The NBA is Back!

Sunday December 25, 2011 was tip-off day for the 2011-2012 NBA season. The games have always been great on Christmas Day, but this would be different due to the 140+ day lockout that just occurred (and it showed).

The Day started off at 11:00 AM with the debut on TNT of Shaq. Shaq on TNT is a great combination; especially with "Sir" Charles Barkley being on as well. (Note: Congrats Barkley on the weight loss).
The Knicks defeated the Celtics on what I believe was a fluke foul call by the refs at the end of the game. The Bulls are definitively the best team in the East top to bottom (D.Rose is BEAST) after defeating a hard working KB24 with the Lakers. Then The Clippers defeated the Golden State Warriors, which was a fun and exciting game, and was the best overall offensive game (not team Miami fans) of the day.

The Orlando Magic and the OKC Thunder was a one-sided affair. For Orlando it was turnovers,horrible shot choices as well as shooting, defense lacked,and NO offensive flow. For all the Magic fans there were some bright spots as well as some that were NOT bright.

Bright Spot:
1) Jameer Nelson & Von Wafer (Nice pick up thus far) refused to settle for jumpers and kept penetrating. (Exactly what Orlando did the first 9 shots of the game, even TURK)
2) Ryan Anderson was one fire from three and he will more than likely continue that.

NOT Bright:
1) Jason Richardson shooting (???), Chris Duhon (please comeback Jason Williams), Turk choosing not to take open jumpers but make impossible fade aways or horrible passes, Earl Clark lack of denfense, Dwight Howard scoring as well as passing our of the quadruple teaming!

In general all the teams that played (excluding Miami) seemed to still be in Summer League mode because offense and defensive line-ups looks scrambled, the bad passing, as well as the slower looking players.

Stan Van Gundy vs Jeff Van Gundy to DH12 Blunt Answer on Joining MIA!

   Stand Van Gundy was awarded the Mikey Award as Best Guest  for a local Orlando radio show called Open Mic. The award has no high prestige among other sports awards, but none the less Stan "The Man" Van Gundy added humor in accepting the award this past Friday, July 29, 2011. Gundy did what he always seems to do indirectly, be one of the most entertaining figures in the NBA, and of course Mark Cuban holds that top spot pretty tight. Although Stan's brother Jeff Van Gundy is pretty high up the list as well? Watch, or I mean listen to Van Gundy's acceptance of the award below. (Video Courtesy Orlando Sentinel)
 

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports_magic/2011/07/listen-stan-van-gundy-accepts-not-so-prestigious-mikey-award.html

Here is why Mark Cuban still holds the spot for Most Entertaining Figure in the NBA!

   There have been alot of rumors guessing about Dwight Howard's future with Orlando, and if he will stay or go, blah blah blah. Of course we all should have expected such media attention to this, but man it gets exhausting hearing and listening to all of these so called experts (Insert Charles Barkley's comment here: "Only GOD is an expert EJ.") trying to project  waht DH12 will do. 

   When Dwight was asked if he was going to go play for the Miami Heat at Comic Con, Dwight answers   "Never."

   When Dwight was asked if he was going to play for L.A. Lakers, Dwight answered, "“That’s everybody’s question. I am wearing purple … but that’s Rock’s outfit.” By the way the "Rock" is the cartoon character, Rock Callahan, who Dwight plays the voice for teh Disney XD cartoon Kick Buttowski.

In my opinion, DH12, looks pretty cool as a cartoon character. What do you guys think?

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports_magic/2011/07/dwight-howard-promotes-disney-cartoon-at-comic-con-photos.html

Here It Is and Remember DH12 is a man of many talents(Video Courtesy Orlando Sentinel).

P.S. follow me on twitter @doolz2dribble.

 

Chris Paul or Deron Williams? The Magic Have A Lot of Thinking To Do!

Is Jameer Nelson going to fade in the Magic's history of PG, and is CP3 or D.Will the Magic's future?

Please follow me on twitter @doolz2dribble. 
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It seems as if all the exciting and exaggerated NBA speculations have ceased, since the NBA lockout started on July 1^st. Yes, one year without NBA, after one of its peak seasons in interest would SUCK, but we should all feel some hope since the NFL players and owners have started to see more eye to eye during the recent negotiations. Rumor has it that there may be a rookie salary cap in the NFL, would the NBA follow… hmmm?

          Now if the NBA lockout does continue to drag out and the 2011-2012 season is shortened or completely gone well, we can all look toward the following: (WATCH video below)

          The conversation for Orlando prior to the lockout and rumors of Josh Smih or Monta Ellis, was who should Orlando try and peruse Chris Paul or Deron Williams. Bottom Line up front from my perspective is YOU CANT GO WRONG WITH EITHER PLAYER!

          Now there have probably been numerous comparisons between these two players, but one more won’t hurt. Therefore, without further adieu (fancy word/spelling), the CP3 VS D.Will comparison. (Jameer was thrown in for all the Jameer DISKLIK-ers) The chart is the current career averages of each player.

The averages of these two players differ in such small amounts, but still some analysis I guess would be good. Chris Paul has unexpected rebound average of 4.5 regular season and 5.3 playoffs, even though he is a smaller player when compared to Deron Williams.

Although Chris Paul does have the advantage when it comes to the rebounding, an unexpected advantage that Deron Williams holds of Chris Paul is that Deron Williams has participated in 44 playoff games, while CP3 has only played in 23 playoff games. This surprised me because the sports media speaks of CP3 so much, I expected more playoff appearances.

