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Every Monday, John Bennett previews the games he’s most looking forward to.

1. LA Lakers @ Utah, Friday

OH YEAH BABY! My two favourite NBA coaches are going at it in Jackson and Sloan. Here’s hoping these grumpy old farts get T’d up this Friday.
I know I praised him last week but Pau is playing unbelievable basketball and Kobe is, well, Kobe. They’ve combined for 48.4 points, 18.4 rebounds and 8.9 assists this year.
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KG's all like, "Why'd you spend so much time talking about me and Villanueva?"

We recorded a monster episode of the podcast yesterday. Part 1 is 53:39, part 2 is 33:37.

Topics covered include: The KG/Charlie V. mess, Rajon Rondo’s early-season excellence, Mike Conley and Al Horford’s contract extensions, David Kahn’s guarantee that Ricky Rubio is going to be in Minnesota next season, Baron Davis being out of shape and acting like it’s something new, Eddy Curry as a possibility for Miami, first coach/GM to be fired, our least favourite teams to watch, and the Clippers’ backcourt. Then we get to some new segments…

1) Me talking about a player that I’m loving this week… the other guys are trying to call this “Broner” but I’m vehemently opposed to this.
2) Statgasm – Julian’s numbers-themed weekly thing.
3) Predictions on last night’s games – where we guess what’ll happen in the TNT doubleheader so you can laugh at our stupidity while the results are fresh.
4) Basketball bubble – where my and Julian’s ignorance on things other than basketball is exposed for all to ridicule.

The best part of the show by far is Julian performing some of our favourite parts of Matt Moore’s Mike Conley rant.

Click here to listen to part 1.
Click here to listen to part 2.

Recommended reading:

Beckley Mason on Rajon Rondo
Matt Moore on Mike Conley’s extension @ NBA Facts & Rumors and his classic rant, in full
Moore on John Kuester
Arash Markazi’s report on Baron Davis sitting out because of his knee
Steve Perrin on Eric Bledsoe
Rob Mahoney on Eric Gordon, from the summer
And Moore AGAIN, this time on Al Horford vs. Joakim Noah

Shout-out to Brendon Lynch of the Hardcore Hoops Show for giving us an awesome pep talk before we went in the studio.

Just three games last night, but there’s lots to talk about… I’ll keep it short, though, since there’s a lengthy feature underneath this.

Chicago impressed me on both ends last night in its 110-98 win over the Blazers. Fun stats from hoopdata: The Bulls shot 14-26 from 16-23 feet and Luol Deng got his 40 points (!) on an 83.9 TS%. Insane. Thibodeau has the defense looking very, very good. I couldn’t believe how invisible Brandon Roy was.

The Kings are soon going to learn what the Blazers learned yesterday: they can’t afford to rely on late-game comebacks. Sacramento started off its 111-108 win over the Raptors playing the most porous defense I’d seen since… the beginning of the Kings/Cavs game on Saturday. The Raps should have won the game, but they only really played well defensively in the first quarter. They masked their poor D with good O for most of the game, but in the fourth the Kings played better and the crowd got louder and they Raps threw the game away. It was lots of fun to watch Reggie Evans grab 39282489 rebounds and DeMar DeRozan aggressively attack the rim, though.

I haven’t got a chance to watch much of last night’s Cippers/Spurs game yet, but I’m LOVING Richard Jefferson’s resurgence. I knew he coudn’t be as bad as he was last year again, but the guy’s averaging 17 points on 71.5 TS% (!!!!) right now. That won’t hold up, but still. And even though the Spurs won the game, Eric Gordon won the night – holy crap. One last note – Craig Smith, I know you didn’t MEAN to viciously take out George Hill last night, but you fully deserved your flagrant-2 and you can’t be high-fiving fans after a play like that. BAD RHINO!

Okay, before I get to today’s feature: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Matt Moore’s rant on the ludicrous Mike Conley extension is brilliant. I am going to read it a thousand times.

The 2010-2011 All-OTN Team

Last year, I thought it’d be fun to follow a team full of underdog types through an NBA season. The plan was to pay special attention to them in games – not difficult because I only picked guys I’d pay attention to anyway – and keep track of their progress throughout the year. If someone wrote about one of them, I’d link to it. If one of them had a great game or a spectacular play, I’d excitedly share the news. The idea was to feel a part of any success these guys had, the way you do when you follow the careers of the guys on your hometown team.

Instead of picking guys who are trying to establish themselves as role players, this year I’ve picked second-year players who are looking to make the leap from role player to more than that. I went with sophomores because last year’s rookie class is full of examples of why I love the NBA. This was meant to be a weak class. Picks weren’t worthless, but they were meant to be worth less. After Blake Griffin went down in the last game of the pre-season, we were supposed to hand the Rookie of the Year award to Tyreke Evans and be done with it.

Obviously, it didn’t shake out that way. Evans did win the award, but Stephen Curry, Brandon Jennings, and Darren Collison proved themselves to be major contributors capable of running NBA teams. And, in what might have been even more of a surprise, the draft turned out to be DEEP. There were rookies all around the league making an impact. Look at all the relevant names on this list.

So, I’ve decided this year’s All-OTN team will be full of sophomores. The guys I’ve chosen are all full of energy and enjoyable to watch. They’re definitely rotation-worthy players. I think they’re starting-quality, but none of them have a starting spot guaranteed this year. Only the power forward managed to even crack the All-Rookie Second Team last season. Here we go:
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Hey heyyy, it’s the first BfB of 2010. I’m a bit pissed at myself for letting so many days go by without an update here, but at least I’ve been really active on Twitter, right? Right? Hope that’s okay. Anyway, 4 games on the schedule last night. There’s stuff to talk about. Continue Reading

Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/Getty Images.

Barring the landscape changing with significant trades or injuries, the top 7 in the West this season is pretty much set with the Lakers, Spurs, Blazers, Nuggets, Mavericks, Jazz, and Hornets. A few interesting teams will be fighting for the chance to lose for the Lakers and I’m going to discuss them. First up, the Los Angeles Clippers.

I’m terrified to make a prediction about the L.A. Clippers. They’re a mystery. On paper they’re the eighth-best team in the conference, but I’m not the least bit confident saying that they’ll make the playoffs. In fact, if you were to tell me that you thought they would, I’d pester you to make a bet with me about it, even if it’s late-November and they’re becoming a trendy pick due to their soft early-season schedule.
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