The Atlanta Hawks hired Mike Woodson as head coach a few days after July 4, 2004. I’d heard it was going to happen before it actually happened; coincidentally, I’d been hired weeks earlier by SportsIllustrated.com to write a weekly column. My editor at the time emailed and said the Woodson hiring seemed right up my alley for a column. You know as much about the Hawks as anyone else out there, he said, so tell us what you think about the Hawks hiring Mike Woodson as coach.

I didn’t know anything about his coaching philosophy or how he would fit with the team, but there was one thing regarding Woodson I felt strongly about. The column I wrote still lives today, and the gist of it was this…

What’s disconcerting is this: The Lakers needed a coach, so they went after Mike Krzyzewski. Yes, he turned them down, but the effort was there — they tried for the best person available. For all I know, Woodson could turn out to be an amazing hire and win 10 straight NBA titles — but hiring Woodson won’t get people in the South to stop talking about why Chipper Jones is flirting with the Mendoza Line or who Georgia will use to replace the injured Tony Taylor. The Hawks need a splash. Instead, we keep getting water torture.

As it turned out, Woodson lasted longer with the Hawks than I did with SI.com. The Hawks won 13 games that first season, and just kept getting better and better. Even this season, Woody’s last, the Hawks won 53 games, the most they’d won since 1997.

Even though I’ve written about the Hawks for years on Hawks.com, I’ve lived in NYC the entire time, so I was never around Woody for more than a couple of days at a time. Still, over the years we got to know each other a bit. One day I called him on his cell to get a quote for something I was working on, and he asked me to call back because he was walking his dog.

A couple of months ago when I got the great idea to embed with the team for a road trip, Woody signed off on the idea, although he required me to abide by the NBA dress code. My favorite part of the story was this, from the team meeting the morning of the game at Dallas, less than 12 hours after a home loss to the Knicks:

A few minutes after 11:00 AM, Woodson, wearing a gray Hawks sweatsuit and sneakers, stands and asks for everyone’s attention. He launches into a dissection of the Hawks poor defense against the Knicks that includes phrases such as “positioning,” “help defense,” “run and jumps,” “our greens,” “back screens” “nail guy,” “hard fouls” and “talking.” At one point, he mentions that the Hawks gave up 29 layups against the Knicks, repeats it and then pauses for effect. Everyone in the room knew they gave up many — too many — layups to the Knicks, but hearing the number 29 drives it home and grabs everyone’s attention, if not their pride.

“I want to see guys upset that they’re not switching picks correctly,” Woodson says, his voice steadily rising. “Hold each other accountable! When I was with Detroit six years ago, we couldn’t score like you guys can, but we could defend. Those guys took pride in their defense, not their offense. We challenged them to step up on their defense and they did. You guys don’t want to accept that challenge every night, and that’s f*cking sad.”

“This team has a chance to do something special if you believe in each other. If you feel like what we’re trying to do on the court isn’t going to work, speak up! I have zero ego as a coach, none. If you think you see something that’s going to work better than what we’re trying to do, speak up! Say something to me! But what I’m telling you guys is that if you guys will just consistently do what we’re asking you to do on defense, we’ll win games. I don’t give a sh*t about the offense; you guys can score more than enough points to win games. The offense isn’t the problem. But you have to get stops on defense, and if you’ll listen to what we’re telling you, I promise you’ll get stops. The sh*t works, okay? The sh*t works, but you guys just have to have the pride and the heart to buy into it and do what we’re asking you to do every time down the court.”

After the story came out, a lot of Hawks fans and bloggers seized upon that quote about defense above as evidence that all Woodson cared about was defense, to a detrimental extent. And hey, I was around him for 24 hours and all I heard him talk about was defense. Later, I asked a couple of players if this was representative of Woodson’s coaching style — is he really all defense, all the time? And they said no, I must have just caught him on a defense-heavy day. Honestly, it was ridiculous to think a coach could completely ignore defense and still win two-thirds of his games.

But the fact that Hawks fans could believe it might have been telling enough. Woodson drew up great plays out of timeouts, and while the Hawks would occasionally hit upon offensive sets that worked wonders for weeks at a time (the Bibby/Joe two-man game that the Hawks ran throughout the second half of 2008), sustained offensive innovation was never Mike Woodson’s strong suit. Couple this with the Hawks’ players tendency to allow the offense to devolve into glorified pick-up games, and it became clear that for the Hawks to become a better team than they were, something significant was going to have to change. Either Woodson was going to have to make a sea change from the way he’d coached for six years, or the Hawks would have to find someone else to coach and make that change for themselves. And the Hawks seemed to decide it was just easier if they made the change themselves.

I’ll miss Coach Woodson. His predictability was in some ways reassuring, providing a certain consistency for us Hawks fans, who’d grown used to wildly inconsistent performances. And his occasional public attempts at motivation — shaving his head for the Playoffs a few years ago, the weird eyebrow incident –  were humorous and endearing. But at the end of the day, I was right all along. Mike Woodson just wasn’t able to inspire enduring confidence, probably from his players, possibly from Hawks management, but most demonstrably from Atlanta’s sports fans.

If the Hawks want to go from appealing mostly to Atlanta’s hardcore basketball fans to regularly drawing a larger cross-section of Atlanta’s sports fans, they have to make those fans believe they are a team with a real chance at winning a Championship. That hasn’t always been the case, even this season when the Hawks went 34-7 at home. Hawks fans mostly just believed at some point the offense was going to slow to a crawl and opposing defenses would be able to get stops.

What are the Hawks going to do next? People keep mentioning Dwane Casey, a longtime assistant (who played at Kentucky) who got fired from his previous head coaching gig Minnesota. I don’t know how Casey would be as the Hawks coach, but I do know that he wouldn’t immediately inspire a groundswell of support from casual basketball fans in Atlanta. There are tons of big names still out there — Avery Johnson, Byron Scott, Mike Fratello — but the common perception being floated is the Hawks wouldn’t hire one of those guys because the ownership doesn’t want to pay a salary commensurate with someone who’s a proven winner.

