Ha ha, suck it, Boston

Quick impressions on the NBA before I hit the sack to rest up for another exciting day of sitting around the Lege waiting for stuff to happen:

— For the third game in a row the Spurs were both dominant and ridiculously entertaining, just from a pure basketball standpoint. Their execution has been near flawless, and they're shooting the lights out. That owes a lot to all the lay-ups the Jazz keep giving up, which in turn leads to a ton of wide-open threes. Jazz will be a different animal at home, though.

— Watching the lottery tonight, I realized I somehow came to a conclusion on the Oden/Durant debate despite not really thinking about it for weeks. Oden has to go #1. Maybe it's because I've been watching Tim Duncan so much these last few weeks, or because I saw a ridiculous video of Oden easily doing point-guard ball-handling drills with two basketballs, but I've come around to the irreplaceable value of an anchor in the middle of the floor. If Oden learns to control the court on the offensive end like Duncan does, and he combines that with near-David-Robinson-like athletic ability? Whew, boy, watch out.

— I'm happy for the Blazers. I love Brandon Roy. They've got Lamarcus, who always seemed like a good-natured guy here at UT. And they seem to be putting together the team the right way. Nice reward for what is apparently a great fan base. Too bad their in the West, though.

— I'm not so pleased about Durant to the Sonics, mainly because I think Ray Allen plays like a whiny little twit. Although, given the other sad sacks in the lottery, this is probably the least bad scenario. Long's super-pumped about the Durant-to-Collison possibilities, so there's that, too.

— It gives me great satisfaction to see none of the tanking teams, Milwaukee, Memphis, or Boston, in the top three. I'm especially tired of the woe-is-me routine from Boston fans. Seriously, it's getting old, doubly so since this is same horse shit you pulled with the Red Sox forever. It helps none how disgracefully your team has handled the situation. Losing the Duncan lottery didn't doom your team to failure; the loads of incompetent moves after that did. The Celtics were not putting the complementary talent around Timmy that the Spurs have. It's very likely that Duncan would've jumped ship years ago, probably to the Magic, considering how close he came to leaving the Spurs in the mid-'90s (when Doc Rivers coached Orlando, no less, I think). Furthermore, all this crying about injuries is worthless blubbering: compare it to the Bobcats, who this season made a serious playoff run down the stretch despite having just as many injury problems and being just as young. They also actually seem to be attempting to put together a real team instead of an amalgam of mismatched, albeit promising, parts awaiting a savior (i.e., the next Basketball Jesus). Shut up, trade Pierce, draft the Chinese guy, and put together a real team.

— Contrary to what all these idiot experts say, Lebron James made the right play in passing to a wide open Donyell Marshall for the win the other night. Lebron James is not now, and will never be, the next Michael Jordan, so people really need to stop trying force him to play like Michael Jordan circa the best years of Michael's career.

— Damn, this is a lot longer than I intended.