NBA Mid-Season Awards:

With most NBA teams now at the halfway point of their season and the All-Star break set for this weekend, it gives me a chance to hand out some mid-season awards.

MVP:

Kevin Durant - Thunder
27 ppg, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, 51 FG %

His numbers are up across the board and in my opinion the most impressive of his stats is his 51% field goal percentage. For a non-post player to be above 50% is extremely impressive. Aside from his stats, the Thunder have the best record in the West and I believe he's less replaceable than other candidates for this award. That's the key for me, I take the meaning of "Most valuable Player" very literally. If LeBron James were to miss a few games, they still have Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. When Derrick Rose went out recently with back spasms, the Bulls went 3-2 without him including a win over the Celtics. Durant can take his defender off the dribble, he has a post-up game, he can hit the 3-point shot, he rebounds, and his defense has improved; he can do it all.

Runner-Ups: LeBron James, Derrick Rose, Tony Parker, Dwight Howard

Rookie Of The Year:

Kyrie Irving - Cavaliers
18.5 ppg, 3.5 rebounds, 5 assists, 1 steal, 48.7 FG%, 85.5 FT%, 43.6 3-pt %

Not only are Irving's numbers great, but he has Cleveland just 1 1/2 games out of playoff spot! Last season the Cavs won only 19 games all year, but they've won 13 games already out of their first 30; three games before the halfway point of their season. If their other lottery pick Tristan Thompson can fix his offensive problems, the Cavs could be a team on the rise.

Runner-Ups: Ricky Rubio, MarShon Brooks, Brandon Knight

6th Man Of The Year:

James Harden - Thunder
16.8 ppg, 4 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 37% 3-point, 2 starts in 32 games

It's not who starts, it's who finishes right? Harden may not technically be a starter, but he averages the 3rd most minutes per game on the Thunder behind Durant and Westbrook. Using some advanced, nerdy stats, Harden ranks 2nd on the team to Durant in 'Win Shares', an estimate of the number of wins contributed by a player.

Runner-Ups: Jason Terry, Thaddeus Young

Coach Of The Year:

Gregg Popovich - Spurs

Manu Ginobili has missed 23 games, Tim Duncan's minutes and numbers are down, yet the Spurs still sit in 2nd place in the Western Conference. I don't know how he does it, most fans couldn't name their starting lineup, but he continues to win.

Runner-Ups: Doug Collins, Frank Vogel

Life's Too Short

This video is from Sunday's episode of "Life's Too Short" on HBO. Liam Neeson stops by to tell Ricky Gervais that he wants to do some stand-up comedy...it's one of the funniest things I've ever watched. Make sure to watch the whole thing, it finishes strong.

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@sackedbybmac 

Tweet Of The Day:

Tip the valet a hundred dollars to stunt. Pulled up in that mean machine, leave it up front. I gotta go to work.
@JayBilas

Big Wins:

Any win is a good win, but some games are without a doubt, more important. Games against teams that you're competing with for a playoff spot like the Jazz or a division game against the Grizzlies, just means more than a game against the New York Knicks. Many people, including myself, have criticized the Rockets recently over bad losses to teams like the Warriors and Bucks because, the thought is that the Rockets would have to be nearly perfect against the bad teams to make the playoffs. However, beating teams that you're better than, or taking out the trash, isn't a guarantee. In football, the Texans last season beat the Steelers but lost to the Panthers. The New York Giants won the Super Bowl but got swept by the Redskins; slip-ups happen. The key, is that they win the more important games, the games that can decide tiebreaker scenarios for playoff spots. Over the last two weeks they've beaten the Trailblazers, Nuggets, Jazz, and Grizzlies; all teams that are either in the playoffs as of now or within 2 games of a playoff spot. Between now and March 2nd they have a couple more games against the Jazz and Nuggets; a win against the Jazz would clinch the season tiebreaker.

I wrote last week about the tough stretch of 11 games that the Rockets had coming up, and how it was comparable to the Rockets killer first 10 games in which they went 3-7. So far the Rockets are 3-2 and with 4 home games remaining, have a good chance to finish with a winning record during this 11 game test. Overall, they're now at the halfway mark of the season and at 19-14, they're on pace exactly for my projected win total of 38. If they keep this pace up, it's not impossible for them to have home-court advantage in the 1st round as the 4th seed.

