Aging Champions

I hate to brag, but my grandpa was a total badass. He was awarded the Bronze Star in World War II for staying up for three straight days during a major battle. He also rode a motorcycle well into his 70s. But a few years ago, we were walking through a grocery store together and suddenly I realized my grandpa was gone. I turned around and saw him sitting down on a nacho cheese display, trying really hard to catch his breath. That was the moment I realized that, damn, my grandpa is old. I had that same moment this week with the Spurs. And if there's a chink in their championship armor, that's it.

--Basketbawful

Maybe that's because the Spurs are lying in the weeds, like they've often done, and busily preparing their annual February surge. Or maybe something is truly different this year. Based on how the Spurs have played over the past month and a half, we shouldn't dismiss that possibility too rapidly

-- John Hollinger

I think we'all have been thinking this for a couple of months. All the signs have been there: the injuries, the poor shootings, the bad losses, the close wins that shouldn't been that close. I think is official, the Spurs are old, slow and beatable. It hurts me to write this because I'm a sick fan of Duncan, Manu and the some other Spurs players. I like that team. I don't need to sit here and tell you how good were Buford and Popovich building each championship team. I also love that they are rock solid from bottom to top.

After last season championship I thought that this team could get one more ring and, if retooled wisely, the could get a seventh championsip from Duncan. Now, the look more than a second tier contender than a championshop team.

Sometimes I like to be wrong 'cause I'm a very negative person. I'd love to see another parade on the Riverwalk that proves me that I don't know what the hell I'm writting about.

Ps: According to the God's predictions the Spurs get into the playoffs as a fourth seed with 54 wins. Utah, their more recent defeat, ends up moping their fortunes as a 9th seed 47 win team

Scottie Pippen

In the last month or two a lot had happened with Scottie Pippen. Since last year there's had been rumors about Pippen been short of cash, sort of speak. Pretty hard to believe somebody that, according to basketball-reference.com made around 62 millions the last 5 years of his basketball career, is broke. Pippen is a family man he's no MC Hammer. If you ask me the issue here is that Scottie has nothing else to do. He tried writting a blog, it didn't work. He worked for ESPN for a little while but he hasn't returned to the broadcasters lineup over there. He obviously is not a savyy business man. All Pippen has it's basketball.

Last year he tried to play in the NBA but nobody gave him a shot. This year he went oversears to Finland and Swedden where he pretty much schooled everybody there and left a great impression . Pippen is not trying to return to the game for the love of it or for being an greedy bastard looking for more money, he's doing it for the sake of doing something with his life. Maybe a middle age crisis. Maybe not.

I should notice, just for my inner peace, that I loved Scottie Pippen's game. Back in the 90's it was really a joy for me to watch Bulls games, Sure, there was MJ putting 30 to 35 points a game with grace, style, a marketing smile and a killer instinct that would even affect his own teammates. But the guy in the background that made all that happened was Scottie. It wasn't just the overall game and the lock down defense, things that made Scottie Pippen so "social valuable" (A note here, you always hear over and over again in the press about a certain part of a player game, ignoring to a point other facets of his game which are as important as the others inside the system he plays. Example, Tim Duncan and his fundamentals and defense, you don't hear about his passing that creates space for himselft and other Spurs. Allen Iverson, he leaves everything on the court and creates shots for others. What about his ability at reading passing lines?. Those very publized skills are what made a player "social valuable"). Scottie did all the small things for those teams specially getting other players not named Jordan involved in the offense and orchestrating team defense. For me was a thing of beauty seeing this guy play as he generated offense and defense without generating numbers.

Said that I don't see Pippen as a skilled individual when it comes to comunicate with others. He also might be a little egocentric and a very proud individual who's very confident of this basketball IQ, and he should be. The problems for him arise when he tries to comunicate that wisdom. When Scott Skiles was let go by the Bulls on Christmas Eve Scottie saw an oportunity to be the head coach of the Chicago Bulls. He made a pitch for it not before ripping the entire team including players who he played with like Kirk Hinrich. Why would somebody looking for a job critized the people he or she has to work with? Not only he'd had to work with them his job pretty much would depend on their performance. Maybe it was just the Scottie way of letting them know that he knows them, knows his shortcomings and that he could find ways to fix them.


Everything came out wrong. He couldn't get his point through.


