Charlotte Bobcats's Charlotte Bobcats friend's fan blogs

From the who-didn’t-see-this-coming-department, Allen Iverson is not happy with his role after his first game in with the Memphis Grizzlies.

After coming off the bench and playing just 18 minutes in the Grizzlies 127-116 overtime loss to the Sacramento Kings last night, Iverson dropped this gem to reporters after the game:

 “Go look at my resume and that will show you that I’m not a sixth man,” Iverson said. “I don’t think it has anything to do with me being selfish. It’s just who I am. I don’t want to change what gave me all the success that I’ve had since I’ve been in this league.” 

First of all, what did Iverson expect? He barely played in the preseason and then missed the first three regular season games with a partially torn hamstring. Even superstars would be eased back into the rotation after something like that. Iverson is far from a superstar these days. 

Continue reading "Allen Iverson Is Unhappy (again)"

In the NBA these days, it seems like there is a stat for everything. We’ve got PER, offensive efficiency ratings, defensive efficiency rating, and so on and so on.

It seems like every team in the league now employs their own stat guru. And while I’m not one to question the use of all these new statistics to evaluate NBA players (I actually kinda like them), I’m old school.

 

To me, all the new stats in the world can’t tell the story of an NBA game as well as the good, old fashioned box score.

 

Therefore, I’m starting a new feature today called “Fun With Box Scores”.

 

Every Monday, I’ll be posting some of the more interesting things that jumped out at me from the previous week’s box scores.

 

Continue reading "Fun With Box Scores"

The NBA season is officially underway (unless you live in Chicago or Milwaukee).

 

After several hours parked in front of the NBA League Pass for the past two days, it’s time for some first impressions.

 

The Good

 

Ty Lawson

 

How good was he last night? I predicted the Denver Nuggets to be the third best team in the West this season, and that was assuming that Ty Lawson would play like a rookie point guard.

But his 17 points, six assists, and four rebounds, plus very solid fourth quarter minutes in a close game against a decent Utah team, shows that he may be a real X factor for this team moving forward.

 

Brook Lopez

 

Lopez was a monster last night, finishing with 27 points, 15 rebounds, five blocks, and four assists. Of course, the Nets lost, mainly because they couldn’t hold off the mighty T’Wolves down the stretch, but it certainly wasn’t because of Lopez.

Continue reading "First Impressions"

Happy New Year!

With the new NBA season set to tip off with four games tonight, here are some of the things I’ll be watching for in tonight’s action.

Boston @ Cleveland, 7:30pm

I can’t wait to see LeBron again this season. Last year, coming off the Olympics, you could see that his focus was on improving defensively. Now, without a summer in the spotlight, I’m curious to see if he’s made any improvements to his already unreal game. Is this the year we finally see LeBron use his Karl Malone-like body to beast on people inside?

Also, I’m curious to see what kind of pregame theatrics the Cavs come up with. You know Shaq can’t stand to be out of the spotlight, I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to one-up LeBron’s chalk thing with something of his own.

Continue reading "NBA Opening Night Quick Thoughts"

Disappointing news for NBA fans everywhere, courtesy of yahoo:

 

"LOS ANGELES (AP)—Blake Griffin’s (notes) NBA debut has been pushed back indefinitely after the Los Angeles Clippers revealed late Monday night that their No. 1 overall draft pick has a broken left kneecap.

The stress fracture could sideline the Oklahoma star for six weeks, the team announced, promising further information Tuesday."

What a disappointment this news is. Watching Blake Griffin debut on Tuesday night was going to be the highlight of the TV schedule for me. The Lakers, Cavs, and Celtics are all going to be good this year, we already know that.

And while it’s always fun to watch really good teams play, one of the best parts of the new season is getting to watch high profile rookies make the transition to the NBA game.

Continue reading "Disappointing First Impression of Blake Griffin"

Welcome to the Diary of an NBA Junkie.

My Name is Scott Shepherd, and I’m addicted to the NBA.

 

After a few years of covering the NBA for a great website, www.sports-central.org, I’ve decided to branch out and start my own blog.

 

The idea for the blog is simple: I’m addicted to all things NBA, but writing a weekly column for Sports Central sometimes just isn’t enough space to get all of my basketball related thoughts out there.

