No big update, just three the links to Lang Whittaker of SI.com (and Slamonline.com) with his lists of funniest NBA stories...

This year:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/lang_whitaker/04/30/organized.noise/index.html

Last year:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/lang_whitaker/04/17/nba.oddities/index.html

and the year before for good measure:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/lang_whitaker/04/25/the.links/index.html

No big update, just three the links to Lang Whittaker of SI.com (and Slamonline.com) with his lists of funniest NBA stories...

This year:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/lang_whitaker/04/30/organized.noise/index.html

Last year:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/lang_whitaker/04/17/nba.oddities/index.html

and the year before for good measure:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/lang_whitaker/04/25/the.links/index.html

Whew…just started my parental leave and have been getting used to being at home with my daughter all day…must tell you, it’s the funnest thing ever…

Marcus Camby is the defensive player of the year? How about the blocked shot player of the year, but Bruce Bowen and Shawn Marion make guys disappear with one on one defence…I would have given the award to one of them…even the “Big Boring” Tim Duncan would come before Camby, especially when he had 5 blocks against the Nugs last night…by the way, the Spurs got the homecourt back with a 96-91 win sparked by Manu Ginobili’s 10-11 from the line (flopper extraordinaire…) and Iverson’s 7-20 from the field…of course, if the Nuggets don’t go 22-30 from the line (Carmelo Soprano went 6-11) than they win…

Magic got swept (97-93 loss to the Pistons last night) for a lot of reasons (like shooting 57.9% from the free-throw line in the series), but most of them originating from the fact the Detroit is a better team…however, some things continue to amaze my like:

How is it that Dwight Howard still does not have a single post move or even a little 8 foot jumper? He has one mover, a dunk…that’s it…

Why is Tony Battie playing and Darko Milicic is not? Milicic blocked Rasheed Wallace’s jumper 4 times in the series, and that’s the only 4 times Wallace has had his jumper blocked all year…

Jameer Nelson is not a starter…please, please, please play Carlos Arroyo…

Other than Hedo Turkoglu, nobody on this team can make a jumper outside of 15 feet (yes that’s you Grant Hill!), yet JJ (the Chronicles of…) Redick sits on the bench while the Pistons pack it in…

Speaking of Grant Hill, he is apparently contemplating retirement. Hill, who scored 17 points in Orlando's season-ending 97-93 loss to Detroit yesterday said: "We'll see how I feel in June and July," Hill said. "The desire, of course, is to always play. But you don't want to live on anti-inflammatories and so forth. We'll just see, at least in my case, how I feel."

Here’s a DARKHORSE for Pacers coach next year…Reggie Miller…you heard it, or rather read it here first…

Hmmm…the whole Celtics nullifing Sebastian Telfair's contract idea will probably not fly…remember, the Raptors tried that on weak-kneed centre Nate Huffman to no avail…and then there’s the Warriors failing in their bid to get rid of convicted choker Latrell Sprewell…

Ok Raptors…here are your 2 commandments…1) double Vince Carter and 2) clear some room for Chris Bosh…you cannot win if Vince Carter penetrates past Anthony Parker/Mo Pete every time he gets the ball…and you cannot win if Chris Bosh gets 11 point on 10 shots…Carter has to get banged by defenders off the ball, maybe bring in converted tight end Joey Graham for a bit to use his bulk, but Carter cannto have a free pass to the basket or he’ll go for more than 37…as for freeing up some space for Bosh, maybe make Calderon the post passer into Bosh instead of Ford, being as Calderon went 6-6 from the floor in the game and might keep his defender from sagging in on Bosh in the post…

First round Playoff predictions keeping in mind that since 2001, the non-homecourt advantage team has only won 21% of postseason series…this basically makes the NBA playoffs easily the most predictable playoffs in all pro sports. (For comparison road teams have won 60 percent of the baseball playoffs and 36 percent of the NFL playoffs over the same period):

East

Heat-Bulls…Heat in 7…Bulls well and Dwyane Wade is not 100%, but the Shaq is the ultimate equalizer…
Wizards-Cavaliers…Cavs in 4…no Arenas, no Butler equals no wins for the Wiz…
Magic-Pistons…Pistons in 5…Magic steal one win because the Pistons get bored…
Nets-Raptors…Raps in 7…Nets big three of Carter, Kidd and Jefferson will make this the best series of the playoffs, but Bosh and co are too deep and too cohesive to fall apart…