This is exactly why I don't think Scottie can coach.First he needs to learn some comunication skills. He has a better feel of the game than Byron Scott, Sam Mitchell, Phil Jackson or Pat Riley. He can't reach the players like those guys can. It's like a crazy scientist that becomes a bad teacher, he has all the knowledge of the subject and the experience to back it up. If he isn't able to convert all the stuff he has in his head into words that rationalizes and explains that mess we all could thoughts then he's useless as a teacher. That's Pippen as a coach.


Then there's is the Michael Jordan shadow

"I think people love me just as much as they love Michael," Pippen said. "The fans who understand the game, the GMs and coaches. I think they'd rather have a Scottie than a Michael. Because I'm an all-around player. Coaches would rather have a Scottie-type player than a Michael. I was an all-around player. I made people around me better."

-- Scottie Pippen



In some way Pippen is still trying to win something without Jordan. As Sam Smith wrote that's why the Blazers' collapse in game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference Finals were so painful. He needed that seventh ring. He needs to prove himself and the rest of the world that he's more than a "sidekick". As proud as he is that must be as important as any type of money he could earn in the process.




Scottie knows he's as responsable to Michael sucess as Michael's to his. He only wants the recognition. He only wants to be a part of the game again.



I said he deserves both.

Gods' Final Standings Predictions

If the Basketball God's make a prediction, is that like cheating? Probably. So for u all you in Las Vegas, you perhaps might wanna take a look at this Nostradamus-ish statments.

1. The Celitcs will win 65 games. The Pistons 55
2. The Bulls will qualify to the playoffs with a 39 -43 record, beating the Hawks by 2 games for the final spot.
3. The Heat will play close to .500 once Pat Riley resigns. There's no shot in hell they will qualify.
4. Indiana colapses in the second half going 11- 29
5. The Knicks closes the season with the worst record of the East at 22 - 60

Intersting playoff matchups:

1. 1 Celtics vrs 8 Bulls: The team that got KG against the team that was supposed to get KG. The team that overachieve every expectation against well, the Bulls.
2. 4 Cavs vrs 5 Wizards: If Arenas is playing this is a hell of a matchup.

1. The Suns will be the number one seed with 56 wins
2. 7 teams qualify to the playoffs with 50 or more wins. The Lakers are the 8th seed after winning 47 games
3. Denver and New Orleans win their respective divisions
4. Dallas qualifies as the 5th seed. One game separated them for the number 2 seed.
5. Utah (47 - 35 ) and Houston (46 -36) become lottery teams
6. Minnesota end the season with 13 wins. Seattle with 19.

Intersting playoff matchups:

1. 1 Suns vrs 8 Lakers: Maybethe third time is the charmed.
2. 2 Hornets vrs 7 Blazers: Paul vrs Roy

Boo! U suck!

Red Hot Chilli Peppers' Flea just give a good ol' scolding to Lakers fans for booing Kwame Brown. Is pretty crappy to boo a player of the team you are rooting for. he has a point all those boos can get in the way of winning the game, for whatever reason.

People shouldn't boo a player just because they don't like the guy. Boo they guy because he sucks. Does Kwame sucks? Yes. Although, this year he hasn't had significant playing time, now that Bynum went down Lakers fan should be giving they guy a break 'cause Kobe and Co need all they help they can get to stay alive in the West.


In the other hand, booing the Bulls and the Knicks is totally acceptable because they don't even try most nights and if I'm paying whatever disproportionate and ridiculuous amount of money to attend the game I want to see Curry at least trying to jump to get a rebound.

The Gods have been busy

Once again my work doesn't allow me to blog and Rusty has been missing in action so it's been like a month since my last post and I have a couple of thoughts to share with you. Number one, I'm planning to bring back the Linkin Fridays and the discussion posts, I really like those ideas and want to develop them to see what happens.

I realized a few days back that my girl reads this blog even though she doesn't give a rat ass about basketball. You gotta love her. Counting heads of readers, that's like 5 or something, so if any of you want to share a link or an opinion just contact I'll be more than pleased to post or link or whatever

So, new year new goals. I'm planning to get my abs back, improve my professional career, buy a house and really push this blog around and achieve something with this. You maybe wondering why I'm writting all this crap. It's just me making a little public commitment to push myself to fulfill my own expectations.

Now I'm done, you can wake up now.