active in trade
talks and Miller was the trade bait in all trade discussions. First it was
Tony Parker coming over from the Spurs for Miller and Nicolas Batum, then it
shifted to Jameer Nelson for Andre Miller and other pieces, and lastly it
was Miller and Felton switching places. Out of all the options I think the
Blazers got this one right as I don't think that Parker was worth giving up
Batum and also it's not like Parker brings shooting to the table which is
what Miller was lacking at the point guard spot. Although I think the
Blazers got the right option out of the proposed point guard trades I don't
think this altogether was a great trade for the Blazers. The main selling
point from the Blazers end is that Felton is eight years younger and is
entering the prime of his career compared to Miller who is nearing the end
of his career. This is true and getting younger comparable talents has to
be commended but the financial ramification of this deal has to be looked at as
well. Both Miller and Felton are entering the final year of their contract with Felton entering his prime and already being paid over 7 million per year he could realistically get somewhere in the
neighborhood of 10 million per year on his next contract. That is a
sizeable sum especially for the Blazers who already have long-term
investments in Brandon Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Gerald Wallace. Greg
Oden could also factor into this as if he is signed to a long-term contract
it could also be around the 9 to 10 million per year price tag. This
financial aspect presents a serious problem especially when you consider
that the NBA is going to have a new financial set up once they resolve the
issues between the players and owners. Moving on the main reason that the
Blazers acquired Felton is for his work on the court as he put up a career
year last season as he split time between the Nuggets and New York Knicks.
This is a little deceiving as both the Knicks and Nuggets employ fast break,
high tempo offenses which led to Felton putting stats that were above his
career averages. This brings up another important question how will Felton
fit into the Blazers notoriously slow offense? The Blazers do have the
pieces; Aldridge, Wallace, Mathews, Batum, to push the tempo but that is
something that we rarely have seen from the Blazers under Nate MacMillan.
Will Felton be happy playing in a slower offense? You would hope so for
the Blazers sake but as Felton showed last year during his time in New York
with Amare Stoudemire he can form a deadly pick and roll combo in the half
court with athletic power forwards like Aldridge. Besides Felton's pick and
roll ability the other attraction to Felton is that he can and will actually
shoot three pointers which will be a shock to Blazers fans used to seeing
Andre Miller pass up wide open threes. I was a fan of Miller, who never
quite caught on in Portland for whatever reason, but the fact of the matter
was that it was probably time for Miller to move on after two straight first
round post-season exits. Coupled with his progressing age this move made
basketball sense for the Blazers but questions about the fit and financial
concerns prevent this from being a great trade, trade grade B-.

1st Round Pick (21st)- Nolan Smith

Grade- D+

The immediate reaction to this pick was an F but over the weekend I have
warmed to it a little bit but as you can see from the D+ grade I have
serious problems with this pick. Let's get the positives out of the way
first, usually I'm a bad news first kind of guy but the bad news with this
pick goes on forever so positives first. Smith is a proven winner and
performer at an elite level and by all accounts is an outstanding
individual. Before I go on hammering this pick let's be clear Smith does
have plenty of ability, shown in part by his senior stats at Duke with averages of20.6 points and 5.1 assists.
As mentioned before I am not a fan of this pick at all and it basically
boils down to the pre draft needs portion where I stressed the importance of
a big man in particular a backup power forward. The player that I and many
other wanted the Blazers to pick, Kenneth Faried, was still on the board and
was the player that fit the bill as a backup power forward that could bring
a physical presence. Now there appears to be a reason for the Blazers
picking someone other than Smith as there have been indications that the
Blazers and Nuggets trade wouldn't have gone through had the Blazers taken
Faried. That's all fine and dandy but then my question would be why Smith?
Many have questioned if Smith can even play point guard in the NBA, ESPN
even lists Smith as a shooting guard in their pre-draft rankings. Many
other draft experts/sites list Smith as a "combo-guard" not a true point
guard. The Blazers didn't really need a combo guard considering they took
one last year in the first round, Nolan Smith's former teammate Elliot
Williams. Now if the Blazers think Smith is a point guard than it’s up to
them to develop him but there were other point guards that I would have gone
with ahead of Smith. First is Norris Cole who as mentioned previously is a
true point guard, than there's Reggie Jackson who has better size and
outside shooting, then there's Smith that's how my point guard prospect list
would go. Both Cole and Jackson were available and have higher upside than
Smith who must project to be a sixth man at best if he reaches his ceiling.
Granted this is a weak draft but this pick is almost too safe for me. The
Blazers did need a point guard and with a win now mindset Smith probably is
the most NBA ready but with the trade of Felton already nearing completion
at the time of the pick Smith is in my eyes a poor pick at best. The
Blazers already had two backup point guards on the roster who performed ably
last year, Mills and Johnson, and B-Roy post knees could be a point guard in
a pinch, plus last years Elliot Williams pick is a combo guard, so my
question is why Smith? The Blazers glaring need was a big man, Smith at
6'2" 185 is not a big man by any measure. Factor in the Blazers glut of
guards this pick leaves me befuddled. For the record if the Blazers had
drafted Cole or Jackson the grade wouldn't have cracked C-, point guard of
the future was a need but not the glaring need in the wake of the Felton
trade in which Felton is now the point guard of the present and future.

Second Round Pick (51st) Jon Diebler

Draft Grade- C+

This isn't a sexy pick but it does give the Blazers a shooting option off of
the bench. Diebler was one of the elite shooters in college basketball last
season (50.2% from 3 point line) and the Blazers definitely could use
another shooter off of the bench. Besides shooting Diebler doesn't really
provide that much but if he can knock down an open three ball he can be of
at least some use to the Blazers going forward. The Blazers as mentioned in
my rant on the Nolan Smith pick are loaded at guard so Diebler is going to
have some serious work to do to crack the rotation. My main issues with
this pick is that I would have preferred the Blazers to pick a big man with
a physical presence with the second round pick after neglecting to do that
with the first round pick. The options weren't that exciting but this would
be more of an insurance policy in the case of a Camby/Oden injury. Michael
Dunigan was available as was Greg Smith these guys had reasons for not being
drafted but they were big bodies capable of giving the Blazers spot minutes
and providing fouls against the Dwight Howard’s of the world. Another minor
criticism of this pick is that other shooters that were rated higher; David
Lighty and E'twaun Moore, were rated higher than Diebler but it is pretty
hard to argue with a 50.2% shooter from behind the three point line. Bottom
line this was a decent pick but there appeared to be better options on the
board.

Importance of Stability

As mentioned before I have wanted to move the writing in this blog in a different direction so here it goes. Instead of just recapping what you already know for the most part this blog will now feature my thoughts about certain issues in sports. Lastly the writing in this blog won’t be weekly, more than likely I will have a new blog post up every week and a half to two weeks.

The topic that I’m going to tackle in this blog post is the importance of stability in sports with an emphasis on the Portland Trail Blazers. The importance of stability seems and is obvious but for some reason the world of sports for the most part is as unstable as ever these days. The Blazers and owner Paul Allen provided a great example of this last week when they abruptly fired general manager Rich Cho even though he had been on the job for less than a year. To make matters worse on the Blazers end if a replacement GM is found before this years NBA draft the Blazers will have had three general managers in the past year. Yes it is fair to start making Paul Allen and Al Davis comparisons, you know what they say never a better time to be a Blazer fan then now.

I think that its pretty obvious that having a stable franchise and or university from the top down correlates well with winning. This is for many reasons as if you are able to keep your owner, GM, coach, and players together for an extended period of time they will obviously understand each other and generally speaking play better together. This isn’t a fast process either it is my belief that every new coach and or general manager should be given at least three season before judgment can be passed. How can you ever evaluate anyone if there using previous managements players and not their own philosophy and players? Seems to be common sense but for whatever reason it is widely disregarded by owners and or university presidents who are desperate for wins.

Obviously every circumstance is different and sometimes changes have to be made after a short period of time for whatever reason, whether it is off the field issues or something of that nature. If the general manager/coach/player doesn’t have a serious off the field issue than you have to give them some time to adjust to the situation and give them a chance to respond if they struggle in the early going. That’s why the Blazers firing of Rich Cho was so shocking and strange as a Blazer fan. Cho had less than a year to mold the team to his liking but his career as Blazer GM is already over, there’s no way to call this a fair deal. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Cho, probably because I felt that previous GM Kevin Pritchard could do no wrong (which eventually was proven wrong by the player known as Luke Babbitt but that’s besides the point), but I didn’t dislike him and felt that he deserved a chance to show his ability for a couple years.

