And now for the untold story of what happened and what may happen to the New York Knicks. It appears that the New York Knicks in their infinite wisdom, oops, make that finite wisdom, passed on Brandon Jennings after several workouts, even though they could see the obvious talent of a young point guard that could shoot from the outside.

Recently NBAObsessed wrote about the 55 point effort by Brandon Jennings.

The Knicks wasted their pick on Jordan Hill, who in spite of the Jordan in his name, is spending most of his time on the bench instead of playing on the court.

These are the same Knicks that have tried to get rid of every player on their team in order to clear salary cap for the great LeBron sweepstakes. Now personally NBAObsessed would love to see LeBron playing for the Knicks, because then he would not be torturing the division where my favorite team, the Detroit Pistons, happen to reside.

What has happened to the once proud New York Knicks franchise? You would think the Garden would be a fabulous place to show off the talents of LeBron James and maybe, just maybe, having a young hot guard like Brandon Jennings would have went a long ways in getting James.

Allen Iverson courted by the Knicks

Allen Iverson

So what are the Knicks attempting to do? They are going to plan B or more like plan D or E and attempting to pick up Allen Iverson. But he is a Grizzlie you say?

Now the Knicks are considering signing Allen Iverson after he cleared waivers on Thursday. It’s the surest sign of desperation in the NBA. There’s nothing left with Iverson, just fading hype and a sure-bet soap opera to come.

Yet, that’s what Donnie Walsh’s front office has become – potentially picking through the Memphis Grizzlies’ scrap heap in search of a pulse of excitement to fool the fans.

So this is how you show LeBron you’re a viable destination? This is how you demonstrate you have the shrewd basketball minds capable of building a winner around him?

Contemplating Allen Iverson?

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NBAObsessed recently wrote about the troubles of Allen Iverson.

New York “the city” and New York “the team that has such importance to the NBA” has so many intangibles to be used to recruit LeBron James, but New York “the team” seems to be working to drive LeBron away.
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Sometimes we see players and forget that they are a legend in the making, a special player that has done it so well for so long that we take it for granted that it is just the way it is done, that it is nothing special at all. There are a handful of players in the league that present such a present even though we will remember and remark about them in the future. Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, Steve Nash, Shaq, and yes, even Allen Iverson.

Kobe went off for 40 points against my Pistons and no it did not hurt your intrepid author, because it is common knowledge that my Pistons play very little defense this year. Ben Wallace is too old and Tayshaun Prince cannot guard everyone. That does not diminish the feat of Kobe Bryant due to the fact that the Pistons are not allowing every team to have a 40 point scorer and most NBA players could not score 40 points in a game no matter what.

Think about it, 100 games of 40 points or more is a whole season plus playoffs of 40+ scoring games. That is truly remarkable and something we will remember and tell our grandsons.

One play in the game epitomizes the constant pressure that Kobe puts on teams. Oh, and a little bit of luck was involved too. Kobe had the ball and Ben Gordon was bodying up on him to discourage him from shooting. Kobe twisted and found himself guarded by Kwame Brown.

Suddenly, inexplicably, he turned his back to avoid the pressure of Detroit’s Kwame Brown and flipped the ball over his head. The ball rose in an arc and then fell through the basket as a sellout crowd of 18,997 roared its approval.

Bryant’s twisting, turning, no-look layup was the most improbable of all the 40 points he scored in the Lakers’ 106-93 victory over the Pistons. It certainly didn’t decide the game, but it was symbolic of his grit while playing with a nagging groin injury.

He simply refused to be denied while recording his 100th career game of 40 or more points. He also would not allow anyone or anything to prevent the Lakers from ending their two-game losing streak.

“It was a lucky shot,” he said
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One of my favorite moves by Kobe is when he jumps over the car. The video is faked, but it is hard to spot. Leave me a comment if you know how he did it, because NBAObsessed is sworn to secrecy.

Watch this YouTube.

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Paul Allen was high school buddies with Bill Gates and the quiet Microsoft co-founder. He is now worth about 11.5 billion dollars and owns several businesses, and a few sports teams.

He formed Vulcan in the mid-1980s to invest in media and communications companies, including America Online, DreamWorks Animation and cable operator Charter Communications Inc. He also co-founded a Silicon Valley research lab that he then shuttered after investing more than $100 million.

Beyond technology, Allen has used his Microsoft earnings to take his interests to an extreme.

A longtime sports fan, Allen bought football’s Seattle Seahawks and basketball’s Portland Trail Blazers, and he is part owner of the Seattle Sounders FC, a major league soccer team. Allen has been present at Seahawks games this season, chatting in the locker room with players.

He has a band and a recording studio, and built the Experience Music Project, a museum about rock music in Seattle.

