By DjackThe second half of the NBA season starts tomorrow, which means it’s time for some predictions. Let’s start with who will close out the season with the strongest performance to take home the MVP. Right now, James Harden is the front runner to win the award followed by LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, and Russell Westbrook. There’s a few others still in the race, they’ll just have to go absolutely bonkers to win the award. I think the MVP is going to come down to Lebron, KD, and James Harden. My pick to win is James Harden since he’s never won even though he’s been having MVP caliber seasons the last few seasons. Typically the voters will give it to a guy that hasn’t won before if the numbers are all in the same vicinity. This is the exact reason why Lebron doesn’t win every year and hasn’t won in the last 4 seasons. If the Rockets do finish as the 1 seed in the West, Harden will most certainly win. If the Warriors finish with the 1 seed then KD or maybe even Steph have a good shot to win. The only way I see LeBron winning is if he carries the Cavs on some sick run down the stretch and they end up as the 1 seed in the East. That won’t happen, so ultimately I believe James Harden should be able to hold on the rest of the way to win his first MVP.
That leads me into my next prediction about who will end up finishing the season in first place in both conferences. I believe winning the conference will be a decisive factor in who ends up winning the MVP award. I’ll start with the East. The Raptors currently sit on top by 2 games over the Celtics. Behind the Celtics is the Cavs who are 6.5 games out of first place. After that the East is irrelevant. The Cavs have dug a hole too deep and I don’t think they’ll be able to completely dig themselves out of it. With their new look roster they’ll be much improved, but there’s just not enough time left to make up the ground that they lost struggling so heavily pre all star break. I see them finishing as the 2 seed. The Celtics stumbled into the break, but are clearly the best coached team and have the most overall talent on their roster. That’s why I believe they’ll prevail and ultimately finish atop the East. Raptors will come back down to earth down the stretch as teams make their push for the playoffs. Now, the West where I believe it’s only a two team race at this point. Rockets and Warriors are going to dual it out for that top spot in the West. It’s going to come down to which team can go on one of those runs where they win 15 out of 17 games, or something along those lines. Rockets seem like a team of destiny this year, so I want to rock with them(no pun intended), however it’d be irresponsible not to pick the Warriors to finish as the top seed. With that being said, I’ve never said to be responsible when it comes to delivering takes, so I’m rocking with the Rockets. Now, here’s just some random takes for what I believe will transpire the rest of the season: Blake Griffin and the new look Pistons are going to crush it, make the playoffs, and make some noise while they’re there. Don’t sleep on Mo town. Ben Simmons will continue to be the catalyst that drives the 76ers on their way to the team’s first playoff appearance since Nam, while capturing Rookie of the Year honors along the way. Lonzo Ball, my boy, will return to the court and show that next season this young Lakers core is going to be ready to take that next step. Lakers will have an above .500 record post all star break. Knicks will go full tank end, up with a top 5 pick, and draft another Frank Nilikina. In all seriousness, this team could’ve drafted Dennis Smith Jr. and decided not to. They don’t deserve anything but misfortune since they bring it upon themselves with moronic moves like that. Anthony Davis will fail to fill the void Boogie Cousins left behind and the Pelicans will once again fail to make the playoffs. Then, I think Boogie will leave and Davis will follow as the Pelicans project rears to a close as a massive failure. That’s all I got. Let’s hope the NBA delivers some more fire storylines in the second half of the season and more importantly fire basketball. It’ll be fun to look back at these takes in June to see just how right/wrong I was. Now that you’ve heard mine, what are your predictions for the second half of the season?
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By Muk
Over the All-Star weekend, Adam Silver spoke about the possibility of changing the NBA Playoff format from the traditional 1-8 East vs. West seeding, to a 1-16 East and West seeding.
Adam Silver, keep on killing it my man. I love this idea. I don't know if I'm in the minority here but I am absolutely all in on this new format. For this past decade-plus, the West has dominated the NBA with the exception of the Big-3 Celtics and the Lebron-led Heat and Cav's teams, and a result of that has been that many teams in the West are often left out of the playoffs who deserve to be there.
The new 1-16 seeding format would guarantee that the best teams in the league would be playing in the playoffs and we would be able to see some different and exciting new playoff matchups.
