NBA Obsessed » michigan-state-university

Knicks exhibition delayed by Maccabi Coach

James Edwards — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:11:43 +0000

NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

The New York Knicks seem to get into all kinds of bizarre situations even in an exhibition game. This time the New York Knicks were involved in drawing out the worst in the replacement referees. If there is a worst at this point. David Stern has to do something about these guys. These guys being the replacement referees. There is something to be said for experience.

Knicks 106 Tel Aviv 91

high flying Nate Robinson had 19 points

In the third quarter the replacement referees called two technical fouls on the coach from Maccabi, Pini Gershon.

The game was halted for about eight minutes when Pini Gershon continued to linger near Maccabi’s bench — a delay that included a rabbi trying to intervene by asking the NBA’s replacement referees calling the game to allow Gershon to stay.

“I explained that this is not a regular game and the kids are watching and (it’s) important that there will be peace and forgive him,” Rabbi Yitchak Dovid Grossman said of his discussions with the officials. “If you forgive him, I can speak to the children and say, ‘You also forgive. If you have a fight, you forgive.’ But he says this is the law, that you must obey.”

source

It is like an every day event now for the replacement referees to mess something up. Pay the regular referees and get them back.

NBA factoid: As a side note, former Michigan State Spartan Allan Anderson had 20 points for Maccabi Tel Aviv. Anderson enjoyed an impossible weekend while in college playing for Tom Izzo. He defeated Kentucky and Duke in the NCAA playoffs in one weekend, injuring his knee at the end of the Duke game. The next weekend Anderson faced North Carolina and just could not go on the knee. Now he is fighting to get to the NBA and with luck he will make it.

Image: Zuma Press

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Shannon Brown and the time of his life

James Edwards — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 23:28:52 +0000

NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

My first views of Shannon Brown came at Michigan State University. You could tell this guy was awesome right off the bat. He became an instant starter on a team loaded with talent, but there was just no way to keep him on the bench. Unfortunately he left after his sophomore year for the NBA and was drafted by Cleveland.

All of my friends, and me included, thought that playing for LeBron would be perfect for Shannon Brown. He was quick, strong, and could shoot, although a bit undersized. But the leap to the NBA was greater than we thought.

Shannon Brown can get up in the air!

Now one of our favorite Spartans is also a Laker and in the finals playing alongside Kobe Bryant. What could be cooler? All Spartan fans will be rooting for him! We are excited, but Shannon is even more excited.

The way the Los Angeles Lakers reserve point guard has bounced around the NBA for three seasons, he is fortunate — and he knows it. A little magic has come into his life.

The former Michigan State and Mr. Illinois basketball star is stoked as he awaits his first NBA Finals, against the Orlando Magic. “I’m very excited. It’s one of those opportunities where people play in the league for 15 years and don’t get a chance to play in the NBA Finals,” Brown said.

source

Photo source Newscom

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Derrick Rose – NCAA Final Four loaded with NBA talent

James Edwards — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 02:01:37 +0000

NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

Take a look at these prospects for the NBA.

Derrick Rose, Freshman PG, Memphis
Expected to go: 1 or 2 | NBA comparisons: Baron Davis, Dwyane Wade, Devin Harris
Talk to me: “Rose has done everything humanly possible to make a case for himself to be considered the #1 overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft. While just a few weeks ago it was virtually a guarantee that Michael Beasley would claim that spot, Rose has now, at the very least, given NBA GMs plenty to think about before deciding to pass him up. Depending on which team lands the top pick, and what their point guard situation looks like, it’s not ludicrous at all to suggest at this point that he might even be the one.” — J. Givony, DraftExpress

Derrick Rose scoring easily for Memphis on my Michigan State Spartans

source

Watching this guy destroy my Michigan State Spartans was actually fun. What a spectacular athlete. How easy he scores.

Of course he had help with Chris Douglass-Roberts a lanky junior that easily gets into the paint and scores with a silky jumper.

Or how about Kevin Love (played against my Spartans early in the year). Kevin establishes himself on the blocks and you cannot move him. Scores in a variety of ways.

