Paul Pierce

I have been a basketball fan for a long time and have had a number of players that I strongly dislike; Rasheed Wallace, Ron Artest, and Reggie Miller to name a few, but I cannot stand Paul Pierce. The other day I was watching the daily top 10 or 5 depending on the day at nba.com and came across a Paul Pierce moment. A little background of the play was Paul Pierce drove down the middle of the lane and goes to dunk over Center Chris Bosh for the Raptors, however, if you actually watch the play he clearly sticks his leg out and kicks/knees Chris Bosh right in the man berries. Now I'm all for facial dunks but come on! The crowd goes crazy and this is a top 10 play. It should be a technical and the points should be taken back. Any player that goes in for a dunk should know that they are going to be met by someone. My feeling is that Paul Pierce knew that he was going to get blocked or contested and played a middle school card and stuck his foot out for separation.

As you can tell from the picture above Paul Pierce is in an agonizing amount of pain. It appears as though he either may never walk again or he is looking for somewhere to wipe his head. But if you remember this was during the NBA Finals during a Lakers comeback. This acting job was pathetic. While many debate if he actually was hurt I feel there is no chance anything happened. He got carried off by his team mates due to his inability to walk and then he went as far as to be put in a wheel chair. Now if I was handicap I would be offended by this. Come on you may or may not have actually bumped knees or tweaked it but there is no modern medicine that would bring you back on the court after 3 MINUTES! Another reason why Paul Pierce is just a crummy person.

My last rant on Paul Pierce has to do with the much debated gang symbol he threw up at Al Harrington in a game. Sure the Celtics were losing and yes Al Harrington did say some words his way, but really your going to flash a gang symbol on national television and pretend like your going to do something. For some reason this guy who clearly has no class what so ever is getting paid millions of dollars when he can't even be grown up enough to except losing.

Overall, Paul Pierce is a child and very large one at that. He can't accept defeat has no class and continues to believe that he is the best player in the NBA. He thrives on crying for fouls and is the biggest faker in the NBA. If he played professional soccer even they would get tired of his antics.

Lowery is back, back again

Has it really been 10 months? Rob Lowery is finally back, well I mean he is playing again. After the Xavier game last year where Lowery tore his patellar tendon, the Flyers seemed to have lost an edge they were carrying all year. Yes, we did beat the Mountaineers in our first round game, but there was a notable difference in the way the team performed. Some form of congruity was missing and was evident when we played Kansas. While I am bias and would like to say the refs gave the game to Kansas I do think had Lowery been able to play we would have at least made it a contest.

Since Coach Gregory had no idea of when Lowery was going to be able to come back I do like the change of switching Mickey Perry to back up PG behind London Warren. However, Mickey Perry is more of a shooter and offensive threat than a point guard. He has done a great job with the position he was forced into since our number two got injured, but he is a set shooter and slasher. If you look at why Mickey was able to score last year it was because he was trailing Marcus, CJ, or somebody driving to the basket and was able to set up behind the arc and put down a big 3.

As far as London goes, well I'm still confused. I will confidently say that he is within the top 5 players in the nation in quickness from end to end, and he does run our team. However, I need to see something different from him. He is now in his senior year season and has yet to add a new aspect to his game. For as quick of a point guard as he is you will rarely see him drive to the basket or take his defender off the dribble when he could do it all game. I think having Lowery back gives us that much needed aspect of making defenders aware that we will drive to the basket rather than just pretending to and kicking the ball out for a 3. Having Lowery back is a bright spot for this season that has seemed to fall into the old Flyers way.

While I am happy to see Lowery back on the court, especially when in his first game back he went 3 for 3 shooting with 2 of them beyond the arc, he is not 100% back. We're going to need to give him some time until his knee's swelling goes down and is not sore anymore. Once the pain lessens all he needs is to get his lungs back and we'll have that star point guard rotation again.

I want to formally say Welcome back Rob Lowery we have missed you.

