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With another Thanksgiving coming and quickly going, it gave us all time to briefly sit and reflect on what we're truly thankful for in life. There's many things I'm extremely thankful for starting with my family, friends and of course my girlfriend!  But right under that extremely prestigious list of people sits the sport I love so dearly: the NBA. If you can't tell by now I love hoops (read blog name), and the holiday weekend brought plenty of stellar story lines throughout the NBA. 

So we all knew that Kobe Bryant would be the guy in Lakerland that would have to do most of the heavy lifting, but I don't know if anyone expected a game like he had on Sunday night against the Raptors. In the Lakers' 129-122 win over East leading Toronto, Bryant became the oldest player in NBA history to record a triple-double while scoring at least 30 points. Bryant had 31 points, 11 rebounds and 12 assists to lead his team to victory and surprisingly hand the Raptors their second straight loss. The Lakers are still bad, sitting with a 4-13 record and in last place in the Western Conference, but three of their four wins have come in the last ten games so they do look to be improving just a bit. 

Tragic news out of Toronto that Demar Derozan is out for about a month after tearing a tendon in his left groin in Friday's loss to the Mavericks. Derozan is having a stellar season so far averaging 19 points and four rebounds and leading the Raptors to the best record in the Eastern Conference. It will be a struggle for the Raptors to keep up that pace without their all-star wing man and Toronto opted to start two point guards in the loss to the Lakers. Greivis Vasquez filled in nicely scoring 19 points while Lou Williams came off the bench and added 19 as well. Both players will have to score and defend consistently if the Raptors don't want to lose any ground in the East. 

Speaking of the Eastern Conference standings, if you take a gander through the current rankings then you'd notice the Milwaukee Bucks are currently sitting as the sixth seed with a 10-8 record while the Cleveland Cavaliers are one sport behind them in seventh with an 8-7 record. This stat would really only be relevant if the playoffs started tomorrow, and they most definitely don't, but it's still noteworthy. Myself along with most every other basketball blogger believes that the Cavs will figure it out eventually so this epidemic is more about the success of the Bucks than the problems of the Cavs.

I blogged last week about my overwhelming excitement for the return of Russell Westbrook to the Thunder lineup, and luckily for OKC, the all-star point guard was back and better than ever on Friday night against the Knicks. The Thunder walked away from the game with a blowout 105-78 win against a New York squad that was without Carmelo Anthony. Westbrook was phenomenal from the tip of the game, and he set the tone early and often, finishing with 32 points, seven rebounds and eight assists. He's the first person since the start of the shot clock era who's recorded 32 points and eight assists in only 24 minutes of game action. Westbrook was unstoppable and his teammates as well as the OKC crowd really fed off of his energy. Both Steven Adams and Serge Ibaka both found themselves with much easier shot attempts since their defenders were forced to sag off them and help out on the ferocious Westbrook.To top off all of those stats, Russdiculous outscored the entire Knicks team in the first quarter 14-13 while playing only eight minutes.  With Durant potentially returning as soon as Tuesday, we may actually get to see a fully healthy OKC team for the first time this season. HIP HIP HOORAY!!!!!!!!

The Golden State Warriors extended their winning streak to nine games on Sunday when they beat the Pistons 104-93 to improve to 14-2 on the season. Everyone knew the Warriors were going to be good, but in Steve Kerr's first year as head coach the Warriors are more than good, they're incredible. This squad ranks third in the league, scoring 107.1 points per game while only letting opponents score 96.5 points, which ranks eighth. This Warriors team could always score, but now they're a well-rounded basketball machine that gets it done in every facet of the game. They rank first in assists at 26.8 a night while MVP candidate Steph Curry is responsible for 7.8 of those assists and nearly 24 points per contest. Australian big man Andrew Bogut's health has been a big part of the team's success on the defensive side of the floor. He averages a team-high nine rebounds to go with a career high 2.1 blocks. The West is once again the elite conference in basketball with the Grizzlies owning a 15-2 record. Now that the Thunder are getting healthy, and the Spurs aren't going anywhere, the Western Conference rankings will be a fun thing to keep an eye on down the stretch of the season. 

