NBA - Aaron Torres Sports
On Monday, Aaron was sat down with Ryan McNeill, editor and reporter for HoopsAddict.com in an action packed NBA chat. While the conversation centered on last Thursday's NBA Draft and this Thursday's start of the NBA Free Agency period, Aaron and Ryan touched on a number of other subjects, including:
- Ryan's (Who covers the Raptors for HoopsAddict) take Toronto first round pick Ed Davis, and why he might have been the steal of the draft.
- Why Ryan thinks the Kings may have had the best draft overall
- Aaron and Ryan arguing over the merit of Oklahoma City's selection of Cole Aldrich
- Aaron and Ryan continuing the argument on Golden State's selection of Ekpe Udoh
- Why the Jazz were the NBA Draft's biggest loser
Their conversation continued to NBA Free Agency, where they discussed:
- Whether the Miami Heat's approach of clearing cap space and filling out their roster with second round picks is a good idea or not
- What the Cleveland Cavaliers should have done differently in their attempts to keep LeBron James
- Where Ryan believes all the big name free agents (James, Dywane Wade, Chris Bosh, Carlos Boozer) will end up
Finally, how HoopsAddict.com has emerged as one of the elite, independent NBA websites on the 'net
Like everything else this NBA season, Thursday night’s draft wasn’t so much a celebration of welcoming in a new group of players to the NATIONAL…BASKETBALL…ASSOCIATION (Get it? Like when Ron Jaworski calls the NFL the NATIONAL…FOOTBALL…LEAGUE?? Get it? Copyright Aaron Torres 2010). Instead it was more about teams positioning themselves for this summer and free agency.
Draft day deals this year were marked by several teams not trying to improve themselves, as much as simply trying to dump bad contracts. Everyone in the league fell into one of two categories:
1. Teams shedding players and salaries for a big free agent push (I.E. the ability to sign 2-3 max contract players. Think Miami and Chicago)
2. Teams with no chance of signing the big boy free agents, and instead improving their rosters with everyone else’s leftover parts (Think Oklahoma City).
Because of this, it’s pretty hard to gauge how teams actually did in this draft, since everyone’s motives were so different. However anyone who knows me knows how stubborn I am, and because of it, I’ve handed out 30 grades to 30 teams after the 2010 NBA Draft
On Wednesday, my buddy Arjun Chandrasekhar engaged in an epic argument, debating over who we think should be the first five picks of Thursday night's NBA Draft, in Part I of what we liked to call "The Great NBA Draft Debate."For those who missed, here are how the first five picks went down:
1. Washington Wizards- Aaron selected: John Wall, Kentucky
2. Philadelphia 76ers- Arjun selected: Evan Turner, Ohio State
3. New Jersey Nets- Aaron selected: DeMarcus Cousins, Kentucky
4. Minnesota Timberwolves- Arjun selected: Wesley Johnson, Syracuse
5. Sacramento Kings- Aaron selected: Derrick Favors, Georgia Tech
With the first five picks Aaron and Arjun return to debate picks 6-14, as we get you set for tonight's NBA Draft..
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Here at AaronTorres-Sports.com, we’re always trying to figure out what’s next in sports. Who’s the next great team? The next great player? The next football coach at the University of Georgia. Woops, sorry Dawg fans.Anyway, in our search for the next big thing, we’ve found the next great sportswriter, Arjun Chandrasekhar. (If he’s not on your regular reading list, he should be. You can access his work by clicking here)
You see, as it turns out, Arjun stumbled across this site a few months back, and since then, well he’s been a thorn in my side.
Why a thorn? Well, because not only does Arjun comment on just about everything I write (Which I always appreciate), but because his comments are so well crafted, well thought out and so darn intelligent, that nine times out of 10, he makes me completely re-think and re-evaluate everything I’d just previously written.
And when Arjun contacted me a few weeks ago about potentially collaborating on something, I knew I had to take him up on it. Because regardless of what we ended up talking about, I knew it’d be enjoyable for the readers. Which is always my No. 1 concern.
All that brings us today.
After lengthy e-mail exchanges, Arjun and I settled on doing an NBA Mock Draft, similar to the one’s you’ve seen previously on ESPN.com with Chad Ford and Bill Simmons.
Simply put, we took every team in the NBA Draft Lottery (Picks 1-14), and gave our well informed, thought out opinions on how we think the draft should go down. Please keep in mind however, that these are the picks that we think teams should make, not necessarily the one’s we think they will make.
The conversation ended up very, very lengthy (but believe me, it’s a good lengthy. You’ll enjoy) and we decided to break the Great NBA Draft Debate into two parts, with Part I running right now, and Part II on Thursday.
With the first pick in the draft, Aaron Torres and the Washington Wizards are on the clock…
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When I decided a few months back to schedule a vacation for this past weekend, the timing seemed perfect. There'd be no football or basketball on TV, allowing me to focus on the important things you're supposed to on vacation, namely eating unhealthy food, poisoning your body with alcohol, and catching some sun by the pool. Or as my friend Syed calls it, "Getting your burn on."Of course, as it turns out, I was wrong. If there was one weekend in the past few months that I needed to be in front of the TV and a computer, this was the one. Game 7 of the NBA Finals. World Cup coverage in the late morning and early afternoon. The U.S. Open taking over in the late afternoon and early evening. Wimbledon starting Monday.