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This is a very difficult post to write and really hits home for your intrepid author of NBAObsessed. You see, Paul Allen and NBAObsessed both have something in common. As much as it would be great that the thing in common was a great big fat wallet, it is not. The thing we have in common is non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the big C.

According to the memo, Paul Allen has diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, a relatively common form of lymphoma.

Allen battled another form of immune system cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, more than 20 years ago and survived. The CEO wrote that Allen “is optimistic he can beat this, too.”

“Paul is feeling OK and remains upbeat,” she added. “He continues to work and he has no plans to change his role at Vulcan.”

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My cancer has been gone for a year and a half and that seems amazing to me. My oncologist tells me my odds of cancer returning is 60 – 40, which is probably better than the Detroit Pistons odds. With each day my chances of survival increase and so do the chances of Paul Allen survival.

Just like me, Paul Allen owns a boat. His is bigger.

Cancer is a marathon, a disease to be endured, that is fought by poisoning your system to kill the cancer and hopefully not to kill you.

Let me tell you something very important for Paul Allen and this is not a secret or something that was just discovered. Anything you can do for Paul will help him. Anything. If you pray, then pray. If not, think a positive thought, send a card, e-mail, even a smile in his direction. It makes for a better world, a world that Paul will want to continue to live in. It makes all the difference in the world. NBAObsessed knows this for a fact!
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Wait, shouldn’t the title read “Stephen Jackson brings sanity to the Bobcats”?

You have obviously not been paying attention to the Stephen Jackson story. Golden State was more than happy to get rid of a team chemistry problem. Why Larry Brown at his age would want to take on Stephen Jackson is beyond me, but you know the NBA, if you can put the ball in the hoop with any regularity then some team owner will pay you millions of dollars no matter how you act in public.

So it is time for a quick review. Why would Charlotte take a chance on Stephen Jackson after the owner publically stated he would not embarrass Charlotteans which are not to be confused with Alanteans or any other Teans?

Jackson brings two qualities the Bobcats need – proven scoring ability and the versatility to play multiple positions. But he also brings a history of bad behavior that seems to conflict with majority owner Bob Johnson’s promise at the franchise’s outset.
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Why the Bobcats took Stephen Jackson

Now for the pop quiz. Why did they do it? We just went over this, because Stephen Jackson can put the ball in the hole and the Bobcats suffer from a disease called “can’t put the ball in the hole”. It is that simple.

Stephen Jackson wanted out of Golden State

You would think the Malice in the Palace and the gun shooting thing and various other sundry items would make Stephen Jackson untouchable, but such is not the case.

Now here is the reply you have all been waiting for, why do it, for real? You are the Bobcats! Look in the mirror and realize that the playoffs are a long ways off and there is no reason to rush into a contract with a player that is going to cause problems. Why do it? You had an expiring contract with Bell, the survivor to play in Golden State, and now you have a long term contract with problems.

Ahh, but they never learn. Gotta go, that is Allen Iverson on the phone and he is looking for another team.

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There are some fans out there, along with many writers and coaches, that believe that Blake Griffin already has the ROY trophy sitting above his fireplace on the mantle proving what everyone thinks about him being a type of Patrick Ewing of the new age of the NBA.

Brandon Jennings is here to serve notice that he is one rookie that is just not going to lay down and allow Blake to walk off with the trophy.

Milwaukee Bucks 129 Golden State Warriors 125

Brandon Jennings just missed Wilt Chamberlains all time rookie single game record of 58 with a Buck Rookie high of 55.

Abdul-Jabbar, then known as Lew Alcindor and who became the highest-scorer in
NBA history, held the franchise record for points in a game by a rookie with
51, which he scored on February 21, 1970.

But Jennings, who didn’t even score in the first quarter, lifted his name
among the greats with a virtuoso performance, sinking 21-of-34 shots,
including 7-of-8 from three-point range.

He scored 29 in the third and fell just two points shy of Michael Redd’s
franchise record for points in a game. Jennings was also just three points off
the NBA record for points in a game by a rookie, as Wilt Chamberlain scored 58
points twice in his first year.
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Watch some of the action in this YouTube.

Brandon Jennings is coached by Scott Skiles and Skiles is a man that knows a little something about scoring as he put up 25 a game as a senior with Michigan State University, before the 3 point shot was available. He has complete confidence in Brandon’s game and allows him to stay on the court and make mistakes that other coaches would pull him out of the game for doing. This has really elevated the confidence of Brandon in his own game.

The 55 points by Brandon reminded Coach Skiles of a game with Michael Jordon when he got hot.

“I was in a game when Michael had over 60 once. I don’t know exactly what to say,” Skiles said immediately after the victory. “(Jennings) felt we needed to be picked up and we went to our pick-and-roll game and spread the floor and he got hot again.”

Center Andrew Bogut wasn’t so sure.

