Rose makes convincing case for MVP

To most viewers watching the Bulls and HEAT the last two weeks, Derrick Rose is now without question the league’s MVP. The Bulls are now 6-2 since the All-Star break with no sight of slowing down. The Bulls have now moved two full games ahead of the HEAT for second place in the Eastern Conference. Derrick Rose’s sound leadership and decisions have brought the Bulls to their best record in over a decade.

Even though he doesn’t have quite the stats that Lebron has, Rose knows what to do to help his team win. Whether it’s making a great pass or going into the lane for an amazing drive, Rose can do it all. He is eighth in the league in scoring, and tenth in assists. He often responded to his coach’s challenges and led the Bulls while Noah sat out two months with an injury.

After the HEAT’s loss to the Blazers tonight Lebron’s chances to win the award have only decreased. Even though he had another great game, his 31points, 11 rebounds and 8 assists weren’t enough to lead the HEAT to victory. Lebron has won the award the last two seasons when his team had the best record in the NBA, or at least the best record in the East. With the HEAT’s latest struggles combined with their upcoming schedule they will likely finish in fourth place. This late season collapse should certainly remove James from the conversation.

The only other person who really has a shot at the MVP trophy besides Rose and James is Howard. He is once again dominating everyone in the paint and proving to the NBA that he is the best center in this league. However, his teammates are light years behind him. Nelson is the only one who is clutch and who can play at an elite level.

Expect even more great games from Rose for the remainder of the season. Out of the Bulls final twenty games only 7 of those games are against playoff teams. They have already cleared the hardest part of their schedule by playing the last six out of eight games on the road. They are only 2 ½ games out of the top spot in the East. They currently have a 27-4 record at home and look to gain home court advantage throughout the playoffs. The last time the Bulls had home court throughout the playoffs was in 1998, the last time they won a championship.

At only twenty-two years old he is already carrying a team on his shoulders. If he wins the MVP this season, it will be one of many he will win throughout his career. He remains fearless of any player which stands between him and the basket. So far the Bulls have had several exciting playoff series with the Cavs and Celtics in years past. Even though they lost to the Cavs in six games last year, it was the Bulls determination and grit to make the playoffs at the end of the regular season which stood out to me. In the Celtics series two years ago, Rose and the Bulls pushed the champs to seven games. These experiences have helped mold Rose into the point guard that he is today. Watch out NBA because Derrick Rose will only get better with every season that passes.

At the start of the NBA’s second half, no teams in position to break Bulls 72 win record

Back in August, ABC commentator Jeff Van Gundy had this to say about the new look Miami HEAT: “They will break the single season win record of seventy-two games.” Now as the second half begins we can see just how far fetched that is.

Scottie Pippen had choice words for Van Gundy calling him a “jackass” for his prediction that the HEAT would break the Bulls regular season record. The Heat are 43-19 and it’s not even April yet. I know HEAT fans will say that they didn’t get close to the record because it’s their first season together. That’s a pathetic excuse. The 2007-2008 Boston Celtics finished the regular season 66-16, and that was the first year Allen, Pierce and Garnett played together.

Because the Heat are taking on three max players in their prime, they have left no cap room to bring in good talent. Their minimum wage role players will never be able to help them get close to the Bulls record. Not now and not ever.

What the Bulls accomplished in the 1995-1996 may never be emulated. It takes 82 games of complete focus and some luck. The Bulls of the mid 1990’s were solid at every position and their players fit into Phil’s triangle offense. If a team has any injuries that will cause them to lose any number of games, they can kiss their shot at the record good-bye.

Look at this season’s Spurs. They were 46-10 coming out of the All-Star break. If they had gone on a twenty-six game winning streak (which would be the second longest all time) they would only match the Bulls record. However last week’s game against Memphis was thought to be a huge blow to the Spurs who lost Tony Parker to injury. He strained his left calf and was expected to be out for 2-4 weeks; however he ended up only missing two games.

The scariest thing about the 1995-1996 Bulls is that three of their losses came by one point. So they had a realistic chance to finish the season at 75-7. No team in the last decade could even dream about that. The 2006-2007 Dallas Mavericks finished at 67-15, and the 2008-2009 Cleveland Cavaliers finished at 66-16. Since the Bulls record setting season, the closest team to finishing with a similar record was the 1996-1997 Bulls at 69-13.

At the beginning of this season it seemed like the Spurs had a remote chance to come close to the record, especially when they were 28-4 through December. Even though they are an extremely well disciplined team, there was simply no way for them to win as often as they needed to. Perhaps one day the Bulls record will be broken, but it’s highly unlikely. They are the only team in NBA history to win 70 games or more, and fifteen years later their record still stands. As an NBA fan it’s important to respect the record because we may never see anything like it again in our lifetime.

