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Tag Archive - Portland Trailblazers

The Lowdown: Kermit Washington

October 30, 2011 in by with 0 Comments

via Los Angeles Times

“Is that Kermit Washington? Oh my God, it’s Kermit Washington!”

Via Nathan Dolezal, wide-eyed basketball fan, former co-host of Ain’t it Funky Now!

Years Active: 1974 – 1982; 1988

Career Stats: 9.2 ppg, 8.3 rpg, 1.1 bpg, 0.8 spg, 52.6% FG, 65.6% FT

Accolades: 1980 NBA All-Star, 2x NBA All-Defensive 2nd Team (1980-81)

So, there I was exiting American University’s radio station after another funky good time on Ain’t it Funky Now! with my good friend and c0-host Nathan Dolezal. As we’re strolling down the hallway, a gargantuan man with a friend of his own is walking a little aimlessly, clearly a bit lost. Instantly, we recognize this as legendary American University Eagle, Kermit Washington. He spots us and very politely asks where the student television station is. We point him in the right direction and he leave us with a simple, soft-spoken “thanks fellas.”

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The Lowdown: Jim McMillian

October 2, 2011 in by with 1 Comment

Jim McMillian

Jim McMillian (#5) between Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain (#13) and Bob Dandridge (#10) / Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Photo via Sports Illustrated for Kids

“An 18 point forward, he is as unnoticed as the butler in a mystery… It’s also unnerving to play someone who looks as if he’s just playing solitaire on the kitchen table all night. Is it put-on? McMillian shakes his head. ‘I have to keep my composure or I can’t be effective. I can’t play if I’m upset.’”

Via “McMillian Out of Character in Laker Basketball Uniform” by Jim Murray

Years Active: 1971 – 1979

Career Stats: 13.8 ppg, 5.3 rpg, 2.5 apg, 1.1 spg, 48.2% FG, 83.2% FT

Accolades: 1972 NBA Champion (Lakers)

Selected 13th overall by the Los Angeles Lakers in 1970, Ivy League standout Jim McMillian had an inauspicious start as he rode the bench behind Jerry West and Elgin Baylor. Also on the team were PG Gail Goodrich and mammoth center Wilt Chamberlain. With 4 future hall of famers, Jim’s services weren’t much needed until Jerry West was lost to injury midway through the season.

The 6’5″ McMillian slid into the starting lineup and was a refreshing revelation, especially as the playoffs began and the stout Chicago Bulls awaited in a titanic 1st round struggle. “I felt all year that once Jimmy got a chance to play, he’d show what a fine basketball player he is.” Well, Gail Goodrich was right. Jimmy showed the world to the tune of 26 points in Game 1, as LA won a nail-biter 100-99 after being down by as much as 17 points. The Bulls were stunned:

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Greg Oden: Basketball Tragedy

November 18, 2010 in by with 10 Comments

Tragedies happen in basketball that transcend the sport.

I’m not talking about the passing of Maurice Lucas or Hank Gathers collapsing on the court or Len Bias overdosing on cocaine.

Those aren’t basketball tragedies. They’re real life tragedies that happen to be related to basketball in some way. While it was cruel for Reggie Lewis to be taken away from us at an early age or for Bobby Phills to have died while racing his car or for Malik Sealy to have been killed by a drunk driver, they have very little to do with tragedies in basketball and everything to do with life just not going the way you thought it should.

However, horrific and career-altering injuries are true basketball tragedies. When Shaun Livingston’s knee has an out of body experience or Danny Manning just can’t seem to All The King’s Men his health back together again in order to be the league-changing talent he’s supposed to be, those are real basketball tragedies. And the rancor of basketball tragedies has once again befallen its favorite victim – Greg Oden.

Microfracture surgery again for Greg Oden.

Those words mean so much pain and suffering in the relative basketball sense. Yes, there has been pain and suffering in basketball past. The Kings getting bested by the Los Angeles Lakers was extremely frustrating for Kings fans. John Stockton and Karl Malone getting out-legacy’d by Michael Jordan in back-to-back NBA Finals was its own form of suffering. Kevin Garnett not being able to take overmatched team after overmatched team out of the first round was a crappy basketball experience for eight years.

But there is a huge difference in what happened in those situations and what is happening with Greg Oden and Portland Trailblazers fans. Those chances for greatness or legend or some type of validation were thwarted time after time over the past decade and a half. Hopes rose up into the air and then got smashed back down by the hammer of shoulda-woulda-coulda. Greg Oden, on the other hand, never got a chance to get off the ground.

