Basketball is back!

It was great to see basketball starting up again last night (with real games that count). I'm more of a college hoops fan than NBA, but I'll watch NBA if it is on and I like reading the box scores to see how former college stars did.

Too bad for the Trailblazers...one thing to get pasted by the conference champs. Another to have the franchise center go down (again) with injury. It looks like Oden is out 2 weeks...I'm sure they're taking it easy with him to try and prevent him from turning into another Sam Bowie. They're still looking like a fun team to watch, as Rudy Fernandez was strong off the bench in his NBA debut.

The fighting LeBrons leading the champs in the first half before faltering down the stretch wasn't a big surprise.


It was nice to see the Bulls win their first game, even if it was against the lowly Bucks. Although I'm not a huge NBA fan, the Bulls are the NBA team I root for, as I grew up in Illinois and watched His Airness. I was shocked to see Sefolosa (sp?) started next to Rose instead of Hinrich. Maybe there was a reason I didn't catch, but their backcourt off the bench of Hinrich/Gordon is an excellent one. I'm looking forward to watching Rose mature this year - he was a stud in leading his Chicago high school team to back-to-back state titles. He would have been my pick for the top draft choice over Beasley.

Here's a few season predictions, to "put to paper"....
-The Bulls will be over 0.500 and be one of the last Eastern Conference teams to make the playoffs.
-The Rookies will beat the Sophmores in the All-Star challenge (going way out on a limb there).
-Rudy Fernandez will have a better year than Jarryd Bayless, coming off the bench for Portland.
umm....I'm not so good at making risky statements. ha.
-Philly won't have the resurgence as predicted. They are playoff material, but won't get out of the first round.
-Deron Williams will finally make the All Star game, thanks in part to reduced effectiveness of Steve Nash.
-The Utah Jazz will finish 2nd to the Lakers in the Western Conference.

We'll see how many of those are worse than my prediction that Okafor would be better than Howard. haha.

Here's looking forward to the start of college hoops.....