The inability of potentially poisonous situations to boil over into unfettered chaos:

Eddy Curry, Nate Robinson, Tracy McGrady and Golden State’s entire team have all been at odds with their coaches for some time now. Yet, in all four cases, cooler heads continue to prevail. Not that any of these guys aren’t mad, but they keep handling their situations in mostly “civil” and “gentlemanly” manners. This isn’t why the New York Post exists, guys! Get to acting foolish about your grievances, or don’t be talking about them at all.

Scott Skiles:

Looking for empty discipline? Scott Skiles is your man. Just like he did in Phoenix and Chicago, he had his young Bucks team overachieving with his Mark Mangino style of coaching for a while this season before finally running them into the ground. Acting tough and yelling at your players might motivate them in September and October, before the games are being played and the nicks and bruises are piling up, but in December, January and February? Not a chance. Milwaukee’s 3-10 record so far in December should serve as a very ominous sign for Bucks fans.

The Washington Wizards, the Houston Texans of the NBA:

Every year, people have blind faith that it will finally be Washington’s year. Their big three, Gilbert Arenas, Caron Butler and Antwan Jamison, will finally learn to operate as a core, and the wins will pile up while the Cavs get spited. Then the season starts. Gilbert Arenas becomes impossible to work with, Caron Butler acts like a baby and Antwan Jamison gets hurt. It’s time to blow things up and start over in D.C.

Big men:

They continue to drop like flies. Bogut. Bynum. Oden. Garnett. Griffin. Camby. Yao. Chandler. You’d think the NBA’s seven-footers worked in mines for as often as they get hurt. You guys aren’t harvesting ore, you’re grabbing rebounds. I know you have gargantuan frames, but Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain and company found ways to keep theirs on the court. Please do the same.

Andrew Bynum:

As he continues to be breathlessly hyped as some sort of a lynchpin to the future of a franchise that has both Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol, Bynum continues to do what he does best: not deliver. That is unless you were looking for eight points and 4.8 rebounds per game during last season’s playoffs. Bynum has become a sort of glorified Kwame Brown. Maybe after another year or two of him doing what he does best–getting hurt and not being factor–all the hyperbole will finally stop. He could go down for the season tomorrow–a very real possibility–perhaps he’ll get a hang-nail–and it would barely cause a ripple in L.A.’s pursuit of its second-straight championship.

Number one overall draft picks that came after Dwight Howard:

Blake Griffin hasn’t played, Derrick Rose has regressed, Greg Oden is out for the season–again–Andrea Bargnani continues to be utterly invisible and Andrew Bogut, as usual, can’t stay on the floor. After two straight franchise, perhaps history, changing number ones in LeBron James and Howard, we’ve got nothing but a bunch of saps.

No team on pace to win 70 games:

In the past three seasons, the Lakers, Cavs, Mavs and Celtics have all flirted with joining the 1995-96 Bulls as only the second 70-win team in NBA history by each winning at least 65 games once. This season, however, no one is even close to being on such a pace, and another one of Michael Jordan’s incredible records looks like it will stand for at least another year.

–Patrick Daugherty, Red Editorial Staff

A listless Chicago Bulls team finally played its signature game of the season on Monday night.

Mired in mediocrity since their scintillating seven-game playoff series against the Celtics last season, Chicago and its Baby Bulls have struggled for an identity in 2009.

Defending rookie of the year Derrick Rose has actually seen his numbers decrease in his second season, while his club has been wiped out by most of the good competition its faced, including Boston, Denver, Utah, Cleveland, Atlanta and the Lakers.

They’ve even had the indignity of being just one of two teams to lose to the 2-26 Nets.

But their disappointing season finally changed on Monday night against the Kings. Up by 24 at halftime, they were well on their way to their first big blowout victory of the year. It might have only been the Kings, but crushing anybody can get a team on a roll.

Midway through the third quarter, they ballooned the margin to a staggering 35 points. A new Chicago team was born–just not the one you think.

Yes, this was the point where their season morphed from a disappointment into a full-fledged disaster.

That 35-point lead not only dwindled–it evaporated into thin air as the Kings completed one of the biggest comebacks in sports history in its 102-98 victory.