He’s been a punch line for years now. It’s been customary and downright cliché to make fun of his age by throwing out the name Benjamin Button, or make a veiled/blatant comparison to the ghost of Sam Bowie’s past, or talk about the time it appeared he was doing telemarketing through text message while trying to push this product (NSFW). After this latest blow to the start of his career, I find it hard to believe any decent person could find any humor or lighthearted nature to his latest setback.

Greg Oden is going to miss this entire season. It will be his second entire season in four years that he misses. And just to be realistic, let’s assume he’s not going to be around for the 2011-2012 NBA season because he’ll be rehabbing and taking another cautious approach to coming back at full strength. That just sucks.

When I was gathering my thoughts for trying to bring myself to write this piece, I just kept getting more and more depressed about what is supposed to be of his career. John Krolik and I briefly GChatted about this Wednesday night and remembered that Dwight Howard was supposed to bridge the gap from the last great center, Shaquille O’Neal, until Greg Oden was ready to take over. THAT’S supposed to be Greg’s legacy. He was the next big thing.

So many of us were so sure about it too. Greg had all of the makings of the stuff legends were sculpted from. He had an impossibly big frame that moved amongst the trees like the Predator big game hunting California’s future gubernatorial punch line. He was the protective device behind the emergency glass you were supposed to break on defense if someone dared to approach the basket. Now, he’s getting unfunny Mr. Glass references thrown his way. Nobody should ever be subjected to M. Night Shyamalan movie references.

This hits a sore spot with me because I’ve been waiting with bated breath for the birth of the next great big man. That big man was supposed to be Greg Oden. Like many Blazers fans, I’ve been sitting here in the refuse of injury after injury with him, just anticipating the day when he was going to prove us all right and take his place amongst the dominating forces in the NBA. I attempted to wax poetically about him a long time ago and try to make the case (poorly I might add) that either I was a freaking genius about what he would become or just plain insane. Turns out I was naïve and insane.

What’s that old joke? How do you keep an idiot in suspense? The punch line used to be that you just waited in silence after stating the question and the person waiting for the answer that was strategically not going to come was the idiot. Now the answer is to get that person to believe Greg Oden can still be something someday and watch as I take spoonful after spoonful of this pipe dream.

You can make the case that if you give up on Greg Oden then you might as well give up on Andrew Bynum because he too is injured and unaware of when a comeback might happen. He too is sitting on a volcano of untapped potential and leaving us all wondering when it’s finally going to erupt. So if you’re going to write off one 22-year old wannabe phenom in Oden, shouldn’t you write off the other 22-year old phenom center who is battling knee ailment after knee ailment?

But Bynum isn’t exactly there with Oden right now. He’s not out for another two seasons. He’s in knee injury purgatory while Greg has been shipped right back down to patella hell.

When I was gathering my thoughts for this piece earlier like I mentioned above, I decided to go for a run and throw on the music in my iPhone. I didn’t care that it was nearly midnight. I strapped on my knee band, put a brace over my ankle, threw on a hoodie and took off for a little 40-block excursion. I decided to push myself a bit, despite not stretching at all, because I wanted to feel like I was working. Maybe in a way I was trying to empathize with what Greg was going to go through AGAIN. There’s no doubt in my mind Greg Oden will have the surgery, get back in the rehab process and try again. He’ll work his tail off one more time, and try to get back to a position in which he can be a functioning member of the NBA society.

Where will that leave him? What’s the best-case scenario for Greg, his psyche and his potential for making something out of his career? He works his ass off, gets the benefit of a lockout shortening next season so it doesn’t seem like he missed so much time? The NBA resorts to another 50-game season and by the time the next full regular season is upon us in the fall of 2012, he is back with a tryout as a free agent somewhere? Doesn’t that just suck?

When I was running through darkness and the light fog tonight, attempting to make sense of such a cruel joke being played on one of the kinder, gentler giants of my generation, I threw on some Biggie Smalls to try to get my head in the right frame of mind. Somehow, I accidentally hit the “Genius” button on my phone and it created a playlist of allegedly related songs. Randomly, “Many Men” by 50 Cent came on as I hit my full stride. This part of the first verse stuck out for me:

“Now these p**** n***** putting money on my head
Go on and get your refund motherf*****, I ain’t dead
I’m the diamond in the dirt, that ain’t been found
I’m the underground king and I ain’t been crowned”

Doesn’t that kind of sum up Greg Oden completely right now? It feels like the basketball Grim Reaper has put a contract out on him. But he’s still not dead. At least, I’m hoping he’s not. In my mind, he’s always been this diamond in the dirt since the knee injuries started to pile up and I claimed I had found him last year. Except he still hasn’t been found. In my mind, he was always the underground king, waiting to sit atop his big man throne, but he hasn’t been capable of taking his crown yet.

