Around the NBA

Troy Murphy has center eligibility in Yahoo! Leagues. This is important to some people.

There is a lot of talk about how Tracy McGrady has been in the league for 10 seasons and is therefore older than his 27 years of age would suggest. T-Mac has gone as far to say that he feels his skills diminishing and will probably retire when his contract runs out in 3 seasons. I’m not going to argue with him, particularly given the condition of his back. However, I always thought he didn’t really play big minutes or become the man until he went to Orlando in his 4th season. In that 4th season he started more games (77) than his previous 3 combined (53) and averaged 40 minutes a game for the first time. His previous high was 31.2 mpg. But the plot thickens. McGrady hopes to spend time with his family and pursue baseball following his retirement. According to Craig Sager T-Mac was quite the pitcher in high school and has worked out with Roger Clemens.

Meanwhile Charles Barkley called out McGrady on the TNT halftime show, “He doesn’t want the responsibility of being a star. Nobody slows down at age 27…from 25 to 32 you’re bullet proof. Nobody can touch you.”

Whatever your stance on T-Mac you have to admit the man can pick a fight and provoke international anger.

There is a group of fans known as the Red Rowdies who attend Rockets home games. Prior to the season Jeff Van Gundy had tryouts and interviews with numerous people who hoped to join the group. Van Gundy ended up choosing 50 and buying season tickets for them. They must show up for every game, act rowdy and wear red. This is all part of his plan to regain a home court advantage as the Rockets won more games on the road last year. Once again thanks to Craig Sager for the info.

Kobe Bryant sent Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, Ernie Johnson and Reggie Miller Playstation 3s. Charles was delighted and went as far to proclaim. “I’m glad I’m rich and famous because all the free stuff is great!” There are people camping out and risking death by trampling to get their hands on these. And Kobe buys 4. Funny stuff.

It’s nice to see that Barkley hasn’t given into political correctness. As the halftime show was ending he went on a little rant about women that was seemingly out of nowhere. It started with, “Woman can’t be considered great jocks. Come on…They can be queens but they never be the king.” And he didn’t stop there, “You never buy a woman a watch because there’s a clock on the stove.”

After watching Marquis Daniels and Stephen Jackson on the court the other night I was less surprised by their pre-season hiccup.

Marty Burns recently tackled the issue of whether or not Bruce Bowen is a dirty player. One anonymous, former teammate raised an intriguing argument in Bowen’s favor:

"If anything Bruce is too nice. If he were an asshole, nobody would say anything about him. They'd be afraid he'd punch them in the face. ... But Bruce isn't like that, so Vince Carter and Ray Allen and Rip Hamilton feel they can say what they want about him.”

Upon reflection I realized that I’ve never heard anyone call Ron Artest dirty. Crazy yes, but not dirty. Although I did not research this. Still when the Pistons matched up against Artest for the first time since the Palace brawl they went out of their way to avoid saying anything about Artest or the incident. Maybe the anonymous player has a point. Meanwhile, Harlan Schreiber via True Hoop does a good job of looking at Bowen’s past incidents. Scroll down to #2. Is Bowen dirty? It makes for a great debate.