Somehow, Chicago found a way to top losing to both the Nets and Knicks in the same month.

Now sitting at 10-17, they are in their usual position–chaos.

Few teams have delivered so little on so much promise in the 2000s. Despite bevies of high draft picks and great expectations, the Bulls’ crowning moment of the decade came when it lost a seven game playoff series to a team playing without its best player.

Now instead of building on that loss, they’ve begun to plunge new depths in its wake.

Who’s to blame?

You could start with Rose’s regression. While his numbers, 17.6 points and 5.6 assists per game, are not bad, he hasn’t been playing with the same assertiveness that had the Bulls on the brink of a huge upset of the Celtics last spring, and has been turning the ball over more. After a tumultuous offseason, he seems to be wavering instead of dominating.

Then there’s the lack of discipline. Scott Skiles was infamously laughably tough in Chicago, going so far as to not allow Ben Wallace to wear his signature headband. But head coach Vinny Del Negro and management have continued to stand-by as Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah both refuse to mature.

There’s been talk of letting Thomas walk in the offseason, but seeing as he’s still there right now, benching him might have helped before he broke his hand. Of course, it is hard to blame Thomas and Noah. Thomas has been out since November 5, while even if Noah’s attitude hasn’t matured, his game has.

Losing Ben Gordon and his 20 points a game likely didn’t help, either.

Whatever it is–immaturity, incompetence or simple growing pains–the team is in dire need of change and there’s only one realistic one they can make right now: firing Del Negro.

A 12-year NBA veteran, Vinny is not a bad guy. He’s nice, has good hair and was a serviceable player. But he’s never proven he can coach worth a lick. All of the Bulls’ ills–the lack of killer instinct, immaturity and listlessness–can be traced to, fairly or not, coaching.

The Bulls have been maligned for making two Christmas Eve coaching changes in the past few seasons, but a third one is truly in order. They need someone who has proven they can work with young talent–not someone who is a young talent themselves.

They simply need a firmer hand. Someone willing to bench Thomas. Someone willing to take Rose out of the game every time he makes a thoughtless turnover. Someone who can turn Noah’s boundless energy, but sometimes-detrimental passion and aggression, into a force. Someone who doesn’t act like he is only kind of upset after blowing the second biggest lead in NBA history.

Until that man arrives, consider these Bulls caged.

–Patrick Daugherty, Red Editorial Staff

$23 million is a lot of money. It’s 230x what it cost to make “The Blair Witch Project.” It’s roughly 23 times more than winners of the Nobel Prize get. It’s 57.5 times what President Barack Obama will make in 2009.

It’s also what Tracy McGrady has been collecting sitting on the bench in Houston this season. Well, technically, he’s not on the bench anymore. After missing the Rockets’ first 23 games while recovering from microfracture surgery, he scored three points in his seven and a half minute season-debut against the Pistons on Tuesday night.

But he might as well be a bench-bum. He’s in far from acceptable game-shape, and likely barely able to contribute a million dollars worth of value this season, let alone $23 million.

But the Rockets knew coming into 2009-10 that T-Mac and his contract were an albatross. They didn’t really mind, since they also knew it was his last season in Houston and that they had no chance of being competitive, anyways.

After losing (letting go) Ron Artest to free agency and Yao Ming to injury, expectations were for rebuilding and not competing.

But low-and-behold, there they are, sitting at 14-10 and fifth in the Western Conference. Thanks to free agent signing Trevor Ariza working out better than anyone thought possible, and the continued maturation of Aaron Brooks, Luis Scola and Carl Landry, they are only two games worse than they were through 24 games a season ago.

Now the team is faced with a question it probably didn’t think possible last season: should they trade Tracy McGrady to acquire help to compete this year? Of course they would have liked to be rid of T-Mac even before they knew they would be competitive, but it wasn’t essential. His gargantuan contract was coming off the books regardless next summer.

While it is true that they are competing this year, they aren’t really contending. Scola and Landry are playing above their heads, more literally than figuratively, as they are both undersized to be playing down-low. Brooks, meanwhile, is a scorer currently trapped in a distributor’s role. His team-high 5.5 assists per game are very low to be leading a team. The Rockets, while working hard, are ordinary in just about every area. Their ceiling is a five or six game loss in the first round of the playoffs.

