Lamarcus Aldridge, Pacers, and Jason Kidd

Hey Swishers! Sorry it's been a week since I have posted. Well I'm back and today's topic is about the returning of Portland Trail Blazers Lamarcus Aldridge, the current struggles of the Indiana Pacers, and Jason Kidd's first year as a coach, as I review it. I know these may not be the most interesting topics, but as of now there is not much happening in the NBA right now. So this time we are dealing with more smaller topics

Lamarcus Aldridge
Lamarcus Aldridge returned to the court last night and helped the Portland Trail Blazers to another win against the Atlanta Hawks. This is great news for the Trail Blazers as playoff time comes around. Aldridge scored 25 points and grabbed 16 rebounds and truly showed that he was ready to come back and is ready to play well. I think this will carry over to the playoffs and the west should watch out for the trail blazers because as teams begin to cool down, the blazers are coming and they're ready for the blazers.
Indiana Pacers
The Indiana Pacers have been one of the teams that are cooling down as the playoffs are coming. They recently beat the Heat, which was a huge win for them, but before that they were struggling, and they were bad. I don't know where to put the blame on. As Paul George recently stated they aren't having fun playin with each other. The recent trade must have messed with their stride and chemistry because now they have now leader without the experienced Danny Granger. The heat game showed a new leader was rising and that was Paul George, he led the Pacers to a great win, and he has to do this more frequently to keep the Pacers in the playoff run. I think the Pacers will be fine and there is nothing to worry, they will be ready for the playoffs and I'm sure of that.
Jason Kidd 

This topic is something that I am not very familiar with so I'm just going to give some input on it. This year Jason Kidd, who retired last year, took over control of the Brooklyn Nets. The trade for Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett had the Nets believing they were going to have a great chance for a playoff run. Well this year was just awful for them. I don't think the blame is mostly on Kidd, I think some it goes to him, but the team has looked awful. I think it was ridiculous that he would just retire and come back as a coach. I don't think this year meant much, I think if they keep him and he fails next year then there's a problem but I'm sure that won't happen. 

Alright thanks everyone for coming and I'll see you next time but until then Keep on Swishing! 

Phil Jackson to the Knicks

Hey Swishers! Welcome to Pro Swish! Today's topic is going to be about Phil Jackson taking over the Knicks basketball choices. It's going to be a very small post because there's not much to talk about recently so I have to try and dig the information out of small topics.

Phil Jackson

News came out that Phil Jackson will take over the New York Knicks basketball operations. Phil Jackson was previously the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers back when they were actually an elite team. Once Phil "retired" and left the Lakers he never guaranteed he wouldn't come back to basketball. The Lakers were even looking to hire Jackson and they chose the inferior Mike D'antoni over him. After all the talks were over more teams and basketball organizations saw Jackson as an option for coaching and staff. The New York Knicks recently hired him to make all the decisions basketball-wise for the Knicks. Well what does this mean? It means that nothing the team wants to do can happen without Jackson's consent and approval. Jackson can make choices that he feels will be the best for the team. Is this good news? I think so yes, but we can't look over the fact that the Knicks are absolute trash this year. We can't say Carmelo Anthony might leave New York. In fact, I think everything Jackson wants to do has to have Carmelo in it. If Carmelo is not included in the plans why did Jackson even come? Many questions need to be answered to be able to say this is a really good decision or a really bad decision. I'm happy for New York, they can celebrate Jackson coming to the team, but they certainly cannot celebrate their team as of now. Personally, I think the Knicks have had some bad luck this year and that coupled with that fact that they are not a very good team just a team with a really good player makes them a disappointment to the NBA. I think Jackson needs to also get rid of head coach Mike Woodson. Mike Woodson is a very respectable coach, but it's time to completely blow up the Knicks and hit restart. They have to center their team around Carmelo Anthony, make some MAJOR trades and get rid of some staff. One of those staff members being Mike Woodson. I think he's not the only reason for the Knicks failure, but one of the biggest. So in conclusion, Jackson really needs to make some changes with the team if he wants to succeed or else we're just going to see the same team over and over and once Carmelo is gone, it's all over.

Thanks for coming, I hope you found some interest in today's post, I sure had fun writing it for you guys! I'm going to try and get another post this week before Friday so keep your eye out for that. See you next time and until then Keep on Swishing!

Also I want to say I get most of my topics from the famous NBA.com so go check them out, they're really good!

