I love the south...

I just got back to my office from running a few errands and I was driving next to a mid 80's Purple Chevrolet Caprice Classic with bowling ball paint and spinners. What's so great about that? The driver was a white man in his eighties, if that doesn't put a hop in your step...well, I don't want to hang out with somebody like you...

Figured I address a couple of basketball related issues today since there hasn't been much hoops discussion of late around here:

I was going to post some observations about Florida's basketball team a week or two ago and then the Gators went out and lost to FSU and after that, it was learned that Matt Walsh would be out for 4-6 weeks with torn ankle tendons. I am not a big Matt Walsh fan, but even I had to sigh at this news and expect UF to go farther into the tank than they already were. My thoughts were not going to be positive prior to these developments, so I decided not to pile on a clearly reeling team. Well, a funny thing happened after all of this...the Gators began winning some games, even going into Vanderbilt last Saturday and blowing out the Commodores which is a very tough thing to do up in Nashville.

In my opinion, there are a few big reasons for all of this. First, Anthony Roberson has begun to stop worrying about how he looks to NBA scouts and has reverted to playing to his strengths once more. You see guys try and tailor their game to what scouts think they need to do all the time and almost as often, these same players' level of play drops precipitously. I watched Keith Bogans do this his entire junior year at Kentucky, it even got so bad that he lost his spot in the starting lineup for a while. In Keith's case it was a matter of him trying to prove he had an NBA ready jumpshot. In the case of Roberson, he was trying to be a "pass first" point guard and show NBA scouts that he could run a team. Roberson struggled to figure out exactly how to do this and ended up being a non-factor in plenty of early season matchups (Louisville, specifically). There are few guards in the entire country who possess the raw scoring ability of Roberson and frankly, Florida needs him to score because (other than Walsh) they lack any other natural scorers. Since Walsh went down, Roberson has taken it upon himself to more actively look for his shot and the results have been nothing short of spectacular. He is averaging 26.3 points a game during the SEC play so far, including two straight road games of over 30 points. Roberson needs to continue to play in this manner because his enthusiasm and, more importantly, confidence clearly rub off on a young and inexperienced Florida team.

Another reason that Roberson must be the focal point offensively is none other than David Lee. Lee appeared to be on the brink of stardom at the end of his sophomore season but has been unable to ever take his game to the next level. It is now apparent to anybody who watches the Gators on a regular basis that Lee just doesn't possess enough offensive prowess and /or killer instinct to be the kind of guy that can routinely put a team on his shoulders and will them to victory as his game is much more similar to that of Kentucly's Chuck Hayes. It just not his game or his personality. Florida plays best when Lee gets double figure rebounds and gets his points by going to the offensive glass and running the floor while also kicking the ball out to open shooters on the perimeter. Lee doesn't want to be "the man" and really seems to have settled into this new role nicely since Roberson has taken control of this team.

And lastly, the insertion of freshman Al Horford into the starting lineup at Center has changed the makeup of this team. The son of former NBA center Tito Horford has given the Gators a physical presence in the middle that they haven't had since Udonis Haslem. Horford is nowhere near Haslem offensively (not yet) but he is averaging right near a double-double in his 9 games since being named the starting center and leads the team with 20 blocked shots. He plays with a controlled intensity and always seems to be in the right place on defense.

By no means am I ready to say that Florida is ready to challenge Kentucky for the SEC, but things have taken a 180 degree turn in the past week or two and if these young Gators can continue to play at this level then they will be a very tough team come tournament time.

-Earlier this week, it was revealed that Memphis' Sean Banks had been ruled academically ineligible for the rest of the season which, in all likelihood, ends his career at Memphis. Banks was the National Freshman of the Year in 2004 and seemed destined to be a lottery pick this year. Now, Banks will be lucky if he is drafted at all...here is an example of a kid with all the talent in the world and nobody to help guide him. From the moment the season ended last year, Banks has done nothing but make embarassing mistake after stupid mistake. A quick rundown: (1) Skipped out on Junior World Championship trials (held 15 miles from his home) and never once informed anybody, not even his own coach of his decision. (2) Openly pouted on the bench during a Memphis win while his teammate, Rodney Carney, had a career night in MSG during the Coaches vs. Cancer tourney. (3) Suspended from team by John Calipari (not exaclty Bob Knight in regards to discipline) for basically being a cancer to the team. (4) Getting in a fight with teammate Arthur Barclay after a loss to Texas. Of course, the final incident is his being ruled ineligible. More than anything, it is sad to me that player so talented is willing to throw away millions because he is too dumb and selfish to see any kind of big picture. Calipari needs to take a large part of the blame here as well, he should've been more involved with a kid that everybody knew had issues when he arrived at Memphis. In my opinion, Calipari runs his program like an NBA team, letting players do what they please as long as they are at practice on time...that shit won't fly in college, especially when you are recruiting elite level players to a program located in a major metropolitan area. Calipari was able to do run his program at UMass this way because he hadn't started recruiting the cream of the crop just yet. But, remember that towards the end of Calipari's run at UMass alot of taudry details began to leak out about the behavior of players like Mike Williams and Marcus Camby, among others. Calipari may be a great teacher of the game but he is certainly not somebody I would want teaching life lesson to an 18 year old with NBA dollars signs in his eyes...Outside the Lines will return after these messages....

- If these last four games have taught us anything about the Suns, its that Steve Nash should win the MVP in a landslide. The award isn't for best all around player as some would have you believe (cough, Bill Simmons), it is for the player who is most valuable to his team and I can't think of anyone more integral to one team's success than Nash is to the Suns. This isn't the NCAA tournament where they award the MOP (most outstanding player). The Suns are averaging just over 11 assists since Nash went down, Nash averages 11 assists (10.9) all by himself. I realize that Nash plays about as much defense as 2001 Rams, but without him the Suns are jockeying for lottery position and with him they are the best team (record wise) in the league. Can you really imagine the Suns scoring 77 points in a game (what they put up earlier this week) when Nash is in the lineup? Shit, they score 77 in some halves when Nash is healthy. If we are only going to reward the best all around player in the game then we have to take away all of Shaq's MVPs because there's no chance that he's a better all around player than Duncan, KG or plenty of other guys. Why did he win those MVPs you ask. Because he was the most dominant player in the league and his team had no chance of competing without him...Nash isn't the most dominant player in the NBA but the Suns have absolutley NO SHOT of competing for even the eight spot in the West without him. That is how I define valuable.

Finally, in a report about Barrett Robbins the former Raider was identified with the phrase, "Perhaps best known for going to Tijuana on the night before the Super Bowl..." Perhaps?!!? Am I missing something here? Did I miss the time when Barrett was guest hosting The Grind on MTV? Maybe he was nominated for a Pulitzer that I'm not aware of. Gotta love the editors over there at the Worldwide Leader.