Real Deal

We're going to let Farmar go. He thinks he can start and contribute somewhere else (positive contributions, as in, Rajon Rondo contributions), so we're going to let him play his little heart and big ears out.

When you log into OTR, it magicbalala's your laptop...magically. Just installed a program for it. This is why we encourage our members to be online 24 hours a day.

Yeah, I agree. Wilt was set to score a ton of points from the start, hogging the ball and simply dominating Darrall Imhoff and Cleveland Buckner. Imhoff was a second-year player who came off the bench, absolutely sucked for being 6-10 (shot 39% from the floor, averaged three fouls in under 20 MPG). Buckner was even worse, 6-9 and only played two seasons in the league, a rookie having to guard Wilt. The Knicks' starting center (who was Phil Jordon) was injured, by the way. Wilt had 23 in the first, 41 at half. He knew what he was going to do, and as the game was coming to a close, the fans kept encouraging the Warriors to give Wilt the ball, for almost a full quarter. 23 in the first...and during Kobe's 81, he had 26 at the half. I just can't sit here and say that makes him the greatest scorer in NBA history. Hell, when he averaged 50 PPG that season, he also averaged 48.5 minutes per game. Played 79 of 80 games for 48 or more minutes, and went into OT in ten of them. Who does that? Would Wilt be able to score 100 in the 80's or 90's? Against Hakeem, Eaton, Ewing, Mourning, Shaq, or Mutombo? Not a chance.

At the same time, the guys you named (and Hawks named Tony Allen), they are all coming from excellent team defenses. Ariza and Houston, Wallace and the Cats, Allen and the Celtics, Prince and the 2004 Pistons. Battier has had success against Bryant because, quite frankly, he is one of the best to lead a player into strong help defense. In fact, he's one of the smartest defenders I've seen in years. I've seen guys do a great job on him, but not consistently, and not without a lot of help. As much as I've watched of him (seen more of Kobe than I have of Jordan, who I obsessed over for years), I've never seen a player actually stop him, one-on-one, in two consecutive games. People hate Kobe Bryant, the man...but a lot of people that hate him that way will admit that they love Kobe Bryant, the player...and I feel like that's the main reason for it. For me, the greatest scorer can be three different guys: Kobe, Jordan, or Kareem. Tough choice. Jordan is more efficient than Bryant, Kareem is the all-time leader, and Kobe just has more ways to score the ball than anyone else I've ever seen. I probably won't answer the topic, to be honest, because it's between Jordan and Bryant, in my opinion.

We'll take Blake. If Watson wants Los Angeles, there's a blue and red team he can sign with.

No-show Joe. :o

They won't do it because he's an expensive forward. I think they would strongly consider the Bynum offer, though (if there is one). Makes sense for them.

We've seen this stuff before, though...players selling houses, and then they stay with their teams for another 2-3 years. You can't be surprised if he doesn't get traded.

Chicago, and he's going to try and drag Bosh with him.

Can other front offices hold meetings with players NOT in free agency? Carmelo is still under contract with the Nuggets, so I don't see how the Knicks can meet with him, even if his contract is up in a year.

Wade is a smart man. Recruit a scoring big that can rebound the ball (all-star caliber, look for that 20/10), then build a TEAM around those two. Laying the foundation for three superstars and 10-11 minimum contracts is insane. If Pierce, Allen, Rondo, Garnett and Perkins couldn't get it done with good role players (Nate, Baby, Sheed, Allen), you can't sell the farm and risk ruining careers with James, Wade and [insert big here].

Leave the personal attacks out of the topic, or you won't post here for months. Personally, I'm getting fed up with it. I don't sit here and work on the site in the limited time I have JUST so I have to put up with this garbage every day. The mods are looking to me for answers because it's getting worse, and I will not let it go on any longer. There are plenty of other sites you guys can post on, and I'm 100% focused on pushing for more activity, but I won't hold back in removing those that disrespect other members of the community.

We're going to make an attempt to use these three to promote OTR. So, I need your help. Please "like" our Facebook page and follow our Twitter account. http://www.facebook.com/pages/OTRBasketball/115401195173525 http://www.twitter.com/otrbasketball Also, if you have a YouTube account, become a subscriber. We're going to change it up a bit and allow user-created videos on our YouTube (mixes, or even video blogs). http://www.youtube.com/otrbasketball It would be great if you guys used the "Follow Friday" on Twitter for our OTR account. That will help us pick up plenty of followers. Team effort, guys. I appreciate the hard work everyone puts in as they post here. It's also these little things that can make the biggest difference.

Then you slip in the 1993 NBA Finals and pretend that it's Jeff Hornacek playing against Michael Jordan, and you guys still have Sir Charles.

That really is a big deal. It was either the Hawks or Knicks for Johnson, and that six year max deal...man, that's tough to turn down. It would take LeBron going to New York to sway Johnson's decision, I believe. The Knicks would probably have to give him all the money they can, and the incentive would be that he gets to play with one of the best players in the league.

Yeah, I didn't save the mess I had to type up (deleted the other skins, and the block of code was 30 forum links and image links haha), but I'll get it up soon.

Haha, so I'm guessing it's fixed? The Facebook Connect application didn't set up properly when I performed the update, so it was asking for me to reconnect FB and OTR with the app key. Pretty simple fix. Not sure how that relates to profiles, but then again, I believe there's a code in the profile template that asks to draw information from your Facebook IF you are connected that way...so, really, it makes sense. Anyone notice the new "Unread Notifications" section off to the right sidebar? I like it. :o

Pretty disappointing.

Try it now.

Hmm...let me check into that Facebook connect problem. When you guys signed up/logged in, did you use Facebook connect?

Sorry guys, I had no idea it was turned off for non-staff. By the way, you can now see who gives reputation points to you.

NOW try it. I didn't enable it for everyone...has no idea until I went back to look. Just go to your own profile and hit the Edit Profile button, and look over to the left.

Lots of things to check out...just look around. I encourage you guys to "like" and share really interesting NBA-related articles whenever you get the chance. It definitely helps. You can "Like" and/or share using your Facebook, or just using the Twitter share button for your Twitter account. You can change the background in your profile, a color or image I believe...not really looking into that yet. Looks like you can now leave comments for status updates...identical to Facebook. You can click on the reputation points you receive in a particular post (click the green) and it will now tell you who gave them to you. There's a new mobile skin as well! Not sure what else, but I'll be bumping into things here and there, and maybe I'll add a chat room for us in the near future. If the site seems slow right now, it's probably due to a server problem (the one we were discussing earlier). If it doesn't clear up by tomorrow, I'll look deeper into it. If you run into any trouble, let me know.

Haha, that's sick. You gotta love that.