Greg Oden has become the answer to a trivia question, instead of the answer to Portland’s prayers. It turns out I was dead wrong about him. Maybe he is good when he’s healthy, but that idea/argument has been vaporized. It doesn’t matter what he’s done when he was healthy because health isn’t a luxury you get when describing the situation of Greg Oden. I’ll still hold out hope that he can come back and matter in the NBA because I’m just stubborn like that.

It’s not about not wanting to be wrong. I am/was wrong about Greg Oden. A lot of us were.

It’s about holding out hope that at some point this guy can catch a freaking break. That Blazers fans can finally enjoy watching this guy game after game. That the NBA die-hards can rejoice in watching him master the art of protection.

Some guys never get that break though.

Some guys are just destined to be basketball tragedies.

Get well, Greg.

Brandon Roy In “Despicable Me”

August 19, 2010 in by with 9 Comments

Once upon a time, music videos were things people actually looked forward to. For those of you under the age of 25, this probably sounds like a “When I was your age, movies were only a nickel and they put music on compact discs that you’d play in your Walkman. They held no more than 18 songs!” kind of talk. But there was seriously a time in which MTV, VH1 and BET were showing music videos that people wanted to see.

They enjoyed the music and the spectacle of how it was being presented. Directors of music videos were almost as well-known as the artists themselves and you could often find a certain level of cinematic flair in each one. Now, we’re relegated to the latest subtle masquerade of our own Josie and the Pussycats moment as we get bombarded with questionable music, celebrity cameos to distract us from the questionable music and a lot of good looking people to make us think this wasn’t a complete waste of three minutes. Everything has moved to VH1 and MTV showing crappy reality show after crappy reality show and whatever the hell BET does (when Bruce Bruce stopped appearing on BET, I hit the eject button).

In today’s world of music videos, celebrity cameos might be the most interesting part of the whole extravaganza. Primarily in the Hip Hop community, we often see professional athletes filling these appearances. Sometimes, it’s as simple as the bewilderment of seeing Danica Patrick and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. getting ready to race luxury vehicles in the middle of a Jay-Z video. Other times, we get to see DeJuan Blair auto-tuning his way through a tribute to a friend of his that has passed away like the following video (H/T – Project Spurs):

I think we can all agree that these cameos are nothing negative in any way.

But when Brandon Roy ends up in a music video made by old friends of his and that music video is seemingly promoting the non-medicinal usage of marijuana, that seems like something that would probably raise some eyebrows. Check out the video first and foremost:

What’s weird about this is you literally see Brandon Roy for no more than 10-12 seconds in the video and that’s if you count all of the times in which he’s barely viewable in the background. I noticed Jamal Crawford in this video a lot more than I did Roy. I couldn’t even tell you what the lyrics said in the video because when I watched it, I was trying to find where Brandon Roy was so prominently involved and I kept thinking either Cali or Cavalli (I don’t know which one is which, although I’m sure there is a bitchin’ MySpace page that could sort it out for me) was actually O.J. Mayo. I didn’t even notice there was weed in the video because I kept wondering if Mike Conley was going to stroll on into the shot.

Nevertheless, Brandon felt the need to get out ahead of the story – or at worst, take a leisurely jog with it side-by-side – to make sure he stayed with his history of being a stand-up type of role model for his fans and kids everywhere. Brandon admits that he didn’t go about this experience the proper way and does so without making excuses. He takes full responsibility for not finding out what he was becoming a part of during this process of helping out some old friends. And even though it seems completely unnecessary for him to do so because he’s not really ALL THAT big in the video, he still made sure to disassociate himself from the video.

Isn’t this why we love guys like Brandon Roy? He’s just a good guy. He screwed up (sort-of but not really) in getting involved with this video and instead of doing the typical pro athlete thing of making excuses and trying to save face, he came out on his own to make sure he owned up to what he did and explain why it was wrong. This is what we want from the stars of the NBA. In a time in which the headliners are out just trying to make headlines no matter what it does to their image (Let’s face it, LeBron — you’ve basically become the Paris Hilton of the NBA), seeing a guy act in this respect because it’s just the right thing to do is pretty damn refreshing.

Personally, when I watched the video for the first time I didn’t think much of it. I definitely didn’t think Roy was committing career suicide or letting down the fans of the Blazers. I was more concerned with trying to figure what this guy was all about:

However, it’s good to know we can trust Brandon Roy to be a positive influence despite extremely minor hiccups here and there.

Don’t beat yourself up about this, Brandon.