What could they do with T-Mac, then?

While it’s possible he could end up playing a role for somebody this season, his main value is in his Shakespearean expiring contract. Teams will be giving up players in return for the money he will make disappear from the books next summer, not his playmaking.

There are any number of fellow-expiring contracts Houston could get in return for his services. All are mundane at best.

But if the Rockets were to think big, they could maybe parlay McGrady into one of the best players in the game: Chris Paul. Paul is, of course, probably the league’s best point guard, young or old, just now entering his prime. He happens to play for one of the poorest and most cap-constricted franchises in the league, New Orleans. The Hornets have made no secret about their need to shed salary, and have never said Paul is untouchable. If they could unload his $17 million per season cap number (through 2011-2012) for T-Mac, it would save the franchise an unbelievable amount of money.

While New Orleans would probably be open to the idea, they would probably have to bring at least a little more back to their fans than just an expiring contract in exchange for Paul, however. This means Brooks or un-expensive glue-man Shane Battier would probably have to be included, too.

In reality, it could just be a pipe dream, but the Rockets should at least explore this fanciful scenario. If they do and it succeeds, few franchises would have a brighter future.

–Patrick Daugherty, Red Editorial Staff

As the Clippers sit stalled at 9-12, good for fourth in the Pacific Division, they are patiently waiting for one very large re-enforcement: 6-10 rookie center Blake Griffin.

A mountain of a man-child, Griffin plays with an uncommon athleticism for his enormous size, and punctuated the “man amongst boys” cliché at the University of Oklahoma the past two seasons better than most in college basketball history.

When he wasn’t dunking on hapless University of Colorado freshman forwards, he was ripping rebounds away from helpless Texas Tech seniors. He toyed with the competition, and singlehandedly took OU to within a game of the Final Four last spring.

The hype for his above-the-rim offense and defense joining the NBA was understandably great.

But just as Griffin is part of a trend of ever more athletic and physically imposing modern athletes, he is part of another, less glamorous one in the NBA: ballyhooed big men that get hurt far too often.

Since getting drafted first overall in June, Griffin has already strained his shoulder, suffered a minor knee injury and gone down for three months with a stress fracture in his left kneecap. This is all before he’s ever even stepped on the court in a real, live NBA game mind you.

Despite being only 20 years old, there now exist serious, legitimate questions about whether or not his 6-10 frame can handle the physical rigors a successful NBA player must go through.

He’s not the only one.

Little more than a year after returning from always-risky micro fracture surgery he underwent before ever playing in an NBA game, fellow number one overall pick Greg Oden slumped to the floor in sickening fashion last Saturday after breaking his leg on a seemingly innocuous play.

Since getting picked first in June of 2007, Oden has now appeared in only 82 games. The second pick from that summer’s draft, forward Kevin Durant, is currently third in the league in scoring (28.1 points per game), and has only missed ten games out of a possible 184.

Then there is the Godfather of big men/former number overall picks not being able to stay healthy, Yao Ming.

2002’s number one draft pick has appeared in 80 or more games just three times in eight seasons. Further, those three seasons happened to be his first three. Since 2005, the most games he has played in is 77, while he has averaged just 59.

Last spring, he had the Houston Rockets on the verge of a shocking second round playoff defeat of Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers. Then he hurt his foot for the fourth straight season after game three. After being declared out for all of 2009-10, the Rockets appear to be moving away from a Yao-oriented offense.

The list of never-on-the-court big mean does not end there, however. There’s Andrew Bogut, another former top pick. There’s Amar’e Stoudemire, a former rookie of the year. Andrew Bynum, Jermaine O’Neal, Tyson Chandler–the list goes on.

Why can’t our tree trunks stay healthy? Even Shaquille O’Neal, while admittedly an older man these days, has appeared in more than 70 games just twice this decade. Why were Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain always able to stay on the court? Kareem Abdul Jabbar played for 21 seasons, and appeared in fewer than 70 games only twice, and never fewer than 60.

Is it the increased emphasis on weightlifting, with the extra muscle adding a burden that even their enormous frames cannot handle? Is it the (supposed) increased physicality under the rim? The increased quickness of the modern game’s guards and forwards, forcing them into athletic acts bodies that big simply cannot handle?

