Effects of Turkey

No I don't mean Thanksgiving dinner. Since the World Championships in Turkey this past summer, Rudy Gay has seemed to finally come into his own as a NBA player. I know most will read this and say, What are you talking about? Dude is sick. I would totally agree but I grade Rudy Gay on a different scale than I do most players. Rudy Gay has the tools to be a GREAT NBA player, not just good. And to this point in his career, he hasn't been. Sure he puts up 20 a night but he can do so much more. I've seen that "much more" this early season. From my view, Gay is playing with much more confidence and is letting the game come to him. Also, he is establishing Memphis as HIS team. Before now, it looked like O.J Mayo was about to snatch that from him. He looks like he's gained some muscle and is putting up 25 & 7 per. I know this will cause a lot of arguments but...Rudy Gay is better than Kevin Durant! Now wait, think about this with me. As far as natural skills go, he is better. Rudy can jump higher, has more shooting range is more physically fit. The only thing that has propelled Durant so far is that he plays with more urgency and seems to have more of a work ethic. Once Gay starts to implement those things in his game, you will see a significant change. As history shows, players tend to improve significantly after playing in the Olympics. LeBron, Kobe and KD. Rudy will be next.

Baltimore's Own

Tonight at midnight I will be glued to ESPN to see Baltimore's own Will Barton make his television debut for Memphis. Dude is sick! I had the privilege of going to high school with this dude and I saw him play many times. Since then he's been to a couple of schools, including Brewster's Academy which is a prep school in New Hampshire. I've been following him and I see the ingredients of a very good player. He's about 6-5 or 6-6 with not too much muscle. If I had to compare his body to someone in the NBA, I'd say he's close to Jamal Crawford. He has great athleticism and a crazy handle. He was also ranked in the top 5 SG's on most scouting lists. I'm definitely cheering for him to do great things at Memphis and hopefully he'll make it to the league. Everybody tune in tonight!

Game of the Week.

My game this week will be Friday night when the Celtics host KD and the Thunder ( ESPN 7:00 p.m). The appeal of this game is pretty obvious; an offensive juggernaut in Durant vs. a defensive powerhouse that is Boston. I believe the game will start off as an entertaining one, but eventually I see the Celtics being too much for OKC to handle. Durant will probably end up with 25-28 but I don't seem him shooting well from the field. Maybe 9-24. Rondo will have a solid game and I see Ray Allen having a great performance (27-30 points), despite Sefolosha's great D. I have the Celts getting the W with the score being 101-91. Roughly. We'll see.

Flashback Moment

Excuse the crappy old picture but, I sure do miss these days in the NBA. This is the 2001 Eastern All Star team. Notice anything special? The players are wearing their OWN jerseys. To me this was better than the red white and blue all star jerseys every year that are running out of clever designs. Players rockin' their own jerseys gave them some individuality which is basically what got them to the all star game in the first place, individual performance. Sadly for me, I don't think we'll be seeing this again. Too much money is made from all star jersey sales for them to go back to this look. Oh well.

Cut it Out!

Is it me or are the Clippers on national television every week? The better question is why? I understand that Blake Griffin is on the team but that is no reason to keep showing a bad squad. The Clippers are 1-9! Unfortunately for Blake, things don't seem like they'll be getting better any time soon. Team leaders Baron Davis and Chris Kaman are out with injury as well as their key off-season acquisition, Randy Foye. The Clippers are just one of those teams that has bad fortune is some form every year. No offense to Blake, but I think showing his fellow rookie John Wall would be much more exciting for viewers.I could understand seeing the Clips once every few months, but not every week. Let them win some games first.

BEAST!

Last night Kevin Love had a monster performance against the Knicks, posting 31 points and 31 rebounds! No that is not a typo...31 BOARDS. Before last night, the last player that went off for 30 and 30 was Moses Malone in 1982, 28 years ago. Although this may have put K-Love on the map for some, this is no surprise to me. He's been getting double digit rebounds effortlessly since he's been in the league, even at UCLA. Last season he averaged 11 boards while only getting 28 minutes per game. I'm excited to see how his career will pan out. To me, Love is a better version of David Lee, who is an automatic 20 and 10 guy. If K-Love and Beasley can co-exist, the Wolves may be a force to reckon with for years to come.