In sports every general manager and coach has a different idea or philosophy for how things should be done, much like how every player plays the game differently from other players. Cho getting only one year with Kevin Pritchard’s players is in no way a fair shake and will undoubtedly set the Blazers back going forward. It is incredibly tough to be competitive when you are transitioning coaches and general managers because as mentioned above every general manager and coach has his own idea of what is the best way to win in their respective leagues. When you go from one year of one thing (for instance the Suns high tempo offense under Mike D’Antoni and then the next year to something different, slow paced defensive oriented team under Terry Porter, the results are usually a below average product. This usually causes instant panic because the winning results aren’t there but you have to give every new addition time, basically stability is preaching patience. That example is slightly flawed because Porter was fired mid-season of his first year and the Suns responded by playing much better with Alvin Gentry as their head man but they were ultimately set back because they added players like Shaq for Porter, once Gentry became head coach Shaq became a poor fit. Also when you take into account that the Suns received Shaq, a poor fit in an up tempo attack, at the cost of Shawn Marion, an excellent fit in an up tempo attack, its tough to argue that the lack of stability in Suns head coaches wasn’t harmful.

Besides the Sun’s there are plenty of other examples like Rich Rodriguez in his first years at Michigan as football coach. Rodriguez a spread offense coach took over the prestigious job as Michigan coach from former coach Lloyd Car who was a tradition I-Form offensive coach. For those that don’t follow college football Rodriguez’s first two years at Michigan were an absolute failure, as his teams didn’t have the explosive athletes necessary for a spread offense to succeed. This past year, Rodriguez’s third year, Michigan returned to the bowl season and ended the season with an final record of 7 wins and 6 losses. The product on the field was much better and Rodriguez’s offensive genius was on full display as Michigan had one of the most potent offensives in the country. Michigan ended up firing Rodriguez after the season, which is an interesting move because it seemed like Rodriguez had the program on the upswing but they at least gave him the three years that I feel like every coach and or general manager deserves. Personally I would have kept Rodriguez for one more year because he finally had a program complete with a majority of players that he had recruited and deemed fit for his football philosophy. Michigan obviously didn’t view the situation the same way as me and replaced Rodriguez with former San Diego State coach Brady Hoke. Hoke by all accounts is a fine coach but there is no doubt in my mind that Michigan for next year or two will struggle to put up as good a season as they had this past year. I say this because Rodriguez has filled Michigan with players that fit his philosophy (spread offensive) while Hoke comes in as a traditional offensive mind. As you can see doesn’t seem like an ideal fit, if Michigan thought that Hoke gives them a better chance of competing for BCS bowls in the future than Rodriguez did than this is a fair move but this move seems too much like it was caused by short term goals.

It would be just ignorant to talk about the importance of stability and ignore the Oakland Raiders and their crazed owner Al Davis. Since Jon Gruden departed as Raider head coach in 2003 the Raiders have had five coaches that have led the Raiders to 48 wins and 96 losses. That’s simply not getting it done and in my opinion much of this can be attributed to the difficult transition that occurs when your changing coaches. On the opposite end of the spectrum teams like the Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves, and Boston Red Sox are perfect examples of the importance of stability. The Steelers might be the best example of this as they are one of most successful programs in NFL history. Since 1969 the Steelers have had a total of three coaches, their record in that time: 385 wins and 259 losses as well as six Super Bowl victories. Similar to the Steelers are the Atlanta Braves who set a record with 14 straight years of making the playoffs under the guidance of manager Bobby Cox. The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox both enjoy a monetary advantage over teams in the MLB but both also show the positive affects of having stable management. The Yankees under Joe Torre’s reign as manager won 5 titles in 12 years while the Red Sox have returned to prominence, 2 World Series’, under the guidance of manager Terry Francona during his six years as Red Sox manager. In basketball you have the San Antonio Spurs and Greg Popovich who have won four NBA Finals’ during his 15-year tenure. There are plenty of other examples in all major sports but the main point remains the same stability is undoubtedly a positive for major league teams.

So where does this leave the Blazers is the main thing that I wanted to address after providing a little background and to be honest I’m not sure what the answer is. They still have talented players and an above average coach in Nate McMillan but who knows what the next general manager will envision for this team. Another problem with a lack of stability is that it tends to scare off potential players and or recruits because who really wants to play for a team that is incredibly unpredictable? Or more specifically in the Blazers case what general manager wants to become the Blazers general manager when the team has gone through two in less than a year? It’s not even like Cho did anything wrong compared to Pritchard as the Blazers made the postseason and fell in the first round, which was the exact same as the Blazers in the last two years of Pritchard’s general manager tenure. Obviously it is a good sign that the Blazers have retained McMillan who can provide some stability but with the constant shuffle of general managers he has to go through new personal and philosophies from each new general manager. Preferably I’d like to see the Blazers become stable like the aforementioned teams above but that doesn’t seem likely which doesn’t exactly suggest title contention in the future but I’d love to be wrong.

My main point in this, which was spurred by the Blazers strange decision to let Rich Cho go, was that owners and university presidents and athletic directors need to give coaches and general managers time to prove themselves instead of constantly changing them. As mentioned above this isn’t exactly anything ground breaking by me but I feel like the majority of owners and or athletic directors look past this due to short-term failures. There are going to be times where it is perfectly understandable to fire a coach or general manager due to complete inadequacy and or off the field problems but for the most part I strongly believe that coaches and or general managers should be given at least a couple of years to prove themselves. Constantly shuffling coaches and or general managers causes more problems than it does to help, owners and university athletic directors need to stick with their decisions even if the short-term results are underwhelming. Bill Belicheck went 5-11 in his first year as New England Patriots coach, which followed a 5-11 season as the coach of the Cleveland Browns, after the season many questioned whether Belicheck would ever be successful as an NFL coach. The Patriots stuck with him and won three out of the next four Super Bowls, not every situation is like this but as is shown by many of the past championship winners stable management is often a key component. My whole point is that it would be wise for owners and or university athletic directors to preach patience instead of constantly looking to make changes. Making these changes sets teams back as they have to adjust to a new coach and his way of playing the game. Likewise trading general managers brings on a difficult transition because they often have to change the teams personal to their liking. The successful teams throughout history have for the most part gone by the saying that patience is a virtue and for their patience they get to reap the benefits.

Recapping the Week 5/16-5/22

Owners vs. Players- Once again it was a week of little news in the NFL and as a result the league is fast approaching the 70 day mark in the lockout. Besides the lockout Ravens star linebacker Ray Lewis proclaimed that if there isn’t a season next year the crime rate will rise. This really isn’t rocket science because what is going to hold NFL players back if they don’t have head coaches to report to? I think an interesting prop bet for the NFL next year if there isn’t a season would be which team has the most players get arrested. The early favorite would be the Cincinnati Bengals but there are plenty of other teams that could challenge the Bengals.

