7 posts tagged “basketball”

I don't expect this to be a high impact draft in the NBA.  Derrick Rose is probably the only player that could make an immediate impact on his team (the Chicago Bulls).  Michael Beasley seems smallish, while I am concerned about O.J. Mayo's attitude.  Everyone drafted after them seem like good players, but I don't recall anyone who stood out.  I liked Mario Chalmers on the NCAA champion Kansas team, but that doesn't guarantee that he'll become a good pro player.

My favorite team, the Sacramento Kings, got three guys I kinda shrug my shoulders at (Jason Thompson, Sean Singletary and Patrick Ewing, Jr.).  They're not bad, but I don't know what kind of impact they'll have.  The Kings are already a young team, but they don't seem to have a core to build around yet.

For the local team (the Golden State Warriors), they got another super-tall, super-skinny power forward (Brandan Wright last year, Anthony Randolph this year).  Funny enough, some people seem to like their second round pick better (Richard Hendrix) than the first round pick.

All of the local players drafted this year (Brook and Robin Lopez from Stanford, Ryan Anderson and DeVon Hardin from Cal), all have talent with limits.  Brook Lopez has a good offensive game now, but seems to have a limited ceiling.  Robin Lopez is the better defensive player, but he doesn't have much of an offensive game yet.  Ryan Anderson is a good shooter, but plays poor defense and is average on the block.  DeVon Hardin is a good, but unspectacular big man.  I expect all of these guys will eventually become decent bench players (at best).

The NBA is much more entertaining than it's been in years, so hopefully, we'll continue to see a fresh infusion of talent. The NBA draft gives everyone hope that they just drafted the next Michael Jordan.

Boy, was I wrong.  I had picked North Carolina and UCLA to go to the NCAA Basketball Tournament final, and both teams got destroyed by their opponents.

I totally underestimated Kansas' athletic ability.  I figured that North Carolina would play good defense and be able to withstand anything Kansas could throw at them.  I didn't see Kansas just shooting the lights out and getting fast breaks all the time.  The game was practically over after the first 10 minutes.  I give Carolina credit for almost catching Kansas, but Kansas had enough gas left in the tank to finish them off.

With regards to the Memphis-UCLA game, I thought UCLA would be able to hang close and finish Memphis off at the free throw line.  I didn't anticipate such a wipeout.  I'm disappointed that UCLA coach Ben Howland didn't get his team to attempt three-point shots to try to get back into the game.  I think he just wanted to give the appearance of a somewhat close game.  Memphis point guard Derrick Rose just overpowered UCLA's Darren Collison, and UCLA was unable to effectively get the ball to their star player Kevin Love.

The final should be good.  Both teams are very athletic, but I think Memphis might have just enough to hold off Kansas. They seem to be more effective at scoring than Kansas and I don't know if Kansas has as much of a killer instinct as Memphis.

UPDATE: Of course, Kansas won the whole thing.  Good thing I didn't bet on the Tournament this year....

Well, I didn't see that coming.  While I think Mike Montgomery is a terrific coach, I never expected him to jump across the bay to coach for the rival of his current employer (Stanford).  I always thought school loyalties should trump everything else.  For example, it's also weird to see Ken Norton, Jr. coaching at USC when he went to school at UCLA.  But I guess it's different when you're not an alum of either school (Montgomery graduated from Long Beach State).

It's clear Cal Athletic Director Sandy Barbour wanted to go with a big name with this hire.  She couldn't do worse than Montgomery, that's for sure.  I love her hire of Cal women's coach, Joanne Boyle (she of the messy hair), so I hope Montgomery will at least come close to matching his success at Stanford. My complaints about Ben Braun, the former coach, was that he never had a team with any specific style of play.  They were supposed to be defensive-minded, but that never seemed to show itself from year-to-year. And for what it's worth, all of his teams were going to finish around .500.  As an alum, I'd like to see the team go to the NCAA Tournament every other year, and a deep run (Sweet 16 or better) every 5 years.  Montgomery should be able to achieve that.

Maybe next year, we can see Cal basketball match the success of their rivals across the bay.

There was an article in the San Francisco Chronicle March 9th with an interview with David Stern, the current NBA Commissioner about his thoughts on the future of the NBA.  He covered a bunch of topics, including the move of the Seattle Supersonics to Oklahoma City, expansion into Europe, and a possible change in the playoff format.  Below, are the changes I would make if I were the NBA Commissioner:

1. Shorten the season/Eliminate divisions
There are 82 games in the season, which is ridiculously long and boring.  Here's an easy way to make it better for the players' health and make the playoffs more interesting: Play a home-and-home with every team.  Since there are 30 teams, this makes for a (29 * 2 = 58) 58 game season. Longer than college, but not as tiring as an 82 game season.  The other benefit of this will be packed houses for specific games since rabid fans will want to go to the one game that LeBron James (or whoever their favorite player is) plays their home team.

Divisions are now no longer needed since you don't play divisional opponents more than any other teams.  Picking the playoff teams now becomes easier, since the top 16 teams make it, regardless of where they play.  For tiebreakers, you have common opponents (basically every other team).  So if you end up 1-1 vs. another team, you can compare records against all other teams, and if that's a tie also, then schedule a one-game playoff.

2. Schedule regular days for playing
Like the NFL playing mostly on Sundays, you could schedule the same nights for the NBA.  This makes it more of an event and easier for watching on TV.  Say, you play Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.  No more back-to-back games, which most teams lose on the second day, regardless of whether they're the home or road team.