This might shock you to find out, but I’m no economist. That said, Woodson was making $2 million a year. Paying one of the bigger names $4 million a year means having to find an extra $2 million a year somewhere. For a professional sports franchise, finding an extra $2 million somewhere seems like me finding an extra $20 in an old pair of jeans. It doesn’t seem like it should be a big deal, does it?

Hiring one of the bigger names doesn’t guarantee the Hawks would become a Championship contender. But whomever the Hawks hire, he faces a tough task. Winning 53 games is no easy feat, regardless of which Conference or division you’re in.

And more than wins and losses, the new Hawks coach is going to have to get the city of Atlanta to believe in something bigger than just a team that can win more basketball games than they lose.

• Got the feeling last night that the Suns didn’t win so much as the Lakers just lost it. The way for L.A. to beat Phoenix is so obvious — use their size advantage, pound it inside, take it to Amar’e and get him in foul trouble — and last night they never really committed to doing this. It didn’t help that Bynum was in foul trouble the entire game and had 1 shot attempt, or that Gasol only had 14 FG attempts (he made 11 of them, BTW), or that Kobe started off hot and broke the triangle early on. L.A. should win this series, and I think they will win this series and, eventually, the Championship. But it’s losses like last night, where they just don’t do what they obviously need to do, where I just don’t understand this Lakers team. Really great teams don’t mess around, they do what they need to do. So far, the Celtics are the only team playing every night like they want to win a title, though I don’t think they’ve got enough juice left to outlast L.A. in the Finals. The Lakers seem to lack that killer instinct, and I think it’s too late to develop it. Again, I still think they’re going to win it all. But it’s almost like they’re going to win it by default.

• When the Suns/Lakers game ended last night I flipped over to ABC to watch the last 20 minutes of “Lost.”

Now, I should probably point out that I’d never watched the show at all, other than bits and pieces on the internet when people linked to clips. When the show debuted, I downloaded the first episode and started watching it on my iPod, but I was in the air flying across the ocean, and wasn’t really feeling watching a show about a plane crashing while flying across the ocean.

Even though I haven’t watched the show, it’s been impossible to miss all the talk of smoke monsters and Locke and submarines and the Dharma Initiative, so just for the heck of it, I watched the end of the series finale last night. And I didn’t understand anything. At all.

I was OK with that, because I didn’t invest the time necessary to have all that stuff make sense. But what’s surprising to me today is to read people who watched the entire series writing about the finale who still didn’t understand what happened. Even the New York Times review of the finale today has more questions than answers. Is that why people watched the show? Because they wanted to have questions? Because they didn’t understand what they were watching?

Flash-forward to my own sideways universe: Last week I saw this movie “Exit Through The Gift Shop.” It’s allegedly a documentary by Banksy, the British street artist, about the worldwide street art movement over the last decade, which has been headlined by Banksy and Shepard Fairey. But the film quickly becomes the story of a different street artist named Mr. Brainwash, who may or may not be an actual artist but who definitely put on an art show a few years ago in L.A. and made a ton of money.

Here’s the trailer…

It’s a wild movie that I really enjoyed watching. Like “Lost,” I suppose, it leaves the viewer with as many questions as answers. But I invested a total of 85 minutes of my life in it. If I’d watched it for six years and still didn’t understand what I’d just invested so much time into, I’d be pissed.

Howard Stern said this morning that he watched “Lost” for about a season before giving up, because he already had enough questions in his life. I guess I’m just the same way. The thing I love so much about sports is that when the games are over, we have a clear winner and a clear loser. We know what happened and why it happened. Sports gives us absolutes and answers where life rarely does.

Disposable entertainment, too, apparently.

It’s not a match-up most NBA fans saw coming.

Not this deep in the Playoffs.

The Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns tip-off  game one of the Western Conference Finals tonight. It’s a battle between big versus small, orthodox versus unorthodox,  star power versus will power.

Phoenix practiced Saturday and we had a chance to speak with Jared Dudley, the small forward who’s found his niche in the Suns small ball system.  And fortunately, we were able to record the entire conversation into a podcast.

Some of the topics we discussed with Dudley were his thoughts on the Suns coming into the season under-the-radar, the play of teammate Jason Richardson and what they need to do in order to be successful against the Lakers.

If you enjoyed the interview, visit our website and check out our weekly podcast.

I was actually going to not post anything here tonight because I have a couple of things I wanted to write about tomorrow, but I figured you Lakers and Thunder fans might want to talk it out tonight after that game. Particularly after the Thunder thumped the Lake Show 101-96.

Oh, and the Suns are up 13 on the Blazers in the 4th when I’m posting this, and I didn’t even mention that the Bulls beat the Cavs.

There. There’s your recap.

Check back in this space tomorrow for, you know, actual content.

It’s that time of year again. When I stay up until about 2:00 AM seven nights a week writing updates for the site, then have to wake up early and get to the SLAM Dome to crank out new issues.

(Actually, tonight while I was watching the Celtics/Heat debacle, I edited the cover story for the issue of SLAM that’s going to drop in about three weeks, and the story is so good and really different than what we normally do. Really, the entire issue is awesome. I can’t wait to finish it and get it out there for you guys to devour it.)

Back to the lesson at hand. Lots of games, not enough time. Wifey wants to hang out and watch some light fare, but I can’t. I’ve been so sequestered since Saturday afternoon that my Mom actually emailed me yesterday to ask if I was doing OK.