NBA Playoffs, Suns-Blazers Game 2: In Phoenix, No One Can Hear You Scream

April 21, 2010 in by with 5 Comments

For the Suns, it’s that simple: all they have to do is play the same way they’ve been playing over the last two months, and they’ll win the series. As the better team (or in this case, the healthier team), they have the luxury of showing up when and where they want to as long as they can do it four times. Be it in Portland or in Phoenix, the Suns will have the advantage whenever they hit the floor, particularly now that Nicolas Batum (strained shoulder) can be counted among the wounded. The Blazers had their card and they played it. Now it’s the Suns’ turn, and their offense is more reliable (than the Blazers’ without Roy et al), their pace is more coercive, and their healthy players more talented.

If I may, the Blazers are Ridley Scott’s Alien. The film is predicated on two things: the build-up of suspense through an extension of the ordinary and the grand reveal of the titular creature. A surprising amount of the film’s running time is designated to portraying the characters going through seemingly ordinary sequences of action, which naturally makes the audience uneasy because they’re (1) aware that they’re watching a movie in which something interesting is supposed to be happening and (2) cognizant of the fact that the damn movie is called Alien, yet there have yet to be any aliens. The injury-plagued Blazers are very much the same, in that even the team’s most talented players are seemingly ordinary. Andre Miller is hardly perceived as an elite point guard, despite the fact that he’s been incredibly effective in Brandon Roy’s stead. LaMarcus Aldridge is considered a solid four, but lacking in some fundamental element of superstardom and thus inferior. Marcus Camby is a nice shot-blocker, but he’s been deemed well into his decline and though he’s a difference-maker, he’s hardly considered a defensive anchor. Nicolas Batum, Martell Webster, Jerryd Bayless, Rudy Fernandez — all fine role players, but nothing more.

This is all, of course, before a little alien with Nate McMillan’s face comes bursting through your chest at the dinner table and ruins a perfectly good time.

It’s powerful and it’s shaking, largely because the status quo as it were only acted as a mechanism for the reveal to manifest itself. Miller wants you to think that he’s incapable of being a force, so he can can blow by you on his way to the rim by using the quickest slow (or is it slowest quick?) first step in the league. Aldridge wants you to think that he’s incapable of providing star-level offensive production as a primary option, so he can toss turnaround jumpers over your head from the low block, drop 20+, and call it a day. Camby will lurk behind on the break to rock a weak layup attempt, or emerge from the darkness to contest an otherwise open look.

The only problem is that once everything is in full view, the power of the reveal is gone. Portland may have caught Phoenix by surprise in game one, but now that the Suns know the secret, the result will never be the same again. That initial reaction can never be quite replicated, regardless of how expertly the Blazers execute.

The Suns, on the other hand, are more akin to James Cameron’s Aliens: the tension is built by putting highly combustible elements (trigger-happy marines, a literally explosive setting, and an entire alien species) in close proximity, and watching the sparks fly. It’s made with what seems to be an easily replicable formula, yet it stands above. The most important component of Aliens here, though, is what separates it from the first installment: there is no mystery. Everyone knows exactly what Phoenix wants to do. That doesn’t stop them from being effective or their performances from being repeatable, especially when they rebound and defend as well as they did last night. The Suns are just a different kind of product than the Blazers, and their success has little to do with what you don’t expect from them and more about what you do. If Phoenix is as persuasive as they’re capable of being — and as they were last night in stomping Portland 119-90 — then Portland will end up running with them. That’s not a good thing. I don’t buy the argument that the Blazers can play at the Suns’ pace over the course of the series. Not without Brandon Roy, and if Nicolas Batum misses any time as well (he considered himself 50-50 for Game 3), that certainly doesn’t help.

It’s not that the Blazers can’t run at all or even that they’re not effective in doing so. They’re just not as effective as the Suns, who practice this style and running their lanes and making the right passes in transition all year long. ‘Seven Seconds of Less’ may not rule the day, but just look at how quickly Phoenix was triggering the break last night. The Suns were down the court and set along the perimeter often before the Blazers’ defenders could even make their way into the broadcast view.

I’m not saying that Portland won’t win another game. They very well could. But the way this team operates is just too predictable and preventable. The Suns shift Grant Hill on to Andre Miller, and ‘Dre is held to just 12 points on 4-of-11 shooting and three assists, compared to 31 points on 10-of-17 shooting with eight assists in Game 1. Phoenix threw double teams at LaMarcus Aldridge to force the ball out of his hands, and he finished with 11 points on 3-of-8 shooting after dropping 22 in Game 1. I’m sure Nate McMillan will do a great job of making some adjustments for Game 3, and change up where Miller and Aldridge are getting the ball, where and when the offense should attack, etc. Unfortunately none of that will change the fact that the power and impact of their initial reveal is gone. The Suns may still be affected when the Blazer offense figures out new ways to showcase the same things, but they’ll be waiting for it. They’ll be anticipating it. They’ll stay frosty, clinch their fists, and sense it coming. The magic may still be there, but the mystery is gone.

