Hov's Kings - Retired

[hova-]

Thank you guys! I wanted to post a Demarcus Cousins article or some story line tonight, but instead went to Uni and played some basketball (I think I did the right thing). I actually hit some mid range Js (I usually can't hit shit despite having a normal shooting form imho) and had some good layups in traffic. Was fun. One swat, too.

This one will be up and running when I'm back. Pauses always ignite me in a way - should be fun. So five days no Hova. Take care!

[rise]

Have fun, man!

[dare]

Nice recaps I remember using that kind of recap. Have a great time man

[hova-]

Hey guys, Cambridge & London were actually great. I did not expect London to be such a great city at all. I've been to Paris last year and thought it was big. But London definitely surprised me by being such a busy, loud and mixed cultural city. While I guess Paris is bigger and has more sights to offer (just my opinion), London is just as busy as I imagine those big US cities (never been in the US) to be.

Picadilly circus and Oxford street are really crowded as hell, cannot even compare that to Champs Elysee.

Cambridge is also great, a small town which is pretty much dominated by students (like 30 000 in a 120 000 inhabitants town). Those freaking old elite colleges look really great.

So much about the UK, I hope I can go back there. Although there is like a bit of a rivalry between England and Germany (making fun of each other - football rivalry), I really like that country. Hope to get to Scotland some day.

Now let's go on with this. I'm definitely motivated to finish this season and keep this one going as long as possible. Thanks for your replies and best wishes. Let's get this going.

[debiler]

Welcome back! Glad you enjoyed it. When I visited Cambridge last year, I was surprised that there's an actual river called Cam with a bridge across. I mean, it's so obvious when you think about it.
Anyway, have fun continuing your association. Looking forward to it.

PS: Daumen drücken heute Nacht!!!

[The X]

I didn't personally like London, but hey, each to their own. Scotland's great though, except for the cold

[George7]

Welcome back hov! Nice to see that you enjoyed your time there

[kibaxx7]

Welcome back man, glad that you enjoyed your time off GO SONICS!

[Axel The Great]

Good to hear you enjoyed your trip, hov. I hope to visit Europe someday. Someday.

[Martti.]

Scotland's great though, except for the cold

You mean rain?

Anyways, glad you're back hov! Get back to this and good to hear you had a great time. London is one of the cities I definitely want to visit, alongside New York.

[hova-]

Who's your best player now?
December 20th, match against the Minnesota Timberwolves

....

It was another good game by our squad. Just after beating the Pistons and Cavs, we were right into it against the Timberwolves at home.

Demarcus Cousins had the ball on the left block. He was backing down Kevin Love all game long. Pushing his back against Love’s chest, Cousins took a few dribbles. A fake to his left – drop step to the right as he went up for the running hook. Love bumped him as Demarcus took the contact and sunk the lil hook shot.

“Two points and the foul!”, the ref yelled as Demarcus took a few steps backward to absorb the hit with a mean expression on his face.

“Timeout!”, Kurt Rambis yelled and both teams came together in the huddle.

“He fuckin’ can’t guard me, man. Them white boys can’t guard me!”, Cousins jumped into the huddle bumping chests with the bench players.

“Okay, guys. DC’s our man today. Let’s feed him as long as Love is on him. This is our mismatch”, I said as I drew up some post up plays for Cousins. "And don't forget to play D", I added as I put away the clipboard.

”Let’s go out there and take that win, 1-2-3 defense!”; I shouted. “Defense!”, the team responded.

Cousins hit the bonus freethrow and walked back into our half giving himself some chest bumps with his fist as he kept talking trash.

He had scored 29 points and already grabbed 9 boards in the game as we were up by one point against the Wolves at home with some two and a half minutes left.

The Timberwolves came right back at us. Jonny Flynn brought up the ball as Rip Hamilton ran around two screens being chased by Tyreke Evans. Hamilton kept doing that all game long wearing down Reke.

Hamilton got the ball as Evans could not keep up with him after getting hit by the screen from Love. Hamilton set up for the shot as Evans came right at him. Tyreke went up to block the shot, but Hamilton got him in the air, jumped into him and drew the foul.

"Got him, aigh", Hamilton got high fived by his team mates.

“Fuck!”, Evans was yelling. Things weren’t running nicely for him as he only hit 7-19 from the field and didn’t look particularly well out there. It seemed like the hip and achilles injuries had affected his fitness lately as he had problems to keep up with the pace.

Hamilton hit both free throws as Tyreke brought up the ball. “2-5 post up!”, I threw in the play that I wanted to see, exploiting the mismatch of DC against Kevin Love just once again.

Tyreke dribbled the ball to half court. Down by 1 with 2:13 left to go I wanted every possession to be played carefully and Cousins already had himself in great position exchanging elbows with Love and fighting to keep himself open in the low post.