NBA- To oppose the East coast bias the Western Conference Finals will get reviewed first. As seen in the blog post preceding this one I had predicted the Thunder to advance in 6 games but after the first three games it’s not looking too good for my prediction which shouldn’t surprise anyone. Game one was all about Dirk Nowitzki who put up a stunning shooting display en route to 48 points; he only missed three of his 39 shot attempts (12-15 from the field and 24-24 from the free throw line). There were plenty of well warranted gripes about touchy foul calls but its going to be quite some time before we see another shooting display like the one that Dirk Nowitzki (Nomisski). Somehow the Thunder remained in this game until the very end behind Kevin Durant’s 40 points but it ultimately wasn’t enough as the Thunder fell to the Mavericks 121-112. Game two was a back and forth affair that came down to the wire in somewhat shocking fashion. The shocking thing about the Thunder victory in game two was that they pulled away in the fourth quarter without the services of Russell Westbrook who was benched for the entirety of the fourth quarter. Westbrook was also joined on the bench for the entire fourth quarter with all other Thunder starters minus Durant as the Thunder played four bench players down the stretch. I’ve defended Westbrook this playoffs as someone that I feel is unfairly targeted by the media but it’s kind of hard to defend him when the Thunder play better with him on the bench in the fourth quarter of a tight game. In his defense its not like Westbrook was benched in favor of some complete scrub as Eric Maynor is a more than capable backup but its hard to wrap your mind around the fact that Westbrook, an All-Star and second team all NBA player this year, was benched for the fourth quarter of the biggest game of the Thunder’s year. Westbrook wasn’t just benched the Thunder actually pulled away for the victory while Westbrook watched on from the bench. Westbrook said all the right things after the game and it appears like this is a non-issue going forward which is good news for the Thunder because they are going to need him if they want to win this series. The other shocking thing about the Thunder’s fourth quarter and game two victory was that Durant only scored four points in the fourth quarter. This speaks volumes about the Thunder’s bench, which is probably as good if not better than the starting fives of half the NBA’s teams. Tied at one game apiece the Thunder returned home to OKC for game three although it appeared no one told the Thunder that they had a game to play as the Mavericks jumped out to an early 23 point lead in the second quarter. I can’t completely blame the Thunder for this though as they were probably under the impression that Game 3 would be canceled due to the great rapture that was supposed to take place on May 21st. Back to the actual game, this wasn’t a pretty game to watch by any measure as both teams struggled immensely at times to put the ball in the basket. Both Nowitzki and Durant were off their games for much of the night leading to both relying on secondary options, a battle that the Mavericks decisively won. Besides Russell Westbrook and Durant there was no other player on the Thunder that registered a double digit scoring output, exemplifying this was Kendrick Perkins goose egg in thirty minutes. Meanwhile the Mavericks were helped out by a big game from Shawn Marion, 18 points, and Tyson Chandler, 8 points 15 rebounds. The Thunder made the game close down the stretch but the early 23 point deficit proved to be too much as the Thunder eventually fell by a score of 93-87.

On to the Easter Conference Finals, which only gave us two games this week as apparently you can only play basketball on days with high TV ratings potential. I understand the need for high TV ratings but its kind of ludicrous that there were only two games this week as most teams play a minimum of three games a week during the regular season. The TV rating issue is the only reason that the NBA playoffs stretch on for what seems like decades. After the Bulls decisive game one victory the Heat rebounded with a solid Game 2 showing that they won by a score of 85-75. The game was much closer than the score indicates as it was tied before LeBron James led the Heat on a late game run with about four minutes left. The Bulls for most of the game were atrocious offensively as they only shot 34.1 percent from the field and 15 percent from behind the arc which makes it all the more amazing that they were tied with just over four minutes remaining in the game. Unfortunately for the Bulls LeBron decided to get hot at the four minute mark in the fourth quarter and was phenomenal down the stretch for the Heat. Even with that amazing four minute stretch at the end of the game LeBron was the Heat’s worst starter by the plus minus metric only registering a plus 8. The plus minus metric isn’t perfect and a plus 8 is still really strong but it is kind of strange to see that James was the Heat’s worst starter by plus minus. The other two Heat stars, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh registered plus minus’s of +19 and +22 respectively. This game marked the return of rugged big man Udonis Haslem from a foot injury that plagued him all year and judging by Game 2 it appears that Haslem will be a crucial asset for the Heat going forward. As mentioned for the Bulls they really didn’t have anything going for them offensively as only Derrick Rose and Luol Deng where the only Bulls to cross the double digit scoring mark. Even though they both scored double digits neither Rose nor Deng were particularly efficient in getting there as they both took more shots than points scored which is usually the sign of inefficient scoring. Both the Heat and Bulls are excellent defensively so offensive is hard to come by but scoring 75 points in a playoff game like the Bulls did is embarrassing. The Bulls offensive woes continued on into Game 3 as they once again provided a below average offensive game which led to the Heat registering an 11 point victory by the count of 96-85. Chris Bosh (Like a Bosh) probably played his best game of the year putting up 34 points in Game 3 to the dismay of many including myself. Besides Bosh’s big breakout game the main storyline has to be the Bulls inability to score on the Heat. Granted the Heat are one of the top defensive teams by most statistical measures but still the Bulls aren’t getting it done offensively. The Bull’s offensive woes start from the top as MVP Derrick Rose had another so-so game with 20 points on 19 shots. Not to bag on the guy but in Games 2 and 3 Rose has not looked anything like a league MVP. Carlos Boozer even looked the part of solid second option in Game 3 with 26 points and 17 boards but the Bulls were still flat offensively. I’m not sure what they are going to do going forward but if they keep scoring in the seventies and eighties there not going to win this series against the Heat.

MLB- How about them Mariners? I’m going to look past the fact that no one cares about the Mariners for a second and hype them up. At weeks end they only find themselves 1.5 games out of first place, never mind the fact that the Mariners are only 1.5 games out of first place because the rest of the AL West has been awful. This probably isn’t going to be sustainable for the Mariners as they have recently been feasting on a weak schedule but the Mariners don’t appear to be one of the worst teams in the MLB anymore. Most of this has to do with their starting pitching in particular the duo of Felix Hernandez and rookie hurler Michael Pineda. Pineda has been a revelation, as everyone knew he was immensely talented but it was thought he would need at least another year or two before he pitched like he’s pitching now. In other news the Red Sox are back which isn’t exactly a shocker but how fast they’ve righted the ship after their slow start is pretty remarkable. I’m not ready to anoint them team to beat in the AL due to a questionable rotation but there quickly working towards getting there. After another week with a multi-HR game I think that its safe to say that Blue Jays outfielder Jose Bautista has established himself as the premier home run hitter in the MLB. So the question that must be asked is how did everyone miss out him until he was hitting thirty years old? Your guess is as good as mine as to how he went unnoticed all these years but right now he is destroying anything that is thrown in the strike zone. Not to get too far ahead of ourselves but the Cleveland Indians, who everyone including myself expected to be awful, could be on the brink of running away with the AL Central. They got off to a great start and have built from there and are currently seven games ahead of the pack in the AL Central. For the most part people are still waiting for them to trip up but with each passing day they continue to assert themselves as true contenders in the American League.

The Week Moving Forward

Owners vs. Players- At some point there will be an agreement between both the owners and players but when this time is no one knows. As a friend recently pointed out the worst thing about this potential lockout is that there won’t be Hard Knocks if both sides don’t come to terms fairly soon.

NBA- Obviously all eyes are on the conference finals so here’s what all the teams have to do to advance to the Finals. The Mavericks must continue to get solid production from at least one of their plethora of second options (Marion, Jason Terry, JJ Barea) and get Nowitzki the ball in his spots. The Thunder have to get some sort of production from Kendrick Perkins if they’re going to play him thirty minutes and also get Russell Westbrook to play like the All-Star he is. In the Eastern Conference the Bulls have to resurrect Carlos Boozer and get scoring from him and also get scoring from one of their shooting guards. Lastly the Heat must get some one off of their bench going because their starting five has gotten leads only to see their bench turn around and give those leads right back to the opposition.

MLB- Not much to say here as the MLB season continues to roll along, just to add something to this here are the four tiers of MLB teams right now.

Championship Contenders- Boston Red Sox, Cleveland Indians, Philadelphia Phillies, Florida Marlins, St. Louis Cardinals, San Francisco Giants

Playoff Contenders- NY Yankees, Tampa Bay Rays, Detroit Tigers, Chicago White Sox, Texas Rangers, Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds, Milwaukee Brewers, Colorado Rockies

Decent teams- Toronto Blue Jays, Baltimore Orioles, Kansas City Royals, LA Angels, Oakland Athletics, Seattle Mariners, NY Mets, LA Dodgers

Shouldn’t be watched- Minnesota Twins, Washington Nationals, Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago Cubs, Houston Astros, Arizona Diamondbacks, San Diego Padres

A couple quick notes from this; half of the NL Central made the don’t watch list, the NL East might be the strongest in baseball, and the National League has six out of the seven teams that made the don’t watch list.

Western Conference Finals Preview

After a month of hard fought playoff action the Dallas Mavericks and Oklahoma City Thunder have emerged as the two Western Conference teams vying for entrance to the NBA Finals. This years Western Conference Finals, set to begin today, will be without the Los Angeles Lakers and thankfully Kobe Bryant’s grimace for the first time in three years. The Mavericks and Thunder enter this Western Conference Finals on opposite ends of the spectrum with the Mavericks well rested after completing a shocking four game sweep of the two time defending champion Lakers while the Thunder enter this matchup just two days removed from their seven game series victory over the upstart Memphis Grizzlies. Continuing with the teams on opposite ends of the spectrum theme the Mavericks are the oldest team in the league while the Thunder are the youngest team in the NBA. With all this in mind here are the matchups to keep an eye on and at the end my prediction for who will be representing the Western Conference in the NBA Finals.

