That whole Billy Donovan thing...

So, it seems Billy D and the Orlando Magic are parting ways and Mr.Donovan is going back to the University of Florida to breed more 'gators. I am not totally happy with one part of this story.

To start off, I thought Billy Donovan was a good coach. I haven't watched his teams for a long time, but watching them the past couple of years showed me that they were very disciplined and well-prepared. Hearing him speak during that time, he seemed like a very poised and clever person.

So, when I heard he was going to the Magic, I thought that was a good thing for them. Then he changed his mind, after signing the contract, which I thought was odd. To hear the details from ESPN (that it was because the press conference to say good bye to the Gators happened a day after the one to say hi to the Magic, he got emotional, started to cry, went home, was still crying the next day, ..., bla bla)... I thought that everyone was letting him off the hook way too easily.

This guy is a 42 year old man, he's very smart and disciplined and well-prepared and he's acting like a 17 year old girl picking which shoe to wear to her highschool graduation party. I felt the national sports media let him off the hook all too willingly. I think the main reason is because the Gators are media darlings (in college sports) and the media was happy to see the star coach back in the star college atheltic program. I would like to see how the media would act if a young superstar (like say, LeBron James or Dwayne Wade) signed a contract with their beloved Lakers or Knicks and then changed his mind the day after.

I think he deserved more heat, I am greatly disappointed in him and I think his whole reasoning for going back to "enjoy his achievements" is pretty much ludicrous.

The Magic did the right thing and the classy thing, I feel they deserved better from Mr.Donovan than a hasty decision followed by a hasty retreat.

And so it begins...

After years and years of reading what others have to say about basketball, being impressed by some, learning from many and coming across the occassional "Even I can write better than this guy" writers, I have decided to give it a go. I'll try and write my basketball thoughts as they become available. I assume the biggest challenge for me will be regularity.

A bit about my basketball self: I consider myself an average fan, love the game, but don't play it very well. I have as much game as LeBron's neighbor, so I have no illusions of grandeur in terms of actual skill. :) However, I am a die hard fan of the gameand I am under the impression (or false perception) that I understand the game very well.

I've been an NBA fan since the mid 80's. I was a pre-teen in awe of the great Magic Johnson and the 1980's Showtime Lakers but even though the kid in me liked the Lakers, I also liked Bird and the Celtics. In 1988, I saw a few games of the Lakers-Jazz Western Conference semi-finals series and started to like the Jazz. In 1989, I watched the All-star game and on that day, became a Karl Malone fan for life. And even though it has been a long while since that time, and I have come to understand the game itself and the players of that era a lot more as I grew older, my appreciation for the Stockton-to-Malone style of basketball has not ceased.

I'll have lots of time to ramble about that later, but for now, I'll just say that I'm a big fan of team basketball, a big fan of motion offenses vs stand around isolation/matchup post-up offenses and a huge fan of playing the game hard, being classy and just doing things the "Old school" style.