Category: General NBA insight

The West is far superior to the East this year. That in no way guarantees that this year’s champions will come from that conference.

The East only has two true championship contenders right now, the Celtics and Pistons. The Magic and Cavs can be mentioned in Eastern conference finals conversations, and it’s certainly possible either of those teams could reach the league Finals, but neither is presumed to be on a championship level.

So what if the Celtics, Pistons or someone else does beat the Spurs, Suns, Mavericks, Rockets, Jazz, Hornets or Lakers in the finals? Should it count?

Of course, it does have to count, but to be fair, perhaps whichever team wins the Western conference finals should be crowned this year’s champion, and whoever comes out of the East gets a handshake, a cookie, and one of those gold stars given to schoolchildren when they tie their shoes correctly.

The InsideHoops.com basketball blog focuses almost entirely on the NBA, with some stuff on international, streetball and other men’s basketball, but when big WNBA news breaks I will occasionally mention it here.

Sue Bird is very cute, and a terrific pro basketball player, and her Seattle Storm WNBA team has re-signed her to a multi-year deal. This keeps her alongside Lauren Jackson. But the Storm are also loading up on other legends and have added Swin Cash and Sheryl Swoopes, two other stars that pretty much all basketball fans, whether they follow the NBA or not, know about.

In other words, watch Seattle Storm games this upcoming WNBA season.

More info on the re-signing of Sue Bird is here.

Hi. I’m Jeff. I run InsideHoops.com. Everyone who works in basketball or sports publicity who has heard of the internet knows about this website. We’re one of the world’s leading sports websites. And if we yell about something, word spreads, and directly or indirectly everyone who follows basketball closely quickly hears about it. Either by reading InsideHoops.com, or hearing from a friend who does, or reading a newspaper or another big website who heard about it because we said it, etc. etc. etc.

And now, my point. And yes, there is one, aside from reminding everyone that InsideHoops has a massive and extremely influential readership: No one promoting Semi-Pro got in touch with us to see a media screening of the movie before it came out.

I’ve seen literally every single basketball movie or documentary weeks in advance, for years now. All of them. Except Semi-Pro. Why is this?

Heck, just a few days ago I saw a screening of a basketball film I’m not allowed to even talk about it. Almost no sports media members have seen it yet, other than a select few. It’s terrific and you’ll hear about it in the near future.

Well, I just went to RottenTomatoes, and checked out the Semi-Pro reviews. And they’re awful. That site counted 109 reviews (none of which seem to be from anyone who works in basketball — it’s as if only “regular” movie reviewers got to see the film in advance) and it got a ranking of 25 percent. That’s out of 100. That’s very bad.

So, do PR people know the movie stinks? And therefore did they avoid inviting people like me in advance, because they didn’t want me to tell you it sucked?

And, I went to some basketball magazine websites, and a few of the big TV network-owned sites, and I don’t see any reviews of the movie. Just promotional stuff.

Anyway, I’m not saying a single bad word about the movie. Maybe it’ll be fun. Just saying, if InsideHoops isn’t seeing an advance screening of a basketball movie, then it’s quite likely that either the movie stinks, or the company needs to hire new PR people.

If the playoffs started today, the Celtics, Pistons, Magic and Raptors would have home-court advantage in the East. The bottom four current playoff teams in the conference are the Cavaliers, Wizards, Nets and 76ers.

Close to qualifying for the East playoff spots are the Hawks and Bulls. It’s also possible that the Bucks or Pacers sneak in. On paper I could see those first three teams making it happen. The Pacers don’t seem poised to suddenly improve.

At the bottom of the East are the Bobcats, Knicks and Heat.

Out West, the top four current playoff seeds are the Lakers, Spurs, Hornets and Jazz. They’d have home-court if the post-season began today. The other four teams are the Suns, Mavericks, Rockets and Warriors.

With Yao Ming out for the season it’s quite possible Houston falls out of the post-season.

Very close to qualifying for the playoffs are the Nuggets, just half a game out of the #8 spot held by the Warriors.

The entire West seeding is up for grabs. Although they should fall, the Rockets, at #7, are only 3.5 games behind the Lakers at #1. It’s amazing how close and awesome the competition is.

The Trail Blazers, who did so well earlier in the season, have an outside shot at making the playoffs if several squads mentioned above suddenly forget how to play. If Portland had it in them to dominate for stretches of the season already, maybe they can do it again.

