The pleasant surprise for me are my Bobcats and the block party with Okafor. Defensive Player of the Year!!!!

On that, Morrison sucks... We should of taken Roy.

Utahs emergence as an elite team has been good and you can't deny that Nash is the cog that makes the Suns work.

Dirk is my MVP followed by Nash and then Kobe. Dirk has good team mates in Howard, Stack, Jet but Nash has great team mates in Matrix, Amare. I still thinks the Mavs are deeper and will take out the Championship.

Some lowlights have been the All-Star game, the most interesting aspect of that was the after game shooting.

The nastiest thing I've seen was Livingstons knee going snap. That was just ugly. Yao's leg wasn't much better.

Kobe going for for 65 and then 50. The first time in 44 seasons a Laker has gone for 2 consecutive games of 50.

Is Lebron really the saviour as people were making out a season or so ago???

I'm interested to see how the Nuggets go once Melo and AI learn how to play on the same team.

Stotts firing was great news. About 40 games to late, but oh well....

Agree with the David Lee quote. And this guy fell to the bottom of the first round. Do a mulligan on his draft class and he goes Top 7. Orlando took Vasquez with #11 who then went AWOL.

Isiah HAS to be the worst GM in the history of the game, but hey, he's not that bad of a coach.

A disappointment is also Big Ben with the Bulls. Not too sure if he has worth the coin the Bulls paid for him. On the spin-off, Chandler with the Hornets has turned into a rebounding machine....

Another thing lacking was some blockbuster trades. I would of thought that Vince would of had a new home at least. I think the biggest trade was the Indy/GSW trade.

Some questions to ponder in the off season....

- Will the Wolves trade KG?
- Where will Vince end up?
- Where will Pau end up?

Some interesting points TR, I was just about to put in about the crapness that was the all star weekend, what a joke.

I am glad that the Pistons didn't chase Big Ben and pay him the obscene amount he was asking, yes he is good but 50 or so million over 4 years? I don't think so.

Okafor is DPOTY without a doubt, that guy was a blocking machine. So who do you think the bobcats will try to get this year? Rumours are that Durant might not even nominate for the draft.

Stotts firing was about a season and a half too late.

IMO the Celts if they don't trade for some old washed up has-been, given a few years could be right back up there. They have some amazing young guys that given time will take the steps to become contenders.

Bron is a chump. People called him the next MJ, Magic whatever but tell me, would MJ or Magic ever just stop playing when the team was 15 down? No way, they would bust their balls and get the team back in the game. "The Chosen One", must mean the one chosen to sink the Cavs and Mike Brown.

Agent Zero is a flat out nut-case - wonder what off-season surprises he will have in store for us?

Vince will end up in Orlando, Pau to the Bulls and if KG can't get out of that hole they call the T'Wolves he will have to be on the brink of homicidal maniac surely? How many years without some back up players?

I'll just finish up in saying that can the NBA please stop giving there love child D-Wade foul calls everytime someone coughs near the guy? Seriously he throws his body all over the place and the ref's are dumb enough to call fouls.

Oh one last thing - get rid of the damn Rasheed Wallace Rule - it's ridiculous, let the players show some passion.

I love some of Sheed's comments about the whole 'wade is the NBA lovechild' thing. He's right, Wade is a protected species which is garbage. Gerald Wallace has also made some comments about it.

If the Cats don't get one or two (aka either Durant or Oden) then I'm all for trading the pick, moving down a spot or two and selecting Julian Wright. I'd also look at trading one for two (I hope MJ is reading this) with your boys Detroit and getting the Darko pick, plus their outright first rounder and selecting Marcus Williams and Thaddeous Young.

We also need to trade Brevin and Harrington (wouldn't mind saying goodbye to McMay and Morrison) and we MUST resign Wallace and extend Oak. Resigning Carroll would also be nice as he's our best shooter. If we can't resign Wallace then at least sign and trade him. Oh, get a decent coach in. Adelman would be my tip.

I like the Celtics, Al Jefferson is a beast, Perk is a nice defensive bigman, Gomes is a good small forward, Rajon Rondo is a good PG and they have 'The Truth'. All they need is a coach with a brain and an GM with half a brain and they'll be good.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the Cats go after Vince. Maybe not long term but an offer for around $42ish over 3. Big numbers financially, but small time period. I'd like to see Shard Lewis in a Cats uni as well.

Highlights:

The resurgence of Amare Stoudamire. Coming to a playoff spot near you.

David Lee rocks. What a pleasant surprise. The only redeeming thing about the Knicks.