There was a full slate of games tonight, but they were all scheduled at weird times, with more crossing over than Tim Hardaway as a member of the Warriors. I monitored as much as I could on Twitter, but it turned out I didn’t really need to watch the Celts/Heat game — Boston destroyed Miami, 106-77. It’s funny because on the subway home tonight after work, I was talking to Tzvi and I said it would be funny if the Celtics, playing without the suspended KG, suddenly came out and looked incredible. And they did. Now he’ll return for Game 3 and they Celts won’t look as good, and everyone will wonder if they’d be better off without him slowing them down. As I didn’t watch much of the game, I don’t know the answer to that, or if that’s even a valid question. I’m just saying.

Also, Dwyane Wade wore the worst suit of the postseason thus far. Not a great advertisement for the app that helps him pick his clothes.

I watched some of the Portland/Phoenix game, but every time I flipped over there, the Suns looked to be in control and playing like they’re supposed to play, the way they didn’t play in Game 1. They knocked off Portland, 119-90, and Steve Nash finished with more assists (16) than Portland (12).

The Lakers/Thunder game was a doozy. Both teams played with urgency, and neither team seemed afraid to get physical. The Thunder, in particular, were playing aggressively, flying around and swatting shots into the seats. (OKC finished with 17 blocks, a Playoff record against the Lakers.) Even though they’re so young, playing on the NBA’s coolest stage, they never looked overwhelmed.

But the Lakers managed to stay a step ahead. The Thunder tied the game with 10:42 to go, and for the next few minutes, every time I looked up, the Thunder would score but still be a point or two behind.

Fisher fouled out with the Thunder leading 88-86, and the Thunder turned in three consecutive scoreless possessions (offensive goaltending, offensive foul on Durant, turnover by Durant) while the Lakers subsisted on a jumper from Kobe and a couple of free throws. OKC had the ball down 3 with 30 seconds to play. Jeff Green made a tough two. The Thunder fouled Kobe, who missed the first and made the second, giving the Lakers a 94-92 lead with 15 seconds left, and Kevin Durant missed a tough three off a screen and over Ron Artest. After Gasol made one free throw, OKC went to Durant to tie it, but he got triple-teamed and he found Jeff Green for a final three that missed. Lakers win, 95-92.

Kobe finished with 39, and the Lakers didn’t seem to win the game so much as they outlasted OKC. The Thunder felt like a younger, less-skilled version of the Lakers — lots of athleticism and length, with an alpha-dog on offense taking most of the shots, just lacking the experience and firepower to overcome the Lakers.

The reason I didn’t watch much of that Celts/Heat game is because I was watching the Hawks/Bucks game. My Hawks hung on and won Game 1 by ten after opening up a 20-point halftime lead against the Bucks. They ended up also winning Game 2 by 10, although the Hawks were even more dominant tonight than they were in Game 1.

During the regular season, the thing that killed the Hawks consistently was their consistency. While there were quarters they looked dominant, there were just as many quarters where they were outscored by dozens of points. While every team has bad quarters from time to time, great teams can’t have at least one a game and survive over the long-term. Tonight the Hawks finally strung four really good quarters together.

Mainly, the attacked and attacked and attacked. With Bogut out, the Bucks just don’t have the size and speed to stick with Atlanta’s bigs, so Atlanta began the night pounding the ball in to Josh Smith and Al Horford, who moved the ball from the post and found cutting players. Horford finished with 20 and 10, while J-Smoove nearly messed around and got a triple-double; Josh finished with 21 points, 14 rebounds, 9 assists, 2 blocks and 2 steals. In the fourth quarter, Joe Johnson took over, hitting an array of smooth runners and jumpers to finish with 27 points. The Hawks finished with 26 assists on 38 field goals, which is pretty much unheard of for a team that relies so heavily on the isolation offense.

As good as Atlanta was on offense, they were better on defense. Milwaukee couldn’t get anything going from the perimeter, largely because Atlanta has such an unparalleled collection of long, athletic guys who are good at running out on three-point shooters. The Bucks tried driving inside, but the Hawks did an above-average job of blocking shots (the Hawks had 8 of ‘em) without fouling. Salmons lead Milwaukee with 21, but the other four starters only went for a combined 25 points (Kurt Thomas went scoreless in 26 minutes). The Bucks starters combined to shoot 1-16 on threes and only managed to get to the free throw line 5 times. By far, the best Buck was Ersan Ilyasova, who had 13 points and 15 rebounds and was the only Milwaukee player to match Atlanta’s hustle and drive. To slow down Jennings, the Hawks faked double-teams, mostly hid Bibby on Delfino and used Joe Johnson and Josh Smith on Jennings. They blocked Jennings’ shot on layups four separate times and he finished a forgettable 3-15 for 9 points.

The Hawks have their first 2-0 lead in a seven-game series since 1970. They don’t play Game 3 until Saturday.

• My Dad emailed me about yesterday’s wrap-up. I thought he had some good points. He writes…

This year I have watched much more playoffs than I usually do, and it has been fun. I agree with the fellow that said you missed the best game Sat between Bos/Mia. It was like a war. Game 2 should be good. I could not see much intensity in the Lakers Sun. I missed some of it, but the part I saw, it looked like they were still playing in the regular season. While watching the Chi/Clev game last night, I kept thinking there was no way Chi was going to beat Clev as long as James was anywhere around, and sure enough, he took over. I’m surprised that you gave no ink to Noah. I have never liked him mostly because he looks so weird. But, watching close the last 2 games, he fights like a tiger, and he always seems to be around the action. And, 25 points and 13 boards is not bad in a losing effort. To me, Chi looks better than an 8th seed. I’m looking forward to both early games tonight. I have to wait until later in the playoffs to watch those late Laker games, that is if they are still around.

• Only two games tomorrow night. Orlando and the BETcats at 7, then Dallas and San Antonio at 9:30.

OK, so there’s eight series currently underway, and eight games have been played so far. Of those eight games, the home team won seven of them. The only surprise winner came at 1:30 AM on the East Coast, so I’m sure it wasn’t watched by that many people. But the fourth quarter of the Suns/Blazers game was probably the most exciting quarter of the Playoffs so far.

