Dog day afternoons, and nights, or ask the Miami Heat how abbreviated a 66-game feels now…. We must be past that part of this season in which half the veterans come in out of shape, or looking like they retired but forgot to announce it, giving the advantage to the young cohesive teams that defend, like the Bulls and Heat. Well, the Bulls still do, anyway. As for Miami, take the Heat… please. This Heat team has two advantages over last season’s: 1)
Donald T. Sterling Sterling World Plaza Beverly Hills, Calif. 90210 Dear Donald, Well, you said to write again when I found work! As you may have heard, I’m no longer with the large, if not as large as it was once, metropolitan paper in Los Angeles. Of course, times are even tougher in newspapers than David Stern said they are in the NBA, although in our case, we have the casualties to show it’s not just woofing. But enough about moi, look at you! After all those years
So what was Dwight Howard thinking after the Magic scored 81 points in a loss in Miami, then 59 in one to the Bulls… in Orlando… without Derrick Rose… after his heart-warming decision to opt in? “I just tied myself to these guys for another season?” Actually, nobody knows what Howard is thinking, if he’s thinking or who’s doing his thinking, not that that’s anything new. To recapitulate: I never thought he was going anywhere before June and he didn’t. I didn’t think it would
So the winner in the Dwight Howard Derby is… Orlando? Dallas? We don’t know and now we won’t before June, 2013, with our big guy leaving more unsaid than said, as usual. If Howard’s heart, soul, spleen, liver and whatever else he listed are in Orlando, why exactly doesn’t he sign long-term so he won’t have to go through this next season, again? Yes, Dwight’s lovable but goofy, but the press may be missing an angle, or the real story—as usual–in the feeding frenzy
And now, in the act Knicks fans have waited all season for…. Phil Jackson to the rescue! Imagine that, another Knick dream, shot to hell. It’s not happening. Friends say Jackson is still happy as a clam in retirement, living on the water in Playa Del Rey, about to undergo knee surgery, in a continuing effort to put his body back together and do things like bicycle though Europe. The Knicks are nowhere in his thoughts, at present. Since he does have a New York thing,
Remember the inspired story idea of a New York tabloid editor in a meeting to find yet another follow-up anlgle to the death of 39-year-old actor John Garfield: “John Garfield still dead.” OK, Dwight Howard is still in Orlando. No, that’s not the same thing as being dead, even if it seemed tame to Shaquille O’Neal and doesn’t seem to do much for Howard, who keeps telling the Magic the same thing he tells everyone (except possibly the Nets and Mavericks), that he
Counting down to… zip? If some players may go every which way by the trade deadline, they’re not likely to include any Dwight Howards, Deron Williams or even Pau Gasols. All three are, indeed, in play, but their destinations are a lot likelier to be revealed in June, no matter how much pure unadulterated BS you hear between now and March 15. Hey, it’s better than waiting to see if Ric Bucher thinks the Lakers should trade Kobe Bryant, the Bulls should trade
Gee, who’d have thunk this Jeremy Lin thing couldn’t last? Whatever it was, an Asian-American version of Cinderella as NBA star with a global audience and perhaps just a little (or a lot) of New York tinsel and hype, it’s just a basketball story now. Since averaging 24 points and shooting 53% over 11 games with the Knicks winning nine, Lin dropped to 14 and 33% over the last four, of which they lost three. Of course, Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony, who