NBA Playoffs Blazers-Suns Game 1: Darkness Obscures The Blade

April 19, 2010 in by with 6 Comments

Thoughts on Blazers-Suns Game One:

  • Shellshocked. That was the one word I wrote in my  notepad file for the first half, and it carried over. The Suns apparently read and listened to everything that we were saying. That Portland had no chance. That without Roy, they were toothless. We were dumb for saying so. They were inexcusably dumb for thinking that even if it was true that they could come out and perform like that.
  • Amar’e is largely to blame, and we’ll get to him. But Nash has a hand in this as well.
  • How can Nash have the blame after 25 points, 9 assists, and only 2 turnovers? He was one-half of the pick and roll failboat that set sail. The Blazers countered the pick and roll by going under the screen, fronting Amar’e, and sending a secondary pressure on Nash to force him to the other side.  And Nash went along with it. Instead of dribble hesitating to look for an oop or under pass to Amar’e, Nash circled around and tried to drive and kick. Over. And over. And over.
  • On the other end of the floor, the Suns were prepared to let Aldridge shoot. Good strategy. but in a running theme of the night, the Blazers had things goin their way. And Aldridge killed them for 22 points. The main problem with the Suns’ defense was the mass confusion. Multiple times the Suns were simply bamboozeled as to who they needed to be guarded and where. They overextended, under-ran, and generally didn’t get anyone  in a Blazer face on multiple positions. The Andre Miller three was especially egregious to me. People immediately responded with “He only hit 16 all year!” And like I said in the Bucks’ notes, you have to choose someone to live with. But you don’t just concede. The Suns always seem to play okay defense for long stretches and then simply fail to get a hand in a guy’s face. Any attempt from Jason Richardson and Miller misses that shot, and you’re in a much different position.
  • Anyone who says Jason Richardson had a good game is out of their gourd. I heard the argument that Leandro Barbosa, one of the few Suns who was forcing the issue on offense that Miller was eating him alive. Guess what? 33 points, you’re getting eaten alive by a F-Lion. But Richardson was not only tossing up bricks, but got lost on defense and looked clunky in the flow of the offense. Fail.
  • For the Blazers, Bayless. Man, Bayless. You knew Miller was going to get his. The guy just gets buckets. What’s that? I said he was going to be a horrific bust as a free agent in preseason? I dogged on him for the first half of the year? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. Andre Miller’s spirit animal is obstructing my hearing as it humps my ear.
  • But Bayless continues his emergence. It seemed like the Suns finally had started to figure out the Blazers, then Bayless comes in and tears things up. Huh, speedy fierce small guard comes in and forces the issue and is the difference. Wish the Suns had someone like that. OH WAIT.
  • Marcus Camby is the human equivalent of the AT-AT. That’s all I got.

NBA Playoffs: (3) Phoenix Suns vs. (6) Portland Trailblazers – Any Camel Chiropractors in the House?

April 17, 2010 in by with 2 Comments

How good do you think the Phoenix Suns are? If you said anything less than really, really damn good, go back to sentence one and try again. This team has the goods, is riding a hell of a wave, and could benefit most from the tremendous parity in the Western Conference. The Roy-less Blazers might be the most favorable matchup in the West right now for just about any team, and should Phoenix take care of business quickly as I expect them to, they’ll have plenty of time to rest up for their tough second round opposition (either Dallas or San Antonio, the latter of which Phoenix fears more than the former).

But do you know what this series really is? It’s an extension of the divine will that seeks to crush the Blazers. Supernatural forces of some kind — basketball gods, voodoo magic, David Bowie in the Labyrinth — have tripped the Blazers every step of the way, and this series is really no different. It’s not enough that Greg Oden and Joel Przybilla were Tonya Hardinged by ghosts with crowbars, that a hex was cast on Portland’s wings, or that someone out there has a sick sense of humor and a Brandon Roy voodoo doll. On top of all of that, the Blazers drew one of the hottest teams in the league that happens to be their stylistic counter. This is a real series with a healthy Roy, but remove Brandon from the lineup (and shift Portland’s wings up the depth chart accordingly) and you’re looking at a team that doesn’t have much of a chance to keep up with the Suns on offense. The Blazers are an efficient offensive club, but just how efficiently can their meticulous, half-court look be without Roy to facilitate?

