Suns disappoint - NBA notes - 02/28/2007

Suns blew one big-time today. They had an unique opportunity to win all 15 road games against the other conference (L-East) for the first time in the history of the game and they lost the 15-th and final game against the lowly Philadelphia! They now end the Eastern road trip 14-1! They didn't have Marion and Diaw today and Bell and Barbosa combined to shoot 5/17 from 3 and 9/32 overall to throttle the Suns offense. Only Nash and Stoudemire showed up and the Suns scored only 94 points. Anything less than 100 points usually means a loss for the Suns and the Sixers won even without any spectacular individual performances. The Suns never led in this game and this game probably shows how important Marion is to this team. He should feel happy tonight :-) Amare still had 31-14 and Nash, 23-5-9.

Miami won a road game behind Shaq's 23-10 against a depleted Wizards team. Gil shot 3-18 and this is becoming a daily story now. Toronto won at Houston today even without a strong showing by C-Bosh. They had balanced scoring and a good shooting night. Bargnani is amazing! He had 20 points on 8-12 shooting with 4-5 from the 3. This guy does look more and more like a young Nowitzki. T-Mac couldn't get it done today against eh Raptors. Denver won behind a strong night for AI. The guy can still have a 34-7-4 night any day of the week. Melo had 23 and a decent win for the Nuggets against an Orlando team thats struggling.

Boozer was truly back today with a 24-16 night against the Grizz. This was his routine before he got hurt and he might be back to that level soon. Knicks lost at Boston without Jamal Crawford who might be out for the season. Heat, Nets, Knicks and the Magic are all bunched up for the Eastern playoff spots 7 thru 10. Sacramento won a high-scoring game at home. Kevin Martin is enjoying Ron Artest's absence :-) He had 36 points today to go with Bibby's 30. Martin is the new fan favorite at Sacto and they better start re-building around him. He is not a super-star, but a good scorer to have on your team, especially when he is cheap.

Phoenix @ Philadelphia - 94-99
Toronto @ Houston - 106-90
Orlando @ Denver - 101-111

Interesting games on the board for Mar 1-st (Thursday)

Cleveland @ Dallas - Big match-up on paper, but I expect Dallas to blow the Cavs out.

Baker's dozen for the Mavs - NBA notes - 02/27/2007

Shaun Livingston's injury yesterday was one of the worst thing I have ever seen on TV. The guy took off on a fast-break and went in for an uncontested layup, only to crumble on to the floor with what looked like a dislocated knee cap. Not only was it a strange injury since nobody touched him, it was a gruesome one. I never thought a guy's leg can bend that way! You could see the knee-cap all whacked out and the team doctor had to pop it back in before wheeling him away. Now they are saying he has torn his ACL, PCL, MCL and lateral meniscus. He will be sidelined eight to 12 months. I hope he comes back healthy. He is a central piece to the Clippers puzzle. Not that the paper-Clips have solved too many puzzles over the last 15 years, but he is one of the few good players they have drafted over the years.

The Mavs won their 13-th straight today. The T-Wolvers didn't even show up today. They lost 65-91. KG shot 5-16 and thats hardly a challenge to the high-flying Mavs! Howard was back after he tweaked his ankle yesterday. He had 17-7 and Dirk had 23-14 to keep the good thing going. Cuban is now talking about bringing Reggie Miller back. Not sure they need him, but Miller might need them. The Mavs' bete-noire Phoenix Suns won again at Indiana. They have not lost a single game on the road against the East. Thats unheard off and tomorrow they play their last road game on the Eastern sea-board against the 76-ers. If they win, which they should, they would have gone 15-0 on the road against the (L)East. Today they were trailing by 18 points against the Pacers in the third before coming back and winning by 11 points! A 18 point lead against the Suns should feel like 5 points against other teams. The Suns can probably erase it in 5 minutes and thats only because the other team would burn 3 or 4 of those minutes on their offense! Nash-ty had 23 and 11 assists with Marion pouring in 22. Diaw finally came back from injury played some for the Suns.

The Nets shot the lights out from beyond the arc to beat the Wizards. Apparently the Kidd can shoot! He scored 26 points on 6-9 from downtown. He also had 8 boards and 9 assists. Agent-0 had 26 on 25 shots. He is in trouble now with both Butler and Jamison out with injuries. King James had an awesome game with 35-5-8 today against Chris Paul and the Hornets. Paul had a bad game with 7-5-5.

Washington @ NJ - 101-113
Phoenix @ Indiana - 103-92

Interesting games on the board for Feb 28-th (Wednesday)

Phoenix @ Philadelphia - Suns are going to be the first team to sweep the inter-conference road schedule. They are 14-0 as of today.

Toronto @ Houston - Can Toronto beat a good Western team?

Orlando @ Denver - Can Orlando pile on a struggling Denver?

Mavs win a dozen - NBA notes - 02/26/2007

Mavs have won 12 straight again. Howard tweaked his ankle and might miss a game or two, but shouldn't be a big problem for the Mavs. I don't see a weakness with this team right now. They should be the hands-down favorites to win the title this year. The Spurs beat Toronto today at home behind 24-16 for Timmy and 27-5-9 for Tony. They had Bargnani guarding Timmy at times and thats what I could call "coach approved rookie-hazing"! I saw Robert Horry get a flat-footed offensive rebound in this game and just put the ball back in without even leaving his feet. He was so wide open (probably pushed off the guy boxing him out), that he didn't even feel compelled to jump for the put-back. He probably figured it's not playoff time yet, why waste some energy jumping!

Kobe was sick today and shot just 7/21, but still had 35 points and the Lakers won at Utah. Big win for the Lakers after a few bad losses. Utah finally had all it's bullets and looks like they didn't know what to do with everybody. Miami lost at New York with Eddie Curry scoring 28 points. I never thought I would see the day when Eddie Curry would outplay Shaq-Daddy. Starbury scored 18 of his 25 points in the 4-th and Heat better get used to these kinds of games. They are going to be up and down without Wade. Their role players will over-achieve on some days at home and lose a lot on the road. And thats just the way it's gonna be unless Shaq takes a road trip to Orlando and finds his fountain of youth. Speaking of Orlando, they won on the road after a long time. Bad loss for the Bulls. Boston won at Houston as T-Mac joined Yao on the bench with a flu. The Truth had 28 pts. Denver won at Memphis behind huge nights for Melo (33-6-3), AI (25-5-9) and Nene (27-9). This could be a recipe for success for the Nuggets if only these 3 guys can do to real NBA teams what they did to the Grizzlies today.

LA Lakers @ Utah - 102-94
Toronto @ San Antonio - 91-107
Miami @ New York - 93-99

Interesting games on the board for Feb 27-th (Tuesday)

Washington @ NJ - Should be a fun, high-scoring contest.

Phoenix @ Indiana - Suns are yet to lost on the road against the L-East.

STAT is back - NBA notes - 02/25/2007

Amare had a monster game today reminding us of his STAT-days from the 2005 playoffs. He had a 43-17 game with Marion going for 21-7 and Nash scoring 14 points to go with 13 assists. It's time to officially declare "Amare is back"! I think he is close to 95% of where he was before the injury. We don't see as many ferocious dunks as we saw before, but thats partially because he is a mature player now who knows how to score without picking up 3 offensive fouls a quarter. There's more finesse and jump shots in his game today and thats not all because of the injury. In any case, the West better watch out for this guy.

Vinsanity had a 40 point night to help the Nets beat the Knicks. He also had 9 boards and 8 assists. Not bad for someone who was going to be traded 3 days back. Vince's cousin T-Mac went in to his old stomping grounds and scored 34 points (not quite the 45 I had predicted) to beat the Magic in front of his mom. Orlando is struggling lately and not sure if they'll even make the playoffs. Right now they are behind the Nets for the 8-th spot. The other guy who had a huge scoring night today was Kevin Martin of Sacramento. He had 35 points as the Kings beat Pacers with Ron Artest missing the game for personal reasons. Not sure what thats all about. Hope he didn't take some time off to feed his (allegedly) starving dogs :-) The Kings are actually putting together a playoff run and might overtake the Warriors and the Clippers to get in.

Chicago lost at Detroit after leading by 16 points in the third. Detroit is back to doing what they do best. D-up, play some team-ball, execute in the clutch and win. Ben Wallace was back in Detroit and the PA announcer gave him a nice intro, calling him the "cornerstone of Detroit's resurgence"! I have never seen the official PA guy treating a returning player that nice. The C-Webb experiment is still doing real well. He won the game on a tip-in off a Billups miss. He had a 21-9 night. Cleveland had another disappointing loss at Miami even without Wade. King had 29-3-7, but Daddy had a 19-11 night to lead a bunch of Heat role players to the promised land. Lets see how far the Diesel can take them now.

