HLBT Daily

More like HLBT weekly at this point, but I'll stick to the traditional title, with hope that I will be able to post more often in future weeks... This post should satiate your craving for basketball news for a while.


Dime Mag explains, "Juan Dixon improved his vertical over the summer, and has been dunking on cats in pickup games at the Blazers facility." Juan Dixon is one of my favorite players, if for no other reason than because he plays his heart out. I like to see any positive bit of news about the guy for this reason. In the right situation, Juan could average 16-17 ppg in 28 mpg.

Don Nelson is the coach of the Golden State Warriors. This should definitely be an upgrade from former Stanford coach Mike Montgomery, who failed to garner the respect of his players. Nelly plans on bringing his "alternative" brand of basketball, endemic of all Don Nelson teams, to Golden State. This is the same guy who had 7'6" Manute Bol stand 20 feet from the hoop and shoot 3's, after all. Don offers, "I'm going to need (Troy) Murphy to play some center for us. If he can make some adjustments, he'll have his best year. And it will allow me to play Dunleavy at the "4,'' because he basically struggles at small forward. He can function offensively better against the "4s'' in the league."
Offensively? Maybe... but defensively? The comment gives you an idea of Nelly's strategy. I just hope nobody starts calling Baron Davis Baron Avis (as in, "Where's the D?!"). I heard more than enough "Irk Nowitzki"s when Nelson was in Dallas.
Baron is excited, to say the least, about playing for his new coach. “Look at Steve Nash. Look at what he did with Tim Hardaway. He gave those guys the opportunity to be who they needed to be out on the floor. I want to play for Coach so bad because I know that once we get on the court, it’s going to be wide open. What better situation can a point guard ask for? When I hit the court, I’m going to be the hardest-working dude on the court.”

Also, speaking of the Golden State Warriors, they just signed Dajuan Wagner. I wrote a long article about the problems that Dajuan had been facing for the past few years, and I wish him well.

I was hearing great things about Shawn Kemp - about how he is motivated and back in shape, and that he even had a workout scheduled with Chicago...
...
He no showed.

Gerald Green, who I have said will be a very good player soon, has reportedly packed on some muscle and is now up to 215 lbs. Also, he says he can do 100 straight push-ups an increase from last year of 89.

I would like to say that I am now officially backed by Raymond Felton. I have been saying that the Bobcats should be a good team next year. Felton says, "Can we make the playoffs? Definitely." Yes, he is a Charlotte Bobcat. No, it is not surprising that he thinks that his team is good (especially since he predicted a playoff birth last season). But he is with me none the less.

Steve Nash was techincally beaten in a game of horse by some dude from Salt Lake City, though I debated reporting this at all since it was kind of... B.S. It seemed to be played with some strange Canadian rules (either that or the announcer had no business running the event). But if you would like to see... Steve Nash beaten by a no-name at a game of Canadian rules horse, played to 3 (or M-V-P).

Lebron on Letterman tonight. Should be good.