SB Nation - Michael Doleac

A little ranting and Ira's Top 50 Heat players

DolPhanDave — Thu, 28 May 2009 21:05:12 -0000

I feel your pain Udonis...

Well here we are, up to our knees in off-season. There is so little Heat news to report on that its gotten annoying, and the only things that I see/hear/read about are related to the remaining playoff teams and their series’. Now I know that the NBA’s final four has rejuvenated the playoffs (somewhat), but at the same time I miss having my teams to root for.

But now it’s all the same stuff…what is Wade going to do in 2010? Will the Heat trade up in the draft? How will Michael Beasley handle moving to the 3? I’m sorry, but I have already given my opinion, it isn’t going to change, and I find it silly to re-visit the same topics when there is nothing new or insightful to add to the original story.

So I find myself searching around my usual Heat-news sources to see what my fellow journalists are coming up with…and what do I see? Mostly Orlando Magic, LeBron and Kobe…

I know that I’ve touched on some of the things that are going on around the NBA, which I will do occasionally when interesting things are going down…but I’m not going to dedicate a whole article on the Cavs or Nuggets or whoever. Actually, I’d love to hear some of your ideas for potential subjects to write about over the summer, so if you have any please shoot me an e-mail or leave it in the comments.

One cool thing I came across was thanks to possibly the best Heat writer out there, Ira Winderman. In his blog, he recently posted the ‘Top 50 Miami Heat Players (of all-time)”. I’ll be honest, I’ve only been into basketball since the mid-90’s (I was born in ‘83 to give you an idea of where I was at)…and while I’ve watched my share of old footage and done plenty of research while working for the Heat…I feel my Top-50 would end up leaving out some of our lesser known but nevertheless superb Heat players that I may have missed, left off, not thought of, etc.

So here is Ira’s Top 50, but you’ll notice that Beasley, Mario Chalmers and Daequan are all off the list, for obvious reasons.

Dwyane Wade

Alonzo Mourning

Tim Hardaway

Glen Rice

Shaquille O'Neal

Rony Seikaly

Udonis Haslem

Eddie Jones

Steve Smith

P.J. Brown

Grant Long

Jamal Mashburn

Bimbo Coles

Brian Grant

Dan Majerle

Keith Askins

Voshon Lenard

Caron Butler

Sherman Douglas

Lamar Odom

Anthony Mason

Shawn Marion

Bruce Bowen

Antoine Walker

James Posey

Jason Williams

Kevin Edwards

Rory Sparrow

Eddie House

Anthony Carter

Billy Owens

Brian Shaw

Ike Austin

Gary Payton

Jon Sundvold

Jason Kapono

Billy Thompson

Harold Miner

Willie Burton

Kevin Willis

Matt Geiger

Rasual Butler

John Salley

Damon Jones

Rafer Alston

Ricky Davis

Keyon Dooling

Mark Strickland

Malik Allen

Alan Ogg

The first name that popped into my head that wasn’t on the list was Michael Doleac. He was only with us for three seasons, but was one of our most reliable bench players, and I thought he did a great job as a back-up center. His playing time was cut during his first season with the Heat when Zo came back, but come on…Malik Allen is ahead of Doleac? Or Damon Jones, who had one good year with the Heat? If those guys are there…why not put Clarence Weatherspoon up there?

Alright I’ll save more topics for the next entry…which will be up either tomorrow or Saturday. But like I said…if you have an idea, send it on in. I love our little community we have going and the more I can get you guys involved, the better.

NBA Draft lottery results...and more

DolPhanDave — Wed, 20 May 2009 04:07:40 -0000

Here are the results of last nights NBA Draft Lottery. Another year of the NBA’s worst team NOT getting the 1st overall pick, but that’s part of the beauty of the lottery. I’m sure if you asked any random group of NBA GM’s, they would be in favor of the lottery instead of the draft order being determined by the final standings.

1       L.A. Clippers
2       Memphis
3       Oklahoma City
4       Sacramento
5     Washington
6       Minnesota
7       Golden State
8       New York
9       Toronto
10     Milwaukee
11     New Jersey
12     Charlotte
13     Indiana
14     Phoenix

For the full NBA 2009 Draft Board, click here. For the pre-lottery odds of each team, click here.