Garnett had a 26-17 game to beat the Wizards. Agent-0 had a 4-22 shooting night and thats not what wins games for the Wizards. He shot 1-11 from downtown. You would think you will stop shooting the 3 after 5 or 6 misses, but then again he shot only 3-11 from inside the arc. So I guess he figured it didn't matter where he was shooting it from today.

I was watching the Lakers - Golden State game today and saw a really bad performance by Nelly's Warriors. They are embarking on a 6 game roadie and that might end their playoff dreams. Kobe had 26 points and Mo Evans had a matching 26 on 10 less shot attempts than Kobe! It's amazing how the game gets really easy for the role players when they play with a super-star like Kobe. Evans was wide-open all night, and mostly right under the basket. By the way, what's up with the Warriors defense? Looked like every time Kobe got double or triple teamed, the open guy was right under the basket and not at the 3-point line like defensive rotations often dictate. I was also surprised by the number of Laker and Kobe fans you see in every venue around the league. Kobe is hugely popular and his image-rehab seems to be totally complete. Amazing, considering he had to deal with the double whammy of the rape case and the Shaq trade.

Chicago @ Detroit- 93-95
Houston @ Orlando - 97-93
Cleveland @ Miami - 81-86
Phoenix @ Atlanta - 115-106

Interesting games on the board for Feb 26-th (Monday)

LA Lakers @ Utah - Kobe goes in to Utah to face a tough opponent.

Toronto @ San Antonio - If Toronto thinks they are real contenders, this is their place to prove it.

Miami @ New York - Pat Riley takes his team into New York to face the much-improved Knicks, but is without Wade.

Elton is an awesome Brand! - NBA notes - 02/24/2007

Elton Brand reminded us why the Clippers were so good last year. He had 31-12 with 8 blocks. It's amazing how dominant this guy can be from anywhere on the court, especially if he is playing bad defensive teams like the Warriors. For a 6-8 guy, he is a fantastic shot-blocker too. But Brand is having a down year compared to last and thats one of the reasons they are struggling. His numbers are down across the board (except for his shooting %). He is scoring more than 4 points less than last year and that combined with a decaying Sam Cassell and a dysfunctional Corey Maggette is enough to derail this team. Brand was a MVP candidate last year and this year, he was not even an all-star though the West picked 16 players with all those injury replacements. But today was different for the Clips. Everybody chipped in with great games. Tm Thomas had a 17-10 night with quality shots. Meggette had 18 points and Livingston had 14 points and 14 assists. Thats the Shaun Livingston the Clippers have been waiting for. The Warriors were really good in this one until the 4-th reminding me of an old Warriors joke. What's the difference between a dollar bill and the Golden State Warriors? You can get 4 good quarters out of a dollar bill. The Warriors have a boat-load of wing players now and Nelson is just wheeling these guys in and out. They got Stephen Jackson, J-Rich, Pietrus, Matt Barnes, Azubike, Monta Ellis and Jasikevicius. Thats not even counting Al Harrington who in my opinion is an over-rated big. He is just a bigger wing player.

Denver lost at Dallas as Melo and AI combined to score 60 points and committed 16 turnovers. 16 TOs almost erases half of their 60 point output. Thats either a symptom of poor decision making or guys not having played together enough on this team. I think it's a combination of both. Nowitzki had 31-11 and Josh Howard had 27. They have now won 11 straight again. In other games, Toronto, Utah and San Antonio all won.

Denver @ Dallas - 95-115
Golden State @ LA Clippers - 90-103

Interesting games on the board for Feb 25-th (Sunday)

Chicago @ Detroit- Two teams on a roll run into each other here. Should be a playoff-intensity game on national TV.

Houston @ Orlando - T-Mac returns to Orlando. He might drop 45 here, or at-least try to.

Cleveland @ Miami - What a waste of a game without D-Wade.

Phoenix @ Atlanta - The Suns lost to the Hawks at home without Nash. Atlanta can expect a spanking.

Booze is back - NBA notes - 02/23/2007

Carlos Boozer came back today. Didn't play too well or for too long, but Utah didn't need him at Denver. Neither did they miss Mehmet Okur (out) or AK-47 (left the game very early with a tweaked knee). Essentially what I am saying is, Utah's B-Team punked the Nuggets at Denver. Melo had 36 and 6 assists on 12-18 shooting and AI shot 11-18 for 33 points to go with his 5 assists, but they still lost comfortably. The 2 stars are trying to be very well-behaved with the ball and still they keep losing. Chemistry is such an intangible. I can't even tell you what's wrong with them, but it's just not working out, at least not yet. It's not even that they gave up size to get AI. They have Nene and Camby starting and that should actually take care of rebounding and interior defense since Camby is also a good shot-blocker. Looks like the idea of having 2 monster scorers who both can't do anything else is not a good recipe for success. No wonder George Karl conceded the division a few days back only to back-track later. Utah is VERY, VERY good. Deron Williams is a stud. They have found their PG of the future not too long after Stockton retired. He is second only to Steve Nash as the leading assist-man in the league with 9.3. He had a 26 pt 14 assist night to show the Nuggets how it's done.

Marion had 27-14 and the Suns beat the T-Wolves to avenge the streak-breaking defeat they suffered earlier this season at Minnesota. Amare had 23-11, Barbosa had 24 and Nash had 9 with 15 assists. In other words, just another game for the Suns! Toronto and Chicago are on a roll right now. Both of them won big games today against Indiana and Washington respectively. Chris Bosh is blooming into a superstar right now and seems like a class guy too. Chicago beat Agent-0's 36 points and the Wizards. Luol Deng celebrated his non-trade with a 32 point night.

Indiana @ Toronto - 88-110
Washington @ Chicago - 90-105
Phoenix @ Minnesota - 116-104
Utah @ Denver - 114-104

Interesting games on the board for Feb 24-th (Saturday)

Denver @ Dallas - Not sure why I still think Nuggets games are interesting, but I still feel that way with Melo and AI on the same team.

Golden State @ LA Clippers - One of these 2 teams may make the playoffs in the West.

NBA notes - 02/22/2007 - Kidd and Nash .... almost

The trade deadline was a big non-event as expected. Nothing went down. Lakers were not willing to part with Bynum, and rightfully so, for J-Kidd. Bulls were not willing to part with Ben Gordon and/or Luol Deng for Pau Gasol. Not sure how right the Bulls were with that call. I might have gone for it. Cavs had nothing to part with to get Bibby. They don't have any young talent (except King James that is). They were willing to give Drew Gooden, but who wants Drew Gooden? There were a few small deals not worth discussing.

The most fascinating story I read today was about how the Phoenix Suns suddenly jumped into the Kidd trade talks and almost pulled it off. Thats something. Kidd and Nash running and gunning in this offense would have been awesome! The Suns would have gotten way more than the backup PG they have been looking for the last 3 years. I would guess they probably tempted Rod Thorn with those Atlanta picks. Not sure what else was offered to offset the salaries etc. I hope they didn't dangle Marion, but they probably did since these trades have to match the salaries.

As for the games today, Cleveland lost at home to Chicago. May be they were all depressed that Ferry couldn't score Bibby for them after all that time he invested :-) Dallas had no problem dealing with Miami without Wade. Shaq had 17 points and that was not even enough to offset Jason Terry's 21, let alone Nowitzki's 31-11. Agent-0 poured in 43 to beat the Kings. Artest had 32-6-3 but nobody could stop Agent-0.

Miami @ Dallas - 100-112
Chicago @ Cleveland - 84-98

Interesting games on the board for Feb 23-rd (Friday)

Indiana @ Toronto - Almost identical records for these L-Eastern conference powerhouses!

Washington @ Chicago - Another good L-Eastern match-up.

Phoenix @ Minnesota - Phoenix lost there last time. Revenge time!

Utah @ Denver - Can AI and Melo win any meaningful games?

NBA notes - 02/21/2007 - Wade is gone!

