FRIDAY THOUGHTS

IVERSON

No word yet on where AI is heading. The Sixers rejected a Maggette-Mobley deal that would have potentially vaulted the Clippers into championship contention. Hey, at least Sterling took a shot, and at least he recognized what they have now isn't working. He wouldn't give up Livingston, but I think that makes sense. They have a good young group of players, no reason to mortgage the future. Maggette is just a good, young player--Livingston could be a superstar.

Sacramento also seems to be out of the running. So the leading contenders for Iverson appear to be the usual suspects, Indiana/Boston/Golden State, along with darkhorses Denver (in possible three-team deals with Chicago or Portland) and Miami. The latter IMO is highly unlikely; Miami just doesn't have anybody anyone wants--except one guy, and he ain't going anywhere.

I'm still making Boston the prohibitive favorite.

CHICAGO

Chicago's red-hot right now, winners of 9 of their last 10, but I still think a Garnett deal makes perfect sense for both them and the T-Wolves. They're supposedly interested in Golden State's Troy Murphy, but what's he going to do for you? The Bulls have a ton of solid young talent, but I don't see them winning any championships without a superstar--especially with an offensive zero on the floor for 35 minutes a night for the next 4 years. The highly coveted Luol Deng and Andres Nocioni are both wing players, one of them can be offered up in the deal. Then you have Ben Gordon, Tyrus Thomas, and an *extremely* valuable high 2007 draft pick to barter with. Minnesota could rebuild their franchise with this deal (and why pay one guy $20M when you have no chance of making the playoffs now or in the foreseeable future?) Garnett could come home and play for a serious contender. It just seems to make sense for all concerned. Make it happen.

HOT/NOT

Speaking of Nocioni, he's been shooting the lights out since being moved into the starting lineup ("coincidentally" right after I suggested that in this space). In 6 games as a sub, he averaged 12 & 5. In 16 games as a starter, he's bumped that up to 18 & 6.5, with 2.3 threes per game on .457 shooting (and .493 overall).

Ben Gordon has also been playing well in the Bulls' recent run. In 8 games in December, he's averaging 21 ppg with 2.3 threes on .439 shooting.

If we're going to talk about 'hot', then we need to discuss what's going on in Phoenix. After some early season stumbles the Suns are running on all cylinders, reeling off 12 straight wins, with most of them coming in blowouts.

Amare looks awfully close to full strength; in the last 10, he's averaging 20.4 & 9.6 in just 32 minutes per game. Shawn Marion continues to dominate in every possible way, and Steve Nash just keeps getting better. He's currently averaging career highs in ppg (21.2), assists (11.7), FG% (.529), 3PTM (2.3), and 3PT% (.489). Raja Bell is knocking down 3+ threes per game at a .453 clip, and even Boris Diaw seems to be getting back into the swing of things, averaging a solid 12/6/6 in 7 December games. This is a scary good team, but a healthy Amare remains the key for them in the playoffs.

The Lakers keep rolling, getting their record up to 15-7 with a solid road win over Houston (without McGrady, but the Lakers were missing their #2 guy too). They also gave the Mavs a tough game on the road--through 3.5 quarters, at least--after learning the devastating news that Lamar Odom would be out for at least a month. I think they'll be fine. They'll lose some games, and it'll hurt their playoff seeding, but this team is too deep to fall apart. They'll really miss Odom's rebounding and defense (they had no answer for Nowitzki in the Dallas game), and they have a brutal road stretch coming up, but I think Luke Walton, Vladimir Radmanovic, Kwame Brown, Ronny Turiaf and Maurice Evans can hold down the forward positions in Lamar's absence. Rad in particular showed some signs of life the other night with 11 points in 18 minutes. His 3 stroke still seems to be a little off, but hopefully he'll improve that with more playing time.

Speaking of the Lakers, I really like what Jordan Farmar is giving them off the bench. In the last 7 games, he's averaging 7/2/2 with 1.1 steals in just 20 minutes, but more importantly he's *really* knocking down the open jumper (with a .636 FG% and .429 3PT%) and playing great man defense. With Smush Parker struggling with consistency issues, it's nice to have another option to turn to. I'm predicting right now Farmar's the starting PG to begin the 07-08 season. Better ballhandler, better defender, potentially better shooter--those are the things the Lakers need out of their PG.