Matchups

Kevin Durant vs. Dirk Nowitzki

Durant and Nowitzki will rarely be guarding each other throughout the series but this series really boils down to whom, Durant or Nowitzki, has a better series. The shocking thing about the Mavericks winning the season series over the Thunder by a count of two games to one is that Nowitzki only played a full game the first time these two teams met. Nowitzki registered 32 points in the Mavericks first matchup against the Thunder, a 111-103 Mavericks victory, before injuring his knee in the second matchup, a 103-93 Mavericks victory, which caused him to miss the final matchup, a 99-95 Thunder victory. Durant on the other hand played in all three matchups averaging 29.3 points on 50.7 percent shooting. So with the regular season matchups between the two basically a wash due to the injuries we have to look at each players body of work so far in the playoffs so far and then look at who will be defending each player throughout the Western Conference Finals. Nowitzki so far in the playoffs has been spectacular, 26.5 points, 8.4 rebounds, and 49.7 percent shooting, while Durant has been just as good if not better with averages of; 28.9 points, 7.7 rebounds, and 45.8 percent shooting. Pretty tough to differentiate between the two again so now lets take a look at what each player will face from the opposing team throughout the series. For the Thunder the task of defending Nowitzki will belong to the power forward tandem of Serge Ibaka and Nick Collison who both had their hands full with Zach Randolph in the Memphis series. Both Ibaka and Collison are both above average defenders but it’s hard to see either of them having much success against the matchup nightmare that Nowitzki presents. Ibaka and Collison were both torched at times throughout the Memphis series by Zach Randolph’s midrange face-up game, which doesn’t inspire confidence because Nowitzki is the best in the business at the midrange offensive game with his array of fall-away jump shots. On the other side of the ball the responsibility of guarding Durant will go to Shawn Marion with DeShawn Stevenson or Corey Brewer more than likely guarding Durant if Marion is off the court. Marion is a strong defender but the fact that arguably the strongest wing defender in the NBA right now, Tony Allen, struggled to contain Durant in the Thunder vs. Grizzlies series doesn’t bode well for the Mavericks. To slow down Durant Marion will have to be physical with Durant and stay with him throughout the assortment of screens the Thunder will set in attempts to free Durant up. It is imperative that Marion stays out of foul trouble during this series because while Stevenson is also an above-average defender he doesn’t have the height to consistently bother Durant. In conclusion I would give a slight edge to Nowitzki in this matchup but the fact is that both stars individual matchups foretell a huge series for both Nowitzki and Durant.

Battle at the Point

Stats wise this battle appears to be a landslide in favor of the Thunder’s Russell Westbrook, averages of 23.9 points and 7 assists in the postseason, but the resurgence of Jason Kidd in the playoffs, 10.1 points and 7.2 assists, has played a large role in the Mavericks surprising run. Westbrook has at times drawn national criticism during the Thunder’s playoff run for his shot selection but as he proved with a triple double in Game 7 of the Grizzlies series he is one of the most electric talents in the NBA. Kidd throughout the season had to endure speculation about whether he was reaching the end of his career but a new shooting touch (dubbed the “Nowitzki V”) has ended those talks and has supplied the Mavericks with a much needed outside shooting presence to take pressure off of Dirk Nowitzki. As always Kidd brings a steady presence to the offense and rarely ever makes the wrong decision in Rick Carlisle’s offense. The main question of this matchup is if Kidd will be able to prevent Russell Westbrook’s constant forays into the paint. As mentioned above its tough to imagine Durant getting shut down by the Mavericks so it becomes vital that the Mavericks prevent the Thunders second option, Westbrook, from having big nights. This doesn’t mean that Kidd has to keep Westbrook off the scoreboard completely but rather make him work for those points. In the regular season series Kidd and the Mavericks gave Westbrook the freedom to shoot jump shots, which worked in their favor as the Thunder point guard only shot 31.8 percent from the field. I’m going to give the Thunder and Westbrook the edge although it is easy to see this matchup go the Mavericks way if Westbrook becomes too shot happy in the series.

Controlling the Paint

As has been proven in recent years championship caliber teams always have a dominant presence in the paint, the Mavericks Tyson Chandler and the Thunder’s Kendrick Perkins fit these descriptions to a T. Neither Chandler or Perkins will be asked to do much offensively besides crash the boards instead they will be judged entirely on how well they control their defensive interior. Perkins in the last series was a little underwhelming in this regard because the Grizzlies abused the Thunder with offensive boards but he still performed ably in defending attacks on the rim. For the Mavericks Chandler has brought much needed toughness and a steady interior presence but this matchup will be one of his toughest yet with Durant and Westbrook constantly attacking the rim. Both Perkins and Chandler at times throughout the playoffs have struggled with foul troubles, which presents more problems for the Thunder because the Mavericks have another defensive center in Brendan Haywood that can come off the bench and defend the defensive interior. Based on Chandler’s playoff production so far and the Mavericks depth at center the edge goes to the Mavericks but it is tough to pick against Perkins who has already proven his worth as a defensive presence during the Celtics past NBA Finals appearances.

The Bench

Both of these teams have strong benches that feature what basically amount to de facto starters in the Mavericks Jason Terry and James Harden for the Thunder. The Mavericks bench thus far has been the catalyst for their playoff run because in that they have often dominated opposing bench units behind the efforts of Terry, JJ Barea, and Peja Stojakovic. All three of the aforementioned players play a crucial role for the Mavericks because they are the floor spacers for Nowitzki and the Mavericks. The ability for these three players to hit open three pointers when Nowitzki is doubled will be the difference for the Mavericks in this series. As was shown in game 4 of the Laker vs. Mavericks series, where Terry and Stojakovic were 15 of 16 from long range, they are more than capable of knocking down those open looks. Besides those three shooters the Mavericks also bring Brendan Haywood off the bench to spell Chandler and bang bodies down low. While the Thunder’s bench doesn’t quite pack the same offensive punch as the Mavericks the Thunder have four bench players that play their roles perfectly. Harden as mentioned is basically a starter and is important to the Thunder because he is the third offensive option behind Durant and Westbrook. Besides providing a scoring punch Harden is also an excellent creator for others and can assume ball-handling responsibilities if needed. Back up point guard Eric Maynor is an effective distributor off of the bench and is often called on at times to get the offensive flow back for the Thunder when Westbrook becomes to shot happy. Sharp shooter Daequan Cook has struggled with his shot thus far this postseason, 30.3 percent from three, but if he gets hot is as dangerous as any shooter in the league. As mentioned previously Nick Collison is an above average defender who is also an excellent rebounder off of the bench. Lastly for the Thunder there is Nazr Mohammed who provides another big body off of the bench and is a capable scorer down low. The Mavericks have the bench edge right now due to their phenomenal performance in the Laker series but the Thunder bench is also a capable unit.

Prediction- Thunder in 6

All the signs seem to point to the Mavericks; they are well rested, they won the season series, and they are the more experienced team, but I’m still going to pick the Thunder as the team to represent the Western Conference. I know it defies common sense when I pick the Thunder even though I favored the Mavericks in three of the four important matchups but I actually feel pretty confident that the Thunder will beat the Mavericks, which will undoubtedly lead to another Mark Cuban meltdown. The argument whether it is preferable to be well rested in the playoffs is an age-old argument and there are valid points on both sides but I’ve always believed that it benefits teams that don’t experience these long breaks. The Mavericks are a week and four days removed from their last game, rust will play a part early on in this series. Basically I find it highly unlikely that the Mavericks come out firing on all cylinders while the Thunder are just three days removed, a normal time period between games in the regular season, from their last game in which they played arguably their best game of the postseason. As for the season series I don’t really believe this is a good indicator of what this series will bring because the Thunder are a different team now than they were during their three regular season matchups against the Thunder. The mid-season trade that brought the Thunder Kendrick Perkins in exchange for Jeff Green has improved the Thunder because they now feature a strong interior presence in Perkins. Lastly I have been wary of the Mavericks this entire post season because they don’t have a defined second scoring option to complement Nowitzki, which I view as a serious problem. For the most part the Mavericks have offset this problem with strong shooting performances from their bench unit but I think that the Thunder will do a better job than the Lakers in preventing these second options from contributing. It should be a competitive series but I see the Thunder stealing one of the first two games in Dallas and then protecting their home floor and advancing on in six games.

