Monthly Archives: May 2005

Manu for MVP

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Even though the Suns pulled one off yesterday to save themselves a sweepin’, there’s a greater chance Tim Legler says something informed and intelligent on tonight’s ESPN broadcast than there is of the Suns climbing back into this series. Watching the game last night I was struck by the flat out Jordan-esque ability of Manu Ginobili to elevate his game in the playoffs. Ginobili played with the reckless abandon of pre-97 Gary Payton in taking it to the rack with the left hand, and his dish to a wide open Robert Horry was something to see.

Manu’s been my playoffs MVP so far. The guy has been just flat out unbelievable to watch in nearly every series. He is the most complete backcourt player in the league right now.

I’m cool with watching whoever comes out of the East. I like both East teams for different reasons — Wade is a tremendous talent with the potential to be everything Vince Carter could have been and more, and the Pistons blue collar workmanlike attitude appeals to the purist in me.

Team Report Card: My Perspective

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Front Office – A-

Going into the season the expectation of most fans was that this was a 30-40 win team. On media day management came out and said they thought they had a team who would challenge for a playoff spot. At the time most fans laughed, and with pre-season it looked like the fans were right. However, the acquisition of Danny Fortson proved to give this group the early push they needed to get off on the right foot. Not resigning Brent Barry and going with the combo of Antonio Daniels and Luke Ridnour came up looking great as well. The selection of Robert Swift is still up in the air as to whether it was the right call but the pickup of Damien Wilkins as an undrafted free agent really helped this team as injuries struck.

Coach Nate McMillan – B+

Most would give him an A and the increase in wins would warrant that however he still has some lapses in his game strategy (putting Potapenko in at the end of the Spurs series) and does a few too many odd rotational moves (playing Flip Murray, ever) for my tastes. I was supremely happy with his improvements over last year’s effort. Resigning him should be one of our highest priorities.

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How Long Before the New CBA is Agreed to?

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How long does this go on? How long do the players let this go on?
I get the feeling that both sides are being crass and giving in to whispering in the ears. Did the agents make their wishes known to Billy Hunter? Only if you believe that he owns a telephone. Did David Stern act unilaterally when deciding that there wouldn’t be more talks? Oh, nobody is asking that question.
Billy Hunter looks under the influence of agents and Stern like an inflexible tyrant. That inflexible tyrant thing works well in some situations, like keeping Ron Artest off the basketball floor and out of the general public eye long enough for fans to gain distance from the “incident”. It doesn’t work so well when having to deal with people you do not have complete control over. Stern might just lock out millionaires during their planned summer vacations. In the words of Chris Farley “Whoopty freakin do”. How will Spree feed his kids? Ehh.. I wouldn’t expect many of the players to notice for a month.
So, that’s my timeline, a month. Players will go on vacation, call their agents less and less and their union reps more and more until people that don’t unusually take responsibility for many of the details of their lives have nothing in front of them but this one detail, the unknown next season.
That’s my early guess, August 1st.

Thinking about the off season

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Gone: Pot, Flip
Keep: Nate, Ray, Wilkins
Likely keep: Vlade
Wait and See: Reggie, Fort
Not likely to keep: James
I hope they don’t keep but they might: AD

Needs: A Center, a backup PG, and a SG who plays D, but who can also score some (not a one-dimentional player), and possibly a backup PF depending on what happens with Reggie and Fort. Kwame Brown is interesting, but if a guy doesn’t have the fire it’s hard to guess if Jack Sikma can put it in him. Sikma can refine his skills, but can he excite him to play the game?

I think the cost of AD will probably move him out of our range depending on the new CBA. I don’t think keeping him is bad, but not on a contract that ties our hands.

It will be interesting to see what comes our way for Vlade, and I think for the right deal they might move him, but it will have to be pretty darn good. I think the development of Luke and Nick added to the ability of Ray and Shard would be nicely complimented by the problems Vlade creates for other teams matching up with us. Most teams can deal with Ray and Shard if we don’t have something else, but Vlade adds a wild card that teams struggle to cover. The problem is he needs to become more consistant, and avoid the injury bug. Vlade might be moved though depending on who they draft as well.

If nothing else, this should be an active and interesting off season.

Big Chris

So it ends…

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well it was a good run. The bandwagon bus got a good work out. I pegged this team as a low to mid 30′s win team before the season. What a memorable year. Too bad it had to end like this. 2 points short, missing two of our best scorers. Even having Rashard alone at full strength would have made a great difference. I’ll blog more later, but I wanted to congratulate the Spurs on winning a very hard fought series. I also want to acknowledge the Sonics for grinding it out and making the Spurs earn it.

Congratulations to Spurs

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After a hard fought series the Spurs beat Seattle in six games. This was a well played series by both teams and unfortunately one of the two had to lose. At the beginning of this year the Spurs were the odds on favorites to win the title while most had the Sonics being close to the top of the lottery. In the end it came down to home court advantage, a couple key injuries and execution by the Spurs on that last play. From this fan and hopefully from Sonics fans around the nation I offer sincere congratulations to the Spurs and their fans.

Today may seem bleak, but the future is bright.

Should Seattle Start Wilkins Tonight?

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While looking at the game flow from game 5 I was shocked to see that the Sonics were actually +7 when Antonio Daniels was on the bench. Looking at Damien’s game chart we were a +2 while he was in the game. While this is not a perfect way to look at a game as it shows Ray at -9 and Daniels was -20 there is value in knowing how certain matchups help or hurt the team as a whole.

It is also interesting to note that Reggie Evans was a -16 while Nick Collison was +6. When Jerome was in the game we were -24 compared to only -2 with Fortson in the game.

I am of the opinion that changing the lineup at this point is not something that Nate is going to be willing to do. However, with the problems that we’ve been having starting the first and second halves of games it might be the right time to let Damien get in and be a bit more physical on Manu. I’ve also noticed that AD tends to have a connection with Collison on the pick and roll, if AD comes off the bench you maximize the minutes that him and Nick have on the court together.

Game six and down 3-2 now is the time to pull out all the stops, this might be something to look at doing.