It was announced last Tuesday by Toronto Raptors that their rookie forward Jamario Moon has been named to the 2008 NBA ALL Rookie Second team and is the ninth player in the Raptors history to receive this prestigious opportunity. He was signed into the Toronto team during the 2007 free agent tryout summer camp. He had 75 record starts as a rookie in 2007 and was ranked first in the steals among all the NBA rookies. He also got the opportunity to showcase his basketball skills in the 2008 Rookie Challenge and Slam Dunk competitions. Moon also received the NBA Eastern Conference Rookie of the month for his performance in the month of January.

Ben Wallace, starting forward of Cavaliers, is doubtful about playing in the remaining game against the Boston Celtics in the Cleveland’s playoff series of basketball, as he had to stop playing after feeling dizziness while playing a match last week. He was seen staggering while going to the bench. He underwent medical checkup and was diagnosed with left inner ear infection and allergies. The team officials said that the chances for his play in the next game are 50-50. Mike Brown, the coach of Cavaliers, said that most probably Anderson Varejao will play in Wallace’s position till he recovers.  At present, the Cavaliers are behind Celtics in the series.

You scratch my back, I scratch yours. This statement best describes the scenario that is the new partnership between Larry Brown and Michael Jordan, both whom are former North Carolina basketball players. Jordan has asked the 67 year old Brown if he is able to take up his ninth NBA coaching stint as head coach for the Charlotte Bobcats, and Brown needed little persuasion to agree. For that he was rewarded a four-year contract. Jordan is relieved as he now has the veteran Brown on his side to revive his sagging career as NBA executive while Brown now has the chance to increase his reputation as Hall of Fame coach. Ironically Brown is now back to where he first started his long standing teaching career.

Brown was hired to replace Sam Vincent who was brought in by Jordan himself even though he has had no prior NBA coaching experience. Vincent was let off last Saturday for failing to do his job well.

Many attempts by various teams throughout the years have been done to persuade John Hammond to be their new GM but to no avail. Finally, the Milwaukee Bucks succeeded in luring Hammond away from the Detroit Pistons.

Unsuccessful attempts by Portland and Toronto have been done in the past but Hammond was never swayed. Finally Hammond accepted the Bucks’ offer and is set to replace Larry Harris as their new GM this coming Monday. Harris left on March 19 after a series of unsuccessful meetings to negotiate his soon-to-expire contract.

With his new post, Hammond is expected to hire a new veteran coach to boost the Bucks’ winnings. He is eager to seek help from former Pistons’ coach Rick Carlisle, having worked with the vet boss previously. On the other hand, Carlisle is also sought after by the Chicago Bulls. Can Hammond persuade Carlisle to join them instead of being the Bulls’ prolific coach? Only time will tell.

The Phoenix Suns top players, Amare Stoudermire and Stewe Nash, were in the top of their game as they beat Denver nuggets 132-117 to register the Suns 50th win in four consecutive seasons. This win also takes the Phoenix Suns to a tied lead position with the Los Angeles Lakers in the Pacific Division and also puts them in a gripping position on the ever so close Western Conference. An interesting thing about this Suns win is that they rallied from a 22 – point deficit at the end of the second quarter to win the basketball game and credit must be given to Nash for the way in which he fought through to score 36 points.

Phoenix Suns coach Mike D’Antoni was very happy to see his boys fight hard from behind and appreciated both the offensive as well as the defensive efforts showcased by the Phoenix players. Amare made the bulk of the scoring for the Suns with 41 points and 14 rebounds.

The rookie player Thornton who is currently in rich vein of form helped the Clippers to register their first win in ten games with a 110-97 win over Memphis Grizzlies last Saturday night. The injury filled Los Angeles Clippers should thank the rookie for putting up a stupendous career high performance of 39 points and the best part of his basketball game was that he made 20 out of the 39 points in the fourth quarter of the game to seal a victory for his side.

Thornton said that he enjoyed the game even though he had to really grind himself out at the court. He feels that he has improved quite a lot under Coach Mike and gives some credit of his success to the coach. His teammates were of the opinion that Thornton knew his game pretty well and cannot be classified as a rookie anymore. Even the Memphis players complimented him on his outstanding performance.

The San Antonio Spurs have announced recently that they have roped in guard Brent Barry into their team. Brent Barry was earlier playing in the Spurs team as a free agent player. In his four year stint with the San Antonio Spurs basketball team, he has scored an average of 7.3 points, 2.2 assists and 1.4 rebounds in 259 games. He has scored an amazing 354 three pointers and is currently in the fifth position of All time list of three pointers for the Spurs.

Barry has a thirteen year experience playing in the NBA and has played a total of 854 games and has played for the Bulls, Clippers, Heat as well as the Sonics in his NBA career. He won the NBA Slam Dunk award in the 2005-06 season and was also named in the All Star Rookie Second team that season. Barry has averaged 3.3 assists and 9.7 points in his NBA career so far.

The Phoenix Suns are glad to have brought in Shaquille O’Neal into the team as he has shown tremendous signs of improvement in every game that he has played for the Suns and is now looking very healthy and has attained back his dominant nature. The Phoenix Suns have registered five straight wins for the first time in the 2008 season. Phoenix Suns are currently one win short of attaining the lead in the Western Conference.

Shaquille O’Neal made 15 rebounds, 5 assists and scored 16 points in the Suns win of 111-98 over Portland. The Suns coach D’ Antoni said that all his players played good basketball and when it mattered the most, his big man, O’Neal did the tidying job. Amare Stoudermire is the top scorer for the Suns this season as he made 25 points in the game and was closely followed by Nash with 22 points.

Antawn Jamison, the forward of the Wizards has been announced the Eastern Conference Player of the week by NBA for the week that started from March 10th. He is currently playing his tenth professional season and this is his first honor in his career as the player of the week. Jamison has reached 37 double –doubles in his career last week and is behind only to Dwight Howard of Orlando in the total tally of double –doubles in Eastern Conference. He led the Washington Wizards with 23 points in the win against Milwaukee and made 17 points in the game against Cleveland.

The greatest achievement for Jamison was the win against the Los Angeles Clippers. He made a double- double effort for an overtime win, scoring 36 points for the team. Seven points out of 36 were made in the last 9.7 seconds of regulation time and six were made in the first couple of minutes of overtime. Wizards won the game 119-109. The electrifying performance of Jamison has made the Wizards to climb above the .500 mark after this February 5th. Philadelphia’s Andre Iguodala, Atlanta’s Joe Johnson, Cleveland’s LeBron James and Orlando’s Rashard Lewis are the other players who were nominated for the Eastern Conference player of the week award.

The Houston Rockets are in such sublime form in the NBA lately that they have now recorded their 20th straight win as they beat the Atlanta Hawks 83-75 on Wednesday night. The Rockets coach Rick Adelman said that he was pretty pleased to see his team win the match despite a poor outing and game display. The Rockets have now become the third team to win 20 consecutive games or more in the history of the NBA and are behind Milwaukee Bucks with 20 games and Los Angeles Lakers who have 33 straight games to their credit. Tracy McGrady of Houston played exceptionally well and scored a total of 28 points of which 21 came in the second half.

McGrady said that the Rockets are happy to win this game even though they did not showcase a thoroughly professional basketball game in the first half. He accepted that the shooting was very poor against the Hawks and it was the defense that saved the Houston team at the end of the day. The Rockets last tasted defeat at the hands of Utah in January 27 and McGrady acknowledged that he is honored to be in a team that has won 20 games consecutively.