Solution!

For all my 2K players, is anybody else fed up with the crappy passing this year?! It seems like this year, more than ever, any ordinary pass can be picked off. Even good passes! I'm starting to notice that if you're playing a full game, it is very possible to have 20 turnovers, which is horrible and doesn't happen much in real life. Luckily while playing my bro the other day, I decided to do what I should've done when first getting the game...read the booklet. Apparently this year, 2K sports has made a control for passing other than pressing A (Xbox 360). Now to make a cleaner and more accurate pass, you can hold down the right bumper and direct your pass with the right analog. It's called the pass stick, much like the shot stick. Now my turnovers are going down and the game is becoming fun once again, not stressful. Hope this helps anybody who, like me, neglected the handbook.

Game of the Week

I'm a day late posting, but fortunately my game for this week is tonight! At 7:30 tonight, D-Will and the Jazz are making a trip to South Beach to face the Big 3. This game should be a good one because these teams are complete opposites. Miami is a team driven by superstar talent this season and is expected to defeat every team in their way. Utah, on the other hand, is a team very much molded by a system as opposed to its players. Even still, Utah is in the playoffs every year and I have them as the second seed out west this year. There are some key matchups that seem to go in Utah's favor. Of course, if Miami decides to keep Carlos Arroyo on Deron Williams the advantage goes to Utah, but that's pretty obvious. Where I see Miami falling short tonight is in the post. I cannot see Chris Bosh and Joel Anthony having a chance at stopping Milsap and Al Jefferson. This is where I think the game will be won. Despite Utah having the advantage inside,

Miami still has LeBron and D-Wade on the perimeter so things even out. With all that said, I'm gonna go with the upset tonight and pick Utah to win in a close one, 101-98. I look for D-Will to dish out at least 12 dimes, as well as Milsap and Jefferson playing great. We'll see.

On Fire!

When making my season predictions a couple weeks ago, I had the Hornets as the last team out in the Western Conference playoff race...BOY HAVE THEY FOOLED ME. New Orleans has come into this season with a full head of steam, starting off with a 6-0 record. Out of the 5 teams they have defeated (played Milwaukee twice). 4 of them were playoff teams last season. CP3 is back at full swing, averaging 18 and 10 and the starters have seemed to mesh well. I can't say I'm surprised because any team led by a healthy Chris Paul has a great chance of being playoff bound. It'll be interesting to see how the season unfolds for N.O and if they can keep winning impressively. The biggest concern I have about this team is their lack of depth. We'll see.

Deja Vu?

While watching the Wizards game and John Wall's stellar performance last night, something occurred to me...we witnessed the same thing with Tyreke Evans last year! Now, I do understand that Tyreke Evans and John Wall are different types of players, but hear me out. Last season, Reke was a stud freshman out of college making a smooth transition to the pro game. Also, Tyreke was a product of John Calipari, who obviously left Memphis for Kentucky. Sound familiar? Wall, also a Calipari coached player, can too be used at both guard positions and exploded as a star after one year in college. Another similarity that jumps out at me is the situation that both guards were brought into in the league. Last season, Reke came into Sacramento where Kevin Martin, another scoring guard, was the team leader but was out due to injury. Eventually, Sacramento traded Martin after he returned from injury because the two players together was hindering Evans' development. Fast forward to this season. Wall has come into Washington with the green light but like Tyreke, he has a star and face of the team, Gilbert Arenas, who is out injured. It will be interesting to see how Washington handles the Arenas situation. Keeping him seems like it will be problematic for Wall's progression, just as Kevin Martin was for Tyreke. If the Wizards do move Gilbert, the Wall and Evans comparisons may continue for many years to come. The parallels are undeniable.

First Openly Transgendered D-1 Athlete

Earlier today, as reported on www.nydailynews.com, George Washington Junior Kye Allums is to become the first transgendered basketball player in Division 1 sports. Allums describes how hard things have been with his gender identity since being in middle school, to now being called "him" instead of "her". As far as technicalities go, the NCAA prohibits him from undergoing any surgery or taking testosterone while the season is in effect.

From a cultural standpoint, the magnitude of this has not yet taken full form, I'm sure. I expect many ESPN coverages on this, as well as religious groups and homosexual activists giving their input on the subject. The most significant detail of this story, to me, is the attention that Allums will now receive from media to just everyday life. Before this story I had never heard of him. It will be interesting to see how this story develops when the college basketball season begin, which is very soon.

