Real Deal

It saddens me that Stafford will be a piece of history, even if his name isn't in the record books. In the process, to do this without a top-level QB is pretty impressive. Stafford is definitely not Steve Young. I remember that 1995 game against the Vikings, though...when Rice had that 289 yard game. It was nuts. Just think...Megatron had the record by the end of this game, one more to go.

Five in a row for Toronto...and no Bargnani.

Like I said, there will be exceptions to the rule, but most big men can't shoot a ball for a reason. And no, I don't really care how it changes things in our win column...thought I'd be clear about that in my first post, but you can assume what you want. We won three consecutive championships with the second-greatest duo in NBA history, as Shaq struggled from the line...and in those three seasons, we were usually a bottom three team shooting FT's to begin with. Did I care post-Shaq, pre-Dwight? Yep. I thought it was pretty dumb last season, when Golden State put Dwight Howard at the line so many times, he broke Wilt's FTA record. Most ignorant game I've seen in years. We aren't losing games because of our free throws. If we had Nash back, had chemistry together, and worked an offense that didn't cause us to throw so many turnovers and show up late on transition, we'd be major contenders...with or without the Hack-A-Howard.

I don't think it would happen that often. Off-the-ball fouls are hard to call, anyways, and aren't pointed out that frequently to begin with. They could do that today, but they don't. They just wrap him up. If a player wanted to, at say 1:00 left in the game, they could "battle him down low" and get called for a foul before the ball is thrown into him...but that rarely happens. Two technical fouls gets your player ejected, so it will do more damage than a round of six fouls. I agree with him (and others) needing to learn how to shoot, but hand size, finger length, and other things hurt players trying to accomplish that...and before anyone dives into the debate about hand size and problems shooting the ball (and they go point out a few good FT shooters that are big men), it's simply true. I had a guy back in school that practiced free throws more than all of us (as we ran our asses off, unfair to us, but whatever), and even had a legit shooting coach who used to work with KU players...and he still couldn't make half of them (we didn't keep percentages but I'd guess he was around 30-40%). Dwight's form isn't great, but the player I'm talking about had better form than I did, and it didn't matter. Rajon Rondo is in the same boat. It's just a cheap way to win a game, in my opinion...especially if you have the size to defend someone like Howard (like Popovich has had over the years, with Tim Duncan)...but most importantly, it just slows everything down to a crawl, sucks the excitement out of a game (for both sides, I'd imagine), and basically gives teams who DON'T want to play defense a huge advantage to catch up at the end of a game, which is what I hate the most.

See, I really don't care (well, I do, but not to the extent to change it) when it relates to us winning OR losing games...because a lot of times, the Hack-A-Shaq (in our case, Howard) can hurt a team. For me, it just takes a lot out of a game. I wouldn't say that, because you're still fouling the ball-handler. All you'd have to do is apply the intentional foul rule to non-ball handlers...just specify. When teams extend the game, they foul the first person that catches the inbound pass (or trap, and go after the second player that catches it). Just apply the "two minute rule" for the entire game, and you're solving the problem. One free throw and the ball for intentionally fouling a player without the ball on offense.

Had to... http://i45.tinypic.com/2en7xc4.jpg

Is he gone by the deadline?

That's true, unless you can pull off a sign-and-trade. A lot of teams won't be able to afford him right out of the gates, so there's always a chance you make a good deal. Doesn't have to be great, but at least you can get back some young talent that you can put on the court. As far as Collins goes, probably not...but Lakers fans felt the same way about Phil Jackson not playing rookies and sophomores, even when we desperately needed them at certain positions. Of course, it's us questioning an 11-time NBA champion coach. Collins doesn't have the hardware, but it does somewhat relate.

I'm not going to be surprised to hear he's out for the entire season...but Philly can just take that opportunity and get out from under him. Sign-and-trade in July. Get away from that mess.

Assuming you're the NBA commissioner, what would you do about the Hack-A-Shaq "technique" that coaches use today? I've seen it applied to more players than just Dwight Howard this year (one being Reggie Evans), and to me, it's just cheap. Slows the game down, and while I understand it's a strategy that exploits a weakness, shouldn't there be more changes made to try and prevent this from happening? Is the "under two minute" rule enough? What would you do, otherwise?

