Idle Chatter on Draft Day

Joakim Noah celebrates his arrival into the NBA with Commissioner Stern.

Since I have taken such a lengthly hiatus from Paints in the Point, let it be known that I intend to return to the web better than ever. Mediocrity may have been my calling card in the past, but tonight is the beginning of a new era. The 2010 NBA Draft marks the return of the Paints in the Point Podcast (my personal favorite) and my return to our webpage. It also marks the arrival of John Wall to the NBA and begins the weeklong countdown to July 1st and Free Agency. Big day, wouldn’t you say?

I Love This Stuff

How can you not love playoff basketball, especially this season’s version of postseason antics? It has at once been exhilarating and boring, expected and surprising, heroic and deflating. What is left is right, up is down, yet it all is normal in the same prism that previous playoffs have been seen in.

Are the Clouds Closer?

First off, this isn’t surprising and quite frankly is expected. Everyone knew or believed that the Thunder would take at least one game and everyone knew that Chicago would be competitive, especially after the first two games. And I wouldn’t consider either of these games a “steal” by the 8-seed, they were most certainly victories.

To the Worthy

Its awards season again, that magical time where individuals are rewarded for spectacular or surprising seasons just before the sun sets on the regular season and teams are rewarded with what really matters: playoff opportunities.

A Matter of Time

I find myself asking a question that at times seems incredibly moronic and myopic on my part and other times perfectly debatable. The question: how good is Kevin Durant? Now, this isn’t going to solve this question as much as work through my troubles with declaring his status thus far.

Fire In the Sky

The MVP race is not really a race at all and hasn’t been since LeBron secured his second or third straight player of the month award. LeBron could go scoreless, reboundless, and assistless for the remainder of the season and still win this MVP. The competition really isn’t even competitive.

It’s Over

Kevin Durant’s streak of 25 point games was snapped last night when the Spurs held the phenomenal scorer to 21 points on 7-19 shooting. His streak had reached 29 games, which is incredible. I mean, really incredible. He is one of the two best/easiest scorers in the game along with Carmelo.

These guys can drop in 20 points in a quarter and it never seems forced or not in rhythm with the offense. And Durant is the only legitimate consistent scoring threat on the Thunder (Westbrook is still developing) and yet the defenses cannot stop him. They know going into every game that if they can contain Durant their odds of winning increase exponentially, but usually they falter while attempting to stop KD.

Frame It Properly

I watched the Oklahoma City Thunder and Milwaukee Bucks and it got me thinking about Kevin Durant. Then I thought about LeBron James and how they will ultimately be judged at the end of their careers.

The part of their career’s that will be most scrutinized will be the number of championships they win, if any at all. Is that the fairest objective measure of greatness relative to another player?

Observations on the Milwaukee/Oklahoma City Game

Jefferson out, Jennings in

We have never seen a Thunder game, We never seen a Jennings era Bucks game, we have never been so excited.

Paints in the Fantasy Draft

So the teams have been drafted for the 2009-2010 Fantasy Draft and here are the rosters.

Season Preview: Oklahoma City Thunder

The history of the Oklahoma City Thunder as the Thunder is brief. They’ve played one season going 23-59 and have high hopes for 2009-2010. The Seattle Sonics however have a much more storied past playing in three NBA Finals in 1978, 1979, and 1996, winning in 1979 with Dennis Johnson as the Finals MVP. They also gave the world the honor and glory of being able to witness Shawn Kemp play on the national stage while also giving him the opportunity to impregnate numerous women throughout the continental United States also helping to solidfy the stereotype of NBA players as infideious ladies’ men. This and other details will be discussed more in my spring semester course, Cultural Perceptions and the NBA: 1980-Present. Sign up soon, spots are running out.

Bust a Move

When is it too soon to label someone a bust? Perhaps it is more to do with the standard of play rather than the length of their time in the league. The term “bust” is usually used to describe a high draft pick who fails to live up to the pre-draft hype surrounding him like a cloud of expectations. Their failures often live in the halls of infamy and serve as warnings to teams not to pick based entirely on hype and statistics.

You Ain’t Ready For War

How could I have missed the remarkable similarities through my surveying of the Association? While I have admired and respected the overall amazing scoring aptitude of Kevin Durant, I’ve yet to see the correspondence to another of the great players in the game: LeBron James.

These two stars of the game represent a sort of crooked parallel, both earning praise for their offensive competence, but they go about dominance in entirely different manners. This is partly inspired by the recent claims by an NBA source that Kevin Durant has the potential to be superior to LeBron James at the conclusion of his career. The validity of the claim is in question, but the similarities of the two are quite evident.

Live Blogging Picks 7-60 of the 2009 NBA Draft

We (The Custodian, The Franchise, The Freelancer) are at The Champ’s house. The following will be an approximate representation of what happened.

8:11 PM: Discussing the virtues of having Shaq on the Cleveland Cavaliers with The Franchise. He thinks he is the only one who has doubts about Shaq with the Cavs, but The Freelancer reassures him that he is not alone.

8:12 PM: The Champ wants to “put money” on Curry going to the Knicks with #8 pick in the draft.

8:15 PM: The Champ and The Franchise love Kevin Durant.

8:16 PM: Curry to the Warriors. “The Knicks got robbed.” The Champ claims that the Knicks’ plan is entirely ruined with the Warriors’ pick.

8:19 PM: The room is treated to a Champ gun show.

8:21 PM: Jordan Hill to the Knicks. “Holy cow, he’s huge.” “I can see this guy being good.”

8:24 PM: Jordan Hill = Donté Stallworth? You be the judge:

Wrap It Before You Scrap It

Well ladies and gentlemen, another NBA season has come and gone and before we throw it away and prepare for the draft, let us all take a look at what we learned.