NBA Where Debut-tiful Happens

After Mike Bibby's debut last night, as well as Shaquille O'neal and Jason Kidd putting sweat on those new unifroms tonight, it should be an interesting couple of days. Mike Bibby's performance against the Lakers was certainly not what he was hoping for. You can't jump to conclusions after one game. That will also be the theme after Shaq's debut tonight. Kidd on the other hand, might "be who we thought he was"(Thanks Denny Green)

Mike Bibby and the Atlanta Hawks were in LA for the Lakers Home return from a 9 game road trip. The Hawks played like they were the ones that were road weary. Through a series of turnovers and poor shot selection the Hawks gave the Lakers a 73-37 edge at the half. Mike Bibby certainly wasn't an exception to the Hawks poor play. Managing 5 points 3 assists to 2 turnovers. I'd blame this on him only logging 16 minutes, but he seemed plenty capable of racking up 4 fouls in that short time.

It is just one game. Without even seeing Shaq's performace tonight I know it will produce the same mantra. It is just one game. Shaq will come out like gang busters; showing the pride and passion he has been missing all season. He is old though, that body can't give him that game-in and game-out. The new team has always brought out the pride and passion in Shaq. Tonight he will have that as well as the revenge motivation. Shaq wants nothing more than to prove that Kobe and the Lakers were wrong to send him packing.

Jason Kidd is the likely exception tot he just one game rule. He still has the body. He has played unmotivated basketball all season and still managed quite a few triple doubles. He is right now getting a whiff of the ring that Dallas fell short of last season. He will step up his effort and intensity--which is a scary thought--and be best fitting missing piece out of all three of these deals.

Kidd can't help but be motivated when he hears team owner Mark Cuban saying things like "..He is the reason I bought season tickets and started watching the Mavs". The unspoken end of this statement is "...and then I bought the team"

NBA All-Star Game Is All Wrong

I could rant on and on about the injustices of who is on the all star teams and who isn't. I am not going to. In reading up about this topic today I realized where the problems lie with this whole set up. The problems do exist and they are present both on the player side as well as the coaching side and yes some of it is even on us the fans.



As for the problems well lets start with the players. Upon finding out that his team mate Al Thornton hadn't been selected to the Rookie Sophmore game. Casell magnified the players slightly biased opinion with the following "There's a conspiracy going on. We must be in the state of Florida now. Did they watch that game, Jersey against the Clippers? Did they see Al Thornton that night?" Really, Sam. Do you want a second to pull that back. ONEGAME!? you want to know if they looked at one game. The simple fact that you pointed to one high performance as a signature game and all he really did was manage to lead for that one game. Well Sam, thats a sign the rest of his work really isn't that impressive.

As for the coaches, I don't know if they are right or if they are wrong but the perspective of the coaches became clear when Stan Van Gundy said "Shaq sort of is the All-Star game, sort of what the All-Star game is all about,'' Van Gundy, who coached O'Neal in Miami added. "It's celebrity and the people the fans want to see and everything else..." When you look at that it pretty much clears a lot of the decisions that they make as far as I am concerned.

As far as the fans culpability in all this. That is the white elephant in the room. The All-Star game is not about talent. It is clearly a popularity contest. So when the balloting comes out and we all start to debate why one guys play is better than the next guy and who got snubbed. We really need to settle down. Yeah it isn't always (or ever) a true representation of the best talent in the NBA but it is usually fun (less and less lately but I think this year we'll see a turn around). So let's just enjoy it for what it is.

Here is a great article on who made it and who got snubbed from True Hoop



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The Good News About the Miami Heat 12 Game Slide

As the Miami Heats rapid decline continues I sat down to review the situation and figure out a solution. Here is a post a put up previously

Written Dec 19, 2007
Gather round kids, I want to tell
you a story of a slick looking leader. Who took his young star point guard, a talented starting Shooter, as well as a PF, and SF, a few strong bench players he could occasionally rotate into that starting rotation in order to match up well , and one aging center who is still hanging on to prove he still has it. They had won before, they had dominated before, but now it was nearing the end. What would become of their final
run together, you ask? They had a strong season and made a small push into the
playoffs. Nice story right. Well look there is a sequel.
I want to tell you a story of a silver haired leader. Who took his young star point guard, a few talented starters, a few strong bench players he could occasionally rotate into that starting rotation in order to match up well, and one aging center who is still hanging on to prove he still has it. They had won before, in fact they had been champions before but now it was nearing the end. What would become of their final run together, you ask?
Lets wait to see. Riley seems to have infinite patience with aging centers. I do not see him pushing Shaq out, but the time is rapidly nearing when that Lakers trade is looking less and less foolish. Yes the Heat got their Championship and Kobe has
yet to see a ring since Shaq left but the whole argument at the time was that
Shaq wanted this long deal so he could hang on forever. Well how long is all
that weight going to hold Miami down, at least the Lakers are on the up swing,
Shaq and his contract still has the Heat moving the wrong direction and I think they are a year from hitting the bottom and that they will spend 2 more years there
before they turn it around.

In re-assessing this situation it has gotten both worse and better. Since the situation has continued to spiral towards terrible. Instead of at least leveling off at really bad. It is obviously worse.
This is actually the best thing that the Miami fans could hope for. If this were to become a tolerably bad situation, the Heat would continue to look at minor tweaks and band-aids in order to improve. At this point I think even Pat Riley would have to acknowledge this situation can only be solved with some High Explosive.
Look on the bright side, Heat fan your next game is against the knicks