Big news of the day was D-Wade's injury. Thats a huge loss for the Heat and the NBA in general. He is one of the biggest stars in the NBA and the national TV schedule has many telecasts planned around him and now those Heat games are not as much fun to watch. There's a Wade-LeBron game on ABC this weekend thats just not relevant now. They put on a tremendous show last year. One of the best regular season game you'll ever see. Shaq is still a big name, but the Heat are Wade's team now. Not sure how bad the injury is, but it doesn't look good now. The contact itself looked harmless and it was not one of those Wade flying through the air and crashing into bodies injury. He just extended his arm, reached in and hit Shane Battier as Shane was driving to the basket, but he immediately collapsed in severe pain. They had to cart him away in a wheelchair. The Heat lost to the Rockets and McGrady had 32-3-8

James scored 29 points, and Varejao slammed home teammate Sasha Pavlovic's missed shot with 16 seconds left to lift the Cavaliers to an 86-85 victory over the Raptors. The Suns took care of the Celtics at home. Nash had 14 and 13 and STAT had 32-12. Marion had 17-11 and 4 blocks. Amare is scoring 30 routinely these days. He might be back to his peak form already.

There were a few other interesting games on a busy day. Bucks lost at Indiana in double OT. Redd had 38 points. This guy is a true scorer. But O'Neal's 29-15 was too much for the Bucks. Mike Miller scored 45 points against the Warriors in a losing effort. He hit 16-27 shots with 9-17 being 3's. He put on a great show, but the young Warriors had balanced scoring on their side and won it at the end. Biedrins and Monta Ellis are just special players. Look out for them.

Thursday is the Trade deadline. Lets see what happens. Apparently Cleveland is desperate to get Mike Bibby.

Miami @ Houston - 102-112
Cleveland @ Toronto - 86-85
Boston @ Phoenix - 108-118

Interesting games on the board for Feb 22-nd (Thursday)

Miami @ Dallas - Without Wade, this may not be the match-up we all expected.

Chicago @ Cleveland - Good central match-up between teams that are pretty close to each other in the standings.

NBA Sabermetrics.

Interesting article today in San Jose Mercury about how statistical analysis and NBA "sabermetrics" is catching on big time in the league right now. I have always been fascinated by this area ever since I read the book Moneyball on the Oakland A's and Billy Beane. I know it was just a matter of time before we got something similar in the NBA and the NFL. It does look like thats happening now. This is a good article on the issue.

NBA gets warm & fuzzy with math

USING BERRI'S WINS PRODUCED EQUATION, DAVIS IS RESPONSIBLE FOR 5.7 OF THE WARRIORS' 25 VICTORIES THIS SEASON

By Mark Emmons
Mercury News

The cheering of Bay Area fans over the Warriors trade that shipped Mike Dunleavy and Troy Murphy -- along with their hefty contracts and headbands -- to Indiana last month continues to echo. The deal, which brought Al Harrington to Oakland, was wildly popular.

It shouldn't have been. Or so believes David Berri.

``Harrington at power forward is a disaster,'' Berri said. He called Harrington one of the five least productive regulars in the NBA last season, a player who will not improve the Warriors, and ``won't help his next team, either.''

Berri points to the Warriors' 6-8 record since Harrington and Stephen Jackson joined the lineup and adds: ``That's exactly what you would expect.''

And who is Berri? A guy whose sports career ended in junior high, Berri is a Cal State-Bakersfield economics professor and co-author of the book ``The Wages of Wins.''

He is part of the statistical analysis trend that is gaining an NBA foothold. Think ``Moneyball'' on the hardwood. Just as the numbers-centric view of evaluating players championed by the A's Billy Beane has revolutionized baseball, more NBA franchises are utilizing sophisticated algorithms to better understand their sport's X's and O's.

Armed with spreadsheets and dizzying formulas with names such as WINVAL, ProductivityValue and Player Efficiency Rating, some very smart people are trying to measure an individual's contributions in a complex team game.

``We absolutely take this very seriously,'' said Pete D'Alessandro, the Warriors' director of basketball operations. ``If you're not doing this, you're probably not keeping up. I can't imagine a team out there that at least isn't paying attention to it.''

Some franchises are adding front-office evaluators who know far more about snapping pencils than breaking ankles. The Houston Rockets' general manager in waiting, Daryl Morey, is a graduate of MIT's Sloan School of Management who has no coaching, playing or scouting experience.

The stat geeks are checking into the game. And the conclusions of some challenge conventional wisdom. Exhibit A: Berri's opinions about Harrington.

Quantifying game

There's a long history of stat-crunching in baseball, where sabermetrics -- derived from the acronym SABR, which stands for the Society for American Baseball Research -- is something of a religion. Quantitative analysis of baseball essentially involves computing the results of one-on-one confrontations between pitchers and hitters.

But basketball is more complicated on account of its interdependency among five players.

``When a basket goes in, you have no idea how to apportion the credit,'' said Dan Rosenbaum, an economics professor at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro and a consultant for the Cleveland Cavaliers. ``Some should go to the guy who scored, some to the guy with the assist, some to the player standing at the three-point line who drew defenders to him and created open space. It's even harder to assess who should get credit on defense. That's why evaluations have been subjective.''

Now, other -- and provocative -- tools are emerging. Traditional box scores can be inadequate in judging a player's performance, so statisticians are devising new measures. They comb data in search of a new sport buzz word: efficiencies.

Some, such as ESPN.com writer John Hollinger's Player Efficiency Rating, combine a range of stats to create one number they believe best captures a player's effectiveness. Others borrow from hockey's plus-minus method. So, if a team scores two points more than the opponent while a player is on the court, he would have a plus-2 rating.

But that basic concept is only the starting point for complex equations that could make a fan's head hurt.

Roland Beech works out of his home office in Aptos, where he endlessly watches games -- often in slow motion -- and charts stats. He has created an adjusted plus-minus measurement he calls ``on-court/off-the-court.''

``If you play for the Memphis Grizzlies, your plus-minus is likely to be negative no matter who you are,'' said Beech, founder of the Web site 82games.com. ``But does the team play better with you or without you? With this, you can get a sense of if a guy is actually improving things.''

Such systems are gaining credibility. A few years ago, Beech was one of several people who were doing analysis on the Internet fringes. ``Now, most of my friends from back then work for teams,'' he said. So does Beech, who declined to identify the franchise. Dean Oliver, who played at Cal Tech, has a doctorate degree and worked as an environmental engineer, was hired last year as the Denver Nuggets' director of quantitative analysis.

The Dallas Mavericks also were early adapters. The Mavs reportedly use WINVAL, a modified plus-minus method devised by Jeff Sagarin and Wayne Winston, one of owner Mark Cuban's college professors.

``It's critical,'' Cuban wrote in an e-mail. ``But of course, having seen the other systems, I think ours is the only one that's worthwhile. The primary thing to note is that if you are using publicly available NBA stats as your only source of data, it won't be of any value.''

As people like Beech, Rosenbaum and Oliver have joined teams, their best work is no longer public.

Teams are secretive, too. Warriors executives Chris Mullin and D'Alessandro both declined to speak in specifics about what their team does. But Mullin puts validity in the numbers . . . up to a point.

``I heard there's a book out where they make the case for the most overrated player: Allen Iverson,'' Mullin said. ``Well, Iverson is pretty good. So when I consider statistical formulas, something like that is a red flag.''

That would be Berri's book.

Subjectivity reigns

``I've had people say, `You hate Allen Iverson,' '' said Berri, who wrote ``The Wages of Wins'' with Martin Schmidt and Stacey Brook to examine what they call myths in sports. ``I don't know Allen Iverson. I've got nothing against him.''

But when you factor in Iverson's low shooting percentage and turnover rate, ``he's a slightly below-average player,'' Berri added.

He believes teams overpay for scorers and are idiots to do so. He cites the $36 million deal Harrington got from Indiana last summer. ``If you score, you get paid,'' Berri said. ``Al Harrington scored for the Atlanta Hawks last year and got rewarded. Well, Al Harrington also can't rebound.''

``The Wages of Wins,'' published by Stanford University Press, argues the best way to judge players is through a relatively simple formula that uses statistics found in box scores and results in a Wins Produced number.

Cuban wrote that the premise is ``ridiculous'' because ``it completely discounts the value of coaching.''

Berri doesn't seem bothered by criticism. He says he has no interest in working for an NBA team. And he understands the scorn that would be heaped upon a general manager if he, say, traded Denver star Carmelo Anthony for New York reserve David Lee.

``They would put a show on ESPN Classic about how it was one of the dumbest deals of all-time,'' he said.

Still, Berri ranked Lee as the NBA's sixth-most productive player at this season's halfway point.

For the most part, basketball analysts lack the smugness sometimes found in baseball sabermetrics. Instead, they're more willing to concede what they don't know. (For instance, it's much easier to say what is happening rather than why it's occurring.)

