Great scene after the game Friday night here at the Garden. A large group of fans waited in a section across the court from the benches and as Al Horford emerged from the tunnel, they cheered and sang, "It's great to be a Florida Gator!"
It's great to be Al Horford. Can you find a rookie in the NBA this season who has had a greater impact on his team than he? Kevin Durant has the gaudy numbers (leads all rookies with 20 ppg at a rookie-best 34.4 ticks per game), but Horford's statistics are solid (10 points, 9.6 boards and 49.9 percent FGs in 31.2 mins) and he's a big reason why the Hawks are headed for the playoffs.
You know what else I like about Horford? The kid's already a pro. I heard a story from earlier this season about how he called out Josh Smith for dogging it during a practice. Horford really got on Smith's case. It's rare for a rookie to call out a veteran and the veteran really showed his class later on when he dumped a bucket of ice water on Horford in the shower after practice.
In Seattle, Durant has a perpetual green light and PJ Carlisemo isn't exactly running a development camp every day in practice. Durant is the top gun on an 18-61 team that is dramatically worse than last season (31-51). Over the course of a career, Durant might wind up the better player. But for this season, Horford, in my mind, is the man.
And since I have been designated as a voter for the Rookie of the Year, my vote counts. I asked David Lee for his opinion and, despite sharing Gator blood with Horford, Lee said Durant will win the ROY based on statistics.
“I think he’s second after Durant just because of the freedom that Duran’t had and the opportunity to play as many minutes as he can handle," Lee said before the game. “I think that he is as valuable as any player other than Joe Johnson on the Atlanta team. He’s a guy who is definitely second in my voting, I just think that you look at Durant’s numbers I think you give it to Durant whether he deserves it or not.”
Horford had another solid outing with 19 points and 11 rebounds in the win over the Knicks. The Hawks have a two-game edge over the Pacers for the last playoff spot in the East with three games left for each team.
I'm also voting on MVP and Defensive POY. We'll discuss those next . . . but first let me hear your thoughts on the ROY candidates. You have to include Al Thornton of the Clippers in that conversation, of course. Others?
Comments (22)
I finally read Isiah’s comments about “pride” in New York (a subject he’s singularly unqualified to even address, but that’s another matter). It made my skin crawl. More tautology and sophistry from New York’s premier snake-oil salesman.
It’s obvious what Isiah’s trying to do with his comment. Obviously, every sports team’s goal is to win a championship. It doesn’t take a Rhodes Scholar to tell us that winning a championship is better than not winning a championship. We know that, Isiah. Thanks for the 911.
But don’t you see what he’s trying to do by saying there are champions, then there’s everybody else? He’s trying to position his pitiful teams in the same category as the Knicks of Bernard and Patrick. He’s subtly trying to elevate his team to their status. That, of course, is absurd. His teams can’t carry their sneakers. Those Knicks teams didn’t win championships, but they were exciting, competitive teams that played deep, deep into the playoffs. And came damn close to winning championships. Those teams are closer to champions than they are to Isiah’s teams, who are closer to the Clevelands and the Clippers of that era, than to the Knicks of that era.
And, yes, we can take pride in those team. Is Isiah saying pride is on a toggle? Yes, for championships. No, for everybody else? Gimme a break. Those teams played their hearts out (something else his teams know nothing about) and I took pride in watching them and rooting for them. Also frustration and disappointment, of course. But also pride. Something that hasn’t been evident at MSG since Isiah took up residence.
Isiah should go to law school. He’d be a helluva lawyer. He can bend any half truth to sound like he’s saying something. Either a lawyer . . . or an ad guy. You know, people who get paid a lot of money to wear slick suits and lie for a living.
Alan,
Durant was always guarded by the other teams best defensive
player! He has had a outstanding Rookie year!
As the Jet said on TNT....take away Durant from that team and they would only of won 3 games tops!
My picks:
1 ROY- Durant
2. POY- Chris Paul
Coach of the year? Riddle me this! Who had the worst coaching record in the NBA last year?
