The Sound Of Basketballs On Playgrounds And All...

Finally! A night where I was able to sit down and watch some basketball games. I was able to flip back and forth between the Nets-Cavs game on ESPN and the Spurs-Grizzlies game on Fox Sports Southwest. After that I was able to watch the tail-end of the Texas Longhorns and Arkansas Razorbacks game on ESPN 2, followed by the Mavs-Sonics game in the late slot on ESPN. It was a good night. And if you didn't know, the Nets, Spurs, Longhorns, and Mavs won. Isn't that simple? Anyway, I took some random notes throughout the night. Here they are:

• Mikki Moore looks like Spanish from Old School. If I ever meet Moore, I won't be able to live with myself unless I ask him if he trusts that I've provided him with enough rope so that his block will land safely on the lawn.
• The Grizzlies play a lot better than their record indicates. Although I'm going to attribute that to the fact that they now have Pau Gasol back in their lineup.
• The Spurs are quietly doing their thing this season. They are flying completely under the radar, they have the best record in the NBA and the best point differential and nobody is talking about them. They are right where they want to be.
• Jason Kidd probably has the best combination of reaction time and awareness in the league. It's amazing to watch.
• It's 70's night in Seattle? Where are the throwback jerseys? Where are the coaches in bell-bottoms? I remember when the NBA had "Turn Back the Clock Nights" about 10 years ago and the Sonics wore their old jerseys and George Karl dressed like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Now those were the good, old days.
• Bob Hill's hair is in mid-season form.
• Speaking of hair, Mickael Gelabale from the Sonics has the same hair as MTV's Sway.
• I'm not totally sold on Kevin Durant yet. The potential is there (hate that word), he's got the size and athleticism, but I need to see more. He looks like a taller Josh Howard, which is a scary thought.
• In the first half, Luke Ridnour gets called for a foul because Jerry Stackhouse stepped on the back of his foot when driving to the basket. Didn't know that was a foul, I guess I'll have to study up on my rulebook this weekend.
• If the Sonics get the #1 pick in the draft this summer and take Greg Oden (which they should), they will have taken four straight centers with their first round picks over the last four years. Hopefully one of them will start to be of some use.
• With 8 minutes left in the third quarter, Johan Petro gets REJECTED (required to use capital letters for that block) by Devean George at the rim. Looked a whole lot better at game-speed than it did in slo-mo.
• Chris Wilcox would have a lot more points and rebounds in this game if he would just come down with a rebound and then go back up with it instead of trying to one-hand-tomahawk every ball that comes of the rim. As I write that last sentence, he finally converts one. Whatever.

So I finally got a good night of basketball watching in. And you finally got some game notes to read. We're all happy now aren't we? I thought so.

Playing A Little Catch-Up

Yeah, it's been a month. What can I say? I suck at this whole posting consistently thing. Worse things have happened in the world. I'm going to try, try, try to get on a schedule here when it comes to posting. But I apologize in advance for what will happen when I inevitably stop posting for weeks at a time.

On to the NBA, which is why we're here anyway.

A small scuffle broke out between the Nuggets and Knicks on Saturday night. Okay, so I'm under-exaggerating a little bit. It was the biggest fight we've seen in the NBA since Detroit in 2004 (I refuse to give the incident a corny nickname). But as bad as it was, I believe people are blowing it out of proportion. Stuff like this happens a lot in the NHL and Major League Baseball. But whenever the national media covers it, they treat it like something normal. But when it happens in the NBA, the league and all of the "thugs" who play in it are made to look ridiculous. I'm not saying it's a race issue one bit, but I am saying it's an image issue. One David Stern has tried to change, but nonetheless is still there. Speaking of the commish, David Stern and his "Family" (he is the Don after all), did a fair job handing down suspensions. Carmelo Anthony deserved about 15 games for the hit he landed on Mardy Collins. Collins deserved at least 6 games, I wouldn't have been surprised to see him get 10, just like J.R. Smith (who was originally fouled), and Nate Robinson. Jared Jeffries got four and Nene and Jerome James each got one game for leaving their benches. All in all, pretty fair penalties for the fight. And I think that even if Carmelo gets his suspension lessened to 12 games, it will still be fair. But you can never backpedal to your own bench after having punched someone across the face, not a smart move.

Allen Iverson is on the trading block (again) and it appears this will be for good. This excites me for several reasons. 1) I love Allen Iverson and I would die to see him on a championship caliber team again. 2) I love seeing big stars get traded and move to new teams rather than see them move via free agency. 3) I believe he'll have a bit of a rejuvenation when he gets to his new team. Although it's hard to imagine what a rejuvenated Allen Iverson will look like considering the current Iverson is second in the league in points per game, second in steals per game, and tenth in assists per game. Some in the national media have said that a trade for Iverson won't work not because of his contract or his attitude, but because of his style of play. A.I. does dominate the ball on offense, it's the way he plays. He also takes a lot of shots. Because of this many believe that he will be unable to coexist with another all-star caliber player if/when he gets traded. If he is forced to play along with another player who is used to controlling the ball on the offensive end, then yes, it probably won't work. As much as I'd love to see them play together, I don't think Iverson playing alongside Kevin Garnett would work. But trade him to a team with a player who doesn't need the ball in his hands to score, an unselfish player who rebounds well on the offensive end, a player like Dwight Howard. And as I write that last sentence, I find out that an agreement has been made to trade A.I. to Denver for Andre Miller, Joe Smith, and two 2007 first round draft picks, all of this according to ESPN.com. There's a reason why I'm not a GM apparently. Ugh, I'm done today.