Comments on: Preview & Chat: The New Orleans Hornets

By: Rodman

Rodman — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 06:33:41 +0000

293 – J.R., I dare say the Jazz of the late 90′s were one of least honorable teams in history – they just had a bunch of white boys with choir boy looks which made it harder for the less discerning fan to notice all the elbows and cheap shots.

By: Rodman

Rodman — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 06:30:41 +0000

Is it just me or is Devin Brown the worst rotation player in the L?

By: Kurt

Kurt — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:19:51 +0000

New post up

By: j. d. hastings

j. d. hastings — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 21:43:39 +0000

Rondo is 12-16 from the field, ray allen is 9-12. 21-28 combined. I think Phoenix may have een affected by Oklahoma and the Clippers’ defense.

By: j. d. hastings

j. d. hastings — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 21:12:18 +0000

Brian Scalabrine just received a full court outlet pass to score a driving layup on the break.

End times are near.

By: behzad

behzad — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 19:17:48 +0000

wondahop… you are right…

on March 21 when the lakers come here to chicago…those tickets were 10 times that price..for the cheapest seats…

i bought those months ago!

By: Zephid

Zephid — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 18:36:10 +0000

296, Any great coach has to have great players to succeed. Would Jerry Sloan have been around for 20 years if not for Stockton and Malone being there for so many of them? Would Red Auerbach have won any championships if he hadn’t had 7 Hall-of-Famers on his squad? Would Gregg Popovich have won any without TD? Same goes for Riley and Showtime.

A great coach with a bad team will be marginally successful (Larry Brown’s 76ers come to mind), and a great team with a bad coach will underachieve (George Karl and the 90′s Sonics come to mind), but a great coach with a great team will get the most out of them. It doesn’t matter how good Michael Jordan was, he didn’t win anything until Phil Jackson became his coach.

His methods may be unorthodox, but 9 championships speak for themselves. Those Jordan-Bull teams did not win because of the greatness of Michael Jordan, they won because Phil Jackson (and Tex Winter) developed a system that got the most out of ALL their players.

By: luubi

luubi — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 17:16:02 +0000

Re Phil: I get what the Zen master tries to do, in theory. In practice, though, he seems to fall into the same trap as Kobe — stubbornly sticking to something that is not working to make a point. It’s as if in his head he’s thinking “okay, I guess this is where most coaches would call a timeout. PSYCHE!!” It’s the Costanza principle where everybody else = Costanza.

Yes the man has 9 rings. He also has had 1) arguably the best player ever, 2) contender to the best player ever, 3) most dominant center of his generation. But I question whether his hands off approach actually work that well for mere mortals, especially the portion that sits on the bench. Too often the players are just floundering while Phil ‘lets them figure it out’. If they ‘figure it out’ it’s usually because somebody makes a shot finally and they relax and play better.

In the end, they always figure it out, don’t they? Like when they hit the shower and think ‘dang, why didn’t we try to get the ball into Pau?’ But during the hustle and bustle and adrenaline of the game, maybe a well-placed TO or some timely commentary can calm the pulse and focus the mind.

By: emh101

emh101 — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:50:36 +0000

Warren Wee Lim,

Nice analogy, my young Padawan.

By: JR

JR — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:25:09 +0000

Honour doesn’t win games I meant…