Free Agency. Day 7

Well, the day started with the biggest news of this free agency. Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh are joining forces in Miami. The Miami Heat now have 4 players on the roster. Until I see how does Pat Riley fills that roster I'm not grading these moves. Sure, they are a heck of a star , if they get the right players they could really become the class of the East. In the other hand, 8 minimum players with two superstars and 2 roles players is not what you would call a "blueprint for success" ( Bad joke, sorry).

Something you have to give to the Heat, they are so far the winners of this free agency madness. They got two max agents and rumors point that Lebron is about to join them. Now you have to ask yourself, does a Bosh/Wade/Lebron teamed with Beasly, Chambers and 7 minimum players can win the title? It's all about those 7 players. If Riley get an enforcer, a couple of shooters, a pass-first point guard and smart players they would be the favorites.

A news came out in the middle of all this. Kevin Durant signed an 5 year extension ( $86m) with OKC. No meetings. No drama. No ESPN special. Just a little sign in the dotted line and get back to bastkeball. I tweeted about this and I'll say it again. Aren't we barking at the wrong tree? Isn't the way Durant is behaving how Lebron suppose to behave? Critics of Lebron have always say that he is more focus on becoming a global icon and make his "brand" stronger and stronger. Basketball appears just to be a way to get there.

After the Wade/Bosh announcement the Knicks/Bulls/Nets started to scramble around looking ways to entice Lebron. There were reports flying left and right about Knicks and Bulls talking to Boozer. The Nets were in talk with David Lee. Just after noon we heard that Boozer signed with the Bulls ( 5 yr/somewhere between $75m and $80m). Which makes things even more interesting. Now Lebron have a better idea of what are his choises:

1. Heat with 4 players on their roster ( Wade, Bosh. Chalmers and Beasly)

2. Bulls with a core of Rose/Noah/Boozer

3. Knicks with Amare and some help from Gallinari

4. Cavs

I don't know about him but Chicago is looking pretty hot.

At the end of the day was also reported the Ray Allen is going back to Boston (2yr/$10m).

As I'm typing this twitter has gone insane. Broussard is reporting Lebron is headed to Miami.

Free Agency. Where are they going?

Straight from the Gods:

Lebron James: Chicago Bulls. And no, he is not pairing with Bosh. Carlos Boozer is coming to Chi town. That is going to hurt Cavs. Double. This is leaving Chicago enough money to round up the roster with decent role players

Chris Bosh: Miami Heat. DWade has his new sidekick. Same case as the Bulls, the are not throwing all their money in two players. They are going to spread the wealth.

Amare Stoudemire and Joe Johnson: New York Knicks. Well, Plan B worked.

David Lee: New Jersey Nets. He likes the area and the Russian guy is probably going to seriously overpaid to get him. Keeps him in line with his plan of turning Knicks fans into Nets fans

Paul Pierce and Ray Allen: Boston Celtics

Dirk Nowitzki: Dallas Mavericks. He is probably also getting Shaquille O'neal in a sign and trade for Butler with the Cavs. This team might be the front runners on getting Arenas next February.

Rudy Gay: L.A Clippers. They are going to overpay for him. Big time!

J.J. Redick: Orlando Magic. Offers are going to be there but I don't the Magic letting him go

John Salmons: Torn between Milwaukee Bucks and New Jersey Nets. Probably the latter

Brad Miller: Chicago Bulls. He likes it there. They like him

Udonis Haslem: Miami Heat

Playoff Preview:Jazz vs Nuggets

(4) Jazz vs (5) Nuggets

The tale of two momentums. Utah is playing as well as any team in the league. They are not considered a good defensive team but they are pretty damn good establishing their tempo and also versatile enough to adjust to other temps when they have to. They have a great leader in Deron Williams and one of the better coaches out there. About Sloan, do we take him for granted? I mean if he wasn't Jerry freaking Sloan he would have at least 3 COY awards in the last 10 years. How did this happen?

Oh well, the other -Denver - is sinking as a rock. They totally lost their mojo when coach Karl went down and lost their toughest guy when KMart went down. Their are getting Martin back but no their mojo. I'm impressed how a team with Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups can look so off in an important stretch of the season. I liked this team. For my money if they had gone for an extra big in February ( Camby, Thomas, Collison ) they would have been right there with the Lakers ( even higher considering how the Lakers are playing these days) but they did nothing and now they look like a first round exit. What a shame.

Utah have their own issues with injuries. Kirilenko won't play this series and Okur still hurt but he is scheduled to be in uniform. Carlos Boozer got his rib cage hurt or something like that. He is a big guy, I'm not even considering him being injured. How much of the momentum was killed by their last game lost of the season, the ass kicking Phoenix gave them, at home no less.

