Published Monday thru Friday    

Basketball from a fans perspective

“Be quick, but don’t hurry”    

 John Wooden 

NBA play

Bet you didn’t realize it, we are almost there…NBA play begins. The exhibition schedule starts on Thursday October 5, the Mavs will play the Wolves in the NBA Abu Dubai Games. On Saturday October 7 play resumes with the Mavs and Wolves, later in the evening the Lakers face the Warriors in San Francisco. Just in case you can’t afford air fare to Abu Dubai (or San Francisco) all three games will be telecast on NBA TV. The games in Abu Dubai are 11:00 a.m. Central Time while Lakers-Warriors is 7:30 p.m. Central. I’m excited for the 2023-24 NBA season to begin especially with the draft choices, free agent signings and trades.

Are the Bucks now favored?  

All summer Dame Lillard was headed to the Heat only it didn’t occur. Wednesday the world was advised he’d been traded to the Bucks, he joins Giannis Antetokounmpo and the others. Naturally a trade of this magnitude contains a bunch of moving parts. This was a three-team trade, Jrue Holiday and DeAndre Ayton are now members of the Blazers along with Toumani Camara and a 2029 unprotected 1st round pick (from MIL) along with unprotected MIL swap rights in 2028 and 2030.

Finally we have Jusuf Nurkic, Grayson Allen, Nassir Little and Keon Johnson moving over to the Suns. I’m not sure how to react to this trade, on the surface it would appear the Bucks have improved but have they really? The Suns are now minus Chris Paul and Ayton have they upgraded? Blazers should be slightly better but I’m unsure if they are able to compete for the Western Conference Championship. To be honest I’m going to be forced to wait until season play before I can begin to attempt to analyze these player moves. 

A television change

Wow, another instance of the “pie” being sliced leaving cable without a piece. We continue to read reports indicating cable subscriptions have continued a downward trend. Perhaps that’s caused many in the NBA community to make changes in their broadcasts. The Jazz in a move similar to the Suns have made a move regarding their television broadcast. The Jazz intend a combo method for fans to view the team’s games, local over the air and streaming.

Jazz games will be available on KJZZ TV and the newly created streaming service Jazz+. According to information released the Jazz will have total control over broadcast. It appears economical with choices, individual games are $5 each, monthly its bumped up to $15.50 a month and yearly $125.50. This is the interesting portion, naturally a change of this magnitude makes for a sharp change in profits. Jazz management indicates they will lose income with this bold change. The Jazz believe this plan will eventually reach a breakeven point and from there derive profits.

Defensive stalwart 

The name Nate Thurmond might not be familiar to some of you, Kareem Abdul Jabbar said this about the late Thurmond. Abdul Jabbar played 20 years in the NBA so I’m setting the stage for you. He said, “Of all the centers I played Nate Thurmond played me the toughest.” Keep in mind Wilt Chamberlain was still playing at the time and it was said “He was the most dominant.” That may well be true but he didn’t defend Abdul Jabbar like Thurmond did. Thurmond at 6 foot 11 and 225 pounds arrived in the NBA in 1963 from Bowling Green University, he was drafted by the San Francisco Warriors with Chamberlain occupying the center position. Chamberlain played center and Thurmond was moved to power forward and was the backup center. A year later a trade saw Chamberlain being sent to the Sixers and Thurmond moved into the position he’d spent his high school years and college play…center.

He would later play for the Bulls and concluded his NBA career with the Cavs. The accolades are too numerous to list them all so just a few will be noted. College and Naismith Basketball Halls of Fame, 7X NBA All Star, selected as a member of the 50Th and 75Th Anniversary NBA team. Although other NBA players later accomplished a quadruple double Thurmond was the first. While a member of the Bulls against the Hawks Thurmond recorded 22 points, 14 rebounds, 13 assists and 12 blocked shots. I forgot to mention Thurmond was on several All-Defensive NBA teams during the course of his career. 1. “NBA All Star center Bob Rule recalled Thurmond blocking six of his seven shots during the first half of their first encounter. After his coach urged him to "Keep putting 'em up. He can't block 'em all," Rule responded "Yeah, well if I hadn't made that layup it would have been all of 'em. By the way it should be of note Thurmond grew up in Akron Ohio long before LeBron James was born.

1.Wikipedia

The SEC

Arkansas received a commitment from a Top 50 Class of 2024 prospect, that’s interesting on several levels. At one time if you said SEC the other side of the conversation might be thinking football. That view is only partially true now, it was once said “There are two seasons, football and spring football” in the SEC. That statement no longer applies to one of the most notable college football conferences in the nation, the SEC continues to play outstanding football however basketball has made tremendous inroads. How has this change been accomplished, there is no one answer but simply put the SEC got tired of Kentucky beating them up every season. For generations Kentucky basketball was at the top of the heap, few SEC teams were able to sustain a challenge to the hierarchy.

This is certainly not in any order but the AD’s of these schools began a search for quality basketball coaches throughout the nation. Calipari might have been the first however winning coaches followed him in the SEC. Rick Barnes, Buzz Williams, Bruce Pearl, Eric Musselman and others arrived boosting the stock of play in the conference. Will Dennis Gates join the group providing an additional enhancement to SEC basketball? All in all the SEC is one of the best basketball conferences in the nation. I make that statement despite the fact the ACC, Big 10 and Big XII receive far more publicity. Practically anytime a conversation is held regarding college basketball those conferences are in the front portion of the dialogue.