Evans saw Cousins being wide open. “Give me the damn ball!”, I heard DC going at Evans. Evans looked to the other side.
He passed the ball to Delonte West just to get it back quickly. Then he faked a pass to Cousins and blew past Wesley Johnson. He took one more dribbling and then two steps. Johnson chased him from behind and tried to knock the ball out of his hands, but Tyreke managed to avoid the turnover by altering his shot and went up for the layup.

Out of nowhere suddenly Michael Beasley came over and got the nasty block on Evans, swatting the ball against Evans’ foot from where it went out of bounds. A clean play, not doubt.

The ref did not hesitate to throw his hand into the direction of our basket. “Last touched Seattle!”, he screamed.

“Why don’t you give me the fucking ball, man”, Cousins yelled at Evans. “I’m on fire, man. Them guys can’t guard me. What the fuck was that?!”, he shouted.

“Timeout!”, I quickly called time to talk the last possession. “DC, calm down, man!”, I said to Cousins.

“What the fuck is going on. Just give me the damn ball and Ima score on every possession for you”, he responded.

I took Evans to the side. “What is wrong with you? We had a play drawn up, man”, I said.

“I don’t know man, I’m just trying to get it going. Somebody tell that moron to shut the fuck up or we’re getting some problems over here”, Reke came right back at Cousins.

I just did not know what to do and pulled him out of the game and brought back Luis Chase. The game was eventually lost as the Wolves ended the game on a 9-2 run and at the end of the day I just thought “Great”. “My maybe two best players can’t get it done together”. Things weren’t going easy just once again.


...

[Fresh8]

I smell a trade

[Martti.]

I sugggest you trade Evans now, or else he will leave in a couple of years. (Happened to me)

[µTorrent]

I smell a trade

Yeah, probably i smell what Sit is cookin'

[Houndy]

I sugggest you trade Evans now, or else he will leave in a couple of years. (Happened to me)

He always leaves

[dare]

DC is your man with Chase giving him the ball. Trade Evans

[kibaxx7]

Never thought I'd say this, but 'Reke looks like leaving soon

[Valor]

I smell a trade

That, and nice chapter once again hov! welcome back from Britain!

[debiler]

Am I the only one who isn't keen on a trade? I say bench the motherfucker. He needs to learn some respect and how the game works. Play him from the bench for a couple games, but still give him good minutes. You should be able to get a nice story out of it.

[shadowgrin]

Trade both. Both are douchebags. It's not like they are talented like Kevin Durant.

[hova-]

John Wall (l. with a break-away jam) did not outplay Derrick Rose (r.), still the Wizards won against the Bulls.


Brickfest in point guard duel as Wizards outhustle Bulls

Box Score

CHICAGO, DECEMBER 12th (AP) - Andray Blatche posts 22 points and 10 rebounds as the Wizards beat the Bulls at the charity stripe.

No, it really wasn't the highly anticipated two man game. The one-on-one of the great upcoming point guards of the National Basketball Association. Neither Derrick Rose, nor John Wall were able to leave their mark on a Eastern Conference battle, which turned out to be dominated by bad shooting, many turnovers and a tough amount of fouls.

For Chicago, it was an even more bitter loss, as they were able to outscore the Wizards in three of the games' four quarters. "In the end, all you have to say is that a basketball game has 48 minutes and that it's tough to win when you foul too much", Chicago Coach Tom Thibodeau said after the game.

The Bulls were able to secure an early lead in the first, as Luol Deng started off hot and scored 10 of his game-high 27 points.

But in the 2nd quarter, the Wizards started to perform magic. John Wall, who only had 14 points and 8 assists in the ball game, stole the ball from CJ Watson and finished with a nasty jam as he was trailed by Derrick Rose (picture above). Wall's dunk capped off a 12-0 run for the Wizards who outplayed the Bulls 29-12 in the 2nd quarter and grabbed a 14 point lead at halftime.

"We said that we had to get out and play tougher", Carlos Boozer commentated the halftime speech in the locker room, where Coach Thibodeau was said to be pretty loud.

The Bulls came out of halftime and performed immediately. Derrick Rose, well defended by John Wall, set up his team mates over and over again adding 14 assists to his 16 points, a season-high for the 2-time All-Star out of Memphis. Carlos Boozer was the big profiteur of Rose's dimes as he scored 26 in the game and also added 9 rebounds.

But on the other end, the Bulls took Thibodeau's instructions too strictly as they kept fouling the Wizards way too often, despite them only shooting .41% from the field. From the charity stripe, the Wizards did not have any problems and hit 34 of a season high 42 attempts. Rashard Lewis hit 9-11 for 17 points as he only shot 3-12 from the field.

