Brooklyn Nets: Why Brooklynites Should Be Happy There Is a Team in the Borough
My dad was born in Brooklyn, in Red Hook/Carroll Gardens, and he was raised there, save for a few years in Italy.
But he always tells me this pearl of wisdom:
“There are two types of people in this world: Those who are from Brooklyn, and those who wish they were.”
While I never lived in Brooklyn myself, I am considered by some to have Brooklyn blood in me. I go there about three or four times a year. While I’m usually there to go food shopping, I have been there to see the Brooklyn Cyclones minor league baseball team as well.
I have also read about the Brooklyn Dodgers, seen some grainy highlights, and I even visited the Baseball Hall of Fame where I saw plenty of Dodgers memorabilia.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody that I’m happy a major league team is coming back to Brooklyn this fall. The New Jersey Nets are finally leaving East Rutherford and Newark behind, and they will be playing in a brand new facility that is exclusively theirs.
However, not everyone is as happy as I am about the Brooklyn Nets.
From complaints and protests about the Barclays Center that have gone on since its groundbreaking, to criticism about the logo ever since it was unveiled, this team has been under a firestorm of controversy.
Reaction has been mixed for Brooklyn residents. Some are excited about the prospects of having pro sports return to Brooklyn for the first time since 1957, others are just opposed.
Having lived the majority of my life in a state that has only a WNBA team, a couple of minor league baseball teams, a Big East college and lost its only major league franchise to Raleigh in 1997, I find the addition of the Brooklyn Nets to be good and for a few reasons.
First of all, you have to put into account the possible price difference between going to a Knicks game and going to a Nets game. Because of the renovation of Madison Square Garden, not to mention the renaissance of the Knicks, the prices have inflated.
On StubHub, the cheapest seats I have found for a regular season game against a middle-of-the-road team are $60.
On the contrary, I have found Nets tickets that have gone as low as $6 for that same team. Now maybe the price is going to go up possibly 300 percent ($18 for the mathematically challenged) but still, I could live with that. It’s not premier basketball (yet), but it still is worth it.
Second, there’s many possible stars who might land in Brooklyn.
While Deron Williams’ future with the Nets is in limbo, there are other players the Nets could sign in free agency, like Dwight Howard, provided the Orlando Magic have not completely sold their soul to him. In addition, the Nets could potentially get a prospect in the draft with the multitude of trades that happen.
If this is the case, the lineup could have a shot at a quality, if not top level talent.
The third reason is the arena itself. Barclays Center could prove to be a giant upgrade for Atlantic Yards.
It is aesthetically pleasing, evoking the style of the famed Brooklyn Brownstones. It has the potential to be a multi-use facility, as concerts will be held there, and there is a possibility that the New York Islanders hockey team, despite the arena’s small hockey capacity could potentially become a tenant, replacing their aging home in Nassau Coliseum.
But enough about me, what about the actual Brooklynites?
I think they should be happy they’re getting a team in the borough. If you think about it, the Dodgers often brought all the Brooklyn neighborhoods together.
No matter if you were Jewish, Irish, Italian, black, from Red Hook, Crown Heights or even Prospect Heights, the Dodgers represented the ethnic makeup of the neighborhood.
While you will not find a combination of Sandy Koufax, Jackie Robinson, Ralph Branca and Pee Wee Reese on the basketball court, what you will see is people getting together again to watch what brings people together.
You can say otherwise, but in my experience of going to basketball games, and let me tell you, I watched a pretty bad team, it’s true. Despite the fact that the Nets may not be a contender for years, you can bet that every time you watch them on TV or go to a game, the seats will be filled.
Welcome to Brooklyn, Brooklyn Nets. We’ve been expecting you.
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Mayor of Columbus wants an NBA team
While most people believe any change in the construct of the NBA should be focused toward contraction, if anything, the Mayor of Columbus, Ohio feels differently. Or perhaps he wants to steal a team from an existing city. Mayor Michael Coleman has informed the NBA that the City wants a pro basketball team. NBA Vice [...]
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Anthony Davis: Can the Kentucky Star Really Cut It with the U.S. Olympic Team?
Anthony Davis’ name has been the talk of the town for just about the whole entire year. He will be the No. 1 overall NBA draft pick, which is not even debatable. Now people are wondering if he can compete on the U.S. Olympic team.
Well, can he?
I don’t see why not. The U.S. Olympic team is very talented and expected to take home the gold every time, but Davis is also very talented.
With that said, read on to see if Anthony Davis can really cut it with the U.S. Olympic Team.