3. Change the Playoff format
Since you're now going to have more East vs. West matchups, it makes sense to shorten the early round of the playoffs to reduce travel.  Make it like the WNBA: three games with the last two games at the home of the higher seed.  There should be no excuse for the higher seed to lose in the first round.  Increase to a 5-game series in Round 2 (2-2-1 format) and 7-game series for the last two rounds (2-3-2 format).  The problem with the current format is the first few rounds are too stretched out, leaving some teams idle for long stretches of time while their potential opponents in the next round are still playing.  Most of the lower-seeded teams can't compete with the higher-seeded teams anyway, so completing the first round faster is better.

4. Change the NBA All-Star Game
Hold the event in Las Vegas every year.  Since there are no more divisions, you can now have either a veterans vs. young guys game or you can have a U.S. vs. the world (like hockey had a while back).  How about Brandon Roy,  Chris Paul, Kevin Durant, Al Horford, and Dwight Howard vs. LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Steve Nash, and Yao Ming (young guys vs. veterans)? Or how about LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul, Dwight Howard, and Tim Duncan vs. Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, Yao Ming, Pau Gasol and Manu Ginobili (U.S. vs. the world)?  Or do it in an even more radical way: Pick the full team, say 20 players; pick two captains and let them pick their team like in elementary school.  Right now, it's a glorified exhibition and no one cares much.  At least make it more fun for the fans.

5. Have specific rules on when a team can move
With Seattle (and possibly Sacramento) moving because they can't get a new stadium, make it harder for teams to relocate without a valid reason.  For example, stadium is old and creaky, no fan support, etc. If there is clear fan support and all that's upsetting the owners is the lack of a brand-new stadium, they can't move.  Make them sell the team to another ownership group. No expansion into Europe until the league stabilizes here.

That's all I can think up for now.  Until then, let's see how the playoffs go this year.

Well, all four Number 1 seeds made the Final Four (North Carolina, UCLA, Memphis and Kansas).  I got three out of the four teams right (I didn't have Kansas in the Final Four), so I was rooting for Davidson.  Stephen Curry and Davidson almost pulled off the upset, but his teammate, Jason Richards, missed his three-point shot attempt at the buzzer.  The Davidson-Kansas game was tight all the way through and was the most entertaining of the four games.  Tough defense for both teams kept it relatively low scoring.  Davidson would have been more fun in the Final Four, but Kansas gives the tournament some legitimacy in terms of the seeding.

College basketball is the most fun in the first week because of all the potential upsets.  By the end of the tournament, the big basketball schools usually are all that remain.  My alma mater, Cal, barely made the NIT and lost in the second round.  After the loss, the head coach was fired (Ben Braun).  Cal is not a big basketball school, so we expect at least an NCAA Tournament berth.  Hopefully, we can hire a good enough coach to get us there soon.

My predictions for the Final Four is that North Carolina will be the champion over UCLA.  UCLA seems to be able to do just enough to win, but Carolina seems to have everything going for them this year: good defense, good offense, and an excellent transition game.  I would be surprised if Carolina doesn't at least make the finals.

This has been a fun tournament so far.  In the first two rounds, there were a bunch of upsets (Davidson, Western Kentucky, San Diego) and a few near-upsets (UCLA vs. Texas A&M, Memphis vs. Mississippi State).  Of the teams left in the Sweet Sixteen, North Carolina looks the best.  With Ty Lawson on the outside and Tyler Hansbrough on the inside, they look like they can beat teams either way.  I have UCLA playing them for the National Championship in my picks (with Carolina winning the whole thing).

As a Cal alum, I can begrudgingly admit that Stanford is better than I thought they were.  I still think that they'll get knocked off by Texas, but I never thought they could get past Marquette.  Their guards are still pretty bad and only the miracle Brook Lopez shot saved them from losing.  Of course, it didn't help that coach Trent Johnson went nuts and nearly cost his team the game by coming on to the court to question the ref's call.

Looking forward to the next round, I had North Carolina and Louisville in the East, Kansas and Wisconsin in the Midwest, Memphis and Texas in the South and UCLA and Xavier in the West.  Wisconsin is the only school I actually didn't select in my original picks.  Like a lot of people, I got fooled into picking USC because of the hot play of O.J. Mayo and Taj Gibson.  Oh, well.

• I am really looking forward to the NCAA College Basketball tournament.  This should be a really competitive tournament with a good chance for some upsets in the first few rounds.  My favorites are UCLA, Memphis and North Carolina.  My alma mater (Cal) didn't make it, so I have to watch them in the NIT.
  
• Speaking of the NCAA, I still hate the Bowl Championship Series.  There are no excuses for not having a playoff.  Just start with the top 4 teams and add more every few years.
• I just bought a Digital Video Recorder.  Unfortunately, it's crap and I'll probably have to return it.  All I want is a replacement for my VCR in anticipation of the Digital Broadcasting switchover in 2009.  I don't want to pay for a service, so that rules out TiVO.  I think the search continues...
  
• The Bear Stearns buyout seemed like a panic move by the Bush Administration (but what hasn't been a panic move by those incompetent boobs?).  I would love to see the Democrats win the White House, but my fear is that their stupidity in running campaigns will continue in the election this fall. If they're smart, they hammer home that "McCain = Bush" and you'll get more Iraq and more recession.  Hopefully, Hillary won't burn down the house in order to win the nomination.
• Movies have been pretty blah so far this year.  Saw "Horton Hears a Who" on Saturday.  Meh.  I was hoping it would be funnier.  I'm anticipating the summer films this year.  Indy Jones and The Dark Knight in particular look pretty good.
• Anyway, that's my brain dump for today.  Happy St. Patrick's Day!