Basketball from a fans perspective
I'm irritated
News broke locally Thursday afternoon in Kansas City, for the first time since 2012 KU will face Mizzou on the basketball court. The game will be played at the Sprint Center on Oct 22 at 3:00 p.m. Your eyes are not deceiving you Bill Self claimed he'd never play SEC Mizzou ever again. This rift is based on Mizzou leaving the Big 12 for the SEC which is clearly silly.
If it was just about leaving the conference why has KU scheduled Colorado and Nebraska which left the conference a year prior to Mizzou? This game is an exhibition and revenue will be donated to hurricane relief (a good cause). I'm only left to complain to you the reader and hope you understand. It's a shame KU and Mizzou couldn't schedule to meet under normal circumstances in a regular season game. Oh well it is what it is.
The mystery man
With all the excitement surrounding the Sixers we have a mystery on our hands. Where does number 8 fit in with this new and improved Sixer team? Just in case you forgot the number belongs to center Jahlil Okafor drafted in 2015. Okafor had a decent rookie year although it was cut short due to injury. He seemed to have lost his way with his maturity called into question.
From 17.5 ppg in his rookie year his sophomore year say his scoring slipped to 11.8 his rebounds dropped from 7.8 to 4.8. In fairness Okafor played a reduced number of games his sophomore year. The emergence of center Joel Embiid, the potential of Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz you can see why Okafor has faded into the background. Okafor certainly has talent but it is easy to see why Embiid has moved ahead of him on the depth chart. The Sixers need to trade Okafor and gain depth in an area of need.
The move
If this was 1960 or even 1990 I'd say Tyronn Lue might have a loose screw. Moving Kevin Love to center might be cause for concern however this is 2017. There are not a great number of efficient centers in today's NBA therefore the 6-10 251 pound Love can very easily move to the position. In addition the NBA of today emphasizes small ball so you can see where I'm going with this. Love will only face Western Conference centers twice once at home and once on the road. As for the Eastern Conference he might face a test against Al Horford or Hassan Whiteside and perhaps Dwight Howard. It's likely I've missed a center who might cause Love a problem.
Bits n Pieces
J.J. Redick must love driving, when he located from the Clippers to the Sixers we believed he might land somewhere in Philadelphia. Well that's not the case according to SI.com, sharpshooter Redick lives in Brooklyn but drives I-95 to Philadelphia. According to Google Maps city to city distance indicates this is about 95 miles and 2 hours and 3 minutes of drive time. It's not that great a drive however It's one I wouldn't do two or three times a week if I were him.
Tony Allen was valuable to the Celtics helped them win an NBA Championship, its clear he's been important to the Grizzlies over the years. Allen left over the summer for the Pelicans his number 9 was retired by the Grizzlies. I thought the only time a team did this was after the player retired.
