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John Bennett’s been on the OTN team for a few weeks now, as the host of The Outside The NBA Podcast. This is the first edition of his weekly column The Lookahead, where he’ll preview the games he’s most looking forward to. He just joined Twitter and you should harass him because doesn’t worship Hubie Brown. -Ed.

1. Thursday’s TNT Doubleheader: Boston @ Miami & Lakers @ Denver

Miami looked completely lost in its season opener in Boston. Wade was understandably horrible as he played 3 minutes in the pre-season, and they barely ran an offense. That will not happen this time and while the crowd won’t be as ridiculous as it was in the Garden, it should help the Heat when Boston’s D tries to clamp down.
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Monta did this to you because he thinks Mike Conley's contract is foolish. (Dino Vournas / AP Photo)

So much is happening in the NBA right now and I’m all over the place. There were 12 games last night and I was flipping like a crazy person until NBA TV Canada finally joined the Bucks/Celtics broadcast with a couple of minutes left in the second quarter. I saw the end of the Suns/Spurs game and I’ve it got that going from the beginning on LPBB right now.

Bucks/Celtics was fantastic. Bogut might be the easiest non-Ibaka player to root for in the NBA, as long as you pretend the Ziller thing never happened. He’s a little slower than last year, but that makes him more endearing and he’s got this crazy beard now. When KG punked him, I started watching the game completely differently. My “the C’s aren’t actually hateable, look at Rondo, look at their Halloween pics!” thing went out the window and I cheered for the Bucks just as hard as I assume Woj did. Continue Reading

Luis M. Alvarez / AP Photo

There were seven games on the schedule last night, but the Knicks and Magic didn’t play because Madison Square Garden is not safe. I’ll start with the one game that came down to the wire:

The Wizards beat the Sixers 116-115 in overtime. It wouldn’t have made it to overtime if not for Cartier Martin (representing the D-League) tying the game with a last-second three-pointer that could easily have been an and-one. John Wall could not have been introduced better in the Wizards’ home opener and proceeded to put up a monster line: 29 points (on 16 shots), 13 assists, a franchise record-tying 9 steals, and, gulp, 8 turnovers. Since there are always fun numbers in overtime games, check out some other stats: Lou Williams started 0-8 but finished with 30 points on 16 shots (15-17 FT!), Elton Brand had a super-efficient 21 and 9, and Jrue Holiday had 14 points and 13 assists. I wanted a second overtime, but I was happy that Wizards fans got this win and EXTREMELY happy for Mr. Martin.
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Eric Wagman and Zombie Julian Guy-McCarvill

Runtime is 41:10.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

It’s a new season and Outside The NBA is going to be TOTALLY DIFFERENT this year.

…erm, not really. My schedule is going to remain the same as it was last year. I’m going to watch basketball at night, read about basketball during the day, and write about basketball in between.

The format’s going to be new, though. The majority of my writing will live in this space: LeBlog James. This is where I’ll recap what I’ve watched, make observations, drop stats, recommend links, share gems from my Twitter feed, etc. It’s also where I’ll post a feature every day. It’s not exactly going to be a recap column and it’s not exactly going to be a “James rants about the NBA” column. It’s a blog. By me, James. LeBlog James. It’ll generally be posted in the afternoon.

The podcast will keep going as its been for the past few weeks – recorded Thursday before the doubleheader, posted Friday. It’ll continue to sound a billion times better than it did last year, as we’re using the studio at the College of Sports Media.

John Bennett, who’s hosting the podcast now, is going to be on board as a writer, too. Julian Guy-McCarvill will have a weekly column that’ll no doubt be full of statistics and hate. Eric Wagman will be writing and podcasting at least until he leaves Canada to become a spy – I hope someone pisses him off early this season as much as Turkoglu did last year.

Aaaaanyway, let’s get to last night’s fun. It was a great, great second night in the NBA. Even better than the first, I’d say. As awesome as it was to see the huge nationally televised games and the Blazers’ 4th-quarter explosion against Phoenix on Tuesday, there’s nothing like some extreme League Pass ADD on a Wednesday featuring 13 games that are all worth checking out. Can’t tell you how much I missed the simultaneous good finishes and #leaguepassalerts.
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We know Houston’s trade deadline deal was very, very good. Few would argue that Carl Landry is a better fit than Kevin Martin and it’s not hard to understand the value of a 22-year-old big man with potential and future first-round picks, especially considering the track record of the man who has the power to use them.

It’s important to note, though, that Daryl Morey would have done the Landry-Martin swap even if he had not received all those goodies from the Knicks. If we’re to believe the reports that surfaced late last Tuesday night, the Rockets were prepared to receive Sergio Rodriguez and Kenny Thomas (and their expiring deals) from Sacramento to complete the trade if New York was not going to be involved. Continue Reading

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We’re finally back with the fifth episode of The Outside The NBA Podcast and it feels good. Julian, Wagman, and I start this one off by dredging through the Gil/Critt mess. Then, we name the official player of the podcast. We briefly touch on Ron Artest before getting into the Andre Miller situation in Portland and discussing all of the teams at the bottom of the standings (except Indiana, for some reason). Since there was only one game last night, this is actually current. Hell yes. Runtime is just over 66 minutes.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

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Oh, it has been far too long since the last BfB. Holidays and all, you know. I can promise these will be more frequent now, though. Anyway, seven games on the schedule last night and three of them turned out to be fairly big upsets. Fun! Continue Reading

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I let myself down last night, failing to keep my eyes open after the Boston/San Antonio game tipped off. Apparently you shouldn’t go for late-afternoon/early-evening drinks with co-workers when you haven’t slept properly in weeks. After waking up on my couch at 12:00 AM with freaking hockey on the TV, lesson learned. I’m not going to compound this failure with a failure to complete the third BfB, though, so bear with me as I sort through last night’s action despite missing the majority of it live. Continue Reading

Ahh, G-State. The G-Men. Okay, maybe not the G-Men, though I think they’d trade their issues for one Plaxico bullet wound. Where do I even start with these guys? They have so much talent it’s ridiculous. They play entertaining ball. They have a great crowd. There’s so much to love, yet they continue to self destruct. Continue Reading