Who will win?

With the national championship tomorrow I thought it only made sense to give a little insight on the game. There are some hidden factors that I think could help Kansas. The first thing that I think will help Kansas is the experience. Last year most of this great Kentucky team was sitting in a high school classroom while Kansas is much older and I think may be better able to handle the pressure. After looking at the great season that Kentucky has they have only won two close games, against North Carolina and Tennessee. This does two things shows how dominant Kentucky is, it also shows that they are not used to playing close games. If Kansas is able to hang around Kentucky could be in trouble, but is Kansas good enough to hang around?



I would have to say yes, sure Kentucky is loaded with talent, but Kansas has a guy named Thomas Robinson who is not so bad himself. Kansas creates two interesting match ups in the post. Jeff Withey who is listed at 7 foot 235 pounds will make for a good match up to Davis. Davis is known for his great show blocking, but Withey averages 3.6 blocks. The other match up inside is obviously Robinson and Terrance Jones if the match up falls that way. I think this is the best match up favoring Kansas. Robinson is a beast down low. Robinson and Withey can help prevent offensive rebounds for Kentucky and limit them to one shot.

Kentucky has the upper hand at the shooting guard and small forward position however. Lamb and Micheal Kidd-Gilchrist are tall guard type players and Releford being Kansas bigger perimeter player is still giving up a couple inches. The final match up I think Kansas has an advantage in Taylor vs Teague. I think Teague is a good player, but he is the one that plays most like a freshman. Taylor being the older player could expose this and Taylor is a good scorer.

I am not sure who will win here are some match ups and factors that could change the outcome of the game who do you like in this match up and why?

Dream Team Vs Redeem Team

One of my friends suggested and requested I tackle this topic so I will do my best.

First of all stats for the two teams are for the most part irrelevant because the level of competition that is playing around the world today is much tougher than the opponents that the Dream Team faced so we can through out points per game, all around offensive and defensive statistics.

I understand that the Dream Team was full of amazing players, but the Redeem team had their fair share of great players too. So lets start matching up starters.

Dream Team starters Magic, Jordan, Bird, Barkley, and Ewing

Redeem Team starters Kidd, Bryant, James, Anthony, and Howard

Right away there are are a couple match-up issues with both teams and it would come down to who decided to guard who. Kidd would struggle guarding anyone one the court but, the same could be said for an older Larry Bird. By position Bird would guard LeBron and that would not be great for the Dream Team. Bryant and Jordan is mostly a push. the Dream team would need to start Pippen to try to guard LeBron with little success. Anthony and Barkley would struggle guarding each other Barkley is too strong for Melo, but Melo would pull Barkley away from the hoop and beat him off the dribble. Howard vs Ewing is a tough battle Howard I think has the size to play with another older player.



The bench for the Redeem team is much deeper at guard and could put in a more threatening guard such as Paul or Williams while Stockton was the back up point guard and had a leg injury during Barcelona. Creating an advantage for the Redeem Team.

The Dream team is much deeper in the post with Malone and Robinson. This would create trouble for Howard if he fouls and none of the Power Forwards for the Redeem team match up against the size and strength of the Dream Team.

Some issues I have with the match up are things like people saying Micheal Jordan would not accept defeat this is not an argument this is something that people who live in the past and were obsessed with the older generation of players say. Kobe has the same killer instinct as Jordan that argument is a push. Another thing is people think of these older players in their prime people forget to understand that Ewing, Stockton, and Bird where all either old and not in their prime or injured. Other people forget the fact that Magic Johnson won of the key factors had not played basketball in a year and was almost 33 years old.

The issue with the argument is neither team was built to play each other. The 2012 team appears to make more sense for comparisons sake and the 2012 team would have more than one true center and add some great point guards and a guy named Kevin Durant

I am bias I understand, but I am going to have to go with the Redeem Team because their speed and athleticism would create so many problems for some of the older players on the Dream Team meaning 3 of the Dream Team starters would have limited minutes. Dwight can play with the big men of the Dream Team, but chanced are he would foul out giving the Dream Team a great shot.

Despite my decision both teams are full of great players and as much as everyone would want to see this match up it will not happen. Please feel free to comment and let me hear what you think. This is my opinion on the match up and I am not a professional so let me hear your opinions.

