San Antonio Spurs @ New Orleans Hornets
New Orleans ArenaOctober 31st, 7:00pm Spurs Time
TV: NBA TV - RADIO: 1200 AM WOAI
Here we go basketball fans, the first game of the 2012-2013 season for these two teams. San Antonio is looking for a repeat performance of last regular season's run. They are hoping to go deeper into the playoffs and have a fighting chance at the O'Brien trophy. New Orleans on the other side of the court is looking for some fun and excitement this season. They are led by rookie sensation Anthony Davis who had an exciting preseason and is hoping to follow up with a successful regular season run.
Key matchup: Anthony Davis vs. Tim Duncan. Anthony Davis is very, very quick and gives visions of David Robinson when he plays (except for driving to the rim). I expect Davis to pull Tim out of the paint with his jumpshots and open up the lane for his driving/slashing teammates. Tim on the other side can use his wiley veteran moves and if they don't happen to be working just bully Davis out of the way. The kid is fast but he is also very weak - a la Tiago Splitter first year but possibly even more weak.
Darkside: Rumors have abounded for months that the takeover of the Hornets by Tom Benson was really a front by a rogue futurist group who were willing to continue the training experiments that the League had started when they originally took over. But even less well known is the fact that the same futurist group had been doing genetic modifications in Chicago since 2005. One such candidate was a healthy 6'2 point guard in Chicago. He was quick but his physical body would not allow him to reach his potential. His family sought out help and found the futurist group. The futurists had been looking for athlete to do some research with the HMGA2 gene and when the Davis family showed up, they were more than happy to work with them. Anthony had to withstand a battery of testing by the group. He was poked, prodded, infused, defused, deconstructed and reconstructed so many times that his family became so concerned with the experiments that they pulled him from the program.
When Anthony Davis left the 'lab' he had only grown 1 cm. Disappointed, he looked to a future where he would always be too short to play his favorite position on the court. During the summer of his sophomore year, his eyebrows grew closer together and people started to bug him about his unibrow. But, besides the brow, he also grew 2 inches. Then another 2 inches. Then another and another. Since Davis had left the futurist lab until today, he has grown a total of 8.5 inches and his wingspan has continued to increase to 7'4.
Once again it looks as if Davis and the futurists have come together again, but this time in New Orleans. What new experiments await the young phenomenon will have to be seen in the near future.
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New Orleans Hornets perspective can be found here: At the Hive
Game Prediction: Spurs by 5
As always Tony must dominate Fisher, and NBA league pass is recommended for those who are willing to pony up the cash. Almost every Spurs game will be broadcast there, which is especially helpful for those of us who aren't in the San Antonio area. Please don't post links to illegal game feeds in the game thread. Links to illegal feeds are not permitted on SBNation, but you can probably find them out there on the internets if you're resourceful and desperate.