Who has the best record this year? We all know those answers,
but no one can tell me Doc Rivers is Coaching better this year!
It would be a crime if Byron Scott is not named COY!
I forgot,
Defensive POY= Camby....no contest!
Tayshawn Prince and Stephen Jackson tied @ 2nd.
Also my vote on the Best Singing of the National Anthem
at any NBA ever is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRvVzaQ6i8A
Alan,
Last but not least the NBA is about entertainment, right?
You think Horford was more "entertaining?"
You think more people bought tickets to see Horford
than Durant? I believe that Durant has not only helped his team more but has helped the NBA more! Based on those questions,
it would be hard for you to vote against Durant!
Let's examine My BOY Peaceman's idol's body of work with the Knicks:
W L Percentage
141 249 = 36% as Master of Disaster, basketball operations at MSG;
56 116 = 33% as coach of the once proud, once respected Knicks;
27 82 = 25% since that despicable contract extension
* Al Horford's poise and maturity reminds me of the young Wesley Unseld.
Durant was the more hyped player, and has the statistics. I believe he'll win the ROY. That said, I think Horford's contributions to his team, his hustle, etc., warrant serious consideration. As a fan, I wouldn't have a problem with him winning either. Nice choice, Alan.
Here's hoping the Knicks have the Rookie of the Year next year. :)
Sorry for the repost from previous thread: I am always late;
Pride is about self esteem and self respect, not whether you win or lose. Most people know this.
But pride is also very subjective.
I may be very proud of my daughter's straight A's she got on her report card, while you may look at your son's diploma from Northwestern and laugh at my pride. Guess what? I don't care about your son or Northwestern. I have no emotional stake at all in him.
And even if we are talking about it from a competitive standpoint and your son was first in the class while my daughter was second, I am not only still proud of my daughter, but I still don't care about your son's achievement. The pride I have in this case comes from the love, the emotional investment I have in my daughter.
It is no different with sports, and the absence of pride in a fan would make it impossible to root for a team as the absence of self pride and team pride in a team would in fact make it impossible for that team to succeed. Case in point; Our present day Knicks. No pride, no chance.
Some talked about no one remembering who comes in second. I submit that I will always remember who came in second in '94 and '99 because I was personally emotionally invested, and "my" team was the team in question.
I will also remember the fight they put up in '92 when they took the Bulls to seven games in the semi's (in my opinion their best chance to beat Jordan and yes they failed but I was still proud of them).
No other team in the league gave the Bulls wars like my New York Knicks in those years. I always knew that once the Knicks/Bulls series was through, the rest of the NBA Playoffs was purely academic. So did most true basketball fans.
I will always remember that my team made the playoffs for fourteen straight years before the current cablevision regime, and were serious true contenders for the title for at least half of those years.
Was that something to be proud of? I guess only if you were "A Real Fan". If someone had words about the Knicks in those days, I had words for them. I would defend my Knicks to the end. I still do to a point even with this mockery of a team, although now it's more like defending your idiot brother against an outsider. It's more out of duty that anything else. I believe this is called the slow agonizing loss of pride. Thank you James Dolan and Isiah Thomas.
I will always remember who came in second to Ed Pinckney's Villanova squad in the 1985 NCAA tournament. Is it because I was a huge Georgetown/Ewing fan at the time? Could be.
I will always remember if the Knicks finish this year with the fifth worst record in the league, and who was responsible for it (in my opinion) even though a Laker or Piston fan may not remember or care. I am certainly not proud of that "accomplishment". Again, thank you Isiah.
I have given Isiah the benefit of the doubt for a long time. I don't hate the man. I am apathetic towards him. I have no emotional investment in him one way or the other. He is not a Knick, he is certainly not THE Knicks and he is not New York. He has made that definitively clear since he walked in to MSG talking about Chicago and telling New Yorkers what it means to be a New Yorker.
