Along with other young players of the New York Knicks, Jeremy Lin stands to be one of the biggest losers in the transition from Mike D'Antoni's offence to Woodson's. After Woodson's first full practice in charge on, he made it crystal clear that he was bringing the veterans back to play and start, specifically Carmelo Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire.
I find it quite unfortunate that this may be the reality for Lin as he just started his career in the limelight and has done quite well for his team despite the outcome of the last 12 games. All it took was for one team to believe in his abilities and for a few players to be injured in order for his God-given talent to shine through. What will be the outcome of the games be now? Its kind of hard to forget that last second 3-pointer that Lin scored in attempts to win against the Raptors last month.
According to Woodson: "I want everyone to know that when it comes to [crunch time] and I have to get a big shot, I'm going to go to Melo and Amar'e and guys who have done it. Not these guys who are young and are still trying to feel their way out."
I find it quite unfortunate that according to Woodson, other young players and Lin will be benched in place of the 'veteran' players. I understand to the full extent why Woodson would make such a move, but at the same time if you don't give any player time to play on the court, they will never develop into players that "have already done it" because they never got the chance to even try. Lin, who became a starter at the beginning of February and flourished in D'Antoni's pick-and-roll, run-and-gun system, certainly will not play the same kind of starring role in Woodson's defensive-minded game. Unfortunate for such a great player that has developed so quickly.
As most of you basketball fans know, today was the trade deadline. Hours before the deadline passed, the Los Angeles Lakers traded away five-time NBA champion Derek Fisher and two first-round draft picks. The Lakers used the deals to acquire a trio of players as the team looks to return to the NBA Finals for the eighth time in the last 13 seasons. Was this a mistake to trade Derek Fisher?
The Lakers sent a first-round draft pick and Derek Fisher, a guard who is the president of the NBA Players Association and won five NBA titles with the Lakers, to the Houston Rockets in return for Jordan Hill. According to the sports world, Lakers owner Jerry Buss said on a statement on the team's website, "I want to express my deepest gratitude to Derek for everything he has meant to this organization over the years... Few who have worn the Lakers uniform have done so with as much class as Derek, both on the court and in the community." With this being said, it leaves a million questions in my mind... why would you trade a player who's been with the team through five NBA titles and who's given back so much to both the team and the community? In my head, it just makes no sense especially with the Lakers hoping to return to the NBA Finals this season.
The Lakers also dealt forward Luke Walton, guard Jason Kapono and its 2012 first-round pick to Cleveland for guard Ramon Sessions and forward Christian Eyenga, the Cavaliers said in an e-mailed release. However, amidst all this madness of trades before the 3 p.m New York deadline, perhaps the more serious news was focused on a player who stayed put on his team... Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard (three-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year) announced this afternoon that he would be waiving a clause within his contract that would have allowed him to become a free agent after this season. Simply to say that, it kept him off the trading block and under contract with Orlando through the 2012-13 season.
Although Dwight Howard might have played his last game for the Orlando Magic, he definitely made it memorable! Howard scored 24 points and grabbed 25 rebounds and Jameer Nelson scored two clutch baskets in overtime to give the Orlando Magic a 104-98 win over Miami Heat.
With this being said, Howard's performance represented only the 29th time a player since the 1985-86 season has scored 24 or more points with 25 or more rebounds. Tonight's game marked the fourth time in those 29 that Howard has made that mark! Insane!
Watching this game was absolutely amazing and super intense... going into overtime in any game is always exciting especially when its between two great teams and fantastic players!
It's officially the beginning of March! I thought this month and time of year would never come with the constant stress from school and its hustle and bustle environment, but here we are in March and I'm only weeks away from completing my 4 years of undergrad! Besides this month representing the home stretch for me, it's also one of my favourite, and most exciting times of year because it's the home of NCAA March Madness!
For those of you who don't know, March Madness is a single-elimination college basketball tournament which is held every Spring in the United States and is absolutely huge in both size and hype! For the NCAA, March Madness is the number one source of revenue which equates to 90% of all revenues generated by the NCAA in a fiscal year. With that being said, you can definitely see why this event is SO big both amongst the nation and within the media.
March Madness consists of 67 games and in light of that, Sunday, March 11th is Selection Sunday. Who are you choosing to be in your bracket?
Check out President Obama's bracket for this year!
Tune into my video starring 3 of my friends who are HUGE basketball heads discussing some of the most debatable topics in basketball! The two topics that are discussed in length within this video are:
Dennis Rodman and his amazing ability as arguably the best rebounding forward in NBA history
Who is the best player in the NBA - Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant?
