Miami Heat: Greatest Team Ever?

No!

Right now I'm getting really tired of this "Miami Heat is going to roll through the league" crap. Everybody seems to be on the Miami bandwagon after "The Decision" was made. To be honest I don't even think they're the best team in the Eastern Conference right now. With the additions of Lebron James and Chris Bosh I have Miami as the third best team in the East. Now you might be thinking "How the hell? You are stupid!" Well you have to understand that I think very logically (I'm a computer programmer) so I look what Miami had before and what they have now. To me the biggest problem Miami had last season was their bench performance. Dwayne Wade was always going to be Dwayne Wade however production from the bench was horrible during the regular season and the post season. So now lets step back after all this hype and really analyze what Miami have.

As of today, after the signing of Shavlik Randolph the Heat have 18 players under contract. So ignore the top 3 because we all know who they are and we'll start with the other projected starters.

Projected Starting Center: Joel Anthony

This will be his fourth season with the Heat. Every season he gets decent minutes (20.8, 16.1 16.5 MPG) and Heat seem to like him. From what I've seen he's a good shot blocker (ranks 16th all time for the Heat in blocked shots in only 3 seasons) and can provide a defensive presence down low for the Heat. However it's clear to me why this guy went undrafted. He virtually has no offense what so ever, which is represented by his career 2.6 PPG and his less than 50% shooting percentage. To me he's like a watered down version of Ben Wallace. In order to be successful as the starting Center he needs to do all the "dirty work" in the paint. However he doesn't seem to be a terrific rebounder (career 1.8 RPG). In my opinion this guy is more of a role player energy off he bench type of guy, not a starting caliber center for a championship team.

Projected Starting Point Guard: Mario Chalmers

To me Mario will be the biggest X-factor for the success of the Miami Heat next season. I really liked him coming out of the Kansas and thought that he would have a better career than Derrick Rose. So far that's not the case because he's on D-Wade's team. However I think going into his third season this will be his chance to shine and really have a big year. It will be difficult to put up great numbers with the Big 3 on his team but I still think he can have a terrific year and he will be the key for the Heat. If he plays up to potential he can fill that starting point guard role.

Ok so now that we looked at the other projected starters lets look at their bench.

Back up center: Jamaal Magloire

Well Jamaal has resigned with the Heat after averaging only about 10 MPG last season. This upcoming season will be his 11th in the league. However the one time all-star's production has been dropping dramatically. He hasn't even averaged over 20 MPG since 2007. Also he hasn't averaged over 10 PPG since 2005. It's pretty clear this guy is a shell of his former self and at 32 years old I don't expect any late career revivals.

Back up center: Zydrunas Ilgauskas

At this point in his career he is clearly a backup center. This was evident in this year's playoffs where Varejao had gotten the majority of the minutes and only got about 10 MPG during the playoffs. His production has been slowly declining ever since 2009, you can't blame him this will be his 13th season and already 35 years old.

Back up center: Dexter Pittman

Well he's a big body.......that's pretty much it. He showed no promise at all during the summer league. He shot almost 30% as a center and when you watch him he's got no offense. However defensively since he's so big he can give a physical presence for the Heat. But I don't think he's ready to start at the NBA level just yet. He may get some PT during the regular season however.

Back up guard: Mike Miller

In my opinion this was the best signing Miami made during the off season (other than the Big 3). They pretty much used the rest of their cap space with this signing. Mike Miller just came off his second best three point shooting season of his career. He's still a very productive player and will give Wade and James a stand up shooter from when they penetrate into the defense. This guy will be a perfect complement to the Wade and James.

Back up guard: Carlos Arroyo

Well Carlos has never been a great NBA point guard but he does provide a solid back up to Chalmers. His production has been pretty steady throughout even last season averaged about 6 PPG. But he won't have any affect on Miami winning the championship or not.

Back up forward: Juwan Howard

Man is this guy old. He's going to be pushing for his 17th season! Last season was somewhat of a come back year. Well 6 PPG if you call that a come back from 0.7 PPG the year before and only playing 3 games. He got more playing time with the Blazers and they must've liked him because they played him during the regular season and the post season. He'll simply be a veteran presence that'll give Miami a little bit of depth.

