Basketball is a very difficult sport to watch if you don’t know what you are looking for.  Everybody always watches the ball and fails to recognize what really goes on in a game.  If you just watch whoever has the ball, then you miss 90 percent of the game.  All of the little factors that lead up to the spectacular plays that everybody loves.  While a spectator ball watches, they will only see the end result of a play.  If a person can watch everything that happens away from the ball, then the spectacular plays will seem very simple.  People love to watch the alley-oop.  But what people don’t recognize is how the person who catches it gets open.  He can’t just run wherever he want and jump and catch the ball and dunk it.  He has to cut and set up his defender so that another player can set a solid screen allowing him a chance at getting open.  That only involves three of the five players on the court.  The other two have to keep their defenders occupied so that they stay out of help side and allow the person coming off of the screen to be open.  If all five offensive players are able to execute their roles successfully, that doesn’t mean that the play will still work.  There are still a billion things that can go wrong.  The defense could switch the screen which means that the person guarding the screener just starts defending the person who was supposed to catch the lob.  If this happens then the person who is catching the pass will not be open even if all five players executed their roles perfectly.  The help side defenders could not take the bait and remain in help defense causing the lob pass to not be open.  Let’s just say that everyone does everything right, the defense doesn’t switch, and the help side defenders take the bait.  Things can still go terrible wrong.  The passer might not be able to make the pass because his defender might be all over him making it impossible to throw any pass except for the simplest.  And even if the defender isn’t all over him and he can make a pass, there is still the problem of making a good pass.  The pass has to be high enough for his teammate to catch and dunk but not too high or else it will sail out of bounds.  If the passer throws the pass too hard, his teammate won’t be able to catch and finish.  If all of that works out and there is a good pass, the timing still has to be perfect otherwise when the person catching the ball is at his highest point, the ball will be nowhere near a place that he can make a play with.  Despite all of these things that can go wrong, it is amazing that so many people are able to flawlessly execute these plays.  To me this is what makes basketball the greatest sport ever.    

In this year’s March Madness, there are a few teams who I could definitely see being the new Cardiac Pack.  One is the University of Dayton.  This team is currently unranked but they do not get the respect that they deserve.  They are a team who made the sweet sixteen last year and graduated almost nobody.  This team is a quality basketball program who showed us that they were a team to be respected in last year’s tournament.  Dayton is a team who can definitely make the tournament and will win at least two games.  But because they are unranked, people will not take them as seriously as they should and will be a Cinderella team.  This team made it to the sweet sixteen last year and should be able to do it again.  Another team who could upset some of the “good” teams in the tournament is Monmouth.  Yes their bench is the best in basketball, but the people on the court have also shown that they should not be overlooked.  Monmouth has a win over ranked Notre Dame and UCLA.  This team not only brings energy to the court with their outstanding bench theatricals, but also have proved to everyone that they are a team who can upset some of the best teams in the nation.  But the team that I can’t wait to see in March is the team that nobody is going to expect.  I don’t have any clue what team it is going to be, but I know that there will be a team who comes out of nowhere and ruins my chances at ESPN’s one million dollars or Warren Buffett’s one billion dollars for a perfect bracket.  Every year I have a solid start to my bracket through the first couple of games, but about halfway through the first day of the first round things always go south for me.  Because of Cinderella teams like Dayton, I have never won a bracket pool.  This is why I have a love/hate relationship with upsets.  I love seeing the good teams lose early in tight games, but I hate them because it always ruins my brackets and costs me money.  There are some teams that we all know are going to go far like Kentucky or Michigan State.  Both teams are well coached and are in the top five ranked teams in the country.  But one thing about Kentucky that I hate is how they are basically a D-league for the NBA.  Every year they have about five new Freshmen who all have outstanding years and then go straight to the NBA.  It is basically a feeder for the draft, which I don’t like.  I enjoy watching players who stay with their college for extended periods of time like Jordan did.  This is why I don’t think that Jordan can be compared with Lebron and Kobe.  Jordan played four years for North Carolina while Lebron and Kobe just skipped college.   

