|
Monday, March 17, 2008
Back to The Future...In a world
where ambivalence exceedingly rules the order of the day, finally a measure of normalcy has come to soothe the savage
beast in us all. Or, at the very least , those of us who generally count ourselves as fans
of the sports landscape, and, more to the point, paramours of the world of NBA hoops. The
L.A. Lakers and Boston Celtics appear on a crash course toward renewing their ardent rivalry as the most intense in all of
sports. And the reunion, no less, seems destined to take place in the grandest NBA arena of all. Certainly the prospect of Kobe dueling KG in a winner take all showdown for the chip shapes up every bit as compellingly
as Magic vs. Bird, West vs. Havlicek and Russell vs. Chamberlain ever did, thus unequivocally making for must see TV. And somewhere you just know Red Aurebach and Chick Hearn---not to mention David Stern--- are smiling.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Yo, Who Needs Yao?So were you one of them? One of the antagonizing cast of usual suspects who always seem to be underestimating the star
power of Tracy McGrady. Only this time, T-Mac may have rendered even the harshest of all his haters forever speechless. That
would be by virtue of the work he's been putting in, while Yao's been sitting out. The Houston Rockets now find themselves
the toast of the red-hot NBA, soaring up power charts far-and-wide on the strength of their team record-setting twenty game
win streak. Yeah, yeah, I know, even the bulk of that run was produced with Ming on the hardwood. But the real deal
is much of this has been about McGrady, and that was even before Ming crumbled like the Great Wall of China nearly a month
ago with his season-ending stress fracture. Since then, T-Mac's been good for an eye-popping, 27 (points), 7 (assists)
and 5 (rebounds) on the regular. No let's be real here, noone's purporting the Rockets ultimately will be better
off without Ming. In the end, how the West will be won will certainly prove far too big and deep for any of that. But none
of that should take away from the ride MGrady's taken NBA fans on over the last quarter of the season. And it doesn't
figure to stop now. Not with Kobe coming to town in prime time on Sunday. It''s indeed the stuff legend is made of,
kind of like what T-Mac's been doing during his run for glory.
|
