Real Deal

Wal-Mart. You can get almost ANYTHING there. I do all of my grocery shopping at our new supercenter, saves me tons of money. Pencil or pen?

Depends. My female friends? I have a lot of them that really don't care about sports. They will watch them, but there are a lot who don't know a damn thing about the game or the sport they watch. Male friends? I honestly can't think of a single true male friend of mine that doesn't watch basketball or football. There's one guy I casually talk to that doesn't watch those two, but he LOVES baseball.

They should've fined him the rest of his contract.

Wow, Lakers are terrible. Barely won a preseason game.

I wouldn't say the Spurs are exciting. More like...nice. Refreshing to a basketball mind? I don't exactly get up off my seat watching a team like the Spurs, but I do learn a lot. And, yeah...lots of bias. It's Simmons. I could've told you Boston was going to be first on this list before I even knew what the list was for, as long as it's positive.

Butler 38, Coffeyville 26. So many stupid, stupid mistakes. Way too many penalties.

This one can stay open as long as the explanations are posted.

Granger sprained his ankle, had to leave the game and go to the locker room. Not good for a guy who has been playing injured for the last two seasons or so. And man, Collison is sick. That oop to McRoberts, right in front of CP3...just perfect.

Austin Daye wants to playe, lol. I'm still curious to see if the Wolves are going to run that offense primarily through Kevin Love.

LeBron is the first player that comes to mind that would drive the ball in. You stick one player on him, and he's headed to the rim. While most won't want to admit it, Bryant has defended James better than most, including Ron Artest. James has attempted to take Bryant into the post a couple of times, but due to his lack of post skills and Kobe's defensive IQ, it hasn't worked out. If James had a pump-fake, and excellent footwork in the post, he would be unstoppable down low because he's too strong for any other small forward in the league (argue Carmelo). Bryant's defense threw Russell Westbrook and Rajon Rondo in sticky situations. He gives them just enough room to want to shoot, yet not too much so he can quickly close in on the shot. He baits them into the jumper, and uses his teammates' presence well enough to disallow the drive. James has excellent help defense, by the way, but his on-ball defense is nowhere near Bryant's, when Kobe smells a challenge...and that's how it's been when he defends LBJ.

I started on them, actually, and ran into a brick wall because there were a few players I didn't have good enough pictures for (like Amare and his new team). The Wizards forum has a picture of John Wall...but he's in his Kentucky uniform. It's something I've done every year since 2005, actually...and I THINK OTR was the first message board to ever feature players on individual team players (took the concept from NBA.com's team sites). The goal is to get it done ASAP. It would be nice if I had HQ pictures of these teams' best players, especially the new free agent arrivals and rookies. Just a work in progress right now.

http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/news/story?id=5688205

6,000 or more. Word is that there are two guys from ESPN staying at a hotel here, and people have been talking about ESPN showing up for about a week now. SICK. I'm going to streak across the field.

Haha, welcome back, dude. I wonder how many people here remember you, or even know who you are. We still have some vets.

Anyone catch Deron crossing the hell out of Nash? I thought Nash was going to run into the bench.

Woo, Coffeyville/Butler tomorrow. Tickets have been sold out since the 9th...good thing I snatched mine that day, haha. Look at some of these scores the two have been dishing out... http://www.njcaa.org/colleges_college_schedule.cfm?sid=11&collegeid=1673&category=Schedule&slid=5 (Coffeyville) http://www.njcaa.org/colleges_college_schedule.cfm?sid=11&collegeid=1323&category=Schedule&slid=5 (Butler)

That actually made me laugh a little.

Linas Kleiza. He used to play for Denver, which means he could average 30 PPG if he wanted to. Do you think he could rack up 100 points, 34 rebounds and 22 assists in a game, if he really wanted to?

By percentages, so he'll still have a monster contract, compared to other deserving players, and his contract amount and length will continue to hurt the Wizards.

I HATE when we play K-State. It's a no-brainer that we'll get our asses kicked, and it's also a no-brainer the fans and students will get taunted for days, text messages and Facebook, whatever. They act like they are the best football team in college football history. Zero titles.

Haha, no idea right now. I haven't seen much of Speights or Thompson in the preseason. Hickson gets the nod over the other three. I think Millsap is injured, though. After that, Thompson has been the second best player. Millsap and Speights, toss-up. It will more than likely change once Millsap gets healthy, though.

Alex, dude, everything you're saying reminds me of my uncle, it's crazy (you aren't as extreme, though). He goes door to door, in the city, borrowing 25 cents. He used to do things like let the air out of my grandma's tires, say someone slashed them and he needed money to buy new ones for her, and take the money and blow it on cocaine. During the 2007 flood (not sure if you saw me talking about that or not), he swam through the nasty, oil-filled water to steal tools from garages, and look for jewelry that wasn't damaged. Cops were arresting those that even GOT in the water, because of diseases and such, so he would go out in the middle of the night, in flood waters. He has been beat up more times than I can count, nearly killed twice. Once, he took his two kids' clothes (all of them, except what they were wearing), took his wife's clothes while she was in the shower, AND took the curtains and blinds off the windows and threw them all in the river...guy was off the wall that day. The two kids weren't even teens yet, and they had to leave the house and walk down the street, get a friend to go and provide my aunt with clothes. My dad has two sisters and four other brothers (including the drug addict I'm talking about). My uncle has fought ALL of them, fist fight, even the sisters. He has taken a five-gallon bucket of paint that he stole, went to a chick's house in the middle of the night, and painted "slut" and "nark" all over her house. He sold my grandpa's tractors when he was in the hospital, threatened to beat him up when he was on oxygen and 65 years old, forced his way into my car and made me drive him to a crack dealer's house on the bad side of town, stole multiple things from my dad from his garage and threw a brick through our front window (just above my parents' bed) while they were sleeping one night, and blew $1,000 in a single night on a couple of rocks that were gone by morning. Crazy enough, he has injured himself to get on disability. He also swallowed a Brillo pad at McDonald's, one that he stuck in their coffee himself, and sued them for $10,000 that he eventually used for crack. He "slipped" off a semi truck and sued the trucking company. He worked at Amazon.com's distribution center, got into a fight with an employee, and somehow had that employee throw him up against a pillar on the wall, breaking a rib and injuring his back, suing for that as well and getting on disability. Gambling doesn't even COMPARE.

Gotta say it again: Hickson isn't so bad. Definitely not on Amare's level, of course...but he's not a bad player, a legit starter in the league.

More physical, but they couldn't play a legit zone defense without leaving their man and committing to it, so it was a little different. There are more teams that also search for, sign and even start defensive specialists these days (Afflalo, Sefolosha, Allen, Bowen, Posey are just a few examples) just to stop people like Jordan. You're telling me there weren't bottom-feeding teams back then? Jordan would be able to hit 70. Maybe 80. But I don't believe he could reach 100. At the peak of his career, when he was putting up his absolute best numbers, he was not a good three-point shooter, and he would have to stroke it from downtown a little to reach a number like that. It took seven threes and 18 free throws for Bryant to get to 81, 61% FG for 28 shots. Jordan has made seven threes in a game just once in his career. Today, teams would stick two players on him before he even reached the three-point line, and force his teammates into winning the game.