Beech and Rosenbaum said it's a mistake to become slaves to absolute numbers. They are less concerned about assigning numeric value to a player and more interested in helping coaches figure out which players work best together.

And, of course, just because there's more data available to coaches doesn't mean they will actually use it.

``I don't believe in overdoing statistics,'' Warriors Coach Don Nelson said. ``I'm from the old school. What you see is probably what you get. I just use the statistics to confirm what I see.''

One quandary faced by teams, added the Warriors' D'Alessandro, is the lack of uniformity among the numbers guys. D'Alessandro is friends with Beech and Oliver, and sometimes has gone to lunch with them.

``Listening to them banter back and forth, I'm always learning something,'' he said. ``But I've also noticed that neither of them are in agreement on anything. Obviously someone is not right.''

Berri expects the resistance of some NBA insiders to the new math to continue. ``It's really hard to change the way you see things,'' he said. ``It's rarely the case that somebody comes along with new information about the world and people go, Oh, I was wrong!''

And he knows Warriors fans won't agree that they're wrong about thinking their team fleeced the Pacers.

``Troy Murphy was a slightly above-average player, and Warriors fans hate hearing that,'' Berri said. ``Sorry, it's true.''

NBA notes - 02/20/2007 - Nash is back

Nash was back today for the Suns and boy what a difference that makes. The Suns offense was flowing and they won easily to stop the losing streak. Doug Collins made the point that nobody means more to their team than Nash and I totally agree. Every team will struggle without it's star player and Barkley also made the point about how everybody talks about Nash, but it's the same with Milwaukee and Redd and Boston lost all those games without Paul Pierce. But there's something about this offense and the style of play and how integral Nash is to what they try to do almost every possession. Without him it's an entirely different offense. Mike D'Antoni says he calls about 30% of the plays with Nash and 80% of the play without Nash. So Nash is the most indispensable player for his team in the entire league. Redd and Pierce play for bad teams and they make a huge difference. But good teams usually have more talent, multiple stars and they don't go into the tank like the Suns if the team MVP goes out. Spurs won't win the championship without Timmy, but I am sure they will be in the playoffs. Same with Mavs and Nowitzki. Even the Lakers do surprisingly well without Kobe. Cavs without LeBron may be the closest to the Suns without Nash and that too only because the Cavs are not that good a team and they don't have much talent around Bron-Bron. They had a ridiculous stat today about how 16 players or so have had career years the last 3 seasons with the Suns and Nash!

Marion had a great game today with 31-9. Good to see the Matrix come out of the mini-funk he had been in. Amare had 22-9 and Kurt Thomas was back playing meaningful minutes. Nash had a 13-2-12 night. He tripped and fell on the floor in the 3-rd quarter and got up holding his hurt shoulder. Not a pretty sight for Suns fans. But he went back the very next play and took a violent charge on Elton Brand barreling down the floor! Nash is a tough son of a gun! The coaches jumped up from their seat and took him out of the game for good after that play since the Suns were already up 20 or so.

Looks like D'Antoni is suddenly in love with Pat Burke. It's very interesting sometimes how this guy uses his bench. He tries somebody for 2 games and then gives up on them. Barkely was criticizing him for not using his bench enough. I totally agree on this one with Chuck. I never agreed with these experts who say the Suns have a thin bench. That was the case 2 years back, not anymore. Charles echoes my sentiment when he says the Suns are probably the deepest team in the league. Amen to that brother! They really are VERY deep. It's just that D'Anoni doesn't use all of them or sometime any of them! He sticks with his 7 guys and doesn't play the rest. I am not even being critical of him, it's just the way he coaches this team. Also, the TNT gang spoke about how they need to develop a backup point and Nash breaks down at the end of every season. Well, I am sure Nash hates the notion that he breaks down and I think he doesn't have that problem the last couple of years. That used to happen to him in Dallas, but he has worked very hard to improve his conditioning etc. The reason Suns lost last year to the Mavs or to the Spurs the year before was because the other team was better and not because Nash broke down. These are myths that the experts just hold on to forever. But I agree with Barkely that Mike has to develop a backup point. Nash has some chronic back issues and is getting old. It's definitely good to save him for the playoffs. Marcus Banks should be allowed to run the point. You can't expect him or the team to be as good as they are with Nash . There's a reason why Nash is the 2-time MVP and is being paid 65 mill as opposed to whatever Marcus Banks makes. Of course he is not going to be as good as Nash at his job and it's the coaching staff's job to find a way to work with that for 15-18 minutes a game. Draw up new plays, run him with Amare and Marion, use him with Barboso, play him with Diaw or do something to use him effectively. The guy is decent and can help you.

In other games, Spurs took care off the Nuggets rather easily. AI played and it didn't matter. I think it's officially time to give up on that trade. Like many astute observers had pointed out, thats just too much offense and one-dimensional talent with very little defense, rebounding etc. to compete against teams like the Spurs. Agent-0 scored 38 points and KG lost on the road. Utah lost a close game at Portland without Deron Williams. Okur had 25 and R-O-Y (Rookie of the Year) had 27. Boston lost a close one on the road at Sacramento 101-104.

The trade deadline is coming up on Thursday. It would be interesting to see if Bibby, Gason, Vinsanoty or Kidd get moved.

Phoenix @ LA Clippers - 115-90
Denver @ San Antonio - 80-95
Minnesota @ Washington - 100-112

Interesting games on the board for Feb 21-th (Wedneday)

Miami @ Houston - It's not Shaq-V-Yao, but still a good game with the resurgent Miami.

Cleveland @ Toronto - Toronto will be up for this one. Bosh and LeBron are from the same draft too.

Boston @ Phoenix - How does Nash handle back-to-back after his injury break?

NBA All Star Weekend - 02/19/2007

All star weekend is over with the West crushing the L-East 153-132 as Kobe won the MVP with a 31-5-6 night. He had some monstrous dunks and was cheered wildly. But as usual, the All-Star game was a sloppy, no defense, no chemistry, sometimes ugly affair. This had me thinking about the whole All-Star weekend. How good is it? How to make it better? I actually like the NBA All-Star weekend. I think it's a nice change-of-pace during a long season and it's good to see the skills competition, the 3 point shootout and even the slam dunk contest. The dunk contest is probably the most over-rated event of the Saturday. Gerald Green won it this year on what's now becoming an annual ritual. Somebody goes retro and pays homage to a legend from his team, wears his jersey and does their dunk from the 80's or whatever. 2 years back, Josh Smith started it by wearing Dominique Wikins jersey. Last year it was Nate Robinson jumping over Spud Webb. This year, Gerald Green pulled out Dee Brown's jersey and did his hand over the eyes dunk. He also jumped over Nate Robinson and finally a table to win the contest. Dwight Howard had an awesome dunk where he put a sticker at the top of the back-board. For some reason, this didn't get the high-score it deserved.

Some dunks are still awesome, but overall it's just not the show it used to be. In a league where probably 95% of the players can dunk these days, how big can the event really be? They had a stellar panel of judges this year with MJ, Nique, Dr.J, Vince and Kobe. Thats the other problem. I think Kobe and Vince along with D-Wade, LeBron and Josh Smith should be in the contest instead of in the judge's table. All the big names are missing the last several years and it has become an event for the rookie and second-year leapers. NBA seems to get top guys for the 3 point and the skills contest, but not sure why they don't do it with the dunk contest. You had LeBron, D-Wade, Kobe, Nowitzki, Gil etc. in the other 2 contests, but Dwight Howard was the lone All-Star in the dunk contest. Also they should something about missed dunks. Too many missed dunks suck the energy out of the event.

The race between Dick Baveta and Charles Barkley was the highlight of the Saturday night events. Chuck backed up his talk with an easy win. I thought he would lose for sure, but I guess once a great athlete, always a decent athlete. The slimmer, fitter-looking Baveta just could not get it done though he dove at the end as Barkely started showing off by running backwards. Seeing Baveta dive was awesome!

But at the end of the day, the biggest problem with the weekend is the All-Star game itself. Also the Rookie-Sophomore game. These games are pretty badly played, with no defense anywhere in sight, no chemistry between the players and guys trying to do too much. You see balls flying all over the place and but for the occasional dunk, there's no electricity in the game. Guys don't play hard and it shows. There were a lot of talk about how to improve the All-Star game on the day after, but the good thing was, some of it came from the players themselves. Chauncey Billups talked about it and I am glad he did. It's better than the media being the only one caring about it. A lot of these stars still talk about it like it's a great show and it's actually a good thing they don't play defense. Some guys in the media talked about making it a World-V-US game like they do it in hockey. There are a lot of international players in the NBA today, but it's still an American sport. The World would have a lot fewer deserving all-stars than the US team and it would take a lot of good all-star spots away from US players. I am not a hockey fan, but I would guess it's a lot more even in the NHL since hockey is essentially a Canadian sport with a lot of European stars as well.