The Heat would have had the 18th overall pick, but that was traded to Minnesota along with Antoine Walker, Wayne Simien, Michael Doleac and cash for Ricky Davis and Mark Blount just prior to the beginning of last season. Ouch...but it was still worth it to get rid of 'Twan's huge contract.

The Heat do have two picks in the 2nd round. The 43rd overall pick was traded to Miami in 2007 by Indiana for Stanko Barac, who the Heat selected with the 39th overall pick that summer.

The 60th overall (and final) pick of the draft was acquired by Miami last summer when they traded '08 Draft pick Darnell Jackson (52nd overall) to Cleveland.

Miami would’ve had the 47th overall pick (a pick they originally acquired in the trade for Daequan Cook in the 2007 Draft), but they shipped it to Minnesota along with cash for Mario Chalmers during last years Draft. That one I'll take all day, everyday.

Just got done watching the Lakers-Nuggets Game 1. That should be a SICK series. Not sure what to expect from the Cavs-Magic series, but i doubt it compares to the battle out West.

6 Years of Heat draft picks: Where are they now?

DolPhanDave — Sun, 17 May 2009 02:26:52 -0000

Who am I...?

With the Heat beginning their pre-draft workouts, some of the attention is shifting to what the team will be doing with their picks. Right now they only hold picks 43 and 60, so the question will be if Pat Riley wants to trade up. The basketball mastermind was able to scoop up Mario Chalmers pretty late last summer, but for the most part has been somewhat off in recent years.

While we can bask in the glory of having almost as good of a draft in 2008 as the Miami Dolphins (different sport...I know. But both GREAT drafts), I thought we could take a look back at some of the choices made by Pat Riley and Randy Pfund. There have certainly been some questionable moves, and obviously most of our picks have not really ‘worked out’…but does it really matter what you sandwich in-between Dwyane Wade and Beasley/Chalmers? Ok, so starting with the pick that came right after D-Wade, here is a little ‘where are they now’ of the last 6 years worth of Heat drafts.

2003: Round 2 Pick 33- F Jerome Beasley

Played 2 whole games in a Heat uniform in 2003 before being cut loose. He since has played in the CBA and NBA-DL before buying out his own contract to pursue a career overseas. 06-07 saw him playing in Australia for the Sidney Kings, but then was released following the Kings exit from the post-season. The following year he played Ironi Ramat Gan in Israel, then last season he moved to the Netherlands and got on a team called the EiffelTowers Den Bosch, but was released in January after testing positive for THC. Gee...he moves to the Netherlands and tests positive for pot...shocking.

2004: Round 1 Pick 19- F Dorell Wright

We are all well aware of Dorell's inconsistent career, especially the past couple years when dealing w/ injury. He worked extremely hard on his ball handling and shooting during the 07-08 ‘15-win' season before his year ended with a meniscal tear of his left knee. He then missed the majority of the 08-09 season, but came back to play in 6 games towards the end. He has played in 139 regular season games for the Heat and started 55, averaging 5.9 points on 46% shooting, 3.9 rebounds and 1.2 assists. There are still ‘high' hopes for Wright looking ahead, but after 5+ years I'm taking those hopes with a rather large grain of salt.

2004: Round 2 Pick 39- C Albert Miralles (acquired via trade w/ Toronto for 47th overall pick Pape Sow and our 2005 2nd round pick)

Never played a game for the Heat. His rights were traded to Boston in the Antoine Walker trade. Played professionally in Italy from 2002-2005 and is now playing in Spain for the team Pamesa.

2004: Round 2 Pick 53- F Matt Freije

The Heat released Freije before the start of the 04-05 season, and he picked up with the New Orleans Hornets where he played in 23 games, starting 11 (averaging 4.0pts and 2.7reb). He signed with Atlanta prior to the 06-07 season, averaging 2.1ppg in 19 games, but was waived in December of 06. He then had a great summer league for the Milwaukee Bucks, but was never signed on to join the team for the 07-08 season. He is now playing in Puerto Rico in the Baloncesto Superior Nacional for Criollos de Caguas.

2005: Round 1 Pick 29- F Wayne Simien

Wayne started out his Heat career relatively well, riding the bench most of his rookie year (05-06). He appeared in 43 games (2 starts) playing 9.6 min/game, averaging 3.4 points and 2.1 boards, and he was a part of our 2006 NBA Championship team. The following summer saw Simeon come down with a salmonella infection which held him out of the Summer League and seriously hampered his off-season workout plan. He would only make it into 8 games that season, and was traded just prior to the 07-08 campaign.