Isiah is Chicago, Pistons and Indiana. Just look at his transactions and hires. The same bias Scott Layden had with the Jazz, BYU Cougars, and Utah. I don't blame Isiah for that. But the fact is he has failed. I didn't want him to. I was rooting for him and MY Knicks, but he failed, and it's time to move on. It's time to see what a real coach can do with this team, and then make a decision on what to do with the roster.
By the way for those who say Isiah is the worst coach the Knicks have had, you are flat out wrong. there were four that were worse than him out of twenty three coaches in fifty two years. Facts gentlemen not hyperbole please.
I know I was always proud to be a Knick fan in the nineties. Bulls fans may have thought I had nothing to be proud of, but I bet the Clippers or Hawks would have taken my team and my team's record in a New York minute and been very proud.
We did not win it all in 94 or 99. That's a true statement. I was and am proud of those teams. That's also a true statement.
If Isiah's Pistons had peaked at the same time as Jordan's Bulls like the Knicks did, then Isiah would also have zero championships. That is an opinion, and I am entitled to it.
Timing is everything in the NBA as it is in life.
P.S.
@ Mak
You state how Isiah was technically correct in saying the '90's Knicks had nothing to be proud of, and then right away you say that the team played with pride. To have pride is to be proud. I ask you: How can you play with pride if you have nothing to be proud of?
@KD
Although I don't have the time anymore to post regularly, I have read every word of your blog since the beginning. I check it at least twice a day. Keep up the good work.
My Rookie of the year is Wilson Chandler. What can I say, I bleed Orange and Blue. Does that make me biased? Your damn right.
It's Scary to think if the Sonics get Rose, Durant will have his
" Robin" and he will be Batman...while Jeff Green is Alfred.
What a trio! The New Dynasty!
Hahn gets Hockey Writer of the Year.
Peaceman leads the contingent of knicksdefense to unanimously win the Blatant Fools of the Year trophy.
Stephon Marbury gets Phony Injury of the Year.
Isiah Thomas owns Sexual Predator of the Year.
Zach Randolph gets Strip Club Owner of the Year for his two in-season trips to Indiana to miss Knicks' games to instead take care of his family business.
Marc Berman gets Pool Boy of the Year for his public relations work on behalf of Marbury.
Jerome James gets Smartest Man of the Year honors for pocketing $6 million for doing absolutely nothing.
Eddy Curry gets Woman of the Year for his feminine lack of effort on defense and both the offensive and defensive glass.
Jim Dolan gets Paranoid Sycophant of the Year for his gulag-style operation and general failure at the Garden.
Chuck Dolan gets the Feeble Father of the Year trophy for giving his punk son a real pro basketball team and elite arena to operate.
LOL @ Anonymous,
Alan,
I have exculsive coverage of Anonymous ( AKA Mark) that even Trane will love! This video was taped in his parents basement,
where he lives, Please put me up for an ESPY on this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypr09ZflT9Q
Peaceman - That's hilarious. LMAO!!
@Peaceman
that is a funny vid!
i would have to give the ROY award to Kevin Durant
he was guarded by the other team's best player and his team was awful...the hawks have alot of talent on their team they just needed a pt guard(now they have one-mike bibby)
if you take horford off ATL and out him on the sonics would he have put up the same numbers?
if you took durant off of the sonics and put him on the hawks they would actually be dangerous in the playoffs.
HOPEFULLY ONE DAY THE KNICKS WILL HAVE A R.O.Y OR SOME PLAYER THAT IS ACKNOWLEDGED AS A STAR...
right now we have a bunch of role players forced into the role of stars.
Peaceman also won New York City Family Court-Ordered Father of the Year.
After he catches up on his 12 years of past due child support payments.
MY MASTER PLAN FOR FIXING THE KNICKS
FIRE ISIAH. I hate to start my first week by doing something so completely predictable, but in truth, I quite enjoyed pulling the rug out from under this punk in Indiana, and it will be even better this time, because this town wants this guy VAPORIZED. Why anyone thinks I've got a soft spot for this lying slimeball is beyond me.
