Real Deal

Anyway...I'll find a new place for it. I can't stick it where it was, though, without moving other links. No point in having one link in the middle of nowhere.

I never said it was a bad thing to use that link. I'm just one that wants to go down the list of team forums and see which ones need extra attention.

Arenas is a black hole. He made passes, but come on...he's shooting way too much, especially when he's struggling. Charlotte's bench didn't play any better, but not even Wall could get it going for the Wizards, and once the Bobcats went on that fourth-quarter run to take the lead (what was it, eight or ten points?), this game was over.

I wonder how many of our members actually scroll down the main index. In my six years here, I've clicked the View New Content link just once, to actually use it...and a few times to test the link while I'm designing.

Ridiculous how Atlanta couldn't close this out. I mean, it's the Jazz and all, and they've done this two other times...but Horford missing both of his frees, and the lack of defense and hustle, it killed the Hawks. Sloan is pretty smart, though. He pulled Deron WHILE the Hawks were building on their lead in the fourth, something that doesn't normally happen when a team is starting to lose their composure. The Utah bench came in and did a little damage, and by the time Deron was well-rested, they were in a good position to lock up the win.

Moving up, dude!

Sonny Weems, baby! And, wow...don't even start with Calderon's defensive stand at the end, because that dude had that steal gift-wrapped to him. Solid game by Bargs and DeRozan. I can't believe I saw Bargnani playing in the post a few times.

Other than having to click back home after a post, what's the inconvenience? Just curious.

Nah, but it sounds like an excuse by him as to why he didn't take over the game late...which I don't take seriously because he was garbage the entire time he was on the floor.

Well, that was definitely a good way to see how many members read this topic, that's for sure. That's really why I left it open.

That it's not all about their offensive totals, it's about them scoring when they need to. The only way Miami gets back into a game is by handing the ball to LeBron or Wade and watching them get to the line. They are not offensively talented for 48 minutes, and it should be a more basic strategy than they are making it out to be. LeBron, Wade, Bosh, and open shooters. If you notice, Haslem can get 500 15-foot wide-open jumpers in a season if he really wanted them. The same goes for Jones, Arroyo, Chalmers, even Ilgauskas, and maybe even Bosh. You said it yourself...they aren't where they need to be yet. Spo hasn't dropped many set plays? I know they said that, but I don't believe it. They have been running plays. Turnovers are down from their first couple of games (meaning anyone handling the ball, not necessarily the entire team, although that may ring true as well). One problem is that they don't know how to play Chris Bosh. He wants to go low post, then high post. He's not Pau Gasol. He doesn't have the basketball IQ to cover 23 feet of court when there are other ball-demanding players on the floor. Another is that LeBron and Wade are deferring at the wrong times. In fact, they may be deferring to each other too much, and not enough to the other players around them. There are many problems with the offense, definitely not as much as they are having defensively, but it's not like I didn't expect their defensive struggles to show so early. Many were talking about how good they would be on the defensive end of the court from the start, and how LeBron and Wade were too good of help defenders to let the point and center struggle too much, but there's really nothing to be surprised about right now other than the uncertainty on offense.

I like what both of them said, but as stated already, asking "Paul who?" is legit only when you're asking "Udonis, what planet is that?"

If Paul Pierce is a franchise player right now, that means James, Melo and Howard are easily franchise players, even if Melo is having his disputes with Denver right now. Franchise players are those you build around. The Magic have done that with Howard, and it resulted in 60-win seasons and a Finals appearance. Denver has had a lot of success with Melo as far as the regular season goes, and they also strolled into the WCF and lost to the eventual champs. And there's no MVP, past or present, that isn't a franchise player...let alone a guy that averages 30/8/8 and propels his team into the NBA Finals, so I don't have to explain the LeBron pick. I know you love Pierce, but two of those players (LeBron and Howard) have done more with less. The franchise player tag doesn't disappear once a guy switches teams...he's still considered a franchise player for whoever picks him up, until his numbers begin to decline due to age or injury.

LOL, he averaged 42 MPG in his second and third season with Cleveland. So far, his 37.6 MPG is the lowest of his career. What a fool. Man up. You're a 26-year old athletic freak of nature that's one of the best-conditioned athletes in the game, and you're complaining about a 46-minute outing that had you playing into an overtime, and another 44-minute game against a team that can knock you out of the East playoffs and has done so twice out of the last three seasons?

I'm fine with it, just don't like the complacency and the lack of defense.

Five more years of 24.4 PPG gets him 10,000 more points, which sticks him right behind Malone for third all-time. That total isn't including playoff scoring, though. He puts up about 650-700 points in the playoffs. Jordan is at 32,292. He'll surpass MJ's total before he retires, for sure.

