Tag: houston rockets

Eat My Sports: Championship basketball

So we’re down to the final four of the NBA season in what has to be considered (at least through two rounds) one of the top five playoffs of all-time. But given we still have almost a full month of basketball left, let’s look at the two conference finals, and approach the task at hand. How will each one shake out? So glad you asked, let’s take a look at my expert opinion.

Denver Nuggets vs. Los Angeles Lakers
Denver is the fashionable pick to take out Kobe Bryant and the other 11 Europeans he plays with, and this makes fashion sense. The Houston Rockets, minus Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady, exposed the Lakers for what they really are, selfish, unprepared, cocky and soft. Continue reading Eat My Sports: Championship basketball

NBA Live used by NBA teams, Pacers still suck

The NBA says about half of the league’s 30 teams employ NBA Live 09 in making personnel evaluations, which, y’know, makes Electronic Arts all kinds of happy.

What makes NBA Live 09 better than the competition, NBA 2K9, is a feature called Dynamic DNA. Essentially, the DNA system is a statistical aggregator that feeds new information such as shot and scoring tendencies directly into the game. The reason why GMs would want to use it is that it’s constantly updated and directly affects gameplay.

Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets, is a devotee of talent-evaluation demigod Billy Beane (the general manager of Major League Baseball’s Oakland Athletics), and swears by video games — and not as a diversion.

“I don’t play EA Sports as a game. I use it as a tool,” he says.

Pretty impressive, right? I mean, it sounds like NBA Live just can’t be stopped by anything, right?

Yeah, keep thinking that.

Eat My Sports: Houston, we don’t have a problem

This is the part of the NBA season where I get interested. No, not because my Knicks are making a late-season surge into the putrid Eastern Conference playoff standings, not because those “Where ____ Happens” commercials are appealing (side note: someone should really take a stand alone shot of Nick Anderson in the 1995 NBA Finals and write “Where $#!% Happens”). It’s because I find a team to latch on to and root for them for about six to eight weeks because it’s the only thing happening where a game means something. And for those of you attempting to call me out on abandoning my team, the last time the Knicks made a legitimate playoff appearance was in 2001, the 2004 appearance with Stephon “Thanks for sending another franchise down the drain” Marbury never happened in my mind. Continue reading Eat My Sports: Houston, we don’t have a problem