BREAKING NEWS... Larry Brown has been fired as coach of the New York Knicks. The only good thing about this organization has been shown the door. Well, I shouldn't say the ONLY thing. I'm sure the beer guy and that one guy at the front who sells programs work pretty hard. See, Hasim...I told you I recognize your efforts. Anyway, Isiah Thomas has FINALLY taken over as head coach of the mess he assembled. The kid gloves are off, baby. Zeke is gonna show us how it's done. Hilarity ensues.
This team will probably make the playoffs just to spite me. I hate Isiah Thomas.
10. Washington. Without Gilbert Arenas, this team would be dead in the water. Sure, they'd flounder around for a little while, like the snake that hasn't realized that his head was cut off. But once they realize that Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler can't do it without the guy who really lives to take the big shots, let the losing streaks roll. Other than that, they're a good team.
9. Memphis. Probably the most boring team in the league. And that's saying something when you've still got San Antonio around. Of course, maybe that's the strategy. For those who remember back that, Mike Fratello was also coaching the Cleveland Cavaliers back when the plan was to purposefully slow the game down to a crawl. They were winning games in the high 70s, boring their fans to sleep and in the process, I believe...their opponents. I believe that could be what's going on here. I'm getting sleepy just writing about them.
8. Cleveland. LeBron James is going to be the best player in the NBA. I'm sure the NBA would love for him to be in New York instead of podunk Cleveland. Other than this, I find no other reason to talk about Cleveland. And Bone sucks.
7. Denver. It must suck to be Carmelo Anthony. First, he's overshadowed by Lebron James from the gate. Then, he's overshadowed by Dwyane Wade. And I personally have jokes about how Darko got a ring before ALL of them. And on top of all of that, he's had a better team around around him from day one. And they continue to underachieve, year after year.
6. New Jersey. Vince Carter, Jason Kidd, Richard Jefferson. You have potentially the most explosive fast break in the league. Why are these dumbasses walking the ball up court and running a half-court offense? Why aren't they the Phoenix Suns done right? You can't run a half court offense when you have no one in the middle! Washington knows this. Seattle knows this. Phoenix knows this. Why can't New Jersey seem to catch on? And where the fuck is Kerry Kittles? Why can't someone pull some strings and bring him back?
5. San Antonio. Some very key truths were realized about this team. One, they need to get that Tim Duncan/free throw situation under control. I mean, my God...Shaq was laughing at you. Two, Tony Parker needs to find a jumpshot. Somewhere. Anywhere. Three, perimeter defense. You have none. Four, speed. Preferably on the perimeter, so your defense can use it. Who exposed all of this? Dallas, the team who has all of that. If Tim Duncan should shoot free throws, he'd be Dirk Nowitzki. If Tony Parker could shoot, he'd be Jason Terry. And they've got Josh Howard defending on the perimeter, not Brent Barry. It's no wonder Dallas went to the Finals.
4. Phoenix. For the last two years, they've gotten closer and closer to shoving the theory that defense wins championships up our asses. I don't think there's anything left to say.
3. Detroit. I wrote this entire two parter because of this team right here. I wanted to vent my frustrations at them and couldn't make it a long enough entry. Detroit, you have let success go to your head. That's why you didn't win. You have fallen into the belief that you are an elite team, and you are not. You thought that you were Shaq's Lakers or Michael's Bulls, that you could turn it on when you needed to. And who's the worst offender of them all? No, not Rasheed Wallace (although he needs to learn that he's unstoppable on the low block and eminently stoppable beyond the arc...guess where he spends most of his time?). Chauncey Billups. Apparently, you have officially bought into your own hype. All this "Mr. Big Shot" stuff went straight to your head, because every chance you got, you were trying to hit yet another ill-selected three pointer. All of you need to realize that if Larry Brown was there, there wouldn't have been any of that. He wanted you to play a certain way because it works. You got a championship playing that way. All that freewheeling crap you tried this year, sure it works in the regular season. But you know better than any other team that it doesn't work in the playoffs. And your defense? Atrocious. I hope you all learned your lesson. I also hope there was a fleeting chance that someone in the Pistons organization would read this.
2. Dallas. I remember when this team was setting records for regular season futility. Now, I just got finished watching them play in their first Finals. It's like watching that little half-stupid cousin of yours grow up. You remember that day you saw him with a pot on his head and ramming it into the wall and you thought, "I should probably get used to looking at him through bars." And fast forward to today, when he's 22 years old and picking up his GED, and you think, "I just knew this joker was gonna get shot robbing liquor stores." That's kinda how I feel watching the Mavericks make the Finals. They're the retarded cousin who defied the odds to not be the losers that you expected them to be. But they're still losers.
1. Miami. Not the best team in the NBA, not by far. They defied the odds, too. The new generation of NBA fan said that this kind of team was dead. A team that relies on one or two superstars to carry a team to the championship. A team not unlike Shaq and Kobe or Michael and Scottie. The wave of the future was supposed to be teams that played as a team, and didn't run isolation sets all the time. Especially after that 2002 World Basketball Championships fiasco. Well, the Miami Heat said, "screw that noise, jack...we're riding the Dwyane Wade bandwagon until the wheels fall off. Old school 'till we die." Except that "old school" was actually just 4 years ago. Who would have expected that mess to actually work?
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