Trades

I will take a look at some trades and my opinion on how they could affect some of the teams involved. Saying what players and teams are winners and losers in some of the deals.

First I will start with the trade between the Wizards, Nuggets, and the Clippers. This deal sent JaVale McGee and Ronnie Turiaf to the Nuggets while the Wizards got NeNe, Brian Cook and a future first round draft Pick. The Clippers got Nick Young. I think the winning teams in this deal would be the Nuggets and the Clippers. The Nuggets get a young center in McGee who is great in the paint, less scoring than NeNe, but a great shot blocker and rebounder.


The Clippers get Nick Young a young guard who was averaging 16.6 points a game for the Wizards. I think the Wizards would be a loser in this deal, they have no idea where their first round draft pick will be. They did get the best player in my opinion, but they gave up some youth on a young team that I thought could be good in a couple of years. Adding the age and experience of NeNe could be what the young team needed however.

My Favorite trade Is between the Bucks and the Warriors. The Warriors get Stephen Jackson and Andrew Bogut. The Bucks get Monta Ellis Epke Udoh and Kwame Brown. The Bucks give Jennings a lot of help with the scoring by adding Monta Ellis at the shooting guard position while also adding big man Udoh who does not have great stats, but is a good shot blocker and will get much better with the minutes. The Warriors may have not got the players that they wanted they added some depth. The Warriors turned around and traded Jackson to the Spurs for Richard Jefferson and T.J Ford and a future first round pick.

I think the overall winner was the Warriors during this trading time. They added some players that will be able to help their team right away while getting draft picks that will help them reload for the future. A player that I feel lost was NeNe he was a good players on a good team and now he is a good player on one of the worst teams. His stats my increase due to the Wizards needing him to try to carry them he will not be making the playoffs anytime soon from how the Wizards have been looking.

These are just my opinions on a couple of the trades so let me know what you think about some of the deals.

March Madness

It is that time of year, March Madness so I am going to take a break from the NBA and talk college basketball. The conference tournaments are over and some teams are going into the games extremely hot. One team that just after watching several times that I think could make some noise is Vanderbilt. They are a five seed in the east region. They proved they can hang with anyone beating Kentucky in the conference championship, which I thought was an amazing game. They would have to get through Syracuse eventually if they wanted to continue to New Orleans which is do-able for this squad.

Whoever comes out of the south region will be battle tested, in my opinion that region is stacked. I like Baylor over Duke to possibly play Kentucky in the elite 8. Baylor has been a streaky team but, their athleticism may be too much for Duke and with a win over Duke it could be the jump start to give Baylor a spark to make its way to the Final Four.

Another hot team is Missouri I have seen several games where they have played Baylor and Kansas and wonder how Missouri with a 4 guard line-up can win. A simple answer is they shoot the ball. With 4 guards there is plenty of shooters to find on a drive and kick. This team will go as far as their hot shooting can take them which could be into the final four.

Interesting thing in the Midwest region. If North Carolina and Creighton win their first games they will be matched up against each other. The interesting part is it puts former teammates against each other, Doug McDermott and Harrison Barnes. Both played together on the State Championship team Ames in Iowa.



This division could be dominated by the top two seeds in Kansas and North Carolina. This blog post was really random but, thought I would share some things that I thought are possible during the greatest time in sports. Let me know who you think could be a sleeper or who you have in your Final Four.

LeBron vs Kobe

Alright I am going to do my best to tackle this topic and hopefully spark some more comments. The debate between who is better has been going on since LeBron entered the league. Truthfully it is an unfair comparison in my opinion. They are two different types of players. I would rather have LeBron James on my team for a whole season, but I would rather have Kobe on my team for a must win game. The two compare like this, during LeBron's career he averages 27.7 points, 7.2 rebounds, 7 assits, 1.7 steals, and .8 blocks. While Kobe averages 25.4 points, 5.3 rebounds, 4.7 assits, 1.5 steals, and .5 blocks.

One could easily look at statistics and say LeBron is a better player, then the championship talk comes into play. Kobe has 5 championships while LeBron has yet to win a ring. Much can be said to the quality of teams that each player played on and I will leave that to the readers to decide. LeBron is still a young player and until last year with Bosh and Wade has not played with great talent like Kobe has for all of his career.



