NBA: Where Referee's Can't Ref

The NBA marketing machine hypes up the league with its star players opposed to it being a team game. This is a great way for fans to get into the games but when a team like San Antonio or Detroit got to the finals it seemed like no one really cared because this teams did not have a legit superstar, even though Timmy D is a great player he doesn’t have that star appeal to anyone outside of Texas.

This goes hand in hand with the referees giving star players the benefit of the doubt in terms of foul calling. IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY TO SEE LEBRON TRAVEL AND CARRY (and other stars too). Here is Lebron getting a ludracris call

On the topic of referee’s how many times do we have to see make up calls before Mr. Stern decides to attempt to fix this? Its bullshit how many non / makeup calls there are.

Just in the playoffs a couple seasons ago there were suspensions for coming off the bench between the Suns and Spurs shifting the outcome of that series in my opinion. But that was not called down the middle. Dallas and Heat finals game 3 D Wade drives on Dirk and a phantom call changed the momentum of the whole series.

Although I would say that of all the major sports basketball is probably hardest to ref. That’s why I can give these refs some leeway. But how many times during a Magic / Raptors game do we have to see Andrea get called for fouls that D12 won’t get called on at the other end of the floor?

The NBA needs to step it's game up and fix this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why the NBA makes me angry!!!

So what are some of the reasons why the NBA makes me angry? Lets take a look....

TRADES: Last week the Cleveland Cavaliers made a trade to acquire all-star calibre player Antawn Jamison.

To complete the trade the Cavs traded long time centre Zydrunas Ilgauskas. But the Washington Wizards will never be able to utilize Big Z. Everyone expects the Wiz to buy out Big Z's contract and in 30 days Big Z is expected to resign with the Cavs. The Cavs basically are able to acquire Jamison and keep their line-up in tact. This to me is just unfair; the NBA needs to look at this and fix it.

Speaking of Cleveland; I HATE HOW MUCH LEBRON GETS AWAY WITH. WHY CAN’T THE REFS CALL SOME CARRIES OR TRAVELS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On to more Cleveland hate, although I sometimes get a chuckle when Shaq says something, the act is wearing thin.

If you are going to trash talk you better back it up by not only playing well but by shutting down the subject of your trash talk Shaquille O’Neal has been very vocal in voicing his displeasure against Dwight Howard. Shaq believes that Howard stole the "Superman" title from him. Shaq has even gone as far as publicly calling Howard an imposter. Today the two squared off. All though Shaq did play well (20 pts 9- 10 FGs) there was no stopping Howard (22pts 16rebs 4blks).

One more thing that makes me mad is how T-Mac was treated by the Rockets. Tracy McGrady has always been one of my favourites. Although T- Mac never got out of the first round of the playoffs, T- Mac was extremely good to Houston; averaging nearly 25 points per game in his 5 healthy seasons with the Rockets.

T-Mac's 2008- 2009 season was cut short due to injury. In 2010 although T-Mac declared that he was ready he was not given a chance to showcase his game by the Houston Rockets organization. Head Coach of the Rockets Rick Adleman publically declared that Tmac was not the same player and that he had lost his explosiveness.

T-Mac was recently traded to the Knicks in a 3 team deal and on Friday finally got a chance to show the world what he had left. T-Mac went for 26 points, 5 assist, 4 rebounds on 10-17 shooting in just 32 minutes. How is that for explosive? The lack of loyalty that some pro athletes are shown is very upsetting.

I will make another post soon about the NBA and it's referees. Then everyone will know what really makes me angry about the NBA.

Raptors 29-23 at the All-Star Break

The Toronto Raptors are 29-23 at the All-Star Break. These are my sort of half way through the season awards, since we are slightly past the half way mark.

MVP
LeBron James
Playing alongside a hodgepodge assembly of players LeBron has truly distanced himself from the rest of the pack for this award (except for Kobe’s game winners). Not only are the Cavaliers a league best 43-11, and currently on a 13 game win streak, longest in the NBA this year. Most impressive in all of this is the fact they are winning without their “2^nd best player” in Mo Williams. Is there another team in this league that can lose their 2^nd best player and rip off 13 straight? Second place to me is Kobe.

6^th Man
Jamal Crawford
The spark plug off the bench the Hawks sorely lacked last year, averaging 18 points per, while shooting a ridiculous 46%. Especially key due to the struggles of Mike Bibby, who is currently at career lows in field goal % and points per game. J.R Smith is the runner up here.

Coach of the Year
Scott Brooks
Oklahoma City Thunder coach has his young team with potential MVP candidate Kevin Durant as the 6^th seed in a tough western conference. Runner up here is Lionel Hollins; a coach who can get Zach Randolph to put up 20-10 a night, without being a black hole gets my vote.

Rookie of the Year
Tyreke Evans
Since ROY is the one award exempted from team success, Tyreke Evans is the runaway winner here and it’s not even close. Tyreke has been a model of consistency and the lone bright spot for a Sacramento team that continues to smell the basement in the West. Brandon Jennings is runner up.

Most Improved
Marc Gasol
While Luol Deng may be the more obvious choice here, let’s give it up to Marc Gasol who is arguably the 4^th best pure centre in the league behind Kaman, Howard, and Bynum. Averaging close to a double-double a night while putting up solid hustle points and great percentages is all gravy on top of playing for a winning team.

There you have the All-Star break awards which will most likely be how it actually will be at the end of the year because I am so smart and have great intuition

Raptors In January

The January honeymoon for Raptors fans is over. We welcomed February with a loss to the Indiana Pacers and pulled out a game that was close for 3 quarters against the lowly Nets, with the half time show featuring Vanilla Ice of all people (maybe reason enough to go see the 4-44 nets)

Going 10-5 in the month with a 3 game and 5 game winning streak in January we had a bunch of Raptors fans all over the place drinking the Kool-aid. Why? Well they beat a bunch of teams that are supposed to be good.

Let’s take a look at the losses of the month, 2 losses to the Celtics who were missing Garnett for both and Rondo for the first. Another loss which should have been a win after blowing such a big lead was against the Pacers. A loss to Cleveland is expected, while losing the first of a back to back against the Bucks is ok. Well it’s only ok if your team is going to flirt with .500 ball all season long. Now wins over the Knicks, Heat, Pacers, Bucks, 76ers should happen. Even if they are grinders, a win is a win.

Well now you are probably thinking...what about beating The Mavericks, Lakers, Magic and Spurs? Well sorry to rain on your parades, but all these teams did not really show up to these games. San Antonio didn’t play very well and even though 10 games over .500 has been fairly inconsistent. Dallas went 8-9 in January playing some poor basketball. Orlando is slumping a bit too (I think they are missing Hedo) and finally what some people called the biggest win of the season so far against the Lakers. The Lakers don’t show up for some of their games mentally, even coach Phil Jackson said this has worried him www.espn.com. I noticed this last year with the Lakers as well, they don’t seem to show up for all their games but find a spot in the game where they will dominate and turn it on in time for the playoffs.

All in all, the team won the games they should have won and came out with a few surprise wins but I don’t see the reason for everyone to get so excited. We will see how they do in the next 5 games where they should go at least 3-2, with 4-1 looking really realistic. That's the Raptors in January.

On a final note Vanilla Ice?

Seriously?