Christmas day is right around the corner and that means the NBA regular season is about to offically kick into high gear. It’s been a pretty interesting first part of the season with some intriguing storylines around the league. Here are some of my random thoughts and observations …
Is anyone outside of the west coast paying attention to what’s going on in Los Angeles right now? I’m not talking about the soap opera that is known as the Los Angeles Lakers, however I am talking about the Los Angeles Clippers. This team is fun to watch and their loaded this season with depth and talent. It’s not just Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and “Lob City” anymore with the Clippers, they are a legitimate threat in the west. While the Lakers have dominated most of the headlines coming from Los Angeles for all the wrong reasons, the Clippers are flying under the radar and winning basketball games …
The Clippers are currently on a 12-game win streak after their most recent win over the Sacramento Kings. The Kings continue to have problems this season and can’t seem to win on the road either. It also seems that the act is beginning to wear thin in Sacramento with DeMarcus Cousins and his apparent maturity issues. Cousins was benched by Kings head coach Keith Smart for the entire second half of the Kings loss to the Clippers, he was reportedly even ordered to stay in the locker room.Cousins is extremely talented and he did take accountability for the part he played in all of this, however the Kings are going to have to decide if his growing pains are worth it for the best interest of the team. This is just the latest in a series of incidents involving Cousins and it might be time to just trade him while he still has value …
It’s become obvious after watching the Chicago Bulls play that their style of play isn’t exactly pretty to watch, however it’s effective. Chicago head coach Tom Thibodeau has his team playing ugly and gritty basketball while they wait on their franchise player Derrick Rose to return from injury. They were not exactly pretty to watch with Rose on the court, however their blue-collar approach is especially working now and it’s also helped to stabilize them until Rose returns …
In last night’s loss to the Bulls, the New York Knicks lost Carmelo Anthony, Tyson Chandler, and head coach Mike Woodson all to ejections by the referees. The Knicks are off to a great start this season, however with that success will come adversity and they must do a better job of handling those situations. That being said, the refs seemed to be very quick with the whistle last night instead of just letting the two teams battle it out. Watching this game left me with the impression that this could be a very intriguing seven-game series in the playoffs.
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