Both Chris Paul and Deron Williams have the ability of shooting the ball, defending, and most importantly the ability of court vision and distributing the ball. Both players averaged above 9 assist a game, which is one thing the Magic and more specifically Dwight Howard have not experienced.

Another great aspect of these two players is the fact that they raise their game to the next gear during the playoffs. Both players experience jumps in statistics when compared to the regular season.

Now one thing that I can’t put in a chart and this fact sticks out strongly in my mind is the fact that CP3 this past playoffs single handedly made the Lakers a little scared. He averaged 11.1, yes 11.1 assist a game against the LOS ANGELES LAKERS. OH and did I mention HE HAD NO NOTEABLE #2 ON THE COURT WITH HIM, AS DAVID WEST WAS INJURED. That fact alone shows how he makes the team better. I have yet to see this from Deron Williams, and maybe it is there.

If you remember a couple years ago, Chris Paul had a teammate who is now a NBA Champion, who was pivotal in the Dallas Mavericks run to the championship named Tyson Chandler. When Chris Paul and Tyson Chandler were on the same team, they lead the league in alley-oops, and second was Turkoglu and Dwight Howard. Now just imagine what CP3 could do with DH12. SCARY THOUGH HUH!

I know this post sounds bias toward Deron Williams, but Deron Williams did have his moments like this past season where he and Paul Milsap made those great double digit comebacks against Miami, Orlando, and I believe Charlotte.  Deron also played with Carlos Boozer, who created a nice combination in Utah.

One interesting note for Jameer Nelson who I respect after watching him earn, yes earn his spot as starting PG  from the let down of Steve Francis. Nelson’s FT%, FG%, and 3PT% during the playoffs in his career are very very close to the values Chris Paul and Deron Williams have.

He is not a bad point guard to have, but when playing with Dwight Howard, he needs a strong distributor. Nelson averaged 4.9 assist per game during his regular season, but DROPS OFF during the playoffs to 4.4 assists. That last fact about Nelson I will give to the Nelson DISLIK-ers. BUT, this past season he improved and averaged 6.0 assists a game, maybe he still has that room for improvement.

Nelson also has one key and very vital element over Chris Paul and Deron Williams, and that is the chemistry he has built with his very close teammate Dwight Howard since both were drafted by Orlando in the 2005 NBA Draft.

All in all, the Magic need to make improvements to its roster, and many are jumping to gaining a superstar like Deron Williams or CP3, which looks like it will be a difficult task for the Magic organization.  

I am so grateful for having Jameer Nelson for these years, and watching him grow into that All-Star form prior to injury, but I also want to see my team, the Orlando Magic get that champrionship. I don’t know, all I am doing is speculating, which is always fun, and a nice break from that annoying NBA Lockout.
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Here It Is & Remember Bottom Line up front from my perspective is YOU CANT GO WRONG WITH EITHER OF THESE PLAYERS (even Jameer if other areas improve)!


Please Leave Your Comments.


Notes: all statistics were found on http://www.basketball-reference.com.

2011 NBA Finals Pre-Tip Off

The 2011 NBA finals are set, as the Dallas Mavericks, go to face the Miami Heat. These two teams have shown brilliance throughout the playoffs, from Dirk Nowitzki’s AMAZING increase in production to Lebron James and the heat proving that they can finish games out very strong.

The Miami Heat have yet to face a dynamic player such as Dirk, and the Dallas Mavericks have yet to face such a triple threat offensive game. Both teams need to play to their strength, obviously, in order to win this series.

This match-up will be a great one, and for the Heat to defeat the Dallas Mavericks they will need to go to their most potent offensive weapons, which are transition, cutting, and hand-off baskets. The Dallas Mavericks will have trouble with dribble penetration as Russel Westbrook was getting into the paint multiple times, and now Lebron adn D.Wade will try and do the same. The Dallas Mavericks want to make Miami become a spot up shooting team and live with the consequences. Lebron James has had his stats decrease in many areas when facing the Dallas Mavericks, but the regular season does not matter, as he has won games in the final minutes for Miami in the Boston series as well as the Bulls series.

The Dallas Mavericks will need to play to their strengths as well on the offensive ends, which are post-ups and spot up shooting. They will need to make their pick and roll and transition game become more potent, especially when JJ Barea comes into the game with energy to push the pace. The Miami Heat want to stay on the three point line, and try to defend Dirk as best as they can when he post-up at the elbow.

Both teams will need to defend very well and it will be hard has both teams have superstars that will get points. Shawn Marion for the Dallas Mavericks has been fantastic on defense, and he showed how good he was while guarding Kevin Durant. The Mavericks will need to have Jason Kidd play the same defense he has been playing and surprisingly Deshawn Stevenson, when in the game, will need to play great defense against Dwayne Wade.

The Miami Heat will need to guard the three point line and stay in front of JJ Barea, but their largest defensive task will be to somehow slightly slow down Dirk. Lebron and Haslem will need to play great one-on-one defense on Dirk, and try to make him take the most difficult shots they can force him into. Miami most likely will need to double dirk as the game goes, due to his skill set on off-balanced shots.

The boards will be the deciding factor in this series, especially for Dallas, because you don't want Dwayne Wade, Lebron James, and Chris Bosh to have to many second chance shots. The Dallas bench will need to keep up their spectacular play, and Miami’s bench will need to step it up to help the big three.

In 2006 I wanted Dallas to go over, and in 2011 I will cheer for Dallas again. Dirk is one player I really want to see win that championship. It is difficult to make a prediction on who will win this series.

Here It Is & Remember The Orlando Magic are still #1 team.

P.S. Will Orlando fans want to see the Miami Heat, a home state team, win?