What a Night!

Andre Miller's 52 in OT.

31 and 19 from Superman.

Darren Collison dishes franchise rookie record.

38 and 11 from G-Force.

Sounds more like a week's worth of highlights than a day's worth, if you ask me.

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Andre Miller killed Dallas with a career high 52 points in OT, 45 in regulation. His previous career high was 37 (twice), but what surprised me the most was the fact that he made about 71% of his FG. 21 for 33 shooting, 1/1 3PT,  7/8 FT, and 52 points. Now THAT is impressive. And he made clutch plays too, with 25 points in the fourth quarter and overtime. Who knew that the guy still had it in him?

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Dwight Howard was his usual self defensively, collecting 19 boards and 3 blocks, but his offensive game was the scary part. I'm pretty sure most of us can recall this other Magic center who used to drop 30+ points and nabbed lots of rebounds at the same time, so lets go through a quick checklist to compare Dwight to him.

Does Dwight have:

Tenacious defense? Check.

Good leader? Check.

Great personality? Check.

Fan support? Check.

Polished offensive game? Nope, but we just caught a glimpse of it.

Obviously, Shaq had a more complete offensive skill set, but that doesn't mean Dwight can't improve. He's only 24 and already a beast in the post. Just give him some time. But if what we saw against Atlanta was anything near how Dwight will end up, he may be able to steal Shaq's Superman cape (I wonder how Shaq would feel...)

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The 2009 Draft was supposed to be a one-man draft. Blake Griffin and some possible role players. Nothing else. If you weren't the Clippers and didn't get the No.1 pick, you probably didn't care much about the draft. Surprisingly, Griffin hasn't played a single minute in the NBA yet, and will be considered a rookie next year, in 2010-2011. Maybe you liked Ricky Rubio and wanted him? He's still ballin it up in Barcelona.

Now that we are past the mid-point of the NBA season, we can safely say that this Draft Class is great. Tyreke Evans, Jonny Flynn, Brandon Jennings, Omri Casspi, Chase Budinger, Jonas Jerebko, Stephen Curry, James Harden, Taj Gibson, DeJuan Blair, and DeMar DeRozan are all part of what may become one of the best NBA Drafts of all time. Now there are two more revelations: Marcus Thornton and Darren Collison, both from the New Orleans Hornets.

Few other teams can be as satisfied with their draftees as the Hornets are. Thornton was drafted 43rd and Collison was drafted 21st. Neither was supposed to become very important to the Hornets. Both players have been leaving marks in games earlier in the year, and both are now receiving more minutes. 

Darren Collison, playing instead of star point guard Chris Paul (out with an injury), started against the Memphis Grizzlies, and all I can say is, if the Hornets are ever desperate to trade CP3, they'll always have Collison as a worthy backup. The rookie set a franchise record for most assists in a game by a rookie, with a whopping 18 assists. Collison was never supposed to be this good, but he's been proving himself worthy of mention among this year's top rookies, or at least as one of the nicest surprises.

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Gerald Wallace decided to add some more highlights to his amazing play this year. G-Force led his Bobcats to a win over the Kings, who got 31 points from Kevin Martin. Wallace's 38 points were a season high, and only 4 points shy of his career high (42 points). He also nabbed 11 rebounds, filling the stat sheet as he does so often nowadays.

He's got a busy All-Star Weekend coming up soon, with the Dunk Contest and All-Star Game on his hands. Let's hope he puts on a decent show; he's going to need to do a lot of crazy moves if he wants to beat Shannon Brown, Nate Robinson, and DeMar DeRozan (I'm counting Eric Gordon out already). All four players are monsters when it comes to dunking, so you can't go wrong with whoever you vote for.

Links:
POR-DAL: http://www.nba.com/games/20100130/PORDAL/gameinfo.html?ls=gt2hp0020900692
ATL-ORL: http://www.nba.com/games/20100130/ATLORL/gameinfo.html?ls=gt2hp0020900689
NOH-MEM: http://www.nba.com/games/20100130/NOHMEM/gameinfo.html?ls=gt2hp0020900690
CHA-SAC: http://www.nba.com/games/20100130/CHASAC/gameinfo.html?ls=gt2hp0020900694

Some Thoughts...