Whoa!

Last night as his Bulls defeated the Blazers 110-98, Luol Deng exploded for a career high 40 points! The former Duke Blue Devil virtually played a perfect game, shooting 14-19 from the field, 9-11 from the stripe and knocking down three tre-balls. If the Bulls can get half of this out of him every night then their playoff run hopes should be way up. My knock on the Bulls has been that they have no bonafide scorer that they can go to at any time. D Rose, who also had a career 39 last night, should not be that guy. If the Bulls turn into a team that just watches their point guard come down and not pass, then they'll just turn into A.I's 76ers. If Luol, who is usually not a 20 point scorer, can't keep this up then the Bulls should try to grab someone like Rip Hamilton or Stephen Jackson, players who can score at almost any time to push them into that "Elite" status that is always talked about nowadays.

Game of the Week.

I'll be choosing a game of the week every Monday. Games will be chosen based on relevance, entertainment factor and key player matchups.

This week's game to watch is Tuesday's Portland at Milwaukee. This game showcases some of the best young talent in the league and two playoff teams from last year who are still trying to find their way. Brandon Roy and the Blazers are starting another season without a healthy Greg Oden and without young guard Jerryd Bayless, who they just traded to New Orleans. The Bucks also are adjusting to new changes with the addition of Corey Maggette and Chris Douglas Roberts. B Jennings put up a triple-double over the weekend and is shooting quite efficiently this young season. I look for this game to be a defensive battle, with the score in the 90's. Key matchups will be Andrew Bogut vs Marcus Camby and the young, flamboyant Brandon Jennings vs the seasoned vet Andre Miller. Look for B Roy to have around 22, 4,6 with no true threat on Milwaukee to challenge him. Jennings may struggle from the field and score around 13 points and dish out 8 dimes but Milwaukee will find a way as a unit. I predict this game to go 99-93, Bucks.

Award Predictions

Even though it's way too early in the season to make true assumptions of who will win what awards, here are my picks anyway:

M.V.P- Kevin Durant. With LeBron in Miami and Kobe more focused on the post season, I say KD wins his first of multiple MVP's. The Thunder are going to be better than the 8th seed and with no other names in contention except for maybe Rondo, KD's almost a lock.

Defensive Player of the Year- Josh Smith. I'm going out on a limb with this one. It's not that much of a risky pick but I think Josh will do more than Dwight this year on D. Mainly because J Smoove can guard multiple positions and will be sure to grab more steals than Howard.

Sixth Man- Udonis Haslem. With this award you can never be too sure. Of course Jason Terry and Jamal Crawford will be fan favorites but I see this year as a great opportunity for Haslem. With the Heat being short on useful big men, the minutes will definitely be there and Haslem is a sure rebounder and a proven mid range shot maker. I say he wins it and averages around 12 points and 8 boards.

R.O.Y- John Wall. This pick is an amazingly hard one to make because of the promise Blake Griffin is showing. I'm leaning towards Wall because his numbers will almost definitely be around 15 and 7 dimes a night, due to him always having the ball. Blake on the other hand will have great games but will also have games when Baron Davis decides not to include any of his teammates. I give the SLIGHT edge to Wall. Also look out for DeMarcus Cousins. Something's telling me a lot of folks are sleeping on him.

Most Improved Player- Mike Beasley/Ramon Sessions. I'm completely torn on this pick. Beasley, an all around scorer is in a perfect situation to have a breakout year. This is especially considering that Minnesota has no defined scorer or shot maker. Beasley can easily flirt with 20 and 8 every night. On the other hand, Ramon Sessions is a player I've loved since seeing his first game with the Bucks a couple seasons back. He is a true point guard and is tremendously underrated. With Cleveland being another team headed in no clear direction, I could see them moving Mo Williams for a young player and letting Sessions run Byron Scott's offense instead. I can't see a score-first point guard being Coach Scott's preference.

Coach of the Year- Mike D'Antoni. With virtually most playoffs teams sure to return from last season, I see the Knicks squeezing into that 8th seed which will give Coach D'Antoni the trophy. Anyone who can get the Knicks back in the post season deserves an award.