NBA Notes

The Lakers are soft. Last year they lost to the Celtics and in Game 6 they were pushed around and humiliated. That was supposed to be their motivation to take every game seriously this year. Well, in Game 4 against the Rockets we saw the same performance. The Rockets punched the Lakers in the stomach to begin the game and the Lakers were never competitive. It really comes down to a personnel issue. As much as I dislike Kobe, he does not lack the killer instinct. However, he has aged and cannot completely take over a game as he once did. These days he is capable of taking over a quarter, but only at the expense of the previous one. In other words, if he is going to have a huge fourth quarter, he cannot be aggressive in the third. If he wants to have a huge second half, he has to take it easy in the first half. In this way he is greatly dependent upon his teammates. Unfortunately for him, his teammates lack the killer instinct. No matter how many times you preach toughness, if your players are not tough it will not carry over into a series. The Phoenix Suns preached defense all year, and yet they were one of the worst defensive teams in the league. The Suns personnel were not equipped to defend, just as the Lakers personnel are not equipped to be physical. Pau Gasol is a finesse player out of Spain. Vujachic is a European metro that is at best a pest, not a physical presence. Lamar Odom has had his heart questioned since he came into the league. Dereck Fisher is really the only other Laker that is tough, but age has taken a toll on his ability to impact the game. The interesting question that comes up is, if the Lakers are unable to win a championship this year, is it time to retool? They are arguably the most talented team in the NBA, but if they are not tough enough to win a physical series, then a championship will never be a possibility. With Kobe’s championship window closing, they may be forced to make some serious personnel changes this off-season.

Mark Cuban is the punk. He is reminiscent of a 5-year-old throwing a tantrum. Nothing would make me happier than witnessing Kenyon Martin “take care of him.”

And the Dallas fans made me look bad. I wrote that the Lakers had the most obnoxious fans and then the Dallas fans berate and pour a beer on Kenyon Martin’s mother. You stay classy, Dallas.

Lebron is great, but the East is awful. Detroit had no business making the playoffs. Atlanta had trouble putting away the Heat. The Heat has a hobbled Dwayne Wade surrounded by bush- league rookies. Let’s wait until the Cavs face a real opponent to crown them champions. Unfortunately, we will have to wait for the NBA finals for that to happen. The Magic and Celtics are not much better than the Hawks.

Five Hour Energy drinks are a scam. I’m pretty sure they are successful due to the placebo effect. The real Five Hour Energy drinks are Emergen-C’s. Those little packets rock.

If I had more free time I would create my own basketball statistics, watch every game, and put a number on each player. I realize that there are many subjective variables that can pollute the data, but if this were your fulltime job, I see no reason that you could not come up with a formula that took everything into consideration. Seriously, let’s think specifically about steals. Let’s say that it was asked of us to decide who the best player was in the NBA in terms of steals. If you sat down and tracked every variable, you could give an educated answer, couldn’t you? For example, some stats to take into consideration would be: home vs away (more points for good steals away since it’s more difficult), the height and size of the players on the court, the offensive ratings of the players on the court (if a player is able to steal the ball from a player that rarely turns the ball over, more points), the number of turnovers committed per game by that team (teams that give up more turnovers result in less of a steal,) the number of steals given up by that team, deflections (count as half a steal,) good defensive steals (steals that do not put the team at risk if missed, to be worth more), bad defensive steals (steals that would have placed your team in a quandary if missed, to be worth less), good missed steals (steal attempts that indirectly resulted in a turnover)….etc. If it was your fulltime job to define everything that happened on the basketball court and put a number to it, you could do it, right? These notes took me about five minutes to come up with. It just bothers me when I hear the Rocket’s GM claim that it is so difficult. I bet he’s just playing coy.