With the Heat winning a third straight Christmas Day matchup against the Lakers, isn't it time to retire this pseudo-tradition? Shaq, the ostensible source of interest in this drama, didn't even play and even if he had played everyone knows it's Wade's team at this point. Plus, Kobe and Diesel have at least officially buried the hatched. There's really just no there there. I'd be much happier if they went back to two games, and did rematches of the previous spring's Conference Championship games. It's frustrating, to me, that the League doesn't do a better job of trying to actually market NBA basketball at its finest instead of getting all gimmicky.
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NBA Christmas
26 Dec 2006 12:56 pm
Comments (11)
I dunno -- a marquee national TV match-up between a healthy Kobe and DWade always has the chance to produce fireworks, or more (as will virtually any combo of Wade/LeBron/Kobe/Hibachi for the forseeable future). Shaq would only get in the way. (Just kidding -- kind of.)
BTW, Kobe and Shaq buried the hatched . . . what, exactly? (There's a picture.) ;-)
Couldn't disagree more. Kobe and Wade are the only guys in the race to be seen as Jordan's successor, as supertalented guards who can will their teams to win. The Shaq angle is hardly relevant.
Al, the Atlanta Hawks would certainly be one of those teams. A team of Al Harrington, Jason Terry, Nazr Mohammed, Rasheed Wallace, and Boris Diaw would be far superior to the current roster.
The Warriors take the cake on this one. Arenas, Hughes, Jamison, Webber, Dampier, plus Boykins and whoever else off the bench.
Amen.
Also worth noting that these Christmas Day games are the worst announced games of the entire season, totally geared toward the casual fan (or captive relative) and geared entirely around silly storylines and not basketball. And these attempts to generate inter-conference rivalries are doomed to fail. You just can't get a good rivalry between teams that only play twice a year (unless they are both totally dominant in their respective conferences).
On the other hand, I really like just-above-the-court camera angle they used for the Christmas Day game. It's a much better approximation of the angle you get from really good seats, with a bit of the view from the PG position thrown in. You can see away-from-the-ball stuff way better than the usual TV angle, which form some reason approximates the view from the not-so-great seats.
"I'd be much happier if they went back to two games"
Impeach David Stern!
I want two Xmas day games and two Turkey day games. What the hell is Stern doing with taking Thanksgiving off the schedule this year?
I've got no problem with the Miami / Lakers scheduling, though. Kobe didn't show up this year, but it's normally a nice matchup. Star power is a good thing for the holidays. I'd make Cleveland / Houston a regular matchup too.
You gotta disagree with ABC's decision to demote Hubie Brown. You love Hubie. You need a guy who understands the Xs and Os on your announcing squad. You respect Mark Jackson, but you know that he just doesn't bring the goods like HB. You just enjoy what Hubie does. You miss Hubie's unpermed white hair. You're not happy about this.
"You miss Hubie's unpermed white hair."
While you gotta love excessive use of the second person, and while you gotta admit this is quite funny, I must say that you have me confused with someone else.
I can only wish that, after the Pistons defeated Jordan's Bulls in two straight Eastern Conference Finals, the pseudo-tradition had been retired.
Comments closed January 09, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
That game was so boring I had to find other things to do until the football came on. Given Kobe's injury, or whatever else it was making him suck, there was no interest other than D-Wade's greatness.
As an aside, an interesting post by Jonathan Adler at the Volokh's: For which teams is the assembled quality of former, yet still active players better than the current roster? He's a 76ers fan, and (besides AI) you have got guys like Larry Hughes, Bruce Bowen, Raja Bell, Nazr Mohammed, Kenny Thomas, Tim Thomas, Jerry Stackhouse - all of whom are OK, but not really that much better than what Phily has now. I would instead think about Toronto - Chauncey, T-Mac, Vince. The Wiz have Ben and Rasheed Wallace, C-Webb and Juwan Howard, Larry Hughes, Bobby Simmons, Rip Hamilton, Jared Jefferies - no one great like Gilbert, but all in all not a bad team.
Posted by Al | December 26, 2006 1:33 PM