Mike Bibby looks to spark the HEAT's weak point

According to AOL’s Sam Amick, recently bought out Wizards point guard, Mike Bibby will take his talents to South Beach. This is a great move for the HEAT, who have struggled to find any kind of consistency at the point guard position all season.

Bibby is best remembered for his days with the Sacramento Kings when he led them to several conference finals vs. the LA Lakers almost ten years ago. He is a clutch shooter, and don’t be surprised if he hits some big shots in the playoffs for the HEAT. He lives for big moments.

Imagine him in a game where the defense collapses on Wade or James, and as they drive to the hoop they kick it out to Bibby for three. That’s money in the bank baby. He is playoff tested and knows exactly what to do in close game situations. Against the Knicks earlier this week Miami looked unsure of how they would set up plays and who would control the offense in the crucial parts of the game. Even if Bibby can’t guard someone like Rondo or Rose, his offensive output will be enough to overshadow that.

Look at the Lakers who have won the last two championships with an aging Derek Fisher starting at point guard. Last year, he averaged only 7.5 points and 2.5 assists while shooting under 40%. He doesn’t have great regular season stats, but he always comes up big for them when they need to make a shot.

Mike should get the starting job almost immediately. Mario Chalmers has had some decent games in the last couple of weeks, but he’s not half the point guard Bibby is. Bibby is a better three point shooter, averages more points per game and more assists than Chalmers. The only thing Chalmers has over Bibby is that he gets more steals per game than Bibby, but that reason alone certainly isn’t enough for him to start.

The HEAT are second in the Eastern Conference with a 43-17 record. With only twenty-two games left, Bibby will help them battle for that precious number one seed against the Celtics and the Bulls. Usually when I see the box score for the HEAT, the big three are the only ones who reach double digits. However, that will become a thing of the past as Bibby will become Miami’s first legitimate role player who can score in double figures consistently.

Miami is still lacking a good big man to complete the last piece of their puzzle, but I read on Hoopsworld that Eddy Curry will be on the way after being bought out by the Minnesota Timberwolves. Apparently he fell so out of favor with Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni that he wasn’t even in game shape because he knew he would never play another game for the Knicks. Now he is seeing his trainer in Chicago trying desperately to get in shape to possibly start at center for the HEAT. Now that’s funny!

Bringing in Bibby is more than enough for the HEAT. Curry is too big of a risk (in more ways than one). But hey look at the bright side, at least now Miami will have an easy scapegoat ready for when they lose in the playoffs.

With two big trades, Oklahoma City becomes a serious championship contender

Right around the trade deadline the Boston Celtics and the Oklahoma City Thunder made an unbelievable trade. The Celtics sent Kendrick Perkins & Nate Robinson to OKC for Jeff Green & Ned Kristic.

Acquiring Perkins and the Bobcats Nazr Mohammed was a slam dunk for the Thunder. They immensely improved their defense with this trade. Perkins is one of the best defensive centers in the league and has a lot of playoff experience. Nazr will be a solid backup and can easily start if Perkins gets hurt.

The Thunder’s starting five will be Westbrook, Selfosa, KD, Ibaka and Perkins. With twenty-seven games to go, the Thunder have a good chance to pass the Lakers and obtain the 3rd seed in the West. They go from being a playoff team to having a real shot at winning the title. They now have the depth to match up with the Lakers, Spurs, and Mavs. And the scariest part is that Durant and Westbrook are only 22 years old! If they can resign Perkins to a long term deal, the Thunder could be a favorite to win the Western Conference for years to come. After all Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, and Kobe Bryant are not getting any younger, and Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Kendrick Perkins have yet to reach the prime of their careers.

On the flip side of the coin it is very hard to see why the Celtics made this move. As TNT’s David Aldrige said, “The Celtics were a team who played tough, nasty defense down low. That was their identity. Now they lost that identity.” He is exactly right. They no longer have the same identity as they did before. Sure Shaq fits in well, but it is quite unrealistic to expect him to stay healthy throughout the playoffs. Jermaine O’Neal has not been good for awhile. As for Nenad Krstic, he can score but he can’t defend or rebound. Those are the two most important ingredients to winning a championship. Who is going to defend Dwight Howard? Shaq is simply too old to keep up with him for an entire series. Even if the Celtics were not able to resign Perkins it’s not an excuse to trade him now. Not when that starting 5 have never lost a playoff series when they are all healthy.

Shortly after the trade many members from both teams were shocked to hear the news. Kevin Garnett described Perkins as being like a brother to him, and the only way he could describe the situation was to say it was “like losing a family member.” Kevin Durant seemed excited for his team to land Perkins and offered him words of encouragement in a text message. It will definitely take some time for all players involved in this trade to adjust to their new teams and find clear roles for themselves, and both teams are hoping that happens before the playoffs.