Ginger Dunk Contest?

Gotta love home videos, especially one of a teenage ginger in a basement basketball 1-man dunk contest.

Circle Change:

Wonder how long it took the producers to find players that were willing to be in this commercial?

TV Tuesday:

Dirty Jobs (Discovery) - Tuesday, 8pm
Justified (FX) - Tuesday, 9pm
Tosh.O (Comedy) - Tuesday, 9pm
The Soup (E!) - Wednesday, 9pm
30 Rock (NBC) - Thursday, 7pm
Archer (FX) - Thursday, 9pm
On Freddie Roach (HBO) - Friday, 8:30
Portlandia (IFC) - Friday, 9pm

An Idiot Abroad: Bucket List (Science) - Saturday, 9pm

 Eastbound & Down (HBO) - Sunday, 9pm
Comic Book Men (AMC) - Sunday, 9pm

 Life's Too Short (HBO) - Sunday, 9:30
Pawn Stars (History) - Monday, 9pm

Follow Me On Twitter

@sackedbybmac 

Tweets Of The Day:

 If football is your religion, Happy Wilfork Tuesday.
@TheFakeESPN

Season-ending knee surgery is the tornado, and Greg Oden is the Oklahoma trailer park.
@TheFakeESPN

Weekend Recap:

Lin had another fantastic game on Sunday in the Knicks win over the defending champion Mavericks. We've come to expect good play from Lin, but if they continue to get double-digit scoring out of JR Smith and Steve Novak (29 combined yesterday), they could be dangerous. The Heat and Bulls are still clearly the two best teams in the East, but a starting lineup of Lin-Smith-Anthony-Stoudemire-Chandler could beat anyone else in the conference. The one knock on Lin, he has to cut down on his turnovers; he set an NBA record yesterday with 6 straight, 6+ turnover games.

If you missed the Lin skit from SNL, it's a must watch.

Speaking of Linsanity, predictably, the gold-diggers and attention seekers are out in full-force after Lin. Sadly, this girl who uses something other than her brain to attract men, doesn't know his name, race, or even what sport he plays. Yet, invites him to a sorority social anyway.

Post Fight, Fight:

I love boxing, but there was an embarrassing event over the weekend. The championship bout between Vitali Klitschko and Dereck Chisora on Saturday went as expected with Vitali winning on points, but the post fight press conference had a surprise. Fights at boxing weigh-ins between the two fighters aren't uncommon, but you don't often see one at the post-fight press conference between the loser and a fighter in the crowd who wasn't involved. The fight in question was between Chisora and David "The Toe" Haye. If you don't remember, several months ago Haye blamed his beating at the hands of Wladimir Klitschko (Vitali's brother) on a bad toe. He obviously was rightly made fun of, and when Haye decided to challenge and poke fun of Chisora for his loss, Chisora (the Ron Artest of boxing) made fun of Haye's "toe" and all hell broke out.

Chisora also spit in Wladimir Klitschko's face.

SI's Chris Mannix who was at the fight, describes the action.

"During the post-fight press conference David Haye, who was attending the fight as a commentator for a British outlet, started barking at Klitschko. He demanded a fight. Klitschko’s manager, Bernd Boente, told Haye unequivocally, “You’re out. You can’t talk your way into this fight.” After a few minutes, Chisora — who Haye has openly criticized — got involved. Chisora made fun of Haye’s toe. Haye made fun of Chisora’s record. Chisora challenged Haye to fight him. Haye said he would knock him out. Chisora left the dais and told Haye to say it to his face. Haye drilled him with an elbow to the chops.

From there, it was bedlam. Haye hit Chisora. Chisora hit Haye. Haye hit Chisora’s trainer, Don Charles. Someone hit Haye’s trainer, Adam Booth, who was cut at the top of his forehead. Haye swung a tripod at one of Chisora’s friends. After a few minutes of brawling, Haye left, and Chisora told Booth, “David is going to fight me or I’m going to shoot him. I’m going to shoot him in the street. I’ll burn him."

