NFL
By: Greg Rector
The weekly look at the NBA.
What A Birthday
Lebron James turned 25 and played against the Atlanta Hawks, he had 48 points that night. Fast forward 13 years and on his 38th birthday also facing the Atlanta Hawks and all Lebron does is go out and score 47 points. Love him or hate him, that’s simply incredible. As most know I refuse to use the “GOAT” label, instead I use “Best of their Era” and in this era, Lebron has been just that damn good. I also don’t believe he was wrong to voice his frustrations with the state of the Lakers. You can blame him partly as I have for that being the case. It will be interesting indeed if he pushes further, including a possible trade demand before the deadline.
Triple Doubles
Two guys have clearly dominated the triple-double count so far this season. The defending two-time MVP Nikola Jokic leads now with 9, while the guy many in the pre-season had as a possible MVP Luka Doncic has 8 triple-doubles, no one else has more than three. The Nuggets have surged out to the top of the Western Conference and the Mavericks have moved up to fourth. Sorry for all those who still have some sort of bias against European players, but it’s clear that right now that Jokic and Doncic are simply the most complete players at their positions in the game right now.
Jacque Vaughn
Can’t say enough positive things about the way the Brooklyn Nets have turned things around with Vaughn after he replaced Steve Nash as the head coach. The players are obviously much happier and there’s a cohesiveness that was absent when Nash was the head coach. Just another example of a guy who has paid his dues climbing up the coaching ranks and being able to get his team to play better than someone who was basically handed the job based on his reputation with no previous experience. With the run the Nets are on I can see Vaughn getting mentioned for Coach of the Year if they maintain this level.
CBA
Better prepare yourselves for a possible labor disruption coming for the 2023-2024 season. Both the league and the players association pushed back the deadline to “Opt out” of the CBA until February 8th. If things were going well in their talks they would have announced on December 15th, the deadline in the CBA originally that neither was going down that road. The issues are numerous of course. We all know what they are. One can only hope the two sides can get closer together before the first true warning of a labor disruption happens by February 8th. Sadly, I am not overly optimistic at this point that there will be a complete 2023-2024 NBA season.
Parity
The one positive from a league standpoint is we’re headed to the most parity league-wide in a very long time. Much like the NFL is ecstatic that so many Week 18 games are deciding playoff positions, the NBA is headed to a very meaningful race for the playoffs as well. It looks like we will see not just the push to be a play-in team but the conference seeding at the top could come right down to the wire as well. That will keep fans league-wide interested and TV ratings at a very high level.
That’s it for the first week of 2023 in the association.
