Dallas Mavericks

The NBA is completely bonkers right now. With less than two weeks until season’s tip-off, players are being flipped faster than flapjacks at IHOP. Chris Paul has been perfecting his start-and-stop from the comfort of his living room. Dwight Howard can't seem to decipher his own feelings about the Magic. Lamar Odom, as collateral from the Paul fall-out, whined his way to the Mavs, who were spurned earlier in the week by Tyson Chandler (Knicks). Chauncey Billups took his frequent flier miles to the Clips (though he could be dealt again by the time I finish this sentence) and Big Baby was swapped for Brandon Bass.

Continue reading "NBA Anarchy"

Every Monday, with the assistance of the good people over at www.basketball-reference.com, I like to take a look deep into the statistics of teams and players from around the league in a little post I like to call “Fun with Box Scores”.

Continue reading "Fun With Box Scores"

Happy New Year!

With the new NBA season set to tip off with four games tonight, here are some of the things I’ll be watching for in tonight’s action.

Boston @ Cleveland, 7:30pm

I can’t wait to see LeBron again this season. Last year, coming off the Olympics, you could see that his focus was on improving defensively. Now, without a summer in the spotlight, I’m curious to see if he’s made any improvements to his already unreal game. Is this the year we finally see LeBron use his Karl Malone-like body to beast on people inside?

Continue reading "NBA Opening Night Quick Thoughts"

When Mark Cuban told Lydia Moore that her son, the Nuggets' Kenyon Martin, was a "thug" after Game 3 of the Nuggets-Mavs series, he crossed a line. I thought I'd point out the Top 10 Things he MEANT TO SAY to Ms. Moore:

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Dirk Nowitzki, Dallas Mavericks (25.8, 8.5, 2.4) – Although the fans’ omission of Dirk in favor of Stoudemire wasn’t as egregious as Allen Iverson’s selection over Devin Harris, the fans got this one wrong, also. Dirk has one of the sweetest shots in the game and is having a superb season. His numbers thus far are better than they were when he won the MVP two years ago. Dirk is also one of only five players to appear in the top 20 in both points and rebounds.

Continue reading "The Sports Don Reveals His Western ..."

Harris, who was foolishly traded away by the Dallas Mavericks before last season’s deadline (but that’s a blog for another time), is the 11th highest-scorer in the entire league at 21.5 points per game placing him 20 spots higher than AI. And when you look at the numbers, which is the only thing anyone should look at, Harris’ 2008-2009 totals leave little-to-no evidence for his omission.

Continue reading "Fans Rob Harris, Wrongfully Reward Iverson"

Today's tangent is inspired by Raymond (shockingly, with me on this one) and Matt Stauffer, who has posed a challenge to me by asserting that the Celtics will lose to either Detroit or the winner of the Western Conference for a few key reasons.  Following the game one victory for Boston, I thought I'd address a few of his concerns (convenient that I waited until a resounding Celtics victory to start talking smack, isn't it?).  Hey, hey, easy now, I'm not fixin' to start a war or anything, in fact I respect the feedback and the fact that somebody is actually reading my posts (anyone else? ...Beuller?).  I'm only out to address the argument and provide as complete a rebuttal as I can, so without further delay, let's get started.

Continue reading "Hungry Like the (Former) Wolf"

prospect that I'm most excited for is the possibility that Mike D'Antoni could end up coaching the Dallas Mavericks next year.  It may not happen, especially when you consider that Mark Cuban is looking for a coach to put the Mavs over the top and win a championship which D'Antoni isn't exactly personifying at this moment, but still I think it could happen.

Continue reading "Musings From the Hammock"

Now that's more like it.  The Celtics have put the Hawks on the ropes with a resounding and convincing victory in game 5 last night.  Everything that was going wrong for Boston in games 3 and 4 seems to have been solved by playing in front of their home crowd, and similarly, everything that was going right for the Hawks evaporated into thin air as the road team.  I suppose that it just goes to show how huge an advantage a raucous home crowd can be in a playoff series.  That being said, I think that the Celtics are poised to break the cycle in this series and finish the Hawks off in game 6 in Atlanta.

Continue reading "Return to Form"