Emeka gets Hakeem's mojo!

If the video in this post started playing as soon as you opened this page, and it is annoying you, there are two things you can do : (1) stop the video for now (2) give this blog link to everyone you know, so I get excessive traffic and blogger cancels my account.

I'm in a fantasy league (on nba.com) along with other guys from this Suns forum I live in. This must be the most scrub-filled fantasy league, ever. By scrubs, I mean the players -- not the GMs..we're a bunch of frikkin' studs. There are 30 (yes 30!!) teams in this league.

Here is my team (in decreasing order of scrubness... or is it scrubbosity?) -
CP3, Emeka Okafor, Mike Miller(we have a 1 chick per team rule), Barry, Sean May
Brevin Knight, Anthony Parker, DeShawn Stevenson, Bostjan Nachbar, Marvin Williams (injured)

Since Barry got good playing time last week, I started him ahead of Parker. He responded with 0 pts in 5 mins last night. I can't start Brevin Knight since he doesn't have G eligibility. I'm trying to trade him for a starter.

Apart from CP, the only guy who has been putting up big numbers for me is Emeka. The guy has played like a beast this season. He's averaging 19.1 pts, 12.7 boards, 4.0 blks so far. For a guy without hops, 4 bpg (even if its just 7 games) is huge. So I looked around and found some dirt on this. Apparently, Emeka attended Olajuwon's inaugural big man camp this offseason. Olajuwon had spent a week helping Emeka last year. This time, Ndudi Ebi and a few others joined him to learn from the only player to win DPOY, regular season MVP and Finals MVP -- all in the same season.

My guess is quite a bit of Hakeem's skills rubbed off on Emeka. Here's a short video of the camp from nba.com. Here's the link, if the video doesn't work in your browser.

Thank you Emeka!

UPDATE: Emeka finally got some love from the Godfather of hoops blogging - Henry Abbott at truehoop. Check out his post on Emeka's past 4 nights out.

Somebody kill this guy!

Manu Flopinobli has clearly lost a step and a patch of hair but he seems to have decided to make up for that with dirtier-than-ever play. Last year he derailed Barbosa's good season by flopping onto his knees and injuring the poor kid. Manu has taken his fake-show further by attacking more crucial players in the opposition this year. He flopped into Nash first and then took it further by digging his flailing arms into Raja Bell's ribs as he flopped. Raja - one of the toughest guys on our team lay motionless on the floor for a brief while before being helped to the bench. He didn't return to play in the game.
The diagnosis: Raja has a rib cartilage injury and is doubtful for the next couple games.

Hope Gino-pussy is happy now. NOT COOL !

Full disclosure
I have to acknowledge the fact that Raja is a flopper too. He's said so himself. But its one thing to flop to the floor but totally different when you flail your skinny arms in traffic and throw elbows. Flopinobli has had a history of not just flopping, but also folding on the opposing player, thereby inflicting injury to the latter.
If it happens once, I'd agree it was an honest mistake. But this freak has been flying around arenas like a projectile, hitting and injuring numerous guys for the past few years.
To think I used to liked this guy's play, even when he killed the Suns in the WCF in 2005. sigh..

I'll pay anyone who breaks that penguin beak he has for a nose.

M

How to lose when your opponent wants to as well

Last night, the Suns demonstrated how to suck misery out of prosperity. It was one more of their horrible games this season, squandering a 6 pt lead late in the game.

The defensive effort was patchy at best, with Fabricio Oberto setting a Spurs franchise record shooting a perfect 11-11 from the field. Huh? Oberto!?!? That guy whose top score last season was 10? The same guy whose career high score is 12? The same frikkin' guy who Popovich called the 'most productive ugly player' ever?

Suns-the Kingmakers
-The Suns made it look like Oberto was unguardable -- only they did so by not guarding him at all. Give me a freaking break now. A career scrub makes 5-5 and still Mike Antoni couldn't make an adjustment to shut him down for the rest of the game? Antoni has never displayed an ability to make in-game adjustments and Oberto's career numbers last night bear that out.

-And then there was this guy called Nazr Mohamed who Poppovich didn't give a rat's ass about when he left the Spurs to sign with the Pistons. Nazr has averaged 9.6/7 in his uneventful 8 year career and has done nothing to merit attention as a legit post threat. Enter the Suns in the 2005 playoffs. They had to make him look good at any expense. Who can stop the Suns when they make up their mind?
Result : Nazr had a career night scoring 30/16 in one of the Western Conference Finals games.

You're a high octane offense and all that but for God's sake why don't you guys get a few defensive stops when you have a frikkin 9 point lead against the Spurs? Is it that hard to play decent defense? Gaaawd!!

Save for Tony Parker, the Spurs played pretty badly for most of the game. When Raja missed a free throw that could've potentially won the game, Ithinkisoiledmyself.
*drops head in shame*
To their credit, the Spurs played like champions in OT to send the Suns packing.

I've got to say the Suns earned the defeat though.

M