BS: NBA playoffs

Subject: BS: NBA playoffs
From: PoppaGator
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 02:15 PM

I'm surprised that no one has yet broached this subject. The hockey fans are discussing Lord Stanley's Cup, and we had several threads about the NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl a few months ago.

I've always considered basketball to be a "thinking man's sport," and so assumed that there would be at least a few roundball enthusiasts among this byunch of folkies. No?

I have little to say right now except to point out that wunderkind Chris Paul and the entire New Orleans Hornets team are very much for real.

Just because the national media chose not to provide them much of any TV exposure during the regular season does not mean that they are unworthy of interest and respect. Now that the playoffs are happening, the networks have little choice in the matter: they can only televise the games of teams that continue to win, and the Hornets are earning their way onto the airwaves. Don't be surprised if they're still on the tube well into June!

Subject: RE: BS: NBA playoffs
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 02:57 PM

So now, Poppagator, we have an NBA thread. See how easy it is? :)

Subject: RE: BS: NBA playoffs
From: PoppaGator
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 03:37 PM

Yeah, but does anyone have anything to ADD? It's getting lonely in here, no offense to you, Ebbie...

Subject: RE: BS: NBA playoffs
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 05:01 PM

None taken. I used to follow the NBA religiously but these days I barely know the rankings. Still think it's a good game, though.

Subject: RE: BS: NBA playoffs
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 05:34 PM

I've been a Bullets (Wizards) fan back to when they were the Baltimore Bullets... You know, Earl "The Peral", Bobby D., Elvin Hayes and Big Wes but...

...being a Bullets fan is a lot like being Charlie Brown and having the football snatched away by Lucy...

Cleveland has the Bullets number when it comes to playoff time... Yeah, the Bullets (Wizards) might win tonight but "King James" and company will win this series...

And I hate it... Washingron, D.C. may be the most snake bit sports town in the world... They just can't win the big games, no matter what sport... Okay, D.C. UNited got a title a few years back but that's it... I don't believe there is a sports town in the universe that has been in such a rut going back 2 decades now...

B:(

Subject: RE: BS: NBA playoffs
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 05:53 PM

How about Chicago, Bobert? (At least in baseball; they do OK in basketball and football.) Don't tell me that you're a fan of the Cubs too- that would be just too much grief...

Subject: RE: BS: NBA playoffs
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 06:07 PM

Nah, Eb... I am a hopeless homer... I remember my dad takin' mw ro old Griffith Stadium to see the Washington Senators as a kid and I was a big Jimmy Piersall fan 'cause he was outrageous... People would bring rubber chickens to the games and sit in the $2 seats in center field and torment poor ol' Jimmy until he'd be tryin' to climb the fence to get to them....

When the Senators were stolen the first time by Minnesota they had Harmon Killebrew who was my idol and I remember crying uncontrolably when I heard that the Senators and Harmon Killibrew where moving outta town... Then we got a second Senators team and it wasn't here but a few years before it got stolen and became the Texas Rangers... By then I was older and I took it alot better...

But, really, I am a homer when it comes to sports teams... I like Maryland, the Bullets, the Mystics, the Nationals, the Redskins, and D.C. United...

I reckon this goes back to my teens when I played everything, including soccer, in organized leagues... Decent wide reciever but a purdy good 3rd baseman and I met a lotta professional D.C. players who back then came some of our games and would talk with us and sign autographs, etc... Nevermind... I'm a hopeless homer...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: NBA playoffs
From: Bobert
Date: 01 May 08 - 07:38 AM

Bullets 88 Clevelend 87...

Whew!!!

Subject: RE: BS: NBA playoffs
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 May 08 - 12:46 PM

You dunnit!

Subject: RE: BS: NBA playoffs
From: PoppaGator
Date: 01 May 08 - 02:20 PM

Well, D.C. may have a longer history as a losing sports town ~ it's been nearly a century since the Senators spawed the saying "Washington" first in war, first in peace, last in the American League" ~ but we in New Orleans have an even deeper record of haplessness, as home to nothing but losers in pro sports throughout the entire pre-Katrina era.

No NFL team ever had a string of losing seasons remotely comparable to the hapless Saints. Admittedly, they put on an incredibly successful and inspiring season two years ago, but reverted to form and became yet again a source of disappointment last season. This time around, they weren't as woefully incompetant as in the past, but our expectations had understandably grown higher, and their recent mediocrity was a big letdown.

But now, this year, the Hornets' first season back in town after two seasons in Oklahoma exile, looks to be just about as unexpectedly successful as that of the Saints in '06 and potentially much moreso.

I'm telling you folks out in the rest of the country, who had very little opportunity to see the Hornets until the playoffs began, this is an incredibly skilled and entertaining basketball team. I hesitate to make any out-and-out predictions, but they are entirely capable of handling the Spurs, and then the Lakers (or, just maybe, the turncoat Jazz), and then...

Subject: RE: BS: NBA playoffs
From: astro
Date: 01 May 08 - 10:21 PM

Well, coming from LA, you know we are watching the playoffs...the whole team seems to be getting in sync...Luke Walton seems to be playing fantastic too. I was disappointed with Denver's play...didn't seem to have their hearts in it...the next series should be better. So there are us out there watching.... a week off now til the next (probably Utah).

astro (go lakers) in LA

Subject: RE: BS: NBA playoffs
From: Bobert
Date: 02 May 08 - 12:08 PM

P-gator,

Maybe we should swap teams???