I've been asked about Eddy Curry by a bunch of people--OK, here it is: Eddy Curry is playing insanely great basketball right now. He's had 11 straight games with 20 or more, averaging 25 & 9 and shooting .593 from the floor in those games. It's surprising in the sense that he's always been a drastic underachiever, but the potential for this has always been there. As I often say in this space, Curry is an unstoppable low post scorer, with a variety of moves, great footwork, a soft touch around the rim, and surprising quickness for his size. He's like a cross between Shaq and Zach Randolph. I think he's just now figuring out how good he is, getting in the mindset of a no-bullshit #1 scorer who looks for a basket every time he touches the ball. It's hard for some guys to take on that role of being the team's superstar, the guy who the team lives or dies with--for the Knicks up to this point, that's been Stephon Marbury or Jamal Crawford. That's a recipe for disaster. But now it's looking like Eddy Curry is finally understanding that the best chance the team has of winning is by him scoring 25 a night.

Hey, suddenly that trade with Chicago doesn't look so awful. If the Knicks can parlay Curry's great play into 35-40 wins, all of a sudden we're talking about the Bulls getting Al Horford instead of Greg Oden with that first round pick. That's a big difference. Curry is still only 24 (just turned that on Dec 5, as a matter of fact); if he's suddenly a 20-a-game guy--and his ticker keeps working--maybe Isiah finally did get the better of a deal.

On the cold side, we turn to the Orlando Magic. The Magic are 4-6 in their last 10, and are coming off horrific back-to-back losses to the Raptors and Bobcats. The good news is that their recent crap-ass play can be mostly attributed to injuries, as Jameer Nelson, Hedo Turkoglu and now Grant Hill have missed time. Their bench has continued its strong play, but it hasn't been enough to overcome the injuries. Jameer Nelson might be having a disappointing fantasy year, but he's still a very good real life player, a guy who can really break down the defense and open up the floor for everyone else to operate. Once he gets back, I think Orlando will turn it around and get back to being a contender in the East.

A disappointing team with fewer excuses is the Cleveland Cavaliers. They're 5-5 in their last 10, and are coming off just a godawful loss to a competely depleted New Orleans team (a game in which Rasual Butler, Cedric Simmons, Tyson Chandler, and Desmond Mason started, and Jennero Pargo played 35 minutes).

You know, that was a great game to watch if you ever want to know why Lebron James, as good as he is, can't carry Kobe's or Wade's jock yet.

He took 18 shots in the game (probably no more than 5 in the second half when Cleveland was throwing the game away) and I'll bet fewer than a handful were within 17 feet of the basket. Taking jumpers is easy, especially when you're Lebron James. They'll give you the jumper *all day*--and if you settle for that, and aren't especially hot (he was 7-18 in this game), then you're handing the other team the win. Kobe settles for the jumper a lot too but he's a miles better shooter than LBJ, while Wade is just relentless going to the basket.

Kobe might be a lot of things, but he never, *ever* just coasts through a game like that and costs his team a win with sins of omission. I love LBJ, you know I do, but he was sitting in the corner fondling his pud for 80% of this game--it was a pathetic effort. Making him look even worse was Chris Paul singlehandedly willing his team to victory and putting up a monster 30 & 11.

I'd like to see Cleveland get more minutes for Anderson Varejao with Drew Gooden coming back from injury. In the 3 games Gooden was out or limited, Varejao averaged 15 & 9 and was a great source of energy for a generally lethargic team. It's hard to get both of them on the floor at the same time when they're going up against someone with a real center, but half the teams in the league are playing with a Bosh or Kwame there now--for those games, I'd rather see them do what they did against the Pistons last year and play small with a Gooden-Varejao frontcourt. Ilgauskas just looks like a fucking statue out there, he's terrible now.

And then there's the Clippers.

I have no answers folks. The Clips are now 10-11 on the season, 4-6 in their last 10, 1-7 on the road. They're coming off back-to-back 20 point HOME losses to league elites San Antonio and Utah, proving beyond any doubt that they're absolutely nowhere even close to being a serious contender in the West. The Kaman injury really hurts them a lot--not only is Kaman a good player in his own right, but Elton Brand also somewhat feeds off him, his partner in defending the lane & controlling the boards--but what's going on is just a total disaster.

The organization recognizes this and tried valiantly to make a big splash with Iverson, but unfortunately got the Heisman from Billy King. They could use a perimeter scorer, and they have a valuable and expendable piece in Corey Maggette, but I don't know what's out there for them. My gut feeling is that they're going to end up with what they have now, so it's up to Dunleavy to try and get things turned around. He too understands the severity of the situation, and recently elevated Shaun Livingston to the starting lineup. Shaun is playing fairly well--averaging 12/3/7 as a starter, with .495 shooting--but it's not translating into wins. As you know, I'm not a huge Dunleavy fan and thought that extension he signed was absolutely ridiculous--well, here's a chance to shut me up and earn his money. We'll see.