So watch out Western Conference because that booming sound your hearing is the arrival of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Nuggets fans should write a thank you card to Carmelo Anthony

After all the months leading up to his trade to the New York Knicks, Carmelo Anthony was called every bad name in the book. No one could believe that he was demanding a trade while still under contract with the Nuggets. People said he should just play out his contract and then he could do whatever he wanted in free agency. But, as we look back on this deal I can’t help but think that Carmelo didn’t get enough praise for being honest about what he wanted. Now of course he couldn’t tell the media how he truly felt because he would get fined, but he let management know of his desire to leave and that allowed this deal to happen.

And the deal, by the way, turned out to be pretty darn good for the Nuggets who acquired Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton, Danilo Gallinari, Kosta Koufos and Timofey Mozgov. Every one of those players has upside and they can put up solid numbers. By doing the deal early instead of waiting right until the deadline, the Nuggets could also use those new players in other trades to get various assets which they feel would best suit their team.

Carmelo could have sabotaged the entire deal for the Nuggets by saying he would only play for the Knicks. He could have refused to meet with Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov and minority owner Jay-Z over All-Star weekend. But for the sake of the Denver Nuggets he played along, and remained non-committal after their much hyped meeting. That meeting and the proposed deal by the Nets caused the Knicks to get scared, and offer much more than they were originally willing to give up. Before the reemergence of the Nets in the talks the Knicks never intended to include Felton, Gallinari, or Mozgov in a deal for Melo.

Nuggets fans probably still have some contempt for Melo, but that should have already begun to disappear after a great win Tuesday night by the new look Nuggets. Even though they lack a superstar for the time being things could be worse, they could be the Cavs. You know Cavs and Raptors fans have to be envious of the great package Denver got for Anthony. As everyone knows the Cavs and Raptors were left with largely worthless assets when their superstars bolted for the white sand of South Beach. ESPN’s J.A. Adande puts it best:

“The Cavs and Raptors made last-minute sign-and-trade deals for picks and trade exceptions, but those are just possibilities and cap space. The Nuggets have more tangible assets.”

During these last six months Anthony was also portrayed as being greedy for wanting to sign his three year extension, instead of waiting for free agency where he was bound to lose millions of dollars. Some people said he should give up the money just like Lebron did when he went to the Miami HEAT. With his new extension, Melo will make$ 21.6 million a year. Since he will live in New York he must pay a 7.7% state income tax on that money which would be something around $1.6 million. After taxes his salary will be about $19.9 million. Since Lebron signed with Miami he doesn’t have to pay state income tax in Florida. He makes $19.2 million a year. So is Anthony really being that greedy if he’s making just $700,000 more than Lebron?

Over the summer, after Melo saw the backlash from Cavs fans towards James, he probably thought that he should tell the Nuggets front office asap that he wanted out of Denver. I think he just never imagined that the trade process would take so long and that so many fans would turn on him for having the guts to tell his team he did not see them in his future. He did the right thing, and now his former team’s rebuilding process will be much easier thanks to the good players they were able to acquire for him.

So Nuggets fans get out your pens and start writing because I know thousands of people in Cleveland and Toronto who would die to be in your shoes.

The biggest threat to the Celtics this is year? That’s right it’s DA Bulls

For the past three years almost, it seems that almost no team has been able to stop the Boston Celtics. With three conference titles in two years, they have at times seemed invincible against their conference foes. But each year brings new challenges and threats to their Eastern conference supremacy. This year’s biggest threat to the Boston Celtics isn’t Dwight Howard and the Magic. It’s not Lebron and the Heat. It’s the Chicago Bulls along with their defensive wizard Tom Thibodeau (long time Celtics assistant).

Since posting a 38-16 record and a third place conference standing at the All-Star break, the Bulls are having their best start since a certain number 23 used to play at the United Center. The Bulls opponents continue to be at the mercy of their stingy defense which has held the opposition to a 42% FG% and a measly 33% from behind the arc. The Bulls have been able to put up these impressive numbers without their leading rebounder and shot blocker, Joakim Noah who has been sidelined for the last two months due to a torn ligament in his right thumb. They remain only two games out of first place in the Eastern Conference.

Bulls fans are salivating at the prospect that their team will finally be at full strength after the All Star break when Noah returns to action against the Raptors on February 23rd. His timing could not be better as the Bulls will be on the road for seven of their next nine games. Five of those teams are playoff teams, and to truly become an elite team the Bulls must improve their road record. In order to win in the playoffs teams must win on the road, unless you’re the 2008 Boston Celtics who only won three road games on their quest to a seventeenth NBA championship. The Bulls have a mediocre road record at 13-12, and must become road warriors in the second half of the season if they are to capture home court advantage throughout the playoffs.