Back up foward: Udonis Haslem

This was a great signing for the Heat. Udonis has always been a solid player and will provide terrific depth for the Heat front court. He's always been a 10/10 type of guy and this is the type of guy every championship team needs.

There are other players on the roster however I don't think they'll have any significance for this upcoming season. The biggest concern I have for the Heat is the center position. You need a solid center in order to win playoff games, plain and simple. Also their bench is not very strong other than Miller and Haslem. After watching this past NBA playoffs many if not most of the playoff games were won by the bench. It plays such a vital part when playing a 7 game series.

On another note, a lot of people compare this situation to what happened with Boston back in 2007. It's completely different. Miami just signed THREE MAX CONTRACTS and pretty much wiped their entire cap space for three guys. In fact after the signing of Wade, Lebron, and Bosh Miami only had 4 guys under contract because they had to trade Beasley to create cap space. Boston already had a team in place and just needed a few starting caliber players to become contenders. Boston didn't just roll through everybody they had 2 seven game series along with a 6 game series to reach the Finals.

Another thing that worries me about this Heat team is that they don't have any great perimeter defenders. If you look back at all the championship teams they all had at least one great perimeter defender. Usually these guys don't make all-star games because they don't rack up steals or blocks or anything like that. Ron Artest/Lakers, James Posey and Tony Allen / Celtics, Bruce Bowen / Spurs, Tayshawn Prince / Pistons,...... the list goes on and on.

In the end I think there is just way too much hype for a team that hasn't even played one game yet. During a Mavs summer league game Mark Cuban was interviewed and he said that no team has cleared all of it's cap space just to sign a few players and then go on to win a championship. This new dynamic trio will determine whether or not the future of the NBA will work like this.

Jeremy Lin: What could've been

Now I know I haven't posted in two years however now that I'm done with college I'll have a lot more time to pay attention to my blog. So anyway I've decided to start blogging again because there has been a story this summer that really has peaked my interest. This is the story of Jeremy Lin.

Jeremy, if you haven't been paying attention to NBA summer league at all, had just gone toe-to-toe with the number 1 pick in the draft John Wall. The Mavericks were up against the Wizards a few days ago in the summer league. Wall had beaten Lin a few times in the first half with razzle dazzle drives however the forth quarter was all about Jeremy Lin. He blew past Wall for an easy layup, and then hit a huge 3 pointer right over him. Towards the end of the game when it was really getting close he was able to split Wall and a big man and then went on to an acrobatic 270 spin shot in which later he was called for the charge. Boy, everybody in the entire arena was angry about that call because by that time Jeremy Lin had gotten everybody on his side, including NBA scouts.

As I write this blog right now Jeremy Lin is on the verge of signing an NBA contract. In fact multiple teams have been interested in signing him. Who he's going to sign with I don't know but that's not the point of this post. I want to show how he's been able to get to this point with the "dream" coming true.

Jeremy Lin is a Taiwanese American who was born in California (Aug 1988). He started playing basketball because his father Gie Ming had picked up such a love for the game after coming to the states. In fact the entire family plays basketball including Jeremy's two brothers. From the get go Jeremy had extraordinary talent and became a very successful high school basketball player for Palo Alto high school. He led Palo Alto to a DII State championship his senior year over national powerhouse Mater Dei. Also he was the runaway pick for the Northern California DII state player of the year. Every publication in the Northern California area recognized that he was one of the best. Despite all of this Jeremy Lin received zero, I repeat, zero DI basketball scholarships. However he was offered a spot from Harvard but with no scholarship. Shortly after this teams like Berkley and Stanford offered walk on spots but it was to late Jeremy was destined to be a Crimson.

During his time with Harvard Lin was selected to be on the All-Ivy league 2nd team his sophomore year and 1st team his junior and senior years. Harvard also had it's best season ever during his senior year. Jeremy Lin I believe should go down as Harvard's best basketball player ever.

After finishing his degree in Economics at Harvard he put his name in the NBA draft. Some people were projecting him to be late-2nd round to undrafted. Now of course he went undrafted however Mavericks GM Donnie Nelson saw potential in him and right before the 2010 NBA draft ended he gave Jeremy a call to let him know he wants him on his summer league squad.

