The Zen-Master

Phil Jackson was a former basketball player, and is now one of the best coaches in NBA. He was born on September 17, 1945 and is currently 65 years old. He was born in Montana, but grew up in North Dakota. He attended the college of North Dakota where he played basketball for Bill Fitch. Then in 1967, Phil was drafted to the New York Knicks. He played for the Knicks for about 11 years, then moved to the NEw Jersey Nets for 2 years before retiring in 1980. After a few years of coaching in the Continental Basketball Association, Phil Jackson was picked to be an assistant coach for the Chicago Bulls in 1987. But, his huge career would officially begin in 1989, when he was appointed the head coach of the Chicago Bulls.

He coached the Chicago Bulls from 1989 until 1998. Out of the 9 years that he coached, he lead the team to 6 championships. He had 2 "three-peats", which is when a team wins the championship for 3 years in row. Every year that he coached, he lead the team to the playoffs. The general manager of the Bulls was angry with Jackson because he didn't get enough recognition on the team, and decided that Jackson's final year in Chicago would be in 1998.

A year later, Phil Jackson took over the Los Angeles Lakers. In his first three years, he lead the Lakers to a "three-peat", which would this 3rd in his entire career. He led the dynamic duo, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, to 3 championships, but Kobe wasn't satisfied. Kobe and Phil fought often and the manager release Phil from the team after the loss in the 2004 championships. Later, in 2005, Phil was signed back onto the team where he lead the Lakers to the playoffs once again. In 2009 and 2010, Phil Jackson led the Lakers to two straight Championships, beating their rival team the Boston Celtics in 2010 for another title. Now, as the new season of basketball begins, coach Phil Jackson hopes to lead the Lakers to another "three-peat". Phil is a great coach, who focuses on teamwork and determination to win games. He is often refered to as the "Zen-Master" because he always looks very calm during his games.

Picture- http://www.orbitcast.com/archives/phil-jackson.jpg

Info- http://www.losangeleslakersonline.com/philjackson.php
http://www.nba.com/coachfile/phil_jackson/

The All-Star Weekend.

The NBA all-star weekend is a 3-day event that is full of many exciting events. This event started on March 2nd, 1951, in the Boston Garden. Ever since then, this 3 day event has a been a huge sucess, bringing in the greatest players in the league and a large amount of fans. I myself have been watching these events ever since i was in elementary school. Throughout the years, new events have been added, which make the weekend a lot funner to watch, and make the weekend a lot more successful.

The first day hosts three events, The Celebrity Game, the Rookie Challenge, and the D-League Dream Night. The Celebrity Game is a game of 20 of the world's celebrities, and pits them against one another. These people include famous musicians, actors, retired players, and athletes from different sports. The Rookie Challenge used to a be a game of all first year players, but has recently turned into a game of first year players against a team of second year players. The D-League event is for players in the developmental league to have 3 point contests, play games of HORSE, and to have dunk contests.

The second day features a dunk contest, a 3 point contest, a skills challenge, and a shooting challenge. The dunk contest is for players who want to show off their abilities to dunk. The 3 point allows some of the greatest shooters to show of their skills. The skills challenge is for point guards in the league to show off their ball-handling skills.The shooting challenge takes players from the NBA, WNBA, and retired players from the same city against other players in a wide variety of shooting places. This day is personally my favorite, because it is filled with many different events for many different fans.

The Last and final day of the of this weekend hosts the NBA All-Star Game, which is the main event of the whole weekend. This pits 10 players from the Eastern Conference against 10 players from the Western Conference, in a friendly game against one another. In total, the Eastern Conference has dominated the Western Conference, 36-23. This is still a very fun game to watch, because you get to see the greatest players in the league duke it out, and show their skills.

Info- http://www.nba.com/history/allstar/index.html

Picture- http://www.posters.ws/images/842540/2004_nba_east_all_star_team_photofile.jpg
http://theshoegame.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/2009-nba-all-star-west-team.jpg

HomeComing- Jeremy Lin

Jeremy Lin and his parents during his signing with the Golden state Warriors

Jeremy Lin is a brand new player to the NBA who has already generated a great amount of hype  while playing in the 2010 NBA Summer League. Jeremy Lin was born on August 23, 1998 and is of Taiwanese decent. He has played basketball ever since he was little and started his career off by playing for Palo Alto High school. During his senior year, he got the award for the Division II player of the year and was signed to Harvard. He played at Harvard for 4 years and after his first year, his stats began to blow up. He lead Harvard to a great record and ended his senior year averaging 16 points, 4 assists, 4 rebounds, 1 block, and 2 steals per game. In 2010, he was not drafted to the NBA, but was invited to play in the summer league.

After sensational play in the summer league, and showing up star guard John Wall, The Golden State Warriors signed Jeremy Lin. This is very ironic because he was originally from the Bay Area, and now he is coming back. Many people call him humble because he had a choice to go to other teams, but chose those Warriors because he wanted to be back home. He is one of the few new players that I am looking forward to this year because of his versatility as a basketball player and because he is the first Asian-American in the NBA. I think that he will get a decent amount of minutes in the NBA and that he will be a crowd pleaser because he was in the summer league. Expect Jeremy to have some great moments during his freshman year in the NBA. Welcome Home!!

Info- http://www.mahalo.com/jeremy-lin
Picture- http://www.gazettenet.com/files/images/20100722-001846-pic-106767469.display.jpg

Redemption

The FIBA is a world basketball tournament that is held every 4 years for basketball teams from different countries come to compete against one another. The FIBA stands for the International Basketball Federation. In the past, the top teams of this championship have been USA, Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia. After an embarassing defeat 4 years ago to the hands of Greece, Team USA hopes to rise up from the ashes this year and win the gold.

The team this year is very young, and non of the players from the 2008 Redeem Team are participating in this years FIBA. The roster includes Chauncey Billups, Stephen Curry, Eric Gordon, Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, Andre Iguodala, Kevin Durant, Rudy Gay, Danny Granger, Lamar Odom, Kevin Love, and Tyson Chandler. Their coach is Mike Kryzewski, who has lead many USA teams and has great experience coaching.  Although people have had doubts, Team USA has started off to a fantastic 6-0 record. They were called the "B-team", but have recently shown that they deserved more respect. They recently demolished Angola 121-66. Kevin Durant was looked upon to be the leader of the team, and he surely has proven himself to be a leader. Although this team is small and young, they are still talent and very athletic. Look for them to continue the fight for the gold medal this Thursday against Russia.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYyjLlG2KCfV9PpxVIO_tDaD83r0ETQBwCgpb9AQO6N9vks4iDhgGNYb1nCFb63pu-Rfxa9Sd2GPG8n71gNBfQy8UOucRJbum8uhjRSftiUbtc8Vkok4VxT5i-MJ8JHIxe_kFlh1qOmmco/s1600/usa.JPG