Bad NBA habits

A discussion I had with poster “Ayatollah” on the Sixers board pushed me to write this. Yes, it’s a typical offseason topic, but I think it might be very interesting, and lead to some good discussion. 

The point is: there are some things in the NBA that get on my nerves, that I don’t like, that I would change. They have to do with the NBA rules, the “system”, and mainly they have to do with the american culture. Sometimes, more in general, they have to do with the american attitude towards everything that is not american.

(In case you haven’t already noticed, I AM NOT american, even if I like, and even admire, the american SPORTS culture).

So let’s start listing some real bad (in my opinion) habits in the world of the NBA.

1) false measures. This is almost incredible. In a business where everything is planned, where every detail is revealed, where you know how much everybody is paid, to the last cent, you can’t know one of the basic figures about a player: his real height. Why? Because in the NBA they measure players with shoes (???!!).

No news = good news?

Not necessarily.

First of all let me welcome some new readers that came across the first italian Sixers blog while I was out and commented my posts: I wish they will come back here often.

So yes, during my three weeks off nothing really important happened, synthetically here are the main facts:

1) Stephen A. Smith will no longer write his column for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Smith, in case you don’t know, is (was ?) one of most controversial sports writers in the City of brotherly love, and a popular tv commentator, covering basketball also for ESPN. I guess this is more news for bloggers and Philly guys than for the average NBA fan.

I never really liked SAS, but I was not such a big critic of him either, he is a talented writer that simply got too arrogant with fame and success. By the way, before starting Sixers4guidos I wrote him a couple of emails to ask for his opinion on Sixers topics but never got a reply. Other Philly based journalists were polite enough to write me back few lines.

So we won’t read his articles anymore, while for sure will continue seeing him face and hearing his – pretty annoying -voice on ESPN (sorry Brian…).

At the end of the day this is really no news, I don’t care that much, honestly.

2) Celtics signed James Posey. Uhm…. I explained why I was not impressed by Ainge’s trades for Allen and Garnett and even exchange jokes with posters and fans that were praising him, but I must admit this is a very good addition.

Looking forward(s)

Yeah, it’s off season and few things happen, unless you think that Celtics signing Scott Pollard is breaking news.

So before leaving for vacation (in the picture, Ricky engaged in the main activity he will do for the next three weeks) I thought it could be interesting to take a look at our roster NOW and try to imagine how the 2007-2008 Sixers might look like.

My take is that we have two STARTING spots to cover, small forward and power forward, assuming that Andre Miller, Andre Iguodala and Sam Dalembert are almost a lock to start at PG, SG* and C.

[*= Yes, I consider Iguodala more a SG than a SF (“a shooting guard that can’t shoot”, according to a poster of the Sixers board, which is pretty funny but not accurate), if you don’t it’s ok, but find me a nicer headline for this post, then.]

So here is my breakdown, split into “hopes” and “realistic thoughts”.

Billy King is no Danny Ainge (thank God…)

I apologize, mr King. Time to give you some props. 

Ok, if you are one of the four usual readers of this blog, you know I am a LONG TIME BIG critic of Billy King. I think he is a bad GM and he’s the main guy to blame for the poor situation Sixers are in.

But we have to give him this: at least he never pulled a Danny Ainge.

This is my comment after the Garnett trade became official. I debated this all day in the Sixers board of philly.com and I want to confirm it here.

In a nutshell my point is: no doubt acquiring Garnett and pairing him with Ray Allen and Paul Pierce makes Boston significantly better. But no way Celtics are title contenders now and not even Eastern Conference Finals bound. At the end of the day if I was Boston’s GM, I wouldn’t have done the trade. Let’s see why.

1) they gave up way too much: