NBA Draft Recap

Not many times are the praises of Isiah Thomas sung. June 28, 2007 is one of those rare days. With the moving and shaking the Knicks did on Thursday, they are now a playoff team. They landed one of the few legit 20-10 guys in the league for a sack of dung. Come here to find someone singing the praises of Kevin Pritchard? Look somewhere else. What an idiot. It's like he was thinking, "We need a small forward, you know what, lets take a center so we can trade our star power forward, instead of taking the best player in the draft, who fits an immediate need at the 3."
Then what do they do. They don't even get a small forward back in the Randolph trade. How dumb is that? This brings up another point, who exactly is scoring for them next year besides Brandon Roy. They will struggle to score 90. Congrats Mr. Pritchard, you just knocked your own team out of next years playoffs.

Quick bullets of the other moves I hated:

• Spencer "Bust" Hawes to the Kings. If they're going to trade Artest (and they are), then why not take Al Thornton? Man, these teams are stupid.
• Yi to the Bucks. For more on this, let The Sports Guy take over this indefensible pick.
• Julian Wright to New Orleans. Hey we desperately need a 2-guard, lets take a forward.
• Anything the Suns did. Can't wait for the day when all 12 guys on their roster retire the same year. Trade Diaw already.
• Nick Fazekas to the Mavs. Austin Croshere clone. At best.

And the ones I liked:

• Al Thornton to the Clip Joint. Man Beast. He's a starter if they trade Maggette.
• Jared Dudley to Charlotte. Adam Morrison, this is the bench. Stay there.

And thats it. Most of the picks were good picks. How could you go wrong in such a deep draft? Well, unless your name is Kevin Pritchard.

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Goodbye Sopranos

I feel obligated to make a post about The Sopranos, one of the best shows in television history. Never in my life would I think about missing part of the NBA Finals, as boring as they are, to watch a TV show. But this is different. Maybe if the show had one iota of predictability, maybe if Paulie didn't have wings for hair. Maybe if A.J. wasn't such a great actor*.

So I'm left wondering what will happen during the finale. The popular opinion is that Paulie will kill Tony. But what about the no-rat clause in Tony Sirico's contract. I think that the Feds will play a big part in it. I hope that Chase makes every person still alive relevant (including Corrado) in the finale. Lets all hope its memorable, without the typical Hollywood ending. Oh yeah, long live Paulie.

Photo: Paulie Walnuts by Mikey-A

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How to Fix the Mavs

Ok, terribly sorry for the month or so that I took off (not like any of you noticed). Big things have happpened. The Mavs get knocked off by the Warriors. I saw it coming. I don't believe that this is the biggest upset in NBA history. Everybody outside of the extremely biased Dallas media knew that Golden St. had a chance to knock off the Mavs. I will continue to stick by my theory that you will never win a championship if Dirk is the best player on your team. At the same time, I don't know if I would trade him straight up for KG. Garnett has slipped a little the last two years. Should the Mavs trade Dirk? If they want to win a title anytime soon, the answer should be yes. The Mavs should trade everybody on that roster not named Josh Howard. They need to turn the Devin Harris-Jason Terry combo into a point guard who can consistently find the open man, either Jason Kidd, Marcus Williams, Luke Ridnour, Andre Miller, or Jamaal Tinsley.
With that being said, do you think Dallas would offer Terry, Harris, Damp, Mensah-Bonsu and a No. 1 for Tinsley, Jermaine O'Neal, and David Harrison? That would give Dallas a starting lineup (tentatively) of Tinsley-George-Howard-Dirk-J. O'Neal. I think that is better than that Jump shooting crapfest that had out there before.

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NBA Top 10

My NBA Top Ten is updated every Sunday night, so check back then for the latest rankings. I will supply my analysis of each team or just a sly comment or jab. But now on to the premiere of my power rankings.

1. Dallas Mavericks
Just a notch above Phoenix right now, but only because they are deeper. (And no Barkley, Phoenix is not deep. If D'Antoni thought Banks or Pat Burke could play, then he would give them minutes. But I think Banks is good, they should play him more.)

2. Phoenix Suns
Interesting stuff from Chad Ford in his chat yesterday about the Suns having 3 first round picks and wanting to give 2 of them away. I thought next year's draft was supposed to have '03 or '96 potential. Mike D'Antoni must hate playing rookies. He does realize that Nash is going to retire at some point (right???).

3. San Antonio Spurs
Why does Ginobili do great against Joe Johnson. He scored a career high 48 against Phoenix in 2005, and now 40 against ATL. DO NOT count them out in the 2nd round.

4. Utah Jazz
Bigger disappointment this season: AK47 or Mike James????? Toss up.

5. Houston Rockets
Without Yao. Incredible. Let's just hope Van Gundy doesn't pull something like this again.

6. Detroit Pistons
Now take the East with ease with Flash out for Miami.

7. Washington Wizards
Wow, that will do it for the quality NBA teams. But be very afraid of Hibachi & Co., Detroit. I would.

8. Chicago Bulls
Should have given up Gordon and Thomas for Gasol or Deng, Thomas, and a #1 for KG. But they will continue to play grind-it-out ball and pay for it.

9. New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets
Yeah, if the playoffs started today, they would be out. I don't care. They're better than the Lakers or Golden St. right now. Plus Peja is due back soon. Just in time to choke in the playoffs again.

10. Cleveland Cavaliers
I'm excited to see how well the Bibby-LeBron pairing works out Eric Snow Era plays out in Cleveland.

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