Category: Uncategorized


Hodgepodge of Hoopservations

Filed Under: '10 - '11 Season, Comparing Players / Teams, GM Consultant, NBA, Positions, Uncategorized by Tweener — 2 Comments
04/26/2011

1.  Let’s put this one on the table at the outset… I have a man-crush on Chris Paul.  And I ain’t ashamed to say it.

2.  I’m all types of confused after watching the Knicks a bunch recently.  When they traded for Carmelo, every article I read about the trade said that they DID NOT TRADE Landry Fields.  Yet, I’ve watched a whole bunch of Knicks games since the trade and haven’t seen him do a single thing.  I mean, there’s a guy on the court wearing a Fields jersey, running around and sweating, but that guy doesn’t attack the rim, doesn’t crash the boards, and doesn’t even play good defense.  It’s really quite baffling.  It’s like something got into the guy’s head, and took away his mojo.  Reminds me of whatever-it-is-that-happened-to-LeBron-in-the-middle-of-last-year’s-series-against-Boston.  I hope Delonte West had nothing to do with this.

3.  The evidence is in, and it’s quite clear: knees are overrated.  Yup.  DeJuan Blair has no ACL in either knee, yet is an effective player on the #1 seeded team out West.  Brandon Roy has fallen from superstar status to a bench player because of crippling knee injuries, yet, there he was the other day, carrying his team to victory.  And, all season, I’ve been listening to The Sports Guy on his podcast talk about how unimaginably big Chris Paul’s knee brace is when seen in person, and how Paul’s shelf-life as a star PG is limited.  All CP3 has done is lead the overmatched Hornets to a 2-2 tie against the two-time defending champions.

4.  Have I mentioned yet how amazing Chris Paul is?

5.  One of the most misused terms is “role player,” and the problem with the term is used is clearly illustrated by this year’s New York Knicks.  People refer to Carmelo, Amar’e, Chauncey, and a bunch of “role players.”  But that’s inaccurate; there are hardly any true role players on the roster.  I guess Douglas could be a player whose role is to come off the bench, harass the opponent’s PG, and knock down some 3′s.  But when he’s asked to lead the offense at the PG – as he often is – he’s not in that role. What role has Landry Fields been filling?  Early in the season, he did a bunch of things — including grab more rebounds per game than any other guard in the league.  Recently, he hasn’t filled any role.  There’s nobody whose role is to control the paint and the glass – this is theoretically what Turiaf does, but he doesn’t actually do it.  Shawne Williams is a 6’9″ forward who attempts more than 3 three-point shots per game, and pulls down fewer than 4 rebounds per game. I guess that’s a “role,” but it’s not a role that winning teams bother to fill.

To make the point clearer, think of the great Bulls teams.  Dennis Rodman was a role player — a phenomenal one, but a role player — whose job was to rebound and play defense.  Steve Kerr couldn’t rebound or play defense, but that was fine because his role was to shoot.  Bill Cartwright wasn’t much of an outside shooter, but that was fine because his role was to operate near the rim.

Basically, there’s a difference between guys who are role players and guys who just aren’t that good.  Two superstars and the right mix of role players can be a very good team.  Two superstars and a bunch of guys who just aren’t that good isn’t going very far.

 

 

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Time For A HoopservaCATION

Filed Under: Uncategorized by Tweener — Comments Off
03/03/2010

I’m heading where the air is warm and the sun is shiny for a couple of days.

So, if you log on and see that I haven’t updated the site, don’t think it’s because I found something better to do with my time than blog about a sport I don’t play particularly well. No, it’s because I’m relaxing on a beach.

I’ll be back with more Hoopservations on Monday, March 8th.

Comment

Am I A Bad Person?

Filed Under: Uncategorized by Tweener — Comments Off
01/13/2010

These days, I’m wondering whether I’m a bad person. Don’t worry, this is not some weird musing about morality that has nothing to do with hoops.  You don’t come to this site for that.  It’s a hoops-related moral question.