The Blazers were still very impressive after Roy went down, but this feels like one injury too many. The Suns’ reserves have been incredibly effective this season, and their ability to maintain a high intensity level has been crucial to Phoenix’s success. Maybe the same could have been said at the beginning of the season regarding Portland, but as every possible break went the other way, the Blazers’ impressive preseason depth was systematically erased. Adding Marcus Camby really, really helps, but Phoenix is an odd matchup for him; Amar’e Stoudemire is a tough cover when he’s playing like a basketball player, but right now he’s more of a one-man revolution. Who does Camby really cover in this series? Putting him out on the perimeter defending a guy like Channing Frye seems like a waste, and the Suns’ ball movement and ability to hit open shooters on the perimeter would seem to help negate Marcus’ defensive impact.

It may seem like cheap analysis, but Phoenix is just a better team. They’re loaded with more talent than a lot of people realize, and to see this team operate over the last few weeks has been a rather distinct pleasure. With Robin Lopez in the mix, you’re looking at possibly the favorite to advance to the Western Conference Finals. Without him, you’re still looking at one of the most dynamic teams in the conference, and they’re better at defense than they let on. This is going to be a fun playoff run for Phoenix, and as much as I hate to dismiss the Blazers, this first round is only the beginning.

The Suns aren’t going to run the Blazers off the floor, because the Blazers are simply too good and too resilient. It’d be a disservice to them to claim that Phoenix was going to win every game in a walk, or that this series wasn’t going to be competitive. That said, I’d expect this thing to be over rather quickly, and regardless of whether or not the final margin is within 10 points, playoff wins are playoff wins. I’ll take the Suns in five, mostly because their offense will flow seamlessly against the Blazers’ D while the Blazers will struggle a bit without Roy, and because Phoenix’s criminally underrated bench will blow Portland’s out of the water.

NBA Rules: The System Gets Nellie Ball’d

April 15, 2010 in by with 13 Comments

“I was watching Court TV and I found a loophole in your case. I’m gonna talk to the judge about a writ of Habeas Corpus. I’ll put the SYSTEM on trial.” – Jim Carrey, Cable Guy.

Something really weird happened during the final game of the Warriors and Blazers regular season on Wednesday night. A basketball game was happening while a competition committee hearing broke out.

The situation was fairly simple: Don Nelson was being forced to play injured members of his team. When Devean George fouled out with just under four minutes to go in the game, Don Nelson wanted to keep him in the game and accept the applicable technical foul that came with doing such a thing. He’d already done it earlier in the season when Stephen Curry fouled out of a game and was allowed to keep playing. But during that game, the Warriors didn’t have eligible players in uniform sitting on the bench.

Before we go any further, watch the video I cut together from the game.

Here are some of my thoughts, reactions and things of note from this video:

- Nellie tried to let referee Phil Robinson know initially that Chris Hunter wasn’t going to come into the game. He wanted to keep Devean George in and take the technical foul. However, Eddie F. Rush takes control of the situation and explains to the Warriors coaching staff that the three eligible players (Anthony Morrow, Chris Hunter and Ronny Turiaf) were going to have to play before that could happen. In his mind and in the minds of the NBA rules, these guys should be playing in the game. Although I wanted to disagree with the referees (and did), they were ultimately correct. The Warriors tried to skate by the last game of the season without signing anymore players despite the fact that they were chock-full of injuries.

- It was brutal seeing Chris Hunter dragging his leg up and down the court. I know the Warriors were caught up in the moment a bit and didn’t really know how to approach it but I would have kept him on defense and never had him try to cross halfcourt. Especially when Chris Hunter gets knocked down on the blocking foul and is trying to get up, you know that had to have Nellie seething at this situation.

- At the 2:11 mark, I love that Nellie screams, “you’re supposed to know the rules.” It does actually seem like the refs were following the rules even though for the safety of the players involved there could be an exception made.

- Once Hunter is taken out of the game for good and Devean George is once again denied entry like a group of guys at a Vegas night club, I love the strategy that Nellie implements. Put Turiaf in, let him commit a foul right away and pull him from the game. Then when there’s a stoppage of play after Morrow goes in, pull him from the game too so that Devean George HAS to be allowed to come back in.

- For those of us that have chastised Nellie this season and the past couple seasons for not caring about his job, it’s nice to see how disturbed he was by this whole incident. He genuinely hated having to put Chris Hunter, Ronny Turiaf and Anthony Morrow into this game. He was worried for their health and safety as if he was a concerned parent.

- How about that blocked shot by Hunter?!?

