Free Agency Day 3 - Hedo looking for a better pizza

Earlier today ESPN informed us that Hedo Turkoglu reached an agreement with Portland Trail Blazers and Shawn Marion was negotiating his contract with Toronto Raptors. Raptors offered him something north of 30 mln for 4 years, but Marion tried to get 5 year 50 mln. While whole Toronto fan base kept their breath wondering who's gonna win these negotiations, another news broke: Turkoglu rejected offer from Portland and decided to go with Toronto. Raptors offered him 56 mln for 6 years, which is basically 6 mln more than Blazers.

Was the 6 mln the reason for Michael Jordan of Turkey to come to Toronto? Or the fact that his wife loved the city? Or maybe our pizza is better?


And how is it gonna affect us? We're simply losing the MLE and staying with a bench thinner than Christian Bale in 'The Machinist'.



We also can say bye-bye to Anthony Parker, Carlos Delfino and Shawn Marion.

I like the idea of having Hedo Turkoglu on our team much more than having Marion, but it would definitely get sweeter if we could also get Linas Kleiza to come of the bench.


Another news today:

Pistons are interested in signing Avery Johnson as a head coach.

Phil Jackson will definitely come back to coach Lakers. He seems to be the right man to handle Ron Artest.


Boston Celtics are interested in getting Rasheed Wallace.

Free Agency Day 2 - Disappointed Raptors Fan

Yeah, I feel really disappointed. It feels like all the teams are trying to do something and we're just sitting and waiting for something magic to happen.

Trevor Ariza agreed to sign with Huston Rockets a multiyear MLE deal, which made about everybody in Toronto asking: WHY? Why didn't Bryan Colangelo try to sign him? NBA.com tells us, that Raptors actually offered bigger dollars to Ariza, but he signed with the Rockets 'out of respect'. (???)

Ron Artest reached the agreement with Lakers. Now, he will be able to manhandle Kobe on trainings.

Boston Celtics trying to make a run for Rasheed Wallace. Mavericks and Knicks speaking with Jason Kidd. Marcin Gortat is on his way to Dallas.

So, where are you, Raptors? Are you gonna try to resign Shawn Marion? Add Linas Kleiza? Is that all we can expect?

Magic magically falls to 1-3

Although Magic dominated through the first half, and Dwight Howard had stunning 21 rebounds, 16 points and 9 blocks, Lakers took another win. The lead gained in the first half disappeared in the third quarter (famous third quarter collapse by Magic). It looked like Orlando team had a chance when they were up by 3 points nearing the end of regulation and the ball went into Derek Fisher hands, who was 0-5 from behind the arc that night. The shot hit nothing but net. Magic had another chance to take the lead, but Mikael Pietrus missed last second shot, and the game went to overtime, which started with Rashard Lewis 3-pointer. That was the shot that was supposed to fall in the end of regulation! Another 3-pointer by Fisher gave the Lakers leading with 31 seconds left in the overtime, and the Los Angeles team prevailed.

Questions were asked.
- Shouldn't the ball have gone to Lewis in the dying seconds of regulation? Yes, I believe it should. He is deadly from that spot in the clutch time.
- Was playing Jameer Nelson in the 4th quarter and overtime a good idea? No. With all respect to Jameer Nelson and his outstanding game against Lakers during the regular season, it's Rafer Alston who took the team to the playoffs. Although sometimes annoying ball-hog, it was Skip who helped that Magic team to win in the previous series. With a huge help of Anthony Johnson. Fisher said about his 3-pointer, that he had to shoot it, because Nelson gave him so much space! While Skip and AJ were glued to the bench! What were you thinking about SVG? How would it taste to be 2-2 now instead of 1-3?
- Is Rashard Lewis overpaid? My favorite question. Everytime he misses or his team loses, there's always a bunch of people remembering how big his salary is. That he gets money like he was number 1 option not number 2. Really? Really? Boston has 4 players with number 1 option salaries. They're not in the Finals. And last time I checked their best paid player was spending playoffs in the street clothes shouting obscenities at opponents.
- Does Magic have a chance? Not anymore. Even if they somehow win the next game, we're going back to Los Angeles. And that will be the end of season for Magic. They are great great team and played fantastically through the playoffs but Lakers are certainly a better team. That's the beastly Lakers team we used to watch in the regular season, not the Fakers that had problem with injury-devastated Rockets in the Conference-Semis.

