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Playoff Talking Points: The Limits of Feelin’ Good

Fanhouse NBA Blog - suns — Tue, 04 May 2010 06:07:00 +0000

Filed under: Bucks, Cavaliers, Hawks, Jazz, Lakers, Suns, NBA Playoffs, Thunder

No one with a wife and kids, or the need to eat leafy greens, has time to watch all this basketball. But we do. So, as a service to the public, here are the Playoff Talking Points you need to fake it at the water cooler:

o. Quality Control: The deer is loose. Do we capitalize "deer," or is just an ordinary deer that's gone to work for its fans, like the John Deere one? Can someone with a degree in Midwestern linguistic explain how "cheer the deer" doesn't just mean making some poor skinny animal's day?

So many questions, and I know that's bad writing. But today the mind reels. Despite my artful Val Lewton references, the Hawks still don't seem to get the concept of bringing your heart and soul on the road, and again, they couldn't pull past the meek, horned beasts.

I would like to raise the possibility here that Josh Smith's anti-Milwaukee comments are a smokescreen, meant to throw us off the party-trail he's blazed since showing up in town. It is the hometown of Latrell Sprewell, isn't it? Glenn Robinson has the keys to the city. Don Nelson once ruled the roost. There has to be some kind of secret network of gettin' down for NBA players that's just not public knowledge like South Beach.

It's fun off the grid, complete with the instruction manual on how to reinforce the secret. But I see through it all. Maybe.

Yesterday, I referred to the Spurs and Jazz as on the verge of "college-type upsets." They're not. The Spurs have been positively awe-inspiring, and Utah's just not messing around when it comes to making the most of their battered platoon. Having Deron Williams once and for all penetrate my All-Demonic rankings certainly has a lot to do with it; if you want to know when there's a playoff game you can't turn off, look deep into the eyes of the stars, like Bush did Putin. If you're scared by what you find there, that's a man possessed and well worth watching.

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Where Did All These Point Guards Come From?

Fanhouse NBA Blog - suns — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 14:25:50 +0000

by Bethlehem Shoals

Filed under: Bucks, Hornets, Jazz, Kings, Suns, Warriors, NBA Draft

Around the time Shaquille O'Neal roamed this earth with absolute impunity, we would ask, wistfully, "where have all the big men gone?" This was not a really bad, basketball-related Kinks parody, but a real question: At least in the collective imagination, once the population of competent seven-footers (or slightly below) in the NBA was stable, even flourishing.

Then abruptly -- and this is not in any way intended to detract from Shaq's achievements -- being Michael Olowokandi was enough to get you selected number one overall. The Hack-a-Shaq strategy may have been desperate and sad, but offering up these raw meat sacrifices wouldn't have been necessary if real centers had been on the roster in their place.

Of course, the gleaming coda to it all was that Shaq, and the Lakers, were brought down by Ben and Rasheed Wallace. These two Pistons proved that the best way to defend O'Neal was not with an equal or lesser traditional big man, but with new thinking.

Theories abounded as to why seven-footers had gone the way of Andesaurus Delgadoi. Kids all wanted to be Michael Jordan, meaning they grew up working on their handle, refused to bulk up (um, okay), and all turned out shorter. The more accurate answer would be "all turned into Kevin Garnett", which didn't happen much, or "all turned into Dirk Nowitzki", which took place overseas independent of these market forces. Oddly, the supreme seven-footer of the pre-Shaq period, Hakeem Olajuwan, was acclaimed for the wing-like agility he picked up playing soccer as a youth in Nigeria -- where, it should be added, he had little interest in a future in basketball.

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Rose to Defend Skills Challenge Title Against Two Former Champs

Fanhouse NBA Blog - suns — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:59:41 +0000

by Brett Pollakoff

Filed under: Bucks, Bulls, Jazz, Suns, NBA All-Star Game, NBA Videos

Derrick Rose will defend his championship in the Taco Bell Skills Challenge at All-Star weekend, but will have to beat two former champions and one of the league's top rookies to retain the title.

The field is set, and will feature Deron WIlliams, Steve Nash, and Brandon Jennings. Nash won it back in 2005, and WIlliams was the champ in 2008. But neither finished his final round with as much flair as Rose did a season ago.

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Sports Greats Past and Present Get Together for a Great Cause

Elie Seckbach — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:00:00 +0000

Filed under: Bucks, Celtics, Clippers, Hornets, Lakers, Suns, NBA Awards, NBA Draft, NBA Videos, Interviews, NBA Twitter, FanHouse Exclusive, NBA Coaches

Elie Seckbach, the Embedded Correspondent, brings his exclusive video reporting to FanHouse. Check back regularly for more videos.

For the past nine years the Harold Pump Foundation, created by David and Dana Pump (known as the gurus of high school and college basketball) has raised over $3.5 million dollars to fight cancer. The foundation's efforts have not gone unnoticed. Major stars such as Magic Johnson, Paul Pierce, Sugar Ray Leonard, Pete Sampras and Denzel Washington have all joined the Pump brothers. In this report we also hear from young NBA stars like Kevin Love, Brandon Jennings, and Blake Griffin.

Check out the video after the jump.

Sports Greats Past and Present Get Together for a Great Cause originally appeared on NBA FanHouse on Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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