Whatever it is, one thing is clear: the days of building teams around centers is in its sunset. For every Dwight Howard, there’s everyone listed above. For every bum shoulder, there are 10 busted knees. For every lost Greg Oden season, there’s a future Kevin Durant scoring title.

The allure of drafting the next seven footer will never die, but the sense in it did long ago.

–Patrick Daugherty, Red Editorial Staff

By getting crushed by the world champion Los Angeles Lakers last Sunday night, the New Jersey Nets made NBA losing history. The loss was their 17th of the 2009-10 season–their 17th straight–their 17th straight to begin the season.

It tied the record for the worst ever beginning to an NBA campaign. It also led to a very obvious conclusion–the New Jersey Nets basketball club is horrible at basketball. Their long-time coach, Lawrence Frank, was fired.

But even as the Nets were logically being christened as one of the worst teams of all time, could it be that they are not even the worst team in the league this season?

That question is possible because approximately 1,200 miles away, the Minnesota Timberwolves also have a basketball club. Like the Nets, their franchise has been mired by recent incompetence and mediocrity, too. After going 24-58 last season, they fired their coach, Kevin McHale, who had also just recently been fired as GM. Their ballyhooed top draft pick from last summer’s draft, Ricky Rubio, has declined to even leave Europe to play for them.

So which team is actually worse?

Let’s begin with the Nets. For starters, that 0-17 start really needs a disclaimer next to it since ten of those losses came without their best player, point guard Devin Harris. Of course, in 13 of those games Trenton Hassell was allowed on the court for an average of 35 minutes–something that should not even be legal due to the eyesight damage it could cause to those in the stands–but still, you get the idea.

If they had their best player playing, even with all the other bad players they had playing, they might not have scored only 79 points in a three-point loss to the 76ers on November 11. They probably would have eeked out a victory somewhere along the line.

Of course, the 2-15 Timberwolves have their own injury concerns. Every single one of the team’s first 17 games has been played without promising young forward-center Kevin Love. As a rookie last season, he averaged nearly a double-double, scoring 11.1 points per game while grabbing an average of 9.1 rebounds, making his absence not one to sniff at for a 2-15 team.  Their franchise player, fellow center-forward Al Jefferson, has also been slowed by an achy Achilles tendon.

So the two teams have combined to go 2-32 while tallying a combined 29 missed games from their three best players. That’s bad luck, but bad luck seems to come in spades when you are bad.

Let’s ignore the teams’ equally awful records and equally crippling injury woes. You can also throw out their lone head-to-head match-up so far, an inconclusive 95-93 Minnesota win at home on opening night.

What’s them “facts” say?

An easy way to explain why New Jersey hasn’t won any games yet is to look at its scoring–it’s scored the fewest points in the league. Its 85.7 per game are an astounding 2.6 fewer than anybody else. Minnesota is not a whole lot better, scoring just the 27th most points in the league, but its 91.4 average is a full 5.7 per game better than New Jersey’s.

That being said, only five more teams in the league allow more points than the 104.8 Minnesota allows. That’s a staggering eight more points per game than the Nets give up. On the whole, Minnesota is losing its games by an average of 13.4 points, while New Jersey is “only” losing by 11.1.

That piece of evidence would seem to suggest Minnesota is worse, considering those numbers include two wins. When they’ve lost, they’ve lost really big.

Of course, there’s also the matter of New Jersey having an even 1-to-1 assists-to-turnovers ratio–a jaw-dropping number. Minnesota’s is far better.

So can any definitive conclusion be drawn for these two clubs’ awe-inspiring mediocrity? Disappointingly, not yet. With Harris finally healthy, the Nets should stop turning over the ball as often as they assist on a score, and will probably win a game soon.

And with Kevin Love coming back, Minnesota doesn’t seem likely to keep allowing 105 points per game. He is expected back in roughly two weeks–just in time for the teams’ second meeting on December 23. It promises to be an epically bad match-up, and one that could give us some much un-needed answers.