"I don't think you can blame the refs. Sure, there are ticky-tack fouls here and there, but this time it was too obvious. We came too late quite a lot and rotated poorly", Derrick Rose gave cover for the referees.

For Washinton, Andray Blatche continued his great season as he put up a double-double, 22 points and 10 rebounds. Blatche is currently averaging 16 points and almost 10 boards per game being one of the Wizard's keys in their recent wins. Javalee McGee helped out with 12 rebounds and also scored 11 points. Number two pick Darryl Spencer, who is averaging over 17 points per game this season, only scored 8 points but had 4 assists.

The Bulls were missing a spark off their bench as it only added 9 points, the same amount Jordan Crawford of the Wizards had in 5 minutes alone before injuring his ankle and leaving the floor.


NOTES: Both teams were piling up turnovers - Chicago 15; Washington 14 ... Joakim Noah fouled out with 4:10 left in the game ... the Bulls went to the line 20 times, Washington 42 ... Jordan Crawford will miss about 2 weeks with a sprained ankle ... Taj Gibson had 7 rebounds and 2 blocks in only 13 minutes of action ... the Bulls remain the third best team in the East at 15-9 ... Chicago scored 63 points in the 2nd half compared to 33 in the first ...

[hova-]

Thanks for the comments guys. It's not like Evans isn't a great player, but Coach Hova is more of a fan of skilled big men. I also think that a good inside presence is the key for a championship.

Still, there are no plans for any trades right now. The guys just ain't come along well and it's more of a fight for the franchise player spot. It all happens because DC is getting better and better. We will see how it turns out.

[Houndy]

The Wiz Kidz aren't that bad...

[hova-]

Experts still think that none of the 30 NBA franchises, even the one with the first pick in the 2012 draft should feel like they could change the direction their heading into via their upcoming selection. Simply put, this draft isn't considered to be deep at all. Still, there are interesting players, one of them is definitely Rodney Brown from the Washington Huskies.

Brown, a Seattle native, seems to be the biggest reason for a stacked Washington squad to stay on top of the Pac-10 Conference with 9 wins and only 3 losses so far in front of the UCLA Bruins.

At the moment, Rodney Brown is averaging 13.1 points, 5.4 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game, shooting .44% from the field and an astonishing .433% from down town. But it has been a long way for the 6-9 guy they call "Allen", according to his similarity to a character of the film "Hangover".

Rodney Brown started his sporting career as an offensive liner for the football team in the small Garfield Highschool in Seattle. Brown was a chubby kid at that time weighing around 260 pounds, which caused him to be the target of a lot of discrimination.

But as Brown started to lose weight in 11th grade, he fell in love with basketball. "At that time, I really did not know anything about the sport. Michael Jordan was big for sure, but I've always liked other players like Karl Malone", Brown says.

The young Rodney started to get fascinated by the NBA and worked on his game at highschool. "I played center at that time, so they had no problems with me being overweight."

Brown was still playing football at this time, but later on he decided to turn it down and make it as a basketball player. "I worked on my game and wanted to be like the great bigs, obviously Shaq was a nice idol at this time, but also I was still rooting for Malone."

But as he lost weight and also wasn't very tall, his coaches at Garfield highschool put him at the smaller positions more often. This was when Brown developed a deadly shot. Today he is regarded as one of the best shooters in the NCAA.

This was also what the scouts from the University of Washington liked about Brown. They decided to give him a scholarship and hire him for their basketball team, the Washington Huskies.

Already equipped with a great shot, Brown suddenly kept growing. At 6-9, he was now not only a deadly, but also a very tall shooter. Weighing 240 pounds he was still bulkier than many guys, but not really chubby anymore.

"So actually he had a great body for a college player by his sophomore year, which allowed him to shoot over almost anybody, but he still kept posting up other guys", Washington Coach Matt Sunder says.

Since then, Rodney Brown, who also made his graduation in physics and astronomy, has become one of the versatile players in the NCAA. His close quadrouple-double and his great shooting performances will earn him a place in the first round of the 2012 NBA draft.

If he keeps working on his conditioning and his court awareness, Brown could very well crack the top 5.

Strenghts: superb shot for a guy of his size ... pretty strong ... solid ball handling ... knows how to score inside ... great size for a shooting guard ... can play three positions ... very intelligent player ... great footwork ... good help defender ... smart on defensive rotations ... great variety of shotfakes ... durable body ...

Weaknesses: only a solid athlete ... not a good passer ... in no way a leader ... needs to speak more on the court ... one on one he can be beaten too easily ... is actually said to be a bit lazy at workouts ... seems to be quite individual ... has problems to read the defense ... his shot is only good when he gets assisted ... can't create his own opportunities ...

[homicide1550]

nice article. love the nbadraft.net style!