Basketball Fiend

Posts Tagged ‘Tyrus Thomas’

(Photo credit: Ball Don’t Lie via Getty Images)

1. Yahoo Sports is reporting rumors of a Tyrus Thomas for Al Harrington trade. Jerome James is involved as well (for salary purposes). Thomas and Harrington both have contracts that will expire this season, but Thomas is a younger player and has more upside, making him a candidate to re-sign at the end of the year if New York likes what they see. It’s a trade that’s still in the planning phase, but Thomas’ upside and Harrington’s scoring punch makes this a likely scenario in my eyes. (Here’s what it looks like in ESPN’s Trade Machine.)

2. Five reasons to believe that a WNBA player will make the jump to the NBA, courtesy of Ian Thomsen of SI.com. I never say never (thanks to Joey and Aiiya from the Real World: Cancun), but the possibility of a woman playing in the NBA is a longshot possibility. I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

3. Is Nate Robinson the new Stephon Marbury? Frank Isola of Knicks Knation certainly thinks so.

4. If Tyreke Evans continues to average a 19/4/4 this season, he’ll join an exclusive rookie club that includes Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, LeBron James and Oscar Robertson. Meanwhile Hasheem Thabeet is on pace to join the 3/3/0.5 rookie club (a.k.a. the Darko Milicic bust-in-the-making club). Hey Memphis, care to reconsider that second pick?

5. Marcin Gortat is growing increasingly frustrated with his role in Orlando. He’s averaging just five minutes per game. I’m still not sure why the Magic re-signed him. Does Otis Smith have a beef with Mark Cuban that I’m not aware of?

* Follow Basketball Fiend on Twitter @BasketballFiend.

* Join Basketball Fiend and receive updates by e-mail HERE.

Tyrus Thomas is just 22 years old. So this thunderous block of LeBron James is probably the best moment of his young career.

Thomas is an athletic freak. 6′9″ 215 lbs with a sick wingspan and ups like Dwight Howard. When Thomas’ head is screwed on right (which, unfortunately, is only about 20% of the time) he’s a terrific shot-blocker and a pretty damn good on-ball defender to boot. From the looks of it, he’s developing a pretty solid mid-range jumper, too.

Vinny D decided to let Thomas try his luck with LeBron in the second half of the Cavs-Bulls game on Thursday. I’d say the results were, in the words of Ben Stiller, strong to very strong.

Visual evidence? Check out the highlight below.

 
After the game LeBron claimed illness was the cause of his offensive woes - and it may well be true. But illness or not, Thomas locked down King James like a Kanye West 808’s & Heartbreaks single on the way to a 102-93 Bulls win.

No wonder the Bulls wouldn’t trade him to the Kings earlier in the season.