Carmelo Anthony...

Of the numerous trades that happened the night of February 22^nd, the most notable trade in the NBA has got to be Carmelo Anthony’s move to the Knicks. Carmelo Anthony has wanted to play for the Knicks for a very long time and now has finally gotten his wish to become reality. The trade itself seemed a little lopsided towards the Nuggets, but the Nuggets played this trade very well because after seeing what happened to teams who lost their franchise players, they wanted to make the most of this trade. For this trade the Knicks received Forward Carmelo Anthony, Guard Chauncey Billups, Forward Renaldo Blackman, Guard Anthony Carter, and Center Sheldon Williams. The Nuggets received Forward Wilson Chandler, Guard Raymond Felton, Forward Danilo Gallinari, Center Kosta Koufous, Center Tomfey Mozgov, $3 million in cash, 2014 first-round pick, and 2012 & 2013 second-round picks. This trade definitely benefits both teams a lot and helps with the cores for both teams.

Carmelo’s impact was immediately shown during his first game as a Knick versus the Bucks, where Carmelo Anthony scored 27 points and his partner from the Nuggets, Chauncey Billups, scored 21 points to help the Knicks win the game against the Bucks 114 to 108.

A lot of people have mixed feelings towards this trade because some people, Knick fans, love the fact that Carmelo has joined the Knicks to play. Other people find it not as entertaining to see the Eastern Conference so stacked with star players compared to their Western counterparts. These people think that the distribution of key players should be all over the conferences to make basketball games more interesting.

ALL STAR WEEKEND!!

One of the most exciting events during the NBA season is the All Star weekend. This year's All Star weekend, as well as the ones before, is going to be action packed and the excitement is just uncontrollable. The events that will be shown are the T-Mobile Rookie Challenge, Haier Shooting Stars, Taco Bell Skills Challenge, Foot Locker 3-Point Contest, Sprite Slam Dunk Contest, and the All Star Game.One of the most exciting events during the NBA season is the All Star weekend. This year's All Star weekend, as well as the ones before, is going to be action packed and the excitement is just uncontrollable. The events that will be shown are the T-Mobile Rookie Challenge, Haier Shooting Stars, Taco Bell Skills Challenge, Foot Locker 3-Point Contest, Sprite Slam Dunk Contest, and the All Star Game.

My personal favorites are the Rookie Challenge, Dunk Contest, and the All Star Game.

The T-Mobile Rookie Challenge is when the rookies of this season face off against the “sophomores” of this season. It really is an interesting matchup because last year the rookies beat the sophomores so people are curious as to how well the rookies of this season will fair with this year’s sophomores.

The Sprite Dunk Contest, to me, is the best part of the entire All Star weekend. It gives a stage for dunkers to express their creativity and explosiveness as they perform different types of dunks to impress judges and crowds alike. I am especially excited to see Blake Griffin perform because even his regular season game dunks seem like they belong in a dunk contest.

The All Star game is just so entertaining to watch the best players of both the Western and Eastern Conference come together to put on a show for the audience. Some players fool around and do stuff they usually don’t do, like Dwight Howard, last year, shot his only 3-point shot of his career at the All Star game.

This year will be exciting and interesting to watch, as always, and I’ll be back with the results after this weekend.

A Historic Night

A match up that is never boring to see again the Lakers and the Celtics were at Boston Thursday, February 10 and Ray Allen made history that night. Ray Allen broke the 3 point shooting record that was held by Reggie Miller at 2560 and Ray Allen only needed 2 more 3 pointers and he MADE 3. The crowd at Boston just went insane when the first 3 pointer tied the record and when he made the shot to pass the record, the entire arena shook from the applause and cheer.

Unfortunately, Ray Allen’s historic night was not enough to pull the Celtics through in their defeat against the Lakers, 92 – 86. Performance wise, each team did not play extraordinarily well nor did they play extremely badly. Field goal percentage, field throw percentage, and the 3 point percentage were all relatively close and it really goes to show that in tight game situations like this, you never know what to expect in the end. The lead scorers for the Los Angeles Lakers were Kobe Bryant(23 points), Lamar Odom(12 points), and Derek Fisher(5 points). The lead scorers for the Boston Celtics were Ray Allen(20 points), Kevin Garnett(11 points), and Rajon Rondo(10 points).

The biggest factor that affected the outcome of this game was probably Rajon Rondo’s inability to take advantage of crucial points when the Lakers’ defense was considerably loose. He missed 9 of his 11 shots during the final minutes of the game which really held the Celtics back to ultimately lose to the Lakers.

Other than the loss, however, it was a great night for Celtics’ fans and they got to witness history in the making. Congratulations Ray Allen!

Bulls and Clippers

The Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Clippers played Wednesday, February 2, 2011 at the Staples Center. The Clippers lost to the Bulls 106 – 88. The Clippers were outscored every quarter and the Bulls did a phenomenal job of keeping the pace throughout the game. Even though the Clippers lost this game, Blake Griffin had an outstanding game leading the team in points, rebounds, and assists, 32, 13, and 7 respectively. Unfortunately, one outstanding player could not cover for the whole team and they suffered a lost which ended the Clippers’ 9-game winning streak at home. For the Bulls, Derrick Rose led the team in points (32) and assists (11), and Taj Gibson with 12 rebounds.

The Bulls’ defense was very well played and forced the Clippers to make bad shots all throughout the game. Statistically the Bulls showed superiority over the Clippers in every category. Field Goal percentage was 51% to 47%, free throw percentage was 70% to 52%, 3 point percentage was 46% to 33%, and the list continues.

Something that should be mentioned from the game was that Blake Griffin was 4-for-13 from the free throw line which prevented him from getting a 40 point game. This could have helped him and the team drastically changing the mood of the game as well as the pace of the game. The Clippers did manage to close the lead to 2 points during the game, but that was the closest they ever got to beat the Bulls.

On a personal note, just watching Blake Griffin play is ridiculous. Every dunk that he does seems to feel like dunks that should be shown at a dunk contest. Watch out ladies and gentlemen for this young man as he is also participating in the All Star game.