(Mark Zerof-USA TODAY Sports)

Nerlens Noel
Kentucky - Freshman (Born 1994)
Center
7'0" 206 lbs

For Christmas, my wife received an iPad Mini. For the most part, I have not used it, except for playing games from time to time with my daughter. We have had some epic Fruit Ninja battles that should be recorded in written history. This week, I was given the opportunity to look at a new app from Shout! Factory called Basketball Time Machine. I have to admit that I also downloaded Temple Run on the same day. I may have spent more time dodging monkeys and jumping trees than I did looking at basketball videos, but I found plenty of time for hoops.

(Danny Wild-USA TODAY Sports)

I've long said that any team that relies on Carmelo Anthony and J.R. Smith to lead them on offense is doomed.  That seems like a pretty obvious, common sense statement, but the Knicks apparently didn't get the memo.  And Tyson Chandler has had enough of the insanity.  He's come out criticizing the team's selfish, individualistic approach to the game.  He wants better ball movement.  More advantage taken of open looks.  More winning as a team.  Hey, the guy's got a championship ring - he knows what he is talking about.

(Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports)

My uncle recently proclaimed that we are “in a golden age of television.” While other people have certainly made similar statements of late, they did not register with me until my uncle held court and talked about the many great shows that are or have been on the air over the last 10 years. Since this isn’t a popular culture blog, but a place to write about basketball, I figured I’d compare ten basketball teams to the shows that I’ve seen the majority of the episodes. The one clear omission on the TV show side is the Sopranos, which I haven’t seen yet. I plan on rectifying that situation later this year. Some of the comparisons fit very well and others required some finagling. We’ll start with a pair of teams that are already looking toward next year:

(Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports)
 

Congratulations to our 2012/13 College Dunk of the Year Tournament Champion, Syracuse's C.J. Fair.  Fair's dunk garnered 55% of the votes in the finals, edging out Eastern Kentucky's Marcus Lewis.

(John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports)
 

It may have seemed unfair to Jayhawk fans last week that I rated the team as the worst in recent history in producing NBA talent. I wanted to take a few minutes to examine why this is the case (and why Kansas is able to keep winning the Big 12 in spite of it). Perhaps it seemed like I was bashing Kansas, but I did not mean to. The Jayhawks are one of my favorite college teams to watch and I think Bill Self is the best college coach.

And then there were two.  We selected 16 of the best dunks from the 2012/13 college basketball season and paired them up in a single elimination tournament.  The semifinals are in the books, and the field has been cut in half; The Finals are here.

The rules are pretty simple: you, the reader, vote for which dunk is the best between each pair (please only vote once per dunk - no ballot stuffing - that's why a valid e-mail address is required for each voting ballot). Each round of voting will be open for a week and we'll continue until we have crowned our champion.

So let's get the show on the road - voting for The Finals ends this Sunday at midnight Eastern.

Semifinals Results:

Marcus Lewis beat Daniel Skinner (57% to 43%)

C.J. Fair beat Jonathan Ouegnin (54% to 46%)

There's little reason to pity four-time NBA MVP LeBron James - his life is going pretty darn good right now.  But the fact of the matter is that the King of the NBA is vastly underpaid.  Proof:

 


(Mark Zerof-USA TODAY Sports)

The deadline for early entrants to enter their names in the 2013 NBA Draft has come and gone, with several big names opting to return to school.  Which leaves us with a work-in-progress big man with a damaged knee as the projected top choice.  Speaks to the weakness of this year's draft crop.

Rather than fill cyberspace up with yet another mock draft, The Hoops Manifesto has determined the consensus top 60 prospects for the 2013 NBA Draft.  We took the mock drafts from four of the web's best: DraftExpress, NBADraft.net, NBA Draft Room, and WalterFootball.com, crunched the numbers and came up with our list.

“You can play high school or college for four years. You can play pro for a decade. You can play pick‐up... for life.”
 

Flashback:  When I was in grade school, I was one hell of baseball player.  I was a catcher but I was fast enough to bat leadoff. It was about sixth grade when my coaches would tell me to keep working at the game and I’d likely be able to play on the house league all-star team that played in the ultra competitive city league by my seventh grade summer.  All I could think about was that with a little work I was going to be in the all-star league in about eight months.