The problem with that example is that Baylor was 34 years old, Wilt was 32, and West was 30...when they first started playing together. If there was any window for them, it was already closing. This Wilt wasn't even averaging the 30's he did in Philly just three seasons prior to joining LA, and in those last two seasons with Philly, his scoring was already taking a hit. Elgin played nearly a full first season with them...but in that second year, he played in 54 games. Third season? Just two games. Jerry West was the only guy on that team that looked as if he was still in his prime. Wilt was declining, and Baylor was irrelevant after the first season, played injured in the second one and saw the court just 11 total times the rest of his career (wasn't even there for them in the third season). Same thing with these guys...all about age. All three were 33-34 years old when they started playing together. Barkley missed 29 games, Drexler 20. Charles played the final ten games of the season and went into the playoffs injured, struggled with his shot and Houston lost. Age again. Pippen was 34, Sabonis was 35 years old, and Schrempf was even older than Arvydas (37). Plus, despite the age, they still ran over the Wolves and Jazz before they lost to the eventual dynasty Lakers, so it's not like they weren't on their way to greatness. Had they beat the Lakers in just one more game, they were going to win a championship. Gary Payton was 35 years old, Karl Malone was 40. That team would've actually went seven games with Detroit had Malone not been injured, made us play Medvedenko for 20-25 minutes in those last three games against Sheed. Age played a huge factor especially with Karl...he missed 40 games (never missed more than two games his entire career until he was a Laker), and both Kobe and Shaq didn't play 70 games. As far as Run TMC goes, they never played defense, but they were probably the best example of a bunch of young all-stars getting together and failing. Dallas ran into a Kings team that had just stuck Webber back into the lineup (he didn't play hardly any games in the regular season, played all 12 playoff games), and they still had Peja (who looked like an MVP candidate), Bibby, Christie, Jackson, Divac and Miller. But, like TMC, the Mavericks played absolutely no defense, so the Kings/Mavs series in the playoffs was about who was going to shoot the lights out, and what team was going to go cold. However, only two of those teams had two real superstars on them (the Lakers, old and new), yet the age was the difference between that Lakers team and the Heat team today. LeBron, Wade and Bosh are all under 30 years old, and LeBron and Bosh are what...26? All three are in their primes. All three have not shown any decline other than their numbers falling slightly due to them being on the same team. Two of them are supposedly excellent defensive players (help defense) and one is supposedly an underrated defender (Bosh), and all of them have made the playoffs leading a team by themselves. The talent alone...they shouldn't be struggling this bad already, and they shouldn't be expected to be anything less than a top three seed in the East when the smoke clears. Losing in a seven-game ECF series is where the bar sits, and they should actually exceed that. Going 5-4 to start the season, losing two home games already, is not something to dismiss just because other "super teams" have had the same problems, because those other "super teams" were all much, much older, most of the time suffering from injuries, or they just didn't have this kind of talent.

See, Gasol has a total of 14 30-point games for the Lakers (just four in 67 playoff games), and he's been a Laker for 182 games so far in his career. Number-crunching doesn't tell much, of course, but anyone that knows Gasol's game realizes he's not going to drop 40 when Kobe is struggling. He's got two 40-point games in his career, both being in Memphis...and how many times did Memphis need it from him? Bryant is still way too important to this team. He can't shoot 10-30 (just an example) and lean on other guys to pull out a win just by playing offense. When Bryant is struggling, it's the team's defense that has to lock down the opposing team, and right now, our defense is average. Last night, Bryant had no lift on that jumper. It seems to happen randomly. Not saying Afflalo didn't defend him well, but Bryant makes most of the ones he missed if it's any other night. It was a flat shot, and it was ugly. Gasol has absolutely no excuse, though. He was getting shown up by Al Harrington, who has never been acknowledged for his defense (more for his lack of defense) and is very small defending Gasol. If this were Big Ben defending Shaq, okay...but it would take three Al Harringtons to match what Big Ben did as an undersized center. Not only that, but Denver delivered the beating with Melo and Billups on the bench. The 16-point run (maybe it was 17)...Lawson was leading the charge with Smith and Forbes. Unacceptable.

Thing about Dampier is, he's out of shape...badly. And I'm talking more than he was last year. It's no coincidence every team has passed on him this season, even the Heat. There's either some injury that's keeping him out of shape, or he's just letting it go...but early reports (via Twitter) were that a handful of camp scrubs were outplaying him, and he was having trouble staying on the court for extended amounts of time. Outside of Damp, there isn't much to rake in...so the Heat are going to have to start Big Z, experiment with House (they can run House as a two-guard and have Wade defend the elite PGs, instead of waiting for Miller) and ask Arroyo to do more ball-handling off the bench, in a smaller lineup that features Chris Bosh.

I'm not sure if it's that significant that he won't be able to surpass Bryant's 25k record. James will need to average roughly 24 PPG over the next five seasons (including this one) to surpass it before he turns 31, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him do that. And that may actually be off by a half a year. I didn't actually dig enough into it...just more of a guess. But Durant is now in the driver seat, as long as he stays in OKC and averages his 28-30 PPG.

Team forums coming up...just need to finish the team skins (colors won't be too tough to edit). The idea was to go back to basics, a professional look that loads a bit quicker for mobile browsers, but still keeping a unique look. Also, I'm on the fence about the new team rep images. I think they need to be a bit lighter...so I may change that. Credit to Guru for the background in the banner. I placed the players and did the logo/text, just in case you're ready to criticize it, lol. If you see a few of the old images still, hit refresh. FYI - The "view new content" link is in the sidebar, right below the recent topics. Just figured I'd throw them together. EDIT: I moved the new content link into the member bar.

I'll give that to you, but once I found out how they were playing, I was almost 100% sure they would stay undefeated longer than LA. Our guys are too complacent to keep a record like that for very long. I miss those 19 and 15-game win streaks Kobe and Shaq could run off. The Hornets are just very, very good defensively. They are holding teams to 42.5% FG (3rd in the league) and 29.8% 3PT (second), with just an opponent average of 90.1 PPG (tied with Heat for best in the league). They don't have much offensive firepower, but they do shoot the ball better than most teams in the league. Getting Ariza really helps their defensive rankings. Houston could really use him right now.

By the way, OTR has the best group of basketball minds I've ever seen here, and that's six years of posting. And, only because of volume, sites like RealGM and ISH are the ones that rival this current group, but if you stick our best in a debate with theirs, I wouldn't be surprised if we rip their hearts out. Just putting that out there.

Really? I'm not surprised. It was our second best start in franchise history, if I recall correctly...and that includes seasons from the other 16 championships.