NBA News, Notes, and Observations: May 20, 2008

Sure they're stacked one to three. But once you get past Lamar Odom, this team isn't very impressive on paper.

4) Home cooking sure sounds nice.

There are very few things that ESPN's J.A. Adande and I agree on. But last week on The Steve Mason Show on 710 ESPN Radio in L.A., Adande mentioned that the dominance of home team's throughout this year's playoffs has proved that the NBA's regular season actually does mean something.

For years, critics and players have argued that the regular season was
meaningless. If anything, the lesson learned this season is that you might not want to coast through that regular season game against the Grizzlies in February.

Trivia Hint Number 1: He was elected to the Hall of Fame as a player in 1983.

5) I was kidding.

Back in March, BR's Chad Ridgeway asked a few of us what the Sonics' new nickname should be when they move the team to Oklahoma City? I jokingly mentioned the Robber Barons as a swipe at how the team was stolen from Seattle despite the public outcry.

Well, according to a poll in The Oklahoman, the people of Oklahoma City actually voted for the Barons as their top-choice of nickname over the Thunderbirds, the Outlaws and the Thunder.

I'm not gonna try to take the credit but if the Nets change their name to the Notorious N.E.T.s when they move to Brooklyn, I may have to file a lawsuit.

6) Where have all the good coaches gone?

Did you know that only six different coaches have won NBA titles in the past 20 years? Pat Riley, Chuck Daly, Phil Jackson, Rudy Tomjanovich, Greg Popovich and Larry Brown. That's it.

Riley, Daly and Tomjanovich are out of coaching. That means that only three active coaches have won championships. It's no coincidence that the two who had jobs when the season began are both coaching teams still alive.

There are so many bad coaches in the NBA I'm surprised David Stern hasn't implemented an age-minimum.

Mike Brown is near the top of the list of guys who are in way over their heads. His substitutions and timeouts in Sunday's game were horrendous.

When Damon Jones missed that wide-open three-pointer he should have pulled him from the game immediately. Nobody expected Jones to play any defense but when he misses a shot a like that with nobody around him then he can't do anything but hurt the team.

Phil Jackson gets a lot of heat for his unwillingness to call timeouts when the opponent is in the middle of a 12-2 run. But the way he calls timeouts varies between home and away games.

Pay attention to the Zen Master's usage of timeouts during the San Antonio series, especially in the games in San Antonio.

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