If the season ended today and the playoffs began, these would be the matchups we would have going into the playoffs, and the two matchups I would love to see would be the Celtics vs. Blazers & the Wolves vs. the Bucks.
The new seeding would simply force teams to compete harder, and give the fans matchups they would normally never see. That's just my two cents. Would you guys enjoy this new format or do you think it would lead to more bad than good? By DjackNBA All Star weekend used to be one of the most highly anticipated events of the NBA season. It has been far and away the best all star showing of all the major sports for as long as I can remember. Unfortunately, just like the other sports, NBA All Star weekend has begun to lose it's luster. The all star game itself was definitley the best it's been in years, competitiveness wise that is, however not televising the drafting of the teams was a huge miss. Getting rid of the east and west format was definitley the right plan since the west is 10000x better than the east. My biggest problem was with all the pregame theatrics that failed miserably, along with the low energy in the building for the Slam Dunk contest. Was anyone even in attendance Saturday night because I'm pretty sure after every dunk the only thing you could hear was the contestant yelling, not the fans. It was a sham, it was bad television, and now the NBA has to work on fixing that instead of the all star game itself. Anyway, here are the winners of all the events that took place over all star weekend: Skills Competition: Spencer Dinwiddie The only trophy the Nets will win this year. Tip of the cap to Spencer Dinwiddie as he continues to make the most of his opportunity. This guy was a nobody, now playing with the Nets he's been able to make a name for himself around the league. This dude can actually ball and might be paving his way to a nice payday quite soon.. All Star weekend is where you make a name for yourself on a national level and he did just that by winning a contest filled with star talent. The guards are back on top in the skills challenge, thanks to Spencer Dinwiddie. Three Point Contest: Devin Booker We know Devin Booker gets buckets, I mean the dude did drop 70 points in an actual NBA game last season. So, it was no surprise when he put up a record 28 points in the 3-point contest. I'm no expert on this event, but I think the most points you can get is 34, safe to say Booker did quite well. Especially, when you take into account that Paul George only ended up with 9 points and came into the final rack with only 4. Booker demolished the field and now gets the crown of 3-point king of the NBA Slam Dunk Contest: Donovan Mitchell The dunk contest was pure garbage. I mean Oladipo and Denis Smith Jr. didn't bring much to the table. So much so, that I can't even remember what cool dunks they had before being eliminated. Larry Nance did a dunk where he mocked his dad's signature dunk from the inaugural slam dunk contest in 1984, it was nice, but dad did it better, and that was 30+ years ago. Nance then had the best dunk of the night when he threw the ball off the backboard, caught it, then threw it off the backboard again while mid flight, caught it again, and slammed it home. It was so creative and unique that the fans didn't even know what he just did, which in turn definitley took away from the excitement of the moment. It wouldn't be enough, though. Donovan Mitchell won the event with a rendition of Vince Carter's 360 windmill dunk from the 2000 slam dunk contest. I had a few problems with him winning on that dunk because it was executed so poorly. He wore the wrong Vince Carter jersey while doing it, he did it so much worse than VC, and that dunk was done 20 years ago!!! How does a dunk done 20 years ago still win the dunk contest today, makes no sense. Huge thumbs down for the once great slam dunk contest. NBA All Star Game: Team LeBron All Star Game MVP: LeBron James I'll be totally honest, I watched maybe the first 5 minutes of the all star game before focusing my attention elsewhere. I have no desire to watch a meaningless game. I for one, actually liked it better when no defense was played in the all star game and the guys were just throwing down sick dunks and heaving up deep 3-pointers. Instead, people wanted to see defense, which doesn't even happen in real NBA games anymore. Well, the people got their wish and defense was played. As LeBron would say the integrity was restored to the all star game, which is total bullshit. No one scored over 30, LeBron put up his regular season stat line and won MVP. All in all I thought the whole weekend was a bust, especially for LA.
By MukHeading into the All-Star break, are the new-look Cav’s for real?
