Thursdays With Raider: 10 NBA Questions For The Man Himself
1. After Game Two, how do you feel about the Warriors-Nuggets Series…It will at least be respectable now. During the regular season it looked like the Warriors couldn’t find a way to beat them, but I am as surprised as anyone that splitting the first two games in Denver happened in Game 2 without David Lee. Now, a lot can still happen once the series goes back to Oakland, but something about having to shoot above 60% from the floor to have a chance to win this series still doesn’t make me feel quite as confident as a lot of other Dubs fans. Its kind of hilarious to hear Murph & Mac (the morning show on Bay Area sports talk behemoth KNBR) already discussing second round opponents–which more than likely will be San Antonio, a team that has owned us since David Koresh was still alive.
By the way, I still get a major kick out of trolling Jazz fans with the whole losing games kinda sorta on purpose last year to get Harrison Barnes. In fact, I am actually tempted to take it to the next level and get a Barnes jersey and/or shirsey. Would that be wrong of me?
2. When you were watching Andre Miller make that slow ass move to the hoop, what were your thoughts.
You will likely remember that Steph tied the game with a 3 pointer during the last Warriors possession, which left just enough time on the clock to allow Mark Jackson to hang himself with whatever defensive lineup he had available to him, and that for good reasons and bad included the rookie Draymond Green. Don’t get me wrong, Green has had his moments this year (he made a game winning layup after a big defensive breakdown to beat the Heat in Miami this year), but you sort of knew this was going to unfold like one of those Kyrie Irving “Uncle Drew” videos on YouTube.
Speaking of that, if the NBA and Pepsi really wanted to, they could get Gordon Hayward or someone with the Jazz to play ward ball here in Salt Lake and film the festivities. You thought playing street ball somewhere in Jersey was tough, get a load of the Taylorsville 2nd Ward elders quorum.
3. Thoughts on the other NBA Series?>Watching CP3 take down the Grizzlies the other night, it sort of made me ponder the beginning of last season when a lot of fans and media types that probably should have known better were practically doing rain dances to get Chris Paul to the Warriors. No one outside of a side show or possibly an insane asylum could make a decent case for it, but for a brief moment, I did address the thought of Joe Lacob spending Dodger-like amounts of money to straight up buy a championship.
As for everyone else, you have no idea how much I am enjoying the fact that the Lakers are a tire fire. Until that team begs and pleads for Phil Jackson to return and they fire Mike D’Antoni, they are probably going nowhere fast. I’m sure 801 Laker Fan is just beside himself right now, if 801 Laker Fan were actually watching the playoffs right now. Heck, for all we know, they may wonder why they had to start the first two games in San Antonio because the Lakers are among the top 5 teams in the history of the world, right up there with the ’27 Yankees, U.S. Steel, Standard Oil, and Ken Jennings.
4. Will anyone beat Miami?I can’t see anyone in the East beating them, unless the Knicks get a wild hair but the NBA is a league that was built on star power (I’ll elaborate on this more later) so that superficial analysis is probably the biggest reason why I think Miami wins it all again. But if a Heat/Thunder Finals 2: Electric Bugaloo doesn’t happen, I would be VERY surprised.
5. Should all teams be required to play like Golden St and Denver do?
If you have the roster to do it, sure. If your goal is to sell tickets and distract people from the everyday doldrums of their lives, then feel free to try and score 140 points a game. But unless one or both of these teams goes on to win an NBA title, you might want to have a much more well-rounded team than that. Whichever team advances in this postseason, it will be fascinating to find out if the cream still rises to the top in this league like it always has.
6. When discussing baby names with the future Mrs. Raider, has the possibility of Joe Berry Kimball or Attles Kimball come up?
No, in fact according to the future wife, I am not allowed to name any of our children, primarily because I thought Magnus was a great name for a pet or a small child. When she asked “what will happen when he becomes a big kid” I said “he will be a big kid named Magnus. That will sort of work itself out”.
7. What was the first NBA game you ever saw. Mine was the LA Lakers, Magic, Worthy, Kareem, Cooper vs Denver Nuggets English, Thompson, Kiki Vandeweghe, Dan Issel. Pat Riley vs Doug Moe
I never got to see Warriors games as a kid where I wasnt a toddler and could remember them, mainly because my parents werent very big NBA fans and by the time I got into the Warriors, we were long since removed from the Bay. Remind me sometime to tell the story of my last excursion to Energy Solutions Arena for a Warriors/Jazz game which I emailed to you about a year ago.
8. Bill Walton, Thoughts?
I know I am in the minority on this, but Walton gets kind of annoying rather quickly for me. He is great in small to moderate doses, but often I think he can be distracting. Of course he has become a Twitter sensation sort of the same way that Gus Johnson became one a few NCAA tournaments ago, but it could also be that most color commentary in general gets on my nerves? Now if you put Bill Walton on the NBA on TNT’s studio crew with Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley, that would be some TV I would have to see.
9. Steph Curry, who saw that coming.
Other than the fact that he nearly took Davidson to a Final Four by himself…>As a Warriors fan, I should have. But to be perfectly honest, a lot of Warrior fans were blinded by the mystique of Monta Ellis, which may have been the biggest reason why a lot of fans were pissed off that Monta got traded last year. Let me describe the Warriors career of Monta in about 50 words:
Late in game, Warriors ball, down a point or two, everyone and their mother knows its Monta shooting for the tie or win. 7 times out ten, he misses, Dubs lose. Oh, and he probably sexually harassed some of the female Warriors employees.To put it another way, I highly doubt that the Warriors make the playoffs this year if Steph Curry is the one that gets traded away instead of Monta. For now, its going to be put on the backburner, but if the Dubs go back to being a non-playoff team, you can bet that this topic will resurface in much the same way that a lot of Raider fans just can’t quite get over Jon Gruden leaving.
10. Use the 10th slot to brag about your prediction that Klay Thompson would have 10 times the career Jimmer would.
Okay, I better explain this. The night that Jimmer was drafted, where by he ended up going to Sacramento, I made a comment on Twitter that I thought Klay Thompson would make more All-Star games during his NBA career than Jimmer. At the time, I did this because a) I could annoy Kings fans, which I take advantage of on occasion since some of them have said they have a potential playoff team when they clearly dont, and b) its that gentle reminder to BYU fans that no matter how many Daily Bread spots he does around here and how many basketball camps he holds, he’s still little more than a curly haired J.J. Redick, is he not?