Recapping the Week 5/9-5/15

Owners vs. Players- Not to sound like a broken record or anything but this week was a repeat of last week in that a ruling was expected on the NFL’s temporary stay but once again the courts failed to deliver a ruling leaving the league still in lockout. So once again the future of the league is in the hands of the judicial system and hopefully this week they actually will make a ruling that moves us closer to a complete NFL season. Besides the minor question about the future of the NFL there was nothing else remotely close to newsworthy in the NFL.

NBA- After a month of playoff basketball, and many tears shed about the Blazers demise, we have finally reached the conference finals and for the first time in forever (slight exaggeration) neither the Los Angeles Lakers or Boston Celtics are participating for a shot at the NBA finals. In the Eastern Conference the Chicago Bulls will be matching up against the Miami Heat and in the Western Conference it will be the Dallas Mavericks against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Before I take a stab at predicting the winners of both of these matchups here’s how we got to this point.

The Miami Heat were the first Eastern Conference team to clinch a spot in the conference finals by dispatching the Boston Celtics four games to one last Wednesday. Like many others I had high hopes for this series to be a seven game classic between two teams that really dislike each other, unfortunately the Rajon Rondo injury prevented this and the Heat advanced in five games. I think that with a healthy Rondo the Celtics would have won this series but obviously this can never be proven so it’s the Heat moving on to the horror of all NBA fans that don’t live in Miami. LeBron James carried the Heat down the stretch in game five which led to everyone instantly forgetting about his season long struggles in the clutch, which is ridiculous because the two three pointers he hit at the end of the game weren’t even what I would call good shots. LeBron for all his greatness still isn’t a good three point shooter, which makes it silly that people who criticized LeBron all season for his clutch performances are now hailing him as a clutch player due to game five. He definitely was clutch in game five but that doesn’t change the fact that he struggled all season in the big moments. I was of course amazed by his performance at the end of game five but the other thing I thought about was why was LeBron taking those shots anyway? Those shots weren’t great shots for the Heat offense, the Celtics played pretty good defense on LeBron at the end, and Dwayne Wade had been the Heat offense for much of the game so why was LeBron taking contested threes? It worked out for the Heat but I can guarantee if LeBron had missed those three pointers everyone would be crushing LeBron for taking contested jump shots. Last off topic LeBron rant of this blog post, what kind of celebration was standing in place for ten seconds after hitting that last three pointer? As for the Celtics, it was a disappointing end to the season but I’m not quite ready to proclaim that they are done contending for titles. They already locked head coach Doc Rivers up for five more years and they will once again return much of their team, basically talks about a changing of the guard in the East are a bit premature. The one thing that this series proved is that the Kendrick Perkins for Jeff Green trade was a complete failure. Perkins would have started for this Celtic squad while Green was a no-show off of the bench for much of the playoffs. Maybe Green will develop into a contributor off of the bench next year but the Celtics would have been a better team this year with Perkins, which makes the trade hard to fathom because the Celtics shouldn’t be thinking about the future when there present is championship contender. Green was added as a future piece while Perkins was a present contributor. If you’re a championship contender with a limited contention window, like the Celtics due to their advanced age, you should never give up someone (Perkins) that helps your team because of future factors (contract issues). The Celtics should have taken their shot with Perkins this year even if it meant that they couldn’t sign him to a contract extension in the offseason.

In the other Eastern semi-finals matchup the Bulls advanced past the Atlanta Hawks in six games to set up the Eastern Conference finals match up with the Heat. I’m going to keep my thoughts pretty brief on this one because the Bulls were the much better team and it should come as no surprise that they are the team that advanced. The one worrisome thing for the Bulls throughout this series was that Derrick Rose for long stretches in this series appeared to be the only Bulls player capable of scoring. As was mentioned in last weeks column Carlos Boozer was signed to be a go-to scoring option for the Bulls but for much of the series underwhelmed to the point where some wondered if the Bulls would be better off playing Taj Gibson instead of Boozer. Whenever Rose got some help from his supporting cast the Bulls beat the Hawks fairly easily. As for the Hawks, I’m not quite sure where they go from here because I think that getting this far is about there ceiling going forward. One point that the TNT announcing crew made was how good would the Hawks be if Mike D’Antoni were their coach? I think this is a valid and interesting question because looking at their roster they are filled with athletic players that you would think thrive in an up-tempo attack. Instead there offense often operates at an average pace and centers around isolating Joe Johnson. Side note after that series there is no way to justify Joe Johnson being the highest paid player in the NBA, he’s a great player but not elite by any measure. Back to the point I would love to see the Hawks push the pace with players like Jeff Teague, Josh Smith, and Jamal Crawford but they seem set on their “Iso-Joe offense” which at least to me is the wrong call but what do I know.

In the Western Conference this week it was just the Memphis Grizzlies and Oklahoma City Thunder battling it out for the right to play the Dallas Mavericks who basically enjoyed a bye week due to their sweep of the Lakers. This brings up the point of rest vs. game action as the Mavericks will be week and a couple of days removed from their last game by the time their matchup with the Thunder comes around. Personally I’ve always believed that it benefits teams that continue to play in these situations but valid arguments can be made that it favors the team (Mavericks) that is more rested. Back to the Vancouver (Memphis) vs. Seattle (OKC) series, this series will go down as one of the most entertaining series’ that I can remember solely because of the triple overtime game four. The words crazy and unreal don’t even do justice to this game, it was simply something that you had to watch because really how often do you see a triple OT game in the playoffs? Every time it seemed like OKC was going to pull it out the Grizzlies came right back with a huge shot to send the game deeper into the night. The Thunder finally pulled it off in the third overtime which changed the whole series because if the Grizzlies had somehow gotten the game four victory they would have had a commanding three games to one lead in the series. After the epic game four in Memphis the Thunder claimed game five relatively easily in OKC, there was even a Nate Robinson sighting so it wasn’t very close. A Grizzlies victory in game six evened the series at three games apiece and set up a pivotal game seven in OKC. Game seven ended up with the Thunder running away with it due to an atrocious offensive performance (it was Blazeresque, not a compliment) but it was still a great series between two upstart teams. Even though the Grizzlies ended up falling to the Thunder in seven games they were very close to making it to the conference finals as an eight seed and without arguably there best player (Rudy Gay). These teams were incredibly even matched throughout the whole series and going forward both of these teams have bright futures so expect these teams to clash in the playoffs in future years.

Moving on from conference semifinal matchups this past Sunday brought us game one of the Eastern Conference semifinals between the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat. All the major casinos and sports betting sites made the Heat the favorites in this series which is confusing because the Bulls swept the season series three games to zero and also have the home court advantage in the series. Moving on from that the Bulls dominated the second half en route to an easy twenty-one point victory. Derrick Rose as always led the way for the Bulls but it really was a complete team effort. Luol Deng, 21 points, and Taj Gibson, 9 points 7 rebounds, +17 plus/minus and a posterizing dunk over Dwayne Wade, were the real keys in leading the Bulls to the victory. At this point it really is fair to question whether the Bulls are better off starting Gibson because in the Bulls defense first scheme Gibson is a much better fit than Carlos Boozer. Boozer was decent in game one compiling 14 points and 9 rebounds but he also was the Bulls player with the worst plus/minus line of only +1. For the Heat Chris Bosh, yes Chris Bosh, was the only player that showed up as he put up 30 points and 9 rebounds. LeBron and Wade both struggled as combined they only put up 33 points on 32 shots, safe to say if the Heat get efforts like this its going to be a short series. Its only one game but if the Bulls can keep up their stifling defense and get contributions from their secondary options like Deng you have to like their chances going forward.

MLB- The MLB season keeps plugging along like always and since we’ve passed the quarter season mark it is now fair to evaluate teams and players. The most disappointing team thus far is a split between the AL Central tandem of bottom dwellers the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins. In the preseason both were thought of as contenders for the AL Central crown but so far this season both have been in contention for worst record in the MLB. Continuing with the AL Central theme the most surprising team has easily been the Cleveland Indians who as of Sunday afternoon find themselves as the AL Central leaders by 3.5 games. The National League has so far played out basically as expected but the Marlins have exceeded expectations thus far with the second best record in the national league. One of the seasons more disappointing players, Jorge Posada, was one of the main story lines of the week after he asked out of the lineup on Saturday because he didn’t want to have to deal with the embarrassment of hitting ninth. I understand its upsetting for someone used to hitting fifth or sixth in the lineup to be dropped to ninth but is there really anyway Posada can argue the logic in it when he’s hitting .165 on the season? Posada has been a legendary Yankee so it is painful to see this, but you can’t really fault the Yankees for demoting one of the worst hitters in the MLB to the ninth spot? In other news the Mariners went through one of the roughest weeks I’ve seen by closer Brandon League blowing three straight games. Blowing three straight games is almost a feat in itself because good closers sometimes don’t even blow three saves in an entire season.