West

Lakers-Suns…Suns in 5…Kobe will be all world, but the Suns are too good…
Warriors-Mavs…Mavs in 5…G-State and former Mavs coach Don Nelson make it interesting, but this Mavs team is too deep…
Jazz-Rockets…Rockets in 6…T-Mac n’Cheese in the 1st round? Not this time, Rockets will beat the slumping Jazz with large helpings of Yao Ming…
Nuggets-Spurs…Spurs in 7…A terrific matchup, where Tony Longoria vs. Allen Iverson will be amazing, the big fundamental vs. Cambyland will match up the best big against the probable defensive player of the year and where the very annoying Bruce Bowen will have to contend with Mr. Slap-happy himself, Carmelo Anthony…Spurs are better team., but this one will be close…

Here are a couple of good playoff previews…

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/basketball/nba/specials/playoffs/2007/04/19/east/index.html

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/basketball/nba/specials/playoffs/2007/04/19/west.first.round/index.html

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2007/columns/story?columnist=stein_marc&page=2007PlayoffPreview

Random thoughts:

Eric Musselman will be fired in Sacramento by the end of next week…

Kevin McHale will be around for another year and Garnett won’t be traded…

Troy Hudson, Marko Jaric and Mike James will begin whining their way out of Minnesota any minute now…

Rashard Lewis will sign in Charlotte and the Bobcats will trade Adam Morrison and resign Gerald Wallace…

Vince Carter will be a Knick, after the Knicks will also go after Jermaine O’ Neal and Kevin Garnett…

Kiki Vandeweghe will be name Grizzlies GM by end of summer…

Pacers will fire Rick Carlisle and trade Jermaine O’Neal to the Grizz for Pau Gasol…

This story is unbelieveable…

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/basketball/bulls/all-jordan-apr19-cn,1,7639325.story?coll=cs-home-headlines

Crazy trade rumour for next year…if the Suns don't win it all and if they end up with the No. 4 or No. 5 pick in the draft (via Atlanta) the Suns will trade Amare Stoudemire to Chicago for Luol Deng and Tyrus Thomas…

Wow…watching Tim Duncan get ejected in the 2nd half last night’s 91-86 Dallas win over San Antonio was unreal…however, the real juice was the comments post-game (which I stole from Marc Stein of ESPN.com’s insider blog) from both Duncan and Crawford:

Duncan on the ejection: "Was I surprised? I was sitting on the bench laughing about a call and he throws me out of the game? Yeah, I was surprised, of course."

Duncan on Crawford: "Joey knew exactly what he was doing. He came into this game with a personal vendetta against me -- it had to be -- because I didn't do anything the entire game. As I said, I said three words to him and the three words were that I got fouled on a shot. There was one shot I took against Dirk. I pump-faked and got hit on the arm and I said, 'Joey, I got hit on the play.' I probably said it again when I came back down the floor and that's all I said to him the entire game."

Duncan on his history with Crawford: "The last game we played against Indiana, I got a tech from him there also. So I kind of imagine it stems from that or whatever. I don't know what his deal is. . . . You'd have to ask him that question, because obviously he's got a problem with me. I don't have a problem with Joey. He's got a problem with me, so that's a question for him."

Duncan on playing in future playoff games reffed by Crawford: "You've got to be aware of it, but I don't know what else they want me to do. If he wants camera time, then he's going to call the techs and he's going to get the camera time he wants. So I don't know what his deal is."

Duncan on fighting: "Joey Crawford came to me and said, 'Hey, do you want to fight?' ... Before he gave me the two technical fouls, he made a call and I was shaking my head, and he walks down and stares at me. He says: 'Do you want to fight? Do you want to fight?' I didn't say anything to him then, either. ... I [know] no reason why in the middle of a game he would yell at me, 'Do you want to fight?'"

Crawford's comments were issued before Duncan's postgame interview. NBA rules generally forbid referees from speaking to the media after games, but there are provisions -- in controversial cases like this one -- to send a pool reporter into the referees' quarters to get an explanation, in most instances on a rules interpretation.

Crawford on the ejection: "He was complaining the whole time. And then he went over to the bench and he was over there doing the same stuff behind our back. I hit him with one [technical] and he kept going over there, laughing, and I look over there and he's still complaining. So I threw him out."

Crawford on giving technicals to someone sitting on the bench: "He's complaining. He was constantly complaining. He was complaining when he was on the court. Then he got on the bench and kept doing the same stuff. So I just ejected him."

Crawford on Duncan's contention that he said nothing to warrant two technicals: "That's his opinion. He said nothing when he was walking off the court and he called me a piece of [blank]? Is that nothing?"

