Most basketball players are either long gone from the NBA or buried deep on someone’s bench at 35 years of age. But Steve Nash is showing that his skills are far from gone.
Steve Nash took his time opening night, scoring 15 points of his 24 points in the final quarter leading the Phoenix Suns to an opening night win of the Golden State Warriors. He followed this up with an eye-popping 20 assists in a romp over the Golden Warriors. Is Nash’s performance a mirage in the desert? Is it simply what good point guards do against two lowly Western Conference opponents? Or is this a wake-up call to the rest of the NBA that Nash & the Suns are back?
The Terry Porter experiment was a disaster. The Shaq trade did nothing but relegate the Suns to an also-ran team. Steve Kerr has two strikes. One more and he is out! Returning to the “7 Seconds or Less” philosophy that propelled the Suns to one of the elite teams in the NBA seems to have also woken up Nash.
Amare Stoudemire is back and Jason Richardson returns from suspension soon. Channing Frye mans the post last held by Shaq. Though certainly a downgrade on defense and low-post offense, Channing allows this team to run at max speed. The Brazilian Blur, Leandro Barbosa, is poised to wipe away last year’s disappointing season and return to his fast break ways.
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Is Agent Zero back? This first game of the 2009-10 season would suggest that we may be seeing a renewed, rejuvenated, All-Star level Gilbert Arenas.
Gilbert Arenas scored 29 points in the Washington Wizard’s debut game of the new NBA season. But more importantly, he led one of the worst teams in the league last year (19-63) to a victory over the restocked Dallas Mavericks. Beating a Western Division contender may just be the start for these Wizards.
Scoring has always come easily to Gil. Maybe that’s because he shoots as much as anyone in the league. But digging into the stats, Gil is at his best, and so are the Wizards, when he is dishing the ball. His 9 assists against the Mavs shows that he might be putting the team goals in front of his own. No longer playing for a contract — he’s already got a massive $100m plus deal — Gilbert knows that it is time to win.
Desperate to get to the winning ways of 3 seasons ago, when the ritual was to get ousted in the playoffs every year by LeBron, the Wizards made a slew of off-season moves. An injury to top forward, Antawn Jamison, will slow their progress but it could also accelerate the playing time of new pieces (Foye, Miller, Oberto) and existing talent (Blatche). The return of a stable center in Haywood and a healthy All-Star in Bulter should keep the Wizards sailing.
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Paul Pierce’s nickname is “The Truth”. But can you believe him when he says the Celtics are going to win the NBA title this year?
Here is what Paul Pierce had to say as reported by Yahoo! Sports:
“Before the season even started last year, I was asked, ‘What is going to stop y’all from winning it all?’ ” Pierce said in a phone interview on Thursday. “The first thing I said was, ‘If we’re healthy, we’re going to win it all.’ And I’m going to say it again: ‘If we are healthy, we are going to win it all.’
Looking at their roster top to bottom, it is hard to find any team in the NBA packed with this much talent. Despite losing a hugely undervalued piece in Leon Powe to the Cavs, the addition of Rasheed Wallace makes the Celtics a better team. Also, factor in the ascendancy of Rajon Rondo and the Big Baby Davis, coupled with the Big 3 All-Stars of Pierce, Garnett, and Allen, and you have to think they are the odds on favorites to win.
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Three years ago, Gilbert Arenas was playing as well as anyone in the NBA. Though never rewarded as an MVP, he was on the short list of best players in the NBA and an NBA All-Star. Injuries and knee surgery derailed his surging career.
But new Washington Wizards coach, Flip Saunders, seems to think Arenas is back to full strength. Read his comments, as reported by Yahoo! Sports:
I don’t see any difference as far as the things that he does now that he was doing three years ago, when he was one of the MVP candidates
That is a scary proposition for the rest of the NBA East, even if you consider that the Wizards were embarrassing last year.After Eddie Jordan was fired 11 games into the season, injuries & inconsistent play sent this team spiraling to the bottom-depths of the NBA. But in the last 6 months, the Wizards have significantly upgraded a roster that produced a franchise-low 19 wins last season. Some of it has to do with players returning from injuries — notably Arenas but DeShawn Stevenson & Brendan Haywood were injured much of last season also.
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How is it possible that a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer and potentially the most athletic sub 6-footer in the history of the NBA can’t get a job? Has the NBA changed that much that a one-time scoring champ and a guy that averaged 20+ points just 1 season ago is unwelcome on any team?
If you ask Allen Iverson about his off-season, the “Answer” is YES!
So what happened from to The Answer in 1 season that makes him kryptonite to NBA GMs. Most will tell you it is chemistry. His foray in the Motor City did little to impress, as Iverson was unable to adjust to a smaller role. GMs want no part of a high-profile role-player if he doesn’t want to put the team first. Look at what “stars” have done for the LA Lakers with Lamar Odom coming off the bench; or the Boston Celtics’ Big Three sacrificing their individual numbers for team wins. If Iverson wants to succeed, he will have to adjust.
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How quickly the mighty have fallen. Like the auto companies, Detroit Pistons basketball has gone from a model of efficiency to a barren wasteland. The exodus of aging stars will help their salary cap, but new additions Ben Gordon & Charlie Villanueva will not add wins.
Remember when you could write-in the Detroit Pistons to the Eastern Conference Finals? That was just a few short years back. The nucleus of Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed Wallace, and Antonio McDyees (and one-time All-Star Ben Wallace) made the rough-and-tough Pistons a force in the East. But now, the team has gone in a different direction.
Ben Wallace didn’t feel the love and left for Chicago in 2006. The Pistons held it together as guys like McDyees & Jason Maxiell stepped it up. But desperation (and the beginning of a rebuilding effort) was apparent when team president, Joe Dumars, traded Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson. The move was “supposed” to be for salary cap purposes. Iverson would hang for a year, then be released to free up cap-space for the 2010 bonanza. The unintended effect was that Chauncey was the glue that held the Piston’s ship together. Iverson was an unmitigated disaster and Chauncey spearheaded a revival in Denver.
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