Some random thoughts…

• Phoenix and Portland were pretty even for most of the night, but Portland got hot down the stretch, banged in a couple of threes, outhustled Phoenix and got the win. Amare finished with 18 and 8 but he fouled out with about 90 seconds left and was 8-19 from the floor. Amare finished with a -16 plus/minus rating.

• Andre Miller finished with 31 points and 8 assists, and Phoenix had no answer for him. I don’t what they do in Game Two — maybe put J-Rich on him and let Nash chase Rudy Fernandez around — but it was Dre Day in Phoenix.

• You’ve got to admire Phoenix’s obstinacy, as they repeatedly shot threes down the stretch when they were down 5 or 6, Portland kept missing free throws and Phoenix really just needed points. Higher-percentage shots were there, but Phoenix just kept firing away. That’s what they do, I guess, for better or worse.

• The Lakers basically just out-veteran’ed Oklahoma City. The Thunder have a lot of young talent, but L.A. could get points and stops whenever they needed them. Kevin Durant just seemed to be trying too hard, forcing shots, not passing to open guys on the wings. The Thunder stayed close, but they just couldn’t get over the hump at the end.

• Charlotte’s fun to watch if only because it’s such a crazy group of players. Going into this season, who would have guessed that a Playoff team would be relying on Stephen Jackson, Boris Diaw, Larry Hughes and Theo Ratliff? Orlando had a huge lead early, but the BETcats would not die, and they kept pushing and pushing and I wasn’t convinced Orlando was going to be able to hang on. Until they did. Still, this looks like it’s going to be one of the better series.

• “I wear no pants! I wear no pants! I wear…no…pants!”

• The most unanticipated news of the day was the suspension of Kevin Garnett for Boston’s Game Two. Actually, I guess it’s not that unanticipated because the NBA always seems to overreact during the postseason, and overreact quickly, at that.

The thing about KG is this: When the Hawks played the Celtics a couple of years ago, and KG was doing all his KG stuff (headbutting basket supports, goaltending shots taken after foul calls, etc.) there wasn’t a lot you could say about it because KG was the best defensive player in the League. He may have been behaving boorishly, but at least on some level he was backing it up. It was exactly the sort of conduct that made KG so much fun to root for and, at the same time, so much fun to root against.

Now that KG is so obviously injured, he can’t back up the behavior with actions. Now when he’s throwing ‘bows and woofing or whatever, he just seems out of place and, frankly, a little sad.

Now Boston has to play Miami without KG, and the Heat are going to be ticked about the way that Game One ended. Looking forward to that one.

• Tomorrow night we got Chicago/Cleveland and then Utah/Denver. Let’s gooooo!

The US Census, charged with ‘the actual Enumeration’ of the citizens of these United States every decade, must be absolutely thorough in their work. Therefore, it’s no surprise to anyone that one of the 10 questions asked of all Americans had to be the following: “How and when did you incur your season-altering injury for the Portland Trail Blazers?”

Greg Oden (again). Joel Pryzbilla (twice). Brandon Roy (despite his best intentions to come back at some point in the Playoffs). Nicolas Batum (for the first half of the season). Rudy Fernandez (balky back and quad and so on, upright currently). Nate McMillan (the coach, for Chrissakes, when they were two short for 5-on-5 in practice).

Phoenix Suns head coach Alvin Gentry pointed out before the final Suns home game of the season that the results don’t reflect the trials of being a Trail Blazer: “To win 50 games in the West with all that going on… What Nate has done is just a little bit better.” Gentry called McMillan his coach of the year.

You can throw out all the actual Enumeration when the Trail Blazers and Suns play. Really. Just toss them all out. The statistics just don’t matter. The counting stats, anyway.

McMillan has kept his squad in position to win by demanding his team dig in their heels and drag each game to a halt (30th in the NBA in pace factor), keeping the possessions down and the scores lower and closer.

The Blazers manage this molasses speed by hammering the boards (5th in offensive rebound percentage, 7th in defensive rebound percentage) and only shooting the basketball in Pavlovian fashion when they hear a buzzer. Over half their shots come with less than 9 seconds on the shot clock.

On the other hand, the Suns under Gentry have returned to an offensive-oriented up-and-down game that makes them the fourth-fastest paced team in the League as well as the most efficient and prolific scoring squad by a long shot.

They sink 41 percent of their threes, best in all the land by 30 percentage points, and clean their offensive glass ’till they squeak while abandoning the other end’s errant shots. All the better to run you into the ground with, my pretty.

The Blazers will likely keep their starters-of-the-moment on the floor 32-38 minutes with mid-season pickup Marcus Camby and Juwan Howard (six months younger than Grant Hill) splitting C minutes more evenly and Martell Webster absorbing any spilled court time. Therefore, slowing the game will be essential to the lungs and legs of the Blazers. Having Playoff-level commercial breaks won’t hurt the cause.

The Blazers hold the 2-1 series edge, but the first Portland win came in December when both teams were quite different. In February and March, the two teams split games in Phoenix with Robin Lopez disrupting the rebounding plans of the Blazers during his spin as Suns starter.

But it’s unclear how much to take away from those two games; the Blazers won the Suns’ way in February, largely on the strength of the now-absent Steve Blake combining forces with Andre Miller to give Steve Nash fits. In March, a game only a mother could love (and only after a handful of Valium) saw both teams shoot under 39 percent as the Suns won while only scoring 93 points.

There isn’t a matchup in this series that dramatically assists Portland. It’s true big guards can give Steve Nash fits, but Andre Miller has only decreased Nash’s output from all-world to perennial All-Star. One could have fired up a Stoudemire-Aldridge argument after last season, but that kind of talk will just get the bartender to cut you off now. LaMarcus will take advantage of Amar’e’s still-theoretical interior D, though.