–Patrick Daugherty, Red Editorial Staff

Nate Robinson: Revisionist history. In 15 years, he can tell everyone he knows that the three pointer he shot at the opposing team’s basket last weekend was just a funny little lark. Cause it was! Don’t you guys remember? He said he was, uhh, going to goof on coach Mike D’Antoni and just have a little fun in, uhh, a game they were barely winning against the worst team in the NBA . . .

Allen Iverson: Friends. He has so many! There’s all the people who love and treasure him in the city of Philadelphia for sabotaging his way out and refusing to pass the ball even after he was no longer dynamic enough to carry a team literally all by himself. Then there are all of his friends in Denver. People in Denver love Iverson. He did so much for their Nuggets basketball club. The part they liked best was when he brought Chauncey Billups there in return.

Then how he could he forget the city of Detroit! Motown Ciii-iiity! As its entire existence and the livelihoods of all its people were crumbling into a cloud of Japanese made car dust, he just couldn’t handle coming off the bench and playing two minutes less per game! They loved that up there.

Finally, finally, finally–Memphis, Tennessee, how fair are thee? He came, he saw, he played ten minutes, he whined, he left. Kind of like that time famous Memphisian Elvis Presley jetted into Denver to buy all those sandwiches, only even more selfish and less economically stimulating. You may no longer be in their fair city, Allen, but your black heart will always live on in their bitter minds. They promise.

Gilbert Arenas: Not knowing what in the world to do. The ambiguity, guys–Agent Zero loves it. Should he be a scorer, or should he be a distributor? Should he act all wild and crazy and make bets with fans sitting courtside, or should he sulk and act dark and angry all the time? There is one thing that is a constant–turnovers–but he doesn’t think that’s enough to make an entire identity. Well, there’s also the part about him not being the same player after major knee surgery, but he doesn’t like that one as much, though.

A compromise, then: he will continue to shoot all the time, and turn the ball over all (all) the time, but will still act wild and crazy so no one realizes just how much he is actually killing the team. Sound good?

The Lakers: Being the Lakers, and not everybody else. Does anybody have better jobs in the entire country than the players of the Los Angeles Lakers? First, you live in L.A. Second, your biggest fan is one of the coolest, most respected and iconic Americans of all time. Third, your team is just friggin’ awesome. Things are so loose in L.A. that Pau Gasol can miss the first 11 games of the season and Ron Artest can go on the Jimmy Kimmel show naked and no one even bats an eye and your team is still 11-3. Could you imagine the angst in Boston were Kevin Garnett to miss the beginning of the season and Rasheed Wallace to go on Jimmy Fallon wearing a skirt?

The refs: Nobody caring about massive scandal. I know what you’re thinking: the refs? They get treated worse than the door people at Wal-Mart on Black Friday, and trampled over twice as often. But nobody still seems to care about that whole “being amazingly corrupt and manipulating the fates of some of the most important games of the past decade” thing! What’s not to like?

The players: The fans. Without us, they’d have no one to pay for them to fly Khloe Kardashian to the Bahamas on a private 747 for absolutely no reason at all. And for that, they are eternally thankful.

–Patrick Daugherty, Red Editorial Staff

Sports history is full of sad, unfitting ends for great players.

Willie Mays infamously finished up his legendary career batting .238 in 135 games in a Mets uniform. Babe Ruth socked six home runs while hitting .181 in 28 games for the Boston Braves in 1935. Joe Namath mired himself in obscurity and mediocrity for the ‘77 Rams.

The latest Hall-of-Fame athlete to go down in bitter infamy is Allen Iverson. Just 34 years old, he is the league’s 17th all-time leading scorer, and is a miraculous fifth all-time in points per game (27). Astounding numbers for a player generously listed at six-foot-even in the size dominated game of modern basketball.

Since Iverson came into the league in 1996, no player has laid his body on the line more often or been as consistent a scorer.

But in that sentence comes the first insight into Iverson’s poisonous reputation. “Scorer.”

The league is full of “scorers.” J.R. Smith is a scorer. Ben Gordon is a scorer. No one expects these players to dole out eight assists per night–they expect them to score.

But neither of those players are half as talented as Allen Iverson ever was. Iverson could have been a great scorer and a great playmaker. In the public’s mind, he chose to only be one. In his career, he has shot, shot and shot some more. There’s nothing really wrong with that, of course. How else would you score 27 points per game over the course of 889 career games?

