Basketball from a fans perspective
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The blank is for a specific reason, there is no nickname at this stage for this young revamped Laker team. Remember those Laker teams of the ‘80’s were dubbed Showtime; this band of youngsters hasn’t played long enough and won enough to be given a nickname for now. On Friday evening they faced the Warriors in Staples Center and they managed to beat down the Warriors 117-97. Okay the Warriors played the previous evening, they were likely tired from that game and the charter flight from San Francisco. I’m not prepared for the Lakers to make the playoffs at least this year. The season is a little over a week old but nobody (including me) expected the Lakers to be .500 at this stage.
Thus far the Lakers have lost 2 games they might have won if not for their youth. Reports indicate veterans Metta World Peace, Lou Williams and Luol Deng have been a steadying influence with this edition of the Lakers. 20-year old D’Angelo Russell mentioned on flights he sits next to MWP “trying to learn as much as he can from him.” We are unsure if Walton will continue to utilize his roster in this manner, 11 players off the 15-player roster had minutes in the game. There will be plenty of bumps in the road as this Laker team grows in NBA wisdom.
Proving his value
Pat Riley is looked at in some circles as playing hard-ball with Dwayne Wade. Riley failed to re-sign the long time Heat guard forcing Wade to chose his hometown Bulls. Perhaps a portion of money had to be held back in order to resign Hassan Whiteside. I heard some rumblings about that move because many believed that might be a risk. Whiteside was coming off an outstanding free-agent season and resigning him would be quite a chore for the Heat. We don’t have the complete story however so far so good. The Heat lost on Friday but Whiteside accomplished something no other Heat player in history had done. We can catalog some of them Wade was mentioned earlier how about Alonzo Mourning or Shaquille O’Neal.
Rony Seikaly, Glen Rice and Lamar Odom never did this either. Whiteside has begun the season with five consecutive double-doubles a feat none of the aforementioned players ever accomplished. Whiteside has scored in double figures in points and rebounds; in addition he’s leading the NBA in rebounds and is third in blocked shots. He’s shooting .589 from the floor, the one negative his free-throw shooting. In a manner reminiscent of other big men so far he’s around 50% from the line which is slightly below his nearly 60% career wise. Did Riley make the right move in allowing Wade to walk and resign the 27-year old Whiteside? We don’t know and only time will tell over the next few months and years.
SEC
Any time the SEC is a topic of discussion we automatically think football. It’s as if Kentucky competes in a league by itself in basketball. In the same manner of Kansas dominating the Big 12 the same scenario has play out in the SEC. Certainly since the arrival of John Calipari the school has been at the top. 2006 and 2007 Florida won back to back NCAA Tournaments but Billy Donovan has departed for the NBA.
Is SEC (accepting Kentucky) as bad as it appears? I believe Kentucky basketball blots out the sun it’s difficult for anyone to see Texas A&M which tied Kentucky last season. Frank Martin at South Carolina is a proven winning coach; Vanderbilt is always a winning program. SEC basketball might not be ACC or Big 12 but it’s on an upward plane. The conference wants to be more than football based on coaching hires over the last several years.
St. Louis basketball
Our cross state rival’s lost two NFL teams the Cardinals and Rams. Professional basketball has been much the same experience. You might believe the Hawks were the first pro basketball team in the city--not so. The Bombers were a Basketball Association of America team and began play in 1946. After the merger becoming the NBA the Bombers along with several other teams ceased operations in 1950. In 1955 the Hawks moved from Milwaukee to St. Louis retaining the name. The franchise was successful in St. Louis winning the 1958 NBA Championship in 1968 the team packed its suitcases and headed for Atlanta where they have remained to date. It was said at the time the NHL Blues might have been a contributing factor to the demise of the Hawks.
It was believed there was not enough of a population base to support an NHL and NBA team. In any event it wasn’t long before the ABA looked in that direction. The franchise moved from Houston to Carolina and finally landed in St. Louis. They would be re-named Spirits of St. Louis after Charles Lindberg’s plane that first flew from New York to Paris in 1927. The team had a number of players who had a taste of success, Moses Malone, M.L. Carr and Ron Boone. The ABA-NBA merger would see the franchise dissolved that was 1976 and since that time other than an ABA2000 team St. Louis has also experienced a professional basketball drought. St. Louis like its sister city Kansas City will never see the NBA again except for exhibition games.
