Basketball from a fans perspective

Published Monday through Friday

The season

Who’s hot and who’s not, the NBA season is but a few games old however let’s check out a few things. The Celtics, Bucks, Jazz and Blazers are undefeated as this is written; these teams have gotten off to a swift start. On the other hand let’s check out those teams stumbling at the beginning. The Magic, Sixers, Lakers, Kings, Thunder and Rockets have yet to win their first game of the season. As for those yet to register a win the Sixers and Lakers are receiving the most scrutiny.

The Sixers for an assortment of reasons you choose the one that works for you, as for the Lakers it’s their poor shooting and what’s his name. We realize teams are not going to remain undefeated and the others will win but this is the issue. Barring injuries a fast start is always a good sign while a poor start could mean disaster and becoming contenders in the Victor Wembanyama lottery. A dot com site I guess poking fun at the Sixers and Lakers indicated neither owns their first-round draft pick, they couldn’t choose Wembanyama even finishing with a poor record. Well never say never, either could make a trade and give up even more draft picks to acquire the pick.  

Don’t think the NBA is tough

Sometimes even with Naismith Hall of Fame teammates NBA teams fail in their effort to win a championship. As evidence I provide you the lineup of the Philadelphia 76ers for much of the 1980’s. Can you imagine this, four of the team’s starters and the top reserve all enshrined in the Naismith Hall of Fame. The names, positions and the years they were enshrined in the hall is also provided for you. I hope you find this as interesting and noteworthy as I do.

Here goes, the Sixers had Julius Erving at small forward (1993), Moses Malone at center (2001) Charles Barkley power forward (2006) and Maurice Cheeks point guard (2018). Bobby Jones Sixth Man of the Year (2019). The difficulty was escaping the Eastern Conference at the time, the Larry Bird led Celtics and later the Isiah Thomas Pistons totally dominated the decade. We saw the Sixers win the Eastern Conference and play in the NBA Finals three times in the decade, (1980, 1982 and 1983). The 1983 season would be the only time they would be crowned NBA champions.  

No Knicks 

My friend David won’t appreciate this so hopefully he forgives me for what he is about to read. A number of teams will be in the Victor Wembanyama lottery among them the Knicks. If for example the Thunder win, they draft Wemby and trade his draft rights. They have Chet Holmgren all 7 foot 1 and capable of playing a similar game, of course Holmgren is out for the season. If they swapped picks with the Knicks much of the public will believe the draft is fixed based on this outcome. We return briefly to the past for a couple of story’s, the first involves Magic Johnson.

At the time Magic was drafted the Lakers finished the season with a 47-35 record but legitimately had acquired the top pick in that year’s draft. Although Patrick Ewing played at Georgetown the Hoyas played St. John’s a number of times prior to the 1985 NBA draft. Have you heard the frozen or bent card story, if not allow this explanation? The lottery then was conducted differently than now. Knicks GM Dave DeBusschere was allowed to reach into the hopper pull the card which turned out to be the number one pick, that pick would later become Ewing. That was 1985 and many believe to this day the lottery was fixed to allow the Knicks to draft Ewing. As for me I don’t believe in conspiracy story’s maybe you do.

What about expanding the Tournament

The number I read was 20, the NCAA is considering expanding the NCAA Championship tourney by adding 20 teams to the present number. Before going any further allow me to state should this occur, we’d better prepare ourselves for the funeral of the National Invitation Tournament. The NIT first played in 1938 is older than the NCAA Tournament but has been on life support for quite a while, should there be expansion the NIT will become history, let’s check a chronicle of time occurrences. In 1951 the tournament certainly didn’t hold the prestige it does in the world of today. Back then only 16 teams were vying for the crown of champion.

In 1975 expansion saw the NCAA increase the number of teams to 32, in 1985 came a large increase to 64. The number increased again in 2001 to 65 and then it became a 68-team tournament in 2011. Let’s not fool ourselves should this increase come about the driving force is $$$$. Is this a good thing or bad, it likely depends on where you sit. I could see a team a few notches above .500 able to qualify for the tournament. The upside additional revenue and teams qualifying for the tournament. The negative, this will be the death nail of the NIT which is certainly not a good thing. During Big XII media day Baylor’s Scott Drew indicated he wants the NCAA to increase the number of teams to a staggering 128. He claims teams would only be required to play one additional game to qualify for the championship.

He cannot seem to stay healthy

Can we say Zion Williamson is the face of the Pelicans franchise yes, I think most of you reading this believe as I do. The problem, the youngster cannot seem to remain healthy enough for an extended period. As a reminder he missed the entire 2021-22 NBA season with an injury. We read Williamson worked out all summer with plans to appear on the court. On Sunday after playing but three games he went down with an injury while attempting to block a shot. At this point Williamson is listed day to day but boy I just don’t know. Williamson’s value and his impact is diminished severely when he is unable to appear on the court. This latest setback continues a pattern for the Pelicans young power forward. Check this out, nobody plays a full season anymore, but Williamson’s only played in 85 games versus missing 123.