The NBA World Tour Locking In Committed Players; Michael Beasley Drops 56

Michael Beasley‘s makeover project continues. Yesterday in the Oklahoma City charity game, Beasley’s team didn’t get the win – losing 176-171 in overtime – but in a game of stars, B-Easy showed he can play with anyone. He led everybody with 56 points, Still, the end result didn’t go as planned. Just as he seemingly always is, Kevin Durant was one step ahead of his boy, going for a Wilt-like line of 42 points, 26 rebounds and 11 assists. 2K numbers. KD led a team that included LeBron James (40 points) and Russell Westbrook (34 points, 13 rebounds) to a fourth quarter rally, taking out Beasley, Carmelo Anthony (43 points) and Chris Paul (14 points, 13 rebounds and 25 assists). Want to know how wild the final minute of regulation was? Here’s a recap: 54 seconds left, James Harden trey, Blue up one. 33 seconds left, KD trey, White up two. 13 seconds left, Anthony’s reverse ties it up. Then KD’s miss in the final seconds forced OT. We would say we’re surprised with Durant’s numbers, but he never has problems playing as if he’s back at Montrose Christian in these summer games. But Beasley? He showed out. What do you expect out of him once the real games start again? … The NBA World Tour is one step closer to reality; and we’ve found the next Shawn Kemp. Read more on the next page…

The NBA World Tour will probably be happening in our near future. When we first broke the story, basically everything was still up in the air: who would play, where would they play, when, how much would everyone make? Really it was just an idea that a lot of very powerful people had with a lot of very serious interest in it. Now, Chris Broussard along with ESPN Insider Ric Bucher have reported that talks have entered the contract phase of negotiations. A rumored 18 players were asked to participate in the event, with 14 contractually committing. The other four, along with several others, have expressed interest in the worldwide event. But never mind all those numbers and percentages, we’ve had enough of that these last 115 days with the NBA lockout. We want to know what the teams will be? First off, Kobe and LeBron need to be on separate teams, right? Nobody wants to see those two running up and down the floor, pretending like everything is cool, being overly passive with the basketball and excessively supportive with teammates and coaches. Screw that. We want these guys going AT EACH OTHER. We want trash talking, physicality, winks at the crowd after one scores on the other, glances at the benches reminding everyone in the game who’s actually the best. That’s what we want. But as we’ve found out in this lockout, we don’t get what we want. You know what, let’s just makes these two captains and let them pick their own teams. In a setting like this, who would you take first if we did have captains (just for example, take LeBron and Kobe as them)? A point guard to control everything or a wing player to finish plays? Someone like Derrick Rose perhaps, or maybe Dwyane Wade? You figure Kobe will do whatever to get ‘Melo on his team. Then throw KD on the other side so they can match up together. Endless storylines, secret rivalries brought to surface based on picks, different strategies on assembling the best squad. Come on, don’t make us beg … Chris Paul needs to be on ‘Melo and Amar’e Stoudemire‘s team. Deep down, you know you want CP3 to hit up the Big Apple. Don’t lie. CP3 and Anthony became close friends over the duration of this lockout, and according to ‘Melo, Paul has spent a lot of time in NY these past two offseasons, so who knows? … Deron Williams might’ve started slow in Turkey, but he had his best overseas game yet this weekend. With Nets GM Billy King in attendance, Williams went off for 24 points, 10 dimes and four boards to help Besiktas to a 100-93 win. Even with all of his initial problems, and even with the terrible earthquake striking down as well (D-Will says his family is fine), Williams seems to have eased the transition storms … How good will Andre Drummond be this year? Longtime high school scout Tom Konchalski compared him to a young Shawn Kemp, saying he runs the floor as well as any big man you’ll ever see. We saw the Midnight Madness footage. Dude can rise, and has some smoothness. Despite the high praise, Konchalski still thinks Drummond would do himself a disservice to come out after one year. He doesn’t think he’ll be ready. Seeing a kid like Drummond gearing up for college hoops – knowing there are so many nearly as talented as he is this year – has us hyped. The NBA is in a terrible position at the moment, but college basketball definitely isn’t … We’re out like Kyle Orton‘s chances of ever starting for the Broncos again.

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