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Syracuse Orange 2003 National Title Team: 10 Years Later, Where Are They Now?
The ball was tipped. There they were. They’re running for their lives. They were shooting stars.
Ten years ago, the Syracuse Orange led by freshmen sensations Carmelo Anthony and Gerry McNamara defeated the Kansas Jayhawks 81-78 to capture head coach Jim Boeheim’s first and only NCAA national championship.
While the freshmen stars, especially Anthony, stole all of the headlines, the team finished the year with 30 wins and only five losses.
It’s been 10 years, what are each of the key players of the 2002-03 national championship team up to these days?
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Kentucky Basketball: Why They’re the Best College Team of the Last 10 Years
In winning the 2012 national title, the Kentucky Wildcats set a new standard for excellence in men’s basketball with a single-season record 38 wins against just two losses. It’s the kind of performance that immediately raises questions about UK’s place in history, starting with this one:
Has there been any team in the last decade that could match the Wildcats’ brilliance?
In addition to the other nine NCAA champions in that time, two other squads have an obvious argument to be considered among this period’s best. Both Illinois (in 2005) and Memphis (in 2008), while they failed to win the title, equaled the previous Division I record of 37 wins in a season—a record Memphis actually broke, only to vacate its performance and leave the mark for Kentucky to capture.
Read on for a head-to-head look at why no one, even in that impressive collection of teams, can beat out Kentucky as the best in the last 10 seasons of college hoops.
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NBA team in most danger of blowing playoffs?
The Los Angeles Lakers, Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers have a lot in common. Not all of it good.
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ACC Basketball: The Go-to Guy on Each 2012-13 ACC Team
Every college basketball team has a single player to rely on when the game is on the line, and the 12 teams that play in the ACC are no different.
It may be someone who can nail an outside jumper. It might be a player who you clear out for so he can go one-on-one. Or it might be a big who can post up and do work on the block.
The following is a quick look at every 2012-13 ACC team’s go-to guy.
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John Calipari Is the Best Coach and Kentucky the Best Team
A gray tempest settled over New Orleans in the hours before college basketball’s national championship game. Lightning bolts shot from the bulging clouds, blowing gray over the concrete pod of the Superdome.
Beneath the massive dome, surrounded by 70,000 spectators—an enormous, brightly colored crowd towering over the custom-painted slab of polished maple—lightning struck for one of college basketball’s purebreds, Kentucky, and its coach, John Calipari, as his Wildcats vanquished a relentless Kansas Jayhawks’ team, 67-59, to capture the school’s eighth national championship.
That Calipari is now head coach of the finest amateur basketball team in America was just a matter of time these last 16 years; since the days he led UMass—from a dry-dock rot—to five consecutive Atlantic 10 championships and into the 1996 Final Four, where its season ended at the bloody maw of the Wildcats’ program he now leads.
But to say the run the ’96 team made came from nowhere is not strictly accurate. Calipari re-charted the course of the Minutemen’s ghost ship from the moment he took the helm as a 29-year-old coaching phenomenon. There, too, it was clearly a matter of time before his teams grew into distinguished participants in the national tournament.
Those days at Amherst, Mass., the way his squads attacked the goal and defended it with principled cohesion—Calipari pacing the deep crimson sideline of their parquet floor, his jacket off, his black hair swept back, sweating like a fighter, shouting and flailing, caring more than anyone, taking everything as personally as an Italian mother watching her sons in a fight—made a deep impression.
It was also—from the perspective of basketball as a game comprised of fundamental skills which must be mastered, philosophies and principles that must be taught and executed—a pleasure to watch.
Soon the entire realm of college basketball was altered by Calipari’s presence, in the way an erupting volcano can reorganize the chemical composition of an atmosphere. This effect, a human force of nature doing what he must do in the way that he must do it, teaching a system which refuses on principle to accept being vanquished or suppressed, made Calipari a target for some of the most ludicrous criticism of an obviously huge talent that I’ve ever heard.
The most common charge yawped into the abyss by the armchair fan says Calipari can’t actually coach. This school of critics claims, often describing the type of ultra-athletic urban players Calipari recruited during nine seasons at Memphis, that he turned the floor over to “thugs” and let them play some kind of brutal playground game. I’ve listened as some of these people attempted to light it into beauty, like it was the genius understanding of a young tactician: give the floor over to the soldiers and allow them to destroy everything in sight.
Calipari may be Machiavellian in that he accepts on its own terms the rampant corruption and cynicism festering amongst many of the adults involved in high school and AAU basketball; but he is not some figure-head coach and manager who unleashes 18-year-old “street kids” onto the floor to play the game by instinct alone.