In the wake of the Gators NCAA tourney win there’s been a lot of chatter about how they’re one of the best teams of all-time…OK…I guess that makes me think, are they better than any of these teams? Well, let’s just assume they are NOT better than any of John Wooden’s teams at UCLA which featured Gail Goodrich, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton, all three of which are Hall of Famers and which won 10 of 12 NCAA titles from 1964 to 1975…so, sticking to teams from 1980 onwards (approximately when I became basketball aware) are they better than the last team to repeat, that being the Duke team than won the 1991 and 1992 championship? Nope…Laettner, Hurley, Grant and Thomas Hill, Brian Davis, Antonio Lang, Billy McCaffrey are better than the Gators…are they better than the 1990 UNLV championship team? Larry Johnson, Stacey Augmon, Anderson Hunt, Greg Anthony, David Butler, Moses Scurry are better than the Gators, and this team destroyed the same Duke team (minus freshman Grant Hill) in the final…are they better than the 1989 NCAA Champ Michigan Wolverines? Glen Rice, Rumeal Robinson, Terry Mills, Sean Higgins, Loy Vaught are better than the Gators…are they better than the 1984 Georgetown Hoyas? Patrick Ewing, David Wingate, Reggie Williams, Michael Graham, Michael Jackson are about even, or slightly less talented…so there you go, I’ve picked out at least 3 teams in the last 27 years that are better than these current Gators…so settle down folks, they’re good, but not all-time good…

While were in college, with Billy Gillespie taking the Kentucky job, I cannot understand that everyone seems to think Tubby Smith underachieved at Kentucky…In the 10 years Tubby Smith was coach of the Wildcats here’s what they accomplished:

Record: 263-83
1998 national championship
five SEC titles and five SEC tournament titles.
Average of 26 wins per season
10 straight NCAA Tournament appearances
three Elite Eights and three more Sweet 16s

You can’t help thinking that if Tubby was a white guy he’d be coaching there the rest of his life…

Speaking of college coaches, here’s the couching carousel…

School Out Years Record In
Kansas State Bob Huggins 1 23 Frank Martin
Texas A&M Billy Gillispie 3 70-26 Mark Turgeon
Utah Ray Giacoletti 3 54-39 Jim Boylen
Georgia State Michael Perry 4 62-75 Rod Barnes
Illinois State Porter Moser 4 51-67 Tim Jankovich
Marshall Ron Jirsa 4 43-74 Donnie Jones
South Florida Robert McCullum 4 40-76 Stan Heath
St. Bona. Anthony Solomon 4 24-88 Mark Schmidt
Arkansas Stan Heath 5 82-71 John Pelphrey
Evansville Steve Merfeld 5 54-91 Marty Simmons
Liberty Randy Dunton 5 66-85 Ritchie McKay
Long Beach St. Larry Reynolds 5 63-83 Dan Monson
New Mexico Ritchie McKay 5 82-69 Steve Alford
Radford Byron Samuels 5 58-87 Brad Greenberg
West Virginia John Beilein 5 104-60 Bob Huggins
Butler Todd Lickliter 6 131-61 Brad Stevens
Denver Terry Carroll 6 79-99 Joe Scott
Drake Tom Davis 6 54-66 Keno Davis
Michigan Tommy Amaker 6 109-83 John Beilein
North Dak.St. Tim Miles 6 99-71 Saul Phillips
N. Illinois Rob Judson 6 74-101 Ricardo Patton
Binghamton Al Walker 7 92-108 Kevin Broadus
Colorado State Dale Layer 7 103-106Tim Miles
Iowa Steve Alford 8 152-106Todd Lickliter
Minnesota Dan Monson 8 118-106Tubby Smith
Iona Jeff Ruland 9 139-135Kevin Willard
Wyoming Steve McClain 9 157-115Heath Schroyer
Bowling Green Dan Dakich 10 156-140Louis Orr
Indiana State Royce Waltman 10 134-164Kevin McKenna
Kentucky Tubby Smith 10 263-83 Billy Gillispie
Colorado Ricardo Patton 11 184-160Jeff Bzdelik
Quinnipiac Joe DeSantis 11 118-188Tom Moore
San Diego Brad Holland 13 200-176Bill Grier
Southern Utah Bill Evans 15 209-223Roger Reid

