Early Look at the NBA Part 1: Western Conference

Another season of the greatest sports league in the world is just a few months away. Wait, didn't the NBA season just end? Yep! Isn't it awesome! The reason why the upcoming season is so intriguing is because there are so many teams that have a legitimate shot to make it to the Finals and win the championship. The Heat, Bulls, Clippers, Thunder, Spurs, Pacers, Rockets, and Nets all believe that this could be their year, so it's shaping up to be a great season. Let me go ahead and give you my prediction of how the final four will shake out.

The West:

The Clippers have the talent. They've had the talent for the past two seasons. I think that bringing in Doc Rivers will make the difference and help them finally win in the playoffs, mostly because he will teach them how to play elite defense.

The Spurs have basically the same team as last year. They still have the best coach in the NBA, and as long as Duncan's body doesn't break down, he will be hungry to make up for last season's heartbreaking loss in the Finals.

The Thunder didn't get better in the offseason; in fact, they may have become a little bit worse. Kevin Martin left, which means that they have pennies on the dollar left from what they got in the James Harden trade. Jeremy Lamb, however, looked good in the Summer League, so we'll see if he or any of their other bench guys can fill in for Martin, but that's a big if. Even with a healthy Westbrook in this year's playoffs, I don't see them getting past the second round.

The Rockets will be interesting to watch, but unless Dwight Howard is going to be the Dwight Howard of a few seasons ago, they won't make it past the second round of the playoffs. There is the possibility of a deal that would include Omer Asik being traded to Boston for Rajon Rondo somewhere down the road, however, in which case I might change my mind, but that remains to be seen.

Western Conference Finals: Clippers vs. Spurs

The winner of this series, I believe, will be decided by just how much Doc Rivers improves the Clippers' defense, and how well the Spurs' health holds up. Popovich, though, is a master of distributing minutes to keep his best players healthy, but we'll see if he is smart enough to sit Manu in favor of newly acquired Marco Belinelli in the playoffs. As a Bulls fan watching last year's playoffs, when Hinrich was hurt I was most comfortable with Belinelli running the offense, so he could be a key pickup for San Antonio. In any case, I give the edge to the Spurs to make the Finals again.

What is to be done?

It's a topic that I have debated with only a few people. I don't like talking about it because it threatens the magic of sport that has inspired me ever since I was a little kid. Like so many other kids, I dreamed of being a professional athlete. Michael Jordan was my hero and role model. He's not so much anymore. I don't see his competitive disease as something that I want to emulate, even if it would give me some of the same success that he had. This, among a few other things, dissuaded me from looking at him as an appropriate role model. Any reason for someone to cease being an appropriate role model for someone else is not good, but at least Michael Jordan is not Ryan Braun or Lance Armstrong. At least he didn't cheat and then lie about it to our faces. But for that matter, maybe he did cheat in some way or another. The fact that I now have to ask that question about the pristine athletic hero of my childhood saddens me, but this is what we've come to, and we would be naive not to ask the questions.

I'm not here to point fingers, so I won't. I want to encourage solutions. Major League Baseball is doing a great job, I think, of cutting their losses and fighting the problem rather than looking the other way. The NFL seems to also be taking steps to prevent PED use. The NBA would do well to follow their examples. As MLB is finding out, the problem won't go away overnight. They have been handing out suspensions for years now -- heavy suspensions -- but it still hasn't quite purged the game of that ugly side. It will take time, but everyone needs to get rid of this stuff.

And, yes, it is bad. If we do what some have suggested and just allow everyone to use PEDs, then the games that Americans have loved for over 100 years will turn into a circus, a freak show. Let's watch a bunch of guys who are taking destructive drugs do things that no normal human being should ever be able to do, and let's not care that their bodies will fall apart when they're 45. You might say that it's their choice what they do with their body. Yes, it is, but it becomes a problem when the whole point of their artificial enhancement is to make more of the money that I pay to watch and to add accomplishments to their resume that wouldn't be there otherwise, that can only be accredited to the drugs. I don't want to watch artificial stuff -- someone who cheats their way into strength, power, and speed. I want to watch normal (but very gifted, of course) people who accomplish great things simply through hard work, courage, and fortitude. That's a real hero.