TNT NBA studio analyst Charles Barkley, who provides analysis on the Emmy-Award winning Inside the NBA studio show alongside Emmy-winning host Ernie Johnson and co-analyst Kenny ‘The Jet’ Smith, has agreed to a multi-year contract extension. As part of the agreement Barkley will continue to work exclusively for the network on TNT NBA Thursdays, TNT’s 40 games. 40 night’s playoff schedule, NBA All-Star Weekend and the network’s exclusive Conference Finals coverage. With the new agreement, which begins with the 2008-09 NBA season, the 2006 Basketball Hall of Famer inductee will also make a number of appearances on the jointly managed NBA TV.

“Charles is one of the most engaging personalities in sports and entertainment today, and we are proud to that he will continue to call TNT his television home for a number of years to come,” said David Levy, president of Turner Broadcasting Sales, Inc. and Turner Sports.  “As we embark on exciting new challenges next season with NBA TV, we look forward to relaunching the network next season featuring numerous appearances by one of our signature announcers.”

Barkley is in his eighth season as an NBA analyst for TNT, having played 16 seasons in the NBA before retiring following the 1999-2000 season. He was an 11-time NBA All-Star, 1993 NBA League MVP, two-time Olympic gold medal winner (1992, 1996) and was voted one the 50 greatest players in NBA history.

On the front page of InsideHoops.com, if you scroll down, you’ll see a poll I posted late Monday night, asking for the top three most deserving MVP candidates.

The players I chose to include are: Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Chris Paul, LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Steve Nash, and Manu Ginobili. And for good measure I added ‘other’ in case any of you feel there’s a better candidate out there that is worthy of being in the top three.

Now, go vote in the poll.

The Austin Toros announced today that they traded forward Justin Reed to the Bakersfield Jam for guard Andre Barrett.

Reed, a 6-8 forward out of Mississippi averaged 14.5 points and six rebounds in 15 games with the Toros this season.

Barrett, a 5-10 guard from Seton Hall averages 19 points, three rebounds, and eight assists per game.  Barrett will wear jersey #4 and is expected to play Friday when the Toros take on Fort Wayne at the Austin Convention Center.

5th Anniversary

02/28/03: The New York Knicks retire Patrick Ewing’s No. 33.

03/05/03: Kobe Bryant became the youngest player in NBA history to score 10,000 points.

10th Anniversary

02/25/98: Bill Fitch passed Red Auerbach (938) to become at the time the second-winningest coach in NBA history with a 117-108 win over Philadelphia.

02/27/98: The Indiana Pacers defeat the Portland Trail Blazers 124-59. The 65-point margin of victory is the second-largest in NBA history, outpaced only by the 68-point margin when Cleveland defeated Miami 148-80 on December 17, 1991.

03/01/98: Miami head coach Pat Riley became the fifth coach to record 900 career wins with a 85-84 win over New Jersey.

03/04/98: Arbitrator John Feerick upheld the NBA’s suspension of Latrell Sprewell for the 1997-98 season, resulting in a monetary penalty of $6.4 million, finding that the NBA’s investigation was “done in good faith and was fair and adequate.” Feerick also found “that the NBA complied with the standards of industrial due process.” He reduced the NBA’s suspension to the extent it had included approximately one month of the 1998-99 season. However, the arbitrator reinstated Sprewell’s contract with Golden State for the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 seasons, finding that the combination of a one-season suspension and a contract termination would not be appropriate under all of the circumstances.

15th Anniversary

03/02/93: Denver retired the #7 jersey of long-time Nugget Alex English, who spent 10 1/2 of his 15 years in the NBA in the Mile High City, scoring a career total of 25,613 points.

20th Anniversary

03/02/88: The flaming basketball is adopted as Miami’s official logo from over 1,000 entries. Mark Henderson submitted the winning entry.

25th Anniversary

03/05/83: Golden State’s Joe Barry Carroll scored 52 points in a 127-121 Warriors victory over the Utah Jazz.

The NBA trade deadline was today (February 21) and several deals are official. They are listed below and include exact details of each trade. Click each link.

Sonics, Cavaliers, Bulls trade moves Larry Hughes, Donyell Marshall, Ben Wallace, Wally Szczerbiak

Rockets trade Bonzi Wells, Mikes James to Hornets for Bobby Jackson; Grizzlies involved in trade, too

Raptors trade Juan Dixon to Pistons for Primoz Brezec and cash

Nuggets trade Von Wafer to Trail Blazers for Taurean green

Timberwolves trade Gerald Green to Rockets for Kirk Snyder, draft pick

The Rocky Mountain News (Chris Tomasson) reports: Denver also had looked into acquiring Memphis point guard Kyle Lowry, but his agent, Andy Miller, said Wednesday his client is “staying put.” Point guards who could be had include Seattle’s Delonte West and the Clippers’ Sam Cassell. A source said Memphis also isn’t planning to deal forward Mike Miller, who has been linked to Denver.