Think of Tyler Hansbrough. They say he is not a great athlete, but every time you watch him, he is blowing by someone with a fancy move and taking it to the rack.

The list goes on.
Darrell Arthur, Kansas
Ty Lawson, NC
Brandon Rush Kansas

This is a star studded final four.

NBA Basketball special comment The NBA scouts will be salivating over these games.

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Celtics suffer home loss to Bobcats Richardson

James Edwards — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 04:14:19 +0000

NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

J-Rich sets one down

The nearly invincible Boston Celtics lost at home to the Charlotte Bobcats by the score of 95 – 83.

Jason Richardson dominated this game with 34 points and 9 rebounds. Gerald Wallace chipped in with 15 points and 10 rebounds.

…the Charlotte Bobcats stunned the Boston Celtics 95-83 for just their fourth loss of the season on Wednesday night.

The loss snapped a nine-game winning streak for Boston (29-4) and spoiled its bid for the fastest start in team history to 30 wins. The 1959-60 Celtics started 30-4 before going on to win the NBA title.

The Bobcats, who entered with an Eastern Conference-worst 1-11 road mark, also got 16 points and eight assists from Raymond Felton. source

Richardson is an incredible athlete and has had the misfortune to play on bad teams.

When J-Rich played at Michigan State University, he was a slam dunking machine with a not so good outside shot.

NBA Basketball Jason Richardson factoid - Richardson won the NBA Slam Dunk Contests in 2002 and 2003, joining Michael Jordan as the only players to have won in consecutive years. source

But Richardson’s game was raw and he worked on it constantly. Eventually he developed an outside game to rival his inside game. Now he is known for his 3 pointers.

Boston Celtics

Before you go crazy and attach all kinds of meaning to this game, maybe we ought to take a bigger look at things.

Kevin Garnett led Boston with 24 points and eight rebounds. Paul Pierce scored 13 points on just 4-for-14 shooting.

The Celtics’ only other loss at home came when Detroit’s Chauncey Billups hit two free throws with 0.1 seconds left in an 87-85 win on Dec. 19. Boston is 16-2 at the TD Banknorth Garden. source

A couple of key notes to take. Kevin Garnett was his usual MVP self and Paul Pierce had a bad night. It happens.

But the bigger issue may be the Celtics coming off of a huge victory over the Detroit Pistons on the Pistons home court. The letdown from that victory to playing the Bobcats took a lot of steam out of the Celtics.

Still, a victory over the Celtics is rare and the Bobcats earned it!

NBA Basketball Fan Question What if Jason Richardson played on a great team?

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Bulls Skiles is fired

James Edwards — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 06:18:09 +0000

NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

You talking to me?

The Bulls are going no where in the NBA this season.

That means you have to blame someone.

They did. They fired the coach, Scott Skiles.

Oh, it was going to happen sometime anyway. Scotty is too fiery to last too long with any pro team. He probably should be coaching in college where a coach can really rule over the team.

When you have Scott’s attitude and your team begins to lose, you will begin to lose your team. It is part of the package in NBA Basketball.

You hire Skiles as a coach and you get better, like with Brown. He’s smart and demanding. Those are good things. He sees the game more quickly and clearly than most coaches working today. He has a plan and a system of play that’s appealing to watch. He emphasizes the right things: defense, teamwork and accountability.

I’d recommend Skiles to just about any team in the NBA.

Like Brown, he tires of his players, in part because his standards are so high. source

It was not all Scott

Scott was not the sole problem in Chicago. Scott gave his all and wore out his message, but the Bulls have problems beyond Scott Skiles.

First there were the failed expectations of the Ben Wallace deal. Ben was on the downhill slope of his career and fit perfectly into the Pistons roster. Chicago thought it would work for them just as well. It didn’t.

Then there were some major gaffes by the GM John Paxson.

There were no major acquisitions in the off-season. Instead, the most notable moves were the ones the Bulls did not make — contract extensions for Ben Gordon and Deng and a blockbuster trade for Kobe Bryant.

