From Dennis Velasco,
Your Guide to Basketball.
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Dennis: Okay, all joking aside, Melo definitely has a chance, especially with someone like J.R. Smith scoring from the perimeter and making defenses play honestly on Melo. Okay, how about rebound where the Beast In The Box, Dwight Howard is leading the League in boards. Do we really need to talk about this? I think we saw this coming, didn't we?
Mike: Howard's got the boards locked down for years to come.
Dennis: And the same could be said for Steve Nash and the assists category. Well, maybe a couple of more years considering his age versus Howard's. But, eventually, the assists category will be Chris Paul's to own.
Mike: I totally agree. By the way, how many years do you think Nash has left?
Dennis: Well, he'll be 33 in February, but the shape that he's in and it's basically all year for Nash, I wouldn't be surprised to see him being productive for at least the next three or four seasons. Okay, let's wrap this up, brother.
Mike: So as we end another week in the Association, this is what I've learned.... Maybe that 1,200th career coaching victory just wasn't meant to be for Don Nelson, KG can break every Wolves record, but he still needs that championship, it's nice to see that the Greg Oden era has begun, stay out of the way of Dikembe's elbows, and, finally, Utah is a great basketball state again (A winning team and they just announced a new D-League team).
Dennis: It's funny that you mention Utah because I want to talk about why everyone should believe in the Jazz. Right now, Jerry Sloan is playing his guys like Miles Davis played a trumphet, making Jazz opponents feeling "kind of blue." Sloan has always been an underrated coach in general, most likely because of where he coaches, but you don't get 999 career wins by being a bad coach. The past couple of seasons have been tough thanks to a thin roster lacking talent overall. However, this season, we're talkikng about Deron Williams stepping up his game, Carlos Boozer earning his money, Mehmet Okur doing his thing from the perimeter and boarding, rookies Paul Milsap and Ronnie Brewer showing that they can fill in, Matt Harpring doing well, and last but not least Andrei Kirilenko, who was injured (surprise, surprise) but came back strong defensively. What am I saying? Sloan has some bonafide talent there and when you mix talent and coaching acumen, you're going to end up with a very successful season.
Okay, that's it for this edition, we look forward to giving you another savory basketball chat for your eyes next week!