- Everyone that was watching this game and not a Blazers fan was rooting for a Devean George game-winner. It would have sparked a crap hurricane throughout the media world.

- I think we’ll see this rule revisited with the competition committee in some way. Maybe it won’t be changed because after all, Nellie and the Warriors were fudging the injury report a bit. However, there has to be a way for a coach to be able to avoid bringing in his injured players.

- Stephen Curry goes OFF. 26 points in the second half for him and he scored 11 of the Warriors final 14 points to win this game. He capped off a fantastic rookie season with a 42-point effort. He’s in the same zone that I felt Allan Houston was in when he played. I can’t remember a single jumper that either player has ever missed in their careers. As far as I’m concerned, Curry and Houston have never missed a jump shot before.

- I don’t know how you could possibly not love Nellie after watching that video.

NBA PLAYOFFS: Quick Post: The preferred matchups

April 13, 2010 in by with 2 Comments

There’s a ton of ways the Playoffs could end up seeded, still, and by tonight we SHOULD know a lot more. Here’s what is set in stone:

(1) Lakers vs. (8) Thunder
(2) Magic vs. (7) Bobcats

Everything else is up for grabs. Here’s how you should hope things work out.

(2) Mavericks vs. (7) Spurs: These two always give great head-to-head matchups. The Mavericks are one of only two teams to eliminate the Spurs in the last ten years. Dirk vs. Duncan, Jefferson vs. Matrix, Ginobili vs. Butler, Kidd vs. Parker, this one’s chock-full of playoff goodness. The Spurs want revenge for last year, the Mavs will get up for this one as well .

(3) Denver vs. (6) Portland: The Nuggets don’t have a coach. The Blazers don’t have a center. The Nuggets have just gotten Kenyon Martin back. The Blazers may have just lost Brandon Roy. Neither team is at their peak right now, so I’d like to quarantine these two.

(4) Utah vs. (5) Phoenix: POINTS! MORE POINTS! LOTS O’ POINTS! You get Deron versus Nash, Wesley Matthews versus JRich. AK (possibly) versus Grant Hill. Amar’e and Boozer (LOLLERSKATES), and Jared Dudley and Kyle Korver on the floor at the same time. This series would be kind of a qualifying statement for both. Most people have doubts about both teams’ status as contenders, this would solve it for the winner and loser.

(1) Cleveland versus (8) Bulls: Sorry, Toronto. You’re just too much of a mess defensively. Neither team has the matchup advantages to cause any noise, but at least the Bulls feature Rose and Noah. We don’t want to see LeBron put up 60-18-15-5-5 just because of your crazy lack of defense and pace. We want him to get it because Luol Deng cannot guard him at all.

(3)Hawks versus (6)Bucks: The Hawks are the most likely team to have trouble with the Bucks without Bogut, since Horford is great but not dominant. The Bucks have the second most made three pointers this season, did you know that? That would be a nice counter to the Hawks, and might make for some hot nights. Jennings versus Bibby would be a scream, and Ilyasova-Smith is also high comedy. This would be more like a buddy cop show than a playoff series.

(4)Boston v. (5)Heat: Let’s just go ahead and put two completely uninspiring teams against one another. The Heat have zero shot of advancing against any team in the top four, so let’s put them against the team that somehow always manages to struggle in the first round. It’ll be fun. Plus, Boston fans freaking out over the calls Wade gets will be hi-ho-hilarious.

NBA Playoffs: Thunder Just Experienced What Playoff Basketball Frustration Is All About

April 7, 2010 in by with 9 Comments

After the Jazz “beat” the Thunder with a 140-139 overtime victory on Tuesday night, I looked at the reaction from the Thunder fans in the Daily Dime Live chat, I looked at the fallout on Twitter and I had some playful banter back and forth with various people in the blogging and blog-reading world. But still, I debated on whether or not to write this piece.

Despite what the proprietor of this website would lead you to believe, I really like this Thunder team. I’ve been big on Russell Westbrook since he was at UCLA. I’ve enjoyed watching him prove to the doubters that he’s a legit NBA point guard and one that will star in the association. I love the deadly repertoire that Kevin Durant destroys his opponents with. I’ve definitely seen more complete scorers throughout the history of this game than Kevin Durant but it isn’t a big number and it certainly isn’t a list of players that are more fun to watch than KD. I marvel at the amount of weapons he has at his disposal. He’s the NBA equivalent of Iron Man out there. And they have so many fun role players on this team (including my favorite college fan crush in Eric Maynor) that it is literally impossible for me to not enjoy this team play on a nightly basis.

