Daily Hoops Awards for Apr. 10th 2012

The Jerry West Award:

Kenneth Faried --- 27 pts, 17 rebs, 1 asst, 3 FTM, 2 stl, 1 blk, 0 treys, and 12-18 FG%...Word out of the Denver training camp from veteran Nuggets was that this rookie out of Morehead St.(22nd overall pick) could play, but then, you never knew when his chance would come to show that he could really play, when it counted. Well, in the season's first 26 games, Faried logged exactly 60 minutes of playing time while playing in just 6 of those games. But then Nene got injured in mid February, and the rookie got got court time, showing a broader audience that indeed, he could play. Over an 11 game span in the latter half of Feb/early March, Faried had a 13/9 game, 18/10 & 2 blks, 10/14 & 3 blks, 13/10, 16/11 & 2 blks, and a 20/12 with 2 blocks. Nene was traded a week later, and Faried has been a starter at PF ever since. He's undersized at 6'8", 225lbs, but he's an athletic jumper who averaged at least 13 rebs/gm his last 3 seasons at Morehead. Since March, he's averaged over 11 pts, over 8 rebs, and 1 block while shooting almost 59% from the floor. And ironically, much like Nene, Faried has some sweet dreadlocks, so the Nuggets keep some continuity in that department.

The Trajan Langdon Award

Chandler Parsons --- 2 pts, 1 rebs, 0 asst, 2 FTM, 0 stl, 0 blk, 0 treys, and 0-7 shooting in only 24 stinky minutes...It's a sweep for rookies today, as Parsons was a 2nd round pick out of Florida, 38th overal last June. And also like Faried, Parsons was a 4 year guy, which is probably why teams passed on him for so long in the draft (also, Parsons is white - how many great 4-year white guys have come out of college into the league in the last 20 years?). But this 6'9", 200 lb SF has bucked the odds so far, showing some fine versatility for the Houston Rockets while earning a starting job just 7 games into the year over Chase Budinger (yet another white SF taken in the 2nd round, but only played 3 yrs at Arizona) and Patrick Patterson (played on the John Wall Kentucky squad). He's had 7 games with at least 5 assists, while averaging 9.1 pts, 4.8 rebs, 1.1 steals, and shooting 45.7% on the season.

Daily Hoops Awards for Apr. 5th 2012

The Jerry West Award:

LeBron James --- 34 pts, 7 rebs, 10 asst, 11 FTM, 4 stl, 1 blk, 3 trey, and 10-20 FG%...I watched from 83-82 in the 4th quarter as the Heat were playing the Thunder, and all I saw was one guy completely dominating the game - King James. He drove at will, and made a couple passes to a wide-open Battier in the corner (2 straight threes that took it to an 88-83 Heat lead that was then never relinquished). He also stripped Durant of the ball, pulled a nice offensive rebound after his own miss, and played good post defense as well. I was thinking at the time, this is why LeBron still has a very good chance to retire as one of the 5 best players to ever play the game - he's such a dominant, athletic freak. Strangely, they went to Wade to initiate the offense after much of LeBron's 4th Q dominance, and he turned it over while dominating the ball and dribbling excessively - not a proud moment for a monster Wade fan like myself. Bynum was dominant as well last night with 36 pts, 4 blks, 10 FTM, and 13-20 from the field. The Lakers fined him for his recent actions, and Steven A. Smith reported that some within the organization want to trade him, but games like this are why they'll likely keep him. The problem with Bynum is, he seems to be an arrogant jerk at his core, as his cockiness and flippant, nonchalant, Cartman-style attitude ("I don't care, I do what I want") grew much worse after he made his first All-Star game this year, while replacing Pau Gasol as the Lakers main post threat. Bottom line - if a jerk can get them more rings, they'll keep the jerk.

The Trajan Langdon Award

Cory Brewer --- 0 pts, 1 rebs, 0 asst, 0 FTM, 0 stl, 0 blk, 0 treys, and 0-7 shooting in 24 extremely unproductive minutes...Brewer has had some nice stretches this season in Denver filling in for Danilo Gallinari, but last night was horrible. He was originally drafted 7th overall by the T-Wolves in the 2007 Draft, after leading the Gators to their 2nd straight NCAA title alongside Al Horford and Joakim Noah. I thought he'd be great - a long athletic defender who would steadily develop the other parts of his game, but alas - not to be. He's a nice 20 min/night sub, fill-in starter, but not a top notch player in the league. He's only once averaged double-digits in scoring, 13 pts in 2009-10, and he's never averaged more than 3.7 rebs or 2.4 asst in his career.