I’ve stopped having the debate. To hear someone describe Calipari’s teams that way after watching them play is like hearing a man say Rossini couldn’t write music, but needed an orchestra of prodigies playing instruments built by Stradivarius to carry off his effect. As if somehow it is a coincidence that Rossini’s music sounds the same 140 years later, and Calipari’s college teams are among the most dynamic and structurally sound units in the country every season, wherever he coaches. It’s gotten too patently stupid to indulge, even for the sake of argument.
The commonest criticism hurled by sports writers, (those self-appointed moralists of college athletics), and Bob Knight, the former martinet head coach at Army, then Indiana and Texas Tech—(called The General, after his hero, Patton)—is that he’s a sleazy recruiter and operator, generally. They cite the facts that several of Calipari’s best players have left school for professional basketball after a single season in college, and that both his Final Fours at UMass and Memphis were vacated, erased from the record books by the NCAA, for violations involving players.
The annihilation of two separate Final Fours were severe public censures and blights upon Calipari’s permanent record, without any doubt. But it is important to make clear that at both schools the violations began and ended with a single player, and it was nowhere charged that a virulent disease had infected either program. Calipari was not personally punished after either investigation. I’ll leave the NCAA’s byzantine Committee on Infractions to defend its sentences against UMass and Memphis.
But it’s on dubious moral grounds that Calipari is criticized for building teams with athletes who aren’t going to spend four years in college. In any field of endeavor, the purpose of college is to receive training to perform certain tasks competently—when the requisite course of study is finished the student transitions into a professional environment to employ what they’ve learned. Physically and emotionally mature athletes may not require four years to prepare for professional sports. Players who need to stay four years will; players who don’t, won’t.
The Division I athlete not talented enough to play professionally—the vast majority of them are not—is free to remain and earn a degree in his chosen field. There should be less moral hand-wringing over athletes moving on to highly paid occupations when they believe they’re ready to move on. College should do as much for us all.
The fact is that a substantial amount of the clamoring over kids leaving school early comes from the fan upset by fewer opportunities to watch a team develop over three or four seasons, culminating in a crusade through the tournament. That’s the way it used to be, they say. And they’re right; but the way it used to be is not the way it is; change is merciless.
Calipari comprehends this modern mindset more than any other coach: players come first in today’s game. A coach like Knight with an inveterate, almost 1950s world-view will never understand or accept the new reality. Calipari’s said it over-and-over again, and his players vouch for his sincerity. Calipari is so confident in his talents as a recruiter and coach that he believes he can assemble a formidable team every season with new parts. So far he’s been right.
But though the players come first in terms of their personal futures in athletics, they are forced to play the roles assigned them in his squads. At Amherst, they were structural teams, relentlessly fundamental and grinding with an underdog’s mentality until Marcus Camby came.
At Memphis, he deployed a wing of attack helicopters. His 2008 team was an all-out assault squad as a result of explosive athleticism installed into Calipari’s dribble-drive offense. Those teams carried out savage raids from the point and wings using high-flying, forceful players. When a jump shot arced toward the basket, what looked like a swarm of angry gunships buzzed the rim to hammer down any rebound. They played aggressive man-to-man defense; all of his teams do.
His Kentucky groups—there have been only three—have shown all the signs of a master coach working flush through his most creative and productive period. The balance, camaraderie and selflessness drilled into the highest-profile prep players in America has been amazing to watch. While other Mt. Rushmore programs have struggled badly with the ego driven, thinking-about-the-future selfishness of “one-and-done” players, Calipari has thrived with them.
In his teams one can see the professional mindset: win a championship and do whatever it takes to get the job done, your personal statistics and feelings be damned. Somehow Calipari gets his very young players to understand that to do whatever it takes to win a team championship in college will prepare them to make their best contribution to a professional franchise—where the only goal is championships and teammates police themselves.
After what Calipari managed to build at UMass and Memphis, look what he’s done with Kentucky’s blue-and-white to sell. In three years, it’s been an Elite Eight, two Final Fours and a national championship. Kentucky is one of the half-dozen or eight programs that look most comfortable, most at home in the Final Four.
Something elemental in college basketball is right when Kentucky trots onto the floor and starts through the layup lines at a national semifinal. For the rest of college basketball, the present looks a lot like the past: the benchmark for excellence has once again been set at Kentucky, and it looks to remain that way for awhile.
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No playoff bonus for Odom after team vote
Lamar Odom might be gone, but the Dallas Mavericks have not forgotten.
