NBA 2009/10

[Uncle Man]

f*ck*ng LOL.

gangster,pimp,godfather..purple drank lol

mike miller to sign with heat today allegedly

[Trilliam]

Ron Artest >> Ron Artest

After hearing Kobes pitch it should come as no surprise that RAJA BELL IS SIGNING WITH THE jazz.

Yeah.

[Uncle Man]

[Guest Medic]

So Heat have Wade, Bosh and LBJ. Swear that means they've splashed out almost all of their salary cap on these 3. Do they have any good players left? Can they even bring anyone good in with what little money they have left?

[Uncle Man]

theyve brought in mike miller at point guard,zydrunas ilgauskas at center,re-signed udonis haslem,still have jamaal magloire and mario chalmers, and drafted dexter pittman at center

theyre looking pretty healthy right now

/ beasley went to t-wolves and jermaine o'neal to celtics (good moves for all involved imo)

[Flojo]

lmfao

[Mr Q]

"There's no way, with hindsight, I would've ever called up Larry, called up Magic and said, 'Hey, look, let's get together and play on one team,'" Jordan told NBC Sports after finishing the Miami American Century Championship golf tournament in Stateline, Nev.

"But that's ... things are different. I can't say that's a bad thing. It's an opportunity these kids have today. In all honesty, I was trying to beat those guys."

[Trilliam]

[Superstition]

Just who exactly is this "Jordan" character anyway? And where does he get off criticising the King?

Apparently Chris Paul has signalled to the Hornets that he wants to be traded before the season starts. Preferred destinations include New York, Orlando and the Lakers...

[Trilliam]

Orlando seems most likely.

[Michel Kane]

Would be so f*cked if he went Lakers.

I'd be torn maaaaaaann...

[Mr Q]

T-Mac in talks with the bulls.

Bulls could do something good next season, would love that.

/

CP3 at the LAKERS! Wooi. doubt it, but I would love it.

[Superstition]

I'm unsure about McGrady on the Bulls. Aside from multiple knee surgeries, this is a guy who's had attitude problems, quit on teams, wasn't a great defender even in his prime, shoots in bunches, and might not be capable of adjusting to a bench/rotational role. On the other hand, he's won scoring titles, can handle the ball, create for himself and others. Thibodeau knows him well from Houston, let's see if he thinks he can buy into the team and provide bench scoring without bringing his McGrady bullshit with him

As for CP3, Orlando have the most pieces to include in a trade to make it happen. New York would be the best fit for Paul's strengths (uptempo gunning D'Antoni offense, Amare Stoudemire as finisher, etc), and it would be his team to run.

Lakers are probably the value bet for a championship (short-term), but he'd have to shelf his biggest weapons (pushing in the open court, directing fastbreaks, pick and rolls, etc). Lakers have few guys who can get out and run with him, and the triangle is a slow/methodical halfcourt system, doesn't call for a pure playmaker who creates in the open floor

[Michel Kane]

Magic Johnson joins the cavalcade of those saying, essentially, hey LeBron James, real men don't play with superstars.

"We didn't think about it 'cause that's not what we were about," Johnson said at Baruch College in New York, according to Bloomberg News. "From college, I was trying to figure out how to beat Larry Bird."

This past weekend, Jordan said at a celebrity golf event that he never would have played with Johnson or Bird, his two main rivals during his playing days.

"There's no way, with hindsight, I would've ever called up Larry [bird], called up Magic [Johnson] and said, 'Hey, look, let's get together and play on one team,'" Jordan said after playing in a celebrity golf tournament in Nevada. The interview aired on the NBC telecast of the event. "But that's ... things are different. I can't say that's a bad thing. It's an opportunity these kids have today. In all honesty, I was trying to beat those guys."

TrueHoop reader Mike, however, takes special exception to the idea that Johnson would stick with a mediocre roster over playing with superstars. He e-mails:

As much as I admire and respect these players, it becomes hard to take them seriously when none of them had situations comparable to LeBron, and all of the them got to play with other great, Top-50 All-Time players. The quest to play with other elite talent is basically universal amongst stars, be it Wilt going to join Hal Greer and later Jerry West and Elgin Baylor or all the way up to Kobe openly flirting with the Bulls and Clippers and threatening trade demands until the Lakers acquired Pau Gasol.

The fact that LeBron simply exercised his rights as a free agent to leave Cleveland to do what countless other players have done, rather than demand trades or refuse to play for the team that drafted him, should not be held against him.

I'm not even a fan of LeBron, but at this point I think he's getting dumped on pretty unfairly.

And in the case of Magic Johnson, Mike has done his homework. He found a Mike Downey L.A. Times article from 1991:

Magic Johnson would have returned to Michigan State rather than play for the Chicago Bulls.

