Spurs of the Moment

The Spurs beat the Wizards on Sunday 94-80. As you can imagine this wasn’t exactly a close game as the Wiz shot 38% from the field and were missing Andray Blatche and JaVale McGee who were suspended.

So yeah, the Spurs won despite the Ghost of Rashard Lewis putting up 21 points and 12 rebounds. He may still have some life left in him, but I doubt he will grab double-digit rebounds more than five times the rest of the season. John Wall did return from injury and played almost 20 minutes off the bench. It might be time to sell high on Nick Young and Kirk Hinrich. Josh Howard wasn’t too bad for Washington, scoring 11 points with six boards in 24 minutes off the bench. I think he is close to usurping Al Thornton’s role as the starting small forward. Now might be a good time to pick up Howard and drop or trade Thornton, although to be honest if you still have Thornton on your fantasy squad you may have bigger problems.

Tony Parker had a monster game of his own with 20 points, 14 assists, and six boards.  Manu Ginobili also added 21 points, and George Hill returned from his own injury woes to score 11  off the bench. I think Hill’s return means Gary Neal is going back to the pine in a minute. Oh well, it was a good run. He might be worth hanging onto in fantasy leagues for another week just to see how things shake out, but I think you can find better value on the waiver wire.

So the NBA draft lottery was held last night before the tip-off of the Celtics-Magic game, and the Wizards won the first overall pick. So now the Wizards are faced with several different decisions: A) Draft Evan Turner instead of the projected and consensus #1 pick, John Wall, B) Draft Wall and send Arenas packing, or C) Draft Wall and keep Arenas and see how that pans out. They could even trade the pick, although I think that it’s unlikely. I find it funny since Arenas is the one who basically derailed the Wizards last season with his firearm shenanigans, yet the team chose to keep him and move damn near everyone else. Perhaps it’s because they still believe in him, but I think they just know that they won’t get near the value they want by dumping him, assuming anyone would trade for his ginormous contract and questionable judgement. At any rate, now they are faced with the prospect of having two point guards and trying to make it work, trading the pick, trading Arenas (good luck with that), or drafting Turner. It’ sounds messed up, but then again, that’s not really a very bad problem to have.

So after the draft lottery we got to watch Orlando squander home-court advantage by losing again to the Celtics. Let me just say this: I stand corrected. Boston is legit and Rondo is THE reason I am watching this series. Rondo looks like he is 12, but that’s a bad man and he should be counted among the NBA’s top point guards more often than he is. Nash, Deron, CP3, Kidd, Rose… those guys always get the love, but Rondo has the ring and is well on his way to another one. The Celtics are primed to get back to the top and duel the Lakers, showing that the only reason LA won last year was thanks to KG’s injury derailing Boston’s season. I’d buy that. Orlando meanwhile… what can I say? It’s hard to win it all when your best player shoots free throws like a drunken Shaq, Rashard Lewis is giving you like five points a game, and Vince Carter looks like he is preparing excuses like when he slipped and then laid there for ten minutes writhing as if he’d been shot.

I don’t care who wins tho, just so long as it isn’t the Lakers, and right now I think that Boston is the team to beat them.