NBA for real

After one of the most riveting regular seasons in recent NBA history, the playoffs, A.K.A the real season, kicks off this weekend. This year's playoff version looks even more appetizing than before. Dame Lillard and the Blazers gave us a couple of great games against the Warriors last year. They play the dubs in round 1 this year. Dubs, the presumptive favorites, are even better this year and should win this series, but the Lillard-Curry matchup is always fun to watch. The best matchup of round 1 is of course Thunder V Rockets. The 2 MVP candidates and former teammates in Westbrook and Harden will go at each other. I expect this series to go 7 and won't be surprised one bit if the Thunder win it in a upset. Not to digress, but speaking of the Thunder, I can't even imagine how their fans feel about their one-time core of Durant, Westbrook, and Harden, which is now completely dismantled with all of them  playing at MVP level in different cities. All OKC has left is the mercurial Westbrook, but at least they got him and he went nuclear this year. He gave us a season for the ages just like Curry did last year.

Of course the other upset result could come in the Jazz against the clippers matchup. As great as the Clippers have looked recently, they may have their hands full with the Jazz. There isn't a lot of intrigue in the East in round 1, but it's coming. A potential Washington-Boston second round matchup and a Cleveland-Boston Eastern Conference Finals are both very welcome. Eventually, I expect a Cavaliers-Boston tussle in the East and LeBron will make it to the finals again despite Boston having home court. When it's all said and done, may be we will be staring at the rubber match in the Warriors-Cavs finals trilogy. But the Cavs can't take anything for granted. Time for them to wake up from their slumber and turn on all the proverbial switches. We need a good finals to cap off this brilliant season. The season itself was great for several reasons, but the defining story of the year was of course Russell Westbrook averaging a triple-double and beating the record for total number of triple-doubles in a season. I never thought I would live to see somebody do it. He is unquestionably my MVP. Harden has been great and has more wins, but if a man averages a triple-double, just give him the MVP.

There are even some murmurs against the very basis and hype surrounding the concept of a  triple double. I personally love the stat. I think it's a simple and effective indicator of versatility and well-roundedness in a player. While we are in the topic of awards, I would also give Mike D'Antoni, the coach of the year award for what he has done with Harden and the Houston Rockets. Speaking of D'Anoni, Phoenix Suns, the team he coached during it's most recent heydays, missed the playoffs again. Despite that, this is one of the most exciting times in the recent Suns history. The team is loaded with real young talent. Devin Booker dropped 70 on Boston and that put him on the map nationally. He is only the 6th player in the history of league to score 70. He is in the most improved player conversation for this year. He may be a MVP candidate soon before we realize it. And the rest of the Suns roster looks very promising too. Plus, they should get a top 5 pick this year and that should help keep the momentum going. Booker will represent the team at the lottery for the second year in a row. I can't wait for the BBC show - Booker, Bender, and Chriss, to take off. May be it will be BBCC show if they also get Lonzo Ball in this year's draft. The possibilities are endless for this young team.

First things first though. Bring on this year's playoffs for us to enjoy.

Captain Obvious here: Klay can play!

I have had a busy few weeks and missed blogging. When you take a break like that, you would like to come back with a big bang sports story. I can't believe I missed even the Cubs' championship (more on that later). Or the NBA season, the Warriors, and Russell Westbrook. And then there are the great NFL games that I have missed blogging about the last few weeks. But today, Klay Thompson gave us all a great story on a drab late-fall, early-winter Monday night that featured a horrible 41-10 MNF game between the mediocre Colts with a great quarterback and the horrible Jets with a quarterback who can be mediocre at his best. Klay Thompson dropped 60 points in 29 minutes. His average points per minute in this game was almost as high as Wilt Chamberlain's in his 100-point game.

The Warriors are playing great right now and their offense is so fluid and effortless with the addition of Durant to the already lethal shooting combo of Klay and Curry. Things have come together real well, especially on the offensive side and the most surprising thing so far has been how the big 3 have had to sacrifice very little in terms of their shots and points. The big 3 have been close to their average number of shots from last year and that has to be good news for the team's chemistry. But tonight, they all deferred to Klay as he was in one of his zones. It reminded me of the game 6 in the Western Conference Finals last year against Durant's OKC or the regular season game couple of years back when he scored 37 in the third quarter against the Kings. He is as combustible as the other 2 MVPs in his team and I am glad his offense can still shine brightly under the new regime.

The early returns suggest the dubs have absolutely nailed the Durant addition and the offense is working just as they drew it up. This team can only get better, though none of this matters until they get to June. They are the presumptive Western Conference champions and the same goes for the Cavs in the East. The Cavs are playing great to justify such expectations as well. The Clippers and the Spurs are the other impressive teams and as always, the Western conference playoffs are going to be off the chains as kids used to say 15 years back. As for the NBA regular season, the dubs will keep us entertained. There are two other noteworthy individual performances to keep a close eye on. Russell Westbrook just got his 6th straight triple double and he could very well average a triple double for the entire season. That would be amazing to say the least.

The other surprising NBA stat of the young season is James Harden leading the league in assists. Mike D'Antoni has converted him into a point guard and it seems to be working wonderfully so far with Harden scoring a tonne as usual, but also dropping dimes in addition. I am curious to see if Harden can keep the assists going. NBA is going to give us a lot to talk about this winter and spring. Tonight belonged to Klay. Even the 10-2 Raiders who were at the game had to take a picture with Klay after his 60 point performance. East Bay right now has a lot of good sports going on. The Raiders somehow found the time to take in a Warriors game despite their short week leading into the huge Thursday night game in Kansas City. But who can blame them. The Warriors have been must-see TV for a couple of years and are now graduating to can't-miss TV.  The Warriors game at Clippers on Wednesday and the Raiders game against the Chiefs on Thursday are both can't-miss events this week.

