NBA News, Notes, and Observations: March 10, 2009

Andrew UngvariMar 9, 2009

It's time for another edition of News, Notes, and Observations. There's no sense in wasting any more of your time so let's get to it.

But first I'm bringing back the weekly trivia question. This week's question:

Everybody knows that Shaquille O'Neal, Alonzo Mourning, and Christian Laettner were the first three players picked in the 1992 NBA Draft. Who was the fourth?

TOP NEWS

Bleacher Report1w

With Jayson Tatum sidelined, Celtics' fourth-quarter comeback falls short in Game 7 loss to 76ers

Bleacher Report1w

DENVER NUGGETS VS GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS, NBA

Bleacher Report1w

(Answer at the bottom of the page)

Big Week In the Race For Home Court Advantage

With Monday's news that the Celtics will be playing Wednesday's game in Miami without five players both the Cavs and Lakers have a great chance to further distance themselves from the defending champs.

Kevin Garnett, Rajon Rondo, Big Baby Davis, Tony Allen, and Brian Scalabrine will be inactive due to various injuries.

The good news for Boston is that the Lakers have one of their toughest weeks of the season with road games in Portland on Monday night and back-to-backs in Texas against the Rockets and Spurs starting on Wednesday. It's possible for the Lakers to win all three games but much more realistic to assume they won't.

The Celtics are currently three games back of the Lakers in the loss column in the race between the two teams for the league's best record. The Lakers own the tiebreaker so that lead is virtually four.

If Boston loses in Miami and the Lakers win all three games it will be practically impossible for the Celtics to win home court should the two teams meet in the NBA Finals. The Celtics would probably have to win all but one or two of their remaining games to make up five games on the Lakers.

The bad news for Boston (or should I say worse news) is that if they lose to Miami and Cleveland wins their three road games this week against the Clippers, Suns, and Kings then the Celtics chances of passing the Cavs for home court advantage in the Eastern Conference Playoffs will greatly diminish there as well.

The Celtics currently trail the Cavs by two games in the loss column. The Cavs really only have one tough road game left this season (vs. Orlando on April 3).

The only other semi-tough games are against Phoenix, Philadelphia, and Indiana. The rest of their road schedule this year has them playing the Clippers, Kings, Nets, and Wizards.

Since the Cavs are currently 28-1 at home there's a great chance that increasing their lead over the Celtics to three games could put them in the driver's seat to host a Game 7 should the two teams meet in the NBA Finals.

It should also be mentioned that Orlando is only one game back of Boston in the loss column for the second-seed. Should the Celtics fall behind Orlando then they can kiss their aspirations to repeat goodbye. It will be virtually impossible for the Celtics to repeat without home-court advantage against Orlando, Cleveland, and Lakers.

Speaking of the Celtics

The Celtics and their fans are being reminded of just how difficult it is to repeat. Life is much easier being the hunter than it is being the hunted. It's no wonder that only one team has repeated as champions since Michael Jordan retired.

The Celtics will face some major decisions this off-season regardless of how their season ends.

Rumors abound that Celtics' Co-Owner and Managing Partner Wyc Grousbeck was one of the 15 NBA owners who requested money from the $200 million the league borrowed from JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America. Combine that with Grousbeck's unwillingness to re-sign James Posey last summer in light of Posey's unquestionable contributions to the Celtics championship run.

This coming off-season Grousbeck has to re-sign Glen Davis and Leon Powe and give Rajon Rondo an extension that will start in 2010. Even if he lets Ray Allen leave as a free agent in 2010 the Celtics will still be over the cap with no money to spend on replacing him. There's also the chance that Eddie House could test the free agent market this summer.

House has a player option for next season at around $2.8 million but he could try to cash in what has been the best three-point shooting season of his career when you consider he is only 14 makes shy of his career-best for a season and has made 43 percent of his attempts.

Kyle Korver, who is widely believed to be the best shooter in this summer's free agent class, has made just 37 percent of his attempts and will probably command at least twice as much as House.

So House, much like James Jones last summer, could be the best bargain out there for teams looking to sign a deep threat. Jones signed with the Heat for a deal that with incentives could be for five years and more than $23.2 million. Only the first two years of Jones' deal are guaranteed but he will make $8.3 million over those two years. Both House and Jones are 39 percent shooters from downtown over their entire careers.

Even with the additions of Mikki Moore and Stephon Marbury the Celtics aren't very deep. Imagine their bench next season without Powe, Davis, Marbury, House or Moore and no cap space.

The Celtics also lack a first-round pick in this year's draft after trading the pick back to Minnesota in the Kevin Garnett trade.

They are potentially looking at a bench next season of J.R. Giddens, Bill Walker, Gabe Pruitt, Brian Scalabrine, Tony Allen, and whoever they can get with a second-round pick between 57th and 60th overall.

Trivia Question Clue No. 1: For much of his career he wore a wristband with "419" on it in honor of his hometown.

Utah's Secret For Success

The Utah Jazz are the hottest team in the NBA having won 11 straight dating back to Feb. 11 and are 21-9 since the start of 2009.

