NBA parity + yada yada

[opi@unesco.org]

Talk about NBA parity, there are 19 teams at or above .500 and 21 teams
with eight or more wins (12 teams in the east including the Celts).

The regular season playoff chase is surprisingly exciting, most
impressively in the Pacific with four teams at least eight games over
.500 and Danny Ainge's fifth place Phoenix at 11-6.

Someone made the case that Keith Van Horn is the most overrated player
in the NBA, but in some ways Jason Williams (being a far more likely All
Star after all) fits the bill based on his worrisome defense and
shooting (just .347 overall FG% thus far while jacking up over 7 treys
per game).

Also, can someone (Greg or Paul M, for example) fill me in the Brian
Grant situation? After looking untouchable last year (even in exchange
for Antoine), he has yet to play more than 25 minutes in a game this
season and is averaging just 5.7 points and 4.3 rebounds. The same
situation exists with everyone's "best kept secret" Bo Outlaw in
Orlando, who in 27 minutes per game is 12th on his team in scoring at
3.7ppg with 5.6 rebounds. I wonder if either player could be acquired
for cheap (not that either player is "cheap" contract-wise).

One guy who is having a kind of breakout year is the 27-year-old Knicks
power forward Kurt Thomas, averaging 12.4 ppg and 10 rebounds over the
past eight games and shooting .480 FG & .717 FT for the season. That's a
nice addition for the Camby/LJ /JohnWallace rotation and suggests the
Knicks may succeed in turning what had been an over-the-hill and
overbudget franchise into a younger one.

Another surprise is the 6-5 Derek Anderson, who's putting up strikingly
similar but more solid overall numbers than Ron Mercer at  a
team-leading 20.0 ppg with 5.6 rpg 3.3 apg on .452FG% and .886FT%. He's
done this while drawing a very striking 6.8 trips to the FT line per
game and shooting a non ball-hoggedy 14.3 attempts per game. You can't
exactly complain about these numbers, even if it is on the Clips. No
wonder Pitino still thinks so highly of him.

Master P must be peeing in his pants in anticipation of a nice payoff,
with both Anderson and Mercer up for 7-year extensions and putting up
career numbers.

Enough procrastinating & skipping lunch for me.

GO CELTS!!  (getting passed in the standings by Denver would basically
really hurt, especially since this game is at home). It seems like every
prediction I've made in the past year has turned out so far to be
phooey, starting at my 31 win prediction for last year and with all my
confident Antoine-hype being the most pathetic and disgusting.

I hope Toine wakes up really soon because we desperately need him this
month to turn back the clock to his level of play in the first few games
of this season or even the end of last year, not that he's too worried
about it. The next nine games fall rapidly between the 8th and 22nd of
December, and our Celts captain won't get any breathers trying to
statistically neutralize formidable and right now frankly FAR superior
power forwards one game after another: McDyess, then Barkley, LJ, Shawn
Kemp, Karl Malone, Tim Duncan, Barkley again, the big Fakers game,
Henderson/LorenzenWright, Odom/Taylor, Chris Webber, finally McDyess
again. Antoine Walker has 11 assists and 5 steals in the past six games.
Okay that's fine, but he's now gone ten straight games without a
double-double with just two all season. "Gimmeabahhrake" as Tommy
Heinsohn would say. Tommy knew how to find huge rebounds in the paint
and how much hard work and hustle this actually takes (especially for a
non-leaper). That's why he could so genuinely appreciate and root for
the heretofore cruelly and idiotically villified Antoine Walker.

Joe

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