For many basketball fans, the month of March is the greatest time.  Not because it is spring or because of St. Patrick’s day but because of the NCAA Tournament aka the March Madness.  The March Madness is a 64 team tournament spread out through the entire month of March and the beginning of April.  In the March Madness there is never a year where there isn’t a Cinderella team who just completely messes up everyone’s bracket.  A couple years ago it was VCU a team who was ranked in the double digits.  Last year it was Dayton who beat Ohio State and made it into the sweet sixteen.  One of the most heroic stories is the NC State wolfpack in 1989.  This team was coached by Jim Valvano who took this team to a conference championship defeating Ralph Sampson perhaps the greatest college basketball player ever.  They had the possibly the hardest road to make the tournament that year.  They had to win their conference championship just to make it into the tournament.  Once they made it in, they had to play tight game after tight game.  They got the nickname the Cardiac Pack because all of their games were so close and had to be decided in the last 30 seconds.  One thing that helped this team to their title was the three point line.  The three ball was instituted that year and allowed them beat teams that had more skill than they did.  Without the three point line I don’t think that this team would have been able to make it to the tournament much less win it.  This team did not have an easy road at all, in the final four they had to beat North Carolina who had the great Michael Jordan on their team.  After they beat UNC, they had to play the best team in the nation.  This team was nicknamed Phi Slamma Jamma because they liked to run the floor and just constantly dunked the ball.  This team was unbelievably athletic and even had future NBA star Clyde Drexler.  But in order to make it to this game, the Wolfpack had to do things that had never been heard of in basketball.  Jim Valvano was the first coach to intentionally foul and put the other team on the free throw line at the end of a game to get the ball back.  When he first did it, everyone thought that he was crazy.  But once people saw that their opponents weren’t making free throws at the end of a game and the Cardiac Pack clawed their way back into games, it quickly became expected in close games. 

We can all agree that basketball has had an element of showboating/excessive celebration/trash talking ever since Allen Iverson and the fab five played the game.  Some players have taken this showboating/trash talking to new levels like Reggie Miller did.  But in my opinion no team has even come as close to the level of celebrating that the Monmouth bench players have.  Although they are relatively new in the whole celebrating part of the game, I think that anyone who has seen them can agree that they will go down in history as one of the greatest.  The level of creativity that these benchwarmers possess is comparable to none.  But what makes them great is that they have the creativity but also the shamelessness to actually perform their awesome celebrations.  Many people would take a look at what they do and say that it is not something to be done in a game or that they should focus on what is happening on the court.  This takes away from many people’s ability to perform at the level that Monmouth’s bench does.  They are willing to look past what society and the basketball community would deem as an “appropriate” way of celebrating a good play made by a fellow teammate.  But these four benchwarmers possess the intensity, creativity, and shamelessness required to get their bench a separate camera for just their bench.  Those stats are unheard of when it comes to a team’s scrubs.  For them to get THEIR OWN CAMERA is something that has never been done before and provides a role model for all benchwarmers to look up to.  The stunts that these players perform are comparable only to the best student sections and baseball players during rain delays.  But what really sets these players apart is the fact that they have such a limited space to work with.  Student sections have the entire arena to perform their stunts.  Baseball has a whole field.  Monmouth’s bench has a small rectangle of only a couple of feet in area.  After dunks these players will create a human basketball hoop and dunk an invisible basketball.  After a deep three, one of the players would “die” while another would perform CPR until the other two could bring in a hand defibrillator to resuscitate him.  They would play a down of football after a deep three with a center a QB and a receiver.  They would act out scenes from the Hunger Games.  And just go absolutely insane after any big play.  These are the things that separate them from the rest and cause them to be elite.  There are no other teams or student sections than can compete with their intensity and creativity with such a confined space.    

One of the many reasons why I don’t want this season to end is because it marks the end of a legendary player’s career.  After this season, Kobe Bryant will retire from the game of basketball.  He has truly been one of the greatest to ever play the game.  From the day that he was drafted to the charlotte hornets in 1996 and traded to the Lakers as a rookie, we could all tell that he was going to be something great to watch.  Kobe entered the draft right out of high school.  This is something that not even Michael Jordan did.  In high school, Kobe was the top ranked player in the country.  And when he retires at the end of this season, it will set a record for most seasons played with a single team (20).  In 1997 Kobe took home the slam dunk contest trophy.  By that point everyone in the world knew that this kid was something special.  By his second season, Kobe was named to the all-star team.  Being an All-star in the world’s best basketball league is an accomplishment but Kobe did it in his second NBA season ever.  One of the major factors that led to Kobe’s success is have Shaquille O’Neal in the paint.  Together Shaq and Kobe won three consecutive titles for the Lakers in 2000, 01’, and 02’.  Perhaps the only blemish that people can put on Kobe’s style of play is that he might not have passed enough.  But when you are one of the NBA’s greatest to ever play the game, it’s okay to shoot the ball more often.  Perhaps the only reason that people may not like Kobe is because he was accused of sexual assault in 2003, but the charges were dropped.  Following a loss in the finals, the Lakers traded Shaq to the Heat making Kobe the rock of the Lakers.  He then became the scoring leader for the next two seasons and it was then that he scored a career high of 81 points in a single game.  This is second on the all-time list behind Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 point game.  He won two more championships back to back in 20019 and 10.  This marked his fifth championship.  Kobe is one of the greatest to ever play the game he is a 17 time all-star, 15 time all-NBA team, 12 time member of the NBA All-defensive team, he has led the league in scoring twice, he is ranked third on the NBA’s all-time scoring list for both regular season and post season, and he won five NBA championships.  He is compared with Michael Jordan and LeBron James as the best player ever.  It will truly be a sad day when Kobe retires.  This will be like when baseball lost Jeter.  Such an iconic player will be sorely missed after this season.    