Sure, Jarron Collins (holding the center spot for Robin Lopez as he nurses bulging discs in his lower back) has mostly been earning his way towards the NBA pension, but Marcus Camby won’t embarrass him. For all the positive talk about Nicolas Batum, he still doesn’t occupy the right space at the right time enough and Grant Hill’s made his second career off that. And Rudy Fernandez can’t fail, but he can’t exactly succeed this season, either. Jason Richardson, on the other hand, would probably legally marry Nash if he could for the career boost he’s received in Phoenix.

The Suns’ secret to their success this season, though, has been this single statement: Their second unit is better than yours. Jared Dudley, Goran Dragic, Lou Amundson, Channing Frye and Grant Hill (who bleeds into that second unit most nights) shoot the ball well and provide decent defense. Most of all, though, they make sure that brick is still lashed to the accelerator. The Suns, just like their desert namesake, kill you because they never relent.

Some Suns writers have become obsessed with the genial nature of the team and ask about chemistry more than DuPont shareholders. It’s true the team appears to get along better than most teams most seasons, but you don’t need voodoo science to understand why the Suns are favored in this series.

Instead, simple Enumeration will do: the Phoenix Suns have more skilled players in uniform, more speed against a short bench, and more options available for the coach alongside Nate McMillan in Coach of the Year consideration: Alvin Gentry.

Therefore, ‘09-10 Phoenix Suns > ‘09-10 Portland Trail Blazers. The Blazers’ style of play, the longer rest periods in Playoff basketball, and a couple referee-driven foulfests will make the results closer. Still, take the Phoenix Suns in six games.

Stats compiled by 82games.com and basketball-reference.com.

First of all, on Tuesday night we aired our final episode of the season of The Beat on NBA TV. I had a great time working the NBA TV crew all season, and a big thanks to NBA TV for letting me invade their air and rep SLAM once a week. Shout-outs to Marc Fein, David Aldridge, Damon Fisher, Jeremy Levin, Tony Lamb and Jim Allen. Hopefully we’ll do it again next year.

I’m still waiting for my Suncatcher Awning, by the way.

Changing gears, yesterday I turned in my official NBA Postseason Awards ballot. Last week I posted some general thoughts on the awards, and let you guys have your say. I read all the comments, chewed on it over the weekend, then filed my ballot today. Here’s how I voted, and why I voted the way I did.

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
MY VOTE: 1) Tyreke Evans 2) Stephen Curry 3) Brandon Jennings
MY REASONING: As far as Reke, the Kings put the ball his hands from day one and basically tossed him out there, and he managed to produce all season, even getting doubled throughout. In my mind, voting for the other two spots was much closer. We discussed this in the office this morning before I submitted my ballot, and Ben vehemently disagreed with my voting here, believing that Brandon should have been at least second. Ben’s thought was that while Curry had good numbers, they didn’t mean anything because he’s on the Warriors, where D-league guys are throwing up 20 points in a game. And I understand that. But I’ve watched a bunch of Bucks and Warriors games the last few weeks. Curry was unquestionably the best all-around player on the Warriors. He had defenses keying on him, and he averaged 17 ppg, 6 apg and shot 46 pct from the floor and 43 pct (!) on threes. Brandon was terrific, too, but he wasn’t as consistent from the floor (shot 37 pct) and he sat frequently in the fourth quarters of games. And as a fan, watching my team play against these teams, I found myself more concerned about Curry than Brandon. Brandon might end up being the best of all three of these rookies—I think he’s the most explosive of any of them—but this season, Tyreke was the best, Steph was second-best, Brandon was third. At least to me.

COACH OF THE YEAR
MY VOTE: 1) Jerry Sloan 2) Scott Brooks 3) Nate McMillan
MY REASONING: This could have gone about ten different ways, but here’s what I settled on. I went with Sloan for a couple of reasons. The Jazz started the season with a franchise player who didn’t want to be there. They gave away their starting two guard and their back-up point guard. They’ve had injuries to key players all season — nobody will finish the season having played in all 82 games. And yet they still won 53 games and finished tied with Denver for the best record in the Northwest Division. Brooks took a team that nobody expected much from and squeezed out 50 wins. While Portland had one of the most ridiculously injury-plagued seasons anyone could ever imagine, Nate McMillan overcame the injuries, front office issues, a screaming match with Andre Miller and a center posting nude photos of himself on the internet to win 50 games. It was only because the Blazers came into this with a stacked roster and Nate Dogg had a lot of depth at his disposal that I didn’t rate him higher.

DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR
MY VOTE: 1) Dwight Howard 2) Josh Smith 3) Gerald Wallace
MY REASONING: Does this mean the Southeast Division is the most defensive? I thought this award was pretty obvious. I saw a couple of other writers reveal their ballots and say that they’d voted for Josh Smith. I watched pretty much every Hawks game this season, and as much as I like Smoove, he just didn’t have the consistent, dominant impact on games that Dwight Howard had.

MOST IMPROVED PLAYER
MY VOTE: 1) Andrew Bogut 2) Aaron Brooks 3) Marc Gasol
MY REASONING: I know Aaron Brooks had a significant jump in his PPG, but to me, if you’re a point guard playing 35 minutes a game who averages five assists and 16 shots a night, it’s not that difficult to have a jump in points per game. I really thought Bogut had shown a dramatic improvement this season, not just in putting up bigger numbers, but in having more of an impact on games and being a presence on the floor, no to mention the way he organized the Section 6 fans and was super-active on Twitter, uniting Bucks fans.

ALL-NBA TEAMS
MY VOTE:
FIRST TEAM: LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Dwight Howard, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade
SECOND TEAM: Carmelo Anthony, Dirk Nowitzki, Amare Stoudemire, Deron Williams, Steve Nash
THIRD TEAM: Pau Gasol, Tim Duncan, Andrew Bogut, Joe Johnson, Brandon Roy
MY REASONING: I think these are all pretty self-explanatory, aren’t they?

