A better basketball site.
For intelligent readers, from veteran writers.
Keep scrolling down. Good stuff here.
This year’s NBA Playoffs have been rife with medical atrocities, most of which have effected players. Now, one of the league’s best basketball minds and most prominent voices is lost to health complications.
Indiana Pacers hall of fame shooting guard Reggie Miller had words of comfort for his former coach.
What goes into winning the prestigious NBA Coach of the Year award?
Do you have to have the best record in the league? Do you have to defy the preseason odds of your team not making the playoffs? Must you overcome the absence of injured star players? Like most awards in the NBA, there are no standard guidelines as to why someone deserves votes moreso than others, and this makes it rather difficult for the writers to determine who the very best ought to be.
It was announced early Wednesday that Denver Nuggets coach George Karl would be the recipient of the elusive award for the 2012-2013 season. Is he deserving? Absolutely. It’s hard to believe that Karl has never won the award in his 25 years as a coach, and he did quite a job in leading his team to 57 wins – third best in the talent-heavy Western Conference.
That said, were there others that were just as deserving of the award, if not more? The answer has to be a yes, although again, no one has set any rules to justify any of it.
Time has a funny way of bringing things full circle.
The Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks had one of the most intense rivalries through the 1990s, thanks in large part to Reggie Miller—the Knick Killer. He earned that nickname by singlehandedly taking victory from the jaws of defeat in front of the Knicks’ faithful in Madison Square Garden.
As we move towards the postseason, it is worth looking back two decades to one of the most memorable postseasons in NBA history, 1993.
Of the half-dozen division races, none is closer than in the Central, where the Indiana Pacers and the Chicago Bulls have been tighter than lockjaw for weeks now.
The Central Division chase may be the most intriguing as well. I can’t recall the last time two teams have been this close in style, substance, record and proximity at the same time.
