Marchness

With NBA teams clinching playoff berths and other looking to next season, the March Madness is here. Louisville brought the first upset when it lost to Morehead State while Temple crushed the hopes of Penn State from going into sweet sixteen.

Play it off 2010

Now that the NBA playoffs are all set, here's what I predict:

Lakers over Thunder in 6 games
Mavs over Spurs in 5 games
Nuggets over Jazz in 7 games
Suns over Blazersin 5 games

Cavs over Bulls in 5 games
Magic over Bobcats in 6 games
Hawks over Bucks in 7 games
Celtics over Heat in 7 games

Semifinals:
Lakers over Suns/Nuggets over Mavs
Cavs over Celtics/Magic over Hawks

Finals:
Lakers over Nuggets
Cavs over Magic - 7 game series, will go down the wire.

finals: Lakers over Cavs. If both teams stay healthy.

Unpredictable season!

The Lakers loosing 3 straight games, Boston loosing to a couple of sub par teams, Grant Hill, Vince Carter and even McGrady are playing like their young days and Cleveland wins a game when King James was watching from the bench. I have never in my 15 years of watching NBA games have seen a season so unpredictable as this one. Specially after the trades, you can't predict which team is going to win the match up before the tip-off. Some great playoff series are guaranteed!!!
Kobe, of course had some game winning shots which has the pundits once again going gaga over "whether Kobe is the best player who ever played in the NBA". I don't know the answer, but I do know that he's really good at what he's doing.

Aftermath

The dust has settled, the most boring All-Star break is over and the trade deadline has passed! I must say, the crazy last minute deals made my head spin!
Robinson is on his way to Boston, as fast as he can get out of NY. He was wasting his limited talent with a no talent organization. Camby is moving on to the Blazers (watch him get injured, the curse of Portland has no mercy!) and the Wizards have moved most of their scorers out, leaving the team, once again, to Agent Zero.
I think Mavericks and Cavs got the best out of it and may meet up in the Finals this year. While Boston and Lakers mostly stayed away from this, thinking they have the best team on hand, swapping Eddie House for Robinson is not a plus or minus trade. They still have the core there and will most likely go to the East Finals. Lakers on the other hand are having injury problems and the only way they can make it out of the West Finals is when everyone is healthy.

BEAST of the EAST

With Bobcats going 9-1 in their last 10 games, one has to wonder, who's the force behind the wins? Sure, it's not a one man team and Captain Jax is certainly happy that he's in Charlotte and not in Oakland and is playing hard as he always does. But who is filling up the stat sheets every night? It's Gerald Wallace!
Check out his stats from last night against the thrashing of Miami (20 Pts. 10 Rbs. 5 Blks. 2 Stls and 2 Assts). All that with 0 turnovers and he didn't even play the last quarter of the game since they had a 41 point lead.
I am officially going to say that he's the most underrated player in the NBA. Andre Igoudala is a similar player who comes to mind but his numbers are not consistent as he has to share the ball with you know who in Philadelphia.
I agree with the rising discomfort with All-Star balloting, take away the fan voting because G-Wall should definitely be an All-Star!

2010 is upon us!

Happy new year to everyone!
With the arrival of the new year, we are now closer to the arrival of the trade dead line. Many interesting rumors are coming out about teams trying to make cap space and other teams trying to cash in good players at cheap prices. Let's see who goes where and who stays with their teams, the next 5-6 weeks are going to be very interesting!

Empire state of mind

It's amusing how everytime there's a player available for trade or as a free agent, New York Knicks are quick to jump on the bandwagon, to sort of get into the rumors that they are interested in that available player. One has to wonder, what exactly are they thinking would happen in 2010?
Knicks have sucked ever since Ewing retired or when Sprewell/Houston combo was winning games for them.
They have ridiculous contracts (Eddy Curry, a bench warmer is getting paid 10.5 million this season and 11.3 million next season!) yet they continue to sell tickets because of a big city that New York is. No where else in the world would people go buy tickets for a team that has a history of being bad. One can argue, they are buying tickets to support the other team but the games have been so lob sided that anyone coming to play Knicks, knows they are getting an easy win in the mecca of basketball. You can check the Eastern conference standings for the past 5 or so years and will always find Knicks sitting at the bottom. Yet, tickets to MSG are always in demand. If it's not the die hard Knick fans supporting their team in bad times, it's the tourists who want to see the game live. That's why they say, "There's no place in the world like New York City!"