Today's Best - 02.19.08

5. jared dudley - in yesterday's spurs-bobcats game, charlotte rookie jared dudley was the only player who made at least half his shots. strangely, he was also the bobcat who had the lowest +/- as the bobcats. what does this mean? it means the spurs won 85-65 and held charlotte to an unbelievable 28.2 percent shooting. only a few weeks ago, it seemed like san antonio was being written off. but sure enough it appears as if the reports of their demise were greatly exaggerated and they were apparently just rounding into form. i know it's kind of silly to draw conclusions from a single game against the bobcats, but if the spurs either hold the rest of their opponents under 30 percent shooting or only play the bobcats for the rest of the year, they'll probably repeat as nba champs.

4. the player most likely to be traded by thursday - ron artest helped the kings beat the tepid blazers 105-94 and in the process showed why he would be an asset to any team. this win came only a few days after artest expressed interest in remaining in sacramento past the trade deadline. the kings have already traded mike bibby away and appear ready to hand over the franchise to kevin martin, shelden williams, and a slew of expiring contracts so i have to think something else is also in the works for artest. even if he says he'd like to remain in sacramento. currently, denver has been rumored to be the front runner for artest's services and i for one think this would be a terrific trade. he'd provide an immediate boost defensively to a team that's already among the most physical in the league. plus, a nuggets lineup featuring iverson, artest, carmelo, kenyon, and camby would likely be the most intimidating in the league. and if there's anything i'd like to see in the second half of the season, it's denver opponents intimidating into scoring on their own baskets.

3. the well rested knicks - the knicks were one of a few teams that did not have a single player involved in any regard during the all-star weekend. i'm sure they had a nice extended break spent relaxing and not giving a blank about these white people because in an overtime game in dc, the knicks scored 23 points and beat the wizards 113-100. the knicks scored as many points in the final five minutes as they scored in the 12 minutes of quarters 1, 2, and 4. they fell short of the record of most points in an overtime, but did manage to score the exact same amount of points in four different periods which i think is just as neat. the wizards meanwhile have lost nine of their final 10 games and two of three this year against new york. but there is hope, because yesterday gilbert arenas was cleared to practice. and though he's probably a few weeks away from returning, i expect the wizards will lose every game from now until then. this means of course that they will somehow move up the woeful eastern conference standings.

2. the durant-less sonics - kevin durant missed last night's game against grizzlies, the sonics' peers in the western conference cellar, with the flu. yet despite missing their most celebrated player, the sonics maanged to erase a 19-point, third quarter deficit to beat memphis 108-101. seattle now improves to 1-0 in games that durant doesn't play this season and 13-38 in games that he did. and for those of you who think this is too small a sample size to prove that the sonics are better off without durant, consider that since 1968 seattle is 1726-1523, for a .531 winning percentage, in all games durant didn't play. of course, since i doubt many of those 1,726 wins came against teams whose centers were the darko milicic, jason collins, and kwame brown, i guess i'll wait a few more days before starting a trade durant petition. and in case you were wondering, darko was 2-of-8 from the field, collins fouled out, and coaches decided to not play kwame brown.

1. 2008 all-star mvps - in a 93-85 setback against houston, cleveland's lebron james recorded his fifth triple-double of the season and the fifteenth of triple-double of his career. just to clairfy, both of those were the same triple-double not two separate ones in the same game. anyways, he finished with 26 points, 13 rebounds, and 11 assists. of major concern to cavs fans should be the fact that in sunday's all-star game he scored 27 points against much better players. logically, this means against the battiers, alstons and bonzis of the league, he should be going off for 60, easy. but it appears lebron is resigned to just play down to his competition for the remainder of the season. what a waste of talent. anyways, the most interesting i read about lebron was his all-star dunk late in the game over a gaggle of west players was because he was "mad at dirk because he stole my point guard". because of this i think we're in for a relatively dull trading deadline as gms do their best to avoid upsetting lebron by stealing any other players from the cavs.