"I'd have stayed in school," he said here Tuesday, standing alone outside Gate 3 1/2 of Chicago Stadium, the house that could have been his. "A coin toss changed the course of my whole life." Chicago called heads in a 1979 coin flip with Los Angeles for the No. 1 pick in the NBA college draft. It came up tails.

Johnson signed with the Lakers after his sophomore year of college and proceeded to win five championships. The Bulls picked second, took UCLA's David Greenwood and have won no championships.

"I wouldn't have played here," Johnson said on the eve of Game 2 of the NBA finals between his team and the team that could have been his. "The only reason I came out was to play with Kareem and the Lakers."

Then Mike gets to comparing the Lakers who played with Johnson in his first seven years to the Cavaliers who played with James over the same period. Johnson's teammates, in aggregate, had:

* Two first team All-Rookie selections (Byron Scott, James Worthy)

* 11 All-Star appearances (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar seven times, Norm Nixon twice, Worthy, Jamaal Wilkes)

* Four All-NBA first team selections (Abdul-Jabbar)

* Two All-NBA second team selections (Abdul-Jabbar)

* Five All-Defensive first team selections (Michael Cooper three times, Abdul-Jabbar twice)

* Four All-Defensive second team selections (Cooper three times, Abdul-Jabbar once)

* One MVP Award (Abdul-Jabbar)

* In addition, Abdul-Jabbar, Worthy, Wilkes, Nixon, and Cooper all got votes for MVP at one point in time or the other during Magic's first seven years, and Cooper won defensive player of the year in Johnson's eighth year.

Mike does a similar analysis on James' Cavs' rosters:

* Zero first team All-Rookie Selections

* Two All-Star game appearances (Mo Williams, Zydrunas llgauskas)

* Zero All-NBA first team selection

* Zero All-NBA second team selections

* Zero All-Defensive first team selections

* One All-Defensive second team selection (Anderson Vareajo)

* Zero MVP Awards

Mike adds, in conclusion:

In order to have a situation even comparable to Magic's, LeBron would have needed to be drafted onto, say, Tim Duncan's team (to parallel Abdul-Jabbar), played the last six years with a prime Bruce Bowen (to parallel Michael Cooper), and had the Cavs draft Danny Granger in his third year (as a parallel to Worthy), and that's ignoring guys like Scott/Wilkes/McAdoo etc.

I mean, let's be real, if LeBron had been in a situation like that does anyone doubt that he would have stayed? That he would already have multiple titles and that we'd be talking about his place amongst the top 10-15 players of all-time instead of dumping on his competitive fire? Magic had it easy, which make his comments seem absolutely ridiculous.

I'll acknowledge there's a chicken and egg thing here. I can hear the argument now: If James had been a better leader, then the Cavaliers would have won more titles which would have earned his teammates more accolades. Even leaving aside entirely the reality that James has been about as productive as any player in NBA history, let's concede that point, and merely say: It's still not even close.

In fact, there's a debate to be had about whether James' current SuperFriends team in Miami is as good as the one Johnson played for. Is Dwyane Wade more valuable than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? It's an insane question without a real answer, but I think we can agree there are strong cases to be made on both sides of the equation, and though Wade has a much better PER (around 30 last season) Abdul-Jabbar's was still insanely high in the mid-20s through Johnson's first seven seasons, and Abdul-Jabbar almost never missed a game.

What it really comes down to is that Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson can say they wouldn't have stooped to seeking out teammates as good as Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. But bear in mind they also never had to confront the reality of seven years with the kinds of rosters James played on in Cleveland.

[Trilliam]

Shaq signs with the Celtics.

Celtics play the Heat on opening night

It is my personal mission to carpet bomb the arena and frame Dan Gilbert.

[Uncle Man]

serious

honestly nba is coming across like el dorado atm bare hookups on the rebound and intriguing subplots etc

[Guest WAVESURFER]

Bump, cause this made me laugh.

[Turkish]

Turkey Vs USA, FIBA World Championship Final tonight.

[R1.]

Where can i watch dat king?

[bad_ti_di_bone]

do people actually still watch NBA?

Thought this died out after Michael Jorddon appeared in Space Station

[Guest haze-e]

iNeg'd... Just for calling the film 'Space Station'

[Guest Trollse Hill]

do people actually still watch NBA?

Thought this died out after Michael Jorddon appeared in Space Station

LMAO, did man just say SPACE STATION

[Mr Q]

Is it hard to keep up this roll of playing the twat or does it come naturally tulse?!?

/

Durant going off.

[Jam]

12.45 ESPN tonight I think

[Mr Q]

Great advert for NBA2K11

‎"tell mama rondo, jordan dropping 63 on the 86 celtics, AGAIN"