You have to give Dwyane Wade some credit. Even though he’s refusing to use the word “defer” in regards to his relationship with the King, Wade has conceded once again that LeBron James is arguably the best in the world, and that Miami is only as good as James is. Wade said this weekend to NBA.com, “For our team to be as successful as we need to be, we need him to be the best player in the world.” It might be obvious to anyone who watches, but for Wade to accept his current status, even if everyone else in Miami is still willing to kiss his feet, it shows how far this team has come. Even last year in the Finals, you could never tell how they wanted to play it during close games, and the team’s best players were never quite sure what to do with themselves with the game on the line. Now, everyone understands their roles, and the team often derided for being spineless in the clutch has won two straight close games on the biggest stage against two of the most ruthless “killers” in the league … The more reports that come out of Boston, the more convinced we are that the team won’t be blowing it up this summer and will instead return for the sixth year of their original three-year plan. The Celtics are planning on make a big pitch to Omer Asik, the Bulls’ restricted free agent center, and it isn’t to replace Kevin Garnett. It’s to KEEP him. Yep, Boston’s rock wants to return to the Bean – dude’s intensely loyal if you hadn’t noticed yet – but doesn’t want to return as a center. Imagine a frontline with those two? Opponents might not ever score … Of course, this was reported by a guy who’s also trying to argue the Dream Team was not the best team ever assembled because they had no point guard play and didn’t have much three-point shooting either. Maybe the team could’ve been better had Isiah Thomas not made more enemies than Jason Bourne, but citing perimeter shooting as a reason to downplay that squad? Who needs to shoot from deep when you’re dunking on every other play? … Speaking of free agents, Lou Williams and Jason Terry, nearly identical players if you take away the nine year age difference, will both be unrestricted free agents this summer. Both want to stay in their current situations, but yet can’t help but feel the pull of free agency. Terry truly values what he has in Dallas and has told us before that he wants to be one of the few players who can spend the majority of their career in one city. Williams on the other hand just wants to be shown some love. And money of course. The Philadelphia Inquirer is reporting the Philly sixth man could get a deal around $40-45 million … Keep reading to hear what David Stern wants to do about flopping …
No one hates flopping as much as we do… except for maybe David Stern. You wouldn’t think so checking out his league as currently constructed; some of these floppers make Vlade Divac look like Xavier McDaniel. But Stern wants to clean it up, and met earlier with a committee to discuss solutions. One was to treat them as flagrant fouls: contact and penalize any floppers after the game is over. They also discussed expanding instant replay for flagrant fouls and goaltending, the lottery system, and seemed to favor leaving the away from the ball foul rule as is, so coaches could continue to intentionally foul notoriously bad free throw shooters. But the flopping talks were what everyone wanted to know about. We’re definitely down with the movement. Let’s give all floppers retroactive penalties. We’ll start by sending Vlade a fine in the mail … We’re now less than two weeks away from the NBA Draft, and while many people considered Jared Sullinger a top-10 pick (including us), he just picked up some terrible news. ESPN.com reports Sullinger underwent a series of tests at the draft combine, and some NBA team doctors have advised their teams to not draft the Ohio State big man in the first round. He has some back issues that stem from tight quads and hamstrings, but the people who are talking in his camp are insisting it’s no big deal. Sullinger didn’t test well as it is, even had a few people calling him the worst athlete in the draft, so this just gives them a reason to NOT draft him. Remember what happened to Dejuan Blair once someone shed light on his knees? His stock fell off faster than Canibus. As it is, the Blazers still have two lottery selections so Sullinger shouldn’t be concerned with dropping too far … And the Bobcats are continuing to show why they’re the Bobcats. Instead of hiring someone like Jerry Sloan, they went another route. They hired a college assistant. St. John’s University assistant Mike Dunlap will be the next head coach in Charlotte. They skipped over Sloan. They passed over Brian Shaw. And they hired Mike Dunlap, who has only two years of NBA experience – as an assistant – under his belt. Only in Charlotte… Luckily for Bobcat fans, Dunlap served as the de facto head coach with St. John’s last season as Steve Lavin recuperated from prostate cancer surgery so he has experience dealing with more talented teams than Charlotte … We’re out like Roger Clemens‘ guilty charges.
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