“I don’t think we were working the roll game, I think we were just working the pick game,” Bogut said. “He was doing a hell of a job shooting the ball.”

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Carmelo for MVP

There are rumblings of Carmelo Anthony being in the bid for the NBA league MVP. To his credit, Carmelo has tried to keep the rumblings down and let nature take its course. For Carmelo to win the MVP of the NBA there would first be Carmelo taking care of business against Kobe Bryant and the L.A. Lakers come playoff time. Carmelo is off to a good start in that department.

Denver Nuggets 105 L.A. Lakers 79

The Nuggets exploded in the third quarter to take down Kobe and the Pau Gasol-less Lakers in a solid beat down that let out some of the frustrations from last year’s playoff ouster by the purple and gold.

Up just two points at halftime, the Nuggets outscored the defending champion Lakers 29-8 in the third, breezing to a 105-79 victory at the Pepsi Center.

“I think it was the best quarter I’ve seen our team play against a special team, maybe since I’ve been in Denver,” said Karl. “It was intense, focused,

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Carmelo Anthony shot 11- 20 for 25 points in a brilliant offensive performance. Kobe Bryant on the other hand did not fare so well and just plain ran out of gas in the second half.

Bryant, the NBA’s leading scorer, finished with a pedestrian 19 points in 32 minutes, shooting just 7-for-17 from the field. He didn’t score in the second half.

Denver needed this game, needed to win big and show the Lakers that the Nuggets will be here to stay, but the Lakers openly admitted that the Nuggets beat them soundly, but it was the second game of a back to back and they were without Pau Gasol.

There will be some great Carmelo Anthony vs. Kobe Bryant battles this year and years to come

Kobe Bryant and the Lakers

The Lakers were coming off of a convincing victory over red hot Phoenix and in rolled a determined Denver.

One night after running the Suns off the court during a resounding 121-102 victory, the Lakers went back to work against another hyperkinetic team with something to prove to the defending champs and the rest of the league.

The tempo was just as high Friday as it was Thursday. Maybe higher.

The Lakers raced to an 8-0 lead, but it didn’t take long to realize this was not going to be a second consecutive runaway victory for the Lakers, who set season highs by scoring 121 points with 36 assists against the Suns.

The difference between the Suns and the Nuggets was evident in the game’s first few minutes Friday. Unlike the Suns, the Nuggets are willing to crash bodies and hack and whack the opposition while still pushing the ball down the court.

When the third quarter began, the Lakers simply wilted under the pressure.

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So maybe it was not an earth shattering victory, but at least the Nuggets and Carmelo Anthony served word that they are to be reckoned with this year!

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Chris Paul is the present for the New Orleans Hornets and the future for Jeff Bower the new coach. Without a buy in from Chris Paul, the New Orleans Hornets are going nowhere and Jeff Bower is going somewhere else. Right now Chris Paul is very unhappy over the firing of Byron Scott.

For Paul, this wasn’t so much professional as it was personal. He takes things hard and feels them deeply. Truth be told, Paul is livid. C.J. Paul posted an apparent dig at Weber on his Twitter account: “I can’t stand when [people] that don’t know basketball make major basketball decisions. It turns out to be a disaster.”

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NBAObsessed discussed the change in regimes earlier.

—–Byron Scott is out at New Orleans—-

How could a once on the right track franchise go so far off course. In a matter of hours they have fired the once steady voice of Coach Byron Scott and alienated their best player, the small speedy superstar Chris Paul.

Chris Paul has a lot of concerns

The hiring of former GM Jeff Bower to be the head coach smacks of interim at the best. There was just nobody internally to nominate for the job. Bower’s is not a great coach or X and O’s type guy, hence the hiring of Tim Floyd to put some pizzazz into the team.

Still the team’s fortunes rest on the shoulders of Chris Paul and if he is not brought back into the fold, the team will suffer.

Yes, Chris Paul hates change, and the firing of Byron Scott is the most dramatic of his professional career. Eventually, Paul will come to understand that Scott had chances to save himself. When the Hornets were young and restless, bouncing between New Orleans and Oklahoma City, the franchise valued Scott’s evenness. He always makes you believe everything will be all right, but that eventually evaporated. They needed something more tangible, something they could touch, and Scott struggled to deliver it.

Things can change fast in the NBA and now is the time for change in New Orleans. The real problem now is deciding whether the change is positive or negative.

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NBAObsessed has mentioned it before many times, it is the “what have you done for me lately” NBA. One day you are great and the next day they want to get rid of you. The latest to feel the sting of the NBA, if we can use a Hornet metaphor, is Byron Scott. One time coach of the year and toast of New Orleans turned into just toast.

The Hornets were off to a slow start and management decided to act, so they fired Byron Scott.

The Hornets are 3-6 this season. Scott was in the last year of his contract. Scott could not be reached for comment.