His average shots per game, 22.7, compared to assists, 6.2, actually make him appear to be more generous than many other famous modern shoot-first players, such as Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, who both average fewer than 5.4 assists per game.

Of course, those two players have won a combined ten NBA titles.

If you divide Iverson’s jersey number, three, by zero, you’ll get the number he’s won.

But it’s not just hogging the ball that has sullied the career of one of the league’s all-time best.

There were the weapons charges. And the marijuana charges. The homophobic rap that threatened to kill gays. The lack of commitment at practice. The famous unwillingness to work harder to make his teammates better. The coach-clashing. His refusal to come off the bench, even as he struggled with injury.

There was the fact that the Denver Nuggets transformed from an 80-60 team in the one and a half seasons they had him to the second best team in the Western Conference once they traded him.

The team they traded him to, the Detroit Pistons, failed to make the Eastern Conference finals for the first time since 2002 with A.I. on the roster in 2008-09. They were swept in the first round by Cleveland.

Iverson led teams are 20-37 all-time in the playoffs.

After all that, no one was willing to give A.I. a roster spot last summer, let alone a chance. In stepped the Memphis Grizzlies, who signed him to a one-year, $5 million contract this September.

How did A.I. repay their generosity? By whining about coming off the bench, even though the benching was mostly a precaution as he recovered from a hamstring injury. The shining example he set for rising stars O.J. Mayo and Rudy Gay did not go unnoticed by the team, however–they agreed to “amicably” part ways with him.

Now where will Iverson go? New York is always looking for another selfish personality to buffer the roster. Charlotte has the one man who can keep him semi-under control, Larry Brown. Both would be nice equivalents to the ‘35 Braves and ‘72 Mets.

But most likely, Iverson will end up where all grouchy, bitter and selfish retirees end up: the couch. Hopefully you like Drew Carey, Allen, because noon on weekdays is the only place you’re going to be finding the right price to play from now on.

–Patrick Daugherty, Red Editorial Staff

Since we’re getting a late start on the NBA here, we’ll begin with a tardy season preview, picking the winner of each division based on two or so weeks of play.

Atlantic: Boston Celtics. The “race” in this division, in particular, personifies a truth about the modern NBA more than any other: in no other sport is the regular season as worthless. The Celtics could play this entire season without allowing themselves to shoot one left-handed layup, and would still win 50 games.

The Celts simply have no competition, and their four division mates simply have no hope. In baseball, fans often worry after their team clinches the division with a month to go in the season. They wonder if they will go soft and lose their focus. This year in the NBA, we’ll find out if the Celts do the same after clinching on October 27.

Central: Cleveland Cavaliers. You could say this one is as foregone a conclusion as the Atlantic. But while that very well may be end up being true, for the moment at least, it appears as if we are seeing an extension of the Cavaliers’ 2008-09 playoff performance, and not their 66-win regular season performance. This means things are up for grabs.

After blowing up their roster yet again following their 4-2 loss to Orlando in the Eastern Conference finals, the Cavs look very vulnerable. While they brought in many decent new parts, Shaquille O’Neal, Jamario Moon, Anthony Parker, they have looked like the same team that couldn’t shoot worth a darn besides LeBron James against the Magic, and couldn’t do anything worth a darn down low. They could just be working out the kinks and finding their chemistry, but they look to be far from the class of the East right now.

All that being true, unless Brandon Jennings has the greatest rookie season in NBA history, or Derrick Rose the greatest sophomore campaign in NBA history, Cleveland will still win the Central.

Southeast: Orlando Magic. While the Miami Heat have streaked to a 6-1 start, there’s no doubt here, either: it’s the Magic. Dwight Howard’s torrent of double-doubles has only ramped up, and four of their first six wins have come without their newest plaything, Vince Carter, and greatest deep threat, Rashard Lewis. The Hawks and Heat could keep it interesting until around the All-Star break, but neither have a shot at breaking the Magic’s stranglehold.