Then you’ve got the community of Thunderites (a horrible nickname I came up with tonight). Royce Young is one of my favorite people to read because he has such passion for this young franchise and he’s just damn good at what he does. He has good people writing for him at Daily Thunder and whenever I peruse the comment sections of the site, I’m amazed at the thoughtful and intelligent nature of the ideas the readers type out to help add to the discussion.

I knew that if I wrote this piece, I’d end up most likely offending a fan base that I really do enjoy and that’s not my intention. I’m probably going to come off as smarmy, snarky or some other “S” word that ends in a “Y” that nobody wants to be labeled. Hopefully, they’ll see the merit in this post instead of reading it as hatred because that does not exist in my words here.

So here goes:

You’re blowing this no-call against Kevin Durant and the Thunder WAY out of proportion.

I’m reading things all over the internet about how Kevin Durant not getting a foul call at the end of a regular season game in which the Thunder will still get to go to the playoffs regardless of the outcome is a tragedy. Apparently, it’s a travesty and a sham and a mockery.

I’m sorry but you’ve got to get over this and put things in perspective.

CJ Miles did block Kevin Durant’s shot at the end of the game. You can clearly see that he gets a little ball. The problem with the block though is that he hit a crap-load of hand on the follow-through. It’s not even close. It should be a no-brainer call. Put Kevin Durant at the line for three shots. Considering he’s having a historic free throw shooting season, I’m guessing he makes two of the three at worst and the Thunder have to wait out a desperation heave with 0.6 seconds left. If the heave falls by the wayside, the Thunder are sitting pretty with 49 wins, five games to play and their sites on a possible division title.

Unfortunately, the whistle didn’t get blown. Welcome to the NBA.

This happens a lot. There is a definite problem with the officiating in the NBA. This isn’t any big newsbreak. There are missed calls all the time. There are missed calls that influence the final moments of a game. But they don’t decide the outcomes of the games. There were 45 missed OKC shots, 17 missed threes, five missed free throws, 18 turnovers, 28 points off of those turnovers, and 16 offensive rebounds given up in this game by the Thunder. One missed call did not lose the game at all.

Does it suck that you essentially got screwed on the final play of the game? Absolutely. Is it going to be the last time this happens to your franchise? Wait until you play the Lakers in the playoffs someday. This swift kick to the gonads is going to feel like a Swedish massage.

The Thunder fan base is extremely new to the NBA. You haven’t gone through this stuff before; I realize that. But you’re going to have to get used to it and get used to it quickly. You have a young, talented team that is going to be in the playoffs for the next 10 years, minimum. This is going to be a regular occurrence since you’re in a small market, according to most NBA fans. You’ve experienced the frustration of the Salt Lake Bias that sweeps through the NBA year after year. Just wait until you feel the East Coast Big Market Bias or the Lakers Need To Be In The Finals For Ratings Bias.

This is not a travesty. This is not tragic. This was losing a regular season game. You may think this took you out of division title contention or it might cause you to fall into the dreaded eighth seed by season’s end. It had no more affect on the standings than the Thunder dropping an early season road game in Sacramento. What about the other three overtime games the Thunder lost this season? They mean the exact same in the wins and losses columns that this “crushing defeat” does.

A tragedy is watching Danny Manning’s knees fail him time after time when he should have been one of the best players of the past 25 years.

A tragedy is watching a player get called for a foul because Kobe Bryant elbowed him in the nose during a crucial inbound moment of Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals.

A tragedy is watching Greg Oden’s knee explode when he was starting to show that he could have a huge positive impact on the game and the future of the Western Conference.

A tragedy is watching Dwyane Wade get to the line in the 2006 NBA Finals because the Mavericks shot him a questionable glance as the fate of the 2006 NBA Finals was seemingly being scripted right in front of everyone’s eyes.

A tragedy is seeing Shaun Livingston’s knee ligaments play a game of Twister on the court.

Those are basketball tragedies. What you experienced Tuesday night was a great game have a deflating ending because Tony Brothers decided to swallow the whistle. You just experienced the equivalent of basketball indigestion.

Should you be mad? Sure. Should you be outraged? That’s taking it a bit far. This is not that big of a deal. You need to put it in a little bit of perspective and respect the history of bad NBA calls before you. This was no different than the phantom call on Paul Millsap in favor of your team a couple months earlier.

Do two wrongs make a right? Often never. But this is the officiating world we all have to live in until the machines take over the Earth and we get perfect robot referees.

Don’t let losses like this consume you. Take it for what it is, mull it over for a few minutes and move on. You don’t want to become that bitter fan base. That’s not fun for anybody.

And remember, you still have Kevin Durant and I owe Matt Moore a cake because of it.

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