nba

I’ve been thinking, and talking, about starting sports noise again. Maybe it’s because I’m a big NBA fan (yes they do exist) but I miss blogging about sports. Luckily it’s Hawaiian Shirt Day so for today I’m bringing back the noise.

Last night I went to the Cavs-Bulls game and came away with two conclusions. 1. The Cavs will reach the NBA finals this year and 2. Ben Wallace isn’t going to have a good first year in Chicago. I know, it was only one game, but remembering how Big Ben used to love to beat up on the Cavs when he was with Detroit, last nights unmotivated performance was enough for me to jump to a quick conclusion.

As for the Cavs, they played a deep Chicago team and, with little effort, blew them out. It wasn’t a very fun win to watch, but the Cavs just didn’t make many mistakes - and they’re nowhere near mid-season form.

It’s early, but here is my prediction for the NBA’s Eastern Conference:

1. Cleveland
2. Detroit
3. New Jersey
4. Miami
5. Washington
6. Toronto
7. Indiana
8. Chicago
9. Boston
10. Philadelphia
11. Orlando
12. Milwaukee
13. Atlanta
14. New York
15. Charlotte

The typical Sports Noise post was a little more exciting than that, but I guess I’m out of practice.

This may be my first non web related post ever, but it won’t be the last.

The Knicks are in last place, and pay their players more than any other team in the NBA. The Knicks have an attitude problem, and a coach that is supposed to be great at getting players to work as a team, but managing one AI is different than managing 5 players (at least) with bad attitudes that consistently underperform.

In Philadelphia Brown had the tough task of managing AI’s personality, but at least he put up numbers to justify his attitude.

The Knicks (unless they ship either Marbury or Francis today) will now have a team that includes:

• Eddy Curry
• Jalen Rose
• Stephon Marbury
• Steve Francis
• Quentin Richardson, and
• Jamal Crawford

An amazingly talented bunch, but not a workable combination. The attitudes don’t mesh.  Everyone on that list wants to be the hero, and none of them want to play hard nosed fundamental basketball, which historically has fueled Larry Brown’s success.

How could this happen?  How do you make that many bad moves?  The new Knicks remind me a lot of the TrailBlazers from a few years ago, too many attitudes not enough output. Basketball is a team game, the Knicks are not a team, they are five egos playing individually, that will blame everything else before taking the blame for themselves.

On a side note: the trade with the Magic sent Penny Hardaway back to Orlando, the one place that he was successful, it’d be nice to see Penny succeed again, but it’s doubtful. As much as the Magic have struggled this year, I think that their recent trades make them a better team, even Darko.