Insider Special: Good, Bad, & the Kitchen Sink

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The Good, the Bad, the Kitchen Sink

By Terry Brown

Tuesday, April 1 Updated 1:51 PM EST

With about 10 games to go in the regular season, the Portland Trail Blazers, 5-5 in their last 10, are 1½ games away from losing home-court advantage in the Western Conference and one game away from winning the entire Eastern Conference.

The Good

Allen Iverson, Philadelphia 76ers

Week's work: 2-1 record, 29.3 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 9.6 apg, 5 spg, 46.5% shooting

Allen Iverson scoring 30 points a game is one thing. Allen Iverson scoring 30 points a game to go along with five steals is another thing. Allen Iverson scoring 30 points a game to go along with five steals and 10 assists is something entirely different that I am not quite ready to accept.

Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers

Week's work: 3-1 record, 35.5 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 4.7 apg, 2.5 spg, 17 triples, 48% shooting

There can be no better eulogy than the 55 points scored on March 28 against the Washington Wizards. The King is dead! Long live the King!

Tracy McGrady, Orlando Magic

Week's work: 2-1 record, 35 ppg, 6 rpg, 6.6 apg, 1.6 spg, 7 triples, 50% shooting

Paul Pierce has scored fewer than 20 points in 16 games so far this season. Kobe Bryant has done it 11 times, Iverson 10 and Shaquille O'Neal nine. But in 67 games this season, T-Mac has stooped so low but four times.

Jason Kidd, New Jersey Nets

Week's work: 3-0 record, 15.6 ppg, 7.6 rpg, 12.3 apg, 3.6 spg, 5 triples, 44% shooting

It was 24 games, 52 days and 235 assists from Jason Kidd since the Nets last won three games in a row.

The Bad

Anthony Mason, Milwaukee Bucks

Weak work: 1-3 record, 1.2 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 1.2 apg, 0.7 spg, 0.2 bpg, 16% shooting

Quite possibly the worst 98 minutes of play ever turned in by a former all-star in one week.

Lucious Harris, New Jersey Nets

Weak work: 3-0 record, 3.3 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 2.6 apg, 0.3 spg, 0.3 bpg, 23% shooting

It isn't his fault that the whole Dikembe Mutombo thing never worked nor the Rodney Rogers thing never worked out, but the 41 percent shooting after getting 25 more starts, 4.8 more minutes per game and 136 more shots and counting than last season when he shot 46 percent is all his.

Andre Miller, Los Angeles Clippers

Weak work: 1-3 record, 7.7 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 4.7 apg, 0.7 spg, 0 bpg, 34% shooting

May have begun the week as the starting point guard for the worst franchise in sports history, but finished on the bench in the team's only win of the week.

Joe Smith, Minnesota Timberwolves

Weak work: 1-3 record, 6.5 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 0.5 apg, 0.2 spg, 0.2 bpg, 34% shooting

It is the stretch run for the player, for the season, for the franchise, and Smith has never played fewer minutes nor scored fewer points in his career.

The Ugly

In the Wizards' crucial 88-72 loss to the Denver Nuggets on Sunday (which dropped them to ninth place in the Eastern Conference), the Washington starters, led by Michael Jordan and Jerry Stackhouse, scored 48 points compared to the 45 scored by the Denver bench, led by the likes of Shammond Williams, Donnell Harvey and Jeff Trepagnier.

The Kitchen Sink

LESS THAN ZERO

Mike Dunleavy, Jr. is stuck between a rock and a very hard-rebounding power forward.

He isn't going to take 26-year-old Antawn Jamison's spot at small forward.

After all, Jamison (who has started 74 of 74 games there this season) was given a max extension last season and is averaging a team-high 22.4 points per game on 47 percent shooting.

He isn't going to take 22-year-old Troy Murphy's spot at power forward.

After all, Murphy (who has started 72 of his 72 games there this season) is bigger, taller, squarer in the chin, not to mention the fact that he's averaging 11.5 points and a team-high 10.2 rebounds per game.

Which leaves us with poor Mikey quite possibly being the worst No. 3 pick of the NBA Draft in the last decade and wondering why the Warriors took him there in the fourth, fifth or even sixth place.

Here are his numbers.

Mike Dunleavy, Jr.:

2003: 15.5 mpg, 5.3 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 1.2 apg, 0.6 spg, 0.2 bpg, 39% shooting

The only one close is Baron Davis, who nearly won the Most Improved Player award the following season and is an all-star now.