The Week Moving Forward-

Owners vs. Players- Another week were its up to the courts to make a ruling which leaves me wondering when NBC is going to make the Law and Order spin off named Law and Order: NFL Lockout. Admit it you would watch it. In other news the HBO show Hard Knocks is looking for another team to follow after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers declined to participate. I don’t understand why the Buccaneers declined to be a part of Hard Knocks but in their absence I would like to nominate the Philadelphia Eagles as the team to take their place.

NBA- Obviously the only thing going on in the NBA is the conference finals so its now prediction time. I like the Bulls to advance in seven games over the Heat, which may or may not be influenced by my hate of the Heat and Chris Bosh. For the Bulls to win they need Carlos Boozer to win his matchup with Bosh and to prevent any of the Heat bench players from having breakout games like James Jones had in game of the Heat vs. Celtic series. Obviously Wade and LeBron are going to get there points but the main thing the Bulls have to do is prevent both from getting in the zone in the same game. If the Bulls can take away either Wade or James, taking away both is impossible, in the games they have to like their chances. In the other matchup I like the Thunder in six games, I really believe that the Thunder are much better than the Mavericks. The Grizzlies were able to throw talented defenders (Tony Allen and Shane Battier) at Kevin Durant to slow him down and I just don’t see the Mavericks being able to do that. Along with that I don’t think that Jason Terry and Peja Stojakovic are going to shoot as well in this series as they did in the Lakers series, which leaves the Mavericks with the same problem of who else can score besides Dirk.

MLB- Its hard for me to say there is something specific to watch when there’s more than 110 games left for every team in the season.

Content note- At the end of the NBA season I will be changing the format of these articles to focus on different topics instead of recapping the weekly sports news. As a result don’t expect an article a week but every week and a half or two weeks.

Recapping the Week 5/2-5/8

Owners vs. Players- After last week’s brief excitement about the end of the lockout this week gave us absolutely nothing as the courts didn’t provide a ruling on the temporary stay which halted league operations on April 29th. The ruling is expected to be in at some point this week but then again that’s what they told us last week so there are of course no guarantees. The only other real offseason “news” this week was that Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall and Champion athletic sportswear ended their business relationship following Mendenhall’s controversial comments about the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Mendenhall can obviously say whatever he pleases but did he really think anything good was going to come out of posting what he did? If you don’t know what I’m talking about just Google “Mendenhall controversial comments” and you’ll understand the uproar. The only upside of this whole situation is that this now gives the Steelers the most hated backfield pairing in the league with Mendenhall and Ben Roethlisberger. The funny thing is that I’m not sure that the Steelers backfield wasn’t the most hated already due to Roethlisberger and his constant off the field antics but with Mendenhall’s recent action the Steelers are a lock for most hated backfield in 2011. This of course assumes that we have a season in 2011 and that Brett Favre doesn’t make another comeback. Sadly there is no Madden Cover breakdown this week to save the Owners vs. Players column. On second thought I could probably write a fair amount trying to figure out how in the world Peyton Hillis won the Madden Cover athlete in the first place.

NBA- This playoffs looks to be shaping up like this years March Madness which means that everybody would be better served by flipping coins to see who reaches the NBA Finals. The main storyline of this past week has to be the Lakers getting swept by the Dallas Mavericks thus ending the Lakers dreams of a three peat and also ending Phil Jackson’s historic coaching career. I think that the best way to put this sweep into perspective would be that I don’t think even the most biased Mavericks fans would even dream that they would sweep the Lakers. The other thing that puts this into perspective is that with the Lakers down two games to zero games I still probably would have bet on the Lakers to win and even with them down three games I wouldn’t have said that a comeback is out of the question. I would say that the obvious good news from the Lakers getting eliminated from the playoffs is that we won’t be subject to the sight of Steve Blake wearing a headband again but Blake apparently realized that the whole headband look didn’t really work for him and stopped wearing the headband at the beginning of the Lakers vs. Mavericks series. Moving on from Steve Blake who will probably never be mentioned again, unless he does this again **** (I tried to find the YouTube link of him failing at dunking but that video seems to have disappeared), I’m still not quite sure what to make of the Mavericks but if they can stay hot shooting the ball they have to like their chances against whomever they will be facing in the Western Conference Semifinals. Side note having two teammates go 15 for 16 from behind the three point line, like Peja Stojakovic and Jason Terry did in game four, will never happen again, those guys just couldn’t miss. I will say this about Andrew Bynum’s cheap shot on JJ Barea, it was obviously one of the dirty plays of the year but I don’t think any Blazer fans have a problem with whom it happened to. This moment also marked the first time that all Blazer players cheered for a Lakers player at the same time. For whatever reason when your favorite team is playing in a playoff series there always seems to be a player on the other team that you hate for no apparent reason. Barea was that player this year for Blazer fans following last years Channing Frye/Jared Dudley split and Luis Scola two years ago.

The other Western Conference semifinal matchup currently stands with the Memphis Grizzlies leading the Oklahoma City Thunder by a count of two games to one. Most people didn’t even have the Grizzlies beating the Spurs in the first place and if they were to beat the Thunder it would be one of the more shocking playoff runs in NBA history. Of course the other historic thing about this series is that game three in Memphis marked the first time in playoff history that fans swam to a game. That probably crossed the line in terms of jokes but we will continue on like nothing happened. Zach Randolph fell victim to my legendary curse in game three as he resorted back to his Blazer ways in game three after I hyped him up in last weeks post. For those that missed it Randolph took himself out of the game in the first quarter due to him not liking the Memphis offense at the time. Really Zach Randolph walking out on your team in the first quarter of the most important game in Grizzlies history? Of course Randolph offset this in the second half, which I missed as I was in transit, by leading the Grizzlies back from a double digit second half deficit. This game also marked what may go down as one of the best timing moments in history as I was able to reach my house (and TV) in time for the final possession of the game. The last possession of course didn’t turn out to be anything special as Randolph took a double teamed fall away jumper at the three-point line. Side note the final possession of any game should always go to a guard or small forward because they are infinitely better at creating with limited time on the clock. The Grizzlies dominated overtime which then meant that it was time to hammer Russell Westbrook because he is apparently the only reason the Thunder lose games. Obviously Westbrook has struggled at times with his shot selection but to blame him for every lost Thunder game is a little ridiculous. It’s not his fault that Kevin Durant at times can’t get the ball in the big moments so what else do you want him to do? When Durant gets locked down Westbrook becomes the number one option and often when they run a play for Durant and can’t get him the ball Westbrook is left with only a handful of seconds on the shot clock. This leads to him taking him some bad shots that aren’t even his fault. I’m not totally defending him for his shot selection but it’s gotten a little ridiculous in terms of the blame that Westbrook is receiving.

On the other side of the bracket in the Eastern Conference the Chicago Bulls and Atlanta Hawks are currently locked at two games apiece with a critical game five looming in Chicago on this coming Tuesday. The Hawks like the Grizzlies and Mavericks are a team that most people didn’t expect to be here but they currently find themselves two wins away from reaching the conference semifinals. The Hawks remain an inconsistent team capable of anything like they were in the regular season but the insertion of lightning quick Jeff Teague into the starting lineup has seemingly given them a more effective offensive unit. With Teague in the lineup the Hawks appear to be pushing the ball more often, I say appear because its not like I had a chance to watch the Hawks that much on national television during the regular season, which fits there current group of players better than a half court offense. Side note I dare you to find one player in the NBA that consistently has worse body language than Josh Smith. I’m not trying to bag on the guy, he’s actually one of my favorite players to watch, but he complains about every single call or non-call that goes against the Hawks. On the other hand it’s become pretty apparent that the Bulls are basically playing one on five on the offensive side of the court with Derrick Rose shouldering the load night in and night out. It’s not like this is anything new but its almost like the secondary players on the Bulls have regressed as the season has gone along. Prized free agent acquisition Carlos Boozer was supposed to be that second option but at this point he’s having trouble just staying on the court in the big moments due to his poor production in the playoffs this far. The obvious answer would be to activate Brian Scalabrine and insert him into the game rotation but for some reason the Bulls have kept Scalabrine in street clothes to the shock of many. There may or may not have been sarcasm in that last sentence.

