Basketball Fiend

Posts Tagged ‘Top 10’

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In this case “entertaining” means anything from “throws down crazy dunks on a regular basis” to “hangs out in the hotel lobby in his underwear”.

It’s an all-encompassing list.

Bonus Runner-Up: Delonte West

I’m going to level with you. I didn’t intend on having 11 players on the list. But how could I leave off Delonte? His hot sauce in my bag freestyle was so funny I nearly coughed up a lung. You can’t script comedy like that. Delonte’s KFC masterpiece was absolutely, without a doubt, my favorite video of the year. He makes the list. Period. End of discussion.

Bonus Runner-Up #2: Stephon Marbury

If you thought I was done with the bonus section, you thought wrong. There’s no way in the fiery depths of Fran Drescher inhabited hell that I’m going to leave Starbury off this list. He gave us not one, not two, but three laugh out loud comedy moments this summer. The “Put Me in a Box” video, the “I Eat Vaseline” video, and the “Ain’t Nothin’ But the Devil” video. None of them were basketball related, but who cares? They were unscripted bits of comedy genius, and I couldn’t stop watching them. Neither could my friends. Neither could my professors. (Yes, you read that right. I sent Starbury videos to my professors.) He makes the list. Deal with it.

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1. We all know by now about Shaquille O’Neal’s pending divorce. What we don’t know is how many more of his mistresses are going to come out of the woodwork. The most recent woman to be connected to Shaq is Latosha Lee, who happens to be the mother of Minnesota Timberwolves guard Damien Wilkins’ baby. (What is it with Shaq and other players’ baby mama’s?) Shaq is rumored to have been romantically involved with Lee during the summer and into the fall, but broke off the alleged relationship after Lee began to ask for money and gifts.

YBF.com has more, including emails between Shaq and Lee. Funny. That’s the same thing that got Shaq in trouble with Laura Govan last month. He needs to find a new way to communicate with his girls on the side.

2. To make his weekend even worse, Shaq was denied special deputy status in Cuyahoga County Friday. In order to reach special deputy status in Cleveland, Shaq must first complete a reported 300 more hours of training.

3. Kurt Rambis and Eddie Jordan may be making more money, but Paul Westphal is having a damn good time in Sacramento, leading a young Kings nucleus to an impressive (don’t laugh) 9-10 record through the first month of the season.

4. I used to be in LeBron James’ camp 100 percent. That’s before he started acting like a prima donna, confiscating video tapes and dancing on the court like a fool. Most recently, LBJ’s Riverdance routine drew the ire of the Bulls’ Joakim Noah. The third-year forward had some choice words for LeBron Friday in the fourth quarter of Cleveland’s win over Chicago, prompting a near fight between the two. That didn’t stop LeBron from breaking out the moves again on Sunday in Milwaukee. Hopefully this is a phase that ends soon. The last thing the sports universe needs is another Chad Ochocinco-level head case.

5. Time Magazine breaks down the top 10 moments of Michael Jordan’s career with accompanying video. It’s a great retrospective. Check it out if you get the chance.

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The NBA Draft is rapidly approaching and there are still a lot of questions left to be answered about the incoming prospects. Because of the uncertainty in this draft, I’m constantly trying to find new ways to evaluate these incoming players. Which is why I decided to construct this list, an evaluation of the top college programs and their ability to produce NBA talent.

To create the list I looked over each current NBA roster, documented the university of each player, and used a list of criteria (including: number of players, quality of players, number of quality players, cumulative All-Star games, and cumulative NBA titles) to determine the order.

Because I didn’t want to end up looking like Christian Bale in The Machinist, I limited my research to current NBA players and made the list a Top 10, with three honorable mentions. I had a lot of input (from different people, including my podcast mate Joe Lee) along the way and I made a lot of changes.

I’ve added a short analysis for each college program on the list. If you’d like a more detail check out the Basketball Fiend Podcast: Episode 3. It’s a podcast with Joe Lee and myself devoted exclusively to analyzing this list. And don’t forget to leave comments. (Just not ones like, “Where’s Michael Jordan for UNC?” or “How could you forget Magic Johnson?”. Remember it’s a list of current NBA players.)

I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Honorable Mention

These three programs were just on the cusp of making my Top 10. All three are programs with a history of producing good NBA players, but they just didn’t have what it takes to make it past the programs above them.

Kentucky

Number of current NBA players: 8
Cumulative All-Star appearances (current players): 1
Cumulative NBA titles (current players): 3
Top 5: Rajon Rondo, Tayshaun Prince, Chuck Hayes, Kelenna Azubuike, Keith Bogans

Hopefully Coach Cal won’t send lightning down on my head for this one, but the truth is this: the Kentucky program has been slack in recent years in terms of turning out top notch talent. Yes, Rajon Rondo and Tayshaun Prince (at the top) are solid players who have won championships with their respective teams, but the talent thins out considerably after those two players. Chuck Hayes, Kelenna Azubuike, Keith Bogans, and Nazr Mohammed are role players (fairly good ones, yes, but still role players) and Randolph Morris and Jamaal Magloire are barely used, end-of-the-bench guys. Hardly a group that is going to set the world on fire.

Calipari has a very good recruiting class this year so the Wildcats should be back in the Top 10 soon. But this season they’re honorable mention status. Sorry, Big Blue.

The rest of the list - including two more honorable mentions - can be found after the jump.

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The NBA Finals are done. The Lakers won their 15th title, Phil Jackson won his 10th as a coach, and Kobe Bryant proved he doesn’t need Shaq to take a team all the way. Now we all go back to life as normal. Which, for me, means breaking down the 10 best performers from this year’s championship series.

By the way, I strongly considered naming this article ‘Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom and 7 Other Guys’. Then I remembered how little I liked the thought of being burned alive the next time I set foot in Orlando. Reason #350 why I need a publicist.

Anyway, here’s the list:

10. Luke Walton (SF, Lakers)
15 min, 3.8 pts, 2 reb, 80% FG

Walton is probably the last person I wanted to put on this list, but he played well as a reserve. You can’t argue with 80% shooting from the field. Besides, who else would you put at the 10 spot? Andrew Bynum? No way. He was horrible on offense, shot under 40%, and had one, maybe two good defensive games. He was more out of his element than Donnie in The Big Lebowski. Marcin Gortat? No way. He got abused so badly in Game 5 that the president of Poland publicly demanded that he remove the ‘Polish’ from his Polish Hammer nickname. Rafer Alston? No way. He had one good game, one mediocre game, and three miserable games. Plus he killed the team’s chemistry with his whining.

Sorry, Walton haters. He’s the pick here.

9. Mickael Pietrus (SG/SF, Magic)
28 min, 10.6 pts, 2 reb, 47.5% FG

There’s a sizable gap between players 8 and 9 on this list. It’s true that Pietrus got torched by Kobe throughout the series. It’s also true that he couldn’t have stayed in front of Kobe if he was the mirror in Kobe’s bathroom. But Pietrus had a solid offensive series. He shot well from the floor and was the lone offensive spark off the Magic bench. He also led the Magic in scoring in Game 1. True story. Look it up. 14 points. (Ok, now I’m grasping at straws.)

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