Basketball from a fans perspective
“Trust the Process”
The Sixers are not very good thus few games have been nationally telecast. We have only witnessed a glimpse of “The Process” on ESPN’s SportsCenter and NBA TV’s GameTime. Of course I’m referring to Joel Embiid of the Sixers who put on a quite a shooting exhibition against the Rockets. Embiid had a season high 32 points along with 7 rebounds and 4 assists. James Harden sealed the deal with a triple-double, 51 points 13 rebounds and 13 assists leading the Rockets to a 123-118 win.
Remember the name
Another South Sudan talent has emerged on the basketball scene, his name Chol Marial. Marial stands 7-3 and weighs 210 pounds, he’s in the middle of his sophomore year at Cheshire Academy. Cheshire is a prep school located in Chesire (CT) about 30 miles south-southwest of Hartford. The youngster is already on the radar of ESPNU, Rivals, DraftExpress.com and NBADraft.net just to name a few sites. Marial has offers currently from Florida State, Georgetown, St. John’s, Iowa and West Virginia. He’s certainly a potential talent to follow the next two years.
West (World)
Russell Westbrook will be a 2017 NBA All-Star; he was added to the roster as a reserve after losing the overall vote. We don‘t have the answer but we can speculate, why was Westbrook voted an All-Star by the media and the players but not the fans? I cannot speak for you but after checking with a couple of NBA fans I’ve come to a conclusion. “He plays out of the control at times” was the response from one friend. The other said; “I guess Westbrook must play with his angry game face on continuously. That grimace on his face makes him appear angry all the time.”
There is no doubt Westbrook is the O in the offense for the Thunder but is that good thing? Check these numbers out in the win Thursday night, the Thunder took 94 shots and Westbrook had 37 of them. There appears to be no effort to develop any sort of offensive game for the balance of the team. Westbrook shot .556 for the game however check these numbers out. He shot .411 for the previous 10 games and .401 for January. These numbers are below his career number of .434. Just in case you were curious there was no 3-point line in Oscar Robertson’s’ day but he shot .478 from the floor in his triple-double season of 1961-62.
Smush
If you were a Laker fan in 2005 you likely remember William Henry “Smush” Parker. This former 6-4 guard burst on the scene and became a surprise starter. Smush could score but he fell into disfavor with much of the coaching staff and eventually Kobe Bryant. After leaving the Lakers in 2007 he played for two additional NBA teams before heading overseas. He’s still playing at age 35 but this is not the news. This is the news after clashing with Kobe Bryant he now indicates he’d like to team up with Kobe and Lamar Odom in Ice Cube’s Big3 league. I hope Smush is not expecting a text/email or telephone call from Kobe.