Simien, along with Antoine Walker and Michael Doleac, was traded to Minnesota for Ricky Davis and Mark Blount, but Wayne was then waived by the Timberwolves to keep their roster at 15. He was given an invitation to play with Cleveland in last years Summer League but couldn't play due to a hamstring injury. Later that summer, he received an invitation to the Atlanta Hawks training camp, but the invitation was withdrawn before he could arrive. He joined up with Spain's Cáceres CB in October 08, but decided to retire from Professional Basketball on May 5th to pursue working in a religious ministry.

2007: Round 1 Pick 21- G Daequan Cook (acquired via trade along with cash considerations from Philadelphia for 20th overall pick Jason Smith)

Daequan had a solid rookie year during our dismal 15-win 07-08 season, but really broke out over the first 4 months of this past season. His supreme efforts culminated in his victory in the 2008 All-Star 3-point shooting competition. He still has to get his shot to being consistent, but Daequan should end up a solid ‘Eddie House' kinda shooter, but providing much better defense.

And in case you were wondering, Jason Smith played in his first NBA games this past season, making it into 76 games for the Sixers, averaging 4.5 points and 3.0 boards in 14.6 minutes/game. He missed all of last season after tearing the ACL in his left knee during a Sixers camp in Las Vegas.

2007: Round 2 Pick 39- C Stanko Barac

Traded from Miami to Indiana before ever playing or even practicing for the Heat, Stanko wouldn't ever make it into the NBA. He signed a multi-year deal with Spanish ACB team TAU Cerámica in August 2007, then was loaned to Pamesa Valencia in October '07 for the rest of that season. This past year he played in 23 games in the ACB, averaging 2.8 points and 3.1 boards in 12 min/game, shooting a lovely 39.1% from the field.

2008: Round 2 Pick 52- F Darnell Jackson

Traded the day he was drafted to Cleveland for their 2nd round pick in 2009, which will end up being the final pick in the draft (60th). He played in 51 games for the Cavs this season, averaging 1.9 points and 1.7 rebounds in 8.4 min/game.

There you have it Heat fans...you are now well polished on the happenings of every Heat draft pick since Mr. Dwyane Wade. I'm sure you noticed I left Michael Beasley and Mario Chalmers off the list...for obvious reasons. If you need me to tell you what they have been up to since being drafted by Miami...you haven't been paying much attention to the NBA this season.

So what do you think? Do Dwyane Wade, Daequan Cook, Beasley and Chalmers make up for the many picks that either never played for the Heat or in the NBA?

The 2009 NBA Draft is 40 days away, and hopefully the rest of the Playoffs will provide as much entertainment as the first 2 rounds.

Regular Season Tilt Carries Personal Meaning

Steve Weinman — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:15:05 -0000

A Daily Babble Production

It has been more than eleven months since I signed on here at CelticsBlog (thanks again a million times over for having me), and those who have been reading for a significant portion of that time may have come to understand what friends and family have long known (and if you haven't picked up, it's time for me to come clean): I'm a bit of a nut.

My clothes don't match. Way back in my high school days, in the middle of the standardized test that came at the culmination of some silly AP course, I took a break from writing an essay so I could doodle two seasons worth of Celtics playoff schedules and results on the back of the exam booklet. The number of times I've used a comb to neaten my perpetually messy hair in my career remains in single digits. I've cried after watching sporting events that didn't turn out quite as I would have liked. When I was a freshman in college, I got frostbite on my lips for a week after walking four miles each way to a Chinese buffet in ten-degree weather on a Sunday morning because I really craved their almond shrimp. Which they only served at dinner. Fortunately, the restaurant is quite good overall. My alter ego is a fictional character from a television program whose target audience upper bound is somewhere around eight years old.

Only in this space, on this site, does the fact that I'm completely head-over-heels in love with this basketball team of ours not make the "I'm a nut" list. So thanks to you all for that.

Given the populace of this site's readership, it goes without saying that we want our boys in green to take every game. Each and every regular season game, each and every playoff game: They all seem like they mean everything for the two and a half hours while they are being played and sometimes for quite a bit of time afterwards.

But every now and then, there are certain nights on the regular 82-game slate that mean just a little bit more than normal. Sweeping the Texas triangle trip last year was special. Prevailing over the newly confident Hawks last week was big, considering how many Celts fans the Hawks almost put in the hospital with hypertension last spring.