Daily Hoops Awards for Apr. 4th 2012

The Jerry West Award:

Lebron James --- 41 pts, 6 rebs, 4 asst, 10 FTM, 3 stl, 1 blk, 1 trey, and 15-25 FG%...and... DeMarcus Cousins --- 41 pts, 12 rebs, 2 asst, 9 FTM, 2 stl, 1 blk, 0 treys, and 16-25 FG%. This game ends a rather quiet stretch by Lebron's standards, having not scored more than 26 pts in his prior 8 games, including only two double-doubles in that period. Wade was out with a bad knee, so some slack had to be picked up last night. For the year James is at a robust 26.5 pts, 8.1 rebs, and 6.5 dimes, to go with his far and away best FG% year, 53.5% (interestingly, this is the 5th straight year he's set a career high in FG% - 48.4...48.9...50.3...51.0...53.5)...as for Cousins - nice job stealing him halfway thru the 6th round Hollandia!!! At 17.7 and 11.1 rebs (1.3 blk), Cousins is probably the next all-star center in the West, but still has to work on that shooting (44.3%). Interesting question these days - which guy would you take to build around right now - Cousins or the mental mystery that is Andrew Bynum? Certainly if Bynum showed some stability, it would be him in a heartbeat, and he still might get things straightened out by playoff time, but one has to wonder about his comments and actions these last few weeks. I would assume management must be quite bewildered and disappointed, if not fuming mad, at his behavior of late. How long before Kobe just hauls off and punches him...? He should...

The Trajan Langdon Award

Iman Shumpert --- 5 pts, 0 rebs, 0 asst, 0 FTM, 0 stl, 0 blk, 1 trey, and 2-6 shooting in 37 minutes...It's almost hard to go 37 minutes and take a complete goose egg in boards, dimes, thefts, and fly swats...esp for a jumping jack athlete like Shumpert. Chalk it up to a young rookie playing in his 47th game of a compressed schedule (which by the way, is a dream for fantasy - basically at least a few guys going nightly 7 days a week). Last week Shumpert had back to back games of 25 pts, and I'm sure he'll return to productivity shortly as his minutes have jumped with Lin's injury - oh yeah...that died died fast, huh?

Daily Hoops Awards for Mar. 26th 2012

The Jerry West Award:

Kevin Love --- 30 pts, 21 rebs, 4 asst, 7 FTM, 2 stl, 3 blk, 1 trey, and 11-19 FG%...With this game and his Fri night performance (more on that later), Love tacked on 81 points and 35 rebounds this weekend to his already impressive 2011-12 numbers. For the season he's averaging 26.3 pts (4th in the league), 13.8 rebs (2nd), and shooting 45.5%. In his short career, he's averaging 12.1 rebs/gm after 260 games, which would place him 16th on the all-time career list if he had the requisite number of games. Quite impressive for a guy with zero explosiveness or quickness (certainly by NBA standards). Remember also, Memphis drafted him but shipped him off to Minnesota along with some random driftwood (Brian Cardinal, Mike Miller, Jason Collins), for OJ Mayo and some of the T-Wolves' roster driftwood (Greg Buckner, Marko Jaric, and Antoine Walker). Mayo was taken 3rd in that 2008 Draft, ahead of not only Love (5th), but also Russell Westbrook (4th).

The Trajan Langdon Award

Antawn Jamison --- 2 pts, 1 rebs, 0 asst, 0 FTM, 1 stl, 0 blk, 0 treys (5 attempts), and 1-8 FG% in 20 awful minutes...Quite a stinker for yet another guy who exactly 10 years earlier, was also taken top 5 in the draft and traded on draft day (for college teammate Vince Carter). Jamison is averaging 18 pts/gm this year, but is nonetheless clearly slipping, now in his 14th season. He's shooting a career-low 41.2%, after shooting a then career-low 42.7% last year. His rebounding average of 6.6 is his worst since his rookie year. He has managed to put up impressive career numbers in those 14 years, albeit largely for mediocre teams. His 19.6 pts/gm career average puts him at #60 on the all-time list, while he also has pulled down 7.9 rebs/gm for his career.

OVERTIME!!! There was a barn-burner of an OT game Fri night between OKC and Minnesota. The Thunder won 149-140, after the game ended up tied at 116 in regulation (old-school 80's style scoring fest). Love set career highs in the game for scoring (51 pts), FGs made (16), 3's made (7), and 3's attempted (11). Durant had 40 pts on 15-26 shooting, 17 rebs, 5 asst, and 3 stls. Westbrook also set career highs in pts (45) and FGs made (17, out of 28 attempts). Also in the game, Jose Juan Barea, last seen causing havoc in the 2011 Playoffs for Dallas, had a triple double for the T-Wolves, going off for 25 pts, 10 rebs, and 14 asst.

But there was one other very interesting, very telling stat line - that belonging to the infamous Mangy Mutt. 36 minutes, 2-11 from the floor, with 2 rebs and 3 asst. First of all, there's the minutes. OKC has the best record in the league, so you'd think they would have enough depth to not have to play D-Fish 36 minutes. But with their original backup PG Eric Maynor out for the year, Fisher has quickly replaced Reggie Jackson (not Mr. October, but a rookie combo guard out of Boston College) as their backup PG. He followed up this gross performance by missing 2 shot attempts in 18 minutes yesterday vs. the Heat...while also grabbing 1 rebound, and dishing out zero assists.

Here Laker fans and pathetic journalists like the LA Times' Bill Plaschke - this is why they got rid of him. His locker room intangibles are not enough to offset his absolutely pathetic play. And for an OKC team hoping to win it all this year, it's rather scary that he's the best backup PG they could scrounge up...but they did look good beating the Heat soundly yesterday, 103-87 on national TV.

