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Showing posts from August, 2008

Gold and more gold

Congratulations to Team USA's Men's and Women's Basketball teams for pulling off a sweep of the Olympic Basketball gold medals. The Women's team won their fourth consecutive Olympic gold medals on a 92-65 route of Australia. Meanwhile, the Men's team followed through on LeBron James's guarantee to win gold for the first time since 2000, holding off Spain for a 118-107 victory. LeBronze no more! Now onto the regular season and the issue of LeSilver...

Bring in One Mo' Guard

It took "one of the top 5 shooters in the world" and a former number one draft pick, but the Cavaliers were able to land guard Mo Williams, whom the Cavaliers believe can score consistently, help run the offense, and bring speed back to the perimeter defense. He will likely take the starting point guard position from restricted free agent Delonte West, who is currently negotiating a new contract. While Damon Jones could hit clutch shots and was better than his play showed during his time with the team, Williams offers a better all-around game and, unlike Jones, should be a fixture in the lineup. However, the Cavs need to make sure to keep Williams healthy, as he has only played 80 regular season games once (57, 58, 68, and 66 were his games played totals for his other 4 NBA seasons). Also, the departure of forward-center Joe Smith puts pressure on Anderson Varejao and J.J. Hickson to play consistently on both sides of the court. If the Cavaliers can sign Delonte West, the

LeBronze no more?

The 2008 Summer Olympics have begun. The US Men's Basketball Team is being referred to as "The Redeem Team," looking to make up for recent subpar finishes in international play, including a Bronze-medal performance in 2004. Bad memories from those Olympic basketball games include seeing Head Coach Larry Brown benching the young players (including LeBron James) and watching Zydrunas Ilgauskas's best man, Sarunas Jasikevicius, making a mockery of Stephon Marbury's defense. This time around, James is no longer a benchwarmer. He has guaranteed that the US will win the Gold medal. The quest for Olympic Gold starts Sunday versus Yao Ming, Yi Jianlian, and host China. While the US is favored to win the game, they need to make sure to match the intensity and emotion of their opponents. Overall, this should be a pretty entertaining Men's Basketball tournament.