So the US-V-World is a good idea, but that may not work. My idea to fix the game is simple. Throw money at it. Get 2 or 3 sponsors, make them pay 5 or 6 million each, call it the Verizon All-Star game, and the winner takes 12 million dollars with each player getting 1 mill. The losing team just gets the appearance fee. I don't care how rich you are, you want the million and that might make these players try harder.

So thats my solution for the All-Star weekend. In a nut-shell, more money for the winners and put the top super-star athletes in the dunk contest.

There were also other interesting stuff from the weekend. I loved the whole Shaq dance form the East practice session. That cat can move for a big, actually huge guy. It was funny to watch him dance, but he is good. Also, Kobe got a lot of love. Looks like Kobe's image has come a full-circle and is back on top again. They were comparing this to how he was relentlessly booed in Phily the last time he won the All-Star MVP. To be fair to Kobe, I think he is also genuinely a changed person these days. He is extremely nice with people and is rarely cocky or arrogant with a mike on his face. Now all he needs to do is win a championship and he'll be on top the Sports World. He is pretty close to top already. I also heard that Vegas looked like a zoo this weekend. Apparently it was bigger than the Super Bowl crowds in Vegas and big fight weekends. That surprised me. I thought this wouldn't be such a big event except for the celebrities. Super Bowl for instance brings 300,000 average fans to Vegas. I guess some people call the NBA all-star game the black Super-Bowl for a reason! You add up the celebrities, their entourages and the fans, it becomes huge. Apparently the traffic was really bad and Nowitzki almost missed the 3 point shootout!

Of course there was the obligatory police trouble with 2 shooting incidents, one in the MGM Grand parking lot and the other at a strip club. Apparently the Titans problem-child Pacman Jones was involved in the strip-club incident. He and rapper Nelly were at the joint and Pacman started throwing thousands of dollar bills at the stage. woman started fighting over the bills and eventually somebody shot at somebody. Now they are saying Vegas may not even want the all-star event anymore!

Interesting games on the board for Feb 20-th (Tuesday)

Phoenix @ LA Clippers - Will Nash play? Can the Suns start the second half on a winning note?

Denver @ San Antonio - Spurs are back at home and Denver would love to beat them to start this stretch.

Minnesota @ Washington - Minnesota needs to beat good teams on the road if they are to become a real playoff team.

NBA notes - 02/15/2007

Cleveland got a big win at LA today with King james scoring 38 on 10-16 shooting to beat Kobe's 34 and the Lakers. This was a great win for the Cavs. Not only dod they win, they won a close game with playoff intensity on the road against a clutch player called Kobe. They also seem to have started the process of tweaking their offense. It looked like they were losing this game early in the third, but they ran and went on a few fast-breaks for easy scores and eventually took the lead. It seemed like they have started running a lot more. Thats probably why they scored 114. The Lakers shut their fast-break down in the 4-th, but they still held on to win this one. They ran even without the young Daniel Gibson, though Eric Snow is no joke. He had a great game, dished out a few good assists on the break and knocked down clutch free-throws. But the most amazing thing is how the Cavs have him defending Kobe. He is 6-3 and 33 years old, but actually does a good job on Kobe, definitely better than the other Cavs. Thats a tough, talented sun of a gun! As for the Lakers, they seem to be on a a long funk having lost 5 straight now. Not a good way to go into the All-Star break.

Dallas Mavericks, Nowitzki and the gang did what they always do. They beat another quality team on the road. They have now won 9 straight (again) and it looks like the Suns can kiss the home-court goodbye. Suns are now 4.5 games back of the Mavs. Nowitzki had a 26-8 night to take care of T-Mac's 27-10. The Mavs are scary good right now.

In other news, Timmy Hardaway was "fired" by the Commish from all NBA duties. He came out and apologized, but the damage was done. Apparently Scottie Pippen wants to comeback at 41 years old! Shocking how all these guys never learn from their friends and keep making the same mistake. Like Charles says, you were not good when he retired, why would you be good now after sitting on the couch for 2 years? You may feel better, but you can't play better. Good call by Chuck.

Dallas @ Houston - 80-77
Cleveland @ LA Lakers - 114-108

Interesting games on the board for Feb 16-th (Friday)

All-star break - Rookie-Sophomore game.

NBA notes - 02/14/2007

Big news of the day was Tim Hardaway saying flat out "I hate gays. I am a homophobe." It's amazing how mainstream bigotry towards Gays is and how ignorant people are. The only reason he is able to say something like this is because of how acceptable he thinks his opinion is. He later apologized, but the damage was done and he helped us realize how far away we are as a society from accepting gays in American sports. Thats indeed sad.

In other news, San Antonio had a big win at Detroit behind some good D and balanced scoring. Timmy had 23-8. Minnesota beat Denver for a big win. KG had 17-19, but Mark Blount had 24 points. Melo's 28 points were not enough for the Nuggets. Deron Williams had 33-6-12 to beat the Cavs in a close one. Larry Hughes had 33 and the King just shot 9-25 for 23. King is in a slump lately and I hope the all-star break does him good though he will be Vegas. Suns lost at Seattle without Nash and Diaw. Aside from how key Nash is to the Suns, this stretch also exposes their lack of depth. Is it a lack of depth or Mike D'Antoni is just refusing to use players like Jalen Rose? One good news for the Suns is that Marcus Banks has been good in this stretch. He had 21 pts again today on 9-15 shooting on a day when his teammates combined to shoot 39 % Yes, the Phoenix Suns shot 39 %. If that doesn't tell you how good Nash is, nothing ever will!

The Nets went in to Toronto and got a close-up look at the best team in their division. Toronto got 25 points from Bosh against 17 for their ex-homeboy Vinsanity. The Nets aren't any good without Kidd either, however they are not too good with him either :-) New York got blown out at Golden State after beating the Lakers yesterday. Thats life in the NBA for you. Stephen Jackson had 36 points for the Warriors. Chicago lost at Charlotte. Boston finally got a win behind some great 3 point shooting. Pierce had 32 points to stop the bleeding for the Celts. It would have gotten real ugly if they had lost this one since they are going on an extended West coast trip pretty soon. Glad the Celtics stopped the streak before the trip. But then again, the streak at least kept the Celtics in the news after several years of being totally irrelevant in the NBA.

San Antonio @ Detroit - 90-81
Denver @ Minnesota - 94-99
Cleveland @ Utah - 98-99
Milwaukee @ Boston - 97-117
Phoenix @ Seattle - 90-114
New Jersey @ Toronto - 109-120

Interesting games on the board for Feb 15-th (Thursday)

Dallas @ Houston - Big game for Houston to show their rival how good and how real they are.

Cleveland @ LA Lakers - Kobe V LeBron again, this time in LA. Should be a tough one for the Cavs.

NBA notes - 02/13/2007

Great road win for Toronto. They won a close one at Chicago behind a 25-14 night for Bosh. The Raptors are for real and have won 8 of 10. They got Bosh playing at a very high level, T.J.Ford is back from injury and Bargnani is very good (he had 22 today). They are clearly the best team in the Atlantic and Bosh might be becoming a superstar, a double-double machine. As for the Bulls, Deng had 30 pts again on 15-23 shooting. San Antonio took care of New Jersey today rather easily. They went on a 20-0 run at the start of the second quarter to put this game away. Nets had no shot in this one without Jason Kidd. Apparently Kidd and AI are going to miss the all-star games as well. Thats 5 injuries counting Nash, Boozer and Yao Ming. The all-star rosters look really diluted right now!

New York went in to LA and beat the Lakers again. They beat them at home when Kobe was suspended and now on the road on a dunk by Eddie Curry with 7 secs to go. Curiously enough, Kobe did not even touch the ball in the Lakers final possession which ended with a Lamar Odom air-ball! Sometimes you wonder what's going on in Big-Cheif-Triangle's head. Phil can't get the ball in to Kobe's hands? Kobe had 31 points in defeat. In Milwaukee, Dallas trailed big, but Nowitzki scored 38 points to bring them back and win the game in the final minute. Andrew Bogut had a 16-17 night.

