Built Ford Tough

I think Noel and McLemore (and no, it is not just because I watched the two of them play tonight) are my two favourite prospects in this draft. I really like Anthony Bennett, but I do have some tweener concerns about him and am having Derrick Williams and Michael Beasley flashbacks with him. Although to be fair, I was never high on Williams heading into the draft. Anyways, enough rambling about the past. I've been high on Noel since the start of the season and his play so far this year has done nothing to make me sour on him. I don't think he ever becomes much more than a Joakim Noah type offensively, but I think he has elite potential on the defensive end. He has some of the quickest hands I've seen from a big man in a long, long time. I think you can make a valid case that Noel has the quickest hands of any player in college basketball. His shot blocking prowess may not be as prolific as Anthony Davis last year, but he still has a huge presence defensively and is elite in his own right. He is averaging 6 blocks a game in SEC play (5 games) and, most importantly, he is becoming much more disciplined. Earlier in the year he was always biting on fakes trying to block everything but lately he has calmed down and is actually blocking more shots since then. On offense I really like his potential as a high post passer. If he can develop a face up jumper and dribble drive game to compliment that, he can be a very valuable pice offensively. He'll never be a guy you run an offense through, but I do think he has potential to be more than just a lob finishing garbage man. As for McLemore, I think he is my favourite Kansas prospect ever (too young to really follow Paul Pierce as a prospect). His combination of athleticism and shooting ability is definitely unique. As many of you know, I really liked Bradley Beal (who, by the way was an AAU teammate of McLemore's) and I think McLemore is basically a better version of him. I really like how comfortable he is without the ball in his hands, which is usually a glaring weakness for many of these young prospects. If McLemore develops a more refined on-ball game, I think he can be an Eric Gordon type of player in the NBA. I still need to see more of him before I can comfortably put him ahead of Noel, but I really, really like the limited action I have seen from him so far. By the way, I think John Calipari goes to sleep dreaming about next season and having Andrew and Aaron Harrison in his backcourt instead of Ryan Harrow and Archie Goodwin. Harrow is just awful and Goodwin is so wild and sporadic. Their guard play against Alabama tonight was atrocious and is easily the bggest reason for the loss in my opinion. Harrow could barely even make an entry pass and Goodwin was just recklessly throwing his body in the paint hoping for calls.

I get home and put on the Kansas/K-State game so that I can finally get my first full extended look at McLemore and the first thing I see is him getting a charge, which also happened to be his 2nd foul and force him to sit for the rest of the half. Of course.

Kevin Durant - 20-21 FT Russell Westbrook - 15-17 FT The two of them shot more free throws than the entire Nuggets team combined. Durant made 7 FG's and scored 37 points. Westbrook made 10 FG's and scored 36 points. Durant has attempted 42 FT's in the last two games. How do people enjoy watching this?

Holy [expletive]. The $525M has to be a valuation of the entire franchise, right? There is no way that a 65% share of the Kings is with $525M. That is ridiculous.

I know he isn't the GM but you have to think that Doc has a lot of pull within the organization and that if he goes up to Ainge and wants changes, he will get changes. What do you think the Celtics will do if they don't manage to turn things around prior to the deadline? Who are the most likely players to be shipped out of town? Do they look to re-tool or do they just go nuclear on this team and blow it up?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpHft3uyF7s Dude is such a troll.

It is still on the players to perform, though. Sure, you can argue that D'Antoni doesn't exactly put his players in the most optimal position to succeed (playing Gasol as a stretch 4 for example) but when you have Kobe Bryant shooting 10-32 and have your starting backcourt commit 10 turnovers, you can't absolve the blame from the players and turn it around on the coach. At the end of the day, you can only do so much as a coach. If your players aren't getting back on defense, making lazy plays resulting in turnovers, blown defensive assignments and poor offensive execution there isn't a whole lot you can do. The system may not be ideal and that is definitely a valid argument but the effort level of the players is just abysmal and that is on the players.