Jack or Jimmy?

Most of you have probably heard the news by now about the kid from Grinnell College who made history yesterday. His name is Jack Taylor, he is a 5'10" guard on their basketball team, and the 138 points he scored in yesterday's game against Faith Baptist Bible College set an NCAA record. Needless to say, it was an unprecedented performance, but is this really something that should be so celebrated?

The numbers are ridiculous. They read like the total offensive stats for most high school players' whole season. Taylor made 52 of 108 shots from the field, 71 of which were three-pointers, of which he made 27. Let me point something out. His shooting percentages were normal. He shot 48% from the field and 38% from three-point range. The only reason he scored 138 points in the game was that he got to shoot 108 times! Most college players could score over 100 points if they were allowed to shoot that many times in a game. The more impressive part of this game was the leading scorer for Faith Baptist. David Larson scored 70 points on 34-44 shooting from the field. He shot 77%! If he had put up 108 shots with that percentage he would have scored 166 points, and that's with no three-pointers or free throws.

The point is that this is not the way that basketball should be played. If Norman Dale were Taylor's head coach, he would have been on the bench after one shot for not waiting until the team had passed it at least four times. Jack Taylor ain't no Jimmy Chitwood. And now, for your viewing pleasure, here is Jimmy Chitwood's game-winning shot in the state championship.

That gets me every time. This is how basketball should be played.

Monday Afternoon Football

Soccer, that is. At least in America. I am delighted, by the way, with the turn of events that has seen soccer being shown more and more on ESPN. I agree with the recent advertisements that claim the English Premier League to be the best soccer league in the world. We're in for another great season I'm sure. It will be hard to live up to the standard set by the crazy drama at the end of last season. Here's a clip to help you relive it and get pumped for the new campaign.

Awesome. And here's a link to a longer one if you want more.

I'm at home in Cedar City on this beautiful Monday afternoon. The sun is shining and I've got nothing to do (yet) except flip on the tube and watch some EPL soccer in fabulous HD. We're in the 50th minute right now of a match between last year's runner-up Manchester United and an always tough Everton side. It's been a great game so far, even though it is still scoreless. There have been some great chances. Everton looks pretty impressive against perennial powerhouse Man-U, and a few players have impressed me more than the rest. My two favorite players in this match so far have been Marouane Fellaini of Everton and Shinji Kagawa of Manchester United. They both look very composed and have been, in my opinion, the best players on the field for their respective teams.

And there you have it. Everton just scored, and it was none other than Fellaini with a beautiful header off a corner kick! I told you he looked good. There have been multiple times in this match when he simply overpowered Man-U defenders, and this was yet another example of that. Fellaini is tall and he has fantastic hair. How can you stop that one-two punch?

I wanna talk a little bit more, however, about Kagawa. Manchester United just barely picked him up in the recent transfer window before the season started. He was playing for German side Borussia Dortmund before making the switch, leading them to the Bundesliga title last season. Kagawa is a facilitator. He is soccer's version of a Steve Nash sort of player. He's a pass first kind of guy. He's created some great chances in this game against Everton, including a magnificent pass to Danny Welbeck that so nearly resulted in a 1-0 lead for Man-U. He's the kind of player that everyone wants to play with, and that is a very valuable thing to have. I want to talk about the importance of a facilitator.

I guess I had to talk about it eventually. I'm sure by now you've all heard about the recent trade that sent Dwight Howard, the best young center of his generation, to the Los Angeles Lakers. Their starting line-up now includes four superstars and a bruiser (I like to think of Metta World Peace as the kind of guy that hockey teams send out to protect superstars like Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin). Kobe Bryant is Kobe Bryant. We all know his credentials, but the most important player to that team's success will be Steve Nash (he also happens to have the most MVP awards than anyone else on that team). If they play it right, it won't be superstars taking turns, it will be the best pure point guard since John Stockton controlling the game and making sure everyone is involved. Steve Nash needs to have the ball in his hands more than anyone else (including Kobe) if they want to beat OKC and Miami this coming season.