And Deng finally acknowledged the negotiations and trade talk may have weighed down the team.

“I keep saying the whole idea that the contract thing isn’t a big deal with me, but it’s getting to a point where I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not like I came in and said I’m not going to play hard. It’s a life-changing decision. When I made the decision, I decided that I’m just going to play. It became part of it because that’s what people kept talking about. We struggled and they kept coming up.” source

They had better think about getting Kobe, because things just are not working as they are now.

Scott explodes through college

Scott played his college ball at Michigan State University and you never saw a guy fuller of spit and fire than Scott. He was linked to some drinking problems in his junior year and had other problems with cocaine and weed before that.

His college coach, Jud Heathcote, came to Scott and asked him if he would prefer to redshirt and not have to face all the hostile fans, while court dates and stuff were going one. Jud reasoned a lot of it would die down in a year.

Scott said no. Bring it on. And bring it on they did. Opposing fans were merciless and booed and chanted at him in every arena. All Scott did was play out of his gourd.

Scott ended his career as All American, Big Ten MVP, Big Ten Scoring Champion, and All time scoring leader for MSU.

Scott has always been me against the world.

NBA Basketball Fan Question What should the Bulls do now?

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Deron Williams is Underdog

James Edwards — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 06:17:25 +0000

NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

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Deron can handle the rock

Deron Williams is an up and coming star in the NBA.

That bears repeating, because for those of us that followed his career at Illinois, it did not always seem that way.

Now your intrepid author is a Michigan State University Spartan fan and grad. Izzo, baby, that is all that needs to be said. MSU finds themselves as a basketball school and oh do we not like that label. We want to be a basketball, football school.

Well, guess what, Illinois finds themselves in the same boat. There were some intense rivalry games between IU and MSU and Deron Williams was a part of quite a few of them.

In college, Deron seemed like an excellent passer, kind of fast, but not too quick, pretty good shooter, but not great. He played next to Dee Brown and Dee seemed to have all the star power in the year they went to the finals with only 1 loss.

Alan Anderson of the Spartans got hurt before the North Carolina game, during the weekend when my Spartys beat UK and Duke. The feeling around here, right or wrong, was that the Spartans would have beaten NC with a healthy Anderson and faced Deron Williams and the Illini in the finals.

That did not happen and NC defeated Illinois. Deron was only a Junior but pretty much had to declare pro with most of the Illinois graduating. There would not have been much team left and it could only hurt his draft status to stay.

Prediction for the Jazz

Who would have thought Deron would be such a great pro? With Deron at the point Johnny Ludden at Yahoo Sports is picking Utah to be first in the NorthWest Division.

Is that confetti in your hair? After an impressive run to the Western Conference finals, the Jazz made only a couple of minor tweaks to their roster. Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer, quickly resembling another formidable Utah pick-and-roll combo, anchor the team’s impressive core. Mehmet Okur is coming off an All-Star season and second-year guard Ronnie Brewer is making a strong bid to start. source

The NBA Draft

Deron is used to being the underdog and when he faced the NBA draft, once again Deron Williams had to prove himself to the doubters.

When it was time for Deron to take his collection of All-Big Ten awards and the ’05 Chicago Regional MOP trophy to The Greatest Show on Earth, he found that he had some believers out there. While some questioned his build and speed, Deron blew up during pre-Draft workouts, impressing the Jazz enough that they tabbed him with the third overall pick. Bigger-rep players Raymond Felton and Chris Paul followed.

Underdog

If Utah makes it a habit of winning all the time then that will probably cure the underdog stuff up with Deron and the fans, right?

Though his ball club is on the verge of regaining their once West Coast dominance, the playmaker can’t see the dim light raying on him any different. “People still don’t know my name. I go to [visiting] arenas, sometimes the announcers will call me Duh-RON. I have to make the PR people go and correct them,” he says. “So although a lot more people notice my game now, I still consider myself an underdog.”

Oh, well, if Deron is Underdog at least they have a movie about you!

NBA Basketball Fan Question Will Deron be an All Star this year?

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