Denver and Utah are 500 road teams. Denver has come advantage and without Utah's Kirilenko there is really nobody who can stay with Carmelo. To be honest this is a toss-up and I'm thinking of giving the series to Denver just caused of the Kirilenko injury and the fact that I'm relying on Chauncey to have a good series matching somehow the damage Deron Williams is going to inflict on them.

Basketball Gods prediction: Nuggets in 7

Win Scale (From 1: "The refs gave them that game. Are they really this bad?" to 10: " This is the best team ever! Make me yours" ) 6

Overview: Lakers vs Jazz

Finally the Lakers met some resistance. They needed a tought matchup after the sunny days against the Nuggets. They couldn't get to the conference finals whithout sweeting it a little bit. Kobe continues his great postseason number wise (33.3 ppg, 6.4 apg, 6.8 rpg) and leadership wise. Odom is now pretty much excelling in his role in the triangle (finally! I know is a hard offensive scheme, but come on.. three years??) and Gasol had a decent series. The Jazz in the order hand got as far as Deron Williams could get them (21.6 ppg, 10.0 apg, 50% from three) without Boozer 'cause I know that guy being outplayed by Odom wasn't Boozer. We can't say that Boozer can't play in the offseason, that he crumbles under pressure or that he just don't want to show up when his teams needs him the most ( It will be so demoralizing for this franchise that Boozer follows Malone's trail so closely...). No, we can't say anything like that because Boozer played great last year, he was the reason why Utah got to the conference finals. I don't know what happened here.

At the end of the day the more experience, hungrier team won. The better team won


Whose fault is it? Wanna guess? Boozer. Next time, kid. Please show up.

NBA Playoffs Weekend 3

Boston got to the second round. Easily. I'm still questioning this team mental thoughness 'cause their road loasses where just lack of exectution they weren't victims of some conspiracy

The Spurs got beatten in the last couple of minutes by the Hornets. The Hornets' defense was "stingy" and the Spurs didn't help themselves by entering one of those "no offense time for us" type of groove they developed in the last month or so of the regular season. Not only they didn't contain Paul (his numbers may don't amaze you but he controlled that game) but they let West get 30 points and do whatever he wanted with the Spurs' defense. So, no defense and bad offense means 0-1 hole for the Spurs. Expect a better game for those guys today

The Pistons controlled Howard and the Magic shooters went 2 from 15. This is when Howard needs to prove that he really wants this. For me Howard and Lebron have the same problem: this game comes so easily for them, their bodies and abilities gives them so a clear advantage that most time they don't even need to try in order to have a big night and perhaps winning the game. Last year Lebron cruised for the entire first half and the Cavs still win 50 games.

Now Howard needs to get in another gear (like Lebron this year or last year conference finals) to defeat an highly superior team. Can he manhandle the Pistons like Lebron did last year? He has the potential but until he do it we'll leave it like that in "potential".


After building a 19 point lead the Lakers found themselves in a 4 point game with like 5 minutes to go. Utah never got closer because the didn't have Boozer (he fauled out somewhere around half way into the fourth quater) and the fould Kobe like 1 google times. I know Utah fouls a lot of people a lot of times (2468 times in the regular season. Numero uno in the league) but this Lakers team is a very good free throw shooting team (10th in the league) and having Boozer playing like a poor man's Antawn Jamison is not a good idea to give up so many points from the charity line.

First Round: Jazz vs Rockets

4. Jazz (54-28) vrs 5. Rockets (55-27)

Regular Season Series: UTA 2-1

Point Differencial: UTA +2.0

No Yao Ming and no Rafer Alston for a couple of games sound like a hell of a problema for Tracy McGrady and the Houston Rockets as they facethe second best home team in the West. One of the reason oh Houston's streak was the solid, let's face it overachieving, performance of RaferAlston and know he won't be there for the first two games. That leaves TMac to do ALL the offense creating from scoring to setting up the other Rockets 100% of the time. Their bench have to be huge and most of them are too green, Boby Jackson being the only one playoff tested.

Jerry Sloan's Utah are the good ol' hard working pick and roll team we are used to. But they are still young and some cracks are still there. Deron Williams sometimes (SOMEtimes like a very few) he doesn't show up and the entire Jazz team struggles. If TMac wants to be introduced to the second round for the first time in his life their focus should be 100% defensive -think Spurs or Pistons defensive- and principally stopping Deron Williams. Utah is not a good matchup for Houston but if they can hold DWill they have a hell of a shot. Houston is a excellent defensive team (They are number two in defensive rating) but you get the feeling that as the series grow old Jerry Sloan will made the necesary tweeks.

X Factor: Bobby Jackson. He needs to be agresive no matter what. He's going to start the games that Alston can't play and the first guy off çthe bench when Alston comes back.He needs to score and showcase that playoffs savvy the sometimes wins games.

