Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The Links, vol. 5

How about those Finals, huh? Oh, you didn't really watch them? Me neither. Although, apparently Boston sports are a big deal. With no disrespect to the legions of elated NBA fans (who may or may not have hopped on the bandwagon), if I have to see one more interview with KG, the Truth, or Ray "I don't really have a cool nickname" Allen, I will puke. We get it. You guys are awesome. Not to mention, now we have to inundated with unnecessary stories about Len Bias and "what he could have been". Sorry, I don't mean any disrespect to Bias and his family, but we spend all year long talking about CP3, Dwight Howard, and Deron Williams and everyone says the same thing: they haven't proved themselves. No one is ready to declare them the forces they are, yet we're ready to hand Bias a ticket into the pantheon of basketball legends without him having played one game. Why? Because the Celtics drafted him. If any other team had laid claim to him, he'd have passed into nothing. Geez, doesn't this bother anyone else?

Call it total and unconditional love for my Hornets or call it embittered protest, but I just couldn't bring myself to pay much attention to the Finals, Celtics, Lakers, or ESPN this June.

Bleh. Let's move on to something more exciting: links about the Hornets. Most of these are sort of outdated, but all are fun. Just like the Crescent City Connection. Enjoy.

1. This just in: CP3 is really good.

2. On second thought, there might be some holes in his defensive game... say some people. (Good read, I promise.)

Cool interview on JuJu courtesy of The Capital Journal in Lawrence, Kansa.

3. In case anyone still cares about the "Cheap Shot Rob" foul from Game 6 versus the Spurs, I did happen to get J.A. Adande's opinion on the matter (in one of his chats):

Lee (New Orleans): J.A., love your work and love the lounge. Please offer your honest assessment of Horry's foul on D.West last night. As Hornets fans, my buddy and I want to relabel Horry as "Cheap Shot Rob", but I'm curious to get an unbiased perspective. Thanks.

J.A. Adande: Actually, I'm more biased on this than any other issue because Horry is my favorite guy in the league. Although the play was similar to Gasol's push of Okur (that wasn't called) I think Horry knew what he was doing. He's old school enough to have the mindset of going after someone's weak spot. But I don't think the league could do anything about it because it wasn't a flagrant foul. Didn't like to see Horry doing that at all. Between that and the Chuckster's gambling debt issues, it wasn't a good day for 2 of my favorite guys.

4. For those of you with spare time (and the mental capacity to understand complicated stats) here's a little help calculating players' plus/minus. Yeah. Good luck with that.

5. Finally, as a precursor to the Draft Prospectus 2.0 that will be posted by tomorrow, here's a breakdown of Simmons and Chad Ford's draft predictions.

Peace (and sorry about the Celtic rant).

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