Now that the Knicks are contending for a playoff spot, I am thinking about my NBA team loyalty. And when I think about it, the undeniable truth is that I’m not very loyal. I’m wondering whether this makes me a rational person that others should be like more often, or whether it makes me a disloyal scumbag.

The context for asking this question is that we live in a world where sports-team-loyalty is generally considered to be constant, and is sometimes treated like it’s a reflection on the fan’s character. People become fans of a team by the time they’re six or seven years old, and they remain fans of that team. If the team is bad, their fanship is a sign of loyalty; if the team is good, it’s considered a reward for the loyalty shown while the team was bad. If you become a fan of a team while it’s good, you’re a “fair-weather fan.” Even if you’re a fan of, say, the Celtics because you grew up near Boston, and you wind up moving to, say, Los Angeles as an adult, you remain a Celtics fan or you run the risk of being called a sellout, trader, or something worse. It’s basically your duty to find the bar in Santa Monica where Celtics fans gather, and root, root, root for the road team when the C’s play the Lakers. Just because you grew up near Boston.

But that’s not how I roll. I’ve abandoned my favorite team, and now I’m thinking about going back. Here’s my deal: I grew up in a suburb of New York, and can remember being a Knicks’ fan as early as I can remember being anything. One of my earliest memories is that, one night, after my parents put me to bed and went downstairs, I snuck into their room (the only TV in any of the upstairs rooms was in their room) to watch the Knicks’ game. The Knicks were awful; this was the team with Eddie Lee Wilkins, Louis Orr, Pat Cummings, Rory Sparrow, and Trent Tucker. (And those were the guys who PLAYED.) I remember watching the Knicks get destroyed, and then crying uncontrollably. I knew that my parents would hear me sobbing, and knew that, when they came upstairs to ask what was wrong, I’d either have to lie about what was wrong or admit that I snuck out of my room to watch the Knicks. I was too upset to worry about consequences — I told them that I snuck out to watch the Knicks, and was crying because it just wasn’t fair that they were as bad as they were.

Then, one day when I was a 2nd grader, the Knicks won the draft lottery and acquired the rights to draft Patrick Ewing. I was ecstatic. I had visions of championship banners, and visions of crying Celtics fans, whose parents got mad at THEM when they were crying after sneaking out of their rooms to watch a game. I remember jumping up and down in my den. I threw the couch pillows up in the air. I screamed. I shrieked. I might have even wet myself.

As we now know, Ewing never carried the Knicks to a championship. As I have blogged before, people generally don’t give him credit that other superstars get, and some people even refer to him as a disappointment.

Not me. I grew up during Patrick’s career, and enjoyed being a Knicks fan because he made it fun to be one during the prime home-team-fan-years of my life. I knew he wasn’t as good as Jordan or Olajuwon, but I didn’t begrudge him of anything. When I thought about why the Knicks never won a championship, the things that came to mind were not any shortcomings of Ewing’s, but, rather, images of Charles Smith getting multiple layups blocked against the Bulls, and of John Starks missing shot after shot against the Rockets. Whether that’s a fair assessment of Ewing or not, the point was that, as I watched him age, I felt an immense sense of gratitude. I was mindful of the pain that the Knicks caused me before they got him and of the excitement he created by making them a contender for so long. Sure, it was disappointing that the Knicks didn’t win a championship with Patrick, but he was no disappointment. Not to me.

Just as I started to acknowledge this gratitude, there started to be grumblings in the papers that the young guns on the Knicks — Camby, Sprewell, LJ, Houston — thought that they might be better without my man Patrick. They thought he clogged up the offense, or some such nonsense.

Well, I didn’t like this. Not at all. These fools who were new to my beloved franchise wanted to push my man Patrick out the door. And they wound up pushing him out (people can say what they want about Ewing requesting the trade, my memory is very clear that he only asked out after the guys on his team started talking openly about being better without him). And when they did, they pushed me away from my connection to the Knicks. The year he played in Seattle I was a Sonics fan, and the (somewhat sad) year he played in Orlando, I was a Magic fan. I have not only not rooted for the Knicks since then, but I have actively rooted against them. I’m one of the only New Yorkers who loved the Isiah Thomas era. The franchise that kicked my boy Patrick out the door deserved that, at least in my eyes.

