Topic of Tuesday conversation(Photo. Jonathan Mannion)
It’s like Christmas Eve around here, today being is the day before Opening Day. Pretty light schedule tomorrow: Spurs vs. Blazers, Lakers vs. Rockets, and Warriors vs. Jazz. The first two are on national TV, so if you don’t have League Pass, don’t worry. And not only is the Utah game not on national TV, the Jazz start off the season on the road — perfect recipe for Jazz fans to start their complaining in midseason form … Spurs/Blazers would’ve been more interesting if it was Greg Oden getting baptized something awful by Tim Duncan, but now it’s gonna be more like TD, Tony Parker, Manu and Co. picking up their championship rings and disposing of B-Roy and LaMarcus early. It looks like Portland will start Joel Przybilla at the five, LaMarcus at the four, Martell Webster at the three, and last year’s backcourt of Roy and Jarrett Jack. We thought LaMarcus would’ve been the center and Channing Frye the four; and we figured Travis Outlaw would win the SF job. Shows how much we know … We also thought Steve Francis had a good chance at either starting or being the 6th man in Houston, but we missed on that one, too. Apparently Franchise is the odd guy out in that loaded backcourt. “That is going to be tough, that will be real tough for me,” Francis told the Houston Chronicle. “If that’s the case, then I don’t know. I definitely didn’t come here not to play at all. Hopefully we can work something out.” Sounds like the prelude to a trade demand … Other than that, Lakers/Rockets will be two hours of Kobe talk, whether #24 plays or not … If you missed it over the weekend, we had Carmelo Anthony as the latest subject in our “Hall of Fame Watch.” We know, we know — it’s early to be talking about ‘Melo for the Hall, but that’s the whole idea behind projection. Come back later today to see the next candidate … If ‘Melo were to carve out a H.O.F. career, he might have to put up scoring numbers akin to Alex English. Yesterday ESPN Classic showed Pistons/Nuggets from ‘83, a.k.a. the highest-scoring game in NBA history, featuring English and Isiah. You knew the game was gonna be a buckets-fest when Dan Issel and Bill Laimbeer came out from the tip just on fire. It highlighted the fact that so few big men today have that mid-range jumper in their arsenal. Issel’s was automatic, at least on that night … We read in the Washington Post that Nick Young is dropping jaws at Wizards practice and has everyone saying he should be in the Dunk Contest. Here’s a sneak peek of what he can do … Bounce is giving away free sneakers today. The lineup of kicks flying out of the office has been sick so far; click here for today’s freebies and see how you can win them … We’re out like the mid-range game …
October 29th, 2007 at 7:01 am
sans says:
Man, i wish You Tube had some pics of Alex English’s shot. It’s crazy. Way over his head, arms fully extended and so money.
October 29th, 2007 at 8:50 am
Bron42 says:
nick youngs dunk would top most of what gerald green did. And its not like lebron would ever grow the balls to do the dunk contest (he’d lose big time and anyone who disagrees hasn’t seen a real dunk contest then watched his mcdonalds one) so why not go for it nick. Get your name out there.
I would hate to see it but hey, the kings need a pg. they could hit up francis.
Frye wouldnt start just on the simple fact the blazers arent a fan of his. They’ve been tryin to get rid of him and would only let him start if they were tryin to show him off so they can trade him.
October 29th, 2007 at 9:11 am
seth says:
Having scored over 27,000 points combined in the NBA and ABA with a career scoring average over 20 ppg in both leagues, it’s safe for Dime to say that Issel’s jumper was wet a few nights.
October 29th, 2007 at 10:26 am
djKianoosh says:
blazers might just be young and athletic enough to beat the spurs cause they just don’t know their place yet.
but it will be interesting to see my man Manu coming off a summer where for the first time in years he didn’t have to play ball for argentina. Will the Spurs offense continue to flow through Tony Parker like it did towards the end of last year? The San Antonio papers are saying Duncan might play as long as Kareem…
October 29th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Duke says:
i would love to see celtics and spurs in the finals
October 29th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Gee says:
Send Kobe to Toronto so he can pitch a big fit and burn their team for money and then get traded and make their fans go nuts! Sorry Toronto fans you know I can’t resist.
Anyway no for real keep Kobe and make this big package deal where you trade off about 3 players and some draft picks for a very good player to help him out. A lot of teams want Bynum anyway so put him in that package and give Kobe a Chris Bosh or a Dirk. All KB wants is some legit help.
If I had my way though, I would trade KB for Paul and Ray and have KG and KB together. I would so love to see that. That is just wishing right there I know it won’t happen. Dang that would be so tight though!
October 29th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Sam Boobie says:
Did you guys hear anything suggesting that this Oden “injury” is actually an “April Fool’s Joke” and that he might “play” in tomorrow’s “game” against the “Spurs?”
October 29th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Amar says:
okay, seriously . . . out of those three games, which game do you think is going to be the most fun to watch, Spurs vs. a 25-30 win club . . . lakers and houston (yeah, i want to see turiaf and kwame foul out on national tv), or the jazz at the oracle?
yeah, that’s right.
October 29th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
For Real? says:
The Jazz game would be the most fun NOW. But when they put it on the schedule they were thinkin Kobe vs. T-Mac and Duncan vs. Oden.
October 30th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Amar says:
okay. the spurs have won championships since ‘99 vs. a team that’s core is either a rookie this season, or were rookies last season.
that still ends up being a slaughter, it’s not like oden is/was going to have the same wins/loss difference that lew alcindor had or anything. (look it up kids, look at jordan’s rookie difference, see anything interesting there?)
kobe vs. tmac is great. lakers vs. rockets isn’t. too bad it’s not kobe vs. tmac, but a 5 on 5 game between a top 4 team in the west vs. one great player and 4 other guys.