Magic Player Profiles ...more ?
The Fan Voice Blog ...more ?
Steele: What's Next for Magic? ...more ?
Magic Blog: David Steele ...more ?
David Steele: Archive ...more ?
Flagrant Fan ...more ?
John Denton's 2011-12 Features Archive ...more ?
Denton's Notebook: May 8, 2012 ...more ?
Roy Hibbert wants to play for Team USA, seeks release from Jamaican national team (Ball Don't Lie) ...more ?
Between injuries to Dwight Howard, LaMarcus Aldridge and Chris Bosh, and the implosion of Lamar Odom, the U.S. national basketball team that will compete in this summer's 2012 London Olympics looks like it could be suffering from a perilous dearth of big men. The current Team USA roster includes one healthy center, Tyson Chandler, and only three other players ? power forwards Blake Griffin and Kevin Love, and recent addition/putative draftee Anthony Davis ? who stand 6-foot-10. Even the ranks of non-national-program-approved prospective American big men seem to be thinning, given the apparently impending Filipino naturalization of JaVale McGee.
[Related: Oft-injured center Greg Oden wants to join the Miami Heat ]
Man, it's a shame that Roy Hibbert, who earned his first NBA All-Star selection this year and has become an integral piece for an Indiana Pacers team playing in the Eastern Conference semifinals, isn't eligible for Team USA duty as a result of the appearances he has made for the Jamaican national basketball team in international competition over the past four years, including a run as that squad's captain . Hibbert was born in Queens, N.Y., to a Jamaican father and a Trinidadian mother, and he made his first appearance with the Jamaican national team in 2008.
A 25-year-old dude who is 7-foot-2 and averaged 15.5 points, 10.6 rebounds and 2.6 blocks per 36 minutes in the best league in the world would sure seem like someone worth considering for some minutes in the middle against the rest of the world's best. Oh, well.
/walks away, kicks a rock, frowns not quite imperceptibly
BUT WAIT!
In an interview with Robert Bailey at the Jamaica Gleaner , Jamaica Basketball Association President Ajani Williams ? a 6-foot-10 former forward who earned training camp invites with the Orlando Magic and Atlanta Hawks before retiring, and whom noted international hoops source ShamSports.com referred to as "a basketball vagabond with an enormous vertical leap" ? said that Hibbert has asked to be released from his responsibilities to the Jamaican side "in order to become eligible to play for the United States at this summer's Olympic Games."
As you might expect, though, it's not quite as simple as all that:
The New York Knicks? Gone till November (Ball Don't Lie) ...more ?
Let's start with what we know: The 2011-12 edition of the New York Knicks was the best team the franchise has put on the floor in 12 years. You can argue that a fact like that doesn't say a whole hell of a lot, given the dilapidated decade the Knicks turned in to kick off the 21st century, but that doesn't mean it ain't true.
This year's 36-30 record, .545 winning percentage and 101 defensive rating (which estimates how many points you allow per 100 possessions) were not only better than last year's model, but also better than anything the Knicks have managed since the 2000-01 season, Jeff Van Gundy's last full year of stalking Madison Square Garden's sidelines. They had the league's fifth-most-efficient defense, thanks to Defensive Player of the Year Tyson Chandler, its seventh-best point differential and the NBA's eighth-best expected win total based on Pythagorean winning percentage (basically, a measurement of how well you scored versus how well you defended, intended to show how lucky or unlucky you got in the final analysis).
This team ? this often-maddening, at-times thrilling, ceaselessly rambling wreck of a seventh seed ? was not half-bad.
The problem, of course, is that "better than before" and "not half-bad" don't equate to championship contention, a fact that has and will continue to depress the many, many Knicks fans still stinging from a second straight first-round exit at the hands of a better team with better stars.
On some level, that's OK; it's understandable that fans want to see their squad compete for championships after suffering through such a disastrous spell and watching the team bring in marquee names expected to do big things. But on another level, it's just not realistic, given the construction of New York's roster, the state of the conference and the assets at the Knicks' disposal going forward. Next year's team might be better than this year's, but Knicks fans heading into the offseason expecting a tectonic shift in the team's complexion and prospects will likely be sorely disappointed.
The Orlando Magic? Gone till November (Ball Don't Lie) ...more ?
The Orlando Magic would fascinate me endlessly, even if it weren't for the ongoing Dwight Howard saga or the fact that they might soon fire one of the best coaches in the NBA just to appease a player who took 80 percent of the season to decide that he wanted to play for the Magic for one more season, while still refusing to sign a contract extension along the way.
See, the Magic make no sense. The two best players in the franchise's regular-season run in 2008-09, the one that led to the team making the Finals, were drafted by former GM John Weisbrod. Now, Weisbrod was smart to draft Dwight Howard ahead of NCAA superstar Emeka Okafor, and good to go after fellow NCAA superstar Jameer Nelson later in that draft, but just about every other move he made as Magic GM was terrible . Young traded for old. Good traded for worse. Big traded for small. Everything you're not supposed to do, save for picking Howard and Nelson. Weird résumé, that.
So then current GM Otis Smith takes over, and because the team starts to win behind Howard and Nelson, you tend to ignore his missteps along the way. Like attempting to hire Florida's Billy Donovan, before settling on Stan Van Gundy once Donovan went back on his agreement with the Magic to coach the team. Or the drafting of Fran Vazquez. Or the Rashard Lewis contract. All of this stuff was swept under the rug because the Magic ? through Howard, Nelson and SVG ? were winning.