NBA awards

Heyyyyy I'm back...people have been asking me why I stopped posting on here and that I should get back into it (and by 'people' I mean Mike Lacey)

I started this website, well my Girlfriend did, (I don't know how to internet) about two years ago because I was injured and had nothing else to do! Im in a little off season break at the moment and have a lot of stuff I wanna chat about! Bailee (my aforementioned girlfriend) hates basketball so I'm gonna chuck a few thoughts here...LUCKY YOU lol

First things first, the NBA awards. Well not the awards, but the show! I actually like the idea of having a night to celebrate all the NBAs award winners in one place! Had a bit of an academy award feeling to it, like people outside doing 'best dressed' type stuff which I wasn't a fan of (very E channel) but the idea of having it all in one big night rather than periodically giving out awards during various times throughout the playoffs! However I did find the timing of it weird! For example the league MVP award, everyone knew Westbrook was going to win it. But he lost in the opening round of the playoffs, almost two months ago! Since the second round of the playoffs how many of you have thought about Russell Westbrook? I know I havent (well not much) ...I think the little gap after the regular season but before the playoffs would be better! They are the regular season awards after all! Makes sense doesn't it? It does to me at least haha

But now for the actual awards!

MVP - Russell Westbrook

There was no doubt really with this one! The second player ever to average a triple double, not only that but a 30 point triple double! He carried a team that isn't overly talented to the sixth seed in the West, Cleveland for example only won 4 less games in the much weaker East just to show what an impressive accomplishment that is! Perhaps saying they aren't overly talented is a bit harsh, but they definitely aren't built for the modern 'space the floor, 3 point heavy' game the NBA has become! Westbrook himself is an average to slightly above average deep shooter, Victor Oladipo is an average 3 point shooter (S/O) to him for dunk of the year though) Andre Roberson is the there pretty much exclusively for defence (Second team All-Defence) Domantas Sabonis had his moments from the outside as a rookie but they spent most of the time with some combo of Steve Adams, Enes Kanter and Taj Gibson out there together, neither of whom shoot the three and on the roster there isn't a person I would consider a 'sniper'. Imagine what Westbrook would have done if he was surrounded by gunners like Ryan Anderson and Eric Gordon! Keeping him out of the lane is already impossible! Scary to think how much more damage he could have done with the floor spacing James Harden had to work with! A very deserving winner.

Defensive player of the year - Draymond Green

Another easy choice in my opinion! Green does a little bit of everything for the Warriors, while he definitely isn't there best player, to me he is there most important. He brings a physicality and presence that no one else does, does all the dirty work, defends every position, scores, rebounds, is probably there best passer and they just function better when he is out there despite some of his antics that annoy some people. Adding KD to the Warriors made them better at what they were already the best team ever at, shooting the deep ball, but giving up all of there big men and a lot of there bench most people (me included) thought they would fall off defensively. But they had the number one rated defence in the league! Green is the leader of that defence and despite stiff competition from The Klaw (Kawhi Leonard) and The Stiffel Tower (Rudy Gobert) was a bit of a no brainer for me.

Ill leave it here for now! Ill continue tomorrow with most improved and coach of the year tomorrow! Don't want your brains to explode with my first post in a while haha

AP

Steven Adams out of Oceania series

After months of waiting on a decision by Steven Adams and OKC on his participation in this years Oceania series, today it has been revealed that unfortunately this year won't be the year we see him pull on the black singlet for the first time.

One can only speculate as to why he won't be participating after feedback a few months ago seemed quite positive...A big factor is probably the well documented coaching change, with Scott Brooks being relieved of his coaching duties and former University of Florida head coach Billy Donovan coming in. As well as the recent re-signing of Turkish big man Enes Kanter, a restricted free agent, Kanter was offered a 4 year $70 million offer sheet by the Portland Trail Blazers and the Thunder opted to match the offer to retain his services! So the training camp and pre season battle for the starting spot will be a very competitive one and Steve (and his management) might not want to risk slipping down the pecking order...Which sucks for Tall Blacks fans, but is completely understandable.

As we all know by now Australia have assembled one of the stronger Boomer squads in recent memory and Steve's presence obviously would have been huge, especially matching up with Andrew Bogut! Unfortunately it was not meant to be this year, but no doubt conversations will continue between him and basketball New Zealand and hopefully he will make his international debut in the near future!

Speaking of the Tall Blacks, the boys had a very convincing 84-63 win over Great Britain yesterday in their first official game of their build up for the Oceania series! Corey Webster was the stand out scoring what I believe is the most points he has scored in a Tall Blacks game with 32 on 10-15 shooting! Isaac Fotu didn't have the best shooting night of his life but had a pretty useful overall stat line of 10-16 (game high) and 6 assists, Mika Vukona joined also got into double figure rebounds with 11 and Everard Bartlett chipped in with 15 points in 14 minutes off the bench! But everybody made valuable contributions...Also quick shout out to Dion Prewster and Duane Bailey on making their "official" debuts after the closed game a few days earlier! They are now in Croatia to play a few games against, well Croatia (Duh!!!) and Slovenia.  Full stats from the Great Britain game can be found here 

AP