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER
MY VOTE: 1) LeBron 2) Kobe Bryant 3) Kevin Durant 4) Dwight Howard 5) Dwyane Wade
Working backward, I thought Wade was even better — more complete — this year than last year, and considering that roster he was given to play alongside, winning 47 games was incredible. Dwight quietly averaged 18 and 13, and he really was the anchor of the second-best team in the Conference. KD was KD, averaging 30 PPG and developing into a superstar way before most people expected. Kobe might not have had his most impressive season statistically, but I agree 100-percent with Dr. Jack Ramsay, who said Kobe “is the guts of the Lakers.” I don’t know how to show you numbers or a graph that proves this, but it’s true.

As for LeBron, there was a column on Monday by Fanhouse’s Tim Povtak that said LeBron owes fans in Orlando a refund for not playing on Sunday against the Magic. That didn’t bother as much as Povtak saying he wasn’t going to vote for LeBron for the MVP. Because…seriously?

LeBron sat out that game because it didn’t matter. The Cavs had already clinched home court advantage during the Playoffs. There’s the obvious “but fans bought tickets to see LeBron” angle. Maybe so, and it’s too bad for them that he didn’t play. But again, it’s just too bad. Stuff happens. There’s no guarantee any NBA player will play, injured or healthy, on any night. The Spurs have sat guys all season long when they need a rest.

Povtak writes “If James wants some rest, he should reduce his playing time significantly, and sit out the second half. It’s just not fair to the paying customers, who are too often forgotten by the me-first players like James.”

But if LeBron wanted to give the Cavs the best chance to beat Orlando, knowing that if he WAS going to play he wouldn’t be playing the entire game and if he did play, he wouldn’t be going all-out, then NOT playing at all was probably the best thing he could have done for the team. Isn’t not playing at all the most team-first thing he could have done? Wouldn’t playing limited minutes have been the MOST me-first thing he could have done?

Povtak also invokes Malone and Stockton, who frequently played all 82 games. Which is great. And how many titles did they win again?

It’s really a lose-lose situation for the teams and players. Sasha Vujacic sprained his ankle last night in a totally inconsequential game and is out for a while in the Playoffs. If that had been Bron or Dwight Howard or some other first-team All-NBA guy, writers would start in with the “Oh, they should have sat him” columns. If he played half the game and said he’d done it because the fans in Orlando wanted to see him play, people would write about how selfish he was being.

Look: LeBron isn’t is this to win a scoring title or any of that other stuff. He wants a ring and he wants it now.

That said, LeBron was by far the best and most complete player in the NBA this season, regardless of whether he played in 78 or 82 games.

He averaged more points per game than Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade or Kobe Bryant.

He averaged more rebounds per game than Mehmet Okur, Andre Iguodala or Jermaine O’Neal.

He averaged more assists per game than Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook or Chauncey Billups.

He averaged more steals per game than defenders like Ron Artest, Gerald Wallace or Corey Brewer.

He had the highest efficiency rating in the entire NBA.

The Cavs won more games this season than any team in the NBA.

To me, the only question is how anyone COULDN’T vote for LeBron.

You might not like LeBron’s personality or the way he carries himself, and that’s fine, that’s your choice. But there is no way any rational person can say LeBron was not the most valuable player in the NBA this season.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. wants to ball.

A member of Team Mayweather has found a basketball and has Floyd’s attention. A smile widens on Floyd’s face as he rushes over to the nearby court with members of his team in tow. Trash talk begins and a few wagers will likely be placed as Floyd starts dribbling the ball in excitement. We’re standing near the NBA TV studio setup at the Dallas Convention Center, right smack in the middle of Jam Session. It’s loud as hell in here, with obstacle courses, shops and various booths throughout the massive room set up for various All-Star weekend activities. Before Floyd can get his makeshift game going, a few Jam session officials cruise over and stop the party. Apparently, the court is set up for some type of fan event and Floyd and his crew will not be allowed to do their thing. He’s a little disappointed and shocked, but the smile will creep back soon. No matter how angry or upset he gets, the smile can’t be denied. He’s ferocious, on edge and determined to prove to the entire world that no fighter on the planet can touch him. Through it all, that smile will flash because the thing to know about Floyd is this: everything will be done on his terms, and his terms only. He’s earned that right thanks to a magnificent career that is still headed for new heights.

Back over on the NBA TV set, Floyd patiently waits for his call time. Fans and employees of the convention center approach him for photos and autographs. He happily fulfills every request. When Floyd begins his NBA TV interview, his manager Leonard Ellerbe asks me about my plan for the interview. I tell him that we can get the interview done anywhere and it should be no problem. He’s hardly impressed and I suddenly realize why. The convention center is extremely loud as all types of activities continue to begin around us. Basketball games, shooting contests, free tacos from Taco Bell—soon enough this place is a madhouse and finding a private spot where I can shoot Floyd on a Flip camera and conduct our interview becomes harder than I thought.

When I first got this assignment from Editor-n-Chief Ben Osborne a few days ago, I was stoked. I’ve always been impressed with Floyd both as a fighter and entertainer, especially after watching HBO 24/7. Boxing doesn’t have the same vehicles as the NBA to showcase its talent. There aren’t 82 games plus to promote their product or a popular platform like SLAM where one can get an in-depth view of the boxing life on a consistent basis. But 24/7 changed the game. It gave us an inside look into the life of a champion boxer, both in the ring and off. When I watched the 24/7 leading up to the Mayweather— Oscar De La Hoya bout, it was a wrap. I was captivated by Mayweather or the “villain” as he was beautifully portrayed in the show. While Oscar showcased time with his family and a carefully crafted image, Floyd gave us a stream of consciousness flow that was absent of a filter. He spoke candidly about his relationship with his father, flashed scrilla and jewelry while talking all kinds of shit during training sessions. I was drawn to that. In a world filled with athletes full of shit (see Tiger Woods press conference today), it’s always refreshing to see a guy who doesn’t give a fuck what critics or media think about him—he’s going to say whatever’s on his mind and do as he pleases.