MEET WITH CHAZ PALMIERI. Trade him a pair of courtside seasons for his playing the role of me in the the msg production "donnie comes home".
HOLD EXIT INTERVIEWS WITH THE PLAYERS. Time to get to know what we have in this zoo. Oy, it ain't pretty. Not a lot of IQ here, outside of D-Lee, who is already penciled in as my power forward for the next five years. N8 is so short, i mistook him for the ballboy. He doesn't seem particularly bright either, but compared to Randolph he looks like Einstein. And to think I'm stuck with that no-neck lunk for the next 4 years, yikes. Well, someone's gonna have to put the ball in the hoop anyway, 'cause by the time november rolls around, there are gonna be plenty of shots available. Eddie is such a sweet kid, it was kinda sad watching the door hit his fat ass as he left the room. The same with Jamal, great guy, see ya! Q is another one i'm gonna have to live with for quite awhile, so I kept things pretty light with him, he kinda scares me. Balkman seems a little odd, he kept fidgeting with a rubberband the whole time. Anyway, he should be happy, he's gonna get plenty of burn next season. Jeffries just mumbled, Collins had nothing to say, and Jerome didn't bother to show up. Marbury called in sick, and rescheduled our meeting for later. Whatever. Great team you left me with Isiah, thanks for nothing.
SET UP COACHING INTERVIEWS. I'm gonna hire Thibodeau, but most people have never heard of him and can't spell or pronounce his name, so I'm gonna let this process drag out and have the media print his name a few thousand times. Also, people will become more familiar with him during the Celts/Pistons series with Breen jabbering about Thib being the defensive genius behind their turnaround. This is gonna be tough, cause i really like Herb, but i'm not gonna hang my hat on the big fella. speaking of big fella's, I gotta create a job for Ewing just to keep the natives from getting restless. I like Mark, the kid reminds me of myself a bit, but again, this place is such a mess there's no room for error. Thib is the guy, he won't complain while I gut the roster, and any team in this league can win 33 games just by playing hustling defense, which will buy me some time with the fans. Just for laughs, cause I absolutely HATE this guy, I'm gonna dangle Skiles' name out there, make the little nazi think he's got a shot.
SET UP GM INTERVIEWS. Everyone knows that I am actually going to be the GM, but there's so much money to burn around here, why not throw some at a friend or two? Maurizio Gherardini is the guy I really want, but I'll make this look like an exhaustive search by wasting a lot of others guys time and dreams. Mark didn't get the coaching job (whatya kiddin me?), but I'll offer him the assistant to the president gig, which I hope he takes, cause like I said, I like the kid and it will fast track him into a cushy spot in the commish's office. I hear Stu Jackson is thinking of retiring in a couple of years, and that job is so soft that Mark can go to St. John's law school during the day, bust some chops at night, and then become the first black commissioner of a pro league. That will make everyone feel a little better about the way Obama is about to get swift-boated.
MARBURY FINALLY ROLLS IN for his exit interview. What a piece of work this character is, thankfully they broke the mold after him. He talks a lot, but I have trouble understanding anything that comes out of his mouth. I think he is saying all of the right things, and he seems satisfied with what I'm telling him: if we don't get Rose, which we won't, he will be the starting PG next year (I ain't blowing my cap on some stop-gap guy like T.J.Ford. He wants to talk contract extension, but I manage to put him off by offering a free new truck. He left with a big smile on his face. Oy. Reminder to self: Mount Marbury countdown calendar to office wall. Come to think of it, that would be a great promotional night at the garden next year!