As everyone knows, the Cav’s went crazy last week at the trade deadline, dumping more than half of their roster and bringing in new blood. The Cav’s traded Isaiah Thomas, Channing Frye, and their 2018 first-round pick to the Lakers, for Jordan Clarkson and Larry Nance Jr., then they traded Dwyane Wade back to Miami (thank you Cleveland #WadeCounty is back) for a protected second-round pick. Finally, they engaged in a trade with the Jazz and the Kings, sending Derrick Rose and Jae Crowder to the Jazz, with Joe Johnson, Iman Shumpert and a 2020 second-round pick to the Kings, and the Cav’s received George Hill and Rodney Hood. In two games with their new roster, against two current NBA powerhouses in the Celtics and Thunder, the Cav’s have combined for 241 points, with huge contributions from their new acquisitions. In their blow-out spoiling of Paul Pierce’s Jersey Retirement Night, they got 12 points from George Hill, 15 points from Rodeny Hood, and 17 points from Jordan Clarkson, and they shot a whopping 53% from 3PT range, with all of their new acquisition’s contributing in that fashion. The Cav’s responded from the thrashing they received from last time they played OKC, and they did what they likely will have to do to run the table in the Eastern Conference, rallied behind a dominant performance from The King himself, with LBJ dropping 37 points and adding 8 boards & assists. Clarkson and Hood added 14 a piece and Larry Nance Jr. contributed 13 as well. More importantly than what they did on the scoreboard, the Cav’s looked like a team that could mesh very well, and their newly developed 3PT talent will be vital in for their playoff run. Now, while these two wins are impressive, they are nothing in the grand scheme of things. The Cav’s have this All-Star break to begin to truly establish their chemistry, and if they can hit the ground running after the break, they may have a slight chance at making some noise and giving the Celtics, Rockets and Warriors a real run for their money. Do I think the Cav’s will now win the East? Yes. Will they beat the Warriors? Absolutely not. Next question. By MukThis topic is one that we have talked about on this site in the past multiple times, because it’s seemingly a never ending story.
Chris Bosh, 11x All-Star, 2x NBA Champ, and one of the best Power Forward’s of our generation, has battled blood clot issues for much of the last 3 years of his life, and they have led to his premature retirement from the NBA. However – in Bosh’s eyes, it has never been, and hopefully will not be, a true retirement. The Heat basically forced Bosh to “retire” so they could attempt to move on from his contract, while still being able to pay him the majority of the money he was owed, because they were truly looking out for Bosh’s best interests. The NBA declared that Bosh’s health issues were career-ending in June of 2017, but Bosh seems to feel differently. He told Stephen A. Smith he isn’t done yet, but we’ve heard this from Bosh before. Personally, I think Chris Bosh needs to hang it up and move on, maybe moving into coaching or some other role in the game of basketball if he feels that he has unfinished business. To me, blood clots are not a knee, or ankle injury where maybe pushing it could leave you with a limp or on crutches down the road, but blood clots are not something that I would push, and I think the majority of the NBA is going to agree with me. Even if Bosh thinks he can make a comeback, he’s going to need a team to take a major risk on him. 8/22/2017 Kyrie Irving Traded to Boston Celtics in Blockbuster Trade, Does This Make Them Favorites to Win the Eastern Conference?Read NowBy DjackKyrie Irving has been traded to the Boston Celtics in quite possibly the biggest trade since the Celtics acquired Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen back in 2007. This deal came as a shock to many, one moment the rumors hit, and then minutes later the deal was finalized. It was done so quickly no one even had a second to even process it before a deal was made. Cavaliers trading their star point guard to their biggest foe was quite the shock to NBA fans, I mean how could it not be. This kinda stuff never happens. Did the Cavaliers just give their biggest threat the ammunition they need to finally slay the beast of the east that is Lebron James? Well, I don't know about all that.