Which brings me to the present moment, and starts to touch upon the question I raise at the top of this posting. Those clowns who pushed my man Patrick out are long gone. The franchise has suffered plenty for its decision to get rid of Ewing for Glen Rice’s horrible contract, a move that set them down a path of misery for many years. Now they’re a lousy but overachieving team with an exciting coach and some players that I don’t mind — as a group, they have many more neck tatoos than the groups of dudes I generally hang around with, but I can actually see myself rooting for this group of players if I decide that it’s ok to root for the Knicks after what the Knicks did to my man Patrick.

So, if I decide to root for these guys, am I a hypocrite? Am I already a disloyal person for hating on the Knicks as long as I have? If so, do I make it right by defending that decision and hating on them even longer? Or, has the wound healed, allowing me to go back to being a Knick fan?

If the answer is that I should have stayed “loyal” to the Knicks all along, what does that say about the essence of being the fan of a sports team? Was Jerry Seinfeld right when he joked that sports fans are just rooting for a certain type of laundry? Or is there more to it than that?

Tags: , , , , ,
Comment

Is It A Basketball Game, Or A Circus?

Filed Under: Uncategorized by Tweener — Comments Off
12/30/2009

When I was vacationing over the last few days in Florida, I took a break from trying to tan my pale skin and went to see the Heat play the Pacers. The game was over about 4 minutes into the second quarter, but it was still fun to be there. A few notes / hoopservations:

1. Sam Perkins was there. He had on a suit, and occupied about three seats. From where I was sitting, he looked like he was sleeping. I love that guy.
2. The Pacers are barely an NBA team. At times, the lineup they had on the floor was just embarrassing. TJ Ford had a couple of nice drives to the hoop, and Troy Murphy looked like he belonged on an NBA court, but the rest of them had no business getting paid to do whatever it was that they were doing out there. Mike Dunleavy and Roy Hibbert were awful. Tyler Hansborough was trying hard, but really didn’t bring much to the table. It’s hard to see how the Nets, with Devin Harris and Brook Lopez, are significantly worse than those guys.
3. The Heat, on the other hand, looked pretty good. Of course, when you win a game by 34 points, you’re going to look pretty good in the process. But going beyond the score, I was impressed by the variety of options they had on offense. They dominated, and weren’t leaning on Wade all of the time. Whenever they can get 30 points and 15 boards between O’Neal and Beasley, and get 15 points and 10 assists between Arroyo and Chalmers, they’re going to be tough to beat — and those numbers are reasonable goals for those guys if they play up to their ability.
4. During every timeout, there was some type of skit going on: KissCam, the HeatDancers, the Junior HeatDancers, a Papa John’s pizza giveaway, shooting t-shirts into the crowd, etc., etc., etc. I have been to Sixers games where I felt like I was at the circus, but I thought it was something unique to the Sixers. When I saw the same type of nonsense at Knicks games, I didn’t make anything of it – I just figured that, if I ran the Knicks, I, too, would want to distract the fans from the product on the court. Now that I’ve seen it in Miami, also, I have to worry that every NBA game involves juggling acts, dancing kids, and various other skits to distract the fans from basketball. Why is this, and how do we make it stop? Does NBA stand for No Basketball Anymore?

Tags: , , ,
Comment

Why I Don’t Like Fantasy Hoops

Filed Under: Uncategorized by Tweener — Comments Off
12/20/2009

So, this week is the week of the semi-finals in both of my fantasy football leagues. No, my team did not make the semis in either league. Thanks for asking, though. I really appreciate it.

The point of this football reference is simply to say that I’m going to miss fantasy sports until September. I often think about scratching my itch for fantasy sports by joining a fantasy basketball league. But, I did that once, and didn’t like it.

