Grizzlies First Round Playoof Game 4 to tip-off at 9:30 p.m. Monday, May 7 on Fox Sports Tennessee ...more ?
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Kyrie Irving wins the NBA?s Rookie of the Year award (Ball Don't Lie) ...more ?
Cleveland Cavaliers guard Kyrie Irving has won the Rookie of the Year award. News of his honor broke on Monday, and on Tuesday he was handed the hardware in a press conference so early in the day that admitted coffee non-user and Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert was seen drinking a caffeinated product from a company that is owned by the man who sold the Seattle SuperSonics out of Seattle. That's not a shot at Gilbert, who opened a casino on Monday night and was presumably out late, but a gratuitous shot at Howard Schultz .
In other news, Twitter is full of gratuitous shots at the Rookie of the Year voting. Not because Irving took the award ? he was far and away the best rookie in basketball, and he should have earned unanimous first-place voting ? but because lesser lights like Josh Selby (who played for Memphis, if you somehow were not aware) received a third-place vote, and New York's Iman Shumpert received a first-place vote. Ridiculous picks, to anyone who was paying attention.
And because everything happens in real time in social media, whenever the award voting (which used to disappear without a trace in your local paper's transaction page) is released, NBA fans and writers take to Twitter to complain about some of the stranger votes, while calling for writers to publicly disclose their personal picks. And then other NBA fans and writers respond by taking light shots at those that are bordering on getting haughty at votes gone wrong. And nobody leaves happy, even though everyone is correct in their take. Except for whoever the hell gave Josh Selby a third-place vote.
The Memphis Grizzlies? Gone till November (Ball Don't Lie) ...more ?
If it sounds like excuse-making, it's because we're actually making excuses. The Memphis Grizzlies' were hit by two body blows early in the season when it lost Darrell Arthur for the season, and Zach Randolph for the bulk of the campaign soon after. Randolph came back to the active roster following his MCL tear, but he failed to consistently bring the sort of sturdy low-post presence that he provided in spades for this group in 2010-11. As a result, the team couldn't rely on its horse as much in Sunday's Game 7, and the Grizzlies lost to a limping Clippers team at home.
That's going to sting until the fall, but Grizzlies fans have to be realistic about what to expect from this group. Everything centers around Randolph, and though Marc Gasol is one of the best pivots in the NBA and Mike Conley had a fabulous postseason until Game 7, scoring is scoring and scoring is important and the Grizz win when Zach puts it in. And because he never could get into basketball shape or strength (not his fault, rehabbing that injury takes time), the Grizz couldn't unleash their game changer at full capacity.
Perhaps we're being too optimistic, but this is still a team to fear entering 2012-13. Arthur's presence was exactly what the Grizzlies needed in Game 7, as the Clippers bench ran roughshod all over Memphis' pine, and Randolph will hopefully be at full strength (he's been known to go a bit pear-shaped over the summer) by the time training camp sparks up. Before then the team's front office can settle in for some tough decisions. Very tough.
The Clippers celebrate with a giant Chris Paul head, dressed like a baby, following their Game 7 win (Ball Don't Lie) ...more ?
Throughout the team's opening-round series with the Memphis Grizzlies, the Los Angeles Clippers were introduced to the sporting nation via national airwaves as a team that likes to, ahem, enhance the foul-taking experience. The team gets hit a lot, but it also flops a lot. It flops when it gets hit, and it flops when there is no hit. And between Reggie Evans, Blake Griffin, and to a lesser extent Chris Paul, the team turned off fans of both the Grizzlies, and fans that had no dog in the fight with both the floppin' and the cussin' and the cryin' to the referees.
So it makes sense that a Grizzlies fan would adorn a giant Chris Paul poster with a baby bonnet and pacifier, and take it to a Clippers/Grizzlies game. And it makes sense that, following the Grizzlies' loss in Game 7 to the Clippers on Sunday , he would chuck the poster onto the court. And it makes even more sense that that Clippers would pick it up and party with the giant baby head in the locker room following the contest. Via the team's Twitter account , here's a picture of the par-tay: