Opening night in the NBA was a great night for almost all involved. OK, half the teams lost. But you get the idea. LeBron James was awesome. The Celtics (and Rasheed Wallace) looked good. The Wizards looked good in Dallas despite the Mavs looking good. The Blazers looked pretty good and the Rockets followed suit, especially without McGrady or Yao. The Lakers did what most teams do on ring night and played kind of a sloppy game versus the Clips who were looking like a playoff team until the Curse of the Sacred Buffalo took Blake Griffin for six weeks via a hairline fracture of his off kneecap on a wide open dunk in the last preseason game. It doesn’t get much more poetic than that.

Arenas and Garnett look like they are back from injury (Garnett is a bit slower, but should be anyway since he’s older). The Wiz looked good enough to not really need Antawn even though they will need him down the road. The Mavs have a bunch of good players (and a great one obviously) but don’t look like a team yet. Bill Simmons might have been right when he said that Shaq is going to be surprised about how bad an offensive coach Mike Brown really is. Shaq was killing it in the first half and didn’t get the ball in the second. Some of LeBron’s new teammates are still getting used to playing with him and it shows. Daryl Morey might be right that we’ll be surprised how good the Rockets are even with the injuries.

After the jump are the Studs, and there were no players that qualified for Dud last night. (Yay, freshness!) Also, top 5 plays (including the confusion over where LeBron’s block on Ray Allen went)…

Studs

1. LeBron James – 12/22 FG, 4/9 3PT, 10/13 FT, 4 REB, 8 AST, 2 STL, 4 BLK, 38 PTS
2. Andrew Bynum – 9/15 FG, 8/10 FT, 15 REB (6 OFF), 2 AST, 26 PTS
3. Kobe Bryant – 11/26 FG, 11/12 FT, 8 REB (4 OFF), 3 REB, 4 AST, 33 PTS

Guyinthecorner is an author here at spartyandfriends.com. He writes the NBA section, X-Games section, and contributes to College Basketball and MLB. He doesn’t watch hockey except when the circumstances are dire. He’s not sure how to rate Michael Phelps on the scale of athletes not only because he doesn’t directly compete against people, but because he is a fish. He doesn’t understand the hate for the 2002 National Champion Maryland Terrapins and wishes everybody would just shut up by now. He is known for having statistical formulas and might be Bill James or Joe Lunardi depending on who you ask. His identity is as hidden as many times over as the number of internet memes he employs in his comments. Some have called him “The Riddler.” He can be reached at gitc@spartyandfriends.com. “GITC” is an acronym for guyinthecorner in case you aren’t that perceptive.

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