    On the other side of things, one Wayzata coach says he never tells the kids the distance before they join. He gets them hooked on the sport regardless of the distance. His argument is he coaches the biggest school in Minnesota, so he has lots of opportunities to find and recruit more runners to his team. Whereas, a single a school usually doesn’t have a whole lot to work with. Not nearly as much as a huge school like Wayzata (What's the Right Distance for Girls' Cross-country?).     Minnesota isn’t the only school that doesn’t run a 5K in the United States. There are quite a few more. A couple of the states that continuously produce good runners, even though they don’t run a 5K, are Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Texas. Wisconsin produced the best runner in the United States last year for girls. Molly Seidel easily won her state meet in Wisconsin. She went on to win the regional and National Footlocker meets. She was then named Gatorades National Runner of the Year. Her state win was a 4K, but all of the rest of the races she ran at the National level were 5K’s. It shows that running the farther distance all year long doesn’t necessarily make you better. Hard work and talent can make you succeed at any distant.      Another argument on changing it to a 5K is gender equity. They say girls can do just as much as boys and should be allowed to prove themselves and compete at the same level of boys. Some people argue that keeping the girls at a 4K is a Title Nine issue. Some conferences actually run a 5K for both girls and boys at their conference meets even though they’re in a state that is still a 4K state for girls. Gender has caused a major role in the transformation from girls running a 4K to a 5K. Most people in this day and age believe that Women should be tested at the same standards in everything including athletic events (Christopher Parish).      Changing girls 4K to a 5K would make meet management a lot easier as well. Having both the boys and girls running the same race will make everything easier. You would only have to make a course for a 5K race, instead of both a 4K and a 5K. Even though managing it would be easier it would take a lot more time. Lots of the slower girls that run a 4K now finish the race right around twenty-five and twenty-six minutes. If you add another half a mile on that, some girls won’t be able to handle it, or will still be racing after thirty minutes. This makes everything go by slower, especially when you potentially have four races that could all be 5K’s in a single meet. The four races would include races for boys Varsity, girls Varsity, boys Junior Varsity, and girls Junior Varsity. The Junior Varsity races for girls could get extremely slow and could make the meets a lot longer than what they are when girls run just a 4K.      The increase from a 4K to 5K really isn’t that much of an increase in distance. It is only a twenty percent. Girls are strong. They can handle a half of a mile more in a race. This isn’t the 80’s anymore where people think girls can’t do anything as athletic as males. Girls have developed and have become a major part of sports. Girls can handle the increase. They handled it in the 80’s so they can handle it now, especially with all the new equipment they have to make training and racing that much easier for you (Wisconsin HS Girls: 4k or 5k?).

Bethany Hasz wins state with a 13:53! That is an incredible time for a 4K! That was a great time for a 4K ran last year at the state meet. Too bad next year she will be running a 5K. They have made it official that Minnesota will be changing their girl’s race to a 5K as well. There is many reasons why they have kept it a 4K and are now changing it to a 5K. Another thing you have to ask yourself is how will it affect the girl runners?      Mshsl have kept Minnesota separated from the rest of the nation in not changing the girls 4K to a 5K. Some people believe that girls wouldn’t be able to handle the farther distance. There is a fear of changing it into a longer distance. A longer race may make kids not come out for the sport. They won’t want to run the farther distance. According to Christopher Parish the last time they changed it in 1994, from 3200 to a 4K, they didn’t see any decline in participation. Coaches want to change it to a 5K do to that’s what is run in college and at any national level meet. One small-school coach explained that there are very few runners that will run at a division one school and will have to run a 5K. There is all very few girls that will be good enough to run in national level meets competitively. Many 4K supporters also say that it doesn’t matter the distance. A great runner will be fast in either a 4K or a 5K.

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