Was that one of the best game of Landry Fields' career? Obviously I didn't see a whole lot of him with the Knicks but I would definitely think this game is at least in the top 5 for him. I know he had a few really good games his rookie year so this probably isn't at the top of the list, but it was an awesome game for him. He was fantastic on offense bailing out the Raptors probably 3 or 4 times by making a great cut to give an outlet to a teammate who was trapped in a poor position on the floor. He was active on the glass both offensively and defensively. He ended up with 10 boards, but there were another 3-4 times where him just keeping the ball alive resulted in a teammate getting the board. His defense on Kobe was fantastic. He was the primary defender on Kobe for pretty much the entire game and was forcing him into some really difficult shots. He wasn't even getting a whole lot of help either. Sure, there was usually a 2nd defender (Ed Davis or Amir Johnson mainly) shading over ready to provide help should Fields need it, but very rarely did he end up actually needing the help. He played the passing lanes really well but didn't take any unecessary gambles. Even with his 4 steals, I don't think I really saw any occasions where he over gambled to go for a steal. I was very, very impressed by Fields today.

Offensively, yeah. His defense has been god awful. Ed Davis has taken him one-on-one two or three times this half, finishing over him, through him and sticking jumpers in his face as well. Davis is my favourite player on this team and he has definitely improved offensively, but not to the point where he should be scoring so easily in individual matchups. It isn't even just Davis, either. His help has been non-existent. If any Raptor gets by their man, it is a guaranteed layup. And good god, the Lakers are a mess.

Lol. The refs just called a technical on Bryant, negating a Toronto 3-0 fast break. So instead of Toronto getting a guaranteed 2 points, they come away empty handed on that possession (missed technical FT and didn't score on subsequent possession). I think this is the 2nd time that has happened in this game as well. Dwight Howard's first T stopped a Raps break as well.

Toronto just ran a pick and pop with Jose Calderon and Aaron Gray. Dwane Casey's, folks.

Alan Anderson just got Howard ejected. That guy is the ultimate troll. The best part of that whole sequence was how obvious the refs were trying to get out of ejecting Howard. They clearly call a T on him but then realize later "oh shit, he already has one, we can't eject him, can we?"

Who's been worse in this game so far, Kobe or DeMar? DeRozan can't even dribble the ball with Artest on him. It is painful to watch.

I don't believe it. Terrence Ross just dribbled with his left hand and didn't turn the ball over. :o

Not really. He doesn't like two players on his favourite team. So what? Why does it matter if they happen to be the two best players on the team?

I <3 Davis. I swear, if he gets benched for Bargnani in a couple of weeks, I'll consider boycotting this team. I probably won't actually do it since I'm a sucker, but I'll at least consider it.

Aaron Gay making Dwight Howard look silly. WTF? Landry Fields with his best game as a Raptor and the first quarter isn't over yet. WTF?

http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=400278319

http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=400278318

http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=400278317

http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=400278316

http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=400278313

Lupul signed to a 5 year extension this morning. I haven't read anything that confirms exactly what the money looks like, but Dreger said something about a front loaded contract that averages out to a $5.25M cap hit over the length of the deal. I'm not sure what to think about this. If Lupul can duplicate his production from last year prior to his injury, I like the deal. Him and Kessel work well together and his big body and board work compliments Kessel's game really well. However, Lupul hasn't exactly been the model of consistency throughout his career. There have been plenty of times where he would follow up a good season with a mediocore one. Yeah, a lot of that has to due with injury problems, but still, it is a valid concern.

It seems like the curse of my favourite teams losing in devestating fashion extends to college basketball as well. I swear, I'm a jinx or something.

The Schneider era in Vancouver not off to a good start at all. 5 goals against (all of them could be considered weak goals), 2 of which were 11 seconds apart and gets pulled before the 10 minute mark of the 2nd period.