Daily Hoops Awards for Mar. 22nd 2012

The Jerry West Award:

Ben Gordon --- 45 pts, 0 rebs, 8 asst, 10 FTM, 2 stl, 0 blk, 9-9 from deep, and 13-22 FG%... The 9-9 from 3 land has to be a top 10 all-time performance for 3 pt shooting, but what's even more amazing in regards to Gordon's game are the 11 free throw attempts. Over his prior 14 games, he had 11 total free throw attempts, including 6 straight games covering over 130 min of floor time where he never made a single trip to the line. Gordon used to be decent for the Bulls a few years ago, twice averaging 20+, but has become a very expensive backup in Det now after Dumars panicked and jumped at him (also Charlie Villanueva!) after he had a few heroic moments in a 7 game 1st round playoff series w/ the Celtics in '09. He is owed $25.6m over the next two seasons while producing just 12.5 pts, 2.2 rebs, and 2.6 asst on 43.1% shooting this year. I used to call a contract and player like this untradeable, but after seeing some God-awful contracts peddled in the last few years, you just never know. Gordon was the 3rd pick of the 2004 Draft, an interesting draft where multiple studs went rather late - Ariza 43rd, Varejao 30th, Kevin Martin 26th, Jameer Nelson 20th, Josh Smith 17th, Al Jefferson 15th, and Kris Humphries 14th...while busts like Josh Childress, Rafael Arajuo, and Luke Jackson all went Top 10.

The Trajan Langdon Award

Lamar Odom --- 1 pts, 1 rebs, 1 asst, 1 FTM, 1 stl, 0 blk, 0 treys, and 0-3 FG% in 23 very poor minutes...Lamar's season from Hell continues, as he's at 7.0 pts, 4.4 rebs, 1.8 asst, and shooting a horrific 34.5%, 24% on threes, while launching 2.4/gm from downtown. I listened to the game a bit driving home from work last night as Dal played the Lakers, and the announcers were shocked when at the end of the 3rd quarter Odom passed to Beaubois for a 3 point attempt (a poor shooter from distance) instead of a pleading, wide-open Jason Terry. That seems to be a microcosm of Odom's brain-dead season this year, as he has been in a funk ever since he was offered in the CP3 deal before the year began. The question now becomes, is this the start of a major career fade-out, or does he still have a couple productive, quality years left at 32 years old and 13 seasons under his belt? I'm going with the fade-out...

Daily Hoops Awards for Mar. 13th 2012

The Jerry West Award:

Brandon Jennings --- 34 pts, 7 rebs, 7 asst, 4 FTM, 0 stl, 2 blk, 6 treys, and 12-23 FG%...Jennings is a unique player from L.A. who took a unique route to the league. After graduating from high school in 2008, he spurned the Arizona Wildcats and chose to play a year in Italy instead. He then declared for the 2009 Draft, went 10th overall to the Bucks, and then proceeded to score 55 points in his 7th game as a pro - as a super skinny, 6'1" 20 year old. He then proceeded to go on one of the worst shooting stretches in the history of the league, shooting well under 33% over the next 50 games, including 16 games under 30%. He's extremely quick and adept at getting off acrobatic shots, and also loves to shoot from distance, averaging just over five 3-point att/gm for his career. He's enjoying his best season this year, averaging over 19 points with 5.7 asst and 1.5 stl, while also finally averaging better 40% from the field (40.6). He barely edged out Kris Humphries for the West Award, as Kardashian's ex exploded for 31 pts, 18 rebs, 3 blk, and 2 stl. Humphries is a late bloomer, never averaging more than 20 min/gm until his 7th season in the league, last year, when he averaged a double-double. This year he's improved on those numbers, averaging 13.6 pts, 10.7 reb, and 1.3 blk.

The Trajan Langdon Award

Randy Foye --- 3 pts, 0 rebs, 1 asst, 0 FTM, 0 stl, 0 blk, 1 trey, and 1-4 FG% in 19 painful minutes...And the Clippers woes continue, as they lost again last night, at home to the Celtics, their 5th loss in their last 7 games. Foye was the 7th pick of the 2006 Draft, going right behind Brandon Roy and in front of Rudy Gay (oops!). He's turned out to be a very average player, and definitely not a true PG. He has twice averaged better than 10.1 pts/gm - 13.1 in 2008 and 16.3 pts in '09. This year he's averaging career-lows in pts (9.2), assists (2.3) and FG% (38.7). So basically, Foye sucks, Mo Will is one-dimensional and fading, and CP 3, as good as he is, is not the player he was 3-4 years ago (3-12 last night, just 5 asst - not as quick as he used to be). Blake is Blake, a freakishly explosive PF who can't hit free throws, and DeAndre Jordan is still very limited on offense (just 7.3 pts/gm this year), and inconsistent overall (12 games this year with 6 rebs or less). So the Clippers remain in their funk, now 8-10 since Billups went down and struggling to find the confidence and swagger they had a little over a month ago.