Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Random NBA Draft Thoughts

By Charlie Scaturro


For anyone who thinks David Stern has actually relinquished control of the NBA, the events of the past few days should have you strongly reconsidering your position. For starters, LeBron made his intentions of opting out known a full week earlier than he needed to so potential suitors could beat the crap out of each other as they try to unload draft picks, acquire draft picks, clear cap space, and acquire desirable running mates to entice the best player in the world to sign with them. On top of that, the player whom many had regarded as the number one pick, Joel Embiid, revealed a serious foot injury about a week before draft night that will sideline him for the next 4-6 months.

So now there’s chaos at the top of the draft, executives are running around with lampshades on their head trying to do whatever they can to entice LeBron to join their team, the number of legit trade possibilities is beyond comprehension, Chad Ford has turned to a combination of cocaine and espresso to make sure he can churn out 2 different mock drafts per hour for the 48 hours leading up to the draft, and hell, even the Knicks are acquiring draft picks in trades rather than hemorrhaging them. So really, with all this chaos going on, there’s nothing I could do besides string together some (hopefully) coherent, but random thoughts about the NBA Draft. Here goes.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Tim Duncan, LeBron James and Myth About Becoming An All-Time Great

By Charlie Scaturro


It’s impossible to watch the Spurs and Heat square off against each other in this year’s NBA Finals without hearing someone mention a legacy, a comparison to Michael Jordan, or what this series means in the context of NBA history.

And when you have Tim Duncan chasing his 5th title, the Heat going for the first 3-peat since the Shaq and Kobe Lakers, and LeBron looking to add another line to what is already one of the most impressive under 30 resumes in NBA history, it’s easy to see why the discussion has been about more than what’s happening on the court.

Given all the potential history that we might witness during the next few games, the most intriguing part of the NBA Finals could very well be that we’re watching two of the best players ever, in Tim Duncan and LeBron James, go head to head in the Finals for the second consecutive year. That’s a significant statement to make, and the interesting thing to me about being universally accepted as one of the NBA’s all-time greats is that this distinction isn’t something that’s necessarily in any player’s control, no matter how great they might have been.