Welcome to Warrior Day

[Kim Malo]

At 09:18 AM 5/4/2007, Ryan, Patrick S Maj RES USAFR 439 MSG wrote:
>  Anyone that every has, could, or will compare Dirk Nowitski to Larry Bird
>should issue a public apology to all Celtics fans for the blasphemy.
>Congrats to the Warriors (despite Stephen Jackson) for their defensive
>performance shutting down the prolific offense of Dallas.  Defense wins
>championships and right now the Phoenix Suns and San Antonio Spurs are both
>uplifted and maybe a little worried.  Their chances to succeed probably just
>increased, but at the same time you never want to face a confident
>underdog...ever.

I never pay any attention to "the next X" because usually all that 
does is show how clueless the person saying it is about the X in 
question and what they were really all about - i.e. beyond the 
publicity machine blurbs and obvious stats. MJ certainly could fly, 
but so can others, and what made him MJ was as much about him being 
one of the biggest competition junkies to ever walk the earth as it 
was about his amazing raw talent. Bird put it about himself (and he 
was another of the same) that he hated to lose more than he wanted to 
win. Think about what that will drive you to do, such as sleeping in 
hospital traction so you can play, and more to this point what it 
will make you never able to settle for vs if you just wanted to 
win.  Everybody wants to win. That's the easy one. And probably the 
big difference between the two, because Nowitski's certainly got the 
skills. Oden, for all his virtues, is not the next Russell until he 
proves himself mentally Russ's match and I'll believe **that** one 
when I see it, because very few people have ever been, on or off the 
court. Russ played D and blocked shots but that wasn't the sum of 
what he was about, even speaking just about on the basketball court, 
any more than Bird was just about clutch 3s and some nice passes.

Anyway, Nowitski's performance also revisits the question of that 
draft when if Dallas hadn't snared him first, Pitino was going to 
take Nowitski and how that would have gone. It's seemed a no brainer 
to most, especially the past few years who was the better pick, but 
maybe it's not so obvious. Nowitski would have had worse players 
around him here with even more demanded of him earlier on, while 
Pierce may have ended up on a team where he might have blossomed more 
because he would have been in his more natural Scottie Pippin sort of 
second banana offensive force role. We might be bemoaning the fact 
that we didn't go for him while he was there and looking to run 
Nowitski out of town as fast as we can. Pierce may do a lot of dumb 
things and certainly has his warts, but I've never heard anyone 
legitimately accuse him of quitting as has been suggested about 
Nowitski with regularity throughout his career, along with that 
amorphous word soft.  Seemed as if he was finally over it this 
regular season, and obviously he didn't lose this series alone, but still...

Nellie smokes Cuban indeed...
Kim