April, 28 2001
							Bring the Strawberries!! Bonsy FUN ON THE COURT! The main point the Kings players seem to be making this week is that their game is to have FUN! I loved Kenny Smith's enjoyment of that game. I watched the tape of "Inside the NBA" from after the game and Kenny was spinning in his chair, "I'm Jake in the Blender! Bring the strawberries!"
		Quote from the Suns Players "We are really upset with the Kings right now.  Last game they treated us like a bunch of clowns.  We deserve more respect from them."
	Kidd's comment about the Sunday game was "It wasn't pretty, but we won." He's right, that was ugly basketball. This morning in the SacBee we read that Rogers was upset at the showboating by the Kings in Wednesday's game. Kenny Smith said that's just silly. The Kings were playing ball "the way it's SUPPOSED to be played!" I get the feeling that the Suns are jealous. I'd bet a lot of players would KILL to play on this Kings team. Heck, we KNOW they would. Attitude tmh 1 I had a great feeling about the last game. I knew they would come out and win big. The great thing about the way that they played was attitude. Start to finish, the guys had that kill mind-set. I don't think it was for one game. They appear to be set on a mission. I look for another big blow-out on Sunday. Every member of the team had that "look" about them. I can't ever remember seeing that in this team before. Re: Nick, he is done on this team. I was hoping he would be "professional" like he said he would be but he was just laying down the words. He didn't do anything to deserve playing time. I like the guy but I think it would have been better to leave him off of the playoff roster and give the experience to Jabari who might have a better chance of being around next year. I would have liked to see Nick get in there the other night but I couldn't help but think about that game where he was asked to go in and help the team by preventing injuries during a non-important game. That would have been a contribution to the "team". He has proven to be a selfish player and shouldn't be awarded with minutes. C-Webb kingme4 Where did someone read about Adelman having a talk with Cwebb? It sure looked like something happened. I saw his Dad at the game. Maybe he also had a few words with him. But it still looks like he's experiencing a lot of discomfort. I bet if we knew the whole truth it would turn out that he is playing with a lot of pain. I bet he's on cortizone, which makes you appear heavier,bloated. If he would just trust his teammates more-that they don't need him to be "the man" all of the time. I really don't know what kind of effort we will see in game 3. I can't even speculate - who can with this team? Yet again, it's another "must win". No way do we want to face an elimination game in Phoenix. Now a Game 5, winner-take-all at Arco, that's a different story!!!
	Sports Illustrated for Morons Bonsy A brilliant Sports Illustrated reported was just on KHTK. Unfotunately, I missed the ending, but I caught enough to make me want to cancel my subscription. His points: 1) Jason Williams made repugnant racist statements in Oakland. Yes, he did. 2) All the fan said to him was "Get used to sitting on the bench." Only a moron would believe that's all the fan said to him. 3) That incident didn't get much national attention. Not much in Sacramento get's any national attention. How is that new? 4) Jason gets too much promotion by the NBA. Oh really? And too many fines as well. 5) Jason is only popular because he's white. Wait a minute, weren't you just complaining about how nasty Jason's racist comments were? 6) Jason gets all this attention because he's white when players like Stephon Marbury and Sam Cassell are better. And Steve Nash makes flashy plays. Hold on, you're going too fast here. You're losing your train of thought. White players get all the attention? Steve Nash is white. How come Jeff Hornacek didn't get a Nike commercial? He's white. Anyway, by this time, I was ready to puke so I turned him off. I'd heard enough. Look for the next SI issue and see this guy raise the consiousness of American's about racism. Although, what his point about racism is, I'm not all that clear. JB I heard the guy on 1140 as well. I need to find out what college this guy got a degree from so I can make sure my kids don't go there. He was obviously ticked off about the attention that Charlie Wards comments got and had to go hunting for an example of a white player making racist comments. So why not go hunt down the