START TRADING THE DEADWOOD. I make 31 phone calls, offering Randolph, Curry,and Jamal to every team. the line goes dead 31 times. I redial 31 numbers, don't mention Randolph, other GM's begin to act more politely. I'm looking for a late first round and future second plus a shorter contract for Eddie. for Jamal i'm thinking i can get a decent back-up point, the Grizzlie's have about ten of them. Everyone wants D-Lee, so now I'm taking a hard look at packaging him with Zbo. The fans will kill me if i do this, but do i really want to match the 5/50 offer LEE is going to get next year? Now my ulcer is acting up again. Then God intervenes. On draft day, Cleveland accepts Randolph and N8 for Szczerbiak and their #1 pick, which saves me a year of Curry's salary and nets me Hibbert with the 20th pick. Then the Grizz call, and they agree to swap Cardinal and Lowry (love this kid) for Jamal (another year of salary saved).
PREPARE FOR THE DRAFT. Stern back-stabbed me on this. He promised that if I took this lousy job he would fix the lottery, but I guess once Isiah won those 3 straight at the end of the season, there was only so much he could do. With the fifth pick, i'm hoping OJ slips through, this kid's got superstar written all over him, the fans are gonna love him. The league has changed, and with the new Mr.Softee rules, big athletic slashing guards are unstoppable. The fans want a PG, but Rose is long gone and I don't like DJ Augustine at all. Then i get lucky and Hibbert slides. It would have been nice to have a 2nd rounder, as Dorsey, Earl Clark or CDR will probably be available, but .......aaaaauuuurrggggg!!!!
SHAPING THE ROSTER. If everything goes right, which it won't, my starting squad next year is Curry, OJ, Lee, Marbury and Chandler, with Hibbert, Lowry, Szczerbiak, Q, Balkman, Jeffries, Rose, and Cardinal vying for time. The fans are excited about the great draft, and with Marbury and Rose's contract coming off next spring, they are already selling Lebron knick jersies at Steve and Barry's. i'll still need to ditch Curry for that to happen, but if he gets in shape (i'm not letting him on the court if he doesn't), i should be able to move him next year, if only to recover the first rounder Isiah threw away in the Marbury deal. So my opening night lineup for 2010, when I am the new mayor of the city, is: Lebron, Hibbert, Lee Lowry, and OJ.
UPGRADE Sec11rowH's SEATS. Hey, i couldn't have done any of the above without him! Oh, and free lifetime tickets for all fixers!
ESPY? It deserves an OSCAR. Best yuk all day. Thanks.
Check it:
Awards for
ESPY Awards (2008) (TV)
advertisement photos board trailer details
Peaceman,
It is my pleasure to inform you that you are being nominated for a ESPY AWARD for the Video of Anonymous (AKA Mark)
posted at 15:59 on April, 12 , 2008 . We at ESPY have not laughed so hard in years! We will have our legal department contact you to make sure this character is real! ( We hope so!)
Thank you
Vernon Espy, VP Espy Awards.
ESPY AWARDS OF FILM AND VIDEO, USA.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks Trane!
I know most the the time we have polarized views,
but that is what makes being a Knick fan great!
It just occurred to me....
Isiah's battlecry of "you haven’t been proud here since '73" is tantamount to Rick Pitino's "Bird & McHale are not walking through that door" spiel.
* At least Pitino was man enough to admit that it was not working, did not want to take the owner's money without producing results, and walked away from the Celts.
* I can't see Znake "give me money" Thomas walking away like a man.
Alah H. put in best:
"you haven’t been proud here since '73 -- 1973"
Yeah, but we haven't been so disgusted since 2004.
Yahoo's poll,
Who should be the 2007-08 NBA Rookie of the Year?
Kevin Durant, Sonics
Votes:
55%
Al Horford, Hawks
Votes:
21%
Luis Scola, Rockets
Votes:
16%
Al Thornton, Clippers
Votes:
5%
Thaddeus Young, Sixers
Votes:
3%
where is my man knowledge on this topic...? lol. i wanna see his list. here's mine:
durant - roy
mvp - paul
coach - hornets
m.i - rudy gay
6th man - manu
defensive - at start of the yr i thought dwight was a sure lock but i give it to dikembe..yea go ahead & laugh.
finals prediction - lakers vs. cavaliers
stay tuned for more....LOL. i can't do it.