The Bulls biggest weakness is at shooting guard, and it is possible that they will make a move to acquire a talented shooter and defender before Thursday’s trade deadline. They should preferably seek someone long who can defend players such as Dwayne Wade, Jason Richardson, Ray Allen and Kobe Bryant. In the 2008 playoffs James Posey wasn’t the Celtics most well known guard, but he could make a three when needed and he thoroughly harassed Kobe Bryant in the NBA finals. A James Posey type shooting guard would fit well into the Bulls offense, and would be able to score easily when Rose or Boozer bring the double team.

The Bulls host the Celtics for a final regular season meeting on April 7th, in what could be a sneak preview of this year’s Eastern Conference finals. If the Bulls end up with the second or third seed and the Celtics remain in first, the Bulls could beat the Heat to advance to the ECF. This week’s game vs. the Heat will be a good measuring stick for the Bulls, and they can cement their elite status in the conference by getting back to back wins against the Heat with a victory on Thursday. Many people seem to overlook the Bulls as second round fodder to the Heat, but that is simply not true. Not when the Heat’s major weaknesses play to the Bulls biggest strengths. The Heat do not have a legitimate point guard or center and need significant production from those two positions to have a chance vs. the Bulls. Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah will give the Heat all they can handle. The Heat also lack a decent bench, and vs. the Bulls, the Heat’s subs simply can’t matchup with Watson, Brewer, Korver and Gibson. As good as the big three are they will have to average somewhere around 25pts each in a series against the Bulls to have a chance. This is highly unlikely because in the playoffs the game will slow down, resulting in the Heat having fewer possessions and thus fewer shots for their star players.
Thibodeau’s elaborate defensive schemes will wear down the Heat’s big three and eventually they will simply be too fatigued to win a seven game series against the Bulls. In a series against the Celtics the Bulls would match up well as they are one of the only teams who can rival the Celtics big bodies. Once Doc Rivers greatest ally, Thibodeau will become his greatest enemy.

What kind of success the Bulls have in the playoffs, and for the second half of the season will ultimately be determined by this week’s trade deadline. For now Bulls fans will just have to sit tight and wait and see what moves Paxton can pull off, in what seems like the longest week of the NBA season. Tick tock, tick tock, as everyone waits for Thursday at 3 o clock.

As Kings punish Cousins, Rockets need to give them a way out

Demarcus Cousins is at it again. This time he got in a fight with teammate Donte Green after the Kings loss to the Thunder on Saturday night. After the altercation the team suspended him for one game, and he was unable to travel with the team to Phoenix.

This certainly isn’t the first time Cousins has rustled some feathers in his own locker room, and it won’t be the last either. At just twenty years old, Cousins has obvious behavioral and maturity issues. That’s why the Kings even went out of their way to put his high school coach on their staff, to help ease him into the NBA. That has worked with mixed results.

With the trade deadline a week away, will the Kings really keep Cousins? Ask now and any Kings official will tell you that he will not be moved. However, he would seem to have the highest trade value on the team. After all, Kevin Martin was traded to the Rockets during last year’s deadline even though the Kings said that they would not trade him so that he could compliment Tyreke Evans in the backcourt.

Instead of worrying about Cousins next tantrum, the Kings could trade him for a player they have been coveting for the last three years: Aaron Brooks. That would make the Kings have an extremely quick back court in Evans and Brooks. Paul Westphal could move Aaron back to his natural two guard position, and could mold him into a similar version of Allen Iverson (an undersized two who can score at will). Brooks lead the league in threes last year, and is finally starting to find his shot again after coming back from an ankle injury that sidelined him for 24 games earlier this season.

No matter how immature Cousins is, the Rockets are starving for a big man with his talent and size. As he gets older he is bound to mature, both as person and as a player. Putting Cousins in a locker room with a group of savvy veterans could completely change his mindset. When the Rockets acquired Ron Artest from the Kings three years ago, people worried how his unpredictable personality would fit into to such a no nonsense team. In the end he flourished and helped lead the Rockets to their first playoffs series victory in more than a decade. Rick Adelman can coach anyone, and he certainly could mesh better with Cousins than Paul Westphal ever will.

The Rockets could combine this deal with another for Artest which I mentioned in a previous post. Artest looks frustrated in LA, and a return to the Rockets could be just what he needs. Due to Ron’s turbulent past and issues with immaturity during his younger years in the league, he would be a perfect mentor for Cousins. Artest has been there and done that, and hopefully Cousins will understand that he must change his attitude to not only help the team but also himself.

By trading the expiring contract of Jared Jeffries for Ron Artest and Brooks for Cousins, the Rockets would get back a lot of talent without giving up that much. If the Rockets could become successful with an Artest /Cousins combo, Adelman should consider becoming a professional mediator after he retires.