But no matter the quality of the combatants, there is something about the four games with the Knicks each year that just does it for me, that puts my desire to get these games to a whole new level.

The strong feeling likely comes from a combination of factors courtesy of being a native New Yorker. Growing up in the Weinman household requires an understanding of two key rules for survival: Hate thy Knick, hate thy Yankee. My father is a Brooklyn product and diehard Celts fan who taught for more than 30 years in the New York City school system and routinely had students desecrate test papers with pro-Knicks and anti-Celtics propaganda at the top next to their names.

This established the healthy dislike of the 'Bockers at an early age. As the only Celts fan in school, it didn't help my relationship with the Knicks that I knew I was going to hear it from approximately 100 percent of my classmates anytime the C's fell to the orange and blue, and "Standings!" was never going to be a good enough response inside the hallowed and largely sports illiterate walls of the Herricks Union Free School District. It made those games important no matter when they came in the schedule or how good the teams were. Though I spend much of the year buried in the Midwest now, the memories remain vivid, especially of the nights I spent pacing my bedroom and listening to the radio before we got the MSG Network my sophomore year of high school. Meanwhile, negative feelings about the Knicks are an ironically pleasant reminder of home.

Beyond the youthful dynamics with friends and classmates - and the fact that despising the 'Bockers was just one more way to bring me even closer with my beloved father - the Knicks' franchise arc over the last fifteen years has only made them an easier target for my bad feelings. Through the '90s, they were a perennial Eastern contender while the Celtics suffered through one of the most miserable periods of their existence. The Knicks gave the city two Finals trips to celebrate but thankfully came away with no titles.

This decade, while the Celts have regained superiority in the standings (particularly as of late), the way management has run the team in Manhattan has made the Knicks even more detestable, now for their personnel rather than for frustration with their good play. General managers Scott Layden and Isiah Thomas and the players they have brought in - Stephon Marbury, Jerome James, Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph come to mind as the tip of the iceberg - have been eminently disikable, and the result has been a new special pleasure from seeing this team embarrass itself. Last year's 45-point stomping by the Celts on national television couldn't have been scripted any better.

Finally, there is that nail in the coffin of my rage at all things orange and blue that comes courtesy of the events five years ago yesterday. I've still got the scars from 2003, the last time November 17 came on a Monday. The Celtics visited Madison Square Garden, and The Guru and I went to support our boys. At halftime, we were high-fiving and chatting gleefully about a 54-38 lead, garnered despite the fact that the team had played far from its best basketball. Good times.

Because this is a family site, and I'd prefer not to call to mind any particularly grotesque images, we'll skip the details of most of the second-half carnage and cut to this: The Celts completely melted down, Vin Baker was the only competent player in green, Allan Houston, Keith Van Horn and Kurt Thomas killed us, and Michael Doleac hit the eventual winner in the final seconds. It was a somber train ride home. While it is a night that I'll always appreciate for getting to spend time with The Guru, it also serves as the defining image in my head for what I consider the most painful Celtics season of the last 15 years: No high lottery pick, no real chance in the first round of the playoffs, no real direction, no more 'Toine, not much hope. In my warped mind, it started to all come unglued when that 5-4 team fell apart at MSG on the eve of a meaningful day in my life.

What all that rambling comes down to is this: Childhood in New York, the mismanagement and unlovable roster of recent memory and one particularly frustrating night at Madison Square Garden have fostered a special dislike within me for that franchise from the Sizable Apple.

This one means something to me. Three days before I'm due to return home to New York for the first time in months, four days after a frustrating loss to the Nuggets, five years and a day after that meltdown in New York City, roughly 1,100 miles from Times Square, this rivalry remains magnified to epic proportions in my head.

It's why I'll be doing what I do best tonight - blowing off the rest of life - and finding myself the rare bar around here that has the NBA package so that I can buy myself dinner, be alone with my thoughts and chow down to watch one of the regular season games that manages to bring forth a passion from me that goes beyond even my usual mind-numbing level of fanaticism.

So that's my sappy personal rant for the day about a November 18th game that strangely means so much to me. You've got my word that we'll be back to crunching efficiency stats and ripping on Zach Randolph in Daily Babbles to come. But until then, which games on the schedules get your competitive juices flowing more than usual?