Hooped Up

Derrick Rose is going home, and a record crowd of freshmen are following him to the NBA. The Chicago Bulls selected Rose, who grew up on the city’s South Side, with the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft Thursday night, choosing the Memphis guard over Kansas State forward Michael Beasley.  Below are the rest of the NBA draft results.

Round 1 NBA Draft Results

Second round results after the jump Read the rest of this entry »

Al Horford aka “the real rookie of the year” ,is still getting his learn on.  Take note kids, even the pros go to school.

“Doesn’t surprise me that he’s here,” Florida coach Billy Donovan said. “He’s gifted and grounded, about as good a kid as I’ve been around. He’s the type of kid that this is going to be important to him.”

“He’s not messing around. He’s a good student and a real part of the class,” said Annie Sugar, who’s teaching the Television and American Society course. Horford said he carried a 3.3 GPA into the summer session.

When the Hawks took the Celtics to seven games in the first round of the playoffs, it scrambled Horford’s academic plans.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

It’s good to see some good NBA stories being picked up by the media instead of the standard doom and gloom stuff that usually makes headlines. Good on Al Horford for obtaining more goals in life and setting a positive example. I’m sure alot of NBA players return to school for an education, but it’s never picked up by any media outlets unless it’s a slow day.

After reaching the playoffs for the first time in was seems forever, and then taking the Boston Celtics to 7 games before eventually losing.  Mike Woodson will be staying with the Atlanta Hawks.

Woodson’s current deal expires June 30, as do the contracts of his entire staff. But after two weeks of evaluations, new Hawks general manager Rick Sund has decided to stick with Woodson. “What I can tell you is that I appreciate the support my players and staff have shown throughout this time,” Woodson said. “They’ve all been great. And we’re all looking forward to the future and what can be accomplished going forward.”

Atlanta Journal-Constitution 

If the Hawks are healthy next year they should be in the playoff again with the talent they have.

The Hawks have finally found their General Manager.

The Hawks have reached an agreement with former Seattle general manager Rick Sund, who will be announced Wednesday afternoon as the team’s new general manager. The hiring of Sund, 56, wraps up a nearly four-week hiring process the Hawks kept under wraps. 

Atlanta Journal-Constitution 

Mike Bibby
Like fellow NBA star LeBron James, Bibby has been known to nervously bite and chew his nails during games. When relegated to the bench for a breather during games with the Sacramento Kings, Bibby would obsessively pick at his nails until he stumbled across a better solution: using fingernail clippers on the bench. The clippers became his superstition, and whenever Bibby came to the bench for timeouts, someone would hand him a set so he could go to work on his nails.

Caron Butler
When most of us want a glass of something heavily caffeinated that fluoresces green, we can just reach for a Mountain Dew. Sadly for Washington Wizards’ All-Star small forward Caron Butler, he can’t do the Dew whenever he wants anymore. As Butler told Dan Steinberg of the fantastic D.C. Sports Bog, he would guzzle a two-liter bottle of the sugary soda before and during every game dating back to his All-American career at the University of Connecticut. Butler would throw down half the bottle before the game, then finish it off at halftime. That is, until the Wizards clamped down and forced him to switch to a more traditional sports drink, water.

Jason Terry
Bibby and Terry, college teammates at Arizona, started another odd superstition while playing for the Wildcats. The restless pair slept in the uniform shorts the night before each Arizona game on the logic that it would make the game feel like it was starting sooner. When Terry broke into the NBA with the Atlanta Hawks, he decided to start wearing the shorts of the next day’s opponent, instead. This ritual is fairly tenuous, though, as it requires Terry to procure a pair of uniform shorts from each opposing NBA team. Although his network of connections with equipment managers and former teammates has helped him out, he had to wear Mavericks shorts before each game of the 2006 NBA Finals since he couldn’t find a pair of Heat trunks.

After months of paying attention to 4th quarters and cursing the Knicks for existing…again! The most holiest of times are upon us my friends. Here are my predictions for the first round. Now I could use my crystal ball to also predict how many games each of these match ups will go but, I left my crystal ball in the Thunder Tank.

Round 1
Western Conference
Lakers vs. Nuggests - Lakers
Jazz vs. Rockets - Rockets
Spurs vs. Suns - Suns
Hornets vs. Mavericks - Mavericks

Eastern Conference
Celtics vs. Hawks - Celtics
Cavaliers vs. Wizards - Cavaliers
Magic vs. Raptors - Magic
Pistons vs. 76ers - Pistons

The Atlanta Hawks have agreed to acquire veteran point guard Mike Bibby from the Sacramento Kings.

Hawks owner Michael Gearon Jr. says the Hawks are to send four players to the Kings. Among them are 2007 first-round pick Shelden Williams and starting point guard Anthony Johnson.

The Hawks also would send guard Tyronn Lue and veteran forward-center Lorenzen Wright to the Kings.

SI

Hawks captain Joe Johnson said he was informed before Wednesday’s game against the Los Angeles Clippers that he would be making his second straight trip to the NBA All-Star Game, which is next month in New Orleans. He will represent the Eastern Conference as a reserve, chosen by the Eastern Conference coaches.

Atlanta Journal Constitution

Two suspects were arrested and will be charged with carjacking Atlanta Hawks forward Shelden Williams at gunpoint. The men have been accused of five armed robberies near Atlanta and are being held at the Douglas County jail, police said Monday. They are to be charged in Fulton County on Williams’ carjacking but first must answer to the charges in Douglas County.

AP/SI.com

T.J. Ford slipped in when nobody was looking, in a turtleneck and a jacket, arms at his sides. But once the Toronto Raptors ‘ point guard was shown on the big screen 2:50 into the second quarter against Dallas — less than 24 hours after suffering a scary neck injury — it was his smile, and his wave, that attracted a partial standing ovation, and smiles from his teammates.

“I just wanted to show those guys that I was O.K.,” said Ford, “because the last memory they have is me being carried out on a stretcher.”

Ford had spent the previous night in an Atlanta hospital with Raptors’ assistant trainer Rory Mullen and team security chief Willis Richardson, then flew home on a chartered plane Wednesday after X-rays, a CT scan and an MRI taken in Atlanta were all negative. The plane stopped in Baltimore to pick up Raptors’ forward Jorge Garbajosa, who underwent surgery on his left leg and who is out indefinitely, before returning to Toronto.

On Wednesday, Ford felt much improved, despite barely being able to sleep. While in hospital, Ford was visited by Hawks’ rookie Al Horford, whose ill-advised foul caused Ford’s injury. Horford was afraid to go at first but eventually spent two hours with Ford, who made the rookie laugh and feel better.

“He’s a good kid,” said Ford.

National Post