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Sports

From Halfcourt Weekly By Gabriel Obiti

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The NBA is eternal, and new at the same time therefore, every Wednesday, you’ll find here actions and events that intrigue me from around the league within the last 7 days.

Popular, quirky, or controversial? Everything is up for consideration.

Now let me clue you in on:

Poole-ing MVP votes?

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In case you haven’t been following the NBA Finals are tied at 1-1 after 2 games in GSW.  The NBA recently released its Final MVP ladder. Now you could point to the irrelevance of such a list at this time given the number of games still to be played yet it was surprising to see Jordan Poole second behind Steph Curry.

Jordan Poole has averaged 13 points so far and has been bad enough defensively to become a problem for GSW. Apart from two deep triples in game two, which included one from halfcourt with Warriors up by 20 he has done nothing of note. Coming from the NBA, this list indicts the lenses through which the league is viewed now.

Defense matters fellas and half-court shots are cool and all but how about consistency? Sheesh.

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Lakers forming and firming up

The Lakers have appointed ex-Milwaukee Bucks assistant coach Darvin Ham as their manager after giving him a four-year contract and he has gotten to work on shaping the coaching staff for next season.

Please don’t say “the Lakers are going Ham” again. Thank you.

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Already, Rasheed Wallace has been added to the staff and Phil Handy retained. Three other assistants from last season though have been told they wouldn’t be returning including former Sacramento Kings head coach David Fizdale.

The length of his contract clearly gives him leverage in shaping the on-court produce, and in his media introduction, he mentioned multiple convos with Russell Westbrook. Keywords from what he said: Sacrifice, off-ball, and defense. Interesting right?

The Lakers need a firm structure and it looks like they’re on their way to getting it, now all that’s left is all the work. Good luck purple and gold, you’ll need it.

Kevin Durant not stopping at all.

Draymond Green has his podcast while KD has twitter. Durant’s casual use of Twitter is entertainment and recently he got into it with two new people. First, it was Green after he suggested that Steph Curry drew the defensive attention which gave KD open looks in their 2 title wins from which KD took home the Final MVP. Even after Green asked him to listen to the full gist first (which he did) he insisted that he wasn’t getting open buckets because of Steph’s double teams. Well….

Then it was Stephen A. Smith. Kevin Durant took to his favorite application to slam Stephen A for suggesting Michael Jordan ruined the game of basketball with iso-ball. And it looks like Durant isn’t letting this go.

This is happening weeks after his spat with TNT Inside the NBA crew A.K.A, the battle of the bus riders. Do you have beef with KD? Check your Twitter.

Now you tell me!

Pick a team in the NBA and say who you’ll draft if you had the chance to make the decision. Just one player, no trades.

Make-a-wish GM?

Next week, maybe I’ll have more to clue you in on?