Review of Sam Smith's Articles

Considering I am partial to the Chicago Bulls, I frequent their website rather often. Also, following them on Twitter allows me to receive recent news from the Chicago Bulls. Sam Smith is a very knowledgeable person on all things NBA, and he actually writes solely for the Chicago Bulls website. Here is a brief background of Sam Smith according to the website, "The Chicago Bulls announced on Oct. 24, 2008 that prominent and longtime Chicago sports journalist Sam Smith will be doing all his future writing and continuing his popular NBA column exclusively on the team's web site, Bulls.com. Smith covered the Bulls and the NBA for the Chicago Tribune for 25 years. He is the author of the best selling The Jordan Rules, which was top ten on the New York Times Bestseller List for three months. Throughout his career, Smith has been a basketball columnist for MSNBC Sports, ESPN.com, ESPN The Magazine, SportingNews.com and HoopsHype.com."

I have been reading Sam Smith's articles for the last couple of years, from when I had that spark of interest in basketball again. As a kid I always dreamed of playing basketball in the NBA, as I am sure many kids did when they were younger. Other hobbies kept me away from basketball for awhile but once I had interest again it was all over from there. By chance it came right around the time the Chicago Bulls received the number one pick in the 2008 draft. When I saw Derrick Rose play for the first time I immediately regained my Chicago Bulls connection back.

Sam Smith not only writes about the Chicago Bulls but writes about news from around the entire league. I find his articles to be very well written and share them with friends if I think they might also find them interesting. Sam has a knack for speaking his mind and I find myself agreeing with him almost all the time. Maybe it is because I am biased towards the Bulls and all things that Bulls fans might think, like for example how Lebron James is nothing more than a big headed, egotistical baby who shows off far too much. I will agree he has tremendous talent but you never saw Michael Jordan dancing on the sideline during a blowout win. Lebron James' character is out of whack and I think that Sam Smith would agree.

One of Sam's first articles that he wrote was about Derrick Rose. Looking back on this article makes me realize how on point Sam was about Derrick Rose and how off he was on Michael Beasley. Sam talks about Rose in the beginning of his article and how he has the potential to be at the level of Chris Paul and Deron Williams. Derrick is bigger than Paul and he is faster than Deron Williams, Sam was right about that. He even said how Derrick is a "number one" player (ironically that is his playing number)...he won rookie of the year with ease and now leads his Bulls team in points per game this season. In the playoffs this year he ranked 5th in point per game, points scored, assists per game, and assists. That may just be for the first round but Sam was right that he is a No. 1. He is probably the number one player to play with next season on a lot of those high level free agents, too.

Sam Smith also mentioned in his article that Michael Beasley would be an "instant scorer" for the Miami Heat. He was partially right but Beasley has not been regarded as an offensive threat. He only averaged 13 and 14 points per game, respectively, in his first two seasons.

Throughout the last couple of years one of Sam Smith's most talked about topics (as well as anyone else in the NBA) has been the free agent class of 2010. I am sure to read many more articles from Sam in the next couple of weeks as the off season is approaching pretty quickly. In this particular article Sam Smith talks about the different ways that teams can go about becoming championship caliber teams. One way, he says, is the old way of acquiring draft picks and placing bets on how well college talent will develop a team over time. But he notes that the only championship team that this has worked for in the last decade is the San Antonio Spurs.

Might I add, that those same spurs have won 4 championships since 1999 ('99, '03, '05, '07). Sam's other option to develop a team is through free agency. Most notably are the Los Angeles Lakers with the acquisition of Shaquille O'Neal which led to three straight championships. The Piston's did it with the help of Rasheed Wallace, Ben Wallace, Richard Hamilton, and Chauncey Billups. The Miami Heat did it by getting Shaq in 2006 and Boston did it in 2008 by getting Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett. So it isn't a bad choice. Chicago is one of the largest markets in the NBA and definitely has the potential to attract guys who would like such a crowd to play in from of. Lebron James would surely love it and Dwyane Wade is originally from Chicago.

Sam Smith has covered the topic of free agency in a couple of other articles. This one in particular goes over where he thought, at the time, the free agents may land. Sam gives his inside knowledge of stuff he has heard around the league at where the big free agents may land and what teams rank on their list. The number one free agent is Lebron James (reigning MVP, scoring titles, big games, past NBA finals appearance). Sam ranks the Cavaliers as the number one (and two) destination where he thinks Lebron will go.

His third pick are the Los Angles Lakers. He thinks that with Kobe getting old and Lebron in his prime, they could pair up with some big talent in the middle to win some championships. Sam has been noted to say the Chicago is another spot Lebron is looking at. The second free agent on the list is Dwyane Wade. With Miami in contention for acquiring a free agent this summer he thinks that Wade will stay in the tropical paradise and hope for his club to pick up some talent to put around him. If that falls through Sam sees Dwyane coming to Chicago or Milwaukee because his kids are currently living in Chicago and he would like to be closer to them.

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