THE FIRST ANNUAL SPORTS JEW NBA MID-SEASON REPORT

In the words of the great wordsmith John Brown on the White Rapper Show, Hallelujah, Hollaback! and welcome the first annual “Sports Jew NBA Mid-Season Report. It’s time to give much love to my once favorite league, (before I truly discovered the NFL) as most teams have now played 42 games and the half-way mark is upon is. It has been a pretty interesting season in the NBA so far; a future hall-of-famer changed teams after 10 seasons of Brotherly Love loyalty, a new microfiber composite ball was introduced and subsequently bounced, a mini-brawl in New York was marked by a 15-game suspension sucker punch, and two regular season juggernauts (Mavs and Suns) that went a combined 10-10 to start the year, have gone on an ambush since, and are both poised to win over 60 games.

So without further a due, it’s time to look back at the first half of the season through a series of humorous observations and awards, which may I add, in no way mimics the style or approach of a certain sports writer on ESPN.com, I dunno, lets call him Dill Timmons. But before that, I would like to share my selections for both the Eastern and Western All-Star squads, a topic of hot debate in every sport because neither of the three big leagues every seem to get it right. I however have a slightly strict, yet fairly reasonable set of guidelines in choosing the 12 players who make up each team. There are a lot of talented and deserving guys in the league, so it’s important to have a steadfast method of weeding out the least deserving ones. With that said…

• Any player dealing with a serious injury that has taken up most of their season (i.e. Shaquille O’Neal and Lamar Odom or more recent victims Rashard Lewis and Chris Paul) are pretty much barred from making my teams. The reason here is simple; if you can’t play in the game, you don’t deserve to add an All-Star appearance to your resume just because of your status. And in the case of a guy like Shaq*, who has recently come off the DL, prior to this he has played four games this season and done nothing to merit a selection.

• If it comes down to a few players with similar statistics, players from better teams will almost automatically get the edge. Unless a cellar-dwelling star is putting up some really extraordinary numbers, they will simply have to get their team record up first, and then their All-Star appearances will follow. There is just too much talent in this league, and inflated individual stats on bad teams could be a misleading factor for players who are failing to take their squads to the next level.

• Finally, any player who gets a 15 game suspension for a sucker punch, despite being the leading scorer in the league prior to said sucker punch, has simply blown their chance to make the squad. Look, I’m not saying that Melo and these other guys aren’t unanimous All-Stars any other year, just that they will all get plenty of shots to make the team throughout their careers. And when mitigating factors like the above do prevail, it opens the doors for guys who may only be two-time or even one-time career All-Stars. So, with my guidelines in place, here are your 2006-2007 NBA All-Star Teams from top to bottom.


* This just in, Shaquille O’Neal has been voted onto another All-Star team, playing four games and averaging 12 points and 7 boards this season, while spending most of his time as a volunteer cop with the Miami Beach Police. That’s horrible. For that, I have a new rule the NBA should consider. No more handing out All-Star ballots at team arenas. I am pretty sure this is the reason why a guy like Shaq is getting voted in, most likely by ignorant, avid fans who probably don’t even know that they are voting for someone who could be dead as far they’re considered. A huge majority of people who go to games are not true fans of the NBA, but rather rich white people who would probably rather watch Dancing with the Stars or The Hills instead of a Suns vs. Cavs game on any given night. These people shouldn’t have any say in who makes the All-Star game. Please, leave it to the die-hard dorks like me who vote online.

Eastern Conference All Star Team

PG- Gilbert Arenas
SG- Dwayne Wade
C- Dwight Howard
PF- Jermaine O’Neal
SF- LeBron James

Reserves
Chris Bosh
Caron Butler
Antawn Jamison
Chauncey Billups
Jason Kidd
Vince Carter
Michael Redd



Western Conference All Star Team

PG- Steve Nash
SG- Kobe Bryant
SF- Kevin Garnett
PF- Dirk Nowitzki
C- Amare Stoudamire

Reserves
Shawn Marion
Carlos Boozer
Tim Duncan
Baron Davis
Tracy McGrady
Allen Iverson
Elton Brand*

* Brand (who I originally snubbed for the Clippers disappointing start) is a replacement for Yao Ming, who I consider an exception to the rule due to his amazing season prior to the early December injury, which has officially sidelined him from the All-Star game.

Snubs: Some further clarification on a few other guys who didn’t make the cut and why.

The guy’s who are always there:

Paul Pierce: This was definitely the hardest omission to make from the list. But “the Truth” had two big strikes against him. He has missed 17 games due to injury, and his Celtics are currently fighting with the Sixers to be cellar dwellers in the Atlantic Conference (a division I will get to later). This is reason enough to give Caron his spot.

Ray Allen: This is another case of a team’s overall performance having an effect on my decision. In my opinion, Allen has already made enough All-star teams, six, to equate his talent and productivity in the league.

Ben Wallace: He’s doing what he does every year, though his rebound total has dipped. And aside from Chicago’s slow start, I’m sorry it’s just hard to call a guy who averages six points a game an All-star.

The guys who are a few years away:

Emeka Okafor: It’s always hard to pick big men to fill out reserve spots in the East, so if the Bobcats could just stop sucking so much, Okafor would really ease the situation. He is a defensive and rebounding beast, and is constantly improving his scoring average.