My plan for the sit down with Floyd was simple. I was going to fly in from SoCal to Austin, TX, on Thursday of All-Star weekend, spend the day visiting one of my best friends from college—Andy Cannon—over some incredible BBQ from Rudy’s and then make the three-hour drive north to Dallas early Friday morning. Mother Nature pulled a jack move on me and forced some changes. Dallas was hit with some record snow fall and traveling there had all of the sudden become dangerous according to the news. Rather than waiting until the next morning to drive to the D, I decided to knuckle up and drive that night, through the storm. I didn’t want to risk missing my call time with Floyd and since most of the storm had already passed through, my biggest obstacle became slick roads. Against the wishes of Andy, I jumped in my rented Pontiac G6 and began one of the most difficult drives I have ever attempted. Once I hit Waco, the roads changed as snow was present, forcing everyone to drive about 30 mph. abandoned cars lined various parts of the roadway and the snow was still coming and sticking in certain pockets. I decided to draft behind a huge big rig, hoping it could clear the path ahead. Although there were a few scary moments, I ended up making it to Dallas in a little over four hours, getting in about 1:30 am. I made a quick stop to Lakers scout and LA Defenders GM Bonnie-Jill Laflin’s party at Hotel ZaZa to give her the word, then headed back to the hotel to continue my prep for Floyd.

I do a decent amount of research before each interview I conduct, but I rarely if ever bring written questions to a sit down. I’ve always felt that if I kept my eyes on the subject and not the pad, I could engage in a much better discussion, essentially moving from interview into a conversation. Floyd was a different beast. As much as I love boxing, I don’t know the sport like I do the NBA or NFL. Furthermore, I had seen the interview Floyd did with Brian Kenny on SporsCenter early last year. It was an incredible back in forth that got heated on many occasions. This is not where I wanted our interview to go, so I decided to write down some questions. I don’t know what I was thinking.

While Floyd did his interview with NBA TV and a radio station, I went to work trying to find a private spot for our interview. I convinced a few security guards to set up my Flip cam behind a stage in a far corner of the massive room we were in. I pulled two chairs from the empty stage and hoped it would be quiet and decent enough for Floyd. It was an area that fans had no access to and the security guards nearby went out of their way to help me. After Floyd wrapped his radio spot, he was escorted over to my makeshift area, flanked by many members of Team Mayweather. Floyd was also wearing a wireless mic and being followed by a cameraman shooting for 24/7. He walks up and asks where he needs to sit. I point at my pitiful setup and he immediately sits down and is ready to go.

It becomes apparent that Floyd is a huge NBA fan. Gambling is our first topic and Floyd loves to bet on NBA games. I ask him if the Tim Donaghy scandal deterred him from betting and he’s unfazed, citing a $43,000 loss in the infamous game in 2007 where referee Joey Crawford ejected Tim Duncan during the 3rd quarter of a game against the Mavs for simply laughing/staring at him from the bench. Floyd had money on the Spurs that night, who went on to lose a close game. Tim Donaghy was old news in his book. Our chat quickly shifts to more pressing NBA topics. “I can tell you about any player, all you got to do is ask me about him,” Floyd proclaims. I try. But Floyd doesn’t have patience for my slow flow, so he takes over. “I’m going to tell you what’s good with the NBA and what’s wrong with the NBA,” he says proudly. “What the Atlanta Hawks need is this: we need to let Bibby come off the bench and let Jamal Crawford start. Anytime a guy can come off the bench and score 50 points in a game—he needs to be starting! He might be putting up 30 a night if he’s starting! The Hawks need to pick up Stoudamire. Phoenix is talking about getting rid of him. Steve Nash’s main go-to-guy is Stoudamire. That’s going to mess his chemistry up. His assists will drop a lot. We’re talking about—and I still like Steve Nash—but we’re talking about six assists.”

After more player breakdowns, our discussion moves towards the ring. Floyd assures me that the Manny Pacquiao fight will eventually happen. It’s the fight we’re all waiting for and is likely to become the most lucrative boxing match ever. But there is more money to be made before this epic showdown. Floyd is hoping to gross over $100 million over his next two fights. Next up, a May 1st showdown at the MGM grand in Las Vegas against Sugar Shane Mosley in a Welterweight showdown that should prove to be a great fight. Mosley has angled for his chance to fight Floyd for quite some time. He will now get his wish. Floyd will put his perfect 40-0 record on the line to face Mosley, who has won seven of his last eight fights dating back to 2005, including an impressive win over Antonio Margarito in January of 2009.

The Mayweather-Mosley tilt will likely be the best boxing event of 2010. Floyd’s critics—who are endless—will never be satisfied until he meets Manny. While I can’t wait for that day to come, I must admit that I’m also interested in seeing Floyd battle Sugar Shane. The only boxing match I ever attended was De La Hoya-Mosley at Staples Center in 2000. It was an incredible win for Mosley, who later admitted taking a banned substance in preparation for the fight (EP0)—both Mayweather and Mosley have agreed to Olympic style testing for their upcoming bout. Floyd describes the bout as speed and power versus timing, comparing Mosley’s power and speed to Zab Judah, who he deposed of several years back. “We’re two Hall of Famers meeting at a legendary weight class, which is Welterweight,” Floyd says. “Sugar Ray Leonard. Roberto Duran, Tommy Hearns—the list goes on and on.”

Floyd will tell you that timing beats speed and that nobody can hit what they can’t see. Mayweather’s speed, technical skills and footwork are second to none. He is the Kobe of the fight game: a champion with supreme knowledge that has mastered the skills and movements needed to dominate his sport for many years, while doing so on his terms. Detractors call him a money whore and accuse him of dodging and ducking fighters. He will respond by reminding you that he fought his first 90 fights for free as an amateur and that he’s been dominating the sport for too long to be concerned with the newest flavor in your ear.

