StumpTownSports

Thought I would take a minute and pass on some stream of consciousness thoughts about the first weekend of the NBA playoffs. It was a great hoops weekend for me in that I actually got to watch quite a bit of hoops. Thanks to my lovely wife for putting up with that. If you haven't done so already, scroll down and check out my playoff predictions. I'm already looking pretty dumb. Good times. Detroit v. Orlando – Orlando’s just not ready. Detroit should absolutely sweep. No news there, but it was even more obvious than I expected. Detroit showed little to know weaknesses, though I still think they will against better teams, and Orlando just doesn’t have a legit number 1 or number 2 option on offense. Howard is a beast, but he is not a go to scorer. Great rebounder, decent defender and very limited offensively. And he’s a disaster when Detroit slows the game down. Bigger mystery though is what happened to Jameer Nelson this year? This was to be his year. He came on st...

Just so I can say I knew it all along, here are my predictions for the NBA playoffs: WEST Round 1 Dallas v. GS – Dallas in 5. GS will get hot and beat them in one game, but their D is so bad, that will be all. Phoenix v. LA – Phoenix in 6. LA is a mess since they went back to relying on Kobe to score all the teams’ points and the rest of the team are just the only ones in the arena with a better view than Jack. Still Phoenix plays such bad D and plays at such a consistent fast pace that the Lakers will be able to hang around a few games and even take a couple. By the way, anyone arguing Kobe is the MVP is right out of their mind. The league MVP doesn’t allow his team to back into the playoffs with a sub-.500 record after the all-star break and with the team playing its worst when he plays his best. Enough already. SA v. Denver – Spurs in 5 – Karl, AI and Melo against Pop, Parker, Manu and TD? Not even close. I don’t care how “hot” or “dangerous” the Nugs are. The only parts of...

This is the continuation of an email discussion on the NBA draft. Scroll down to the beginning post entitled "No Noah" and read that first. Here is my reply to Adam's response: KP - I'm completely convinced Pritchard was the brains behind last year's brilliant draft, so I think the Blazers are in good hands. I also completely agree about Roy and Brewer, so I'll comment on one other thing from your first response. If the Blazers keep Randolph, and barring injury, they will make the playoffs next year regardless of who they draft. Now if they get it right and get a decent 3 in the draft that helps, but if they resign Udoka (really much more valuable than people who don't watch this team play could know), and just trot out the same team as this year without the injuries, this team should beat out the Warriors and Clipps and Wolves for the 8th spot. I'm not saying that because I love Zach and I think Aldridge will be better, but Zach is a freaky score...

After my marathon response to Adam, he saw me and raised me as follows: Epic work right there. It is too much to handle to write one coherent response, so I am going to enter responses under each topic in your email below ... On Apr 12, 2007, at 6:48 PM, Stump, Joshua wrote: Yikes. I just have to trust Pritchard and I think I have reason to in this case. I think Portland will be looking for someone who can score because whether or not they want to keep Zach right now, they have to know that it could blow up at any moment. If they move Zach, they are going to need another proven scorer and no one thinks Noah is that guy. Pritchard went away from the flashy big name last year, so I'm just going to trust him to do it again this year. If KP was the architect of last year's draft as I have heard, then I think the Blazers are in good hands. I still think Brewer is the perfect piece, because as long as Aldridge kicks this Wolf-Pakistan-Whatever disease, he can do what Randolph does an...

From time to time (and by "time to time" I mean daily) I have some email conversation about sports with one or more of my buddies who love sports as much as I do more or less. Most of my friends manage to come up with much better insight and observation about it than I do, so when appropriate I will try to share that here. Below and in the next couple posts on this site is an email conversation with my buddy Adam who is a law student, professional sports blogger, fellow fantasy league owner and all around good guy and sports nut. Enjoy and feel free to join in the conversation by leaving your comments: Under the email heading "worst nightmare" Adam sent me the following: Draft Express is currently projecting your worst nightmare, Jo Noah to the Blazers at #6 ... http://www.draftexpress.com/mymock.php?page=official Not being able to resist commenting, I checked out the mock NBA draft on that site and then responded as follows: Yikes. I just have to trust Pritchard ...