Another thing that we have learned through the first 20 games this NBA season is that the Philadelphia 76rs are absolutely horrible.  I have not seen a team that can suck so bad.  Through their first 19 games they have not won any of them.  This is a whole other level of horrible.  It ties the record for worst start for any NBA team ever.  Not only are they 0-19 but they are currently losing to the Lakers who are also horrible.  I believe that it is more than safe to say that the 76rs are by far the worst team in the NBA this year.  In my opinion it is not entirely the players fault though.  Although some of the blame can be placed on the players for not winning, we need to focus on the main problem which is their front office.  Their general manager has not recognized that they need a guard.  For the last couple of years, they have drafted strictly bigs.  To their credit having a strong paint presence is a deciding factor in many games.  But having several first round drafts picks in the paint is going to do absolutely nothing when there is nobody to bring the ball up the court.  Besides have a solid point guard, the 76rs need a good shooter.  A shooter will help to spread out the floor giving their quality posts the space they need to create shots and grab rebounds.  The hardest part of building a team up from nothing is establishing a presence in the paint.  The 76rs have an abundance of this presence, but they lack everything else.  It is very hard to win in basketball without a rim protector, but the 76rs have shown that it is impossible to win with just trees and nobody that can function outside the paint.  In my opinion, the 76rs are right on the brink of being a good team.  Even though their record clearly states otherwise, I believe that with a good draft next year and one or two good moves by the general manager, they can become a formidable opponent in the east.  Playing a team that has solid big men is very hard to match up against because there are few other teams in the east that have post presence of the 76rs.  Once the 76rs can provide an all-around team, it will still take the team a little while to figure out how to win in the NBA.  In a couple of years and with the right moves, I believe that the 76rs can go from the worst team in the NBA to playoff contenders.     

The NBA season has begun and we are almost 20 games deep.  We have learned several very important facts.  The first is that the Warriors are very very very very good.  They have not lost a game all season and have played close to 19 games already.  Steph Curry is having another phenomenal season and I would not be surprised if he won the MVP again this year.  He has made an unbelievable amount of threes already.  He has hit 94 which is the most in the league.  The person who is closest to him is Kyle Lowry who has only made 54.  Paul George is close behind Kyle with 51.  If the warriors are able to keep up this amazing basketball that we have seen over the course of last season and the beginning of this one, we can expect to see Curry with five or six rings.  We can also see Steve Kerr as going down in history as one of the greatest coaches because his team just refuses to lose and as we all know, the team is a reflection of the coach.  This team has done unbelievable things in just one season and the start of a second.  One of the largest factors in this amazing performance is the fact that the chef has remained healthy.  In past seasons since Curry was drafted out of Davidson, he has acquired several injuries and it is my personal belief that these injuries have held back the Warriors.  The first full season that Chef Curry played he won an MVP and a championship.  There are very few teams throughout history who can compete with the dominance of the Warriors.  The most prominent are the 96’-97’ Bulls.  The very team that Coach Steve Kerr played on with the great Michael Jordan.  Just the sheer amount of wins in a single season by these two teams makes Steve Kerr a part of the two most winning teams in basketball history.  Last season the Warriors finished the regular season 67 and 15 with a home record of 39 and 2.  Another highlight for this legendary team is Curry setting a new record for most threes made in a single season with 286 breaking the previous record of 272 that he set in 2013.  But Curry couldn’t do this by himself, he needed the help of his fellow splash brother Klay Thompsen, who combined with Curry to make a total of 525 threes.  That is the most by any duo in NBA history.