A facilitator is someone who is unselfish, who seeks others' happiness before his own. He understands that his own happiness will come from helping others. That is the kind of person that we all want to be around, and it's the kind of person that we should all strive to be. It's the kind of person that Jesus Christ was when he was on the earth. The scriptures say that he "went about doing good" (Acts 10:38). The prophet Moroni in the Book of Mormon teaches that men should "lay hold upon every good thing," and any man who does so "certainly will be a child of Christ" (Moroni 7:19). Happiness comes from doing good.

Sports are amazing in their power to teach. There is so much more to them than meets the eye, so many lessons to be learned. This is why I love them so much and want to share what I learn from them with whoever wants to listen. Thanks for reading.

All In

It had to be something good to get me writing again. I've been in a slump. Ever since the NBA season ended there hasn't really been anything that I've cared enough to write about.

I've decided to change things up a bit. So far my blog has just been my reactions to what happens in the world of sports. I stretched it to where I was writing about things just to write about them, not really putting a lot of feeling in it. My best post came when something happened which really affected me (see "Rose's Thorn"). So I'm only going to write when I really care about something (go figure, right?), and I'm going to tie in some life lessons as well. I think it will be a lot better.

I'm back in Cedar City tonight. I drove down from Provo this evening. I was again reminded of how beautiful Utah is. I remember really appreciating it for the first time when I got home from my mission in Romania. I guess I had learned to better appreciate beauty while I was away serving in Romania. I saw some beautiful things there, but nothing compared to what I saw when I got home. All that time is was right in front of me, but I had to go halfway around the world to figure out how lucky I was to live in such an amazing place. The scenery was magnificent as I drove. Purple rain was a curtain veiling the red, sunset-lit horizon. Colorless silhouettes of cloud were lined with orange and yellow. I've tried before to take pictures of such scenes with my phone, but it never does it justice, so I've given up on that. Instead I tried to paint a picture with words. It seemed to work better.

The panorama eventually turned black. The dark sky was illuminated from time to time with brilliant flashes of lightning in the distance. As I got further south, closer to Cedar, the lightning got closer and brighter. Rain pelted the windshield. Coldplay provided a perfect soundtrack to the drive, and I kept myself awake by singing along (as is my custom). Life is good.

The real reason I was inspired to start blogging again after about a month off was a one minute video I saw the other day. Here it is.

I'm blown away by D-Rose. Everything he does seems to make me a bigger and bigger fan. The part of the video that hit me the most is the end when he says, "I'm all in." That's significant. To be great requires complete devotion to a goal. Derrick Rose hit a bump in the road - a big bump. If you think that deterred him from his desire to be the best basketball player he can possibly be, think again. He'll come back, and I fully believe that he will eventually be better than he ever has been up to this point. That will happen because he is completely focused and determined to make it happen. He's "all in," holding nothing back. So we should be "all in" with everything that we do. To only give half effort is to meander in the mass of mediocrity. Anything short of everything just isn't enough if we want to reach our potential.

I had a conversation with my roommate (one of my best friends) about this a while back. A lot of times we are scared to give 100%. Doing so leaves no excuses for the results. Giving less than our all, we can always say, "Oh, if I had tried harder I could've done it," or, "I could've won that game if such-and-such wouldn't have happened." We cripple ourselves. True satisfaction comes from giving our all, knowing we gave our all, and accepting the results as a just reward for the effort we put in. If the results aren't quite what we wanted, then we go to work and improve on the areas where we need a boost. Continual progress is the goal. Patience is required.

Patience will dispel fear, calm nerves, and soften the blow of disappointment. Patience will sustain the fire within. Derrick Rose is displaying amazing patience and humility as he works back in what has been diagnosed as an 8-12 month recovery process. I can't wait for him to get back. The Bulls need him. The NBA needs him. He is a great example of hard work and excellence that we can all learn from.

