The NBA All-Defensive Team was announced today. This is an award voted on by all of the league's coaches. Here's my opinion on their selections:
Kobe Bryant: There is no doubt that he can lock down on defense when he wants to. But does he put forth the effort all game long? If you watch a lot of Laker games, you can see Kobe "take off" certain possessions on defense, ala Randy Moss. But when he wants to turn it on, he's about as good as it gets on the defensive end. So I can't argue this selection.
Kevin Garnett: A no-brainer. Last year, Boston had a mediocre (at best) defense. This year, they were probably the best in the league. What changed between last year and this? Kevin Garnett (no, Ray Allen did not help their team defense). The Celtics defense has become a quick and swarming machine, and Garnett is at the hub. James Posey deserves a mention for Boston's improvement as well.
Bruce Bowen: I thought Bruce took a small step backwards this year. He is still one of the best perimeter defenders in the game, just slightly less quick. He is still deserving of this honor. It's great to see that the coaches around the league still hold him in such high regard, despite the bad-mouthing he receives from so many fans. The only reason that fans don't appreciate Bowen for all he does? He's not on their team.
Marcus Camby: Last year's defensive player of the year deserves a spot, right? Nope. Camby has always been a great weak-side help defender. But his strong suit has never been guarding anyone 1-on-1. He plays for arguably the WORST defensive team in the league. Yet he's up for defensive first team? I don't buy it, and neither should anyone else. Marcus, help to hold your opponents under 100 on occasion, then call me. I would have voted in Shane Battier, long before Camby.
Tim Duncan: I'm slightly amazed that Duncan has received this honor yet again. Not because he doesn't deserve it, but because he puts his game on cruise control for the regular season. As evidenced by the Phoenix series, and his last two healthy games versus New Orleans, there isn't a better defender in the paint than the Big Fundamental. Kudos to the NBA coaches for recognizing Timmy's defensive prowess, even when he's just going through the motions of the 82 game haul.
Michael Vick is speaking out against the anti-dog fighting crowd. Someday they'll come around and fight dogs like everyone else.
Pac-Man Jones is speaking out against laws in general. Who's got time to earn millions of dollars when there is anarchy waiting to be created?
Kobe Bryant is rebelling against adulthood. Who needs it? Just act like a child every day and you'll never feel old.
Jason Giambi is speaking up about doing certain things that you shouldn't do. Things that are bad and can't be named. You know..."that stuff".
Michelle Wie is rebelling against sexism in golf. Women deserve to play on the same tour as men. Isn't it obvious with her domination of the women's tour that she deserves...errrrr...wait a sec...
Sports media has taken a stand against any sport that is not football. Basketball and hockey? Borrrrriinnnnnnnnggggg. Baseball? Tainted with steroids! We can’t trust these stats! Football? Look at all these awesome sacks by Shawne Merriman! He’s got my pro-bowl vote!
Anderson Varejao has dispelled the myth that athletes cannot be good actors too.
J.R. Smith has rebelled against seat-belts and stop signs. Too soon?
Vince Young has proven to the sports world that you don’t have to be “Smarter Than a 5th Grader” to make it as an NFL quarterback. When did football fans believe that NFL players were intelligent to begin with? When Houston passed on Young on draft day, he could be heard mumbling under his breath, “Wonderlic my balls”.
Barbaro, the horse that won hearts all over the country, has ended the tradition of putting a horse down when it severely breaks it’s leg. Instead, the common practice will now be to keep the horse alive as long as possible, no matter how much pain it is in, and harvest as much sperm as you can before it dies. Here’s the equation:
Fast Horse’s Sperm > Horse Ethics
Speaking of Barbaro, Chad Johnson has proven that humans can beat horses in a foot-race. (That is, of course, if the human in question gets a wicked long head start). So while Ali was fighting the government during Vietnam, who was out there racing the quadrupeds? Who, I ask you!
Because nobody is paying attention to him or talking about him.
Like most everyone else in the NBA, he is an observer of the playoffs at this point. He's seeing LeBron, 'Sheed, Booze, Deron, and Timmy getting talked about on Sportscenter every night. That used to be him. If there is anything that Kobe Bryant loves more than winning, it's being the center of attention (part of the reason Shaq is in Miami). So now we've got this man-child demanding a trade. I believe it's partly because he wants to play for a contender, but moreso because he wants people to pay attention to him and talk about him. Kobe needs his ego to be fed more than any superstar in basketball today.
I expect this issue to cool off over the next week, once Kobe has been satisfied with the amount of media attention he has gotten. He'll be in a Laker uniform next season.
In my opinion, Kobe deserves the 1 game suspension he received for his elbow to the face of Manu Ginobli.
Anyone who claims that the contact was a total accident isn't being objective. All you need to do is ask yourself when the last time was that you saw Kobe throw his arm out like that after having his shot blocked. The answer is never. He may not have known who it was that blocked it, but he did know the direction the pressure came from, and lashed out after he was blocked.
If it was any other top 10 star player, I'd probably give him a pass. But this is the guy that downplayed a brilliant performance by Gilbert Arenas earlier in the year when it upstaged his own game. This is the guy that minutes earlier was punching the air and bltching at refs for an uncalled "foul" while the ball was still in play and precious seconds were counting down, as the rest of his team was still playing and trying to win the game. (Thanks to Radmonovic, who kept his head on the game and not his individual glory, the Lakers stayed alive with his 3 pointer). And you could see Kobe pouting on his way back to the bench after the game-tying 3-pointer. He may have been happy that a teammate tied the game, but he was plssed that it wasn't his 3, or "and 1", that tied the game. This character trait is the same reason that he says that he'd rather have a superstar carreer with no championships like Barkley, than a role-playing carreer with lots of championships, as Robery Horry has.
Which brings me to my final point. When Kobe's final shot was slyly blocked from behind, I believe Kobe was frustrated that someone had the nerve to try and stop him from being great. And the whipping of his arm was as if to say, "Get these insects away from me. Don't they know who I am?" I know who he is. Do you?
I'm a Syracuse basketball fan and have loved Carmelo Anthony as a basketball player every since his freshmen year at the school. Forget the fact that he showed up in "Stop Snitchin", a DVD aimed at police informants who rat out the criminal element. I let that slide. This guy just sucker punched a fellow basketball player, and promptly backpedalled himself to safety. Whether it was a sucker punch or not is debateable, but you can't say that Collins could be expecting a punch at that point of the melee. If he so strongly felt the need to defend his teammate, sure, go ahead and throw the punch. If you REALLY need to throw it, go for it and face the consequences. But DO NOT throw that bunch and run away like a little b*tch. I have now lost all respect for the guy.
With Kobe being a possible raplst, Dwyane Wade and 'Melo were the brightest stars in the NBA's future. Now Wade stands alone as the main star that kids can look up to in the NBA.
This blogger is a New Yorker, born and raised. I'm a huge sports fan, following pretty much every major sport out there. Sadly, this does not include hockey, NASCAR, or boxing. Hockey lost my affection during the lockout, NASCAR is not a sport, and boxing has become incredibly boring since the dawn of MMA. If you want to talk football, baseball, basketball, or MMA, then I'm your man. I could also debate NASCAR with anyone, but we would probably end up just going around in circles...