biggest white target he could find and do a hatchet job. He rambled all over the place from pointing fingers at the NBA for ignoring Jason's racist comments to promoting him as the great white hope. It's all hogwash. If anything, we all know that getting fined $25,000 for standing in front of a fan is not anyones idea of promoting a player. It was clear that this guy had an agenda to rip Jason and went about finding every negative story he could find and threw it all together. Nick Anderson Jeff In my mind, folks were chanting "We want Nick" for two reasons....1) because when players like Anderson, Martin and Funderburke play, it is like Sacramento giving a victory speech. Victory speeches usually suck, but they sure whip up the crowd. 2) fans in Sacramento have the impression that Anderson is a great team guy. Earlier in the season he was always out there cheering on the other guysand giving advice to the other players. The Denver story wasn't reported in the Bee until Monday, so not alot of fans had heard about what he did in the last regular season game. Personally, I think Anderson sucks. I would much rather the Kings had put Smith on the playoff roster. They should give the guy the same treatment Washington gave Mitch Richmond and not let him travel to Phoenix....Tell him he didn't make the traveling team. And take back his uniform; since energy is short these days, there is no reason to waste resources washing his uni after every game. I know the Kings organization is wouldn't do that stuff, but I certainly believe that Anderson deserves it. IBM Award and thoughts about it Fireplug Shaquille O'Neal (LAL) won the IBM Award. The IBM Award is given to the player with the highest statistical computation of the following formula: (Player PTS - FGA + REB + AST + STL + BLK - PF - TO + (team wins x 10) x 250) / (Team PTS - FGA + REB + AST + STL + BLK - PF - TO) The top 10 finishers for the IBM Award. Player                              Points Shaquille O'Neal (LAL) .... 110.21 Kevin Garnett (Min) .......   100.83 Anthony Mason (Mia) ....... 96.86 Jason Kidd (Pho) ..........    95.04 Ben Wallace (Det) .........    94.09 Dirk Nowitzki (Dal) .......     93.77 Karl Malone (Uta) .........     92.60 Tracy McGrady (Orl) .......   92.23 Tim Duncan (SA) ...........    91.92 Marcus Camby (NY) ......... 91.62 Now I know this is only one way of looking at a player's value, but it is interesting to note that Webber ain't on the list this year and Camby is. I take this to mean that if for some reason we are stuck doing a deal for Houston and Camby, then we won't exactly be getting chopped liver in return for C-Webb. Leaving the bench? Bonsy A caller into KHTK mentioned that she saw several Laker players LEAVE THE BENCH AREA during the scuffle with Horry and Davis. Surely not, because I'm sure the NBA league offices would have announced suspensions for that today, right? RIGHT? The Lakers don't get special treatment, do they? Lakers/Blazers game Reno Lady Regardless of the outcome of the game it's sad to see the Blazers self-destructing; maybe they've just reached the point where most of them don't care anymore. I think 'Sheed is pushing it so they trade him this summer. Bill Plaschke had an article in the LA Times today about the game and the Blazers' comments about Shaq's offensive fouls, kind of said since Shaq only got called for one last night that proves he doesn't commit very many fouls! So I e-mailed him a shortened version of Ken's conspiracy theory and told him a "joke" I heard at the Peppermill a week or so ago: "The NBA has a new, shortened rule book - only 2 rules. Rule 1: Don't call any fouls on Shaq. Rule 2: Call as many fouls as you can on anyone playing against Shaq." If you watch a replay of a Lakers game and slow it down when Shaq has the ball you can see him fouling as plain as day. He commits about 8-10 offensive fouls per game, 3-4 defensive ones. Heat losing again! Ceez01 Did any of the so called experts (in the media) picked the Hornets to advance to the second round? I did not think so. Those guys are NO BETTER than you or me. SandB Bill Ok Damn'it.. I know I can't be the only yahoo here that picked Miami to sweep.. jeesh On the brighter side.. Has anyone noticed that the teams Webber was praising at the start of the year are self destructing? He was high on Portland and Miami and look at both of them.. really liked what he saw from Dallas and they are one Jazz whoopin from summer break. Now lets just hope that Toronto can finish off NY in the next two games..