Southwest–San Antonio Spurs. The Spurs got perhaps the biggest steal of the draft in Dejuan Blair, and the biggest steal of the trade market, Richard Jefferson. Couple that with the fact that they kept the league’s quickest young point guard and wisest old center and coach, and you’ve got a winning formula. The Mavericks certainly appear to be better than last season’s 50-32 edition, so this could come down to the final few weeks of the season, but neither team will be keeping count, and both figure to coast into the playoffs as high seeds out West.

Northwest–Denver Nuggets. Portland is the most talented young team in the league, and Oklahoma City is the most talented really young team in the league. But the Nuggets have perhaps the best one-two punch in the league in Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups. Both can do it all: defend, create shots, drain threes, assist, and both have plenty of help on the frontline in Chris “Birdman” Andersen, Kenyon Martin and Nene. They will be pursued more closely and aggressively than most division leaders, but should again prevail.

Pacific–Los Angeles Lakers. While Steve Nash and the Suns are back to their old running-teams-out-of-the-gym ways, the Lakers have twiddled their thumbs to a 6-1 start: without Pau Gasol. The Suns are no doubt resurgent, but the Lakers are no doubt still dominant. They should have some classic one-on-one duels, but Phoenix’s high-tempo game won’t win nearly as many ballgames as L.A.’s ultra deep roster.

–Patrick Daugherty, Red Editorial Staff

The first round draft pick in 1989, B. J. Armstrong played his first four seasons with the Chicago Bulls.  It was the beginning of the Bulls dynasty and Armstrong would be with Michael Jordan and Scotty Pippen when the Bulls won their first three out of six NBA championships in the 1990s.  Armstrong would go on to play pro ball for several other teams before returning as a free agent for the Bulls and retiring in 2000.

Following his time in the NBA, Armstrong worked as a basketball analyst for ESPN and is now a certified agent with the Wasserman Media Group.  In his current job, he represents Derrick Rose, another first round draft pick selected by the Chicago Bulls and helped him secure a multimillion dollar shoe deal.  Armstrong talked to Red about his life in sports.

You just got off a plane from a trip to China and here you are in your office working already.  Do you ever slow down?

No, because the only thing I know is hard work.  When I indulge in something, I throw my heart into it and that’s what I do with this job. I came to understand that nothing would be achieved without hard work. That was instilled early on by my parents.

What were your parents like?

I grew up in Detroit, my parents were great, working middle class, hard working people, and they said hey if you want anything, you have to work for it.  They gave me the opportunity to get the best education possible; they were always very supportive of me.

When you were young, did you ever think you’d become a professional basketball player?

Like so many kids you always have the dream.  The one thing: my dad said never have a plan in life, plans never work but if you’re organized, you’ll give yourself an opportunity to make something work.  Then you give yourself a chance, being highly organized is to your advantage.

So I take it that you’re really organized?

No–it’s a joke in our family, we’re always saying, we’re going to get organized.

As a pro basketball player, you had to be in the best of shape.  What about now?It is easy to get out of shape but for me I try to have a balance.  I certainly get caught up in my mental challenges, there are challenges in your personal life with kids and the commitment you have there but I still try to exercise everyday and eat healthy.  Even though I can’t run and jump like I did as a young man.  I still try to stay as active as I can.

Do you ever shoot hoops?

I don’t play anymore but I find great pleasure now watching the game.  Even though the athletes are bigger, stronger, it’s still the same game.  I’m always reminded of what I don’t know.  I was trying to work with my son and he reminded me, “Dad you’re not my coach.”

B.J. Armstrong still lives and works in Chicago.  Armstrong is an avid reader who likes to read about world conflicts and the memoirs of great leaders, using what he learns when it comes to negotiating deals for his clients.

So who do you look to for inspiration when you’re trying to make a deal?

Over the years, I’ve seen and read about people who have been able to transcend, whether it’s Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr., or Gandhi and the ideals that they stand for.  And I never think of, “What if it doesn’t?” when I’m trying to make something happen.  I think what needs to be done, here’s the impact if you can do it.  I always try to approach it as a win win situation.  If I can allow people to see that I have an understanding of the other’s point of view, you have a chance of negotiating a deal.  I always want to understand, I think that’s the solution to any problem.  It’s been very successful so far.

Many of my friends who were avid Bulls fans in the Michael Jordan years seem to differentiate between the Bulls of yore and today’s Bulls. What’s your take on the Bulls?

