Sacramento Kings

By noreply@blogger.com (David Friedman) For this year's edition, I wrote the Sacramento Kings preview for the third year in a row, the Phoenix Suns preview for the second year in a row and I wrote the Cleveland Cavaliers preview for the first time, ending my run of writing three straight previews about the Denver Nuggets. For the sidebar stories that accompany each preview, I wrote about Ron Artest, Shaquille O'Neal and the Cavaliers' underrated defense respectively. Editor Roland Lazenby contributed a very interesting story about Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant titled, "In Michael's Image." Lazenby has long had a very close working relationship with Tex Winter, the inventor of the Triangle Offense who coached both Jordan (with the Chicago Bulls) and Bryant (with the Lakers...   [read the full post]

By noreply@blogger.com (David Friedman) A positive for Houston is that Artest has a solid relationship with Rick Adelman, who coached Artest for half a season in Sacramento. That was the last time Artest played in the playoffs; the Kings went 26-14 down the stretch after acquiring Artest in a midseason deal in 2005-06 but Artest's numbers were hardly spectacular during that run: he shot .383 from the field, .302 from three point range and .717 from the free throw line. On the positive side of the ledger, he played excellent defense and averaged 16.9 ppg, 5.2 rpg, 4.2 apg and 2.0 spg. His playoff numbers were very similar (.383, .333, .696, 17.4 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 3.0 apg, 1.6 spg) as the Kings lost 4-2 to the San Antonio Spurs. It is worth mentioning that Artest missed game two of that series, a 128-119 loss for...   [read the full post]

By noreply@blogger.com (David Friedman) 6) (On the Nuggets trading Marcus Camby to the Clippers for a second round draft pick) "What is the sense of that? A lot of times fans will look at that and say, 'What is wrong with the general manager? What is wrong with the coach in making that decision?' But a lot of times that is a purely money decision made by ownership and a not a decision being made by those people. These guys are smart enough to know the game...'Down the line,' 'potential'--what that does is get the coach fired. All these guys who make these money decisions never factor that into the Ls and Ws that some poor coach has to sit there and work for. Those decisions don't relate to his judgment as far as a person being able to play or not being able to play."   [read the full post]

By David Friedman If the MVP race will truly be decided by which team wins the tough race for the top seed in the Western Conference then there will be a trophy ceremony for Kobe Bryant at the Staples Center in a few weeks. Of course, the real prize that Bryant and the rest of the L.A. Lakers are seeking is the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy and they took one step toward accomplishing that goal by beating the Sacramento Kings 124-101 to clinch the regular season Western Conference title. Bryant made only three of his 13 field goal attempts but he shot 13-14 from the free throw line, finishing with 20 points and five assists in just under 29 minutes. Pau Gasol had 22 points and seven rebounds, while Lamar Odom added 15 points and a game-high 12 rebounds. Six Lakers scor...   [read the full post]

By David Friedman I just read three magazine articles that perplexed me. "Mal" means sick and if you flip that around and add an "s" for "subpar" then you'll know where I found these articles. Anyway, the first one declared that the New York Knicks and Sacramento Kings are going to face each other in this year's NBA Finals. Maybe this was just a satirical piece--albeit one that failed to provide either humor or insight--because even with the long lead time it takes to put out a magazine there is no way that anyone who actually watches the NBA could possibly believe that those squads are going to the Finals in 2008 without purchasing tickets. If the Knicks get rid of Stephon Marbury soon then they could possibly, maybe grab the eighth playoff spot in the East. As for th...   [read the full post]