Magic Hero

Magic-Bobcats:
I don't really know much about the Bobcats and was toying with the idea of doing the post as consumate outsider Jackie Harvey (Item: apparently Chicago Bears bigman Maurcel Jordan has got himself his very own South Carolina team -- that joke isn't that much funnier in The Onion). I decided to scrap this idea, however, in favor of the short but sweet post. It seems to me that Charlotte has a good team that's not really ready. They have some amazingly athletic players in Stephen Jackson and Gerald Wallace (one of the only plays I saw the Bobcats perform had Wallace shooting almost straight up to grab a steal, and sprint for a dunk; it doesn't sound so good written here, but trust me it was impressive, he shot up like he had a jet-pack), one of the NBAs top coaches, and a new majority owner in Michael Jordan. They're undoubtedly green, but hungry, and could potentially make the series closer than many (including me) suspect (espn has an article here on how game 1 could have ended differently). But I can't really see them topping the Magic who had the league's best record after the arbitrary all-star break. The Magic's ridiculous and patented "hundreds of three-shooters plus Dwight Howard in the post" style will probably carry them deepish in the playoffs.

Interesting Stories:
Besides the Pietrus v. Wallace and Carter v. Jackson matchups that should be entertaining, the thing to watch in this series is the coaching. Both coaches have reputations as very good in-game coaches adroit at finding match-up advantages for their players and pressing them. Watching Van-Gundy go head to head with Larry Brown in a shifting, chess-like variety of rotations might be the most exciting thing this series has to offer (though there will most definitely be some awesome highlights).

Prediction:
Magic in 5
(Game 1, Game 2, Game 4, Game 5)

2009/2010 NBA Schedule

The 2009/2010 NBA schedule is set to debut this Tuesday, August 4th. I will of course be among the throngs of NBA enthusiasts frantically downloading it as soon as the clock strikes the 1pm release date. But for those of you who won't even be able to make it through the start of another workweek without at least a hint of what is to come (or who can't care less and just want a general overview), here is a small taste of what you can expect.

Like last year, the season will open with a Boston/Cleveland match-up when the Celtics visit Cleveland on October 27th. It will also be the fourth time in six years that a Shaq-Kobe duo have taken the Christmas Day spotlight. While this may be a testament to Shaq's surprising longevity, it is also an indicator of a greater financial agenda.

With their golden ticket player, the mighty Cavaliers will take both of these prime spots ahead of an Orlando team that actually made the finals last year. Understandably, the schedule's construction is a 6 month undertaking beginning in early February, so maybe Matt Winick is still living in the land of pre-Eastern Conference Championship Puppet Land. Or maybe David Stern's feelings about small markets are showing. (Let's be honest, Stern would no rather down a bottle of tobasco than play host to a Denver-Orlando finals, or San Antonio-New Jersey for that matter).

In the end, perhaps it only makes sense for Stern to tend to his own and favor more commercially palatable programming. As part of a larger trend, NBA ratings and profits have been in decline for some time now. This was highlighted in 2006 when a rained-out NASCAR telecast embarassed the NBA with higher ratings than an ABC broadcast of the Lakers-Caveliers/Kobe-Lebron faceoff. In any case, check out the schedule for yourself on Tuesday and let me know what you think. What do you think about the state of financial sense and programming decisions in the NBA?

*As a side note, here is an interesting article regarding the NBA small market dilemma.

West Side to the East Side?

This is a bit of an obvious topic (the basketball world is not exactly on fire with news right now), but I think its one that's worthy of a little discussion time/maddeningly circular argumentation: namely, which nba conference -- the east or the west -- is currently posed to pop in the next, say, three to five years, foisting on the other conference the shame of having its fifth playoff seed ranked below the superior conference's ninth seed (or some similar embarrassment)? I think that there is a general folk feeling out there that the east's time in the sun is fast approaching. After all, last year saw the east capturing two of the three best records in the league (and that was with an injured Garnett), the emergence of the Cavaliers and LeBron's continued growth, the playoff birth of the Bulls and the Magic (or at least the birth of national media attention), and from what we've learned so far about trades and trade rumors several eastern teams (Boston, Miami, Orlando, Cavaliers?) are on the verge of building basketball machines with exactly the right fitting parts.

I'll give you the Celtics. As far as the Cavs go, I think the playoffs revealed their true colors. Mike Brown's coaching (which was, apparently, last year's best) seems to depend on LeBron playing one on five in every possession. The non LeBron squad melts away at the slightest hint of difficulty and the go to play, both in times of desperation and when the game's on the line, is to give LeBron the ball and have him run as fast as he can into anyone on defense. How Jordan like is that? Then there's the weakest flank of all, the Cavs' front office, who think that throwing an aging Shaq into the mix will save them (they weren't even beat by Dwight Howard, they were beat by threes, grrr). Moving on, you've got the Magic whose performance against the Lakers confirmed my longtime suspicion that they are no better than the Jazz of the east (perhaps worse). Ultimately they're just a team that got really hot in a couple of series (see also Warriors, '07). No one else from the east strikes me as worthy of mention (maybe we'll see what the Bulls do). Heat? Hawks? Sixers? Pistons? Wizards? They might as well all be the Knicks (see also Wariors, '09).

The west, on the other hand, has a ton of teams who are quite solid and suffered unpredictable injuries last year. Last year also witnessed the rise of the Blazers, the Rockets taking the Lakers to seven games while methodically shedding an all-star player a game, and Chauncey Billups exerting his calming influence on the Nuggets (without his presence this would be one of the above mentioned unmentionable east coast teams; even with his presence look how they fell apart in game 6). The West has the experience, the coaching, and the required Kobe blockers on each team. Though the Suns and Hornets may be falling apart, one gets the feeling that the Spurs and Rockets are so well run they'll be in the playoffs at least until the Nets move.

Its impossible to know what'll happen in the rest of the off season, let alone in three to five years. I probably haven't made my arguments with enough force and I've left a lot out. Nevertheless, I know in my heart of hearts that teams in the west know how to run basketball clubs and will always land on their feet. The fans demand it of them. In New York you can go to a broadway show, eat the food of any country, and dazzle yourself silly with any and every "entertainment" known to man. What is there to do in San Antonio, besides watch some ball? And when basketball is your only social outlet (as it is in many a western town) you better be ok.