The Bulls did good this year, it’s great when you have an unexpected year.  Certainly last year they played their hearts out.  It’s been fun to watch the Bulls and part of that is that always deep down I’ll always be a Bull.

So many former professional athletes have had a difficult time adjusting after their playing days are done but you seem to be having just as successful of a career off the floor as you had on.  Why is that?

There are certain things that occur in your life that you remember.  I had a teacher in high school that asked, “What is life?”  Your question reminds me of that, and at the end of the discussions he said “Change is life, life is change.”  A lot of people don’t embrace change, but you should embrace it as you go through life.  And when my playing days were over, I embraced that change–that it was over.  So many people are still trying to recapture their youth, like with actors or retired players, but I remembered that and I asked myself how quickly can I embrace the changes that happen so I can move on.  So for me retirement was no big deal, I had an idea of all the things that I was interested in.  And I wanted to do them very quickly.  For me, whether it’s in sports or anything in life, it’s how quickly can you change.  I’m not longer the young man I was in my 20s, but I can find different ways.  Michael Jordan wasn’t the same player he was in his 20s but he was just as a great player in his 30s, he was even more productive.

Is there a lesson in that for all of us?

We have different life changes all the time; I think that the genius of life is being able to change.  I would certainly love to do things I once did, but I can’t.

When you or one of your clients encounters adversity, what do you do?

What’s happened has happened; I always deal with right now.  Here we are right now, tomorrow when we get to it will be right now and yesterday when it happened, that was right now.  I learned that in my years of playing, you have to perform in that moment; this is what I do now.  My job is to equip our company, my clients to deal with right now, to deal with it with our guiding principals, if you can deal with it right now, I think you can have a tremendous advantage and be able to deal with it.

–Interview by Jane Ammeson, Red Editorial Staff
–Photo credit

Headed into tonight’s Game 3 of the NBA Finals, the question is no longer “Can the Magic upset the Lakers?” despite my requisite pre-finals straw grab last week in support of the underdog.  It’s clear the Magic have nothing up their sleeves.

Now the question is, “How upset will the Magic be when this is all over?”

The Magic had a rough go out in L.A., no question.  The 59 game winning team that shot 45.7 percent during the regular season has imploded, shooting an awful 29.9 percent in Game 1 and a pedestrian 32.4 percent in Game 2.

So forget about Courtney Lee missing that last split second layup in Game 2, and forget about wondering if he didn’t earn his paycheck that night or not.  The Magic should have contended in overtime, but didn’t, and we wouldn’t even be putting Lee in that position if the Magic could . . . um . . . like . . . make a jumper.

“I don’t think it’s much trouble to get our guards shots,” Van Gundy said after Game 2. “They’re not guarding them. They’re only guarding three guys, so it’s not very hard to get those guys shots.”

Well, Stan, you’re right.  It isn’t much trouble to get them looks, but it’s suddenly very difficult to make them, and I’m willing to bet the reason why it isn’t hard to get looks is because the Lakers don’t need to waste their energy contesting.  And if they don’t have to contest the jumper, the Lakers are free to clog up the paint.

Stan Van Gundy, in his usual brutally honest and excessively transparent manner, addressed this two-game clunckapalooza by saying “I don’t have any idea how to fix that.”  But the kicker for Van Gundy is this: he can’t fix it.  Outside of calling a timeout and saying, “Hey, we should try and make some jump shots,” there’s literally nothing else a coach can do.

History tells us that because Orlando is down 2-0 in the series, the Magic have about a 94 percent chance of losing this thing.  But the odds of them getting swept are even lower than their shooting percentage headed into Game 3 tonight–for all the Magic’s misses, you’ve got to believe their shooting will pick up at home where it’s easier to find a groove.

I can’t imagine they’ll lose tonight and I’m willing to bet Orlando can pick up two games on home court, but three?  That’s a tough sell.  Winning three games in a row requires consistency, which is the one thing that seems to have vanished into thin air.

But as far as the series is concerned, it might already be too late.  It’s starting to feel like Orlando isn’t playing to save a championship.

It feels like they’re playing to save face.

–Joey Alfino, Red Editorial Staff