Kobe's 40 ppg for March

I feel like i'm turning into a Kobe homer, but i just think people should start to realize how good he really is, and give him some respect.

This is from elias.com posted on ESPN today:

Kobe Bryant scored 53 points in the Lakers' overtime loss to the Rockets and finished the month of March with a scoring average of 40.4 points per game. Bryant is the only player in the last 40 years to average 40 points per game for an entire month (minimum: 5 games) -- and he has done it four times: 40.6 in February 2003, 43.4 in January 2006, and 41.6 in April 2006.

For those of you who need to know, the NBA record for highest scoring average in a calendar month (minimum: 5 games) belongs to, who else, Wilt Chamberlain. Wilt averaged 53.2 points per game in March 1962 (266 points in 5 games).

Kobe has scored 50 or more points 19 times in his career, third-most in NBA history, behind Wilt (118) and Michael (31).

Steve Kerr gets in on the Debate: Jordan vs Kobe

Steve Kerr from Yahoo! Sports has gotten into the debate on whether Kobe is better than Jordan, replying to the many emails he's gotten from his readers:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=sk-mailbag033007&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Will we ever come to a consensus??

To Tank or Not to Tank?

So the NBA is nearing a close, to the regular season that is, and with that comes the inevitable talk of "Tanking".

This year potentially has 2 big names, Greg Oden and Kevin Durant, both of whom might come out after their first year of college. Greg Oden seems to be a lock to come out, especially as Ohio St. keeps winning, if they manage to win the title you can put money on him declaring for the draft. Kevin Durant on the other hand is the wild card after Texas bowed out in the 2nd round. I could see him returning and trying to get a better run out of Texas, but he'd be putting off a lot of money on endorsements and whatnot, on top of his salary as a 1 or 2 pick.

either way, there's gold at the top of the draft and teams like Boston, Memphis, Atlanta and others are on their way up to get it.

Unlike the NFL, the NBA has a lottery system in which ping pong balls are divided up between the teams that didn't make playoffs, the worst records gets more ping pong balls and so on. Then they are selected at random out a machine to set the order for the draft, so even though the Celtics are obviously tanking, there's no guarantee for the first pick, unlike the Raiders who knew about halfway through last season they'd be drafting anyone they wanted from College Football.

This talk is basically about the draft, and personally, i don't care if the Celtics tank, they deserve some help, as do the other teams, i just think they could do it a little more covertly.

The other night the Milwaukee Bucks were in a tight game when their franchise player, Micheal Redd, had the hot hand. For some reason, midway through the third quarter, Redd was benched and sat out until 3 minutes to go in the game, which by then the Bucks had fallen behind with no chance of winning. Was this not obvious Tanking? Are the players in on it? If they are, i recommend a new of tanking.

foul trouble

Instead of just benching a player with no justification, why not get them in foul trouble, 4 or 5 fouls. that way when you take them out of the game, you can say that you didn't want them to foul out.

I feel like this year the Tanking is at it's worst, Milwaukee shelved Andrew Bogut already, the Celtics haven't played a pro lineup since 2005, Memphis is just terrible and now some guy named Kinsey is their leading scorer.

i must say that it's entertaining to say the least, but you might be offended that these lowly teams are purposely losing games to gain in the end. Fear not, the upper echelon of teams have begun their tanking as well, starting with the Denver Nuggets...

Sports Guy response to Kobe vs Jordan

So in Bill Simmon's (Sports Guy) basketball blog on ESPN.com, he commented on the Kobe vs Jordan article by Jemele Hill, and i thought i'd quote his reply:

5. Got a ton of feedback about Jemele Hill's "Kobe over MJ" column yesterday. Look, the whole point of a sports column is to take an angle, then argue the hell out of it. That's what she did. I wish more people would do this. Anyway, I didn't agree with the column for two reasons:


A. Kobe's scoring took off only after they changed the hand-checking rules and made it impossible for anyone to play defense. That's why Kobe scored 50-plus points in four straight games, that's why Steve Nash has a chance to win three straight MVPs, and that's why guys routinely score 50-60 points these days. If the 1987-93 MJ played in the current era, he would have obliterated every non-Wilt scoring record there was. That had to be mentioned.


B. MJ played in the most competitive era in the history of the league (1987-93) and emerged with three titles from 1991-93. Jemele argued that Kobe's current competition is tougher than the teams from 1991-93, which is just plain wrong. There's no comparison. The league sucks right now. Back in the early '90s, you had Magic's Lakers, Drexler's Blazers, Riley's Knicks, Isiah's Pistons, Price's Cavs, Hakeem's Rockets, Robinson's Spurs, Malone's Jazz, the TMC trio in Golden State, some underrated Celtics teams (they averaged 52 wins a year during Reggie Lewis' prime), some great Suns teams (including a 62-win team in 1992-93 with Barkley) and a Sonics team that was just taking off with GP and Kemp. It was a top-heavy league back then, unlike now, when 80 percent of the teams are mediocre and there are only four good teams (Dallas, Phoenix, San Antonio and Detroit).

