Atlanta Hawks's Atlanta Hawks friend's fan blogs

Tim Donaghy, the referee who spent 15 months in a federal prison for his role in a betting scandal that rocked the NBA, is out of prison and looking to make a splash once again.

 

The NBA did a phenomenal job sweeping the whole Donaghy scandal under the rug as best they could when the revelations were made public that he had ties to organized crime and that he may or may not have affected the outcomes of NBA games.

 

Beyond the initial outrage, little was mentioned of Tim Donaghy and his potentially crippling claims that he bet on NBA games that he was officiating. The NBA public relations department did a great job of painting Donaghy as a “rouge” employee and assuring the public that this was a very isolated incident.

 

I believe that the NBA even had a hand in getting Donaghy’s sentencing hearing pushed back from April (which would have happened during the first week of the NBA playoffs, a terrible time to remind people that there once was a referee that bet on game) to later in the summer when the NBA season was over.

Continue reading "An End to the Tim Donaghy Scandal (Hopefully)"

www.sporcle.com is awesome. It’s a great place to waste time.

If you’ve never heard of it, basically it is a website that gives you the topic to a list of people, places, or things, and you have a certain amount on time to guess all the answers in the list. 

They have a lot of pop culture quizzes, and some pretty good sports ones as well.

Today, I stumbled across the list of the 80 players to play in an NBA all-star game in the 2000’s. Here’s a link to it. 

I got 55 of the 80. I drew a complete blank on two obvious ones, spent way too much time on them, and didn’t finish in time. I’m pretty disappointed with my score.

How many can you get right in 8 minutes?

Continue reading "Sporcle.com is awesome"

A few days ago I posted a blog listing the best scorers in the NBA today that have yet to have a 50-point scoring game.

While researching that post, I had an even more interesting idea for a post.

It’s a list of guys who, unbelievably, had a 50-point game in their career.

Since I was using www.basketball-reference.com to research the list, we’re only going back to the 1986-87 season. It’s far enough back in time to make some of the guys on the list obscure, but not far enough back to where you won’t remember them.

In no order, here are some of the more random players to score 50 points in an NBA game over the past 24 seasons.

Vernon Maxwell

Before Ron Artest and the “Malice at the Palace”, there was Vernon Maxwell running into the stands and punching a fan. While “Mad Max” will be remembered most for that, he also finds himself in elite company as one of only 60 players to score 50 or more points in a game since the start of the 1986-87 season.

Continue reading "That Guy Scored 50??"

I just got done watching the surprisingly entertaining game in Denver between the Nuggets and Knicks, a game in which Carmelo Anthony scored 50 points and the Nuggets won 128-125.

When the announcers (I watched the MSG feed, and it’s always disappointing when Mike Breen isn’t there) were recapping the game, they casually mentioned that it was a new career-high of points in a game for Melo.

 

If my powers of deduction are correct, that means that this is the first time in his career that Melo has scored 50 points in a game.

 

That can’t be right, right? I mean, this is a guy that has a reputation around the league for being one of the best pure scorers in the game today. Surely he’s dropped for 50 before.

 

I needed to consult www.basketball-reference.com to be sure.

Continue reading "Best Scorers Without a 50-Point Game"

The Atlanta Hawks is creating a lot of buzz in the new season of the National Basketball Association.Despite their less stellar lineup, the Hawks is on top of the leader-board in the young season of the premier professional basketball league in the planet. The Hawks is currently sporting an impressive 11-2 record after they defeated the Houston Rockets 105-103 Friday night.High flying Hawks power forward Josh Smith played hero for the top team in the NBA by scoring on a put back from a miss by Hawks top point guard Mike Bibby with 0.7 seconds remaining. Marvin Williams, the starting small forward of the Hawks top scored for the team with 29 points to help defeat the Rockets, one of the top teams in the NBA Western Conference.The recent victory of the Hawks is remarkable since the Rockets are on the verge of defeating the team and hand them their third loss but the impressive play of Smith saved the youth laden ball club to escaped with a victory. Prior to his game winning shot, Smith stayed mostly from the bench due to foul trouble but he was able to returned in the waning moments of the game and lead his team to victory.The strong and impressive plays of the Hawks is getting huge praise from basketball fans and experts. During the off-season, the Hawks is not among the top contenders for the NBA crown this season due to their less star studded roster. However, despite the lack of big named players in its lineup, the Hawks still showed class and impressive talent to defeat 11 teams so far.Aside from the strong plays of its veteran players Smith, Bibby and Joe Johnson, the Hawks also get huge contribution from newly acquired NBA veteran Jamal Crawford who contribute in both offence and defence for the team. Aside from the Hawks, the run and gun Phoenix Suns is also playing good this NBA season. NBA superstars point-guard Steve Nash and power forward Amare Stoudamire are playing well to lead the Suns to an impressive record in the NBA.Fans of Hawks team can buy the tickets to watch the NBA game live.