To be honest I didn't even know Jeremy Lin existed before his senior year at Harvard. I only started to take notice when I saw his 3o pt highlight he put against UConn. After watching those highlights I thought to my self, "this guy has got a chance in the NBA". Of course I later went searching scouting reports online about him and it seemed like the general consensus was that he wasn't athletic enough or have a good enough shot to have a chance in the NBA. But I kept watching the UConn highlights, and I see Jeremy blowing by guys off the dribble, hitting all sorts of jump shots, blocking shots, swarming his man defensively. I just couldn't understand where all these people were coming from. This is when I started wondering whether or not the fact Jeremy was Asian had any influence on these types of opinions. I didn't just watch the UConn game I watched him versus Boston College, Georgetown, Cornell. He always looked like he was the best player on the floor, even with Greg Monroe, Kemba Walker, Jerome Dyson. Going back to him being Asian, Jeremy himself feels like his ethnicity has caused people to over look his talents. In an interview with NPR Jeremy said being Asian definitely was a factor in his lack of recruitment coming out of high school. Even though Jeremy has proven he can dominate the top teams in college basketball scouts still question his ability to play at the next level. So I wanted to see what Jay Bilas, the NBA draft analyzer for ESPN, had to say about Jeremy Lin. Same thing, he wasn't athletic, but he has high basketball IQ (cause he's Asian and went to Harvard..joking), in the end he won't make the NBA. Wow I'm not surprised another person questioning his ability to play the game.

Jeremy has had to prove himself time and time again because nobody wants to give this kid a shot. Why? He's won everywhere he's gone, he has led his Harvard team to battle top teams in the nation. People want to question his athleticism but anybody who's watched him play intently knows he's plenty athletic.

Now we bring ourselves to the present where finally, after an impressive summer league performance, Jeremy has people finally believing in him. But man I just think to my self "What could've been for this guy". If a top D1 program had given him a chance and looked past his ethnicity, no doubt in my mind Jeremy would've been drafted. If an NBA team had given him a chance he could have possibly been a lottery pick. His road to the NBA would have been much easier with guaranteed playing time.

Lakers and Spurs Western Conference finals Game 1

The San Antonio Spurs last night squandered a 20 point mid-3rd quarter lead against the Lakers in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals. Now to anybody that watches basketball that is very old news however I would like to make some points about what I observed from last nights game.

1. Vladimir Radmanovic is causing a match-up problem for the Spurs. At the beginning of the game they put Ginobili on Radmanovic however they switched Ginobili with Thomas later in the 1st quarter. Vladi could go right over Ginobili and Thomas just isn't quick enough to guard Radmanovic one on one. It was a surprise to me that Phil Jackson didn't exploit those match ups more often.

2. If I was the Lakers I WOULD NOT double Tim Duncan despite what all the analysts on TV are saying. You see the reason the Lakers were down so big in the 3rd quarter was because of turnovers and missed layups, it was not because of Duncan's 30 points. The Spurs offense relies on 3-point and midrange jump shots coming either from A)Dribble Penetration or B)Doubles on Tim Duncan. The Lakers during their comeback hardly double teamed Duncan instead they pressured penetrators like Parker and Ginobili and forced tough 3 point shots from Finely or Udoka. Just keep playing Gasol one on one with Duncan, it worked didn't it. (Spurs 85 points)

3. I like Kobe Bryant trying to get his teammates involved early in the game, people may criticize him for only taking 3 shots in the first half but that wasn't the reason they were down at halftime. The reason was because the complete absence of Odom and Fisher and also all the penetration they were allowing Parker to get.


(As you can probably tell I am an avid Laker fan from this post)

First Blog: NFL Draft Coming Up

For all of us crazy NFL fans that are looking forward to this 2008 NFL draft I think it's important for us to understand some of things about the Draft. Well I've made a list of things that I have observed after looking from several years of NFL drafts (been an NFL fan since 2000).