THE DAYTON FLYERS PLAY OLD DOMINION ON FRIDAY @ 7 p.m. in the University of Dayton Arena

LeBron "The Drama King" James

So for once in my life I'm actually agreeing with Skip Bayless and his opinion about something in sports. Earlier this week he spoke on behalf of the LeBron James - Nike video scandal and talked about how LeBron is just taking the game too seriously and can't laugh at something like this. While I personally have not taken LeBron James as my savior and the "King" of basketball I do appreciate his ability and high level of play, however, not England or the NBA has crowned him king yet and lately I don't think the fans should either. The basketball world and a great deal of ESPN coverage has put a halo on top of LeBron ever since he got in the NBA and while it may seem as though none of this constant attention has gone to his head I believe it is just starting to become more obvious to the public eye.

In my first encounter with LeBron James I went to see him play against the Bulls at the United Center in his 3rd year in the NBA. I was very impressed considering he was only a couple years older than me and had an appearance that could only be explained if he had been fed steroids in his baby formula as a child (possibly a solution to his freakish nature?). However, there were two things that really turned me off about the way he played the game. I had seen MJ play when I was younger and I consistently watch Kobe whenever I have the opportunity to but there was something different about LeBron. 1) Whenever he scored a bucket during the game against the defensively challenged Bulls he looked around at the people to see if they were watching what he had just did. Whether it was a layup with no one on him or a jumper in someones face from about 17 feet out he was always looking around. It seemed as though he wasn't really playing the game for a win but more for the hype and popularity that he hopes to ensue afterwards. Michael Jordan is quoted in his IMAX movie saying that every game he would know that at least one person in the stadium he was playing in front of had not seen him before and might not see him again so he wanted to put on a great performance for them. While this may sound similar to what LeBron does but the difference was during the game Michael was focused on winning, and the game at hand. LeBron appears to be more focused with the interview at halftime, the highlights later on sportscenter, and the stats he's accumulated throughout the game then the actual outcome. 2) The second thing that I don't really like about LeBron's game is the amount of flops and complaining he does when he doesn't get a call. I know that the NBA is starting to turn into European soccer but this doesn't mean that the best player in the NBA needs to flop and pretend he's getting fouled harder then he is so he has an excuse as to why he missed the shot.

ESPN recently just showcased a picture of LeBron James out wearing a shirt that said LeBron James with MVP in large font underneath it before he won the award. While many greats before him have shown grace and appreciation for the award I guarantee you would have never seen MJ, Kobe, or Larry Bird wearing a shirt like that. With each year passes with LeBron in the NBA his ego seems to be able to expand to another level. While his first couple years he was able to hide behind a young kid who was trying to be modest but now the true drama aspect of him is coming out. First, the video that finally surfaced showcasing LeBron getting dunked on. For those of you that don't know LeBron James got two handed dunked on by a player named Jordan Crawford in a pick up game at his camp, however, after the play happened LeBron told Nike representatives to grab the tapes. Second, his character can be questioned when he doesn't shake hands with the Magic after the lost in the Eastern Conference Finals. While I understand that you may be bitter after a loss especially after numerous players on your team guaranteed victory, but if you are going to put a crown on your head and sit in a thrown you should at least have the manners to congratulate the other players. I mean they did teach manners in medevil times right?

While the couple occurrences may just be accidents I think LeBron is finally starting to get the wrong type of attention his way and may start to hear boos for different reasons other then the fact that he is on an away team. If you search LeBron James on Google the first link isn't his NBA profile anymore, in fact its a news article stating how this video cover up was a bad move for him. If I were LeBron I would first off redesign my basketball shoes because there is nothing special about the Zoom LeBron 3's but secondly laugh about the incident and publicly say the kid got a step on me and threw it down like anyone that is going to go up against me should. Its basketball people get dunked on and people get blocked it just matters how you react afterwards that really shows the type of player you are...not during it.