Saw*Kick Media

With no Cavs games until Wednesday, I spent some time this weekend thinking about the NBA season. OK, some time is an understatement considering the free time my single lifestyle affords me. I actually spent more time thinking about it than a fat kid thinks about a Reese’s Cup taped to the ceiling. With that time, I created my premier ‘Annual Four Can’t-Miss NBA Predictions (and Four Pure Guesses)’ for the second half of the season. The fearless and flawless prognostications that follow are undoubtedly half wrong. Still, the AFCMNPAFPG is better than what you were doing with your free time before. So close out the pictures of Britney’s shaved head and dive in.

Prediction No. 1: The Cavs will win 50 games this year. Before you shrug off this prediction as useless in your mocking, cynical way (why are you such a jerk?), consider that I really am going out on a limb here. I know the Cavs won 50 last year, but they went into the break at 31-22 this season. For those out there lacking in mathematical skills, that puts them on pace to win 47.89 games this year. And, remember, they had to have a nice pre-break surge to get there. In order to win 50 games, they’ll have to go 19-10 after the break. That’s not an easy thing to do. That’s not to mention that the teams with the five best records in the league all reside in the Western Conference. If that trend continues, 50 wins could actually mean the second seed in the East.

Still, I think that LeBron is ready to turn it up when the lights go on (he’s proving again and again that he loves the biggest stage – carrying a slumping East squad in the all-star game) and the emergence of Daniel Gibson is going to be a big boost.

Pure Guess No. 1: The Boston Celtics will have a three-game winning streak before the end of the season. I have no information to back this up, and it would be a discredit in what has been an otherwise fine attempt to win the race for the Kevin Durant/Greg Oden pick, but I just have a hunch. I’m even going to guess that it will happen in March.

Here’s a free guess to accompany that: Paul Pierce will score 130 points during that streak.

Prediction No. 2: Some contender will sign Scottie Pippen to a 10-day contract. Pippen told ESPN.com that he would like to make his services available for any contender that would like to have him. At 41, and two years removed from the game, he’s far from the guy who made the NBA’s list of its 50 greatest players. However, he said he would happily take a 10-day contract just to prove that his surgically repaired left knee is better, and I think that there are some teams out there that would benefit from his presence.

I know he was a bit of a head case in his early years with the Chicago Bulls, but as his career rounded out he became a solid leader. He would fit in nicely with some team that could give him 10-15 minutes a game in an offense he knows. Early sources have said he would go to Miami, and some hopefuls have him coming to Cleveland, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he fit in well with the Los Angeles Lakers. As that team really starts to find fluidity in Phil Jackson’s triangle offense it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get another guy who really understands it well. Last time I checked, Pippen had some success in that offense.

Pure Guess No. 2: I will not be signed by any team for a 10-day contract this season. Still waiting for a premier agent, I just don’t see a contract coming my way before the close of the 2006-07 season. In the meantime, I have some soul searching to do about my own commitment. My weight has ballooned to a pregnant-Britney Spears-like 200 pounds and my conditioning is a concern. Moreover, I was rejected in the lane by a 5-foot-7 girl at our weekly company pick-up game. To put it simply, things are looking bleak. I still have a few solid post moves, but at 5-foot-11 my height is an uncertainty. For the first time in my illustrious career I’m questioning myself. I know I’m still the same guy who once put up 22 points while playing for the Doctors in the Stow-Munroe Falls Parks and Recreation league in the grade, but that player seems to be lost somewhere inside me. In fact, I probably ate him for lunch.

Prediction No. 3: Somebody will buy John Amaechi’s book. It won’t be me. But maybe it will be you. I mean, somebody has to buy the thing. This isn’t to bash the man for coming out of the closet after his NBA career. That’s his prerogative and I’m sincerely glad that at some point he felt OK enough with who he is to disclose his sexual preference. That he had to disclose it in a hard back book on sale at my local retailer for the cost of $24.95, well that chaps my rear a little bit. That the book was published by ESPN, which then sold the story like it was a Paris Hilton video, nearly cost ESPN my loyalty. Other athletes have already delved into how hard it is to come out as a professional athlete, so what sells this book besides hype?

