My All Time Top Five

Long time no speak faithful readers (although I don't know how faithful you can be since I've only written one article thus far) but regardless...
Before I get into the main topic of this article, a few random things I'd like to point out:
1. Zack Randolph, despite being a ball hog, reluctant passer and a malcontent, is murking it. Dude is balling out of his mind.
2. The Raps are shtinking the big one. As I write this, Jarret Jack is having his best game of the year and their up 10 on Detroit, but I'm going to need to see some end to end consistency before I can sign off on this team being better than last year's excrement.
3. Danilo Gallinari has MAD range. Mike D'Antoni has signed off on him being the best shooter he's ever seen, and that's coming from a guy who coached the NBA team that broke the record for treys in a season, had the player on the team with most threes in a season and had Steve Nash on it, so the wop can shoot.
4. After last year's playoff overachievment, Melo seems to have come back stronger and more focused then ever. Averaging 30 plus while shooting a solid percentage from teh floor gives any team a chance to win, and with Chauncey leading the way on D the Nugs are looking even stronger then last year.
5. I hope K.G isn't suffering from J.O syndrome. The human body can only suffer so much wear and tear before breaking down. The big ticket has logged so many minutes carrying mediocre Minny teams over the years that I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't have too much left in the tank. That being said, I wish dude all the best. He's definitely one of the most exciting players I've ever watched. MAN could he throw it down back in the day.
Shout outs: Blake Griffin, Chris Bosh and Melo, all for being very special during the first few weeks of the season for their own different reasons. (Blake for being injured (which makes me really happy) CB4 for rebounding like a mad man and showing how hard he worked physically in the offseason, and Melo, for being one of if not the best scoring small forward in the game right now)



OKAY

Now that that's out of the way, on to the title of the article. Contrary to what you might think, I'm not writing this article to say who I think the best all time starting five would be. Nonono. There's too much debate, too much interpretation, there have been too many rule changes for any of the countless articles that have already been written to that theme to really do any of the players mentioned justice. Rather, this article is going to be about MY all time starting five, the players I like the most, that are some of MY favorites.

PG: No doubt about this one for me. While he may be a few years passed his prime, I would get Jason Kidd to run any team I could put together. Capable of blending even the biggest egos (see: Team USA) and making even the most mediocre players either respectable or all-stars (Kerry and Kenyon, I see you) J Kidd had to have been one of the most electrifying players in the game. While he's clearly lost a step, his slightly more dependable J has earned him his full name rather than the Ason that opponents used to taunt him with. While he does come with some baggage (mainly his nutjob ex-wife) I think I consider J the greatest PG of all time.

SG: Every team needs a little flair, and that's why I'm going terra obscura on this one and picking someone no one would ever have on their top five team (keep in mind I said my top five fav or most exciting players) and that list would never ever be complete without Seattle native J-Crawf. Words can't do justice to how NASTY J-Crawf's handle is. I'm sure if you're reading this blog you either love me or ball, in which case you've prolly seen this clip. Nonetheless, here's a little refresher: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txKdnGPmHVo He freezes Captain Kirk, one of the supposedly better defenders in the game (aka he's shit at everything else so they hype up the only thing he's mediocre at. don't gemme wrong, I love kirk, he just lost his mojo somewhere along the way) and gets right to the cup. Despite his illlllll handle, J-Crawf can stroke it, put it on the floor and even dish the rock when the spirit (seldomly) moves him. Never having made it to a playoff game is gonna motivate him to soar to new heights with the Hawks this year (soar? hawks? it's a flying joke...)

SF: This is a tough one. There's mad good small forwards out there today, but there can only be one answer for this one. Bron baby. That's all I have to say.

PF: See, the guys I'd put at PF and C really play the same position, but I don't really care, we can have a fucked up front court. First off, at PF, I put my dude C-Webb. Chris was ridiculous back in the day. One of the flashiest, flare-iest power forwards of all time, he prolly dropped the most accurate behind the back bounce pass dime ever. There are countless clips of him making other bigs look foolish either with a cheeky pass, a quick first step or, towards the end of his career, a more then respectable mid range J. Any team could run an offense through him, and he rebounded like he had magnets in his palms. Probably one of my favorite all time ball players.

C: SHEED!!!!!!! Anyone who knows me knows I have a need for Sheed. His instinctual defensive ability, his length to alter and stuff shots, his range, sheed is the complete package (minus the fact that he has zero brain in his head.) But he's sick.



That is my all time favorite starting five folks. They may not win it all (or many games at all) but they'd certainly be fun to watch. Thanks for the read and tune in next time.

Intro; or why you shouldn't be too excited about the Raptors just yet

Hello there!
Welcome to my new basketblog! This will be my therapeutic rambling space for random thoughts about basketball (and maybe other sports) that I come up with over the course of the year! If you've managed to read this far, don't worry, things will get interesting.

The subject of my first blog will obviously be about my first love in the sport of basketball, the Toronto Raptors. Having been a relatively latecomer to the sport, I kinda only really caught on towards to the tail-end of the V.C madness and havn't really had an opportunity to experience much joy with the squadron. You'd think after tonight's ten point victory over the (expected) ECFC Cleveland Cavaliers that I'd be super pumped for this upcoming season right? NAHHHHHHH. Despite the relatively large margin of victory for my beloved homesquad, there are a few indicators that this upcoming season won't be as great as all us Raps fans want it to be.
Firstly, Andrea Bargnani dropping twenty eight on the Diesel can mean one of a few things. One, he's finally harnessed all his talent and will be bringing the pain all season wrong (unlikely.) Two, he took advantage of a slower, aged defender and had a good night that he otherwise wouldn't have had against any other slew of slightly more mobile opponents (possible, maybe even probable.) Three, and this goes back to last year, consistency. Bargz has almost Dirk like abilities to shoot the rock, and has even shown a propencity for some nice dribble drives to the basket. But his unwillingness to mix it up inside combined with his distinct lack of left/right mobility makes for an unlikely prosepct of a 28ppg average for the season. While he did have a good game, I'm not ready to sign off on him as the centre of the future just yet.
Secondly, Jarett Jack and Hedo Turkoglu are combining to make how much money exactly? Probably way more then they deserve, but that's besides the point. These two overrated free agent signings (as I've been saying since before the season started, and I really hope I'm wrong) combined to put up less points then Chris Bosh, less assists then Jose Calderon and the same number of boards as Lebron James. These guys absolutely should be playing at higher levels then they showed tonight or else the raps are gonna flounder in a division where one misstep puts you behind the Celtics. Demar Derozan was average, going for 8 and 5, but for a young guy without much of a game really except for the run and jump facets really isn't much to complain about. On some positive notes, Bosh was all over the floor tracking down loose balls and Marco Bellinelli was a nice spark off the bench. Overall, not a bad game for the raps, but I'm not buying it. Not yet at least.