I know there’s a lot of hand wringing about how the Eastern conference is inferior, but the Raptors record of 45-33, which is good for 3rd in the East, would be good for 6th in the West behind Dallas, Phoenix, San Antonio, Houston and Utah…before this season started, if I told you that the Raptors would have a record good enough to be 6th in the West, you would have thought me delusional…

Great quote from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, on the precipitous decline of Lakers centre Andrew Bynum: “I don't know. I didn't have that problem…This is probably his fourth or fifth year in competitive basketball. My fifth year of competitive basketball was the eighth grade. He's got to learn a lot on the fly and that's tough. I don't envy him. I think Andrew wants everything to work and unless it works, he's not going to try, so he's become very tentative." In other words, Bynum needs to get his ass to work…

Quick link here about Anthony Parker’s great season with the Raps…

http://cbs.sportsline.com/nba/story/10119588
Good article on the international draft prospects for this year’s draft…

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/chris_ekstrand/04/02/international.prospects/index.html

AD...overlooked again...

Florida beat Ohio State 84-75 in a game that was never really close…Greg Oden was phenomenal scoring 25 points (on 10-of-15 from the field), with 12 boards and had four blocks in 38 minutes, but it was not enough to match the balanced attack of the Gators (6 players with at least 8 points)…plus the Buckeyes could not hit anything (4-of-23) from 3-point range, while the Gators hit nearly everything (22-of-25 from the free throw line…some interesting additional notes from the post game NCAA press release:

The Florida starting lineup of Corey Brewer, Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Taurean Green and Lee Humphrey is the first starting five to repeat as national champions.

Florida guard Humphrey connected on 4-of-7 3-pointers against Ohio State, extending his NCAA Tournament career record for made 3s to 47. The previous mark was 42 by Duke's Bobby Hurley. In his four career Final Four games, Humphrey shot 18-of-32 (56.3 percent) from 3-point range.

Horford (18 points), Green (16), Humphrey (14) and Brewer (13) scored in double figures for Florida, marking the second straight national title game in which four Gators had at least 10 points. In 2006, Brewer, Horford, Humphrey and Noah were all in double figures.

In the two title-game victories, Florida held UCLA (2006) and Ohio State (2007) to a combined 7-of-40 (17.5 percent) from 3-point range. The team with the higher 3-point field goal percentage is 17-4 in title


Oh my…the Hall of Fame is once again the Hall of Shame…seriously, the game is about a lot of things, but primarily it’s about the players…and yet, when this years list of the new HOF’s was announced yesterday, there was nary a player in sight…Look, Phil Jackson (nine NBA titles, including three separate three-peats) is a no-brainer…the 1966 NCAA champion Texas Western team is a good selection (although the Loyola of Chicago team the year before had 4 black starters, but I digress)… Roy Williams as a kind of a lifetime achievement award is a stretch (only 1 title and several masterful choke jobs in the Tourney), and you can slot four-time WNBA championship coach Van Chancellor, international coaches Pedro Ferrandiz of Spain and Mirko Novosel of Yugoslavia into the category of “Whatever” and longtime NBA Referee Mendy Rudolph into the must get guys with odd first names into the Hall…thanks god annoying mouthpiece Dick Vitale and longtime NCAA cheat coach Eddie “the Emory Envelope” Sutton did not get in…meanwhile, deserving players like Adrian Dantley, Artis Gilmore and Bernard King did not get in…I could prattle on endlessly, but ESPN.com columnist Ken Shouler does a great job of it here:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=shouler_ken&id=2822048&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab2pos2

and here

http://proxy.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?id=2394981

Don’t look now, but Yao Ming’s leg is feeling better…In his first 15 games since returning from his broken leg, the 7’5” center is averaging 31 points and 10 rebounds while leading them to a 11-4 record…

Talking with a friend about who the most impressive Raptor has been this season…I think you have to pick the coach, Sam Mitchell…after starting the season 13-19, the Raptors have gone 28-13 and Mitchell’s ability to motivate and juggle a lineup where his best players have been out with injuries has been nothing short of remarkable…to wit, aside from Rasho Nesterovic, four of the Raptors starters have missed 6 games or more this season…Chris Bosh, the Raps top score and rebounder missed 12 games, but the Raptors went 6-6…T.J. Ford, the Raps leading assist man, missed 7 games, and Toronto was 4-3 without him…The Raptors were 4-4 Anthony Parker, 5-1 without Jorge Garbajosa, and even 6-3 without Andrea Bargnani…simply a masterful job from a coach who’s come a long way from challenging Reefer Alston to a fistfight in the locker room…

Phi Slamma Jamma...

