rce Odom to [...]]]> A few weeks back, I wondered if the perception of Lamar Odom as a sixth starter instead of a first reserve might prevent him from winning this season’s Sixth Man of the Year Award. Add in the constant concern that Andrew Bynum’s health might fo

rce Odom to start his way out of eligibility, and despite a standout campaign, it wasn’t clear if Odom would indeed bring the hardware home.

But as the regular season wound down, Odom’s candidacy remained strong, and Bynum stayed on the floor, popular support definitely rallied behind him. Tuesday afternoon, ESPNLA.com’s Dave McMenamin reported Odom will be tabbed as the NBA’s top sixth man.

Lamar Odom, NBA Sixth Man of the Year

It’s an honor well earned for Odom in a season in which he averaged 14.4 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 3.0 assists, nearly a block a game, shot 53 percent from the floor, and scored out very well in some of the advanced metrics. Even after moving back to the bench when Bynum returned to the lineup, Odom continued posting numbers. For a stretch, his splits off the bench and as a starter were nearly identical despite less time on the court, one reason Odom had a legitimate case to make for an All-Star berth. He’s an under-appreciated defender, and feared by opposing coaches. More importantly, in a season without much of it, Odom was the team’s most consistent player for most of the year. Given Odom’s reputation, it’s a significant statement on the quality of his play.

But statistics, while important, don’t tell the whole story. Many sixth men are, for lack of better categorization, flawed starters. Guys with a particular skill but a less-than-well rounded overall game. Obviously Odom is no such player. On most teams he’s a starter, and certainly it’s hard to find players of his talent willing to accept a role off the bench for the betterment of the team. Odom’s contributions both to the on court product and the team’s chemistry are a huge reason the Lakers are chasing a third consecutive title.

His value is difficult to overstate.

I generally don’t believe in giving out awards based on career achievements, and don’t think the writers responsible for voting are doing so, here. Odom deserves it. But particularly for a player whose career has for so long been defined by what he isn’t rather than what he is, to recognize the special body of work Odom has compiled both this year and during the championship run for the Lakers is important.

He’s a team-oriented guy who has earned the opportunity to be recognized individually, if only for a day.

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James Harden would probably be just outside the frame.

If a sculptor were molding and s buy cialis

haping everything the Thunder hope and plan to [...]]]> If a photographer were taking a snapshot of the Thunder’s future, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook would be front and center, grinning for the camera.

James Harden would probably be just outside the frame.

If a sculptor were molding and s

haping everything the Thunder hope and plan to become in the coming NBA seasons, it would be Westbrook and Durant up on the pedestal.

And Harden would be the pedestal.

James Harden played a critical role in Oklahoma City's Game 2 win over Dallas.

So in a game where the Thunder needed something to stand on to begin making a statement in the Western Conference finals, it was Harden who provided the support.

He ran, he scored, he attacked the basket on drives, he pulled up to stick in jumpers.

Harden scored 23 points, grabbed seven rebounds and dealt four assists to lead an Oklahoma City bench surge that eventually overwhelmed Dallas 106-100.

“Just playin’,” Harden said. “Just playin’.”

Durant and Westbrook. Westbrook and Durant.

It may take two to tango. But it usually takes more than just a pair of stars to dance all the way to a championship.

For all the pair of precociously-talented 22-year-old headliners have done to lift the Thunder so high so soon, it could eventually be all the things the 21-year-old Harden can do that enables them to go so far for so long.

“James has been improving ever since we drafted him,” said Thunder coach Scott Brooks. (Assistant) coach (Rex) Kalamian does a great job of really challenging him to get better every day and we have a lot of confidence in James. I personally do, our staff does.

“He made plays. He made big basketball plays. James is not just a spot-up shooter. He is a penetrator. He is a playmaker and I thought he did it all tonight.”

The second-year lefty out of Arizona State had his role on the team grow significantly when the Thunder shipped out Jeff Green at the February trade deadline in order to get center Kendrick Perkins from Boston. The move meant that Harden moved up in the pecking order in terms of opportunity and responsibility.”

“I was ready for whatever they wanted me to do,” Harden said.

In Game 2, that meant acting like the fuse on the end of a stick of dynamite as he came off the bench and took charge. After Dallas’ Jason Terry lit up OKC for 24 points in the opener of the series, the goal was to go right at him this time around, to ram the game right down Terry’s throat and give him something to worry about at the other end.

“It was just moving the ball, making the passes and taking advantage of the opportunities when they came around,” said Harden, whose game is far more aggressive than his talking.

With Harden leading the way, the Thunder bench outscored the Mavs’ bench 50-29 and made virtually all of the decisive plays down the stretch. The bench, in fact, played so well that Brooks never put the starting point guard Westbrook back into the game in the fourth quarter, allowing Eric Maynor and Harden to close out the game with fellow reserves Nick Collison and Daequan Cook on the floor with Durant.

“Sticking with Eric over Russell, I’ve done it a few times this year,” Brooks said. “It doesn’t happen often. He’s our starting point guard. But we weren’t getting a lot of things done…and I stayed with Eric.

“That’s always a decision for the last six or so minutes…But the way the game was being played, we were increasing the lead. We were making shots. I didn’t want to mess with the rhythm.”

Maynor could feel the rhythm, Collison and Cook and Durant knew all the steps, but it was Harden who provided the beat, the drive, the sheer force of his will that kept the Thunder attacking the Mavs back on their heels all night.

Harden closed out the third quarter by rising up to nail one of his four 3-pointers, got fouled by Terry and completed a four-point play to push OKC in front 77-76. Then he opened the fourth by losing Terry and knocking down another 3-pointer and the Thunder never surrendered the lead. OKC used a 14-5 burst that Harden closed out by hitting a tough jumper at the foul line to take a 10-point lead with just over three minutes to play.

