Personally I'm a tad bit tired of all the LeBron hoopla, yes he's a good player but when did he became bigger than the league itself. If you like me and are tired of hearing about him (at least until he announces where he plans to go) I wanted to give a few thoughts about the NBA that I've been having lately.
Earlier today I read a column by Bill Simmons on ESPN.com about who the superstars of the NBA are, he listed 5 players; Kobe, LeBron, Wade, Durant and Howard. His explanation for them being considered superstars was they all have the ability to make any team a 45+ game winner. I agree that these are 5 of the top players in the league but I feel that if you’re going to include Durant in the list that you also must include Carmelo Anthony. Everyone always wants to talk about the 5 above but Carmelo is every bit as good of a player as anyone. In his 7 years in the league he has led the Nuggets to the playoffs every year. Which is something that you can't say about Kobe, LeBron, Wade, Durant or Howard each one of their teams has missed the playoffs at least once since the 2003-2004 season. Looking at each of those players I feel that Carmelo is the best pure scorer among them as he can get his points in a various amount of ways, he also is a very underrated rebounder, averaging at least 6 in all but 2 seasons. In his article Simmons did place him in the next tier of players, but I just find it hard to believe that he's always an afterthought when it comes to the leagues best players seeing that the highest he has ever finished in MVP balloting is 6th last season (also his first year to make 2nd team all-NBA).
Also yesterday we got a glimpse of how different LeBron and Durant are, after Wade and Bosh made their announcement to play together in Miami on the morning SportsCenter. LeBron comes out with the idea that he needs a 1-hour press conference to let us know where he going. While all of this was happening Durant posted a short comment on his twitter account stating that he and Oklahoma City have agreed on a 5 year contract extension. He didn't need all the lights on him, there was no fan fare just him letting his fans know what was going on with him. Another thing that Durant has been doing is attending Oklahoma's summer league games and cheering on the players some who will be his future teammates and some who will most likely end up in the D-League once the season starts. I can't think of another prime time player will send his summer vacation watching summer league games. It’s a refreshing sight and one that makes me think that as long as Oklahoma keeps their team intact they're going to be major contenders in the very near future.
Anyway those are just a few things I've been thinking about lately, I'll be glad once ESPN airs "The Decision" and gets it all out of the way so we can start hearing about the upcoming season. Whether LeBron resigns with the Cavs or moves to the Heat, Bulls or Knicks no player is above the game or a team. Hopefully he's graceful in this press conference otherwise 5 different fan bases are going to be crushed and angry at how he played this out. As much as I'm tired of all this I already know where I'm going to be at 9EST watching ESPN at least for the first 10 mins tuning in with the rest of you to see perhaps the biggest free agent move in NBA history. If you’re a fan of one of the teams in contention I wish you luck, the NBA could look very different come tonight. I'm excited to see how things turn out.
Bookmark & Share 
0 comments:
Post a Comment