 

Playoff preview

Hey Swishers! As the playoffs get closer and closer and this year is coming to a close this post I would like to focus on who I think will have a push for the championship and who will crack under pressure

Who will win

Who will win it all this year? Well first lets say that this year WILL be one of the most exciting years ever... In the west. This year in the east it's going to come down to two teams and the same teams it came down to last year the pacers and heat. The pacers, a stellar team that has proved they can win a championship, will end up winning in the east in my opinion. The Heat are just not as good as a team this year and do not have what it takes to win the conference or a championship. Dwayne wade is almost done and the only two assets they have left are Chris Bosh and LeBron James. The pacers have a combination of strength, size, and skill to win both the conference in championship. So sorry to heat fans but it is time to move on the heat era is over.

Our biggest loser

As I have already stated the heat will be a disappointment and that will probably be the biggest loser, so lets just go through the smaller upsets. In the east there is really nothing to see there so to the west we go. The west is gonna be full of surprises this year. The first team to address is the thunder. As the season is coming to and end the thunder have  found themselves losing consecutive games people have questioned their ability to win games so why would it be different in the playoffs? The first thing is I think the thunder are a very strong team and I will not say that they will fail to show up in the playoffs. However I do not think they will win they west. The team that will win are the warriors. They may be an upset team but they are my favorite because of their shooting and defense. They will show they can win the west. The last surprise will be the rockets. They have been doing amazing this year and will take that into the playoffs. The upset will be a trail blazers, as much as I love the blazers, they will not show up in the playoffs. I think they need another year to develop and they will be so much better

In the end it will end with pacers holding up the trophy and that's it... Until next time Keep on Swishing!

LeBron James recent headlines

Hey Swishers! I blogged about the recent All-Star weekend last time click here if you want to read it! Anyway today's post is about the recent headlines surrounding LeBron James. Before we get started I want to say that I am not a LeBron bandwagon or a hater, LeBron is just a player to me like everyone else in the NBA. Moving on, there have been a couple of headlines regarding LeBron recently.

61 points
LeBron scored 61 points against the Charlotte Bobcats on Monday. There has been a lot of hype around this game and LeBron's performance. Well if there is anything impressing about this is the fact that it came on a Monday. I do not see why everyone is so impressed by this performance to be honest. It was against the CHARLOTTE BOBCATS, that have been an awful team for the past several years. Not only that, but LeBron, and I hate to say it, but he ball hogged the entire game. As a guy that watches a lot of basketball, this does not rank anywhere special in his best played games or best played games ever. I hope that people can see the truth to this game and see that it really was not anything special. I will say that if he scored 61 against the Thunder then it would have been impressive, but for now it is just a regular game for me.

The Mask
LeBron broke his nose a while ago and now people have been giving him a lot of credit where credit is not due simply because he is wearing a mask. The mask is just there for safety to make sure he does re-break his nose or suffer a worse injury. People are treating it as if he is playing 20 times better than he already is. It may sound that I am hating on LeBron, but I am not, I am just trying to say if you think that playing with a mask makes him so much better, please stop thinking that, it makes almost no sense.

Free Agency
There has been a lot of speculation as to what Lebron is going to do once the season is over. Is he going to stay in Miami or move on to another team? I think the first thing to recognize is that the Miami Heat are going to do EVERYTHING in their power to try and keep LeBron, but in the end it is ultimately up to him. I am not sure what teams he would really like to go to, other than stay in Miami or go back to Cleveland. On the Cleveland topic I'm not sure if he is going to want to go back to Cleveland. However I think it all comes down to the playoffs and Dwayne Wade. Dwayne Wade is coming to the end of his career or at least is getting there with all the knee injuries and he really is one of the key factors to the Miami Heat. I also think if they can not get to the finals this year, LeBron has a huge reason to say he wants to leave. LeBron has always been about championships and rings and he wants to be on a team where he can get that.

However that's all I have to say. I want to thank you for coming and please feel free to leave some feedback on anything it really helps!. Thanks swishes and remember Keep on Swishing!

Also, I have a good friend who has a blog about cars that deserves some more viewers so go check him out here!

Quick Recap

Hey swishers! I know it has been a while since my last post, I apologize for the delay of posts and the missing posts. I will try to stay more frequent with my posts, it's just with the amount of work and things I have to do including this blog, it makes it hard to keep tabs on all of them. Moving on welcome back to Pro Swish! . I will be quickly talking about the previous All-Star weekend because I know I did not talk about it.
The 2014 All-Star weekend was, in my opinion, awful. There is almost no way to describe it for me. First of all the Shooting Stars was a extremely fun experience when it first was an event. Today, it is just like a pre game shoot around. I also hate the idea of the two sides and teams idea. The idea that out of two teams, one wins and moves on. I understand the whole charity aspect of it, but it was just awful. The contestants did not look like they wanted to be there and participate, and you when that happens, it has gotten bad.

