Homicide and His Street Cred & Lots More

"Homicide" Williams talking himself up in the Garden.

Thanks to my main man at World Hoops Blog. He gave me the heads up on my backcourt running mate Corey "Homicide" Williams being ranked #5 of the playgrounds in New York City over the summer. The rankings came courtesy of Bounce Mag.

After dusting the Melbourne Tigers tonight (more on this later) I had a little chat about this article with "Homicide".

He believed the magazine had the top 5 picks correct as they selected a team by position, not just the best five players.

I sensed that Williams felt he could have been ranked a little higher then his #5 ranking but understood returning to Australia early hurt his final ranking. He did drop 44 on Ron Artest but he has yet to reveal how many Ron Ron gave him.

I'm actually hoping Williams will elaborate on this article and its final rankings tomorrow after I torch him at practice. (He wants no piece of my stepback!)

As I mentioned, we (Crocs) played the defending NBL champs Melbourne Tigers in our second last game before we start playing for all the marbles.

We managed to put it together in the second half and come away with a solid 118 (63) to 103 (70) victory.

The first half was a blur. Our defense lacked punch which allowed the Tigers to pile on 70 points. Once we started to play with enthusiasm and smarts we really restricted their offense. This showed on the scoreboard, holding them to 33 second half points.

We continue to show that when we play uptempo and disruptive defense we are hard to contain at the offensive end.

Crocs 118 (Williams 29, JR 21, Rosell Ellis 19) defeated Tigers 103 (David Barlow 19, Stephen Hoare 16, Sam MacKinnon 15)

Notes From The Game

- Tigers played without league MVP Chris Anstey and new import signing Ebi Ere.

- Former league MVP turned pizza guru Sam MacKinnon is still playing limited minutes due to off season health problems.

- Former Sydney Kings teammates David Barlow (Tigers) and Cam Tovey (Crocs) went and got two for one haircuts before the game. They must have taken a picture of a peacock in and said we won't one of them.

- Corey Williams is sporting just the traditional Mohawk now. He has lost all the extra signwriting he came here with.

- Barlow played a lot of minutes at the point tonight. He better pick the brain of Tigers assistant coach Darryl McDonald a lot over the next few months. He has to keep Eri, Anstey, Rod Grizzard and MacKinnon happy. Something the legendary D-Mac may have struggled with.

News Around The Traps

- Nothing like your boss publicly telling you what he expects. Perth owner Jack Bendat has told his Wildcats it is time to win.

- While on the Wildcats, Jeff Dowdell is expected to be released to make room for new signing Ben Knight.

- South Dragons chairman, Mark Cowan may look at legal action over the Ebi Ere debacle.

- NBL ref Geoff Weekes hangs up the whistle. Ankle injuries have caused him to retire.

- The Sheep Shaggers have returned home to prepare for their home opener against Wollongong.

- Basketball has kept Ben Knight out of trouble. Basketball has also seen Knight add another games room to his house. Knight moves onto his eighth franchise. A lot of wall space is needed to house that many jerseys. Reminds me of good friend and former NBAer, Rick Brunson.

- Brad Davidson will miss this weekend's trial game due to injury.

- Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) will expand their competition to 18 teams. Currently it is a 16 team competition.

- James Harvey of the Gold Coast Blaze may miss the season opener.

- South Dragons get by New Zealand in a preseason game. Joe Ingles returned for his first game since the Olympics and led them with 22. boxscore

- ESPN's Andy Katz talks about Pat Mills returning to St Mary's and how bright his future is looking. It was interesting to see how everyone was talking about Mills thinking of the Pros. Did anyone think "Redeem Team's" Coach K may have been asking him to transfer schools?

- ESPN takes a look at the West Coast Conference. That's right folks, until somebody knocks off the Zags, they will remain the BIG DOG of the conference no matter how many Aussies Randy Bennett gets in at St Mary's.

- Dickey V a Hall of Famer. Awesome, BABY! My college dream was to have this guy call one of my games. I had to settle for SportsCenter.

- Golden State guard Monta Ellis has a few questions to answer over his current injury. My boys from Sport Count put their own twist on this mystery injury.

- NBA rookie transition program goes up in smoke for a couple of Kansas guys. Check out A Stern Warning for more on this.

- Spurs Manu Ginobili's surgery goes well.

- Not sure what secret was worst kept, Ebi Ere to Tigers or Oklahoma City Thunder's NBA nickname, but they are both now official.

- David Beckham has advice for Kobe. It has nothing to do with the Spice Girls.

- BallerBlogger has a review on how LeBron James loses a game of HORSE. Check this out as a punter beats King James at Venice Beach.

David Kalb vs LeBron - HORSE