Basketball Gods' prediction: UTA 4-2

Looking forward: West All Stars

Let's keep talkin about the deserving All Stars this time from the West. It's unbelievable the amount of players in this conference playing good to great basketball. There are 4 centers who could easily deserve the starting spot (There are 2 and half centers in the East)

Forwards:

• Carlos Boozer: The Jazz are struggling a little bit now, but Boozer always shows up and puts huge numbers ( 25.4 ppg, 11.7 rpg)
  
• Tim Duncan: He's having a quiet season but the Spurs are the best team in the West right now. His stock could be hurt by Manu's but I do se him playing for the West.
• Carmelo Anthony: Something happened in Denver. The last couple of week Melo doesn't seem like the top dog up in there. The change of the alpha dog role hasn't made a difference in the Nuggets record but it might change Melo's chances for his first All Start berth.
• Josh Howard: This is my theory: Avery Johnson is trying to create a go to guy in Josh Howard because Nowitzki, in all his skills, is very likely to choke under pressure. They need a much colder guy but that's just my theory.
• David West: This little known forward of the New Orleans Hornets should had been selected last year to the All Star squad and this year he's putting better number and the New Orleans Hornets and winning more games. Common sense, dude.
  
• Shawn Marion: The do-it-all for the Phoenix Suns is one of the best defensive players of the league but he might not get to be an All Star this year. Let's just hope he keep his eye on the grand prize and not let his ego force a trade to the Eastern Conference.
  
• Dirk Nowizki: A rather slow year for the David Hasselhoff fan. Shooting only 29% from downtown and averaging 21.2 - some 5 ppg lower than I expected - but life would be a lot harder for the Mavs and Josh Howard if Nowitzki weren't there.

Guards:

• Kobe Bryant: Right now he's the best player in the league. Lebron is like 3 eaten fingernails behind him. And his Lakers are totally overachieving thanks to no small part to Mr Bryant.
  
• Baron Davis: After last spring dismantle of a 67 win team I'd have think that the ring leader of the Warriors was going to get far more love. This Warrios might not seem like championship material but they can be pretty scary for anybody in this league. It all starts with the beard.
• Steve Nash: The Suns aren't still "clicking at all cylinders", whatever that means, but Steve is getting his numbers and the Suns have one of the best records in the league.
• Allen Iverson: Did he lost his confidence on Melo? Or he did just got tired of playing second banana? For whatever reason he return to his old scoring ways I'm glad! I just love to see Iverson racking up points.
• Manu Ginobili: The real reason the Spurs were winning so much games before this 1-3 bump, it's his line: 20 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 4.4 apg, 1.6 spg under 30 minutes per game.
• Chris Paul: The leader of the Hornets is averaging more then 20 ppg and almost 10 apg and leads the league in steals at 2.7. He needs to be selected I don't care if they build the roster with only one center.
  
• Brandon Roy: Everybody expected to the Blazers to roll over and cry Oden a river. They have won 8 straight games and playing inspired basketball. Roy's averging 24 ppg in that streak.
• Stephen Jackson: The Warriors were winninless before Capt Jack appeared. Now, they are fearless.
• Deron Williams: I just don't know where to put this guy. He's playing better basketball than Nash and Parker but even son he has less chances to get selected. Two issues are stading in DWill path to the All Star game 1) the Jazz are strugglinand and 2) the almost sure selection of Carlos Boozer. With the amount of candidates in the West -specially at the guard position - I don't think they'll select two players from a .500 team.
  
• Tony Parker: The third Spur in this list. He's averaging career highs in points (20.1) and assists (6.8) but even so he doesn't appear headed to the All Star roster.
• Tracy McGrady : Mr McGrady was on fire at the start of the season , but as he put it "teams have figured us out now". His great numbers and his popularity could earn him a roster spot

Centers:

• Yao Ming: He's been an All Star every year thanks to the 2 billion Chinese people that vote for him on daily basis but he's been deserving the spot the last couple of years. This year will be no diference.
• Marcus Camby: Three Nuggets on the All Star team. That would be cool. Camby's numbers back him up and the Nuggets are currently sitting at the top of the Norwest division.
• Amare Stoudemire: He's not a friend of rebounding or playing defense but he's a great offensive player and his game fit's with the running show of the All Star game.
• Chris Kaman: The former hippie have taken advantage of the little hole in the paint left by Elton Brand. It's a shame that the Clippers have more injury people than a ER chapter.

All this lead to my predictions:



Starters:

C Yao
F Duncan
F Boozer
G Kobe
G Nash

Bench:


Josh Howard
Carmelo Anthony
Baron Davis
Allen Iverson
Amare Stoudemire
Manu Ginobili
Chris Paul