He makes good points, i think this is a topic worth debating, i just lack the people to debate it with.

Pity Party for Me!

So i'm going to throw myself a pity party thanks to ESPN's Page 2 reminding me how tough it is to be a Browns Fan.

As you read the article, they'll explain their complex formula for defining which fans have suffered the most. Interesting to note that they set a 25 year limit for championships because they say that in 25 years you can be born, develope a loyalty, and then pass it on to someone else. Hmm....i just turned 25. Check it out here.

Also note the Soul Sucking moments in Browns history headlined by Brian Sipe, a.k.a, my namesake! Thanks Pops! And we wonder where the Mercer Curse started?

On a lighter note, as hard as it is to be a Browns Fan, Bizjournal.com had a lot of good things to say about us, voting us the Most Loyal of all NFL fans, with good reason! Check that article out here.

Kobe is the Best!

So about 2 months ago i made the roundabout assumption that Kobe is the best player in the NBA (you can see the post here on my blog). Well, after a week of 45+ points game (6 total) Jemele Hill of ESPN has join me in saying that Kobe is better than Jordan was. Her article here is much more detailed.

You can try to deny it all you want, but A) Kobe owns everyone in the league right now, and he's only getting better and B) Jordan was great but he had his bad days also.

Think of it like this; most men 25yrs old or older and married often think it'd be better to be single again, like back in high school, and dating all the girls they used to date. But really think back to high school, yea you might have dated multiple girls, but there was a lot of bad times, breakups, frustrations, months being single, being cheated on, the list can go on. It wasn't all the good things you remember. That's Jordan. Yea we remember the dunks, the high scoring games, the clutchness, the championships, but we forget the downs times, he wasn't always dominating. He had horrible shooting nights. He had nights where he wouldn't do anything but score (no asts, no rebs). He even punched his teammate at practice.

I'm not going to compare character, i think both Jordan and Kobe are pretty terrible people in "real" like, but as players, they've sacrificed everything to become the best, Jordan was the best, but Kobe has taken over, and if there weren't so many agendas from the media, Kobe would get as many MVP's.

But he's not done yet, he's got plenty of time to get more championships and MVPs and whatever else he wants. you guys will see.

Kobe has burned me more than any other fan as a Kings fan and a Nuggets fan, so don't act like i got something for Kobe, i hate the dude, but he's the best, no question.

NBA All Ugly Team

NBA

So Aaron Britton and i decided to start putting together the All-Ugly Team for the NBA. We've discussed this for years, but now, i will publish it. The criteria we used to devise a team was ugliness, which sometimes is hard to distuingish in a league full of super tall goofy looking dudes, but here we go;

Starting Point: Tyronne Lue

he doesn't look that bad in this photo, but maybe we can find some worse ones somewhere else.

Shooting Guard: Sam "Schmeegle" Cassell

Small Forward: Reggie Evans

Power Forward: Mikki Moore

Center: Chris Kaman

6th Man: Adam Morrison

Honorable Mention:

Corliss Williamson

Chauncey Billups

Adonal Foyle

If you know of anymore ugliness, please hit me up.

Euro's are questionable since us Americans think Euro's already look wierd, so i kind of excluded them, though you could make a case for Darko, Hedo, Gordan and others.

Football Draft

So my homie Isaac has re-inspired me to write, and now i'm gonna try to write once a week.

So lately, i've really gotten excited about this years NFL draft. I get excited every year because the Browns always have an early pick due to the suckness of the team. This year we have the 3rd overall pick, and a ton of drama to go with it.

Some options we have to draft are Adrian Peterson, Brady Quinn, Jamarcus Russell, Joe Thomas and Calvin Johnson. We could also try trading down or around or whatnot. My hope is, well, all these dudes are good, so its a win-win, though i really like Adrian.

So now i'm realizing ya'll don't care what the Browns do so lets talk about how dumb the NFL Combine is. does running a 4.40 40 yd dash versus running a 4.60 really make you that much better of a player? not at all. These stats are dumb. Jerry Rice reportedly ran a 4.64. Hello! best WR ever. get a clue teams

Also on my plate this time of year is Rockies spring training. Everyone's favorite team is almost ready to go, and mark my words, they have a worthy shot of winning the division. Holliday, Helton, Hawpe and Atkins are bigtime hitters, ,throw in Tulowitzki and Willy Taveras and i like the front 6 of our lineup. If you don't like baseball you're missing out this year because Rockies tickets are dirt cheap and this team will be exciting offensively!

Okay, this is a very random post. more next week of real writing!