With the NBA season just a few weeks away there has been a lot of excitement around the teams in the West like, OKC, the Rockets, the Timber-bulls and of course the LA Lakers with their amazing off season signing of...Lance Stephenson and that guy in the new Space Jam movie. But in the middle of all this excitement, it is easy to forget about one team in particular that got very good this offseason, that nobody is talking about. Don't sleep on the Mavs.
The Mavs won their first and only championship against a prime LeBron, Wade and Bosh led Miami team back in 2011. However since then they haven't done anything noteworthy. This season Dirk Nowitzki, former NBA MVP, NBA champion and Finals MVP, will be entering his 20th NBA season at age 40. Watching Dirk painfully move his body up and down the court has lead to the stigma of Dallas being an old team. But don't be fooled, Dallas has quietly been building over the last few years and has had a very productive offseason. In 2016 they were able to acquire Harrison Barnes from the Golden State Warriors fresh off a game 7 loss to King James, Uncle Drew and the Cavs. Now Barnes wasn't exactly missed in Golden State as he was replaced with KD, however since leaving Golden State he has had season highs in points, assists, steals and rebounds and can be a great asset when surrounded by the right stars. DeAndre Jordan, one of the NBAs premier centers was almost nabbed by the Mavs in 2015 before Blake Griffin, CP3 and the Clippers foiled that attempt. ' If it wasn't for those meddling kids!' said Mavs owner Mark Cuban (just kidding, Scooby Doo reference). Three years later though DeAndre has finally found his way to Dallas, but is it three years too late? With the Clippers losing CP3 and then Blake last season, DeAndre had a taste of being the man in town. We all know how that worked out. Now that he has that out of his system, DeAndre looks ready to integrate back into a team basketball and is ready to bring lob city to Dallas. This brings us to who will be delivering those lobs. The 9th pick in the 2017 draft, Dennis Smith Jr. is one of the most athletic point guards since Westbrook and D'Rose when he had functional knees (as Antoine Griezmann would say 'I love Derrick Rose'). The young point guard has shown flashes of brilliance during his rookie season averaging 15 points, 4 rebounds and 5 assists per game. Now with a rim running big man on his team, the Mavs pick and roll is going to give a lot of teams headaches. Another great addition to the Mavs this season is the highly anticipated rookie Luka Doncic. The European star already has a number of accolades to his name including, the current EuroLeague MVP and Champion and to make things better, he was born at a time when Y2K was a thing. The kid is a 6'8" point forward, and while he has been receiving all the stereotypical European criticism from the American media, he is not something the league has seen before. Under the tutelage of Dirk, a European phenomenon himself when he entered the league, the future for Luka and the Mavs looks very bright indeed. In addition, the roster has developing talent in rookie Kostas Antetokounmpo, the 6'11" "baby" brother of "Greek Freak" Giannis Antetokounmpo, along with returning veterans J.J. Barea, Devin Harris, Wesley Matthews, and Dwight Powell to bulk out the roster. So while everyone is dreaming of championships for the Lakers and discussing how to deal with the nightmare of the Warriors, don't sleep on the Mavs.
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If you're a Marvel movie fan like myself, odds are you have watched Black Panther by now. The movie is rich in culture, has amazing special effects and has a fantastic story which touches on many of the political and social issues faced by our world today. To top it all off the soundtrack is "BUMPING!" This comes as no surprise as the production of the sound track was overseen by none other than Kendrick Lamar, who is possibly one of the greatest rappers of our generation. The movie which has themes of the passing of leadership, a fight for power and overall control of the throne, is best represented by the song 'King's Dead'. The song really helps getting those shoulders going as the fighters prepare for ritual combat. As a basketball fan, 'King's Dead' immediately makes me think of LeBron James and the current state of the NBA. LeBron has been the King of the NBA for almost a decade now. A throne that has been occupied by NBA legends such as Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Dr. J, Wilt Chamberlain and the greatest of all time Michael Jordan. The NBA has always relied on these Kings to attract audiences from both national and international markets, and is what allows the league to thrive. However the poor performance of the Cavs this season has put the popularity of the league in jeopardy. Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry were both in the running for the throne having collected the 3 MVP trophies following LeBrons MVP season in 2013. However since teaming up in Golden State, the public perception of both players has taken a huge hit, as every championship or accolade they achieve will be asterisked for all time. This has the league scrambling for its next King as there is no clear successor to the throne. As we head into these upcoming playoffs we will see a range of contenders fight it out in ritual combat for the NBA throne. So can LeBron do enough to keep his crown? Who could be the new King? K.A.T? Greek Freak? The Brow? The Beard? Guess we will just have to wait and see. Who am I? Not your father, not your brother Not your reason, not your future Not your comfort, not your reverence, not your glory Not your heaven, not your angel, not your spirit Not your message, not your freedom Not your people, not your neighbor Not your baby, not your equal Not the title y'all want me under All hail King Killmonger Wakanda Forever!!! Photo credit: Lindsay_Silveira on Visualhunt / CC BY-NDC-Photo credit: <a href="https://visualhunt.com/author/2b5490">Lindsay_Silveira</a> on <a href="https://visualhunt.com/re/a68425">Visualhunt</a> / <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/"> CC BY-ND</a> Photo credit: Keith Allison on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-SA-Photo credit: <a href="https://visualhunt.com/author/34a9c1">Keith Allison</a> on <a href="https://visualhunt.com/re/a68425">Visualhunt.com</a> / <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/"> CC BY-SA</a> AuthorFrazer Coutinho The Indian Men Kinda Jump (IMKJ) team just wrapped up 3rd place at their first 3 on 3 basketball event. The event organised by Spark NZ was held over at Elstree North Reserve in Glenn Innes. Players travelled from all over Auckland for a chance to compete and win some amazing prizes.
Things kicked off at 10am sharp. The games were 7 minutes long. The team who had the highest score at the end of seven minutes would get the win. The games were physical but not too rough as every shooting foul resulted in a point for the opposing team. We were off to a rough start losing two of our grading games, the first by 1 point and the next in a blow out. We managed to bring it back in the next games as we got into the flow of the game and adjusted to the conditions. We came up short in the semis and missed out on the finals but were happy with 3rd place for our first ever tournament. The teams we went against were filled with high school and university students and we impressed at how talented they were. This is a credit to coaching in schools and at rep level which has come a long way. Shout out to Spark for all their support and for help organising the event. Spark managed to book out the court, provided referees and an awesome DJ (Seymore Seymore) along with heaps of goodies to give away. Prizes included Breakers tickets, speakers, branded towels, and every child present received a free basketball. They also provided free food and some drinks which was awesome. It was great to see people young and old attend and the event had a that real family orientated vibe. A big shout out to Adrian Boyd from Boyd Basketball Academy that ran the event on the day. Adrian played the role of tournament organiser and MC to perfection so kudos to you for the well run event. Talking to this guy after the tournament, we were happy to hear that he's all about giving back to the kids and the community and we were able to gauge how passionate and genuine he was from that brief chat. Events like this are great for kids, especially for those from low socioeconomic backgrounds who sometimes don't get exposed to a lot of opportunities. It's also great for improving the awareness of basketball culture in New Zealand, as it helps raise participation in a normally, rugby-orientated country. All in all it was a fantastic event and a day well spent celebrating basketball and community. We will be definitely taking part in more of these events and highly recommend everyone to attend regardless of skill. So keep your eyes peeled for the next event. Follow Spark NZ, The Boroughs and Boyd Basketball on Facebook for posts about future events. Get your mates and family along and oh yeah, you guys know IMKJ is definitely going to be there. So till then, IMKJ signing off. |
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