The problem with fantasy hoops is that, due to the nature of the game, mediocre guys on sh**y teams put up great numbers. On paper, mediocre guys look a lot like stars, simply because by being on the court for extended minutes on a lousy team, they compile a bunch of stats. It’s because in basketball, losing teams generally put up 85 points, knock down a few 3‘s, and pull down about 35 rebounds. That means that a few of the scrubs that those teams dressed up in a uniform that night compiled some stats. In other words, players who don’t do anything that actually makes their team competitive wind up making their fantasy owners quite happy.

Other sports are different. In baseball, guys who just show up at the park and get some playing time don’t help their fantasy owners. But, a guy who goes 2-4 with a HR makes his real team – not just his fantasy team – more likely to win the game. In football, guys who just go through the motions don’t help their fantasy owners. But, a guy who runs for 80 yards and scores a TD makes his real team – not just his fantasy team – more likely to win the game.

An illustration of how basketball is different is the game Larry Hughes had on November 6th against Cleveland. As I already blogged about, the Knicks were never in the game. But, Hughes had a few rebounds fall into his lap, picked off a few errant passes when the Cavs were playing sloppy, and knocked down a 3 when the Cavs were too busy looking at all the celebrities in the stands. The Knicks were not competitive from the beginning of the game until the last 3 minutes, but guy I was sitting next to had Hughes on his fantasy team, and was loving what he was seeing. When the final buzzer sounded, Hughes had put up 18 points, hit a 3, pulled down 5 boards, had 4 assists, and 4 steals. On paper, those are good numbers. That’s not because Larry Hughes is good, though. It’s because he got lots of minutes on a bad team.

The other reason I don’t like fantasy hoops is that the thing which distinguishes basketball players from each other is not measured by stats. It’s an attitude. It’s the ability to come through in the fourth quarter. Other sports are generally different. Sure, football and baseball have “clutch” players, and also guys who tend to disappear in the clutch. But, if you’re comparing Larry Fitzgerald to Andre Johnson, you aren’t saying “Larry has ice running through his veins in the last two minutes of a tie game.” Yet, if you’re trying to explain what makes Kobe / Wade / LeBron extraordinary, it’s their ability to put their teams on their shoulders for the last 5 minutes of a tie game, and bring it home.

The only other comparison that comes even close is a football quarterback. Tom Brady ain’t Tom Brady because of stats. (Trust me, I had him on my fantasy team this year.) He’s Tom Brady because you want to be on his team in the fourth quarter of a close game.

This post is already quite long. Usually when I talk for this long, people have either fallen asleep or walked out of the room. So I’ll wrap up. I don’t like fantasy hoops, because too many mediocre players look like stars in fantasy hoops.

Tags: , , ,
Comment

A Few Words About DNA

Filed Under: Uncategorized by Tweener — Comments Off
12/07/2009

I was able to watch some of the North Carolina – Kentucky game on Saturday. At one point, Clark Kellogg was singing the praises of Larry Drew II, a guard on Carolina. Kellogg said that Drew II has “tremendous DNA.” He’s right; Drew’s father, Larry Drew, was an NBA player.

There is nothing controversial about this. Drew II is a good college player, and Kellogg was saying that he has lots of upside because it is in his genes. When a kid is good at the guitar, it doesn’t surprise people to learn that one of his parents was a musician. When a kid is smart, it doesn’t surprise people to learn that one or both of her parents was also smart. So, when a kid is good at hoops, it isn’t surprising to learn that his father played in the NBA.

It begs an interesting question, though: Why doesn’t this happen more often? The last time I remember the kids of pro basketball players playing for a good college team was when Doc Rivers’s son played with Patrick Ewing’s son for Georgetown a few years ago. That was an excellent team, but not necessarily because of Rivers and Ewing — the team was led by two guys whose surnames were Hibbert and Green.

On the pro level, there are a few guys who have a parent that was a professional athlete. Grant Hill’s dad played football for the Cowboys. Kobe Bryant’s dad played pro ball, overseas for a number of years. Joakim Noah’s dad played professional tennis. I’m sure there are a few other guys in the league who have a pro athlete for a parent, but I’m having trouble thinking of them.

