Sports Then and Now

When healthy, Yao Ming towered over the NBA.

In a perfect world he would have played another five years and be best remembered for having a Dirk Nowitzki –like moment where he put the Houston Rockets on his back and carried them to an NBA title. However, that was not the destiny for the NBA’s first Chinese superstar as fragile feet proved to be too much for Yao Ming to overcome.

Now that he has officially retired from the NBA after missing 250 games over the last six seasons, we are left to wonder what might have been had Ming’s body allowed him to live up to his full potential.

Unlike fellow NBA top pick Greg Odom, whose entire NBA career has been marred by injuries, we were able to get a glimpse of the talents of the 7-foot-6 Yao Ming during his first three seasons in the league.

After being the first overall pick in the NBA draft by the Houston Rockets in 2002, Ming played in 244 of 246 games during his first three NBA seasons. During that time, his production continued to increase from 13.5 points as a rookie to 17.5 in his second year and 18.3 during his third season.

His first battle with an injury occurred during the 2005-2006 season when Ming developed osteomyelitis in his big toe and missed 25 games. However, he quickly recovered from the injury and had his finest season to-date with averages of 22.3 points and 10.4 rebounds.

The Chinese born player was also becoming the NBA’s biggest global superstar and one of its most popular players. He was named to the NBA All-Star team every year between 2003 and 2009 and often received the most All-Star votes of any player. Read the rest of this entry →

The Miami Heat were must-see TV this year, but there were many other teams that NBA fans tuned in to watch.

It has now been one year since “The Decision”, the infamous one-hour show on ESPN where LeBron James announced that he would be “taking my talents to South Beach” to join Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami to play for the Heat.

According to some members of the media, it was this one hour that was the sole reason for the NBA to have their best season since Michael Jordan and the Bulls in the late 1990s.

But in my opinion, the league had been gaining momentum in the previous few years prior to “The Decision”.

The NBA’s resurgence really began during the 2007-08 season when the league’s two most legendary franchises, the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers, returned to championship prominence and ended up meeting in the Finals.

Ratings for that year’s playoffs and NBA Finals increased significantly from the year before where ratings for the NBA Finals reached an all-time low when the San Antonio Spurs swept the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The Celtics and the Lakers have remained title contenders in the three seasons after their meeting in the 2008 Finals as Los Angeles would go on to win the next two NBA championships, including a seven-game series win over the Celtics in 2010. Read the rest of this entry →

Dirk Nowitzki can now add the words "NBA champion" to his resume.

After 13 years in the NBA, Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki is finally a NBA champion.

But he is not the only great player to win a NBA title after years of heartbreak.

Here are the 10 greatest championship breakthroughs in NBA history.

This list is not solely based on the greatness of the player, but how many disappointments that player or players had to go through before getting that elusive championship.

With that said, here is the list:

10. Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, and Paul Pierce, 2008 Boston Celtics
In the summer of 2007, the Boston Celtics traded for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett to join mainstay Paul Pierce to lead the Boston Celtics back from the doldrums of the NBA.

“The Big Three” lead the Celtics on the greatest single-season turnaround in NBA history, as the Celtics won 66 games during the regular season after winning 24 games the previous season, and then advanced to the NBA Finals, where they defeated the Los Angeles Lakers in six games for the franchise’s first NBA championship in 22 years and the first NBA title for Allen, Garnett, and Pierce.

9. Hakeem Olajuwon, 1994 Houston Rockets
“Hakeem the Dream” took his place among the great centers to play the game as he led the Houston Rockets to the NBA championship in 1994.

In a match-up of All-Star centers who had never won a NBA title, Olajuwon dominated Knicks center Patrick Ewing to win his first NBA title in his tenth NBA season.

“Hakeem the Dream” averaged 26.9 points, 9.1 rebounds, and 3.9 blocks per game in the seven games and made the game-saving play at the end of Game 6 in which he blocked John Starks’ potential game-winning three-pointer in the final seconds, to preserve a Houston victory and force a Game 7, where he scored 25 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to clinch the title for the Rockets.

One year later, Olajuwon and the Rockets won the title again, this time giving Clyde Drexler his first NBA title after 12 NBA seasons. Read the rest of this entry →

Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks claimed their first NBA title.

Though most of the attention and focus was given to the Miami Heat and their “big three”, the Dallas Mavericks and their superstar Dirk Nowitzki stole the show and the Larry O’Brien Trophy as the NBA Champions for the 2010-2011 season.

After losing two of the first three games of the series, the Mavericks won the last three games, including a 105-95 victory in game six on the Heat’s home floor, to win the first title in team history.

Much will be written about the “collapse” of the Heat and disappointing fourth quarter performances of LeBron James in the final three games of the series. However, what is truly deserving of ink is the grit and determination of Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Jason Terry and the Mavericks.

For the last decade the Mavericks have made a habit of posting a great regular season, only to fold in the playoffs. Over a 10 year span, they lost in the first round of the playoffs four times, the Western Conference semifinals four times, the Western Conference finals once and the NBA finals once. Read the rest of this entry →

It isn't yet clear how the 2011 Finals will impact LeBron's legacy.

From the day he announced that he was leaving Cleveland and taking his talents to South Beach, LeBron James has been under a media microscope that judges his legacy from game to game. Now after consecutive sub-par performances and with the Miami Heat trailing the Dallas Mavericks three games to two, it really is time for James to determine how people will look at him for years to come.

When James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade teamed up to form the “Big Three”, they talked about winning multiple championships and many across the league predicted a dynasty in the making.

However, many, including myself, also thought it would take the Heat a couple years to get comfortable playing together and finding the right supporting cast and that Boston and the Lakers would have one more championship battle before the dawning of the Heat Era.

That Miami dispatched of both the Celtics and the Chicago Bulls so easily in the Eastern Conference playoffs made us forget just how hard it is to get over the hump and win that first NBA Championship. Read the rest of this entry →

At his peak Shaquille O'Neal was the most dominant player in the NBA.

There is little debate  that Shaquille O’Neal, who finally announced yesterday that he was retiring from the NBA, stuck around a couple years too long, but even the memories of him laboring up and down the floor for the Boston Celtics cannot taint his career as one of the best players of his generation.

We are quick today to throw out the names of Lebron, Kobe and Derrick Rose when discussing the best player in the NBA, but when Michael Jordan retired from the NBA for the second time in 1998, his position as the best player in the game didn’t go to a forward or guard, but instead to a 7-foot-1 center who was as athletic as any big man in league history.

From the time he entered the NBA with his fresh personality and illuminating smile, Shaquille O’Neal was more than a great player, he was a dominant presence both on and off the court.

During his four seasons in Orlando, he captivated the city and the league. Teaming with Penny Hardaway, Nick Anderson and Dennis Scott, he led Orlando to the NBA Finals in 1995 and could have likely spent a decade making Orlando a basketball power.

But Shaq always had his eye on more than just basketball and after just four seasons in Orlando left for the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles.

When Shaq was selected in 1996 as one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history after just four years in the league he wasn’t chosen as much on the merits of his accomplishments as the promise of what he could become. Read the rest of this entry →