Lastly we have the much-hyped matchup of the Miami Heat versus the Boston Celtics that currently stands with the Heat holding a two games to one matchup over the Celtics. The one thing that has been shown in this series so far is that it is in fact possible to play basketball with only one arm which is what Rajon Rondo proved in game four by playing with a dislocated left elbow. That isn’t a typo Rondo did in fact play with a dislocated left elbow. The only basketball injury that can compare to how grotesque Rondo’s injury was is the image of Shaun Livingston ruining his leg attempting a layup; both are automatic appetite losers. If you watch a replay of how he dislocated his elbow it is absolutely mind-blowing that Rondo came back in and was able to play at a decent level following the dislocation of his elbow. For the record I think that Dwayne Wade did intentionally bring Rondo down but I don’t think he meant to seriously injure Rondo like he did. Its not like Wade suddenly thought something along the lines of “now’s the perfect chance for me to obliterate Rondo’s arm”, the play was just a freak accident. Considering that Rondo probably (definitely) shouldn’t be playing on a dislocated elbow this is a devastating injury for the Celtics because Rondo versus the Heat point guards was the only real matchup advantage that the Celtics enjoyed over the Heat. The real question is if Rondo plays how far are the Heat defenders going to sag off of him? Normally when someone is defending Rondo at the three-point line they sag off to the free throw line so how much further can they sag off? Is it actually possible that the Heat point guards just don’t play defense and stay on the other side of the court? Kidding but all jokes aside serious props to Rondo but I’m not quite sure what a one-armed point guard can accomplish out on the basketball court going forward. Luckily enough Chris Bosh himself provided some good ammunition for the weekly make fun of Chris Bosh section (two week streak for those counting) as Bosh stated after game three’s spectacular performance, six points and five rebounds (LIKE A BOSH), that his nerves got the best of him and hurt his game play. Nothing else needs to be said here, the Heat are 2.5 players not three players there is no way a “star player” ever says that. Can’t Bosh at least come up with something more creative than to mask the fact that he’s too afraid to play in big games. I’m really not sure he could have said something stupider, even something like I didn’t play as well because my pregame meal sucked sounds better.

MLB- My fearless prediction of last week being the week that a no-hitter would be thrown was proven true first by Twins pitcher Francisco Liriano and then again by Tigers ace Justin Verlander. I’m not quite sure you will ever see a weirder pitching performance than Liriano’s, he seemed to have no idea where the ball was ending as evidenced by his six walks but he somehow kept the White Sox from recording a hit. Verlander’s performance was on the other end of the spectrum as he dominated the Blue Jays en route to his second career hitter that was one eighth inning walk away from being a perfect game. For all the talk of last year being the year of the pitcher this year, at least early on, looks like the pitchers will dominate even more. It seems like at least every other night there is a near no hitter and if its not a no hitter than its pitchers putting up an absurd number of strikeouts (Cliff Lee 16 strike outs in seven innings). The only shocking thing about all of this is that the Mariners haven’t been nearly no hit yet but don’t worry there will be multiple occasions as the season progresses. In other news Andre Eithier had his hitting streak snapped at 30 games on Saturday against the Mets which leads me to think that the fifty six game hitting streak won't be snapped any time soon. The reason I say this is that now days compared to when Joe DiMaggio set the record there are specialized pitchers (lefty specialists), infinitely better scouting reports, and intense media pressure. It would be a great achievement to see but we hardly ever see players crack the half way point in recent years which can be attributed to the factors listed above. Continuing with the MLB the Cleveland Indians continue to shock the world by leading the AL Central by 4.5 games. Looking back on it I must have switched the names of the Indians and White Sox in my baseball preview because the Indians are in first where the White Sox supposed to be according to my preview and the White Sox are in last which is where I had the Indians in my preview. That typo aside you can’t even really say that it is a fluke either because the Indians lead the majors in run differential with a plus 48 run differential.

The Week Moving Forward

Owners vs. Players- Hopefully this is the week the lockout was lifted but I would be fine either way as I had Tuesday May 24 as the day the lockout ends in my betting pool. No these betting pools don’t actually exist, but what else would you like me to write here?

NBA- Do I really have to tell you what’s going on in the NBA right now? Here are the updated picks, the fact that there updated really doesn’t improve the odds that I’m correct but whatever; Bulls in 7, Thunder in 7, and Heat in 5.

MLB- We are just now reaching the first quarter mark of the season, you really can’t tell me that the MLB season isn’t a little too long.

Recapping the Week 4/25-5/1

Owners vs. Players- I was almost forced to go back to the old moniker of NFL for this section after the lockout was lifted briefly on Wednesday but thankfully for all NFL fans and players the league came back to their senses and the lockout was reinstated on Friday. I’m not going to get into the legal talk too much but the players were one vote, a two vote to one vote margin in favor a emergency stay (halting all operations), from ending the lockout. Unfortunately the owners won the motion for an emergency stay and for the time being we are back in lockout mode. Still this has to go down as positive news for NFL fans, or fantasy football fans like me, because progress was made towards football operations returning to normal. Once again the future of the league will be determined in the courtroom this week, a ruling will be made on whether to make this emergency stay a temporary stay. If the court decides to strike down the emergency stay then we could be looking at the end of the lockout immediately or if they choose to upgrade the emergency stay to a temporary stay than the battle in the courtroom could drag all the way through the summer meaning that the 2011 NFL season would be in danger.

On a lighter note this past week brought the conclusion to America’s favorite tournament, April Madness or the Madden Cover Athlete Tournament. Much like this years NCAA tournament this tournament was one for the ages with buzzer beaters seemingly at every turn and Cinderella’s registering shocking upsets over more highly regarded opponents. After four weeks of heart pounding action the sports gods brought us the tantalizingly matchup of Peyton Hillis versus Michael Vick for the spot on Madden Armageddon. Sorry I won’t try a joke that bad ever again, I meant Madden 2012. Just as everyone predicted Peyton Hillis pulled off the victory defeating Vick with 65% of the fan voting. Obviously no one predicted that Hillis would win so that is why I am giving Hillis winning the Madden Cover Tournament the number one spot on my list of unexplainable things in life. For those that are wondering the other spots in my top three unexplainable things in life are occupied by me getting into college and my sports teams never winning anything. Seriously there is no real explanation for how Hillis won this tournament, no one outside of Cleveland knows who he is. From all accounts the Hillis title celebrations in Cleveland, marking the first time in millenniums that a Cleveland sports team won something, were rowdy beyond belief. Hillis winning something elevates Cleveland out of their top spot in cities with the worst sports teams; you guessed it, Seattle slides into their unoccupied slot. In other news what am I going to write about for the owners vs. players section now that April Madness is over?

Moving on, this weekend was also the NFL draft, which for some reason tried to market itself as primetime television. I’m sure that starting the draft on Thursday night helped ESPN’s ratings but if it were me I would just do the whole draft on Sunday, just go from 9 AM to 9 PM. Seems ridiculous but it could actually be done, this draft took 15 hours and 38 minutes according to ESPN, you would just cut down on the length of time in between picks by something like 45 seconds or a minute. Really how many picks do you think really come down to the last minute? Think of all the possibilities that could happen if the draft took place on just one day. First off it would have its own nickname, Not Moving From Couch All Day. For whatever reason the NBA and NFL draft can captivate people even though there is no physical action, just talking heads. Then there’s the fact that you would get to watch the commentators heads explode as they tried to process what Al Davis and the Raiders were doing during the draft. I think that there heads have come close to exploding before, Darius Heyward-Bey in the 2009 draft, but were saved because the Raiders had no more picks until the next day. Then there’s the best part, at least to me, would Mel Kiper Jr’s hair stay perfect throughout twelve hours of coverage? My money would be on a no answer to that question but you just never know. I could go on forever with the possibilities but I think I lost enough readers already with those two hypothetical’s. I’m going to keep my thoughts on the draft pretty brief but the one thing I will say is that if you don’t have a proven quarterback you should take a quarterback in one of the first three rounds. If you already have a proven quarterback than you build up your offensive and defensive lines, all the skill positions are meaningless unless you have a franchise QB and a good offensive and defensive line. I’ve been working on a more in depth article about drafting that was supposed to be ready by the draft but have fallen way behind, bottom line look for the article to publish at some point before summer.

