Believe it or not, but the Los Angeles Lakers/Kobe Bryant All-Stars, who just got done beating the Sonics in overtime (Bryant hit the game-winner), have the best record in the Western Conference. And with the Celtics leading the Eastern Conference, the NBA is going back to the ’80s. But L.A. took a big hit when it lost young center Andrew Bynum for 8 weeks with a knee injury. It looks like in terms of fantasy, Luke Walton and Kwame Brown will be the biggest benefactors of his absence. Brown played 38+ minutes and scored 10 points and hauled in 10 rebounds against the Sonics on Tuesday, and Walton played 32+ minutes and had 10 rebounds and dished out seven assists. As for the Lakers, don’t count on them staying atop the Western Conference with Bynum out … unless Kareem Abdul-Jabbar comes walking through that door.
Don’t look now, but down in Atlanta Bremerton-native Marvin Williams is playing like the No. 2 overall pick that he was in 2005. Williams scored 19 points, had nine rebounds and four assists in a win over Denver on Monday, and had four blocks the day before. He’s averaging 16+ points per game and nearly six rebounds a contest for a much-improved Atlanta team. He’s only going to get better this season, so unless you have a glut of Hawks, deal for Williams before he takes the next step.
Bucks center Andrew Bogut is going crazy in Milwaukee lately. After a slow start to his third season, Bogut has turned it on since New Years. He’s averaging 18 points per game and nearly 10 rebounds per game in January. He’s also shooting 62.5 percent from the field in that time.
Need to pick up some cheap blocks? Grab Nets rookie center Sean Williams. He’s playing more and more minutes for New Jersey and he’s averaging nearly two blocks per game over the past six games. He’s also averaging 7.2 points and 5.8 rebounds in that same span. The rookie out of Boston College has tons of upside — as long as he can stay out of trouble.
Here’s some links for today:
I know it’s painful, but in some ways it’s five minutes of therapy for all Seahawks’ fans. Watch this video once and let’s never speak of this game again.
Here’s an interesting column comparing the dominant ’86 Celtics to the ’07 Patriots from the nation’s No. 1 Boston fan. An interesting read even if you’ve had a little too much New England lately.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/breakdown/080116
Lastly I wanted to give a shoutout to Ms. Wagner’s class at Northshore Academy in Mukilteo. I visited their class on Wednesday and talked about newspapers and sports, and the kids were great. Keep up the writing guys and maybe I’ll see you around The Herald in a few years.
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