(order has no particular meaning)

-40 yard dash
Every season all I can hear from so called Draft experts like Mel Kiper, "this guy ran a 4.4 40" or "this guy ran a 4.8 40". I spend a lot of my free time on NFL forums and see that talent seems to be perceived by how fast you run a 40-yard dash by a lot of people. After going through just 4 drafts seeing the 40 times and looking how well they have done in the NFL, I've come to a conclusion that the 40 times do matter for the general population of the draft (I will post a more detailed report later). This is why a players stock can rise so rapidly after a good 40 yard dash time. However like any "rule of thumb" there are exceptions. It seems to me that the only way of getting picked high in the draft is to run a good 40. For example WR Anquan Boldin from the Arizona Cardinals dropped to the 2nd round of the draft after running a 4.8 40 even though he caught 21 TD's in just 23 games as a Florida State Seminole. Just by watching him on tape you could tell he had remarkable athleticism however a bad 40 time hurt his draft stock tremendously. Well I think we all know how good of a player Anquan Boldin is. There are many players just like him who slip in the draft because of a bad 40 yard dash time. There are also many players out there that don't pan out that do run great 40 times. For example Troy Williamson from the Minnesota Vikings (who's now a Jaguar) was selected 7th in the 2005 draft just because he ran a 4.3 40 yard dash. Also he is just one example of a player that runs a great 40 yard dash time that doesn't pan out. So in my opinion the 40 yard dash time should be used just to see if the player can run. So really there's no difference to me between a 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6. Then you watch tape on the player to see if that speed translates onto the field. And of course there's more to football than just speed however it is a very important part that is why scouts value speed more than anything else.

-Picking "big name" players

To me this is one of the hardest things to evaluate when it comes to picking in the top 5. There is so much invested into one player when a team is picking that high. Just ask the 49ers about Alex Smith and Vernon Davis, who are one of highest paid players at their respective positions. This is why it's important to not pick college football players based on reputation. Meaning throw all that media hype, Heisman winner, celebrity gossip out the window. You need to evaluate just the football player and see whether or not you wanna make him one of highest paid players at their position in the NFL (I will make a rant about this later). For example Reggie Bush was getting a lot of hype during the 2006 NFL Draft, and why not Reggie Bush was one of the most electric players in college football. However when evaluating talent you need to make sure that a players skill set will translate well into the NFL. During the 2006 NFL Draft I felt like Reggie Bush was not a top 10 talent however I believe the New Orleans Saints fell into the trap of media hype. They couldn't believe that Reggie Bush was there even though they already had Deuce McAllister, a pro bowl running back, and a solid backup Aaron Stecker. I remember a lot of people laughing at the Houston Texans for not drafting Reggie Bush or Vince Young and going with Mario Williams instead with their number one pick. Now in retrospect it seems as though the Texans made the right decision on at least not drafting Reggie Bush, the jury is still out on Vince Young at this point. I also remember listening to ESPN radio one day before the 2006 draft and seriously one of the coaches, I think it was from Seattle, called Matt Leinart a sure fire franchise quarterback. I couldn't help but laugh. Thank goodness the Seattle Seahawks didn't have a top 5 pick. Again these are just examples of "big name" players and of course "big name" players can turn out to be terrific NFL players. Just to reiterate, if your going to draft a player do so on their combine and college film alone (I know no NFL GM is reading this sadly).

-Drafting for need vs Drafting best player available

This is a topic that can get a little hazy at times. I feel as though a team should always draft the best player available unless one they have two or more players rated about the same or two they have an All-Pro Caliber player at that position already. Only then should they draft for need. And if you don't like the talent sitting there where your drafting, trade your pick. You see drafting in the NFL is much like buying stocks in the stock market, it's a gamble. So you should always give yourself the best chance at "hitting", if you will, on a draft pick. In the NFL a team's depth could change in just a couple of injuries, so thinking you don't need a position is very dangerous I believe.

Well these are just a few things I can think of at the moment that come up during an NFL Draft. Now I know I'm not a NFL scout, or General Manager or something like that. But these simple rules that I've made I feel aren't always followed by NFL teams and the consequences come to bite them in the head.

Welcome to my Blog

Well my name is Darin Tanaka, I recently just joined Blogger and hope to contribute to this site. Mostly my interests are in Sports however I will post on other topics as I see need be. This is the first time I am doing any kind of blogging so I maybe my style is a bit 'unblogerish' but with time I will learn. The reason I started this blog is because I feel I have a lot to offer with my insight especially in the sports world. I will try to post something at least once a week regarding any topic I feel is important. I know most people won't see this post but I'm just posting this to get the formality out of the way.