Sometimes I find the evaluation process a little baffling. It’s as if the scouts, GMs and other personnel men simply focus in on what goes on in the combine and workouts and ignore the season. As if they’re drafting players for a decathlon instead of the same five-on-five game these players were playing the previous winter.
Playoff Thoughts
1. Game 4 Fallout: On Thursday the Magic and Lakers played an great Game 4, filled with twists and turns and plenty to buzz about, both good and bad. Here are our observations of the proceedings:
Playoff Thoughts
1. Blown Out: Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Lakes and Magic was really notable for…well nothing. The Lakers destroyed the Magic and effectively held down Dwight Howard as well as anyone we’ve seen so far (including the Celtics). Phil Jackson used his personnel perfectly against Howard. In effort to avoid defensive mismatches with the Magic’s small but quick forwards, Andrew Bynum, Lamar Odom, and Pau Gasol did not play too much together in the game (though that might’ve also been because the game was a blowout early). In any event, Bynum seems much more valuable as a wall to throw at Howard (regardless of how may fouls he picks up), rather than in his conventional role as a full purpose center. There’s no way Howard will be kept this far down again but this doesn’t seem like a great indicator for Orlando for the rest of the series.
Playoff Thoughts
1. Cavs/Magic Aftermath: After Orlando closed out the Cleveland on Saturday, we’ve all been buzzing about what kind of fallout there will be for the Cavs. Before we worry too much about the hysteria we should all recognize that the Magic’s win over the Cavs was convincing and had no hallmarks of a fluke. It is true that coming into the series, the Cavs were the clear favorites. They had the best regular season record and had smoked all playoff competition, while the Magic were pretty good but didn’t exactly dominate Philadelphia or Boston in the first two rounds of the playoffs. Nevertheless, Orlando was both a good team and a bad match up for the Cavs.
NBA Draft Update
This is the quickie, post-lottery mock. I was actually hoping the T’wolves would win the lottery. They were the only potential winner that might have brought some drama to the top pick. But it went to the Clippers who actually might take advantage of this opportunity to end the futility that’s been the trademark of the franchise since leaving Buffalo. I want to say again that the weakness of this draft is pretty much limited to the big men. The perimeter players are actually a pretty deep group. Because of this any drama in this draft will come when teams decide whether to reach for a Thabeet or Hill at picks 3-7, or just draft a solid perimeter prospect.
Re-Considering Wayman
In the last few weeks, the NBA has lost a few interesting characters. The particularly untimely passing was of Wayman Tisdale, the former power forward, who had a decent NBA career after a storied college career. I was actually pretty surprised to see so many nice articles about Tisdale, whose pro career was not great. The near consensus of all the stories I saw was that Tisdale was a great and affable guy, a talented musician, and decent pro (and a great collegian). I thought I’d take a look at Tisdale’s career and see if I could find some nuggets of information that weren’t provided to readers yet.