Continue reading "Hawks soaring high on new NBA season"

Officially, attendance was listed for the Los Angeles Clippers at Memphis Grizzlies game last night at 10,012.

The only way that number was over 10,000 is if you took every person in the arena, counted every person whose number was stored in their cell phone, and multiplied it by two.

At one point in the first quarter, the game was going from right to left on the TV. I paused it during the possession and counted eleven people in the stands on the far side of the floor. The game shifted back down to the right side of the floor. I counted roughly the same amount of people.

They were the best seats in the house, and I had a tough time finding 30 people who were sitting in them.

What a joke of a franchise the Grizzlies have become.

They signed Allen Iverson this offseason, clearly in an effort to sell tickets, and it actually had the reverse effect. They botched the Iverson situation less than five games into the season, and the fans (if this is even possible) are actually less interested in Grizzlies basketball than ever before.

Continue reading "The End of the Grizzlies? Let's Hope So."

Last night, it was one small step forward and one giant leap back for the Orlando Magic.

Rashard Lewis made his season debut after being suspended for the first ten games of the season, but in the fourth quarter of the same game, Jameer Nelson injured his left knee. Reports out of Orlando today are that Nelson needs surgery to repair cartilage in that knee, and will miss 4-6 seeks.

The injury to Nelson is a big blow to the Orlando Magic. This is a team that many, including myself, thought coming into the season were a favorite to win the Eastern Conference. They were very successful last season, and achieved most of their success without Nelson, who was injured shortly after being named to his first all-star game.

In the offseason, they made the biggest splash in the Eastern Conference by adding Vince Carter.

Continue reading "Jameer Nelson Out 4-6 Weeks"

Every Monday, with the assistance of the good people over at www.basketball-reference.com, I like to take a look deep into the statistics of teams and players from around the league in a little post I like to call “Fun with Box Scores”.

Some of the gems I came across this week:

-Quinten Richardson has gone 9 games, 275 minutes played, without taking a single free throw this season.

-Even more remarkably, Jason Kidd has taken just 2 free throws in 347 minutes this season.

 

-73% of Daniel Gibson’s shots this season have been from beyond the three point line, by far the highest percentage of any player in the league with at least 50 shots taken.

 

-Since 1986, the record for most 40+ point games before December 1st is 14. Brandon Jennings’ 55 point outburst on Saturday was the 14th time that someone has scored at least 40 this season, tying the record, and we’ve still got 15 days left in the month.

Continue reading "Fun With Box Scores"

The NBA league pass is awesome, but nothing beats a good TNT double-header.

Tonight, we get a great TNT double-header.

The night starts off with Cleveland at Miami. I’ve written this before, but LeBron vs. Wade is the best head-to-head matchup to watch in the NBA right now. These guys always bring out the best in each other.

In 19 career games against each other, LeBron is averaging 28.6 points per game, 5.6 rebounds, 7.7 assists and 1.2 steals. Wade is averaging 27.2 points per game, 5.4 rebounds, 6.8 assists, and 2.4 steals.

In seven of the last nine meetings, at least one of the two has dropped for at least 30. Twice in that span has each player scored 40 in the same game.

With Miami having only one loss so far this season, and Cleveland coming off a big win against the Magic, I would expect nothing less than a shootout tonight. I expect both superstars put their respective teams of their back and play out what, hopefully, is a very entertaining game to watch.

Continue reading "Great TNT Double-Header Tonight"

The New Orleans Hornets became the first team to make a coaching change this season, firing head coach Byron Scott today.

Scott being fired doesn’t come as much of a shock to anyone who has watched the Hornets play this season. They look brutal. They are just 3-6 this season. Every time I turn on a Hornets game they seem to be getting blown out.

Add that to the fact that Chris Paul looks like he’s about two weeks away from punching a teammate in the face on the way back to the bench and I would say that it was time to make a coaching change.

In reality, Scott should have been fired in the offseason. The Hornets lost game four of their first round playoff series against the Nuggets by 58 points. That’s not a typo. 58 points. And New Orleans was at home.

Continue reading "Hornets Fire Byron Scott"