The Should-Be’s and Probably-Will-Nots

One will, and one won’t (pictures via The Sporting Blog)

The NBA All-Star starters were announced yesterday (as well as Doc Rivers being the Eastern Conference coach). Once again, the fans maligned perspective makes for a starting line-up that fails to represent the best talent available in either conference. But that’s nothing new; it happens every year.

Now comes the more interesting part. On the 31 (next Thursday), the reserves for each team will be announced. Seven players (7 players— 2 guards, 2 forwards, 1 center, 2 wild-cards) will be picked by the coaches… and by David Stern. To clarify, David Stern will only select a player if injury does not allow a coaches’ selected reserve to participate. This means that David Stern will have the job of picking a player to replace Tracy McGrady for the West All-Stars, seeing as how T-Mac is once more hurt.

If I were the embodiment of all the NBA coaches for each respective conference (+ David Stern), here’s how my teams would look:

The Dunk Contest We Would Run

The glory years of the dunk contest… we can bring them back

Late last week, All-Star Weekend Dunk Contest invites started going out. On Saturday, Randy Kim at AOL Sports wrote an article about Jamario Moon’s inclusion, and then yesterday Mike Trudell at Timberwolves.com reported that defending champion Gerald Green accepted his own invitation to participate.

That means that within a few days, half of the participants have already been chosen. Henry Abbott at TrueHoop speculates that Dwight Howard should and will also be included, leaving only one remaining spot.

Don’t get me wrong, seeing Gerald Green and Dwight Howard square off in another dunk contest won’t be so bad, but I’m sick of how the league continues to mishandle a wonderful opportunity for sheer excitement. How can it be so hard to run a fruitful dunk contest when there are so many years of successful models from which to copy?

Game Recap: Bobcats vs. Celtics

One thing the Bobcats were not last night was intimidated. Not by the record, not by the winning streak, not by the home crowd, and most certainly not by the Celtics’ suddenly vaunted defense.

As we learned in last year’s playoff series between Golden State and Dallas, some teams simply match up well against others. Charlotte certainly has played Golden State to Boston’s Dallas this year, pushing the Celtics to, and now beyond, the brink in their two meetings this season.

Charlotte played hungry last night, attacking the basket, the boards, and sub-par Celtics one-on-one defense from the game’s start. Rarely have teams so handily outscored the Celtics in the paint this season, but a couple key factors attributed to the 42-28 disparity that the Bobcats enjoyed.