Tuesday, May 31, 2005

IWe weren't hanging out with Cameron Diaz on Sunday, but we were...

Now that is what I call a weekend. Screw that two days off in a row bullshit, I need at least three quality days in succession if I am to really enjoy my time away from the headaches of work. Of course, this weekend also rendered me somewhat useless when it came to communicating ideas and personal thoughts to anybody other than my dog Tinsley. Besides the normal boozefest that marks the annual start of summer around these parts, some friends and I ran into a local horticulturalist at the bar on Sunday night which led to a very long evening of laughter and dilated pupils courtesy of a certain fungi. Needless to say, I was absolutely useless yesterday, though I did manage to drag myself out of bed in time to enjoy a large plate of ribs later in the afternoon. As for yesterday night's Suns-Spurs game, I was surprised to see the Suns decide to show up even though they were down 3-0. Most teams have their tee times set up for the following morning in a situation like that, but the Suns came out and played their best game of the series when everybody in the building expected them to roll over. Phoenix still doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell to win this series but last night's performance definitely bodes well for the next couple of years in the valley of the sun.

In the interest of giving my brain a break, the rest of today's thoughts will be in the standard bullet point format. Enjoy.

- Manu Ginobili is effin' awesome and a ton of fun to watch but his overly dramtic flops really get on my nerves. I personally thought that he (alone) should've received a technical for his part in the minor dustup between him and Amare Stoudemire last night. I know that it's somewhat unprecedented for a player to receive a tech for an egregious flop but between that and his five second attempted rape on Stoudemire, I thought that a technical was well within reason.

- Unless Detroit can reel off four straight games, it sure looks like my prediction for the Eastern Conference Finals is about as wise as my decision to hold on to all my Jose Canseco rookie cards after his 40/40 season. You won't find a much bigger Dwyane Wade fan than me but I'd be lying if I said that I had any idea that he would be such a dominant force in this series. He continually finds ways to get his shot without forcing too many bad ones or committing too many turnovers (which was his biggest weakness in the regular season). I'm flat out excited about tonight's game.

- I'd planned on writing more today but I just don't have the mental stamina to put together well thought, and coherent sentences at this point in the afternoon so I'll leave you with one last thing that I've been meaning to mention in this space:

The Milwaukee Bucks should draft Andrew Bogut. Here's why: Bogut is a legit NBA center and those kind of guys don't fall into your lap very often, generally about every 15-20 years. Beyond that, the Bucks are going to try and retain the services of Michael Redd this summer and it will be alot easier to sell him on the fact that you're building a winner with a guy like Bogut on board than with somebody like Marvin Williams who is (at least) two years away from being a real contributor on a good Eastern Conference team. I know that alot of people love Williams (Ernie Grunfeld being chief among them) but I , for one, am not completely sold on him at this point. He hasn't shown one specific skill that he excels at and is, in my opinion, a whole lot of potential at this point in his career. He may be athletic enough to be a dominant small forward but I feel like he needs alot of improvement on his perimeter skills before he's ready to be an all-star caliber player in the NBA. Also, don't forget that he completely nutted up during the national championship game just a couple of months ago...I'm just saying.

Furthermore, the two hardest positions to fill in the the NBA are center and point guard and provided that TJ Ford can get back healthy this summer, then the Bucks would have both of those positions locked up for the next ten years or so. Basically, my feeling on who the Bucks should draft comes down to these two questions: How many quality small forwards are there in the NBA? How many quality centers are there in the NBA? In my opinion, a team with as many holes as the Bucks must draft the rarer of commodities if you are looking to win an NBA title at any point in the next 10-15 years. Truthfully, neither of these guys are sure things but I'd rather take my chances on a seven footer with skills and potential than a swingman with still developing skills and potential.

4 comments:

Jerry said...

I agree about the draft, with slightly different logic. I'm wondering - where is this guarantee that Marvin Williams is going to be really good? Yeah, he looks the part. He's got a nice body (ngs) and some decent skills, but what has he done on the court?

Bogut has performed exceptionally well at the college level with minimal talent surrounding him.

Mark said...

Thats alot of my problem with taking Williams, he hasn't proven a single thing yet. Bogut won't be a superstar but should be serviceable at minimum in the NBA.

As for other busts, I think its a bit of a stretch to compare Olowokandi and Bradely to Bogut. Bradley was a physical freak who hadn't played ball in two years while the Kandi man was all potential and had only proved himself agaisnt mid-major competition. Bogut has played well on both the collegiate and international levels recently and is a somewhat proven commodity at this point.

Jerry said...

I've also had a theory that Bogut would be the consensus #1 if he didn't look like such a goon.

Jerry said...

And he wouldn't have nearly as many concerns about his athleticism if he were black.