By Saturday my head was spinning with potential column ideas for when I returned to work on Tuesday. Would it be too late to talk about the NBA Finals? What if Tiger Woods won at Pebble Beach? Could I squeeze out 1500 words on my trip to Washington D.C. and the Nationals game I attended on Friday night? What about the World Cup? At a time of the year when most sports writers are scraping and clawing for story ideas, I actually had too much to write about, which isn't necessarily the worst thing. With all this in the back of my mind, I hit the town for one last time Saturday night, actually feeling a little guilty for not being in front of my computer.
Despite it, I was actually having a good time, at least until a text came, from my mom at 10:53 p.m. All it told me was that Manute Bol had passed away at the age of 47. The World Cup and U.S. Open would have to wait. I had my column for Tuesday.
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To those of you who've been waiting for an NBA Finals preview from me, you've been patient, and I appreciate it.
For the last few days I've been going back and forth, up and down, left and right, trying to find an interesting angle, something out of the ordinary to share with you. Much like Kenyon Martin playing Scrabble though, I've really got nothing.
The Celtics-Lakers rivalry? Overplayed. Kobe continuing to obliterate LeBron in the "Best player in the world," debate? Ehh. East Coast vs. West Coast, Rajon Rondo's back, or the fact that Ron Artest is attempting to become the first certifiably insane person to win an NBA title? Booooooooring.
So instead of trying to sell you on a bogus bag of goods, I'm just going to give you a straight, ho-hum, player for player, position for position breakdown of everything you need to know heading into these Finals.
No fancy gimmicks. No crazy theories. Just, roughly 3,000 words of good old-fashioned basketball talk.
Enjoy.
For those of you who listened to my podcast last week with HoopsAddict.com's Rashad Mobley, you know we talked a lot of basketball that day: The NBA Draft, his Wizards, a ton on the Boston-Orlando series.
But when it came time to talk about the Suns and Lakers, we simply glossed over those two, with me even saying, "There are only so many ways to say that the Lakers are just better than the Suns." At the time, both Rashad and I figured that Phoenix might be able to ride their home crowd to a Game 3 win, but after that the series would be over. Game, set, match.
Well, just six days later, here we are, with the Suns having tied the Western Conference Finals at 2-2 on Tuesday night, leaving the Lakers confused, bickering, and looking for answers.
So how did this happen? How did a matchup that was seemingly as one sided as a pie eating contest between Rosie O'Donnell and Jennifer Aniston turn into a series? I'm still not sure.
Either way, here are six thoughts from Tuesday night's improbable Phoenix win.
For the second time in a week, I got stuck in a semi-conundrum last night.
There was no basketball on TV, which in my eyes, basically meant there was nothing on TV period. As much as I like baseball, I dunno, there's something about the monotony of it that drives me crazy. Kind of like one of those "Lions attacking antelopes," documentaries on the Discovery Channel, watching baseball sounds like a good idea in principle, until you turn it on. Then four minutes pass, Daisuke Matsuzaka has thrown a grand total of two pitches, and you start thinking to yourself, "What the hell am I doing with my life."
Like any early summer night, I tried everything to squash my boredom. Played around on my computer. Went for a run. Cleaned. Even called my favorite escort service, but unfortunately no one picked up (I'm kidding of course). And after all that, it was still only 8:30. Damn.
As I sat down to grab a bite to eat, I finally relented and flipped on the YES Network- a New York City TV sports station- hoping to catch the Yankees-Rays game. Nope, no luck. Instead, the simulcast of Mike Francesa's radio show was on replay. Oh well.
And then...
Wait a second...
Francesa was talking to Mikhail Prokhorov, the new owner of the New Jersey Nets.
Within seconds I was fascinated. I was captivated. My house could have literally been invaded by Somali pirates and I wouldn't have flinched.
Back in December, I called LeBron James impending free agency, "The story that's not really a story, but still kind of is a story, that everyone feels dirty for talking about, but can't stop talking about anyway."
Well here we are six months later, and that story that's not really a story, has now become the only story that anybody wants to talk about. Even as four teams are still battling for an NBA Championship.
Will LeBron go to Chicago? The Clippers? Take the Russian billionaire's money and hang out on the Jersey Shore? Go to New York? Stay in Cleveland?
No one is quite sure where LeBron will sign or when, only that's it going to happen in the next few months (Although by the time the ink dries on James' contract it might feel like two decades...or more). But now, like the plot of any really bad Nic Cage action movie, a new name has emerged in the cyclone surrounding LeBron James upcoming NBA-nuptuals.
That's right folks, just when this story couldn't get any goofier, it just did, as here comes Kentucky coach John Calipari sauntering down the NBA's yellow brick road.
As hard as it is to believe, it has been over a full week since any team from the Western Conference has played in a real, sanctioned NBA Playoff game. The Suns closed out the Spurs two Sunday's ago, and the Lakers followed suit the next night in Utah, meaning there has been one LONG layoff since either Los Angeles or Phoenix has stepped on the court.
And despite all the NBA coverage over the last week, we still really haven't heard much about either of these teams lately. Especially after the Cavaliers got eliminated from the playoffs last Thursday, leading to "LeBron James' Future," becoming the lead story on every ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNNews, ABC, Fox News, BET, Telemundo and HGTV broadcast. I even think Oprah is weighing in on the subject later this afternoon.
With that, I know you all might be a little out of the loop, as we get set for Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals tonight.
Which is why I'm here. And I come bearing a gift: The Western Conference Finals: 15 Reasons To Be Excited