“That’s what this team does. That’s what this team is about,” said Perkins. “Everybody knows that we have two of the best young players in the game in Kevin and Russell. What they miss sometimes are the other guys.”

Until James Harden comes from somewhere outside the picture frame and brings everything into focus.
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There, he’ll be watching the Portland Trail Blazers in a home playoff game vs. the Dallas Mavericks buy viagra in uk

. Love beat out Blazers forward [...]]]> It is fitting that the Minnesota Timberwolves’ Kevin Love is heading back to his hometown after winning the NBA’s Most Improved Player Award.

There, he’ll be watching the Portland Trail Blazers in a home playoff game vs. the Dallas Mavericks

. Love beat out Blazers forward LaMarcus Aldridge for his first All-Star Game appearance.

This time, Aldridge came in second in the balloting for most improved, with Golden State Warriors forward Dorrell Wright finishing third.

“I was taken back by it because the season was over,” Love said Thursday by phone as he rode to the Minneapolis airport. “That’s the best way to have it given to you, when you least expect it, so I was very humbled.”

Love averaged 20.2 points and an NBA-leading 15.2 rebounds a game. He earned 66 first-place votes and 400 of a possible 580 points. Aldridge had 11 first-place votes and 157 points.

Love was selected to replace injured Houston Rockets center Yao Ming for the All-Star Game by Commissioner David Stern.

The Timberwolves (17-65) finished with the league’s worst record. The Blazers went 48-34.

Qualifying for next year’s playoffs is high on Love’s agenda, as well as being an All-Star again.

“I always felt like I was a pretty damn good player. I just had more opportunity,” Love said of starting 73 games vs. 37 in 2009-10. ” I’m going to have the same mind-set as I did last summer and working as hard as I possibly can to improve my game.”

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And why they weren’t exchanging body bumps when the franchise finally did manage [...]]]> For anyone who didn’t quite understand, it now should be obvious why New Orleans Hornets players figuratively walked around in sackcloth and ashes during the hours after the franchise unsuccessfully attempted to trade Tyson Chandler to Oklahoma City during the 2008-09 season.

And why they weren’t exchanging body bumps when the franchise finally did manage to get rid of him, trading him to Charlotte for Emeka Okafor after that season.

Tyson Chandler: Having a Superb Year

Chandler’s Hornets teammates didn’t just love him because he was a first-rate person. They loved him because he was a top-notch teammate, too, and that evidence painfully was on display for New Orleans as Chandler and his new team, the Dallas Mavericks, swept the Lakers to advance to the Western Conference finals.

The adage, “No player is more deserving of this” applies to Chandler, who hasn’t been anything less than selfless during his NBA career and never more than when he was a Hornet.

The corners of the mouth should curl upward when we reminisce about how he ferociously dunked lob passes from Chris Paul, aggressively played help defense, fiercely grabbed rebounds, determinedly stepped out on the perimeter to play one-on-one against the likes of current teammate Dirk Nowitzki, played hurt and never complained about doing the grunt work and not being an offensive focal point.

The smiling shouldn’t stop when considering the impact Chandler has made on the Mavericks, which goes much deeper than the 6.9 points, 8.7 rebounds and 0.7 blocks he has averaged through Dallas’ first 10 playoff games.

Now, true, it’s not all that easy sometimes to like anything about the team owned by Mark Cuban. The guy can grate, and he was pretty good at that even before he criticized the league-owned Hornets for trading for Carl Landry, and taking on salary, at a time when the assumption was that the franchise needed to hold the line on payroll.

No owner has been fined more for criticizing officials, the league, etc. No owner has gotten into more tit-for-tats with opposing players. None have personified the big market-small market gap more than he has; the Mavericks don’t break out in hives at the mention of the words “luxury tax” like many other NBA franchises.

But in addition to needling that sometimes hits the mark, give Cuban this: He, or his basketball people, recognized the need for and the value of Chandler, who has fortified Dallas’ defense and provided the first line of toughness for a team that, historically, has been nothing if not soft.

The Lakers weren’t able to push around the Mavericks in the lane, like they did the Hornets. They didn’t have a field day with offensive rebounds and second-chance points.

Chandler was the main reason for that, the main reason the Mavs have to be taken a lot more seriously than they were entering the playoffs.

“We understand that defense wins championships,” Chandler said after Dallas completed its sweep of the Lakers.

“This is a team that has always had offensive firepower and, if we can stop teams on the other end, we have a great chance to win every game and make it easier on ourselves.

“This is the best we’ve played since early in the season. We came out of training camp with defense on our minds, and I felt like we started the season off right, and then with our injuries, we slipped a little.

“Playoffs start and you have to get back into the mindset of what you want to accomplish and how you want to accomplish things, and I felt like we really picked things back up.”

They’ve picked up and run with it, to within four wins of reaching the NBA Finals.

None of this is being highlighted to slight Okafor, who had a pretty good regular season for the Hornets.

Actually, at the time the trade was made it seemed like a good one. Okafor had better numbers — he averaged more points and was about equal in rebounds and blocks per game — and Chandler was recovering from injury. Chandler played 45 regular-season games that year because of an assortment of ailments.

In fact, the proposed trade to OKC fell through because Thunder doctors wouldn’t clear Chandler because of a toe injury.

What was ignored, though, was Chandler’s willingness to sacrifice his body for the good of the team. He played in the playoff series against Denver in 2009 when he’d have been better off sitting it out, and he probably did even more damage to his ankle in the process.

And what was missed by New Orleans, obviously, was the fact that he would heal and return to form, which he has.

His former teammates, to a man, probably are smiling for him. The rest of us can, too, despite the fact he’s a Maverick.

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