After watching today's game Miami vs Lakers I realized Kobe is almost an unstoppable scorer and impossible to guard when he is hitting his turn around jumper. I also realized how much of a all around player Lebron is. LeBron was guarding Pau Gasol a 7 footer. LeBron was doing more than holding his own guarding the much taller player.You may have noticed I have not really said who is better and that is because they are not very comparable. Kobe is a shooting guard that does not often hang out in the paint for rebounds and it is not his job because he has played with several 7 footers. LeBron is a big strong hybrid type of player that can play about anywhere on the court and often has the ball in his hands which can create more assists and plays for other people.

As a basketball fan that is not an expert I would say that LeBron is the better overall player because he fills the stat sheet, but Kobe is the better scorer because he can flat out shoot the ball. So with that said let me hear your input on these two players. I am just excited to possibly see them on the court together again in the Olympics.

Statistics retrieved from ESPN.Com

Dunk Contest

I know I talked about dunking last week, but in game dunking is completely different than the creativity needed to dunk in a dunk contest. I have followed the dunk contest for probably 10 years and the dunk contest has been on the decline. In my opinion the dunk contest is on the decline because of the lack of star power in the dunk contest. Many casual basketball fans would not have known any of the dunkers last night. Despite the lack of star power in the dunk contest 3 million votes were cast. However, the voting could have been a little off because there are ways that people could have voted multiple times. This year the champion was also crowned strictly by fan voting. During the dunk contest tweets were already appearing on ways the dunk contest could be improved the dunk contest used to be what the best players wanted to be in. Now it is more of a "I am a star I don't do that" type of thing. It is great for the young guys who can help make a name for themselves because of their dunking.

So now a break down of come of the dunks. In the dunk contest the best single dunk did when with Jeremy Evans catching two balls from teammate Gordon Hayward and jumping over him to dunk them.



Some people do not like the props and putting on a show for the dunk contest. However, many people loved it last year when Blake Griffin dunked over the hood of a car. My second favorite dunk was Paul George with the glow in the dark clothes doing a 360 windmill. I liked this dunk for two reasons, first it was extremely creative, two it was still a hard dunk and he made it on the first attempt.



Finally my third favorite dunk was Derrick Williams catching a oop off the side of the backboard before he spun and dunked it. This dunk followed some of the other better dunks of the night and I thought their was hope for the dunk contest, however the third round was a disappointment for me.



No offense to any of these dunkers by any means, but if the NBA wants to get more people to watch the dunk contest they need to get more stars involved.I pose this question to the readers what four players would you like to see in the dunk contest. My four dunkers would be, Lebron James, Russel Westbrook, Derek Rose, and JR Smith. All of these dunkers are great in game dunkers and they could put on a great show. Even if their dunks were not as great or creative their star power alone would increase the success of the event. Who do you want to see and what was your favorite dunk of the night?

Best Dunk

It is a little past due, but I still think it could be addressed. Lets get started on some of the controversy surrounding Lebron and Blake Griffin dunking on Kendrick Perkins. Once Blake Griffin dunked Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, and all forms of media and social media were going crazy. Many athletes were Tweeting about the dunk and how it is possibly the best dunk that they have seen in their life. Many professional athletes of all different sports tweeted about the dunk, none was more controversial than Lebron's tweet, I am not sure why Perkins was freaking out however.

"Dunk of the Year!! @blakegriffin just dunked on Kendrick Perkins so hard!! Wow!! I guess I'm #2 now. Move over #6"

After Lebron tweeted this Perkins replied calling Lebron out about it. Perkins did not say anything about any of the other tweets that had occurred from players such as David Lee and Eric Gordon. Lebron finally stood up for himself and chose not to be the scapegoat on this one which I thought was long overdue.



Since I am on the topic of best dunks I should throw in Lebron's Dunk just several days earlier.Social Media did not blow up quite as much during Lebron's however the dunk was still amazing. dunk Both dunks were great in their own way. Lebron's degree of difficulty was a little higher because it was an alley oop. The fact the he jumped over a person and not through one I also think makes it harder.



I will let you guys decide. Comment and let me know what you guys think. Is either of these the best ever. Don't forget about Vince Carter dunking over a 7 footer in the Olympics. So I ask you this question what is the best dunk of all time?