The Cavaliers are clearly preparing for life after Lebron James. The Cavs acquired star point guard Isaiah Thomas, who is one of the NBA's most prolific scorers, they also received Jae Crowder, a solid all around player, and the Nets 2018 draft pick. This gives them the opportunity to rebuild on the fly after Lebron James takes his talents elsewhere this offseason. They'll have Isaiah Thomas to lean on while in this transition period and they'll end up with a top 5 pick since the Nets are going to be god awful once again this season. They're hoping that pick will turn into the franchise player of the future and at least this time when Lebron leaves the franchise won't completely be in shambles. As for this season the Cavaliers will still be the team to beat in the east. They replaced their scoring point guard with another scoring point guard, they added a top notch defender in Crowder, and they really shouldn't be all that much worse without Kyrie this year. Yes, they have no shot at beating Golden State, although they didn't really have a shot with him, but they'll still be either the 1 or 2 seed in the east. Eventually, they'll meet the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals, which is when we'll really see if the Celtics are ready to take that next step. I'm still ruling the Cavs as favorites to win the East. Until the greatest player since Michael Jordan is dethroned of his ability to make the NBA Finals, he'll favorite be the favorite to win the East. The Celtics added Gordon Hayward and Kyrie Irving this offseason, however they gave up a lot of players that contributed to the core values of the team that made them so good. Avery Bradley and Jae Crowder were easily the two best defenders on the team, so there's no chance the Celtics are as good defensively this season, which is what made them so great last year. Yes, the offense will be more prolific when it comes to scoring, but let's not forget it's going to take some time for this new group of Celtics player to learn how to play together and really gel. Kyrie is an isolation player, so will he really be able to elevate the play of the guys around him. He wanted to be the head honcho, now he gets that opportunity, let's see what he can do with it. Can the student become the master, or will Lebron show Kyrie that he's not ready to leave the throne. I cannot wait for the NBA season to start, at least one conference finals will be competitive this season. 8/20/2017 NBA Investigating the Los Angeles Lakers for Tampering in Regards to Their Communication with Paul GeorgeRead NowBy DjackThe Indiana Pacers are so upset that they were fleeced by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Paul George trade, that they are now blaming the Lakers for the incompetence of their own front office. This story is actually hilarious, there's no merit or facts behind these claims, but it's the dog days of summer, no news in sports has been breaking whatsoever, so the desperate sports media has spun this non-story into something much bigger than it ever should've been. Apparently, the Lakers broke NBA tampering rules by having contact with Paul George while he was still under contract with the Pacers. Meanwhile, what really happened was the Pacers front office wasn't able to bring in another all star caliber player to match with Paul George, so he decided to voice his displeasure with the team, and ultimately say he'd like to play for his hometown Lakers. This decreased his value on the trade market since every other team viewed him as a rental since Paul George said he wanted to go home and play for the Lakers. Now, the Pacers are salty that they basically got fucked over, even though this could've been easily avoided if they were just able to grant George's wishes by putting a competitive team together, so they are taking their frustration out on the Lakers. Trying to sabotage the Lakers future/chances of landing Paul George is just a sad move by the Pacers. When it ends up completely failing, it'll just be the latest embarrassment in a stretch of awful moves made by their piss poor front office.
This whole tampering thing is total bullshit. The Warriors essentially did the same thing with Kevin Durant, didn't they? Throughout the 2015-16 season players on the Warriors were recruiting Durant to the Warriors and that was one of their only threats at the time. The Pacers and Lakers have no history, meanwhile the Warriors only threat in the western conference was Kevin Durant and the Thunder. Not even a mention of tampering in that situation, though. Now, the Lakers get called out for tampering months after the Pacers traded Paul George. Supposedly, Magic Johnson is to blame for this whole debacle. He's the one under fire, but if I know one thing, it's that everyone loves Magic. He'll be able to sway the investigators that'll be interrogating him with ease, so I'm not worried whatsoever. Also, it's nearly impossible to prove a team was tampering, so unless the Lakers left a paper trail, they should be fine. If by some miracle the Lakers are convicted of tampering they'll certainly have to pay a costly price. They could lose first round picks, they could lose the ability to sign or trade for Paul George, and then the Lakers could lose a potential piece towards the dynasty team they plan of building. It'd be quite the blow for the organization. I mean the Lakers still have Lebron James coming in 2018, but without Paul George joining as well it'll be tough to take down the Warriors. Still, no evidence has pointed to these tampering claims being true, so like I've been saying this is a bunch of bullshit. Sad the Pacers brought it to this point, embarrassing because regardless the outcome of the investigation they'll get nothing out of it. The new president of basketball operations for the Pacers is just mad he got burnt in his first major objective with the team, so now he's trying to cover his ass. Too bad for him that it's just not going to work. So far there's been no proof of tampering and I expect that to remain the same, so fuck the Pacers and their sad sack of an attempt to sabotage the only franchise in the NBA with a shot to dethrone the Warriors in the next couple years. By DjackThe Lakers have their starting lineup set for the 2017-18 season after the signing of shooting guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. The Lakers signed KCP to a 1 year $18 million contract. Before you freak out about that inordinate amount of money it's a one year deal and they had cap space to spend, so it's not a big deal whatsoever, especially with the nature of today's NBA contracts. I don't know if KCP really has a future with the Lakers beyond this year, we'll have to wait and see about that, as for his role with the team this year I believe he's a big acquisition. He gives us a real starting 2 guard, he's only 24 years old on a contract year so you know he's got a lot to prove, and he plays hard on both ends of the floor, something the Lakers really needed after the terrible display of defense they showed last year. Overall, this was a great signing for the Lakers, a lot of potential in this deal, and not a lot of risk.
