Oh I think they like him when he hit you with them other ones, so T-Smith is back and he’ll hit you with another one!
What, Dem Franchize Boys are no longer in? Shit, my bad.
Anyway, Trev, a major Laker fan of course, is suggesting Pau Gasol is the real key to the Lakers’ success. Tough to argue against Kobe Bryant, but it’s equally tough to argue against Trev.
Steve Nash, the greatest basketball player in Canadian history, also happens to be the man who has done the most damage to Canada’s sole franchise, the Toronto Raptors.
In honor of Bright Side of the Sun’s awesome Steve Nash Internet Day, several bloggers were asked to share thoughts, stories, and feelings on Steve Nash. I could have looked at the charity work, his developing comedic side, his two MVP awards, his role in the re-establishment of up-tempo basketball, and probably three dozen other angles (or more, as we’ll see tomorrow when Steve Nash Internet Day goes live). I couldn’t though. I couldn’t take an angle, couldn’t applaud his fledgling filmmaking or honorable community work, or even look at his obsession with another major sport, soccer, and what that could mean for his Life After Ball.
And that’s because there is one Steve Nash memory in my mind that resonates whenever I hear his name. He is one of my favorite players of all time, an icon in my country of Canada (and it kills me that he doesn’t play for our National team), and one of the best point guards in NBA history. Still, though, my predominant Nash quick-association-game answer is How Steve Nash Stole Christmas (kind of…it was a Christmas gift, anyway).
More after the jump!
A brief preview: “I have absolutely no interest in writing about the Raptors right now. If I did, I would write a Choose Your Own Adventure style column, or a Mad Libs column, similar to the following:
“__(curse word) __ (curse word) ___(curse word) Jay Triano ___ (curse word) defense ________ (curse word) polar bears ________ (curse word) OLIVER MILLER!!!”
And I’m sure everyone reading this has already wrote, spoke, or thought that sequence multiple times in the last few weeks. So instead, I’ve decided to put in just slightly more effort than the Raptors on the defensive end and offer a player-by-player First Quarter Bitch SlapEvaluation. Enjoy, and step back from that ledge, my friend.”
Trev is at it again at Hoops Addict, with a really strong look at Allen Iverson’s place in history. Fairly self-explanatory title, so I’ll spare you the intro line and you can just check it out!
I have a new article up at Raptors Republic…it’s about Bosh again. This time, though, I’m analyzing his stay-or-go decision looking strictly at finances – I applied the NBA cap rules to all 30 teams, and adjusted for taxes and cost of living to see how many “real” dollars teams can offer CB4 this summer.
Here’s a tasty teaser:
“It is easy to get overexcited, as Raptor fans, about Chris Bosh’s performance through the first 12 games. There are reasons to be guarded, to be pessimistic, or to deem his success suspect thus far.
At the same time, it’s easy, as Raptor fans, to let his success thus far underwhelm you, to take the attitudes expressed above and use them to completely discount the tear that CB4 has been on.
Curiously, it’s a tough balancing beam for Raptor fans when Chris Bosh bursts out of the gate so hot, posting would-be career high numbers nearly across the board, dominating games for longer stretches than we’ve seen, and generally leaving fans asking for even more, especially late in games. After all, there are reasons to think Bosh won’t keep the pace up, reasons to think Bosh is guilty of the “contract year statistical inflation,” and, of course, the fact that the Raptors are 5-7 while Bosh has been lighting it up.
With all of that in mind I wanted to take a look at Bosh’s torrid start to 2009-10 and try to determine if it’s something he’ll be able to keep up moving forward, and how I should really feel about it as a Raptor fan.”
Like a Phoenix, Trev has risen back to writing prominence for Hoops Addict. Like a Phoenix, Steve Nash is back in the MVP conversation. Like a Phoenix, the Suns have brought back the run-and-gun style with success!
Are you getting this…PHOENIX…is the horse dead yet? Anyway…
With autumn disappearing, the world now begins to fade from view. The days have grown shorter and “right now” creeps into our lives more quickly than we might wish. The world is dying again, at least for the next five months.
But there is hope even as darkness falls earlier and earlier. For it is this emerging nighttime that brings with it the breath of air that accompanies every new NBA season. As Mother Nature goes back to sleep, hoop heads arise from hibernation.
So, with that new season now more than a week and a half old, it seems as good a time as any to take a first assessment of the state of the League. In order to do so, it would be helpful (or gimmicky? I always get those two confused…) to frame the discussion around something, a touch-point, a baseline that brings the arguments into focus as part of a larger picture. While I would have loved to use Mad Men’s impossibly awesome finale as that frame, I fear I could not do it justice, and so instead I’ll lean on Roger Waters and company for inspiration, mostly because I was listening to it on repeat Sunday afternoon and it fit with the night setting (sue me).
If the darkness and cold now rule our lives and we are turned away from Earth, we must be on the Dark Side of the Moon.
(End overwrought introduction)
More after the jump! –
T-Smith is back at it at Hoops Addict with some reflections on the recent Isiah Thomas/Magic Johnson literary-cum-you-hurt-my-feelings spat. Thankfully, he takes a greater focus on Thomas’ place in history and how the current perception of him skews what should have surely been a great on-court legacy.
I finally got back on track over at Raptors Republic. While comparing Jay Triano to Sam Mitchell isn’t necessarily a fair exercise, I think it’s clear that the man at the helm is the reason for a good deal of the optimism surrounding the Raptors right now. Through his understanding of player psychology, his willingness to break the status quo, and his extremely high basketball IQ, Triano is a source of optimism for Raptor fans.