Watch Out, Nike
Wow. Just wow. Does anyone remember the Gilbert Arenas gun incident? Sure you do. And I bet you know how it ended, too, right? Well, apparently Nike needs a reminder. Here's some of the report, courtesy of ESPN.com:

Bryant's blurb says: "I'll do whatever it takes to win games. I don't leave anything in the chamber."

The chamber in a gun is the compartment that holds the bullet before it is fired.

Commissioner David Stern has probably had enough public image problems lately, and this Nike ad doesn't help at all. Let's just hope this doesn't end those puppet commercials, they are way too cool.

Link: http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/news/story?id=4869984

Awkward, Much?
Just when I thought the Raptors-Knicks game was over, I realized it wasn't.

In what was a great game for both teams, the Raptors came out victorious with the help of Chris Bosh and Hedo Turkoglu. But Hedo saved his best for last in a post game interview with TSN reporter Jack Armstrong.

Armstrong: You came out tonight, early, aggressive. What was different for you tonight in terms of setting the tone with your game in this game?
Turkoglu: Ball.

That had to be the most awkward position for the reporter, but it made my day.
Here's the video:

Basketball Wallpapers

Obviously, this site is still unknown to virtually everyone on the internet, but in case you happen to stop by here coincidentally, I want to introduce you to somebody. Please, give a round of applause to none other than... BasketWallpapers.com!


This site is probably the best collection of free basketball related wallpapers on the internet. There is an RSS feed of the site on the right side of my blog, and the link for the site is under the "Friends & Partners" category. The administrator of the site, Dejan, hand picks only the best wallpapers, and you can leave him requests for walls that you want. The site has 1116 walls as of today, and new walls are added regularly. Whether it's Kobe Bryant or Dwyane Wade, Amar'e Stoudamire or Dwight Howard, you can find all of your favorite players' wallpapers in all sorts of resolutions. There are even WNBA and International Players wallpapers!


So head over to http://www.basketwallpapers.com/ and get your free wallpapers today!

NBA All-Star 2010 Rosters

Waddup guys,

The All-Star reserves were announced today on TNT, and we got 7 newcomers coming for their first career All-Star Game. Rajon Rondo, Derrick Rose, Gerald Wallace, and  Al Horford in the East, and Kevin Durant, Deron Williams (about time!), and Zach Randolph in the West. Great choices overall, except the Horford selection. Personally, I would have put either David Lee or fellow Hawk Josh Smith instead.

Now explain this.

Deron Williams is averaging 19.0 PPG and 9.5 APG this season. Good numbers. Great, even. Last year, he had 19.4 PPG and 10.7 APG. Before that, he had 18.8 PPG and 10.5 PPG. In his sophomore year he averaged 16.2 PPG and 9.3 APG. So...

...HOW IS THIS HIS FIRST ALL-STAR SELECTION???

Derrick Rose, now a sophomore, is averaging 19.8 PPG and only 5.9 APG. No offense to Rose, but Williams was averaging 3.4 APG more than him and only 3.6 PPG less. Also, Deron Williams lead his team to 51 wins, while Rose is on pace to lead the Bulls to only 41 wins, 10 games less.

We can't do anything about this now, but I just wanted to point out how much people overlook Deron Williams, who is arguably the best point guard in the league not named Chris Paul. So please, give this man some love and get him into some All-Star Games in the coming years, all right? Good.

Peace out.

All-Star Rosters (link): http://www.nba.com/2010/allstar/2010/01/28/reserves.release

Intro

Hey guys.
So, this is my first blog post. Ever. Kind of interesting, huh? No? Yeah, thought so.

Anyway, this blog is all about basketball; specifically the NBA. Every so often, I'm going to tell you some of my thoughts about the NBA and everything going on in the world of basketball. Anything I say is purely my opinion; nothing more, nothing less. If you got any questions about anything related to the NBA, leave a comment and  I will get to it (hopefully). Also, I don't have too much spare time on my hands, so don't expect a new post every day or two.

Everything I post here is something worth reading. I only talk about the best of the best. The stuff people care about, the stuff they wanna hear.

Hope you enjoy the blog.