Published Monday thru Friday   

Basketball from a fans perspective

“Some say you have to use your best five players, but I found out you win

with the five that fit together best as a team”

Red Auerbach 

It’s only an exhibition

Major universities schedule exhibition games as a tune up for the basketball season beginning in November. The news over the weekend was a little interesting to Queens NY and Lawrence Kansas. Pace University beat St. John’s 63-59. I can’t speak for you but I’d never heard of Pace, I was forced to Google the school to uncover information on it. Pace has three campus locations one being in New York City, by the way Pace is a Division II school. Kansas had Illinois on the schedule as a benefit for the devastating fire in Maui Hawaii. In Champaign Illinois the home team beat Kansas 82-79, most surprising here was the ranking. Headed into the season Kansas is ranked number one in most pre-season polls. I guess we can say both programs were prepping for the season.

Remember where you heard it first 

Your welcome, I appreciate those of you acknowledging where you first heard the forecast. I’m unsure what day or date it was, sometime in the recent past after Kansas was eliminated and I believe only Duke and UConn remained. I projected the top prospect in the Class of 2024 Cooper Flagg would likely choose to attend Duke. Flagg originally intended to make his choice known over the weekend. The tragic events in his home State of Maine delayed his announcement. Monday morning Flagg made it official, he is committing to the Duke Blue Devils.

I’m going to nickname him “The Prince of Rucker Park” for one reason alone. This 16-year-old played at the basketball mecca of Rucker Park in Harlem this past summer. It was reported Flagg wowed the gathering, consider this is the same court many playground and NBA legends have played over the decades. Anytime an athlete moves from one level to another we believe the talent is there although it must be first proven. As for his youthful age, Flagg reclassified into the Class of 2024. Guess what, although he’s played 0 minutes of college basketball nbadraft.net projects the 6 foot 8 Flagg the top pick in the 2025 NBA draft.

What have you won

I wasn’t sure where this came from, it kinda dropped out of the sky. Former NBA player and coach George Karl post on social media. “Real Basketball Fans don’t use the Bubble for comps,” Karl posted this regarding LeBron James and the Lakers. Of course Karl was referring to the Lakers 2020 NBA Championship won in the Bubble. I’ve got news for Karl and anyone else, in 10 or 20 years that finals will be noted in the same manner as any other. While we are discussing NBA I wonder how many Karl’s won.

Even more interesting Karl provides the basis for his conclusion which really doesn’t make any sense. He discounts the championships won before the NBA/ABA merger and discounts the talent of Magic/Kareem/Kobe/Shaq as if it was easy due to the talent. In conclusion I will ask the question again, how many? Karl’s had a number of coaching stops over his career Cleveland, Golden State, Seattle, Milwaukee, Denver and Sacramento. In 1996 his Sonics team lost to the Michael Jordan Bulls in the NBA Finals, that’s it. None of Karl’s other teams managed to play for all the marbles.

The Return     

Since I’m ole skool I am okay with the Adam Silver announcement, the NBA All Star Game will return to its traditional roots. East versus West, the game will be divided into four 12-minute quarters and customary scoring. I realize many of the NBA’s more youthful fans loved the format, for me the game became unwatchable. The Friday night and Saturday events were still on my radar and I continued to enjoy the skills competition and slam dunk contest. The actual truth is that I began skipping the game since the new format was adopted. In 2024 there will be no more “drafting of players”, I don’t want to see Jimmy Butler and LeBron as teammates or Karl-Anthony Towns and Joel Embiid. If you were a fan of the All-Star Game that’s been utilized the last few years I’m sorry, it just didn’t work for me and maybe there were others who agree with me.

Rookie of the Year  

A website I’d never read before, gimmesports.com contained an interesting piece. It projected Chet Holmgren not Victor Wembanyama as 2024 NBA Rookie of the Year. This is interesting on several levels the first and probably most significant to me…weight. All last year we read and heard how skinny Holmgren is, of course this year its Wembanyama and him being too skinny as well. As for Holmgren he was injured during Summer League play and was forced to miss the 2022-23 NBA season. The naysayers emerged in droves, “See I told you he was too skinny.”

That was then, this is now for Holmgren as the 2023-24 NBA season begins. Last year it was reported that the 7-foot 1 youngster weighed 195 pounds, the ESPN NBA page report list Holmgren at 208 pounds this season. Similar to his counterpart in San Antonio I believe both will have good careers if they are able to avoid the injury bug. Holmgren and Wembanyama at an earlier period would have come into the NBA as post players. Is the position they play really that important, I say an emphatic NO? The key is Holmgren (and Wembanyama) are competitive players. As long as they continue at that level I believe both will be okay.