I'm sure most boxing fans are still upset, as am I, that Mayweather and Pacquiao are fighting others in May and June, but if you like boxing, you must watch Devon Alexander vs. Marcos Maidana on HBO this Saturday. Both guys are good, under 30 contenders, and Maidana in my opinion is the best action fighter in the sport today; this will be an entertaining fight.

Franchise Players:

Monday is the first day that teams can begin to give out the franchise tag to players they want to prevent from becoming free-agents, but for whatever reason also don't want to work out a long term deal with. For the Texans, the two guys talked about possibly getting the franchise tag this year are Arian Foster and Mario Williams.

I'd like to see them work out a long-term deal with Foster, something in the neighborhood of 4 years-30 million. If they can't get a deal done, they should definitely use the franchise tag, which this year would be worth $7.7 million. I know they have Ben Tate who ran for nearly 1,000 yards who could take his place, but he's not Foster. There is a belief that any back can produce in this system, and that's true to a certain extent, but very few can be stars. Olandis Gary, Reuben Droughns, and Mike Anderson ran for 1,000 yards in Denver, but they weren't Terrell Davis or Clinton Portis. Would Tate produce, yes, but he doesn't possess the speed or vision of Foster and that holds him back. Tate would probably put up 1,100 yards and 8 TD, but he won't lead the league in rushing and he won't score 20 total touchdowns. The Texans passing game relies heavily on play-action, you can't let arguably the best running back in the NFL walk away.

I would not give Mario the franchise tag and more than that, I would not re-sign him. Mario is a good player who shows flashes of greatness at times, but he's injured too often and the Texans have other players capable of supplying the pass rush. Over the last two seasons Mario has missed 14 games and even in seasons he's finished, nagging injuries have slowed him down. With Connor Barwin, Brooks Reed, and JJ Watt under contract, there's no reason to pay big money to an often injured, out of position player who hasn't reached double digit sacks since 2008. To franchise tag Mario, you'd have to pay him 120% of his salary last year, which would be 16.5 million. Brooks Reed makes roughly 1 million dollars, is Mario Williams 15 million dollars better than him? No way! Take emotion out of it, forget that he was the first player that the new regime drafted. If he had been drafted by Chicago, would we be talking about paying him this much money? If he was just a regular free-agent with no connection to the Texans, they wouldn't even consider paying 15+ million a year to a player at a position they don't need. Let Mario walk and use the money saved to address other needs.

Gratuitous Eye Candy:

There's a Lexus campaign out where they used a swimsuit models curves to shape a racetrack. They're calling it the Tori 500 after Tori Praver. Surprised this idea hasn't been thought of before.

UCLA Recruitment Video

I wonder who they're targeting with this "unofficial" video. It'll probably work though.

 You're Welcome

2012 SI swimsuit cover model Kate Upton dancing.

Air Bud:

Just saw that the Rockets Chase Budinger will participate in the NBA dunk contest on All-Star Saturday night. Don't buy the stereotype, Budinger can dunk. Coming out of high school he came in 2nd in the McDonald's All-American dunk contest to Gerald Henderson who went to Duke.

Of course I'd rather see a dunk contest with LeBron James, Blake Griffin, Dwight Howard, and Kevin Durant, but the established pros have refused to participate for the last decade or so. I still like the dunk contest though and some of the originality has come back. From Gerald Green blowing out a cupcake sitting on the rim, to Steve Nash passing the basketball off of his head soccer style to Amare Stoudemire, to JaVale McGee dunking on two goals; the young guys have revived the dunk contest. The Saturday night events are always my favorite part of the weekend, hopefully the young guys don't disappoint this year.

 The 4 contestants this year are Chase Budinger, rookie Derrick Williams of the Timberwolves, rookie Iman Shumpert of the Knicks, and Paul George of the Pacers. If I had to pick now, I'd take Paul George.

I wrote an article yesterday for SB Nation Houston, with a trade idea for Kevin Martin, give it a look.

Read Here

Tweet Of The Day:

*rides a giraffe whilst sipping on a non alcoholic margarita listening to Parliament and the Funkadelics*
@ArianFoster