As for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope he seems like a man on a mission. The Detroit Pistons, the team he was drafted by, offered Pope a 5 year $80 million deal. Pretty nice chunk of change for a guy averaging around 14 ppg. Instead, Pope decided to turn that down, take a one year deal worth a bunch of money, and bet on himself in hopes of getting an even bigger deal after showing just how good he is this season. Hopefully the Lakers don't give him that big deal after he does good for us this season because I just don't think he'll be worth it. However, it will be nice having a player trying to prove his worth to the rest of the league playing on our team. KCP is going to ball out and the Lakers are going to reap the benefits of it this season. A risky move on Kentavious Caldwell-Pope's side, however a sure fire move on the Lakers part to lockdown a solid shooting guard for this year. The Lake Show 2.0 is gearining up for what should be a surprisingly solid season. 7/11/2017 If the Rockets Acquire Carmelo Anthony Can They Take down the Golden State WarriorsRead NowBy DjackCarmelo Anthony flat out said he's confident he'll be playing for the Houston Rockets next season. Melo joining forces with Chris Paul and James Harden in Houston would be the NBA's latest super team and a super team filled with half of the famous banana boat. The Rockets have a very deep and great scoring bench, I'm sure they'd have to sacrifice some of those players to bring in Melo for financial reasons, but still they'll have more talent than the Warriors do coming off the bench. In today's NBA everything should be compared to the Warriors because they're the ones with the target on their backs. They're the team you need to take down if you want to be a champion in this league, no on else is gonna do it for them, so every teams goal right now when building their roster is how can we beat the Warriors. It's no an easy task either.
Golden State has 4 superstars compared to the typical 3 superstar model that has been going on for generations, giving Golden State that extra edge that is so hard to overcome. The fact that they also have 2 top 5 players in the league also gives them an unfair advantage. Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, and James Harden sounds like it could give Golden State a lot of trouble, but would they really. Maybe 3 years ago when Melo and CP3 were at the height of their careers, but now I really can't see it happening. These guys all love having the ball in their possession on offense whereas Golden State loves to move the ball. That's my biggest problem with what the Rockets are doing, ball movement is key, and a team with Harden, Melo, and CP3 doesn't sound like a ton of ball movement. Who knows, maybe CP3 will be able to mesh it all together and make it work, he'd be the guy if anyone could do it to do that, so there is still some hope for Houston having success against the Warriors even if its slim. By MukThe No. 3 pick from this year's NBA draft, Jayson Tatum, has been beyond impressive in the NBA Summer League thus far. Last night, he faced off against Lonzo Ball and the Lakers, leading the Celtics to a clean win, exploding in the win. Tatum was regarded as the most NBA-ready scorer, and my oh my has he shown that in his first few games in the Celtic green. Starting in the Utah Summer League games, in his first game, against the 76ers, Tatum went off for 21 points, grabbing 7 rebounds and dishing out 3 assists, in an 89-88 win. In his second game, Tatum recored a double-double, dropping 23 points and grabbing 10 rebounds, in a tough loss to the Spurs, who were led by 31 points from Bryn Forbes. Game three was the first game we found Jayson Tatum fall short of 20 points, but he still balled out. He scored 12 points, and recorded 12 rebounds, in a 3-point loss to the Jazz. Last night, in their first game for the Vegas Summer League games, Tatum had his best game yet, when he lead the Celtics to a 86-81 victory over Lonzo Ball and the Lakers, dropping 27 points, and grabbing 11 rebounds. Jayson Tatum is going to be a danger to the NBA, and honestly between him, Lonzo Ball, and Markelle Fultz, I see genuine star potential written all over them. |
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AuthorDjack- Chief editor Archives
March 2018
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