OK…so I thought Jeff Green would show up in G-Town’s 67-60 loss to Ohio State, being the Hoyas best player an all…apparently not…in the end it was too much Mike Conley Hr. as the little Buckeye PG scored 15 points on 7-for-12 from the floor with 5 boards and 6 assists…he was at his best in the first half with Oden glues to the pine with foul trouble, scoring 11 points on 5-for-7 shooting…the vaunted Oden-Hibbert matchup added up like this: Oden 13 points and 9…Hibbert 19 points and 6 rebounds…however, Oden had the play of the night with a ridiculous dunk attempts with about 6½ minutes left….he basically broad-jumped about 2 feet inside the foul line, with his right hand cocked WAY behind his head, and tried to dunk over Jeff Green with the ball hitting back of the rim, but Green getting called for a blocking foul…

As for Florida’s 76-66 win over UCLA, they were too big, too good and too timely…too big: Noah and Horford both drew a lot of attention inside and then passed out to open shooters all night...plus big man Chris Richard went 7-7 for 16 points…too good: Gators best player, SF Corey Brewer finished with 19 points on 5-for-7 shooting, including 4-for-5 on 3-pointers, while harassing UCLA’s best player, SG Aaron Afflalo into a 17 point, 5-14 shooting night and 5 fouls…too timely: with a 29-23 at the half, the Gators hit 4 threes in the first 7 minutes of the second half, three of those by SG Lee Humphrey to sprint ahead to 47-30 with 13:20 to go…

Tonight? In a rematch of the NCAA football championship, albeit with the script flipped (meaning Florida is the favourite now…duh) the questions will be:

Can Greg Oden stay out of foul trouble? Oden played a total of 161 seconds in the first half against Georgetown…in fact in his last three tournament games he's logged only 18, 24 and 20 minutes of court time respectively…Florida has three bigs in Noah, Al Horford and Chris Richard that will all pressure Oden on both offence and defence…in order for the Buckeyes to have a chance to win, Oden must play at least 30 minutes…

Will history matter? On Dec. 23 in Gainesville, Florida blew open a very close game with a 31-7 run, during which the Buckeyes panicked, towards winning 86-60…

Will Florida’s guards be better? In the abovementioned December matchup PG Taurean Green scored 24 points on 9-for-12 shooting (with four threes) with Brewer (18 points on 7-for-13), and Humphrey (12 points, two 3-pointers) making tremendous contributions…meanwhile, OSU PG Mike Conley Jr. is all world right now, averaging 18 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, and 2 steals per game in the tourney…while SG Ron Lewis is averaging 21 points, 6 rebounds, 1 assist and 1 steal…although…

Corey Brewer vs. Ron Lewis? After making Aaron Afflalo disappear can Brewer do the same to Lewis? The 6-foot-4 Lewis shoots poorly against bigger defenders such as Georgetown's 6-foot-8 DaJuan Summers, who blanketed him on Saturday as well as the 6-foot-9 Brewer, who harrased him into a 3-10 for 9 points in their last matchup in December…

Is Florida due for a stinker? Remember, the Buckeyes have won 22 straight dating back to January 9th, while a little over a month ago, Florida crapped the bed by 10 points against both LSU and Tennessee…and a little over a week ago, they almost spit the bit to Butler…

I’m going with the Gators, who are too experienced and really rolling right now…make it Florida 84, OSU 79 with Corey Brewer as the MOP…

Terrific April Fools Day joke here by Suns owner Robert Sarver who called Suns coach Mike D'Antoni on his cell phone yesterday morning indicating that after Nash and Nowitzki went out to dinner Saturday night, Nash was arrested for DUI and needed to be bailed out…apparently he had D'Antoni going for a minute or two before he realized what day it was…

The Raptors are in the playoffs for the first time in 5 years and that’s no April fools…

Wow….Pacers PF (playing C, but only because Jermaine O’Neal is too chicken to play it) Ike Diogu went for 18 points and 13 rebounds in 32 minutes in a 100-99 win over the visiting Spurs…

Interesting story on who graduates their players and who doesn’t…

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/03/post_61.html

Given the Hall of Fame inductees will be announced today, good article here about which current players should get in…

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/marty_burns/03/30/hall.worthy/index.html

Great story (thanks for the forward Noel), and you MUST PLAY THE VIDEO…Drexler’s dunk over the guy from Memphis is out of this world…

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=jamfest83&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos1

Mike Freeman has clearly lost his mind…

http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/10102396