The Grizzlies are looking great, the Lakers are looking not so great? The Heat are off to a quick 2-0 series lead over the Celtics while the Bulls just won to go up 2-1 in their series in which they lost the first game. That's just this round. As a whole the playoffs have been full of surprises this year, there's no doubt about that, but where are we right now?
Of course the answer to the question posed in the title of this is yes, but more of the focus here is looking at how out of control the sports media here is using a few recent examples. This is mainly basketball based, but it will touch on a few cases outside of baseball.
Without even thinking about it for more than a few seconds it is very clear that basketball games have greatly evolved. From the earliest games on the Atari to the critically acclaimed NBA2K11 that we now have. We went from generic pixels that somewhat resembled the human form being able to shoot in one way to the complex style where it is important to know how to run offensive plays for a team. This is a look at where we have come.
This year's rookie class has a ton of talent in it as well as a number of surprises. This is a ranking of the best rookies this season in an order that I feel is best fit for them. Talent is the main deciding factor, but there are other factors including injuries, and there will also be some factor of where it looks like they can go from here. This is fairly simple, so here we go!
Kevin Love has been an absolute beast this year, arguably the best power forward in the league for the first quarter or so of the season (are we at the "or so" part yet?). He's averaging better than 20 points and 15 rebounds this season, and that's after he wasn't given nearly enough minutes at the start of the season. Once his numbers even out he could be averaging closer to 23 and 16. Michael Beasley has had a resurgence in his career since joining the Timberwolves. This season he's averaging over 21 points this season, a career best by about 50% of his previous career best while shooting 47% from the field and 40% from deep. Darko Milicic is having the best year of his career, averaging over 9 points and 6 rebounds per game along with almost 3 blocks per game in just under 27 minutes per game. They have a solid starting point guard in Luke Ridnour and their backup isn't terrible either in Sebastian Telfair. There are a ton of things for fans of the Timberwolves to be excited about. However, at 6-17 (probably will be 6-18 by the time this is complete), the Timberwolves can't seem to buy a win. For a while it looked confusing to me, but now it's very understandable.
It's still too early to draw too many conclusions on the season, but we're at a point where trends are becoming very obvious. The Kings, despite having some very good players, are horrible. The Cavs and Raptors could have been worse than they've been, but are both still very poor. The Warriors started off very strong and have fallen like a rock. There are team trends and there are also player trends, the players who have made the biggest difference on their respective teams. Of course there are the awards which are handed out at the end of every season, and here are the frontrunners for each of those.