D-Wade had 35 points today after he looked to be hurt on a hard fall. Luckily for the Heat fans, he came back and as usual dominated the fourth quarter with 16 points to end up with 35 points. What's up with this guy and the fourth quarter? Portland had no answers to him. T-Mac had 28 and 12 assists to beat Sacto in OT. Ron Artest had 39 points for the Kings. Apparently he is hoping for another trade and is playing hard for it.

Toronto @ Chicago - 112-111
San Antonio @ New Jersey - 107-85

Interesting games on the board for Feb 14-th (Wednesday)

San Antonio @ Detroit - Should be a good one here with playoff intensity.

Denver @ Minnesota - Who's the second best team in the Northwest division?

Cleveland @ Utah - Crucial road test for the King before the All-star break.

Milwaukee @ Boston - Interesting only because the Celtics are riding a 18-game losing streak.

Phoenix @ Seattle - Can the Suns win on the road without Nash? A loss here might just wrap up the MVP trophy for Nash :-)

New Jersey @ Toronto - Vinsanity goes back to Toronto, possibly alone without Kidd or Jefferson, to face a red-hot Raptors team.

NBA notes - 02/12/2007

Not a very busy (or interesting) day in the NBA. The paper-Clips got blown out at Detroit without Elton Brand. Another string game for C-Webb. He had 19-9-2 in just 28 mins. This deal is working out really well for Detroit. Warriors lost at Denver and also got the bad news that Baron Davis is going to have another knee surgery. Baron Davis is killing them every game he doesn't play. I mean they have very little talent outside of him and it seems like they never have a full team for more than a few straight games because he is so fragile. This guy is one of the best guards in the league when healthy, but he rarely is healthy. This injury pretty much wraps up another lottery season for the Warriors unless Mullin pulls another shocker by getting Pau Gasol or something. Atlanta went in to Utah and lost as expected. Their road-luck finally dried up. Deron Williams had a 7-9-6 night. He is quietly shaping up as one of the top point guards in the league. Apparently he was upset that Sports Illustrated didn't list him as one of their point guards of the future in their NBA season preview edition. I don't blame him. I was surprised to not see him in that article either. They even had his backup Dee Brown in that list.

Golden State @ Denver - 111-123
Atlanta @ Utah - 76-102

Interesting games on the board for Feb 13-th (Tuesday)

Toronto @ Chicago - 2 good L-Eastern conference teams meet up.

San Antonio @ New Jersey - Spurs road trip continues. Lets see if they can win @ NJ.

NBA notes - 02/11/2007

Another "DNP" for Nash and another "L" for the Suns. One of the reasons Nash won the MVP 2 years back was because of how bad the Suns played when he was out for a few games. Sometimes you appreciate things only when you don't have it and realize how much you miss it. That might be happening to Nash again now. The Suns are 2-2 without him the last 4 games. On top of that, Boris Diaw also missed this game. Chicago won this one with a great run in the money quarter. They outscored the Suns 37-19 in the 4-th. The "young 3" of the Bulls were great today. Hinrich had 29, Gordon 27 and Deng had 29. I am really impressed with the Bulls and Hinrich. They are well-coached (Scott Skiles is a hard-nosed, defensive minded task-master), fundamentally sound and they move the ball real well. Hinrich in particular runs the offense real well. He is not a great point guard or a phenomenal shooter, but he plays under control and just seem to knows what's going on all the time. But I am hurt whenever I see Deng knowing that he could have been a Sun! The Suns traded that pick away to save some money. He could have been a perfect fit for this offense with his athleticism and length. Imagine Deng backing up Marion !

Shaq and D-Wade did strut their stuff today against the Spurs. D-Wade is something else in the fourth quarter. It's amazing how he steps up in the money quarter almost on a whim. He just pulls up and starts shooting those long jumpers from the center of the court and they always seem to go in in the 4-th even if the same shots are off target in the other 3 quarters. The guy had 20 of his 26 points in the fourth and controlled this game. Shaq had a strong 16-7 night as well. The Heat have also gotten Eddie Jones back now and he is contributing on both ends of the floor as always. I thought the Heat were done this year, but looks like they might have a deep playoff run in them again. As for the Spurs, another bad loss with Timmy having a bad day. Manu had 26.

Kobe and the Lakers lost again though Kobe put on a show on national TV just like Wade. He had 36 points on a variety of jaw-dropping plays, and even though LeBron had a mediocre game, the Lakers couldn't close it out. Good win for the Cavs. They have major issues on offense. LeBron is not yet a complete offensive player like Kobe. He is still young and improving. So they get stagnant on offense sometimes and they don't have enough dependable shooters around him. Larry Hughes is good, but can't shoot. Same with Eric Snow. So when they double LeBron, he doesn't know what to do and the offense just stalls. This is the problem with defensive-minded coaches. They just don't cut the offense loose. They have some talented offensive players, but they don't play them because they are not good defensively or whatever. Today, they were saved by Sasha Pavlovic. He is the only guy who was willing to take the initiative and create some plays on offense instead of just standing there and watching LeBron. He had 21 points and I hope coach Brown use him more. There's some talk by LeBron about running more and I think they need to do it. LeBron is unstoppable in the open-court and he is still a couple of years away from being the same in the half-court. Daniel Gibson started today and hopefully thats a good sign for the offense.

Clippers got crushed at Indiana. Indiana seems to be doing well with the new lineup. More well defined roles and mature play seems to be paying off. Gilbert Arenas claimed he will score 50 points against the Blazers on Feb 11-th. He came out today and shot 3-15 for 9 points! Thats shocking to see Gil not drop 50. The Wizards lost and coach Eddie Jordan ripped his team for a lack of leadership outside of Antawn Jamsion. I guess he didnt' like Gil calling his shot like that and I don't blame him. Also, we all forgot about Jamison this year and they have now lost a bunch of games without him. Atlanta has now won 5 straight road games with a close 106-105 win at Golden State. Josh Smith had 29-10 and had some ridiculous dunks! The Hawks have a good young nucleus with a lot of lanky, wiry thin, young athletes. The arms on Marvin Williams seem to extend from Atlanta to Miami or something! What's the wingspan on that dude? Speaking of ridiculous dunks, the dunk of the day was by Andre Iguodala against Dallas.

San Antonio @ Miami - 85-100
LA Lakers @ Cleveland - 90-99
Chicago @ Phoenix - 116-103
LA Clippers @ Indiana - 80-94

Interesting games on the board for Feb 12-th (Monday)

Golden State @ Denver - Could be relevant for the 8-th spot on the West though the Warriors usually stink on the road.

Atlanta @ Utah - Atlanta has won 5 straight on the road. Can they keep it going at Utah? Me think not!

Phoenix Suns notes - 02/10/2007

Suns are still doing well. Their record is 39-11 and are 2 games behind the Mavs. They have lost 3 of the last 6 since their 17 game winning streak. One of those losses was the last game of a long road trip at Minnesota with KG scoring 40+. The other loss was yesterday without Nash against our archenemy Joe Johnson and the Atlanta Hawks. They also won at Denver when Nash left the game early and beat Portland in OT on the road without Nash. They beat Spurs in this 6 game stretch in a close one where the Spurs looked every bit the contender they have been the last few years. That was a good win for the Suns.

The one bad loss was against the Jazz at home. This was shocking to see the Jazz kind of dominate the Suns at home! The Suns probably wanted to win this game badly since they have already lost twice to the Jazz. Now it's 0-3. Mehmet Okur looked like a freaking cross between Wilt Chamberlain and Steve Kerr! He absolutely dominated the inside and as always nailed those 3's and other perimeter shots. The Jazz are a big team and the Suns were over-matched size-wise as always. And all this without Boozer! AK-47, Boozer and Okur may be the best front-line we have seen in a long time. There's not a single thing these 3 guys combined can't do. They are big, talented, athletic and versatile. And Deron Williams is one of the better PGs in this league and sky is the limit for the Jazz if Deron keeps improving. The Suns still came back and made a game out of it and they might have even won it if Marion and Barbosa were not in foul trouble. With all that said, the discouraging part was how easily the Jazz scored throughout this game and how much trouble the Suns had defending them. The Suns have not shown us yet that they can handle the Jazz in a 7 game playoff series.