In other sports, the list is longer, but it’s still not very long. The Manning brothers have a father who was an NFL QB. Ken Griffey, Jr. and Barry Bonds have fathers who played Major League Baseball. Again, I’m sure there are others, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

I, for one, have no idea why that is.

Comment

How Good Is Brandon Jennings?

Filed Under: Comparing Eras, Comparing Players / Teams, Talking About Hoops, Uncategorized by Tweener — Comments Off
11/29/2009

One of the big stories of the early season is Brandon Jennings, who has put up a 55-point game, and has led the Bucks to a winning record. He has caught me, and many others, by surprise.

But, while I give him credit for his early success, I don’t see it continuing. I’m basing this not on any insider information I have, or even on a scouting report of the guy, but on the simple fact that he shoots too much for a point guard. His scoring average might remain high, but the Bucks’ success is unlikely to continue.

Jennings has taken 284 shots in his first 15 games, for an average of approximately 19 per game. As a point of comparison, consider some of the numbers put up by the great point guards of the modern era:

In 979 career games, Isiah Thomas took 15,904 shots, for an average of 16.2 per game. He’s at the high end of the spectrum, and he still took more than 2 fewer shots per game than Jennings.

Magic played 906 career games, and took 11,951 shots, for an average of 13.2.
Kidd has played 1,124 games and has taken 13,720 shots, for an average of 12.2.
Nash has played 950 career games, and has taken 10,151 shots, for an average of 10.7.
Stockton played 1,504 career games and took 13,658 shots, for an average of 9.1.

Even in comparison to some of the best young point guards in the league today, he is still at the high end of the spectrum.
Chris Paul has played 310 career games, and has taken 4507 shots, for an average of 14.5 shots.
Rajon Rondo has played 251 career games, and has taken 2072 shots, for an average of 8.3.
Deron Williams has played 324 career games, and has taken 4206 shots, for an average of 13.0.

Clearly, Jennings is shooting more than these successful point guards. Perhaps he is simply so talented that he can break the mold, and redefine the position. I doubt it, for reasons that have nothing to do with questions about his talent. A closer look at his numbers reveals that he shoots 43.3% from the field, and averages 5.5 assists per game. Those numbers compare unfavorably to the numbers of other great point guards:

Magic shot 52% from the field, and averaged 11.2 assists per game.
Stockton shot 51.5% from the field, and averaged 10.5 assists per game.
Nash shoots 48.8% from the field, and averages 8.1 assists per game.
Isiah shot 45% from the field, and averaged 9.3 assists per game.
Kidd shoots 40% from the field, and averages 9.2 assists per game.
Thus, Kidd is the only one with a lower field-goal percentage, and his assist numbers are much higher.

Jennings’s numbers also compare unfavorably to the premiere young guards in the game today:
Paul shoots 47% from the field, and averages 9.9 assists per game.
Rondo shoots 48% from the field, and averages 5.9 assists per game (he averaged more than 8 assists per game in each of the past two seasons).
Williams shoots 46.8% from the field, and averages 8.7 assists per game.

So, Jennings’s numbers, while impressive, raise numerous doubts about his game. To be sure, he is young, and it’s not fair to say that someone is fatally flawed based on the fact that, after only 15 games, his numbers compare unfavorably to some of the greats at his position. But, a point guard’s job is to get his team good shots, and the clearest measurements of success are his assists per game along with his shooting numbers. No point guard that I can think of has led his team to the playoffs, let alone a championship, by passing so little while shooting so often and so poorly.

All of this is based on numbers alone — I haven’t seen him play yet. I tried to DVR the nationally-televised game he played in on Friday, but something went wrong with my DVR. (Amazingly, it seems to tape everything my wife wants to tape, but regularly fails to tape my shows. Coincidence?) I was pretty bummed, not only because I wanted to see Jennings play, but also because I’m quite sure that I’ve watched more than 1,000 games of basketball in my life, and I can’t remember ever watching the Bucks. I mean, seriously, have they been on national TV since Don Nelson stopped coaching them?