I did miss blogging about several events in the last several weeks and can't possibly touch them all to catchup. But I do want to give a shutout to the Chicago Cubs for winning an amazing World Series in 7 games and destroying the curse of the billy goat. There is so much to write about the World Series, but the story for me is the Cubs President of baseball operations, Theo Epstein. It's time to put this guy in the Hall of Fame already. For him to cure almost 100-year curses in 2 major baseball cities and deliver championships to both Boston and Chicago is unbelievable. He did what he was hired to do in Chicago and he did it in exactly 5 years. The dude never has to pay for a drink in both Chicago and Boston ever and deservedly so. How does he top this? May be switch sports and win a championship for the Clippers or Knicks or the Cleveland Browns! And he might just do it.

Gold Rush

The Rio Olympics has finally kicked off. Glad it has begun given all the negative news around Rio and these games. When the events eventually start, things typically seem to work out fine.  Even if the issues persist, at least the focus and media's attention shifts to the games and the event is always declared a success. Unfortunately, some horrific injuries have headlined day 1. Hope things get better as the games continue.  Olympics and such big events in developing countries have mostly been financial disasters and nothing more than another avenue for corrupt politicians to get rich. Countries still keep going for it due to the egoistic visions of their powerful leaders. Sadly, the poor people in those countries are the collateral damage as always. I sure hope Brazil gets out of this misadventure in one piece and the games are a success when its all said and done. Let the gold rush begin!

Big day in baseball today. Ichiro Suzuki got his 3000th hit. A well-deserved milestone for an amazing hitter, arguably the best of this generation. His Seattle years were magical and even now at age 42, he is hitting 0.318 as a part-time player after a couple of sub-par season. I am a big fan of Ichiro and it was really nice to hear that the Mariners fans hung around after their home game to see him get the 300th hit on the jumbo-tron. He deserves that love given his work ethic and humility, which is uncommon state-side. In other baseball news, Alex Rodriguez, AKA a-fraud and pay-rod, woke up today and decided to retire just like that in the middle of the season. Quite unusual, but not his fault since he was requested by the Yanks to get the hell out! I am surprised he walks away with 696 home runs though. He may come back for 4 more later. A weird career that saw the highest of highs and lowest of lows.

A-Rod is one of the most hated athletes of this era who never came off outwardly as a mean, cocky, prima donna. But his fake humility and apparent decency wasn't enough to overcome the myriad lies and PED controversies and didn't go far in buying him fans' love or respect. The 450 million dollars he made playing baseball will go very far though. The man who signed the first 250 million dollar contract in American sports tore up the last 3 years of that 10-year contract only to sign another 10-year contract for 275 million dollars. The only silver lining here for the non-Yankee-fan like myself is that he stole and wasted mostly Yankees' mula and they are still on the hook for the year and change left on that contract. Good riddance is America's collective reaction to the news of his retirement and Yankee fan probably feels no different.

Mark Teixeira has also announced his retirement at the end of the season. While he is nowhere near A-Rod in terms of controversy or as a failure, I can't say Yankees got much out of him either for the 22.5 mill a year that they have been paying him. Yankees have been spending almost 50 mill a year between these two dudes and that might explain their mediocrity over the last few years. I guess the World Series in 2009 makes it all worth it and the Yankees should have a lot of money to spend and start a brand new chapter starting this winter. They also did well being the seller for a change at this trade deadline and have accumulated some nice, young assets. They traded Aroldis Chapman to the Cubs, Andrew Miller to the Indians, and Carlos Beltrán to the Rangers and got 10 minor leaguers in return. Hope we are not staring at another Yankee dynasty starting 2018!

Speaking of the trade deadline, those have been hot and heavy since the introduction of the 2nd wildcard spot a couple of years back. More teams are in the gold rush and the demand for the rentals are high these days. Sellers can get a lot and Yankees did real well. The A's, who have no middle ground and are usually selling aggressively or buying aggressively at the deadline, sent Josh Reddick and Rich Hill to the Dodgers, unintentionally strengthening the division rival of the A's cross-town rival Giants. I thought the A's surprisingly didn't get a whole lot in return, but only time will tell with all these prospects anyways. The Giants also won at the deadline since they got a good starter in Matt Moore and reliever Will Smith from the Brewers. These guys are not rentals and the Giants have them for the future as well. Texas Rangers did very well at the deadline adding Jonathan Lucroy and Carlos Beltran. With all these moves, we are set for the stretch run. The Giants and the Nats have already played 7 games over the last 10 days and the Nats are just 4-3 in those match-ups despite the Giants being in the middle of a horrible 6-14 run since the all-star break. May be this is indeed the Cubs year!

Tonight was supposed to feature the Hall-of-Game in the NFL, but it got canceled due to bad field conditions. Good call by the NFL and they should try and cancel most of the pre-season games to save the players health as well as the fan's wallet. Brett Favre and gang were enshrined yesterday night, but two thumbs down to the HOF for delaying Ken Stabler's induction and doing it the year after he passed away. He deserved to be in much earlier. Favre was the headliner, though Tony Dungy and Eddie Debartolo Jr were interesting inductions as well for me personally along with Ken Stabler of course. Now onto the games. NFL will consume our lives here shortly, but the NBA enjoys a good run in the summer these days with it's free agency. Russell Westbrook wrapped it up in style for the NBA this year with an extension in OKC. Glad he is staying back for a couple more years with the team that drafted him. He should put up some monster numbers next year and this signing gives Sam Presti a safety net and an opportunity to go after another star next year. The Thunder are still a good team and this signing can make them better long-term.