 

The idea with the Diary of an NBA Junkie is to post a series of short NBA-related posts several times throughout the week.

 

It may be a reaction to a particular game, player, or coach. It might be link to a good NBA story or video that I’ve come across. It might just be random thoughts I have while flipping through the League Pass.

Continue reading "Welcome to the Diary of an NBA Junkie"

So all I have had to hear over the last few weeks is about the Jordan's Hall of Fame speech. No one seems to be happy with the speech except Jay Marriotti. So I find myself doing something I don't even remember doing when Marriotti was one of the only three sport's writers I knew (the other's being Woody Paige and Peter Vescey), agreeing with him.

To many Jordan gave a petty and bitter speech (obviously they did not hear the Peter Vescey speech that weekend). M.J.'s speech seemed out of place for those who choose to live behind and sell the falsities of the game and life to the public. At the same time it allowed many Americans to say to themselves after 25 years a man who had been in their house more than some relatives, "I don't like Michael Jordan". But the greatest basketball player did nothing of out character. He for once, in front of the camera was completely his self and to be honest, I liked it and found it humorous.

Continue reading "Jordan still Rules (6 Titles, 5 MVP'S, 1 Speech)"

The Chicago Bears have had a lot going on this off season. More changes came this week. Reports from msnbc.com have confirmed that the Bears main man on special teams will no longer be out on the field returning. Devin Hester will no longer be on the receiving end of kick and punt returns. The 26 year old speedy wide out is now focuses all his attention to becoming a better all around receiver. Hester had 11 special teams touchdowns in the 2006 and 2007 seasons. With such success, more teams started to avoid kicking to Hester which lowered his stats last season. Hester did not return kicks the final four games of the 2008 season, with him emerging as a reliable wide receiver.

 

With training camp upon us and new quarterback Jay Cutler in the mix Hester is all business on the receiving end. “It’s because of how much progress I’ve made,” Hester said. “The more reps you get the better you get at whatever you do in life. Given the opportunity to be the No. 1 [receiver] and going out and getting as many reps as I’m getting is helping me out a lot.” Hopefully Hester’s success on special teams can translate to success as a number 1 or number 2 receiver for the Bears this season.

Continue reading "Devin Hester will no longer return for the Chicago Bears"

Don’t you love it when sports writers create a blog talking purely out of their, let’s just say, ‘ass’. A recent blogger on ESPN posted a story entitled Sore Winners. The main example used in the story was none other then the Zen Master himself, Phil Jackson of the World Champion Los Angeles Lakers.  The story claims that Phil is a bad winner because we wore a hat with X, the Roman numeral 10, once the Lakers beat the Orlando Magic in the finals last month. The X stands for his unprecedented tenth title as a head coach, exceeding the great Red Auerbach.  So why is the hat showing bad sportsmanship? Every time Michael Jordan won a title, he always held up the fingers of the championship, 1 through 6. Nike made a special shirt for Kobe Bryant’s fourth championship that he wore at the Lakers victory parade. Therefore by default, MJ and Kobe are bad sports too?  Why should Phil, or any athlete for that matter, have to mask what they have accomplished? It’s not like he ran around the court refusing to shake the other teams’ hands, yelling he is the best. The hat was not just a way for Phil to show off, but a gift to him. It wasn’t a gift from Nike or any other sponsor, but rather a gift from his children. He wore a gift showing off his accomplishment from the people that matter the most to him. That’s a bad sport if I’ve ever seen one! 

Continue reading "Los Angeles Lakers' Phil Jackson a Bad Winner?"

The once infamous Lebron James getting dunked on tape is finally out for all to see. But all you see is a bunch of hype over nothing. Like the rest of the sports world, I had built up this monumental play in which the NBA's biggest star was embarrassed by a college sophomore; that's right sophomore. Little did anyone know, myself included, that all this hype was over Lebron routing late to help protect the basket. Xavier's 6'4'' Jordan Crawford, the sophomore guard, crossed over his man, drove full speed into the lane and all Lebron could do was put a hand to the side of Crawford's face. Crawford put it down with two hands and celebrated back to the defensive end. Wow. Not to take anything away from the young guard, but really? All this commotion over that?Nike finally realized the negativ

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