NBA Summer League

I had the chance to go down to Sin City for a couple of days of NBA Summer League action this past weekend. The quality of basketball wasn't great, but that doesn't matter that much in summer league ball. All of these players were out to impress. One who did so was Lithuanian 7-footer Donatas Motiejunas of the Houston Rockets. I watched his first game on Friday where he scored 25 points in 25 minutes and grabbed 9 rebounds. He was impressive, and with Luis Scola gone he'll probably get some good playing time in the upcoming season. Watch out for this guy. He's also got a smokin' hot girlfriend to boot.

The Bobcats won a game! Well, their summer league team did. They were led by rookie Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. The second overall pick in this summer's draft was all over the place stealing, dunking, shooting, and defending. MJ made the right pick getting MKG. We'll have to wait and see if he made the right choice with their new coach. He seemed more like a high school coach as he had his team pressing the whole game. It worked to win a summer league game, but who cares? We'll see what he does once the real season starts.

Other than that there weren't really any big stand-outs. Thomas Robinson looked okay for the Kings. He showed great ability to get the free throw line. He could use some improvement on knocking down those free throws, though. He'll be good once he gets used to the NBA game. He's got all the tools. He looked better than Jimmer. Jimmer still hasn't gotten the same confidence back that he had at BYU. He seemed to kind of struggle when he was running the point. In the second Kings game I saw they had him at the 2. He looked a lot more comfortable there and did much better. Hopefully he'll be able to find his niche. I'm not sure it's in Sacramento.

I'm excited to see more summer league story lines come out this week. I'm even more excited for the USA National Team. Hopefully nobody else will get hurt (best wishes to BG).

"It's about damn time"

During the pregame show I heard Mike Wilbon make the first prediction for tonight's game. He said that he was picking the Heat to win it and clinch the title. I was a little bit surprised to hear Chris Broussard ask him if he thought it would be a blowout. A blowout? But then I thought about it a little bit. Yeah, this might be a blowout. The thought hadn't even entered my mind before then, but afterwards, for some reason, a blowout seemed probable.

Then the 3's started raining.

Mike Miller looked like Uncle Wade out there, running down the court like a hobbled old man, draining 3's left and right. The only thing that was missing were some street ball moves and an off-the-backboard throw down. Mario Chalmers drained a couple. Norris Cole came in off the bench, took a charge, and drained a 3-pointer of his own. Shane Battier continued his hot streak in the Finals. Even Chris "The Raptor" Bosh hit one from the corner.

Miami's "Big Three" are all grown up now and have started winning championships. Lebron has figured it out. Tonight's game saw him calming Mario Chalmers down when Mario was starting a premature celebration. "Not yet," James said. That alone showed how much he's matured. He's still a kid at heart, though. Did you see him jumping up and down on the bench when the game was in hand? Even Eddy Curry looked young over there jumping around (that exercise probably did him good). The look on Lebron's face as he held the championship trophy can only be described as the "little kid on Christmas morning" look, and he gave it a big hug.

Thinking back to the actual game, it just seemed like it was decided from early on. The basketball Gods were smiling on Miami. The Thunder never really looked like they were in it. They just didn't have that spring in their step that they usually have. It was Miami's night. Make no mistake, though, this Thunder team will have their night. I have no doubt about that. This one will hurt for a while, just like last year's Finals loss hurt Miami. It was touching to see Kevin Durant hugging his family in the tunnel after the game, tears flowing. He'll be back on that stage again very soon.

Russell Westbrook played a heck of a series. Check out Bill Simmons's column about him.

I picked Miami to win, and I was rooting for them. I was rooting for Lebron. I was ready for all the crap to end. The haters were getting ridiculous. There will still be haters, but Lebron is finally starting to shut them up. And I'm happy for him. In his own words: "It's about damn time."

As much as it pains me to say this as a Bulls fan, the rest of the NBA should be very worried at this point. Happy Gilmore said it best: "Happy learned how to putt...Uh-oh." Lebron has figured it out. Lebron learned how to win........Uh-oh.