Sometimes a move is a good thing... Look what happened to the Senators when they went to Minnesota... Won the penant a couple years later, if I recall...

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: NBA playoffs
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 May 08 - 01:01 PM

"...the Senators spawed the saying "Washington" first in war, first in peace, last in the American League" PoppaG

So now we know whom to blame.

Subject: RE: BS: NBA playoffs
From: GUEST,astro
Date: 05 May 08 - 12:54 AM

We can't switch teams...we love our lakers....in LA...just waitin till it starts up again....

astro, with my basketball in hand and a beer in the other....

Subject: RE: BS: NBA playoffs
From: PoppaGator
Date: 05 May 08 - 02:50 PM

If anyone hasn't noticed yet, the Hornets are still kicking ass. We'll see what happens later tonight.

Iealize that I'm jumping the gun by htinking about the Lakers while the Spurs still need to be eliminated, but I can't help it.

~ Kobe is the greatest individual talent in the game, so in some sense he probably does deserve the MVP award he'll probably receive very soon. (Especially because he's never been named MVP before.) But I would still maintain Chris Paul is the NBA player "most valuable" to his team. Also, let's all remember that as recently as this year's preseason training camp, Kobe was badmouthing hsi teammates and asking to be traded, and that they team is as good as it is now because they pulled off a trade whereby they added a superlative player (Gasol) without giving up a single individual who was playing regularly. It might be argued that Kobe is more dependant upon a superior "supporting cast," whereas CP can play and win with anyone, because he has the ability to make any teammate a better player.

~ I continue to be interested in the ongoing Andrew Bynum saga. Bynum is a graduate of my high school alma mater (St. Joseph's, Metuchen, NJ) who will always be the youngest player ever to appear in an NBA game, so I've been following his career with great interest from the git-go. The latest word is that, contrary to earlier speculation, he probably will not recover from his injuries in time to appear in this year's playoffs at all. One commentator I heard over the weekand thinks this may be good news for the Lakers, who don't need their current rotation to be altered. Hmmm. Of course, the same guy observed, in the long run, over the next five years, the Lakers will be greatly improved by the return of Bynum.

Sorry about the "spaw" typo, by the way. I certainly didn't mean anything personal...

Subject: RE: BS: NBA playoffs
From: astro
Date: 05 May 08 - 04:26 PM

We in LA were getting pretty impatient with the choice of talent they had chosen (Like K Brown, who Jackson called a knucklehead), so we understood Kobe's frustration. Chris Paul is excellent and I think it would be great if the Lakers and Hornets faced each other.

For the MVP, it is overall a different play that Kobe has been putting up this season and probably deserves it (for individual play, for getting his teammates to play more, and to be the leader of the team), remember most were saying at the beginning of the season that the expectations for the Lakers was still pretty dismal.

Bynum will be a great addition for next season, it's too late now and would be detrimental for this team, but next year he will really add a lot. Odum has become a great player for the three spot. Well, both our teams are doing well...great play!

Astro...still cheering....

Subject: RE: BS: NBA playoffs
From: PoppaGator
Date: 05 May 08 - 04:49 PM

Amen, Astro. And earlier I really should have written "CP can play and win with anyone, because he has an even better ability to make any teammate a better player," not "he has the ability." Kobe is an excellent teammate, too, but Chris is really an absolutely unique talent. The fact that he's a normal-size person makes it that much easier to identify with him, plus which he rates A-plus as a citizen, role model, and all-around nice guy.

I've always rooted against Los Angeles teams while liking and admiring many of the players on those teams. I suppose this attitude dates back to my early childhood days and my dad's influence as a NY Giants baseball fan who "hated" the Dodgers while having nothing but admiration for Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Gil Hodges and the rest of those "Boys of Summer." (Of course, we really hated the Dodgers' owner for abandoning New York for California and more-or-less forcing "our" Giants to tag along and move to the second-choice West Coast city after LA, the smaller but infinitely more charming and cosmopolitan San Francisco.)

And as far as the Lakers are concerned, I've been a big fan of Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, Kareem and Magic, and many more of those great players who performed for a city and a franchise I almost always rooted against.

And then there's Phil Jackson, a special favorite of mine from his playing days with the Knicks, the brainiest and hippest guy in professional sports. If he hadn't been a big favorite of mine already, he really sealed the deal for me in the summer of '71 when he picked me up hitchhiking in the mountains above Aspen. CO.

And finally, there's young Bynum, who's from my own high school for cryin out loud!

Of course, now more than ever, like 'em personally or not, I'll be rooting hard for the Lakers, and/or whoever stands in the Hornets' way, to LOSE!

Subject: RE: BS: NBA playoffs
From: astro
Date: 06 May 08 - 12:21 AM

It's going to be fun to watch. I like seeing these teams develop.

I look forward to the next few years as the teams develop the talent they have and what they will get...

So, we'll be yelling on both sides of the continent...you for the Hornets and myself for the lakers...let's hope for a good battle...

astro

Subject: RE: BS: NBA playoffs
From: PoppaGator
Date: 06 May 08 - 02:37 PM

refresh: another Hornets blowout last night!

Of course, all they did was "hold serve" by winning on the home court, as expected. (Of course, the lopsided margins of victory in the two games were not expected.) We'll see what happens when they play in San Antonio Thursday night, and once again over the weekend.