When our time together ends, I thank Floyd for the conversation. He pulls me aside and says, “I be knowing my basketball, huh?” We share a laugh and say our goodbyes after a quick photo op. You can check out some our discussion in the attached video and in a future edition of Dime Drop. Our discussion would have never occurred without the help of a few people behind the scenes. Many thanks to Floyd’s manager and CEO of Mayweather Promotions Leonard Ellerbe, Jeremy Silkowitz of Swanson Communications and Tzvi Twersky at the SLAM dome for all of their efforts. Cheers.

We’re chatting about all the crazy trades today from 3:00 PM until 4:00 PM or so. Join us…

FROM THE DESK OF NOT DAVID STERN
12/23/2009

To all NBA owners, executives, coaches, players, team staff and League partners, as well as our new friend, Comrade Prokhorov, I’d like to begin by wishing you and yours the best during this holiday season.

I know the economy has been terrible in 2009, and the global economic meltdown has had a profound affect on many of us. (Not so much on me, though, because all my money is locked away somewhere the feds will never find it.) Attendance seems to be down, and our teams are being forced to be more and more creative to find new, untapped revenue streams. The New Jersey Nets, for instance, have managed to sell sponsorship on pretty everything attached to their franchise. While I ultimately had to cancel the Nets’ plan to allow fans to take turns as head coach in exchange for a nominal $25-per-quarter fee, I applaud their creativity and encourage all of our teams to think similarly outside the box.

As we move into the year 2010, if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to take this opportunity to reflect upon some of our accomplishments over the last decade.

When the 2000’s began, we were coming off the lockout that lasted into 1999. Unlike the way the baseball owners lost a postseason and made all their fans hate their sport as a result of their work stoppage, we were able to complete a shortened season and nearly managed to get the Knicks a championship. I’m still working on that one.

Over the last decade, the Spurs and the Lakers established themselves as the class of the League and made the Western Conference dominant. There was also a brief period there in the middle of the decade when the Pistons were really good; that was weird. More recently, we’ve seen a resurrection of the classic Lakers/Celtics rivalry, which has been exciting for everyone, particularly those of us who don’t have to keep going to Detroit in June for weeks at a time.

The influx of international players into the NBA during this decade is another hallmark of the era. Dirk Nowitzki was the MVP of the 2002 World Championships, and Yao Ming was the first pick in the same year. But perhaps no international player has had the impact that Steve Nash has had. Not only is he a two-time MVP, but… well, OK, that’s about the extent of his impact. Every time I see one of our amazing international athletes sprinting up or down the court, my heart swells with pride. (Also, I hear cash register sound effects in my brain. LOL!)

As you all know, we recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of the WNBA, which has been an unmitigated success, no matter how you look at it.

Quickly moving on, when the NBA’s long-secret research and development invented the internet back in the late ’90s, we had no idea what a fundamental change it would make in the way our sport was covered. While our fans used to have to wait and read updates in their local papers each day, the internet gave everyone instant information and allowed people all over the world to have a voice. For instance, this Whitaker kid over at SLAMonline was a thorn in my side every day for a very long time, joking that I was actually a robot. Very funny… hahahah… does not compute… akjehgfkabegaekljfnal … 011 0111000 00 11111 0010101  101100011 110101011.

[REBOOT]

Sorry. It was during the last decade that we signed television deals with ABC/ESPN and Turner Sports. At the time, people were very critical of us not signing a major network television deal and instead casting our fates mostly with cable, but it was very obvious that cable was the wave of the future. It was also very obvious that when you’re being offered billions of dollars, you don’t turn it down, regardless who’s doing the offering.

And let’s not forget about the dress code. When we first announced that we were going to require our players to adhere to certain fashion rules, many critics said we were violating the rights of our employees to express themselves. Actually, what we were doing was violating their right to dress like slobs. We now have a League of very professional-looking young men, and the complaints are gone. Except for Rasheed Wallace, who won’t stop texting me and us lobbying me to allow “Tims,” whatever those are.

This isn’t to say the NBA hasn’t had our missteps. In retrospect, the synthetic balls were probably a bad idea. I prefer to remember it as us being ahead of the curve of the Green movement, stressing renewable resources. Then again, we must concede that it was probably a bad idea to switch from the leather ball we’d used for sixty years to a ball that caused cuts to our player’s hands. A really bad idea.

And of course, there was the unfortunate incident in Detroit, when Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson charged into the stands and tragically went buck-wild on those Pistons fans. More recently, the Tim Donaghy scandal shocked and saddened everyone in the NBA family. I can’t speak for us all, but I never would have bet something like that could happen. After an exhaustive investigation, we determined that Donaghy was an isolated, rogue referee. As it turns out, the other referees don’t make bad calls in order to purposefully affect the outcome of games, they just aren’t very good at their jobs.

If I had to select one accomplishment of which I am most proud, it would have to be our establishment of NBA Cares, our global community outreach initiative that addresses important social issues such as education, youth and family development, and health and wellness. Most people know it for our commercials featuring the music of the edgy R&B artist John Legend. (I picked that song myself, BTW.)

Looking forward, I still believe that it’s imperative for us to continue expanding overseas, as well as for us to continue pushing our digital initiatives. With young players like Dwight Howard, Dwyane Wade, Brandon Jennings and Tyreke Evans, the League is in great hands. I’m looking forward to the NCAA continuing to market John Wall for us before he comes to our League next year, and with so many of our teams more competitive than ever, the 2010 Playoffs should be ultra-exciting.

Also, once we make LeBron sign with the Knicks next summer, we’re all gonna be set.

Happy holidays!

THE STERNBOT

For real, happy holidays to you and yours from all of us here at SLAM. Thanks for making this an amazing decade for all of us, and catch you in 2010!–LW