Hakeem Olajuwon. It’s the ultimate technicality but its true. There’s also Lenny Wilkens and Isaiah Thomas but Hakeem’s the first one to go in there as a player so that’s something to celebrate, no? The only Hakeem highlight that I can remember is him hitting the turnaround fadeaway jumper at the buzzer in Atlanta to sink the Hawks. That’s saying a lot. Glen Grunwald had personally knocked on his door in Houston with a contract in his hand awaiting a dream signature. He had hoped to give Vince Carter a low-post scorer. In all fairness to him the intentions were good, things just didn’t work out.
Rhetorical question: Who is going to backup Anthony Parker? The nominees are Hassan Adams, Will Solomon and Roko Ukic. **shudder**. I mean, there are holes in the wing but lest we forget we also have holes at the backup SG. Parker’s been a player that has shown that he can’t be relied upon to be extended in his playing time and Jason Kapono’s seasonal performance leaved much to be desired. Parker’s fourth quarter shooting has been woeful at times and you have to think if we start calling on him to play 35 minutes a game, he’s going to have nothing left by Game 75, let alone the post-season. You can only ask Roko Ukic to do so much in his first campaign while at the same time keeping a close eye on Jose Calderon’s minutes to ensure his legs are still there come playoff time. Lot of challenges, lots.
I don’t know how good Allan Houston is but the Knicks seem to be serious about him. If he can still shoot the ball he might not be a terrible pickup in case the Knicks drop him. All we need him to do is keep the D honest when Bosh and O’Neal are doubled. Houston’s jumper was/is prettier than Ray Allen, Reggie Miller, Dale Ellis, Dell Curry and Jason Kapono. I kid you not. I’m not advocating the move but given how we’re over the cap and close to the luxury we’ll be forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel anyway when it comes to picking up a player. So why not a proven veteran? Worst comes to worst we cut him.
The bad news is that we’re going to have some major competition in 2010 when all the big name free agents are available because the Kings are opening up a lot of cap space. The good news is that its the Kings. I don’t think either the Kings or the Raptors have a chance in hell of landing any of the primetime free agents available that summer but its good to create hope in the fan base. Hope is what kept Tom Hanks from killing himself when he was stuck on that island with that volleyball. I couldn’t quite understand the ending of that movie, too deep.
The Toronto Sun will be relaunching their website tomorrow. It’s about time, hopefully they’ll finally waken to RSS feeds and such. Lance Hornby who some of you may might know will be the latest puckhead to take a shot at covering hoops. No matter how bad he might be it’ll be tough to surpass the benchmark set by Paul Romanunk. I can say with great confidence that the Paul and Paul Fan 590 radio team had to be the worst ever. Ever.
G’day to you.