The good news for the the Suns is that Amare Stoudemire is having a great stretch right now. He is truly STAT right now - standing tall and talented. He had 28 against the Jazz, 36 against Denver, 36 against the Blazers and 29 against the Hawks. He has taken even more of a scoring load with Nash out. By the way, his field goal percentage is still a whopping 60%. The only issue for the Suns here could be that Marion I think is kind of losing his touches to Amare. His numbers are down the last couple of games. Hopefully he doesn't sulk and go into the tank. He even made it to the "HOT-NOT" list for NBA fantasy players on the "NOT" side! His FG% is down as well which means he is still getting some shots, just not converting enough of them. Hopefully he turns it around and becomes the MATRIX we know again. After all, he will be at the all-star game for the Suns along with Nash and Amare for a reason and he sure can get back to that all-star level soon.

NBA notes - 02/10/2007

Rasheed Wallace came to play today against an all-star forward Chris Bosh and the Raptors. The Raptors are making news now behind Bosh. He is a true all-star in-spite of some people thinking he made it purely based on the Canadian fan votes. It's one of my philosophies in life that quite often 2 things that sound contradictory can both be equally true on careful analysis. This is one of those situations. Bosh is a deserving all-star and he probably did get a lot of Canadian votes being the star of the only Canadian NBA team. In any case, Sheed outplayed him today with a 28-7 night. Bosh had a bad night and just shot 5-15 for 14 points. Detroit is doing real well right now with Webber in the middle. That dude can really pass the ball!

Orlando lost to NJ after a big win yesterday. The Magic have actually been struggling since a great Nov. Not sure what's happening there. They should be good enough right now to be a major player in the L-Eastern conference. As for the Nets, looks like they can beat anybody when the good Vinsanoty shows up and lose to anybody when the bad Vinsanity is in the house. Today it was the good with 32 points. Talking about being good, Mehmet Okur is right now balling out of his mind. Today he scored 29 points to lead the Jazz over the Knicks. He is carrying them without Boozer. The Jazz have a lot of talent with AK-47, Deron Williams, Boozer and Okur with D-Fish and Harping to back them up. They are going to be real good if Deron keeps getting better and better. Apparently he trained with John Stockton this off-season!

There are couple of other things happening in the NBA. John Amaechi, a journeyman center is coming out of the closet. Apparently he grew up in UK and is currently writing a book where he says he is gay. My response is "whatever". He may be the first NBA guy to come out, but it's just not that interesting to me. I just don't have any problems with Gays or anybody for that matter. The other news is D-Wade V Cuban. Apparently Wade questioned Nowitzki's leadership and Cuban jumped to defend his boy. I am surprised Wade spoke like that. May be his head is getting too big finally. But Cubes line about the buffet-line is classic. It's all reproduced below.

Wade - At the end of the day, you're remembered for what you did at the end. . . . I think that's the reason - Dirk says they gave us the championship last year, but he's the reason they lost the championship, because he wasn't the leader that he's supposed to be in the closing moments. That's because of great defense by us, but also he wasn't assertive enough as a leader's supposed to be.

Cuban - Say what ? Is this the DWade of some of the lamest, boring commercials known to man ? Commercials that are singlehandedly responsible for selling more commercial skipping TIVOs than anything else on TV ? I guess you have earned the right to criticize Dirk with an obvious display of your own leadership skills. I know Shaq appreciates your leadership as well. He called out your team a few weeks ago saying it was "embarrassing". Great leadership DWade. Your coach sat players for being fat. I guess you couldn't lead them away from the buffet. You are an amazing player Dwayne. I love watching you shoot free throws. What you know about Dirk's leadership skills is non existent. You don't have a clue. Your ability to evaluate leadership skills .... well you obviously have an overinflated value of your own. Did you take business classes at Marquette ? Now we know why Charles won't put you in his 5.

Orlando @ New Jersey - 78-93

Interesting games on the board for Feb 11-th (Sunday)

Expanded Sunday schedule since NFL is over!

San Antonio @ Miami - ABC game. D-Wade and Shaq get to strut their stuff on national TV against the Spurs.

LA Lakers @ Cleveland - Kobe-V-LeBron. Must see TV.

Chicago @ Phoenix - The Suns welcome back Nash against a decent opponent.

LA Clippers @ Indiana - Which is the better mediocre team that can make the playoffs in it's conference?

NBA notes - 02/09/2007

Kind of a shameful loss for the Suns today against their ex-compadre Joe Johnson and the Hawks. They were missing Nash and such defeats are expected when he is not playing. But the hopes were up because they won at Denver when Nash missed most of the game and also at Portland though the Blazers took them to overtime. Also of all the teams to lose to at home, the Hawks are one of the worst choices. They have Joe and they are a horrible team. The fans should be pissed at this. This is the first time Joe has won in 4 tries, but this is a big one for him. He had 32-8-5 in this one. Amare continued his great streak with 29-13. He has been on a tear lately and his scoring is even better with Nash out. He has had 2 30+ games and 29 in this one. Finally he is getting more touches and Marion's role on offense seems to be shrinking a bit. Hope he is fine with it.

Dwight Howard won the game for Orlando against the Spurs on an alley-hoop dunk off an inbounds pass at the end of the game. He is awesome! He also had a stunning block on Parker just before that. This game was kind of a passing of the torch in some sense as Howard might very well be the next Duncan - a franchise altering big man. He had 30-8 against Timmy's 24-16. The Lakers lost at Toronto. The Lakers are struggling on this road trip and Kobe is not able to pull them out of it. They have lost 6 of 10 now. The Clippers won a close one 90-89 at Phily. Boston lost their 17-th straight! This is becoming a story now. Paul Pierce returned to play 20 minutes in this one.

King James scored 29 points to crush the Heat despite 27 from Wade. Dallas dominated the Rockets on the day Josh Howard get picked to the all-star team by the Commish. The Bulls lost a close game at Golden State in OT. This was a fun one as the Warriors came back from 14 down at the start of the fourth to push the game into OT and then won it 123-121 when Ben Gordon missed a wide-open 3 at the buzzer.

San Antonio @ Orlando - 104-106
LA Clippers @ Philadelphia - 90-89
Miami @ Cleveland - 79-103
Houston @ Dallas - 74-95
Atlanta @ Phoenix - 120-111
Chicago @ Golden State - 121-123

Interesting games on the board for Feb 10-th (Saturday)

Orlando @ New Jersey - Can the Magic follow up that great win against the Spurs with another one on the road here?

NFL notes - 2/1/2007 - Super Bowl is over.

Super Bowl is finally over and I am glad Peyton and Dungy are the Champions. One of the few times nice guys seem to have won in life. Though Peyton's humility does seem a little fake sometimes, I still think he is genuinely a nice and clean-cut guy. But the guy I am really happy for is coach Tony Dungy. He seems like a true gentleman and he is the best guy to hold the honor of being the first ever black coach to win the Super Bowl.

But before I talk about the game itself, I need to get something off my chest. You really can't spell hypocrisy without the words N-F-L! I was in Vegas for the Super Bowl. Vegas is just a great place to be in general, but it's really fun to be there for the Super Bowl. With their 30+ HD television sets, huge screens, comfortable seats, free drinks and hot waitresses in sexy costumes, sports books may be the closest thing to heaven on Earth! Apparently the casinos used to have hugely popular public parties for the Super Bowl until the NFL sent them a letter few years back threatening to sue them if they continue to show the Super Bowl at their parties. NFL doesn't want their name to be associated with the casinos and the sports books are the only place where the casinos can legally show the game. Even in their betting sheets, some casinos call it the "pro football championship game" and not the "Super Bowl" because NFL doesn't like them using the term Super Bowl. What a load of garbage! I know football is king in this country, but if you pull gambling (including fantasy football) out of football, it just might end up being the next NHL. For the league to pretend like it's too good for Vegas is laughable. Don't tell me your 35 minute half-time show has nothing to do with the fact that the sports books have to come up with second half prop bets! I understand the sports leagues need to stay far away from the gambling dens, but this is NFL going way too far for no sensible reason.

As for the game itself, it was kind of a letdown. It started really well for the Bears with Devin Hester taking the opening kickoff to the house! It was an electric play to kick-off the game after everybody spent 2 weeks talking about how the Colts need to stop Devin Hester. Peyton also threw an early interception. It all went downhill from there for the Bears. The Colts dominated the game from that point on though the score stayed close and held our attention well in to the third quarter. But the Colts clearly took control of this game at some point in the second quarter. There were a lot of turnovers because of the rain and I think I saw 2 back-to-back turnovers on consecutive plays for the first time.