Skill Challenge
Next thing is The Skills challenge. What was that? I would like to know whose idea it was to put two point guards on a team and play it that way. Once again the team aspect annoyed me. The fact they are two teams apart of one and see who moves on is just annoying. The finish was exciting, but the overall challenge was just awful.

Three Point Challenge
Moving on to the three point challenge, it just was not what I expected it to be. Once again, the idea of East and West working together is just stupid. Another thing was the shooters. I truthfully believe they are not putting enough thought into the actual shooters. The winner, Marco Belenelli? What? When was the last time you saw Marco Belenelli make consistent threes? Now, don't get me wrong, I love a good upset, but it seemed like the only one to upset was Steph Curry. Not only that, but he did awful. These guys aren't taking it serious enough.

Dunk Contest
Moving on to the Dunk Contest. This probably was the biggest upset to me than anything else. It annoys me that the NBA thinks they can put people like Ben Mclemore in the dunk contest and call it a Dunk Contest. I wasn't looking forward to him dunking, what I was looking for was for the East to obviously dominate the West, but for there to be some amazing dunks. The only dunks that actually showed me something was Paul George and John Wall. Those two were great, but there was nothing else. The west was absolutely awful, they were given no good dunkers and the fact that the winner was pieced by the audience was just ridiculous. Back in the day, the most amazing players to ever play the game would decide a winner, not a random guy sitting home.The opening round was also very disappointing. This was a warm up, yet they were still judged? I think if the NBA fails to meet expectations next year, everything goes down for the All-Star weekend. I also think the only way to improve the dunk contest is to get better dunks, but the problem is they don't want to participate in the contest, and that is the worst part. They also have to change the format and add a round.

Rising Stars and All-Star game
The Rising stars challenge was actually very cool, I liked it mostly because they actually tried unlike the  All-Stars in the All-Star game. Speaking of that, there was absolute no defense and there were better dunks than in the dunk contest. The NBA needs to rethink this and go back to square one before it all goes bad. I am going to grade it a 2 out of 10.

I will blog about LeBron James' recent headlines next time. Thanks for coming! Keep on Swishing!

Skills Challenge

Hey Swishers! This is just going to be a quick update on the Taco Bell Skills Challenge this weekend. This is one of my least favorite events simply because it is too quick and just seems a little too simple. Nevertheless it is apart of the fun that the weekend brings. The guards selected will have to compete in a course where they will be ranked according to time. The lower the time the better the rank. The course will have multiple challenges in which a guard would have to undergo during a game such as passing and dribbling through defenders. Some of the names that stand out to me are Damian Lillard and DeMar DeRozan. These two have just been unbelievable this year. Reggie Jackson also deserves some high praise due to the work that he has done for the Thunder due to Russell Westbrook's absence. For a winner I project that Lillard will win because he has just been great this year as a guard just doing everything a guard needs to be able to do to succeed. Well that's all tell what you guys think in the comments? Who do you think will win? Keep on Swishing!

BBVA Rising Stars and Sears Shooting Stars

What is up Swishers! Welcome back to Pro Swish, where all we do is swish. Today's post, as metioned in yesterday's post will be a brief preview to the BBVA Rising Stars game and the Sears Shooting stars. Let's start with the Rising Stars game. This is the beginning of All-Star weekend where you get a taste of the fun, but not too much. There will be two teams, Team Hill, and Team Webber. These two teams each have nine players, sophomores and rookies, and will be coached by Grant Hill and Chris Webber. So let's start with the first picks made by each team. On the Hill side, he picked Damian Lilard from the Portland Trail Blazers and Webber picked Anthony Davis from the New Orleans Pelicans. These two have been two dominant sophomores this year and look to continue to have a great season. As for the finer details of the teams, Webber includes big names like Victor Oladipo, Trey Burke, and Jared Sullinger. Hill has Bradley. Beal, Harrison Barnes, and Andre Drummond. Those are just some of the names on the teams. But looking at the two rosters, I believe that Team Webber will win because they have more dominant players and do not have to rely on one guy while Team Hill might have to rely on Damian Lillard. Tell me what you guys think in the comments. Moving on to the Sears Shooting Stars, which is always just meant for fun. There will be four teams that will have to through a mukititude of shots to complete the course in a certain amount of time. The lower the soccer, the higher your rank. Looking at the big names, we have the Tim Hardaways playing on the same team for the east. Chris Bosh and Dominique Wilkins along with Swin Cash will join forces to try and win this. Going to the West we've got Steph Curry being the big name there. And on the fourth team we have Kevin Durant with legend Karl Malone along with amazing WNBA player Skylar Diggins to play on the same team. In the end I believe Kevin Durant and his squad will win. They have the most talent and experience, however with this challenge anything can happen. Tell me what you think in the comments! That's all for now see ya later and remember Keep on Swishing!