I will make sure to watch them soon, even if it means that I have to research for a local bar that will be broadcasting one of their games, and head over there to see them. Until then, all I have to go by when judging Jennings are his numbers. While some of those numbers are impressive, the bottom line is that they are not the kinds of numbers I would want my team’s point guard to be putting up.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Comment

A Hoopservations Milestone

Filed Under: Uncategorized by Tweener — Comments Off
11/22/2009

Today, two weeks since the site launched, the number of hits passed 300. I know for sure that I’ve visited the site no more than 150 times in the last two weeks, which means that there have been at least 150 other hits.

Thanks for reading, I hope you’ll continue to visit.

Comment

A Few Words About LeBron

Filed Under: Comparing Players / Teams, NBA, Talking About Hoops, Uncategorized by Tweener — Comments Off
11/10/2009

LeBron James will be a popular topic of discussion on this site, because he, in my eyes, crystallizes lots of what is good and lots of what is bad about the state of the game today.
First, the good: He does things on the court that have never been done before. He’s big, strong, and fast. He can pass, shoot, and rebound. If someone wanted to argue that the game is played at a higher level than it has ever been played before, he would be Exhibit A.

And, he appeals to a wide range of people. He seems to be humble and soft-spoken. He has street cred. He’s intelligent. White parents buy his sneakers, and so do black teenagers. That’s part of the beauty of today’s game.

Now, the bad: He shows how the modern hype machine causes us to lose our perspective. People treat him like the Second Coming, even though he never led his team to a championship. Other great players that were expected to lead their teams to championships but couldn’t are considered disappointments by lots of folks. Allen Iverson, whom I will write about in more depth this week, was a superstar. But he couldn’t get his team over the hump, and the perception of him is that his game, while wonderful, is deficient. Now he can’t even get a job as a starter in the league, a fact that astonishes me. Years ago, Patrick Ewing was a superstar, but was widely perceived as deficient. Only two weeks ago, The Sports Guy posted a column on ESPN.com, saying of Ewing, “The sophisticated Knicks fans saw right through him, endlessly debating his virtues and repeatedly coming back to the same conclusion: As long as this is our best guy, we probably can’t win the title.” LeBron is immune to that type of criticism. When he doesn’t win championships, people blame his teammates. Why? It’s like people assume that LeBron’s good enough to lead a team to a championship, even though he never has.

He also, to some degree, highlights a big problem with the league. It’s now hard to build a winner through the draft. So lots of teams rely on free agency. As a result, they essentially strive to clear good players off their roster, so they’ll have “cap space” to land a dude like LeBron. For the team that’s able to do it, I guess the strategy makes sense. The problem is that there are 3 or 4 teams that are awful, whose only hope of getting better is landing a superstar. For the ones that don’t land one, they wind up being awful for a very long time.

The Knicks, of course are one of those teams, and their desperate attempt to get LeBron highlights this problem. I saw the desperation first-hand on Friday night, when I was fortunate enough to get a ticket to the Knicks-Cavs game at MSG. I couldn’t believe what I was watching. During timeouts, there were people shooting t-shirts into the stands, and kids riding around the court on unicycles. There was a group of dudes called the “Bucket Boys,” who used buckets as drums, and dazzled the crowd. Grandmaster Flash was DJ’ing. Chris Rock was in the stands, and so were a bunch of Yankees. And Giants. And ex-Knicks. And Reggie Jackson. And Jay-Z. By the end of the third quarter, I expected the Beatles to walk onto the court with Michael Jackson, and give a concert.

I think I actually smelled the desperation. But none of it masked the fact that the Knicks are, um… not good at basketball. They have no more than one guy who could start on a championship team – David Lee. And he’s no star. Realistically, he wouldn’t start on the Lakers, Spurs, Nuggets, Mavericks, Blazers, or Celtics. The only contenders I could see him making a difference for are Cleveland and Orlando.
But I digress. There will be more than enough Knick-bashing on this site. I don’t need to do it here.

