Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics has been named this year’s Defensive Player of the Year.
Arguably the player who inflated the salaries of NBA players, Kevin Garnett was the second legitimate player to go from high school straight to the pros (Moses Malone would be the first). The #5 pick in the 1995 draft, Garnett played his high school ball at Farragut Academy, another high school legend in Chicago.
San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginobili was the clear choice as the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year, gathering 615 out of a possible 620 points. Ginobili led the defending champion Spurs with scoring with 19.5 ppg, and provided a powerful spark off the bench. Ginobili started only 23 of the 74 regular season games he played in, shooting a solid 46% from the field, 40% from downtown, and 86% at the free-throw line.
The NBA deserves a nice pat on the back for their “Where Amazing Happens” slogan and commercials. “I love this game!” and “It’s fan-tastic!” were admirably cheesy, but “Where Amazing Happens” blown out the competition. How many other sports league have built up an incredibly well-branded slogan in just one year?
Hundreds, if not thousands, of spoof videos have shown up on YouTube. Some are serious, but some are humorous. Most lay somewhere in between. While some of these videos (see below) are hardly supportive of David Stern and the NBA, they should be giving some PR guy a raise.
The NBA draft is still three months away, but the top lottery picks are already starting to rise to the top. The NCAA features another handful of fabulous freshman this season, many of which will be “one-and-dones.” Among the players likely to jump up to the NBA next season include O.J. Mayo, Kevin Love, and Michael Beasley.
So if college basketball seems a little bit too structured for you, enjoy the highlights of this always-sloppy McDonald’s All-American game.
Chuck Hayes, for your information, shoots 15% better from the field than from the free throw line. He is not the most intimidating shotblocker, rebounder, or shooter (his F, but Chuck Hayes deserves some credit for a skill few NBA players take time to refine: creating lane violations.
On the other hand, getting a second try isn’t all that valuable when you’re shooting at a 38% clip.
-
One year ago today, Kobe Bryant poured 81 points on the Toronto Raptors. Sure, he took 46 shots, but when you convert on more than 50% of your field goals and three-pointers, and lead your team back from an 18-point deficit to a convincing victory — who can deny that Bryant’s effort matches that of Wilt Chaimberlain’s 100-point monument 45 years ago.
Kobe Bryant, by no means the most humble player in the NBA, couldn’t believe his accomplishment.
“It really hasn’t, like, set in for me. It’s about the ‘W,’ that’s why I turned it on. It turned into something special. To sit here and say I grasp what happened, that would be lying.”
January 22, 2006, saw an impressive record fall in another game. The Seattle Sonics and Phoenix Suns combined for 301 points in a double-overtime game that broke the combined record for three-pointers in a game, and was the most points scored in one game for over 10 years.
Informative thought: Shopping for golf accessories is quite a feat. You will find golf clubs from one corner of the town, and your perfect golf shoes from another.
