Gone!

I called it an end of an era after the Suns lost game 3 at home against the Spurs. That notion was formalized today as Mike D'Antoni accepted a 24 mill/4 year deal with the NY Knicks. Interesting hire. The Knicks badly need some excitement and a drastic change and this hire has the potential to do both. D'Antoni will bring excitement and a fun style immediately. The players will play hard initially because the run-and-gun is fun and any NBA player will sign up for it. Now the problem is, they don't have a good team. They do have pieces like Nate Robinson, Quentin Richardson and even Marbury who can play that style, but there are quite a few guys who can't. D'Antoni can't fix this roster or make them winners overnight, but he sure will make things exciting in the Big Apple. Finally we can also get an answer to the question "did Nash make D'Antoni's system or did the system make Nash a 2-time MVP". As for the Suns, not sure where they go now. Wonder if they can get Doug Collins out of his cozy job. I am not so sold on Avery Johnson. Dallas has hired Rick Carlisle and Larry Brown is gone to Charlotte. So it's slim pickings for the Suns. Lets see what Kerr does. This is an important hire.

The playoffs are going on great. You look at how Chris Paul and the Hornets killed San Antonio at home, you realize how far behind the Suns are. The Hornets are no joke. I am a big CP3 fan, but his meteoric ascension to superstardom has been a big surprise to everybody including myself. We knew he would be good, but he is quickly becoming a top-5 talent in the league. He is playing the all-important point guard position and is unstoppable. He can go 30 points and 15 assists at the drop of the hat. He has taken the baton from Steve Nash as the best PG in league. No doubt about that. The PG lineage over the last 10, 12 years is now Stockton-Kidd-Nash-Paul. CP3 reminds people of many great PGs, but the best comparison is actually our own KJ - Kevin Johnson, possible the most under-rated all-star PG of all time. KJ was unstoppable and CP3 looks the same these days. The scary part is, CP3 can't shoot yet. When his jumper improves, you can kiss it goodbye. This Paul-Parker match-up in this series is must-see TV if you like to see laser quick PGs go at each other. The series is at 2-1 and New Orleans would love to steal one in San antonio this Sunday. CP3 has been playing like a MVP all through this post-season and he was my pick for the regular season MVP as well.

Speaking of the MVP, Kobe won it and I can't complain a whole lot. After all, he is THE best player in the league and is playing like a MVP this playoffs too. It feels like he is becoming harder and harder to defend everyday. The Lakers made the Jazz look pedestrian in LA. Luckily for the Jazz, they had a bounce back win in game 3 as Boozer finally woke up and had a 20-20 game. It was about time. Boozer should be able to dominate this series. If the Jazz win game 4, they should be in a good position to steal this series. The Lakers are still a young team and the longer these playoffs prolong, the tougher I think it's going to be for them to finish. I can see them becoming too Kobe-centric and good teams can learn to defend that. The Lakers are hard to beat when they are firing on all cylinders like they have been all season long. So the all-important game 4 is tomorrow. In the East, the Pistons took control of their series and are going back home leading 3-1. In the other, more hyped series, The King has been disappointing as the Celts have bottled him up. The Cavs went back home and won game 3, but the King was still shut down. But the other Cavs stepped up as you always expect at home. Home is friendly to the role players. Plus the Celtics suck on the road for some reason. Until they fix it, they may not be able to truly contend this playoffs. Lets see how they react in game 4.