By now, I think it's safe to say that a team of players benefit an all-star more than individual players. We know this by looking at LA this season. You saying that Nash had imperfections for teammates, is like me denying LeBron didn't have a team perfectly built for him back in Cleveland. There was really nothing wrong with a few of those teams, aside from not having another guy to come in and drop a D-Wade 25-point game whenever LeBron needed it...but to substitute for that, he had a team that played crazy good on defense + on the glass, and that 2007 team was very good at running people off of the three and/or forcing long misses (that was basically the not-so-talked-about key to their Finals run). They didn't need Big Z to average 20 that year, and LeBron didn't need to drop 35 a night, because they were holding opponents to damn near 90 every game (not the exact number, I'm sure, but it was low 90's). The funny thing about the MVP award is that it runs into contradictions when it's explained through the media. Yeah, we want to find one of the best teams in the NBA, to encourage winning...yet, supposedly, the MVP (which stands for Most Valuable Player, of course) is supposed to be the most valuable for his team...not necessarily the league (even though it's a league award). So, who's to say a 45-win squad, that makes the playoffs as a lower seed, isn't going to be a 15-win lottery squad without that particular player? The fact that Steve Nash has two, and Kobe and Shaq have a combined two, is staggering. He's a very good offensive player, incredibly good...the best shooter I can name at the PG position in league history...but defensively, he's one of the worst defensive all-star PG's in memory, and a man that has never, in his life, seen the NBA Finals...regardless of the situation (because after all, it's all about winning, I guess).

In the second part of my post, I point out that a 60+ win Durant-led Thunder team would knock him off, just like Rose's Bulls (62 wins). I have no explanation for Steve Nash. His system, the perfect players and coach for it. We can talk about Nash putting up Kevin Johnson numbers, and John Stockton numbers, but he also was a pretty bad defensive player in a season where Kobe put up the greatest scoring season since MJ's 37 PPG (and I could argue better, based on certain monthly average records he set and consecutive 50's, along with the 81 and the 62-61 Dallas game). In 2005, while Nash did incredibly well distributing the ball, it also helped that he had the shooters to knock down shots. That specific team was ranked 1st all across the board anything relating to threes, second in overall FG%, first in points, and without Nash's help, first in rebounds. They ALSO never sent anyone to the line...first in opponent FT shots attempted. Best player in the NBA has never meant anything anyway. Some voters base it on who has the best record, some base it on the name of the player, some look at what top team needs their star the most, and some ask themselves who best player in the NBA is. Four different ways to look at it. And when you consider those four different ways, LeBron wins out based on the name and being the best in the league, so I don't see how anyone is going to stand in his way, unless the Thunder go off and steal the best record in the league AND Durant keeps his averages (and wins the scoring title in the process).

http://photos.laineygossip.com/articles/will%20after%20earth%2011dec12.jpg Very interested...has the potential to be a very good movie OR a massive bust. I know I could have asked some of you on the site to create a better movie poster, and you guys would have done it, lol.

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/gametracker/recap/NBA_20121220_DEN@POR The bold is what I laughed at. How crazy is that? At least Portland won this game, though. Toronto lost the game that Portland shot 0-20 3PT in...lol (sorry for the painful memory, Raps fans).

In fact, I took Scottie Pippen's games with the Bulls, from 1987-1998 (11 seasons), and I didn't find a single instance of him going more than one game without being called for a foul. One game. Kobe's streak is three games, just one time in his career (this season, actually). The other times he went two games without a foul? He wasn't a starter in all but one instance of that. ---------- Funny part is, LeBron did this in 2009, also...from 3/22 to 3/31 (five consecutive games without a foul)...and Steve Nash, who is known as a horrible defender, did it for 11 games this year, 1/8 to 1/28 (lol). Is this an indication of LeBron not being a good defensive player this year, or because he's just incredlble defending others and never fouling? OR he's just not getting calls against him?

No fouls tonight. Five games, lol.

LeBron would get the MVP with a team under 50 wins, so I'm confident in that. But it all falls on Durant's shoulders, really. If the Thunder rack up 60+ wins, and Miami continues to be a bad defensive team, Durant gets it. LeBron is the best player in the league, but that's just how it works.

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/gametracker/recap/NBA_20121219_OKC@ATL

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/gametracker/recap/NBA_20121219_CLE@BOS

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/gametracker/recap/NBA_20121219_UTA@IND

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/gametracker/recap/NBA_20121219_WAS@ORL

Are we still doing this childish shit? We are possibly on the verge of bringing in 25 new members for a sim league. Please, keep this bullshit up and I'll make room for them, put that on everything. Don't even message me about any of it. I don't care, don't want to hear from anyone. Next time it happens, I'm going full-blown ban for anyone involved (which includes giving reps to the posts), without staff approval. I don't give a shit what anyone thinks of it.

If only he had more skills than dunking. Pretty nice dunk. He has hops, that's for sure.

I don't remember where, but I did read somewhere that he may consider season-ending surgery. Don't remember if it was even a credible source or not, just saw it on Twitter a while back, RT from one of the news guys I follow. Leaves me guessing as to what surgery he would need, though...doesn't make sense.

It's tough to really call out just Avery Johnson, though. The Nets are a jumpshooting team that doesn't attack the rim as much as they should be able to (given who they have), and they can't defend anyone up front. Really, Deron is disappointing me a bit. He's too inconsistent, and you just don't know what you're going to get out of him. It doesn't help that Brook Lopez was out for quite a few of these recent losses, though, and they were starting Blatche.