Deron Williams: On the contrary, while it’s hard to grab a guard spot on the Western Conference squad, in a few years it will simply be impossible to ignore Williams. He is having a breakout sophomore year, and really starting to mirror J Kidd. Who knows, maybe Baron Davis will return to his back-spasm ways next year.

Josh Howard: Who would have ever thought that Howard, a guy Dallas took with the last pick of the first round in 2003, would eventually play second fiddle to Dirk Nowitzki. Everyone pegged his as just an energy guy, but he is proving to be a great scorer, defender and rebounder for his size.

Other future All-Stars: Joe Johnson, Kevin Martin, Luol Deng, David West

OK, well as the controversy settles in with those selections it’s time to dish out a few mid-season awards.

The Mid Season MVP is…Dirk Nowitzki, the other white meat


Sigh, it’s getting harder and harder to avoid writing homoerotic expressions in my columns, but I think it fit just a little to well in this case. For the past two years since he left Dallas to rejuvenate the Phoenix franchise, Steve Nash has emerged from a solid, underrated point guard to an elite two-time league MVP, and the subject of widespread controversy. There are a lot of things the 6”3 Canadian native looks like from first glance. One is a soccer player. The other may be a substitute social studies teacher who drives a Nissan Xterra. Nonetheless, the one thing he doesn’t most commonly resemble is a two-time NBA MVP. Neither did Larry Bird for that matter, who won three straight awards. Racial questions aside, I supported both MVP selections for Nash, a player who invigorated a falling franchise by making his teammates better.

But now I think we have all fallen into a trap where as long as Nash keeps his numbers up, and the Suns continue to dominate the regular season, he will automatically be the frontrunner for the award. My problem with that is simple. It definitely applied to Jordan, who turned those regular season MVP’s into NBA finals MVP’s, but Nash hasn’t even take his team to a championship. One guy who did however is Dirk Nowitzki, the other white meat. I don’t want to say that people necessarily forgot about this guy, but ever since his split with Nash, Dirk has led the Mavs to equal success in the regular season and greater success in the post season. Plus, he does not have as talented a supporting cast as Nash, considering the Suns have three proven All-Stars while Dirk stands alone on a team of great role players.

At the same time, like Nash, Dirk also makes his teammates better. Not in the same way as a point guard who dishes 11 dimes a game, but by drawing doubles teams, and running the same pick and rolls with guys like Terry, Harris and Howard that he was so successful at with his shorter Canadian friend. While Nash is having his best season to date, scoring more and shooting lights out from everywhere (.536 fg, ,500 3pt, ,873 ft), I think its time for Dirk to get his due. He has the same impressive stats he puts up every season, only this year he’s got a much bigger chip on his shoulder from blowing that 2-0 lead in the Finals. So there you have it. I replaced one white NBA MVP with another. There are these two other guys though…

Best Feud of the Year…The Black Mamba vs. Agent Zero in: The Battle of the Ego-Driven Ball Hogs!


Kobe set the standard for pretending your teammates are invisible last year when he dropped 81 points on the Raptors, the second highest singe game total of all time. While some people, like Vince Carter and Pat Riley, spoke out against the exclusive accomplishment, I for one defended Kobe. In a column last year, I mentioned that he scored his 81 in a winning effort, a game in which the Lakers were down in the second half, and Kobe single-handedly had to win it for them (I think I said something along the lines of, when you’re on fire like that, why would you pass the ball to Von Wafer?)


So earlier this season, in a great overtime game where Gilbert Arenas dropped 60 points on the Lakers in a win, I was a bit shocked to hear Kobe (who scored 45) respond to Gil’s stat sheet with such blatant hypocrisy. Kobe referred to Arenas as having “no conscience” and that most of his shots were bad shots. In response, Arenas who spent the earlier half of the season yelling hibachi when he started to heat up on the court, decided to instead proclaim “quality shots” after every bucket he felt met the description. Now I don’t know if Kobe was jealous of Gilbert for showing him up, but for a guy who scored 81 points with only two assists, to attack a guy’s conscience for dropping 60 is pretty comical to me. By the way, Agent Zero had eight assists in that game.

Another interesting development in this budding feud is Gil’s publicized animosity of Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski, for cutting him from the 2008 Olympic Team. Arenas recently said he would love to go back to college for one day, just to unleash on the Blue Devils, who coincidentally beat his Arizona Team in the NCAA championship. Arenas had this to say specifically, "One college game, that's five fouls, right? 40-minute game at Duke, they got soft rims. I'd probably score 84 or 85. I wouldn't pass the ball.” Well, so much for Arenas being the bigger man. Plus Kobe is very close with coach K, who he would have played for at Duke if he opted for college. I can only imagine what it’s going to be like when these two guys square off again on Feb. 3 in D.C. I can picture Arenas uttering one “quality shots!” and setting off Kobe to counter with something like “precise form!” Eventually they’re both going to grab their own ball, and stand at opposite ends of court, heaving up shots and yelling things like “eloquent follow-through!” and “impeccable swish,” leaving Luke Walton to scratch his head and ask the ref what is going on. I could see it now.

That’s all for now, look for part 2 with an extended award list in a few days, with a special category for everybody’s favorite New York Knicks.