Baron Davis:

1999: 18.6 mpg, 5.9 ppg, 2 rpg, 3.8 apg, 1.1 spg, 0.2 bpg, 42% shooting

2000: 38.9 mpg, 13.8 ppg, 5 rpg, 7.3 apg, 2 spg, 0.4 bpg, 42% shooting

We've got Rookies of the Year on this list (Pau Gasol and Grant Hill) as well as all-stars (Jerry Stackhouse and Shareef Abdur-Rahim), former all-stars (Penny Hardaway), former College POYs (Christian Laettner), late bloomers (Chauncey Billups), big men with range (Raef LaFrentz) and your typical straight from high schooler (Darius Miles).

As a group, they've averaged between Hill's 19.9 ppg to Dunleavy's 5.3 and Gasol's 8.9 rpg to Dunleavy's 2.4. Sure, Davis and Billups averaged less rebounds per game but they were point guards. The only player on this list to average less assists per game in their rookie season than Mickey was LaFrentz, who played center and averaged 7.6 boards a contest.

Perhaps another place? Perhaps another time?

Of course, all of the No. 3 picks on this list also played more minutes than Dunleavy, Jr. and in the very near future became starters if they already weren't.

But the same can already be said for Drew Gooden, Amare Stoudemire, Nene Hilario and Caron Butler (players drafted behind Dunleavy) not to mention, ouch, a former Duke teammate drafted in the second round (32 spots behind Dunleavy), Carlos Boozer, who is averaging 9.7 points and 7.1 rebounds on 54 percent shooting for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

PARK PLACE

Cherokee Parks made one bucket in November, two in December and three in January before exploding for 22 baskets in February and 52 in March while shooting 50 percent on the season.

ON A ROLE

Perhaps the best player not to be averaging double-digits, besides Ben Wallace, is Sacramento's Doug Christie, who is shooting a career-high 48.6 percent from the field as well as 40 percent from three-point range and 81 percent from the free-throw line. He's also second in the league in steals per game at 2.3 and third on his team in assists at 4.8 to go along with his 9.9 points and 4.3 rebounds per game.

KOBE STOPPER

In his first game against the Los Angeles Lakers, Ray Allen, then a Milwaukee Buck, scored four points on 1 of 8 shooting before busting his ankle in the second quarter. Since then, as a Seattle Sonic, he's tallied 87 points, 27 rebounds, 24 assists and six steals in three games, two of them wins, to Kobe's 89 points, 11 rebounds, 17 assists and seven steals, two of them losses.

OLD SKOOL

Jason Kidd is averaging 8.8 assists per game as the league leader. John Stockton is averaging nine assists per game as a 41 year old. Take away his four worst games of the season in which he had two assists on Nov. 1 and Nov. 15, no assists on Nov. 19 and one assist on Dec. 6, and replace them with his average and he'd be at 8.61 assists per game.

SPELLING D-I-V-A-C

Scot Pollard has played a total of 15 games this season but it just so happens that 10 of them have been in the month of March, allowing the venerable Vlade Divac some much needed towel time on the bench. The 13-year veteran had been averaging 30.5 minutes per game (his highest since 1999) because of various injuries to the team but was down to 26.9 in March as Pollard tallied 5.6 points, 5.6 rebounds and 1 block per game in 15.8 minutes. Oh, yeah, the Kings also went 11-2 on the month.

O'NO

When Ron Artest or Brad Miller lead the Indiana Pacers in scoring, the team is 16-6 compared to its 16-16 record when Jermaine O'Neal is the leading scorer.

MIAMI VICE GRIP

The Milwaukee Bucks bounced back into the playoffs after the starting guard tandem of Gary Payton and Sam Cassell outscored their counterparts over the weekend 87 to 28. Of course, those counterparts were Mike James and Anthony Carter of the Miami Heat, who were replacing the injured Eddie Jones and Caron Butler.

SEVEN-FEET UP, SIX FEET UNDER

Dikembe Mutombo, 36 years old

This season: 6.9 ppg, 6.7 rpg, 0.9 apg, 0.1 spg, 1.8 bpg, 40% shooting in 405 total minutes

Marcus Camby, 29 years old

This season: 7 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 1.5 apg, 0.6 spg, 1.6 bpg, 39% shooting in 437 total minutes

NBA ESPECIAL

Minnesota Timberwolves (46-29) vs. Phoenix Suns (38-35)

Saturday, April 5, 2003

America West Arena

12:30 pm PST on Telemundo

You've got your KG, your Starbury, your Shawn Marion and Wally Szczerbiak, one team fighting off regular-season elimination and the other a first-round matchup with the San Antonio Spurs (which is about the same thing). So grab your nachos and jalapenos. It doesn't get any hotter than this. GOOOOOOAAAL!!

THE END "A loss is a loss when you just lose a game. A loss isn't a loss when it's over at the end of the first quarter. I don't know if I've lost this bad or by that much in anything -- video game, pool, basketball -- anything."

—Jalen Rose contemplating fooseball