See also:
Josh Smith- Welcome to the block party.

Iguodala- If he's done this 2 years ago, AI and Webber might still be in Philly... Hang on a sec, maybe that's the whole point.

Mo Williams- I always liked you better than TJ Ford anyway.

Caron Butler- It's about freakin time.

The Dirk v Nash MVP race- Go whiteboy, go whiteboy, go.

Tyson Chandler being a better, younger, more offensively talented Ben Wallace for 2/3 of the price. Suck on that, disbelievers.

Terry Stotts finally being fired. Bogut might actually get to shoot the ball now, and even get a play set for him.
Take note Zeke and Doc Rivers, you time will come too. But not before you take your teams into the heart of the Oden-Durant sweepstakes- it's the only thing that will redeem your coaching careers.

Disappointments:

Tim Hardaway's fat, bigoted mouth.

The 'Sheed' rule. Only someone with a frontal lobotomy can play with no emotion.

Everything to do with the "All-Star" weekend bar Howard's sticker dunk.

LeBron- from "The next MJ" to "the next payday". Where did your heart go? He just doesn't seem to care anymore- just see his efforts in the all-star weekend; particularly the skills challenge.

AK47- From Russia with No Love. Where did your multi-cat goodness go, you Ivan Drago lovechild? The only AK47 that Jazz fans will be looking forward to seeing is the one they bought on the black market.

The total lack of trades, even when they made perfect sense:

Vince to Orlando od NO/OK? He's a damn free agent at the end of the season- at least get something for him, even if it's only 70 cents to the dollar.

Kidd to the Lakers? They need a plug-and-play point guard so that the opposition actually needs to defend 5 players, NJ needs to rebuild and Kidd is costing them $60 mil through to 2009. Makes sense, but lets just not bother.

Gasol to Chicago- What happened? I'm sure he had his bags ready at the airport, only to find out someone fell asleep forgot to pull the trigger on the most sensible trade of the season. Hm, the bulls gave away Chandler and J.R. Smith for an expiring contract (P.J. Brown) because they wanted trading room for the deadline, then never ended up making a trade. Maybe they were gunshy after they saw Chandler prosper, and didn't want to see the same thing happen to Deng and Thomas, who will almost certainly be Josh Smith version 2.0.


I like the Idea of VC at the Cats- Imagine Okafor, May, Vince, Wallace and Felton (if he actually remembers how to play) with a good, young support cast and the chance of a really, really good draft pick.

I'd be willing to bet that Lewis ends up somewhere like Charlotte or Phoenix. If he went to the suns, they'd have 7 starting-calibre players. Good luck beating a team with Nash, Stoudamire, Marion, Bell, Barbosa etc etc you get the picture.


Also, I have a feeling anyone doubting this year's draft class may be eating their words in a few years. Sure Morrison streaks like a drunk bogan at a cricket match, and JJ Redick sucks more than Paris Hilton in a 'home movie', but Roy has some real talent and will be ROY, Aldridge reminds me of a young Amare, Thomas has just realised that the better he plays, the more money he'll get (he might even do the dunk comp gratis then), and Gay is a great swingman with an unfortunate name, who Tim Hardaway would refuse to play with. Ironic, really, because think how well his jersey would sell in Golden State.

My Highlights:

- Amare's return. Although he probably has lost some of his explosivness, he's come back a more complete player and it's great to see.

- Mavs v Suns double OT game. If that's a preview of the West finals, then we're in for an all time great series.

-Shaq. What can you say, he's still got it. Since Wade's been out, he's been putting up 23 and 8 and the Heat are 10-3.

I'd just like to add to my post.

Golden State's surge. They've finally found the right mix and they're finally play-off bound. And I agree with Spanish, how well WOULD Rudy's jersey sell over there?..... :-)

Lowlights:

-Kobe's elbows. Honestly, he gets suspended TWICE, yet still elbows Kyle Korver in the face not a couple of days later. And while on the topic of Kobe, his comments anout Gil's shot selection really pi$$3d me off, I mean, of all people...

-Boston's losing streak. I'm not even a Celtics fan, but that was depressing.

-LeBron in the clutch. Honestly, he has some real problems, can't hit free throws down the stretch (or all together), can't make big plays down the stretch. He really needs to learn how to win the close ones.


MVP - Nash

I don't care how bad on D he may be, he does what he needs to do - run his teams offence. Last time I checked, he did it quite well. He's THIRD in the L for double-doubles (behind only KG and Dwight) and without him, the Suns went 1-3.

Runners up: Dirk, Kobe.