Rex Grossman was truly horrible in this game! This guy couldn't do anything right in the second half. Though the Colts were the better team, the weather, turnovers and the quick start kept the Bears in this game for a long time. If only Rex had even made a couple of big plays in the second half, this could have been a much better game. Rex fumbled the snap a couple of times, threw horrible interceptions a couple other times and just refused to keep the Bears in the game! It was not all his fault because the defense couldn't stop the run, but he didn't help even a bit. He got excellent field position every time because the Colts didn't want to kick off to Hester anymore. In fact, Rex predicts this correctly after the first TD. HBO's Inside the NFL shows "sexy Rexy" running around on the sidelines after Hester's TD saying "we got excellent field position the rest of the game because they wont kick to him anymore". Unfortunately that was Rex's first and last good call of the game. I wouldn't blame the Bears if they look elsewhere for a QB next year. The problem with Rex now is, if you play bad against the Lions in Oct, nobody is watching. But the whole World is watching on a Super Bowl Sunday and his every mistake is just magnified. It's going to be tough for him to erase this unless he improves by leaps and bound.

As for the Colts, the rushing attack was on and Addai and Rhodes carved up the Bears. Peyton managed the game well and didn't have to be spectacular. The Colts D was good too and Bob Sanders seems to be getting all the credit for their sudden turnaround in the playoffs. A deserving champ indeed. It's been 5, 6 years coming for Peyton. A true franchise player. This makes him one of the biggest names in Sports. Michael Irvin says he is now the MJ of the NFL. There might be some truth to it. He is the best player in the league and now he has a ring to prove it.

All in all a good season and it's time to wave goodbye to football.

NFL notes - 2/1/2007 - Super Bowl Predictions

The Super Bowl is almost here. All the hype and all the hours and hours of analysis on ESPN and it's getting old already. There's not much of a story-line, there are no great "characters" in either team and there's nothing much to analyze either. Still the radio and TV shows have been covering this for 2 weeks because they have to. Here's this Super Bowl in a nut-shell.

1) Colts are the better team on paper and are a 7 point favorite.
2) Peyton Manning is the best quarterback in the league. Bears probably can't stop him. He is in several ads and deservedly so.
3) Rex Grossman is not that good. He is up-and-down on a weekly basis.
4) Devin Hester is a great Kick and Punt returner. Colts special teams are not that good and this is an area of strength for the Bears.
5) The Super Bowl features 2 black coaches for the first time ever and both these guys are classy, mild-mannered gentlemen.
6) The Bears have a good linebacker in Brian Urlacher. Some might say he is a little over-rated and I might agree.
7) The Bears RB is Thomas Jones whose parents did a wonderful job of raising multiple kids working day and night at the mines. His younger brother is Julius Jones, the RB for the Cowboys.

There's nothing more to know here and only 7 is even a marginally interesting story. As for the game, I think the Colts win. The Bears might keep it close (or get blown out!), but they probably can't win. They stay close if Sexy Rexy plays well and Devin Hester gets them in good field position. The Bears offense and Hester have to be as good as they can be for them to compete in this one. They definitely have a shot, but not a great shot.

As for who do I want to win, I like Peyton Manning and I love Tony Dungy. I think Dungy is one of the classiest guys in the NFL and I have always liked him. I like Peyton Manning too as a QB and as a person. So I definitely want the Colts to win ... I think. But there's an evil part of my mind that wants Peyton to lose and I am not too proud of that. I have always been a big fan of Dan Marino. It's a travesty that Dan couldn't win the Super Bowl with his talent. Peyton is often compared to Dan because of how good he is as a QB, but also because he has not won the Super Bowl. Part of me feels like he should not win one so that he doesn't surpass Marino in the eyes of the so-called "experts". I feel like Dan needs company and Peyton is the best company he can have! It was Elway for all those years before Terrell Davis helped Elway change that. I wonder what Marino thinks about Manning winning one. I am sure he is a little jealous. After all, we are all human beings.

NBA notes - 02/01/2007

Great win today for the Suns against the hated Spurs. This game reminded me of the Spurs win against the Lakers on Sunday where they won in-spite of not playing too well. Suns did the same thing today. They didn't play too well. They scored just 16 points in the first quarter! They did get it going in the second quarter. But won despite not being on top of their game and put the game away in the fourth quarter. The game was a lot closer than what the final score suggests and the Spurs probably faded in the fourth quarter because they were playing on back-to-back nights. Also, Ginobli kneed Amare in his "unmentionables" and Amare got up to fight him for a bit before the pain kicked in and he had to curl up for a while. It kind of looked dirty though everybody have their knees extended when they go for the lay-up or dunk. I think they do it more as a protection mechanism to save themselves, may be to protect their "unmentionables"! But in this case, it looked like Ginobli had it extended a little bit too much. The crowd booed Ginobli every time he touched the ball after that. This incident might have also sparked the Suns in the fourth.

All in all a great victory for the Suns on a day they didn't have Bell for most of the day and they couldn't stop Ginobli or Parker who had 32 and 20 respectively. They also couldn't hit the 3 at their usual clip without Raja. They hit 6/16. Of course the Spurs D had a lot to do with the Suns off-night too. As always their D was top notch. They choked off Nash for the most part by switching on all pick-and-rolls and putting Timmy on him. But this also put Tony Parker on Amare and Nash used Amare effectively a few times. But then the Spurs also sent another man if Nash tried to drive on Timmy. When the Suns went to Amare on Parker, Timmy immediately switched back to double him and actually got a couple of blocks on him at the rim. Spurs are so fundamentally strong and play such good team D, it's a treat to watch. But the Suns played good D in this one too especially in the fourth. Amare dominated the boards. He had a magnificent game with 24 points and 23 boards. This is the type of game Amare was born to play! If the Suns get this from him every night, they may be darn near unbeatable! This victory was pretty much Amare's.

The Cavs went in to Miami and got busted up by D-Wade. He had 41-4-5 with 12 turnovers. Thats too many turnovers, but he won the game single-handedly for them at the end. LeBron was not that good in this one with 17-6-9 but he came back from injury and played in this one just like Shaq. Shaq had a good game with 16-8 in this one.

San Antonio @ Phoenix - 87-103
Cleveland @ Miami - 89-92

Interesting games on the board for Feb 2-nd (Friday)

LA Lakers @ Indiana - Another test on the road for the Lakers against a team thats good at home.

New Jersey @ Orlando - Two mediocre L-Eastern teams facing off on a day with very few good games on the board.

NBA notes - 1/31/2007

Kobe was back today and unfortunately for Boston, they were on his way. He put on a show and you knew he was going to try and do that since he came back from a suspension. He had 43-8-8 against a Celtics team that has now lost 13 straight. With Paul Pierce hurt and Szczerbiak coming off the bench, the Celtics are starting Delonte West, Gerald Green, Ryan Gomes, Al Jefferson and Kendrick Perkins. What's this, the All-Star rookie Saturday? That lineup looks like a bad "sophomore" team in the rookie challenge. I think this is a "subtle" message to the Celtics fan that they might be rebuilding!

Spurs played a good one at Utah. Timmy had himself a game, but the Jazz won even without C-Booze. Okur controlled the game with 31-11. Looks like he is finally in Jerry Sloan's good books after a couple of tough years. He is a very talented, versatile, "euro-type" player whose range extends all the way to the 3-point line. He hit a big 3 in this one and both teams shot a lot of clutch threes in the final 4 minutes. But Horry missed one at the end that wrapped it up for the Jazz. Spurs are now going to Phoenix tomorrow for a big one. Tony Parker had a good game with 27 and 2 clutch threes in the 4-th. He rarely takes threes. It's interesting how the ball still goes through Ginobli in the final minutes. As good as Parker is, the Ginobli-Duncan pick-and-roll is still Pop's "2-minute drill" of choice.

Detroit went into New Jersey and took care of the Nets rather easily. A disappointing one for the Nets. Few more surprises today. The Wizards lost at Toronto as Bosh poured in 34 on 15/19 shooting. New York lost at Charlotte with Gerald Wallace scoring 42. This guy can do a lot of damage if given the opportunity. He plays hard, hustles all the time, is VERY athletic and has a decent offensive game. Denver lost at Portland. Denver might be in deep trouble. AI didn't play in this one, but thats no excuse to lose to Western "sophomore" team. Dallas won a tough one in Memphis 95-94. I would have expected higher scores out of this game, but I guess Dallas slowed Memphis down and won a close one without Josh Howard.

San Antonio @ Utah - 93-97
Detroit @ NJ - 113-89

Interesting games on the board for Feb 1-st (Thursday)

San Antonio @ Phoenix - Big one on TNT. But the Spurs are playing on a back-to-back.

Cleveland @ Miami - It would be a shame if LeBron is missing. Lebron and Wade put on a terrific show last year in one of these games.