well... at least it's not terry porter... i think
I loved watching Olajuwon, amazing skill level especially for a big man. I'd take Hakeem over any center I've ever seen play though granted I'm too young to have seen Russell or Kareem at his peak.
Little is known about his basketball philosophy since he never has coached before. Del Negro interviewed for the Suns' coaching job that Terry Porter landed on Saturday, but failed to make Kerr's list of four finalists.
Just wait until that pillar of finesse Hasheem Thabeet hits the NBA
To be fair some of these guys (Ewing, Hakeem) were singular talents, and we were just fortunate enough to see them at pretty much the same time. I mean, nobody's killing the Rockets for passing on Jordan to pick Hakeem. The crop of centers in the league now are all just flawed...there's the athletic Howard types, the European finesse centers (Z, Pau), and Yao. And there's nobody coming along either; Greg Oden looks like another of these limited offensive bigs that the league is filled with.
Ewing didn't really have great lowpost moves....he developed into a nice shooter, though. The thing about Hakeem, is, he WAS a man-child when he got to the NBA. Check out his college highlights....not a lot of actual moves...but he worked his fucking ass off, and became about as polished downlow as one can get. How much time does Howard spend on footwork, as opposed to dreaming up his next amazing dunk?
ewing didn't have the flashy moves that olajuwon had but he had an amazing understanding of the single most important thing a post player needs to, um, understand... how to use your oppoents body and weight to your advantage. he was a master of getting a guy to lean a certain way and then going the opposite direction, be it the baseline fall away jumper or the pattened ewing 2 & 1/2 step runner in the lane. he was also a tremendous passer from the post, a lost art gone the way of the mid-range jumper, which ewing was also great at
Kobe. This one stunned me a little bit. Who doesn’t know Kobe Bryant right? I only know what I have heard, starting awhile back with the entire Shaq debacle. I don’t really have an opinion one way or the other on or about him other than to know that people feel he might be one of the 4-5 greatest players to ever lace it up. What I do know is what I got to see up close and hear, was unexpected. From the first tip until about 4 minutes left in the game I saw and heard this guy bitch at his teammates. Every TO he came to the bench pissed, and a few of them he went to other guys and yelled about something they weren’t doing, or something they did wrong. No dialog about “hey let’s go, let’s get after it” or whatever. He spent the better part of 3.5 quarters pissed off and ranting at the non-execution or lack of, of his team. Then when they made what almost was a historic run in the 4th, during a TO, he got down on the floor and basically said ‘Let’s f’ing go, right now, right here” or something to that affect. I am not making this observation in a good or bad way, I have no idea how the guys in the NBA play or do things like this, but I thought it was a fascinating bit of insight for me to watch someone in another sport who is in the position of a team leader and how he interacted with his team and teammates. Watching the other 11 guys, every time out it was high fives and “Hey nice work, let’s get after it” or something to that affect. He walked off the floor, obligatory skin contact on the high five, and sat on the bench stone faced or pissed off, the whole game. Just weird to see another sport and how it all works. I would assume that’s his style and how he plays and what works for him because when I saw the leader board for scoring in the post season his name sat up top at 31+ a game, can’t argue with that. But as a fan I was watching the whole thing, Kobe, his teammates and then the after effects of conversations. He’d yell at someone, make a point, or send a message, turn and walk away, and more than once the person on the other end would roll eyes or give a ‘whatever dude’ look.
Bloody socks and all.
Do I even want to know what you mean by this?
I just got thrown off by the bloody sock part.
Potentially BIG TIME breaking news...apparently Tim Donaghy - the former ref nailed for gambling on NBA games - is ratting the league out to the feds in some sort of an attempt/deal to save his own ass, or get a lighter sentence, or something of the sort. He told the feds that two NBA refs known in the league at the time as 'company guys' were given a mandate in a 2002 to make sure a playoff series that year went seven games. The articles covering this don't name the series specifically, but there was only one seven-game series in 2002 - the Lakers-Kings WCF. You can bet your ass he's talking about that notorious game 6, including the infamous foul call on Bibby after he had been elbowed in the face by Kobe. Donaghy is basically saying the league was behind it.
He also said that the league tells its refs specifically not to call technical fouls on star players and especially not to eject star players.
There is also some mention of an incident involving the Rockets, Mavs, Yao, and JVG from a few years back that I am not very familiar with.
I mean...some will say, and are already saying, 'why should we believe anything Donaghy says?' but....if he's ratting these people out to save his own ass, he'd only get in bigger trouble if he gave the feds false info. Plus, all of this is very believable.
Oh, and ESPN already getting flack for conveniently not really mentioning the Lakers/Kings thing in their article about it. Many expect ESPN to lay low about this considering that they have the NBA's contract right now.
If this is true...wow.
A strange but intense first half.
Kobe being more aggressive but missing 5 free throws, Garnett's shot is broke, Gasol playing like a girl, P.J. Brown going toe to toe with little Jordan Farmar, Sasha Vujacic looking like the second coming of Steve Kerr.
Bring on the second half. Go Lakers.
For those of you who hate cheating scandals: NBA former ref claims playoffs are rigged
Ex-NBA referee: playoff series manipulated - NBA - Yahoo! Sports
I think back to Portland, or Minnesota, and definitely Sacramento and remember those games being times when I began questioning the NBA and fixing games. It's too bad.
We covered that. On this very page.