Amaechi was an uninteresting and inconsequential player with the Cavs and a slew of other NBA teams, so why should I care if he’s gay, straight, tranny or just into that S&M stuff my last girlfriend dug so much? I don’t know what the book can say that will really interest me. I think the chapter titles will probably go something like this:

Chapter 1: It was really hard for me to be gay and play for the Orlando Magic.
Chapter 2: It was really hard for me to be gay and play of the Utah Jazz.
Chapter 3: It was really hard for me to be gay and have such large, unkempt ears.
Chapter 4: It was really hard for me to be gay and play for the Cavs.
Chapter 5: It was really hard to be British, gay and play for the New York Knicks.
Chapter 6: Conclusions: how hard it is to be gay and play in the NBA.

Pure Guess No. 3: Somebody will buy FHM’s final issue. FHM, a British-based Maxim wannabe that never had quite the guts or sizzle to stick around in America, has decided to pack up its dirty pictures and go home. FHM released its last magazine, tabbed as the March issue, recently and will never again find its way into the basements of middle class parents still supporting their 25-year-old college-educated sons.

What does this have to do with basketball, you ask. Well, nothing. But I needed a smooth transition into the fact that a girl I knew in college is featured in the magazine. Sarina Rubin, a fellow Ohio University Bobcat and a nice young lady overall, was part of FHM’s online Digital Darlings contest and was voted into the last issue of the magazine.

I couldn’t convince her to do a Saw*Kick exclusive (I’m working on it, but mostly just end up trying to hit on her), so have a look at Sarina and you can see why I spent so much of my time at my last job voting for her to make the cut. Make sure you come back to Saw*Kick when you’re done.

She’s also in this MDA music video, which has a Rocky V feel – that is it’s so bad it’s worth watching.

It should be noted that when I say I knew this girl in college it’s not meant as a clever euphemism for anything else. She was a friend of a friend and our relationship never got beyond that ‘we’re not close enough to hang out but we can still be friends on facebook/MySpace’ point. That’s not to say that I didn’t have a chance with her because, you know, well, um, I didn’t have a chance with her.

Prediction No. 4: The Phoenix Suns will win the NBA championship. I know the Suns’ up-tempo offense is better suited for the regular season than the grueling, seven-game series that come in the playoffs. I don’t care. This team, when Steve Nash returns to full health, is just too potent offensively to be shut down. They’re the second seed in the West right now, but I think they have one more run in them this year that will put them in the top seed. If they can survive Dallas and San Antonio, they can roll any team in the East.

The hook, of course, will be the continued health of Amare Stoudemire, which is questionable. If the big man stays on both knees I really believe that this is the year that offense trumps defense to end a pretty formidable history of slog-ball teams like the Detroit Pistons winning the title.

Pure Guess No. 4: If they made a Sega version of NBA Jam today the Suns would win the NBA championship.

Pick the combination: Nash-Stoudemire or Nash-Shawn Marion. Either grouping would be undeniably potent in the arcade-friendly, short-shot clock offense and would put the nail in the coffin early in the second half. The only teams that could give them a decent shot would be the Denver Nuggets (Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson) and the San Antonio Spurs of the original game (David Robinson and Sean Elliot).

There would be a couple other teams that would have an outside chance because of the potential streakiness of one player (the Lakers and Black Mamba, the Cavs and LeBron, the Washington Wizards and Gilbert Arenas, the Heat and Dwayne Wade) but none of those combinations would have a strong enough second option to hold up with the Suns tempo. And I don’t want to hear anything about Shaq adding the right dynamic for the Heat, we all know inside domination does not a NBA Jam champion make.

OK, that’s enough fortune telling for me. Make sure to check back in next week to tell me how many of these have already been proven wrong. In the meantime, make sure you frequent your local Saw*Kick Radio listening and reading archives (do you hear the cash hitting my hand every time I pimp my own stuff as part of my lucrative three-year extension with Saw*Kick) and feel free to compile your best NBA Jam combination to take on the Suns. Any two teammates from history are valid, but remember that we’re playing this on the original Sega, so gaming rights to Michael, Magic and Larry Bird are not available.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.