Other news - somebody stole Michael Jordan's autographed jersey from Tony Parker's house and placed it on craigslist. Beware jersey collectors!

About draft and the Finals

I don't know how much truth is in the fact that Demar Derozan didn't want to come to train with the Raptors, but it doesn't make him a desirable player. How can a young boy who didn't smell NBA yet already grade teams he wants to play or not? Kid, Tim Duncan you're not. You might end up being Hoffa / having a 15 win team.

Scottie Raynolds decided to stay one more year in college which I find a very good decision. I like 'Nova basketball and I like Scottie, and I hope he'll improve much for the next year draft. He can end up being closer to top picks and we may end up getting him if we suck another year.

Magic - Lakers tonight and I am starting to seriously doubt if the Magic can make it. First game was a blow-out by Lakers and a brick festival by Magic. Game 2 was a close one, and when it was tied with 0.6 seconds left, I kept my breath waiting for Hedo Turkoglu to inbound a lob to Dwight Howard. The ball went to Courtney Lee, who missed a layup, sending the game to the overtime, when Lakers collected the W. Third game was won by Orlando, but they needed a record-breaking shooting (62.5% with 75% in the first half!) to win JUST by 4 points! No way LA defense won't adjust for the next game. Well, we'll see.

So the Finals started

Game 1 of the Finals was a huge disappointment. Even for people that expected Lakers to win that one easily, this just didn't look right. Just looking at the numbers of Magic starters:


You would think they came to Los Angeles only to build some houses there. The 'construction workers' threw so many bricks that it became rather scary. I know the saying 'You live by 3, you die by 3', but c'mon. How do you achieve all your players getting cold for the whole game?



Kobe had his 'special' angry face, but it wasn't needed. There's not many teams Magic can beat while scoring 75 points.
While the bad-bad night for Magic coincided with Jameer Nelson's comeback, there's no way I blame it on him. For, when he threw a ball to an open man, the open man threw just another brick!

I was sure Magic will take this series in 6 games. I still believe it. I simply don't think that the full Magic team will take a night off on each game. That's what's usually magic with Magic - there's always a team mate to take over when you have a night off. Well, nearly always...

No more cheating. A tribute to the Denver Nuggets

As I said in the previous post I'm a notorious cheater. I promised myself to do something useful during the few-days-break from the playoffs. List was long and included: working on my website, cleaning the house, emailing all these people... and all I do is: visit a hairdresser, book a cosmetician, ramble about my diet, ramble about Ben Gordon (again!).
On the other hand I bet that whatever was supposed to be said about the Conference Finals, (expected) Nuggets exit and (unexpected) Cavaliers exit was already said.
I actually like Lakers and during the regular season they appeared the best team to me and I believed they do deserve the championship. But during the playoffs something malicious woke up in me. It started with a disappointment that the Raptors didn't even make it to the first round. It got deeper with another disappointment that the Spurs didn't make it to the second round. It changed into fury over the LeBron vs Kobe hype. I just didn't want any of them to get the 'ship'. Any!
Then came the Houston team with so many injuries and huge huge heart. And Lakers got lazy. They didn't look like champions anymore. They finally won to the Rockets but it didn't look as good as it was supposed to do.
Next team for Lakers to face was Denver. Which raised a question: does anybody outside Denver actually cheer this team?
Can anybody like this guy?



or that?



Twitter had the answer. Of course we're gonna cheer these guys. The 'JR being JR' and the 'My IQ is as big as my jersey number' Kenyon. Thanks to @courtside who taught us all about greatness of JR Smith and to @jose3030 for documenting it (the gif of Dino-JR).
As much as Nuggets disappointed us with losing this series, they definitely provided loads of fun. Chauncey Billups with inbounding the ball of Kobe's back was the funniest moment in this playoffs so far.
It was fun cheering for the Nuggets. And yes, I am a freak. So when you meet somebody wearing sun-glasses in the middle of the night, it will probably be me.