A few Friday night NBA observations

1) I will start this one by saying that I still believe that Carmelo Anthony was the 2003-04 NBA Rookie of the Year, not the guy who won the award, LeBron James. And Anthony has improved tremedously since then and is a borderline franchise type of player right now. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, as things currently stand now, Anthony isn't a pimple on Lebron James' backside.
James is so athletically dominant, he can pretty much do whatever he wants on the court. He is currently more of a threat off the dribble in the halfcourt than Kobe Bryant. Please go back and read that last sentence again. He came into the league with so much hype, I desperately wanted to despise him. But his talent is boundless. He is not far away from being the best player in the NBA. His problem is that it does not appear that the Cavs have provided him with the right coach to partner up with.
LeBron has the ability to average 35 points a game. If he does that, the Cavs would probably miss the playoffs. The challenge that coach Mike Brown has in front of him is not an easy one, but I do not think he is doing a great job. Most coaches who have superstars tend to coach less and partner up more with superstars. Phil Jackson has created a legacy out of partnering up with superstars, but I digress. With James, Brown has to do both. His superstar/partner is the one that needs the most coaching. For the Cavaliers to fulfill their potential, he needs to teach a 20 year old James concepts that Michael Jordan didn't learn until he turned 30.
Firstly, James need to be one of the guys. He's too young to be an isolated superstar. His veteran teammates will resent him. A public spat with Larry Hughes doesn't help anything. It probably sounds unfair, but thats on the coach. Hughes' bad attitude and James' immaturity notwithstanding, these are your two best players. Hughes is making 13 million a year to head up LeBron's supporting cast. Squeezing Hughes on minutes in crunch time proves nothing and creates bad feelings. A very valuable simple premise of coaching commonly repeated by Jeff Van Gundy, get your best players on the floor when it matters the most.
The second point is that Brown needs to make LeBron understand that if he shoots less and passes more, the Cavs will win more. In the games so far this year that James has had 9 assists or more, the Cavs are 3-0 . In the games so far this year that LeBron has shot the ball 25 times or more, the Cavs are 0-6. He is such a talented passer and so hard to guard off the dribble, there is no reason for him to ever take a perimeter jumper off the dribble. Also, if LeBron's teammates like him more, he'll probably pass to them more. With that said, Brown is in a tough spot. Odds are LeBron will probably not learn this lesson until there is a coach partnering up with him who is wearing some jewelry.

2) So it seems like Ron Artest is getting the TO treatment for the media. But NBA general managers are somewhat smarter. Indiana pacer president Donnie Walsh reported today that he was encouraged that he got 12-15 offers. My question is whats wrong with the other 15 general managers.
The way I see it, there are only two teams in the entire NBA that should not be getting Walsh on the phone, San Antonio and Detroit. And the reason is simple, neither of these teams need to undertake the risk of trading for a psycho. But Artest would be an enormous help to every other team in the league.
As you've probably already surmised, I watch a lot of basketball, There is definitely an intensity crisis in the league. This guy is the most intense player in the league between the lines, and that includes practice. The whole league needs a guy this intense. If you're the Bulls, don't you trade Ben Gordon and Nocioni for him. If you're the Nets, wouldn't you take Artest and Jeff Foster for Vince Carter?? I guarantee guys wouldn't be laughing in the locker room after a 20 point loss.
The best teams in the NBA all have one big time perimeter defender that can make the best players in the elague work very hard for their points. The Spurs have Bruce Bowen. The Pistons have Tayshaun Prince. The Heat went out in the offseason and got themselves James Posey, who they hope can fill that role. One of the main reasons the Pacers are a title contender is because they have Artest.
Now Artest has put the Pacers in an impossible position by publicly demanding a trade. They will have trouble getting full value because he forced their hand, and his well earned reputation doesn't help. But he's the type of player whose value shows up in the most important of statistical categories, the win column.

3) As a follow up to an NBA prediction I made 6 weeks ago: It looks like I might have been dead wrong about the Nets.
Firstly, it seems like Richard Jefferson is a little too concerned with keeping up with Vince Carter offensively, he's forgetting what got him his max contract, defense. It seems like night in and night out, the best perimeter player on the other team keeps lighting him up. And Vince Carter is starting more and more to the lazy, jump shooter the Raptors traded. Combine that with a 33 year old Jason Kidd and a big man rotation that is thin and not physical, and you've got a team thats two games below .500. They may get lucky and get a 3 seed because their division is a disgrace, but I'm issuing my mea culpa now. This is not a team that advances deep in the playoffs.