One last point about LeBron, that isn’t necessarily a positive or a negative, but is a reflection of today’s game: He doesn’t really have a position. For him as an individual, this is a good thing; it makes him a versatile weapon. But, for the league as a whole, I don’t think it’s a good thing to have too many stars without positions.

Interestingly, the best teams generally have guys that fit the traditional roles. The Lakers and Celtics both have point guards who look to distribute (Rondo / Fisher), shooting guards that can’t be left open from anywhere (Kobe / Allen), small forwards who can attack and also post up (Pierce / Odom), power forwards with good post moves and big bodies (Garnett / Gasol) and centers who generally live in the paint (Perkins / Bynum). LeBron is phenomenal, but when a bunch of teams try to build around guys who don’t really have positions, it can get ugly.

Tags:
Comment

Welcome

Filed Under: Uncategorized by Tweener — Comments Off
10/17/2009

If you are reading this, you are either a friend of mine, a person who read about this blog in one of my postings somewhere else, or someone who simply got lost while navigating your way around the internet. Whatever it is that brings you, welcome.

I have been watching hoops for as long as I can remember, and I used to play hoops for my high school team (read: I sat on the bench for my high school team). I was a ‘tweener – I couldn’t dribble well enough to play point guard, and I didn’t score enough to play shooting guard. Some folks label players like that “scrubs,” but I prefer to think of myself as a ‘tweener (I’ll have a posting soon about the distinction between “scrubs” and ‘tweeners). Anyway, during all of the time I spent watching hoops – whether from my couch watching it on tv, or from my seat on the bench watching my teammates live – I learned lots about the game. And I have lots of opinions. I have spent many hours during my life talking hoops with my friends. Recently, a bunch of them started telling me that I should start a blog. I’m not sure whether they were giving me genuine advice or just trying to help me find a new audience so they don’t have to listen to me anymore. Regardless, they got me thinking about starting a blog, and, well, here it is.

Before I get started, I just want to set a few ground rules. First, don’t be offensive. I’m not here to censor people, and I don’t care about little things like cursing. Let’s all just try to keep the conversation respectful and relatively clean. If you think that someone’s comment is stupid, either ignore it or refute it, but don’t tell him that he’s a #!@’ing bag of #%$ whose mother is a *^%.

Second, respect the anonymity of people who post on the site. There are a few reasons for this:

ONE:  The purpose of this site is to share opinions about basketball players, primarily professional basketball players. Every single player on an NBA roster could crumple me up into the shape of a basketball, and, using that basketball-shaped-human-that-used-to-be-me, shoot more than 70% from the foul line (except Shaq, but his problem would not be during the “crumpling me up into the shape of a basketball” phase of that activity). I’ll sleep a bit better at night if those players don’t know my name.

TWO:  I have millions of female fans around the world. Millions. I have to go to great lengths to keep my contact information secretive; otherwise I would get hundreds of e-mails, phone calls, and personal visits every day. If those millions of females knew that they could find me here, they would crash the site. I don’t feel like paying for more bandwidth, so please just refer to me by my screen-name.

THREE:  I feel quite strongly that people should not be judged based on a google search for their name. It’s one of those many opinions I have. If a stranger ever google searches for my name, I don’t want him to think he knows me because he spent five minutes reading what comes up. I certainly don’t want him to think he knows me because he read some postings I made on my blog.

Other rules may need to be implemented over time, but, for now, the only rules are not to be offensive, and to respect the anonymity of people who post. Basically, this is designed to be a site where hoops fans can go to stay current on current hoopenings (hoop happenings, for those who didn’t catch on), and to jump into a conversation having something to do with hoops. The site has links to sites that cover hoops news, links to sites that sell hoops gear, and links to other blogs about hoops. I’ll try to inject some humor into the posts on the site, but, at bottom, the posts will be designed to start conversations about hoops. (If you’re looking for a more even balance between hoops and comedy, I suggest that you watch the Knicks.  Oh… speaking of the Knicks and comedy… If you want to laugh, watch this video and remember that the Knicks drafted the guy “guarding” Vince Carter.)

Welcome to my site. I hope you visit often, and jump into the conversation.

Comment