As impressive as that streak is it is a tad bit misleading. Ross Siler of the Salt Lake Tribune pointed out in his blog last week that since Jan. 7 the Jazz have played 12 (!!!) games against teams playing on the second night of back-to-backs. Their record in those 12 games is 11-1.

I did my own investigation and found out that of those 12 games all but one of them was played in Utah. Keep in mind that the Jazz were 37-4 at home last season and are already 28-6 at EnergySolutions Arena this year.

The schedule-makers gave the NBA's best home team 11 games at home in the past two months in which their opponent played a game the night before.

That's absurd.

The bad news for the Jazz is that they are 12-17 on the road this season and 13 of their last 21 games will be away from home. The Jazz have one victory this season on the road against a team with a winning record and if the Pistons (31-30) lose to Orlando on Monday then they will have zero road wins against teams with winning records.

To make matters worse, 10 of their remaining 17 road games are against teams with winning records, including Atlanta, Miami, Orlando, Phoenix, Portland, Denver, Dallas, San Antonio, and the Lakers.

Now you know why I picked the Jazz to miss the playoffs back in January. Even though the Amare Stoudemire injury should keep the Jazz from falling out of the playoffs there exists the very real possibility that they drop to the eighth seed—something neither the Jazz nor the Lakers really want to see happen.

More Proof That Kevin McHale Should Have Been Fired Years Ago

The Minnesota Timberwolves could have four first-round picks in this summer's NBA Draft. I can't think of another draft that I would be less excited about having four first-round picks in.

It's not that there aren't a few players who could make an impact for teams down the road. It's that once you get past Blake Griffin everybody else, from 2-60 has the same probability of success.

Their own pick will most likely fall in the top six. They also have Boston's pick from the Garnett trade as well as Miami's pick from the Antoine Walker-for-Ricky Davis trade. That pick will most likely end up around 28th.

The other pick is a conditional pick that will only come to them if the Jazz finish with one of the league's top nine records (they are currently eighth). That pick came to them in the same deal that brought them Rodney Carney when the Sixers were trying to free up additional cap space to sign Elton Brand. The Sixers obtained the pick from the Jazz in the Kyle Korver trade last season.

If the Wolves don't get the pick this summer then they could get it next year if the Jazz finish with one of the top 13 records in 2009-10.

Trivia Question Clue #2: He was MVP of the Big Ten Conference twice.

The Big Sensitive

Shaq went a little too far last week in his war of words with Orlando Magic head coach Stan Van Gundy.

Sure I think Van Gundy might have made a mistake in calling Shaq out publicly for flopping, but Shaq's response was way too venomous.

Shaq chose to attack Van Gundy personally instead of playfully making fun of Van Gundy's likeness to porn star Ron Jeremy or that fact that he dresses like he shops for clothes at a YMCA lost and found.

In case you hadn't seen it here's what Shaq said:

"I heard his comment. Flopping to me is doing it more than one time, and I realized when I tried to take the charge, as I went down, I realized that that play reminded me of his whole coaching career.

And one thing I really despise is a front-runner, so I know for a fact that he's a master of panic, and when it gets time for his team to go in the postseason and do certain things, he will let them down because of his panic. I've been there before, I've played for him."

Shaq also spent last week calling Chris Bosh out and comparing him to the world's most famous drag queen as well as making disparaging remarks about Dwight Howard and Patrick Ewing.

With each successive incident involving Shaq the public is beginning to realize that he isn't the cuddly over-sized teddy bear that he wants us to think he is. He's a super-sensitive egomaniac who can dish it out but can't take it.

If you have a problem with what Van Gundy said, then say that you think it was unfair to make a generalization about one incident. It's a completely different thing to refute Van Gundy by calling him out.

Shaq is fully aware that Van Gundy signed a confidentiality agreement when he stepped down as head coach in Miami. He knows that Van Gundy can't speak publicly on what role Shaq played in his dismissal.

Anybody who still believes that Shaq was traded to Miami because Kobe wanted him out of L.A. now realizes that Shaq wanted out because he wasn't happy with the extension offer the Lakers had made him. He wanted another $100 million deal and if the Lakers weren't going to give it to him then he wanted to get traded to a team that would.

Dear Drew

I got an email this week from Greg P. in Tucson asking me why the NBA goes to a 2-3-2 format in the Finals.

I was always told that it's because the NBA doesn't have the same luxury that the NFL does in knowing where it's championship game(s) are going to be played years in advance (although conspiracy theorists would disagree with me).

As a result, the NBA tries it's best to accommodate the international media. By playing those middle three games in a row instead of the 1-1-1 format it minimizes travel and it makes it easier for the international media to cover the games.

The NBA blocks a number of hotel rooms in all four cities of the teams in the Conference Finals and just releases the reservations for the two cities that don't advance.

Great Week of Games

There are some really great games on the schedule this week starting with the Lakers in Portland on Monday night. The Lakers have lost six consecutive games in Portland and play the Blazers at the Rose Garden again on April 10.

Other games to look out for this week:

Monday