Back to School

Hopefully by now you've had a chance to gander at my NBA preview (please scroll down if you haven't, I don't feel like a hrefing). If you haven't, go ahead and read it.

I'll wait...

Done? Good. Now, take what you've just read, move the Nuggets and Pistons up for what may have been the smartest trade in NBA history for both teams (how about me calling the Iverson trade?), move Atlanta somewhere in the six to eight region, kick the Wizards out of the playoffs, and cut and paste the Mavericks into the "We the Best" category.

Okay, do everything but the last part. But, please, whatever you do, don't cut and paste the Mavericks into lottery category. At press time, they've won two in a row (including tonight) and I expect them to make it three in a row against Houston tomorrow night on the es-pen.

So, now that I've proven to you that I have been keeping up with the NBA, I want to shift gears to college basketball. Why not? I mean, the worldwide leader has basically force-fed me college roundball for the past 24 hours. It's as good a subject to talk about as any.

While I am glad that college basketball is back, I always find myself thinking ahead to the draft, and what better way to satisfy both my basketball and analysis jones than to watch two probable lottery picks duke it out in an early-season barometer game.

I learned a fair amount from the Oklahoma/Davidson game, which the Sooners won, 82-78. Allow me to share some of my observations:

• It's the Sooners' third game of the season, and already at this point you would have to legitimately convince me that Blake Griffin is not the best player in the country by far. The game just comes so easily to him, almost like he's a man amongst babies... not boys, babies. I forget who the color guy was for tonight's game (maybe Fran Fraschilla?), but he said that Griffin reminds him of Amare Stoudemire. I actually think that sells him short. Yes, STAT is a freakish athlete, but Griffin's ability to handle the ball and pass the rock actually remind me of a more athletic Chris Webber (or, Webber pre-chronic unexplainable injuries). He had 25 points and 21 rebounds, and he made it look ridiculously easy. Honestly, if I had the choice to build a franchise around Griffin or Michael Beasley, I'd go with Griffin, and I don't think I'd be in the minority either.

• On the other side of the gun, Stephen Curry is, in my own words, a childman (if Lebron is a manchild, then Curry has to be a childman; this is a good thing and has to do more with his stature than his manhood). With this kid, it's almost like what the hell is he going to do next? For all intents and purposes, Curry played a subpar game tonight, and still scored 44 friggin' points! I recently learned in news editing that exclamation points are generally frowned upon in traditional print journalism, but tonight Stephen Curry (speaking of faux pas, the second mention of an aforementioned individual's first name is a no-no) is so good that he makes me not care if I brake rules or use words wrong or whatever.! On the collegiate level, he is absolutely amazing. Of course, it's debatable how good he'll be at the next level. With him sliding over to the point this year, his stock is going to have one of two outcomes: either it rises skyhigh because GMs see him as having the potential to run a team on a nightly basis, or it falls like Circuit City because GMs peg him as a Juan Dixon-type NBA player. Personally, I don't care. I just know for right now I'd take him over any collegiate player to fight a 40 minute war.

• I want to show some local love to Kyle Cannon, a sophomore forward for the Sooners and a brief (one game) summer league teammate of mine two years back. He didn't get the chance to play against the Wildcats tonight due to a slight groin injury, but in the past 20 years or so there have only been a handful of players from Howard County who have even smelled Division I. I could be very wrong (and please feel free to correct me, my loyal readers), but aside from Carl Jackson, a forward from Penn State, Cannon is the first one I recall being on scholarship from the jump at a major DI school. Get well, Kyle. We need someone to represent HoCo. I tried, but it's a funny thing about basketball: schools don't tend to look too hard at 5'10", 145 lbs. shooting guards who can't play defense.




• I neglected to watch the UNC/Kentucky game only because it was as predictable as an episode of Dora the Explorer: Dora has a problem, bosses your kid around, solves the problem, "dadadadadada We did it" and so forth. The only exciting part is when Swiper the Fox actually swipes something from Dora and Boots and runs away cackling. That excites me. Anyway, terrible tangent aside, I already feel bad for the Tar Heels. If you watch TV or listen to the radio or read silly blogs on the Internet, you probably already know that North Carolina should win every game by 40 and will cut down the nets without breaking a sweat. I'm sorry, but I'm going to make a bold prediction (in lieu of having to write a college basketball preview, haha): UNC will not win the national title. Too much pressure, and UNC hasn't proven that they can rise above to this point. I'm not hating, I'm just stating.

Maybe if you kids are lucky, daddy will have some analysis of the Mavs/Rockets game tomorrow. Either that, or I'll see you at the all-star break.