The big story about the draft was undoubtedly the run on quarterbacks in the first twelve picks and even though some people have problems with them being drafted too high I don’t have a problem at all with what teams like the Tennessee Titans and Minnesota Vikings did. Both of these teams need a franchise quarterback and both picked presumably the top one that was available to them. Tennessee’s pick of Jake Locker looks a little weird because Blaine Gabbert was still on the board but I still can’t fault them because if they think Locker was the best quarterback available than they made the right call and its now on the coaching staff to develop them. Teams that addressed their quarterback needs in the first three rounds almost always come away as draft winners to me because they got a quarterback and its now on the coaching staff to develop that quarterback. For that reason I think that the big loser in the draft has to be the Arizona Cardinals followed by the Buffalo Bills. The Cardinals were atrocious last year at quarterback and with the fifth pick passed up the opportunity to draft Blaine Gabbert, who some thought was the best quarterback in this draft class. There have been rumors that Marc Bulger is going to join the Cardinals as a free agent once the lockout ends but I would still draft a quarterback in the Cardinals position. Seriously does anyone think that Bulger is a “franchise quarterback?” The Bills are slightly different because they have a returning quarterback in Ryan Fitzpatrick so you can’t fault them for taking the best defensive lineman in the draft, but I would still either take Gabbert because quaterback is the one position where drafting value shouldn’t matter. Other than teams that took a quarterback I like the Lions as a winner for drafting Nick Fairley and the Seahawks as a loser for not addressing their own quarterback concerns. Side note how does only one Oregon player get drafted? They had a large draft eligible class that went to the national title and only one player gets drafted? That just doesn’t add up.

NBA- The first round of playoffs has ended which means thankfully we don’t have to look at Dwight Howard’s facial hair anymore. On the other hand we are unfortunately still left with the image of Steve Blake wearing a headband. For the third straight year the Blazers are first round casualties further proving that my sports teams never win titles. This was the first round matchup the Blazers wanted which is pretty sad because after watching all six games I can confidently say that the Mavericks are basically a better version of the Blazers. Their star power forward Dirk Nowitzki was much better than the Blazers star power forward LaMarcus Aldridge, their other options (neither team has a true second option) were much better than the Blazers, and their bench for the most part outplayed the Blazers. Crazy statistic for the Blazers starting point guard Andre Miller made as many three pointers in the postseason as he did in the regular season. This just shows how bad the Blazer offense was because when Miller shoots a three pointer its basically admitting the offense isn’t working. It does make the loss easier to handle when you consider that the Mavericks play the Lakers in their next series, which basically means that even if the Blazers had beaten the Mavericks their season would have been over in round 2 regardless. Considering that this was the year that the Blazers were supposed to ascend to true contender status you have to mark this season as disappointing but that’s mainly due to injuries to Greg Oden and Brandon Roy.

Elsewhere in the West the Memphis Grizzlies upsetting of the San Antonio Spurs was shocking and also depressing because if you remember I wanted to pick the Grizzlies in six but was scared off because legitimately no one thought they could do it. This is called karma. Too be honest I wasn’t too excited about this series but game five of the Spurs vs. Grizzlies was one of the best basketball games of the season, which is too bad because we were stuck with NBA TV and their biased regional announcers. Side note if you thought these announcers were bad make sure to listen to a Blazer game at some point, the Blazer announcing tandem of Mike and Mike puts these guys to shame. Then again can you blame the announcers? If you follow a team and its players/coaches around for a couple years wouldn’t you yourself get attached? Also a question that must be asked how does Grizzlies power forward and former Blazer legend Zach Randolph get the nickname Z-Bo? Obviously the Z part of the nickname makes sense but the Bo part has always been a question of mine ever since Randolph led the Blazers to continual mediocrity during his tenure in Portland. After watching him as a Blazer I never thought I would say that Z-Bo could be the number one option on a legitimate playoff contender but after watching him destroy the Spurs and Thunder in game one I appear to have been proved wrong. I don’t think that anyone has ever questioned Randolph’s ability to score but during his time in Portland Z-Bo was deemed a black hole for never passing the ball once he touched it. Too be fair to Randolph I’m not quite sure if there was anybody else that good offensively on the Blazers but the dude didn’t pass the rock. The only two times Randolph passed the ball were either when he was in such a bad position he couldn’t shoot or he knew that if he passed it he would immediately get the ball back. I can specifically remember a game where Randolph scored 42 points on 40 shots and the Blazer announcers were calling it a remarkable scoring display while all I could think of was how many shots it took for him to get those points. For comparison when Kobe Bryant dropped 81 points on the Raptors he took only 46 shots. I’m quite sure there were many other instances of Randolph scoring tons of points but I’m also quite sure that he took tons of shots to get there. My point is that his scoring in Portland felt pretty empty, now in Memphis he moves the ball with more regularity and attacks the basket more than he did in Portland leading to his evolution as one of the elite power forwards in the West. The funniest thing about Z-Bo is the fact that he’s listed at 6’9” and never dunks the basketball.

Moving to the Eastern Conference the Atlanta Hawks completed their upset of the Orlando Magic and Dwight Howard’s facial hair (huge victory) setting up a matchup with the top seeded Chicago Bulls. I like the Bulls to advance past the Hawks in six games or less mainly because I’m not sure who the Hawks can put on Derrick Rose. There best hope at containing the likely MVP was Kirk Hinrich but he injured his hamstring and is unlikely to play in game one or two. That being said the Hawks did win the regular season series against the Bulls so they have had some previous success with the Bulls. The other Eastern Conference matchup between the Celtics and the Heat is the one that everybody has been forward to and Game 1 didn’t disappoint. The Heat pulled off the victory by nine points but what made the game so great was the hostility between the two teams. A playoff series between two teams that have a rivalry between each other is almost always must watch television even if you don’t have a horse in the race. You can’t really call the Celtics vs. Heat series a rivalry because the bad blood was brought with LeBron James this summer but these teams really don’t like each other. Despite losing game one I’m going to stick with Boston in six games because I don’t think the Celtics can lose to the Heat. I know that sounds stupid but I just can’t see Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen losing to the Heat this year, for lack of a better term I think it’s the Celtics final stand. This of course is completely reliant on if Kevin Garnett doesn’t pull a Chris Bosh like he did in Game one. For the record Chris Bosh pulled a Chris Bosh in Game one by registering seven points on an impressive three of ten shooting. And with the weekly Chris Bosh joke, I’m hoping to start a Ripken like streak in terms of this, that ends the NBA recap.

MLB- This week will undoubtedly go down as the best Mariner week of the season as the Mariners registered a shocking five game winning streak. Of course the Mariners lost the one game during the week that they were supposed to win on Sunday when they lost to the Red Sox with King Felix pitching but it was still a nice stretch. Moving on with MLB news that people actually care about Dodgers OF Andre Either stretched his hitting streak to 27 games on Sunday which puts him one game away from the halfway mark to the legendary 56 game hitting streak of Joe DiMaggio. I’ve said, along with many others, that Ichiro would be the person with the best shot of breaking the streak but Either has made a nice run of it so far. I don’t think he will get there but I would love to be wrong and see Either string together a hitting streak of at least 57 games. Lastly the Cleveland Indians and Florida Marlins continue to exceed expectations as both find themselves near the top of their respective divisions. The Marlins I had pegged as a wild card sleeper but have gotten off to their best start in franchise history despite the fact that star Hanley Ramirez apparently hasn’t realized that the season has started yet. The Indians on the other hand I predicted to be in a competition for the Seattle Mariners for the worst team in the American League. Led by thirteen straight wins in Cleveland and newfound ace Justin Masterson (5-0 2.25 ERA) the Indians find themselves atop the American League Central. I would say that the Marlins are the team most likely to remain competitive in the playoff race but so far in the AL Central no other team is playing great so the Indians have a shot.

The Week Moving Forward

Owners vs. Players- For the first time in months there is legitimate hope that the lockout could be over, even better is the hope that it could be by the end of the week. There are of course no guarantees but it seems like it might be time for me to start thinking of fantasy football names for next year. It’s never too early to start right? I can guarantee that I will not follow along with last years disastrous name of M-Dubs Club. Looking back on it I was bound to fail from the get go with a name like that.

NBA- If you didn’t know there’s a thing called the PLAYOFFS going on, besides that not much.

MLB- The Mariners after winning five in a row last week are almost guaranteed to lose at least five in a row this week. Fearless prediction sure to go wrong, there will be a no hitter this week.