Scott had a 203-216 record in five-plus seasons in New Orleans, winning coach of the year honors in 2007-08 when he guided the Hornets to a franchise-record 56 wins and a first-ever division title in the NBA”s Southwest Division.
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The Hornets General Manager Jeff Bower has taken over the team and hired Tim Floyd as his assistant coach. David West spoke out on Floyd claiming the team won’t be as predictable any more.

“We’re not going to be as predictable as we have been in the past. I know that, having played for Tim before,” said West, a sixth-year veteran. “That’s something I’m looking forward to, in terms of style of play.”
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West also blamed Byron Scott’s pride for the Hornet’s downfall.

Will Tim Floyd be good for the play of Chris Paul?

Tim Floyd has been successful at every coaching stop except for his stint with the Chicago Bulls, where he unfortunately arrived after most of the last championship team left.

This past year he lost to Michigan State University in the NCAA’s then watched as 3 of his players declared for the NBA draft and the school underwent an NCAA investigation for illegal payments involving the handlers of O.J. Mayo. Tim resigned.

Was Byron the problem at New Orleans or like with a lot of demanding coaches, did his message finally fall on deaf ears? We may never know!

To see how Chris Paul feels about the firing of Coach Byron Scott read this

—-Chris Paul feels the Sting of Hornets firing—

Photo source Newscom

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Chauncey Billups has always been a clutch free throw shooter, the type of ice in the blood, never lose your cool, want that player with the ball and the game on the line sort of player. You know if the game is on the line that Chauncey is going to win it for you.

Denver Nuggets 90 Chicago Bulls 89

Have you seen how Billups shoots his free throws? There is very little movement in his legs at all. Aren’t we taught to bend at the knees and slowly come up and the release is at the end of the shot? Not so for Chauncey as he doesn’t seem to put any legs into his free throws at all, they just seem effortless and always seem to go in no matter how much pressure is on him at the time.

This time it was Chauncey beating the Bulls, but his shot did not win the game until the referees got together and looked at the film of Brad Miller’s last second shot. The odd thing was that just before Brad shot his three pointer, Chauncey purposely missed his second free throw to run the clock out in order to win the game. You can check it out in the YouTube below.

After nearly four minutes, the surprising call was made — the Nuggets had defeated the Bulls 90-89 at the United Center, by a fingertip.

It was the basketball equivalent to winning by a nose. Chicago’s Brad Miller launched a jumper at the buzzer Tuesday night. The initial ruling was that the basket was good and the Bulls celebrated like they had won a playoff series. Then the officials ruled that the ball hadn’t completely left Miller’s hands when time expired, and Denver stole a big road victory.

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You can watch the final shot here on YouTube.

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Please, be quiet about this, tell it to no one. Hey, keep your head down as the secret will be revealed. NBAObsessed can remember when Abdul-Jabbar was Lew Alcindor, a skinny kid from the streets of New York City that was recruited to play for John Wooden. Ok, that would make my age about minus 14.

Here is a classic story that maybe you have heard before and it happened for real to NBAObsessed. Your intrepid author was reading Sports Illustrated in his youth, an annual issue on college basketball ranking all the teams.

David Stern is probably thanking Kareem Abdul Jabbar for making the league more popular

Back then there was no internet, no VCRs, DVRs, no Cell Phones, and Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter weren’t even dreamed up yet. We only had 5 things to get information from, Network channels on broadcast TV from a TV antennae, Newspapers, Radio, Playboy (in a brown paper wrapper), and Sports Illustrated.

Now with that background you can gather that we read Sports Illustrated from cover to cover and they always hired the best writers. The annual Basketball issue was always a great one. Your gallivanting author tore into it and literally devoured the first story. It talked about a team that was unbeatable with a tall center that was everyone’s pick for player of the year.

There was only one problem with their ranking of both team and player; the story was about the freshman team at UCLA with Lew Alcindor in the pivot and freshmen were ineligible to play varsity basketball in those days. The varsity at UCLA went on to win the National Title that year with Walt Hazzard and Gail Goodrich playing guards, but they were beaten in practice by their own freshmen team!

Lew became Kareem and the NBA was never the same again. Now Lew Alcindor is facing Leukemia and trying to still live the life he has created in the post NBA world.

The NBA’s all-time leading scorer and six-time league MVP was diagnosed last December with chronic myeloid leukemia, he told The Associated Press on Monday.

The 62-year-old Abdul-Jabbar said his doctor didn’t give any guarantees, but informed him: “You have a very good chance to live your life out and not have to make any drastic changes to your lifestyle.”

Abdul-Jabbar is taking an oral medication for the disease. He is a paid spokesman for the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, which makes a drug that treats the illness.

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Kareem has always found a way to succeed and be a champion and even with Cancer he has found a way!
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