Miami's South Beach: citizens are currently considering a motion by Dwyane Wade to rename the beach 'Dwyane Wade.'
Miami Heat: With Shaq out of town, crime in Miami skyrockets, and the beleagured police force call on the heightened talents of their city’s basketball team to help out: Wade is able to run down and catch any thief on foot and most any thief in cars; Beasley talks such epic trash that even hardened criminals break down in tears; and Chris Quinn spends his off-court time mixing potions that either restore the flagging energy of Miami’s police force or add +1 to Marion’s mana.
Erik Spoelstra has marginal success in his first season as coach, taking Miami to 25 wins, largely due to the answers he gets to his coaching inquiries on Yahoo! fantasy forums. His off-court time is spent blazing up with Mario Chalmers and referring to Pat Riley as “Old Father Time.”
Charlotte Bobcats: What will Larry Brown bring to the franchise this year? It’s well known that Charlotte are probably one mid-level player away from genuine play-off contention, when things are going right. If J-Rich, Gerald Wallace, Okafor and Felton can contribute for a full season, Charlotte could pull off some surprising upsets and finish the regular season with a shot at the 8th spot.
This, however, ignores the very real possibility that Felton cracks it over the decision to draft yet another point guard who will challenge for his spot, and demands a trade, thus disrupting team chemistry — which will see Adam Morrison out for three weeks with an injured tear duct.
There are at least two further major concerns: is Gerald Wallace’s brain still functioning, and will another knock render him disabled; and what will be the atrocious decision Michael Jordan makes this year?
Atlanta Hawks: The big question on everyone’s mind will be the effect Josh Childress’ absence will have on Atlanta’s depth and presence off the bench. While this will be an unknown quantity until the season starts, The Sport Count has the answer to the second biggest question on everyone’s mind: yes, there is now a huge excess of weed in Atlanta as a result of Childress’ move.
J-Smoove’s off-season signing to $58M should placate him enough to continue being ridiculous on the defensive end, and Joe Johnson should return to his marksmanship ways. With Al Horford only getting better, look for this team to still be in contention in the second round of the playoffs. Don’t look for Mike Bibby though, who will by that time have sprained both wrists, broken his neck, accidentally gnawed one of his legs off, and covered his head in so many bad tattoos he is no longer recognisable.
Washington Wizards: This is just frustrating. If Washington had their All-Star trio of Arenas, Jamison and Butler all healthy, they’d probably one of the most exciting teams to watch in the East. As it is, Antawn hurt himself before the season, Gilbert is unsurprisingly out due to his terrible rehab routine, Caron is almost as fragile as T-Mac, and starting Center Brendan Haywood is potentially out for the season. Talk about starting on the back foot. If the Wiz can overcome these injury concerns and post a reasonable record, it will be one of the great achievements of the season.
The one horrible inevitability is that injuries will mean Nick Young gets more court-time, which will result in him jacking up so many ill-advised shots that it’ll make Larry Hughes look like Ray Allen.
Orlando Magic: Is there any chance they won’t top the division? Dwight is continuing to put up the kind of numbers that destroy small towns, Turkoglu is coming off a career season that all the pundits think will be repeated, Rashard Lewis is playing well enough that you forget he gets paid as much as Kobe and 50% more than LeBron, and Jeff Van Gundy has been signed to ESPN to now Stan can stop worrying what his lovable-but-mentally-deficient brother is doing and actually concentrate on the game. All signs point to the Magic being a dominant force in the Eastern Conference.
The highlight will be when Dwight offers to correct the geological problem Oden caused on the west coast by starting his run-up in Philly and dunking the Chrysler building.
Well, The Sport Count (as well as the rest of the blogosphere) got it well wrong with the recent claims that Ben Gordon was on his way to CSKA Moscow. However, one thing which looks almost certain is that ‘Belligerent Ben,’ as he’s referred to at our offices, is nowhere near suiting up for the Bulls next year.
Gordon's Sprewell complex for Marion's sensitivity?
The latest and greatest in The Ben Gordon Saga involves Miami, and talk of a multi-player trade involving some of the worst attitudes in the NBA — a treasure trove of discontentment. RealGM.com reports:
Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks for Ben Gordon, Larry Hughes and Joakim Noah, according to Yahoo! Sports.
Jeez, that’s a chemistry issue waiting to happen. Literally every single player in that sentence has character issues. It’s almost comical.
To be honest though, I don’t mind the trade for either side. Noah would be a great true big for Miami and they would have Larry Hughes and his horrible contract semi-running the point next to Wade at the 2. Ben Gordon would contend for 6th man of the year, playing a bit of starting 2 if they want to run D-Wade at the point. It frees up space for Beasley to play small forward toom, locking him as the best rookie not named Greg Oden.
The Bulls get Marion, a great defender, and a guy who can create his own offense when rookie point guard Derrick Rose forgets what sort of play he’s running. Banks is a useless inclusion, and the Bulls would obviously be looking to get someone else — if they’re retaining Hinrich, you don’t need to be paying your third-string point guard $5m a year.
These talks have apparently stalled, but don’t be surprised to see this watershed of petulance and primadonna behaviour fire up again over the next couple of weeks, as Pat Riley realises that Vinny Del Negro’s only credentials are three full seasons of franchise mode on NBA 2K8.