The team voted “no” is sharing their allotted playoff bonus money with Odom after they were swept out of the first round of the playoffs by the Oklahoma City Thunder, reports The Dallas Morning News.
The team’s playoff bonus money is 14,000 per player.
Odom was acquired during the offseason in a trade with the Los Angeles Lakers and the reigning sixth man of the year was expected to be a key contributor for the defending NBA Champions.
He was anything but.
Odom was put on the inactive list on April 9th after averaging career lows of 6.6 points and 4.2 rebounds during his 50-game stint. He also shot a career-low 35.2 percent from the field.
The team still hopes to trade Odom in the offseason.
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NBA Awards 2012: Picking the NBA All-Rookie Team
Every season the NBA adds 60 talented players through the draft. The 2011 draft was no different. But while many of these players showed that they’ll have long, productive careers in the NBA, only a select few were good enough to make the All-Rookie Team.
Selections are based on individual performance throughout the season. So a player with high upside that didn’t make an impact as a rookie won’t make the team. If a player missed a significant portion of the season, that’s also taken into consideration.
Here are the selections:
Guard—Kyrie Irving, Cleveland Cavaliers
The No. 1 overall pick in the the 2011 NBA draft certainly didn’t disappoint. Irving led all rookies in scoring (18.5 points per game) and efficiency rating (17.7). He was also second in assists (5.4 assists per game) among rookies. Needless to say, he’s the front-runner for the Rookie of the Year award.
Although it affects the ratings, Irving also probably has the most upside of any rookie in the class. He’s only 20 years old, and he has amazing athleticism and quickness. The sky’s truly the limit.
Guard—Isaiah Thomas, Sacramento Kings
If Irving was expected to be good because of where he was drafted, the exact opposite can be said of Isaiah Thomas. Thomas was the 60th and final selection in the 2011 draft. Given where he was drafted, just staying on the roster all season would have been an accomplishment. Instead, Thomas proved himself to be a good NBA player.
Thomas was sixth in scoring among rookies (11.5 points per game). He was fourth in assists (4.1 assists per game) and ninth in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.53). Thomas also played a big role on the Kings this season. He was the team’s starting point guard over its final 37 games, averaging 14.8 points, 5.4 assists and posting a 2.67 assist-to-turnover ratio during that span.
Forward—Kenneth Faried, Denver Nuggets
Faried is a no-brainer for the All-Rookie team. He led all rookie forwards in scoring (10.2 points per game), rebounding (7.7 rebounds per game), offensive rebounding (3.1 offensive rebounds per game), double-doubles (12) and efficiency rating (15.3). Amazingly, he did all of that while only playing the third-most minutes per game (22.6) among rookie forwards.
Forward—Kawhi Leonard, San Antonio Spurs
It seems like every Spurs rookie ends up being a good player. The same can be said of Kawhi Leonard. This selection came down to Leonard vs. Chandler Parsons of Houston, but Leonard’s numbers were a little bit better. Leonard was fourth in scoring (7.9), second in rebounding (5.1) and second in efficiency among rookie forwards.
Center—Tristan Thompson, Cleveland Cavaliers
Thompson, like Faried, seemed to lead all rookie centers in virtually every category. He was first in scoring (8.2), first in rebounding (6.5), first in double-doubles (nine) and first in efficiency rating (9.7). He also led all rookie centers in minutes per game (23.7). The only other player worth consideration is Bismack Biyombo of the Bobcats, but Biyombo’s overall numbers don’t match up with Thompson’s.
Honorable Mentions
Guard—Ricky Rubio, Minnesota Timberwolves
If Rubio stays healthy all season, he’s definitely on the All-Rookie team instead of Isaiah Thomas. Rubio led all rookies in assists (8.2), steals per game (2.22) and minutes per game (34.2). As a pure point guard, Rubio has more potential than any other rookie. But because he missed the last 25 games, he’s only an honorable mention.
Forward—Chandler Parsons, Houston
Parsons was a second-round pick by the Rockets, so it’s surprising to see him on the list. He started 57 games for Houston and averaged 9.5 points, 4.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.2 steals per game. He’s only an honorable mention because his efficiency rating wasn’t on par with Kawhi Leonard’s.
Center—Bismack Biyombo, Charlotte Bobcats
Biyombo looks like he’ll be a defensive force for the next 10-plus years. He averaged 1.83 blocks per game—the most among rookies and ninth in the NBA. He was also second in rookie centers with 5.8 rebounds per game. Biyombo’s an honorable mention because he didn’t do enough on the offensive end to beat out Tristan Thompson.
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