Go big or go home appears to be the motto for Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic this season.  They have played 3 games so far this season, they are 2-1, and none of the games have been close.

In their two wins, they’ve won by margins of 29 and 42 points.  In their one loss, they lost by 26 points. Granted, in their two wins they’ve played the rebuilding Washington Wizards and Minnesota Timberwolves and in their one loss they got manhandled by the pre-season champion Miami Heat but which team is this Orlando squad?

Is this going to be the trend for them all season?  Feasting upon the NBA Eastern Conference bottom feeders while getting dominated by the league’s elite teams?  This team is supposed to be in contention for the championship this season and dominating these undermanned squads are exactly what title teams should do but are they really good enough to handle the Heat, Lakers and Celtics of the world?

It might take some time to find this out since their next major test isn’t until around thanksgiving when they play the Heat again, unless you count the 5-0 and much improved Atlanta Hawks as a true test…which they really shouldn’t be.

My guess is no, they Magic aren’t quite ready for the title yet. I am thinking the Magic will continue to feast upon teams that have no big man that can handle the likes of Dwight Howard and/or no defensive skills adept enough to handle the way the Magic spread the court with their 3 point field goals…which is pretty much most of the East.  While against the more talented NBA teams, this 2 trick pony of a team can and will be shut down just like we saw against the Heat and in the playoffs last season.

I mean, who actually expects Vince Carter to last an entire season at 33 years old? C’mon now, he is due.

This is Shawn Kemp immortalized giving poor generic #53 a gigantic posterizing facial on a t-shirt.  It is part of the “Play Hard” series of 4 limited edition t-shirts that a company called K1x is putting out done by artist Lil Thugs.  Interesting choice putting Shawn Kemp along side the world championship “Bad Boys” era Detroit Pistons, one of the 50 best players ever and world champion Wilt Chamberlin and all time great guy/one of the best littles in the league Muggsy Bogues.

What exactly are they celebrating with Kemp?  Sure he dunked hard but so did Dominique Wilkins and he wasn’t a giant cokehead/drunk with 85 bastard children looking around for their dad. I’m not sayin’ I didn’t like watchin the guy play for like 6 or 7 years out of his 14 year career, but if you are only making four t-shirts of people that “Play Hard”, there’s gotta be someone else’s likeness you could choose.

I mean, if you wanted to choose a badass player, make a Charles Oakley, Xavier McDaniel or Anthony Mason t-shirt. Shawn Kemp wasn’t much of a badass, in hindsight, he was just kinda pathetic.

They got Pau Gasol dammit!

From the people at 30fps.

Kwame Brown has reunited with the man that originally drafted him and subsequently emotionally stripped him, Michael Jordan, by signing a new contract with the Charlotte Bobcats. Michael Jordan is the majority owner of the ‘Cats and Kwame is now his employee. This right here is a shining beacon to formerly abusive relationships everywhere, if at first you don’t succeed, try try again.

You see, its tough to get past the whole “I abused you relentlessly” thing. Look at Chris Brown and Rhianna for example. They couldn’t get past their prior abusive relationship to give things another go in the present. Michael and Kwame though, see they know better, nay, they ARE better than mere mortals. Apparently they can get past those errors in judgment.

When Kwame first got into the league, he was a naive young boy. Jordan took him under his tutelage and made him a MAN. An emotionally crippled and useless seven footer on the court, but a man nonetheless. Jordan accomplished this by constantly tearing Kwame down to his emotional bare bones, at least that’s what Scoop Jackson said in this 2005 ESPN page 2 article.  Let us quote liberally:

Sticks and stones can paralyze the most immortal of men, but these words – they stripped Kwame Brown of ever having a chance to be or find himself as a basketball player and as a person.

***

“Flaming … ” That was the first word. One of life’s other “f” words followed. It came in succession. It came from Michael Jordan’s mouth. The words never reached Kwame Brown’s ears, they went straight to his heart.

In Jordan’s quest to build the next him while he was in charge and out of retirement in D.C., he broke Kwame Brown down to the very last compound. Emotionally and psychologically killed his spirit.

Want to know what that 2nd “F word” was that Jordan used against Kwame? Lets go back to an article by the Washington Post’s Michael Lehay from 2003 recounting Jordan’s last season with the Wizards (only accessible through the Post’s archives) and some more of the emotional abuse he laid upon Kwame.

As always, he reserved his harshest criticisms for 21-year-old Kwame Brown, at whom, a year earlier, he had screamed, “Flaming faggot,” when Brown complained as a rookie about being fouled in an intrasquad game.

***

But Jordan and other Wizards officials were swayed by Georgia high school senior Brown’s abilities after he dominated another highly touted prep player, Tyson Chandler, during a private one-on-one competition. But now Jordan was tired of waiting for Brown to get better.

For his part, Brown said the right things: “Anyone can learn from Michael” if that “player listens.” But, privately, Brown reeled under Jordan’s and Collins’s criticism off and on for two seasons now, desperate to receive a slice of the encouragement Jordan had lavished on him during Brown’s golden days. On many nights, he had gone from wunderkind to waste. Despairing, Brown began to seek counsel from other teammates, notably Stackhouse, who could provide solace but little else, suffering beneath the weight of his own disappointments and, like Brown, having nowhere to turn.

Wow. So now things are better between them? I mean, its cool that Kwame can turn the other cheek after Jordan helped  to ruin any chance he had at meeting his potential as a number one pick and turning him into an emotional basket-case. I wonder if Jordan is going to be any better this second go around?

Who knows, maybe Jordan has changed. Sure he’s not going to be near Kwame as much as when he was a player or general manager, but they are going to have to interact with each other at various points throughout the season. No way that goes wrong, right? When has getting back together with your abuser ever gone wrong? We all know that leopards can change their spots…oh wait they can’t? Well damn. In that case, maybe this ISN’T a good thing and I am horribly wrong about this.

This $1.3 million veterans minimum contract  Kwame got is really just Jordan saying “I’m sorry baby, have a million bucks on me, it’l never happen again baby, I just lost my cool back in 2002. It’l never happen again.”

Yeah right.

The hot rumor out there today is that Chris Paul has demanded to be traded…to one of three teams of his choosing. According to the CBS Sports,

Paul’s list of preferred destinations consists of the Knicks, Magic and Lakers, and members of his inner circle already have sent word to the Hornets of his desire to be traded to one of those teams, sources say. If Paul has his way, he’s played his last game in a Hornets jersey.

So you see what he’s done there? No? Well lets look at the three teams he’s chosen and then I’ll tell you where I think he really wants to go.

The Lakers have Kobe and Gasol, the Magic have Dwight Howard and the Knicks have Amare Stoudemire to go with Mike D’Antoni’s run and gun offense where Paul would fit in perfectly. The Lakers and the Magic probably can’t afford to pull this trade off, not enough cap room and not enough players to trade away.

The Knicks, who cleared away a ton of salary in an attempt to get Lebron James or Dwayne Wade to go with Stoudemire haven’t killed their cap even with the Amare signing. They have the cap space, they have trade pieces, they have a big time city, a big time arena in Madison Square Garden, a big time media market and most of all…he’d be the star.

Stoudemire would pick up right where he left off with Steve Nash if Chris Paul was leading the offense and getting him the ball. In turn, making Stoudemire look good will only make Paul look better. He won’t be the second fiddle or a star in a small market. He will be the number one basketball player in New York City and he’ll probably turn the team into a winner immediately making him the savior of New York basketball.

If I were a betting man, and I am, I am putting my money on the New York Knicks being the place Paul really wants to go. If Paul puts up enough of a hissy fit, it actually might happen.