Tune in to the video to watch these topics being discussed, facts being thrown out and opinions being slashed! Enjoy!
With the NBA All-Star Weekend fast approaching, its hard to believe that we're already halfway through the season! But, I guess the NBA lockout had a lot to do with that. The NBA All-Star weekend is one of the most viewed events during the NBA season - displaying the skills, abilities and talents of the "best players in the league." But, with such high scoring games, and up and coming stars within the league, you can't help but ask yourself if every player is given a fair chance to make it to the All-Star team in their respective conference. And, is the voting process in getting the "star" players there, flawed?
One of this year's biggest NBA phenomenons... Jeremy Lin a.k.a LINSANITY!!!
New York Knicks, Jeremy Lin has been blessed with God-given talent and it has definitely been displayed ever since he outplayed All-Star guard Deron Williams, and had 25 points, 5 rebounds, and 7 assists - all career-highs on February 4th. Ever since, Lin has become the face of America!
Lin attended Harvard University where he started off in his freshman year as the "physically weakest guy on the team" according to his Harvard coach. But, by his sophomore season (2008-07), Lin was averaging 12.6 points and was named All-Ivy League Second Team. By the following season, he was only NCAA Division I men's basketball player who ranked in the top ten in his conference for scoring, rebounding, assists, steals, blocked shots, field goal percentage, free throw percentage, and three-point shot percentage, and ended up being a consensus selection for All-Ivy League First Team. Again, in his senior year of playing, Lin was up for another unanimous selection for All-Ivy League First Team averaging 16.4 points, 4.4 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 2.4 steals and 1.1 blocks. During this time, Lin was one of 30 midseason candidates for the John R. Wooden Award and one of 11 finalists for the Bob Cousy Award. In addition, he was also invited to the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament.
At the Portsmouth Invitational, Lin went undrafted in the 2010 NBA Draft. However, he did not give up. Lin joined a mini-camp and the NBA Summer League in which it resulted in offers to sign with the Mavericks, Los Angeles Lakers, and the Golden State Warriors based on his stellar performances and abilities displayed during the Summer League games.
On July 21, 2010, Lin signed a 2 year contract with his favourite team growing up, the Golden State Warriors, however he received very little playing time despite having chosen his favourite team out of the other four offers he received. Despite the troubles that panned out during the 2011 off season, Jeremy Lin was claimed off waivers by the New York Knicks to be backup behind Toney Douglas and Mike Bibby after guard Iman Shumpart suffered from injury. However, it was the injuries of his teammates and their inability to play that gave Lin the opportunity to start and display his stellar capabilities. This is where his name LINSANITY came about. Watch out America!
And of course the stellar performance against the Toronto Raptors that was at the focus of news highlights after the game, and even the next day, and was even trending on Twitter!
This kid definitely makes me feel proud to be Asian!
Continuing the theme of epic moves this week in the NBA, Blake Griffin's one-handed dunk over Kendrick Perkins could possibly be the best dunk of the year so far, but then again, we're still in the beginning of the year. However, this dunk is an absolute must see!
In the end, a 112-100 triumph last night ultimately ended the Thunder's four-game winning streak in a matchup of division leaders. Griffin had 22 points to go with Chris Paul's 26 points and 14 assists.
Earlier today, I had the chance to witness one of the cleanest alley-oops ever! And when I say clean, I mean graceful, effortless and jaw-dropping (or maybe that would be a bit of an exaggeration). This afternoon, Miami Heat played the Chicago Bulls (a match-up between last season's Easter conference finalists)... and this is what transpired during the game:
The game proceeded normally until LeBron James decided to jump over somebody - and that somebody was Chicago's guard John Lucas III - to complete an alley-oop from Heat guard, Dwayne Wade. Simply ridiculous!!!
On a more personal note this week, I celebrated my 23rd birthday just this past Monday and the weekend leading up to it, was absolutely amazing! For the first time in 2 years, I had the chance to attend a Toronto Raptors game as part of my surprise birthday gift... what a game! Although I've lived in Toronto most of my life, I've never exactly been a Toronto fan for any professional sport or major sport league, which may be unfortunate, but in my eyes there are so many other teams out there with great talent and players who are on the rise to stardem - something Toronto has always had bad luck in. Toronto will always be my home to me no matter where life takes me, but its just unfortunate that it hasn't had much luck with any of its professional sport teams in the recent years.
Jan.20 -- Toronto Raptors vs. Portland Trail Blazers
As I mentioned before, I had the amazing chance to attend a NBA game this past weekend and it was an absolutely amazing game for a few reasons regardless of the fact that the Toronto Raptors lost. One of the main reasons this game was SO exciting for me was because of LaMarcus Aldridge!