Anyone following The Sport Count’smusings over the past weeks might have formed the opinion that we think only a single sex plays basketball. This is simply untrue. While we acknowledge a, ahem, large bias towards news from the male game, we’d also like to point out that no bigger fans of Australia’s World Champion Opals exist anywhere.
We love them, and have spent the last few days feverishly cheering as they beat down inferior opposition in the hunt for Olympic gold.
Let this not be mistaken for tokenistic, condescending male support. The Count’s preferred style of basketball includes endless dunks, brutal swagger, broken ankles and fall-away jumpers, which the women’s game doesn’t provide in the same way as the NBA can. The moment it does, The Count’s collective dream of Lauren Jackson draining shots in the face of a cocky D-Wade will be one step closer.
No, our love for the Opals is genuine, and is based on one of The Sport Count’s Basic Principles: we love The Best. This is why we like Kobe, but not Doleac; why we like Beasley, and not Gallinari; and why we cannot, for the life of us, understand how Isiah Thomas was ever allowed to even stand near Madison Square Garden.
And being fans of pure excellence, The Count is tonight looking forward to our World Champion Opals thoroughly embarrassing the representatives of the host nation. Even with star forward Penny Taylor likely to be out injured, and Captain Jackson battling through chronic ankle pain that requires constant injections, our girls should put the Chinese away like a cheap set of tupperware. And then it’s onto you, America, where you get paid back for what you did to our boys.
No doubt you’ve heard that should Darius Miles — who looked good at a recent Boston try-out — sign and play with another the team, the Blazers would be on the hook for his $27,000,000 contract*. Which wouldn’t be great for their salary cap.
However, one Portland head isn’t too worried about Miles returning to form:
If he can come back near pre-injury form it’s guaranteed somebody, somewhere is going to give him a shot.His retirement was for legitimate, confirmed medical reasons, however.That, combined with what we’ve heard about Darius’ work ethic from various teams he played for in his healthier days, makes me think a full recovery is [unlikely].
*Always better to express bad contracts down to the last digit. Example: Stephon Marbury will make $21,937,500 this season. Even the $500 dollars tacked on at the end hurts in New York.
I never, ever thought I’d see a tattoo sillier than Luke Walton’s inexplicable bicep-based depiction of monkeys dunking basketballs. I was wrong:
Back in the summer of 2003, Shawn Marion got a tattoo down his right leg in Chinese lettering that was supposedly a translation of his nickname “The Matrix.” Only it wasn’t. I mean, it really, really wasn’t.
As I walked around the breakfast buffet area, I did not see any thinly sliced ham that was labeled “bacon.” I figured there would be no reason to label it “Canadian bacon” because I was in Canada. The bacon that was appropriately labeled was the same chewy-crispy sliced pork that I was accustomed to. It could just be that hotel, but I have lost faith in Canadian bacon as a result of that morning.
Beasley put up 28 against Derrick Rose and the Bulls. Why is ESPN not televising the summer league? Even if they played it at 3am instead of World’s Strongest Man (episode #91381) or the 1998 NHRA Qualifiers, at least we’d have the chance to see that Beasley magic.
The Sport Count would love to see Darius Miles back in the NBA. Why?
Hoo! Bwooohedabegyaponermen!!. Translation:That was great. That was a great dunk he just did off that trampoline.
Strap yourselves in, The Sport Count team are running down the top ten picks in this year’s done and dusted NBA Draft.
Thrills, surprises, and a couple of picks which we were sure couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t and — in the infinite wisdom of GM land — did happen.
#1 | Derrick Rose | Chicago Bulls | 3.5/5
Props to Chicago for not drafting for need and picking who they consider the best player.
Personally, I’m not all over this pick. The glut of young star point guards out there (CP3, D-Will) has put stars in a couple of GM eyes, similar to how ‘freshmen / high school big men with upside’ were a couple of years ago – Tyrus Thomas, I’m looking at you!
All in all, this could be franchise changing, and we can watch the trade moves begin. Having said that, I’m not so sure you don’t take the following big guy…
#2 | Michael Beasley | Miami Heat | 4.9/5
In case you can’t tell from the ranking, I’m pretty big on Beasley.
Pat Riley doesn’t get a 5 because he was so desperate to do something clever, like trade the pick, or wheel and deal to try to get his long-sold soul back from David Stern.
Remember last year when people were flat out drooling over Kevin Durant’s freshman Longhorns campaign? Beasley topped that turnout, but no one seemed to care. The kid turned in a college season for the ages, and he’ll fill it up and rebound for the next 12 years.
@docktora Roy Hibbert is a surething for a massive breakout, right? He'll get starts, stacks of minutes, and he can score, board AND block. 9 hours ago
@Daniel_Artest You still hitting New Zealand soon? You should write up some diaries of your trip. Start a blog. Or write for us? 9 hours ago
If the Raps can pick up Jarrett, that's a great Calderon back-up. Doesn't make up for the terrible Hedo signing though. 9 hours ago
@docktora best case scenario is just sub-Ariza without the steals. He'll be a perpetual 8th man, classic energy guy. 17 hours ago