LaMarcus Aldridge has been in the pro league for 5 years now and during the game I was fortunate to witness, he scored a season-high of 33 points (not far from his career-high of 42 points) and a career-high 14 defensive rebounds and 23 total rebounds during the game!!! With these stats and his past stellar performances, Aldridge is ranked for the following (regular season), just to name a few (according to NBA.com):
Ranks #2 in the NBA in field goal attempts (320)
Ranks #3 in the NBA in field goals made (157)
Ranks #5 in the NBA in points (386)
Ranks #7 in the NBA in points per 48 minutes (29.3)
Ranks #7 in the NBA in points per game (22.7)
It was absolutely amazing being able to watch his stellar performance in person and to say that I was actually there when it all happened... Aldridge could very well be the best power forward in the game right now. James Johnson of the Toronto Raptors didn't even come close to playing as well as Aldridge even though he was a top performer for the Raptors that night. Johnson was able to score 23 points and 6 rebounds, which doesn't even come close to that scored by Aldridge. This game was not only talked about through media, but also between teammates. According to Aldridge's teammate, Jamal Crawford, Aldridge put the whole team on his back that night, during the game, and that's what players do. With that being said, I can confidently say, there's another star on the rise!
To me, one of the most exciting things about basketball and any major league sport are the trades, as they leave much to the imagination and create havoc for those who participate in fantasy sports and follow the league with great regard and dedication - it creates excitement, anxiety, anxiousness and curiosity all at once! One of the biggest events and created one of the NBA's most discussed, cussed, free agent bounties in some time and biggest coming out parties was the free agent signings of Chris Bosh and LeBron James to the Miami Heat, joining already team member, Dwayne Wade. This signing not only created a 'dynasty' (as some thought), but it was an introduction to a new 'Big Three' or so they were labeled. But, were they really what people were hoping them to be? Were they everything that the name 'Big Three' encapsulated?
I personally don't believe that Miami created a dynasty - I felt that the signing was just overrated in a sense that everyone expected them to be great... more than great, to create a dynasty of 'three kings.' Yes, LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade are amazing players, but they're amazing players individually, and that in itself is even arguable. The amount of hype that was created globally was incredible and the amount of attention it received was phenomenal, but was it all intentional?
This brings me to the main focus of my post, "buddy ball." Are these signings controlled by the players themselves, for the sole purpose of allowing star players to play with their "buddies?" This may have not been the case of Miami Heat's Big Three, but with recent trades that have occurred within the league, specifically within this season alone, you can't help but question what exactly is going on within the league? Some say, the glory days are officially over.
As much as I dislike Miami Heat, I believe their off-season acquisitions weren't made just so their top three players could play together on the same team, unlike recent trades that have taken place this season, Putting together the Big Three in Miami took years of planning that involved salary-dumping, and a long process of recruitment to even make the trade possible. So at the very least, I give Miami credit for that. Another team that has done incredibly well for themselves considering the players on the team and their development of the years is the Chicago Bulls (one of my favourite teams of all time). Derrick Rose (my favourite player) has been an incredible player from the very beginning, and one of the main reasons why their team is so successful without having to acquire star players is because he's one of the few players in the league who has a team building around him. Talking about basketball and their players is like talking about any sport team in general, whether you have star quality players with God-given talent, a team isn't going to be successful if all they have are star-quality players and nothing else, but again, that's arguable. In the case of Miami, they one have 3 players, and not much of anything else, but is that what's going to bring them a championship ring? It didn't work last season, but who knows.
In the case of other teams and the trades that have happened this season, its almost hard not to think that in 3 years or so, the league will be boasting about 6-7 super-teams and nothing else. But that's my thought. Has the league lost all its glory because of their star players' trade preferences and what has been happening? And is it because of "buddy ball?" Does "buddy ball" even exist?
According to Woodson: "I want everyone to know that when it comes to [crunch time] and I have to get a big shot, I'm going to go to Melo and Amar'e and guys who have done it. Not these guys who are young and are still trying to feel their way out." 
I find it quite unfortunate that according to Woodson, other young players and Lin will be benched in place of the 'veteran' players. I understand to the full extent why Woodson would make such a move, but at the same time if you don't give any player time to play on the court, they will never develop into players that "have already done it" because they never got the chance to even try. Lin, who became a starter at the beginning of February and flourished in D'Antoni's pick-and-roll, run-and-gun system, certainly will not play the same kind of starring role in Woodson's defensive-minded game. Unfortunate for such a great player that has developed so quickly. 
