Poe

....and Wade/LeBron does not equal Kobe/Shaq, apparently. Nice find, btw.

The assist is an incomplete stat that only tells a portion of the whole picture. By definition, an assist is to help. So in basketball, to assist is to help a teammate score. Is passing the ball to them the only way you can help a teammate score? The assist needs to be redefined and expanded into perhaps more stats than one. Basketball is a team game after all, it would be nice if the stat keeper would reward all aspects of team play, not just one.

And plays the same position as Kenyon Martin, who's contract is expiring.

And concerning K-Mart, there is a reason the Nuggets brought in Al Harrington.

So when is Ty getting his first triple double?

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So 96% of GMs think LA will win the Pacific Division. That means 1 GM in the entire league thinks they won't. I wonder who that is... the Clipper's GM perhaps? I agree.

Played my third game and finally scored. It was a step back triple off a Ben Wallace screen as the shot clock expired. I also got to the free throw line later that game when fouled driving to the hoop. So I had 5 points total on 1-4 shooting, and had 5 assists, 5 boards, and 1 steal. Not bad for a 41 overall. Apparently it was a "key" game, meaning my team was playing a rival opponent. You get double the skill points in these games.

It took me 3 combine games, got drafted by the Pistons in the second round. Played 4 summer circuit games, then played my first actual NBA game. They let you change the minutes and difficulty this time, and you can choose between default and simulation as part of the difficulty. I've played 2 NBA games so far on Hall of Fame, Simulation difficulty in 12 minute quarters. I come off the bench as a back up PG with about 12 minutes per game. I haven't scored a single point yet. Passing has been very easy, though. I got almost 10 assists at the half of one of the combine games, though I guess it's easier having Cousins and Turner on the same team. I average the most assists on the Pistons with 4 per game.

Who do you believe are the top 5 most athletic NBA players?

Well, the Knicks were definitely better last season. By 17 games to be exact, which so happens to be the same win differential as last year's Cavaliers (61 wins) and Bobcats (44 wins), and same differential as last year's Lakers (57 wins) and Grizzlies (40 wins).

Source I can imagine some line ups like: Nelson - Carter - Lewis - Gortat - Howard, or Nelson - Redick - Carter - Anderson - Bass. I can see them taking advantage of having possibly the best bench in the league to create completely different line ups.

This was not a suggestion for the WNBA, but for FIBA. The title is misleading. I don't understand the suggestion. It almost sounds like something the Onion would report. I hardly watch FIBA though, men or women, so it doesn't make that much of a difference to me anyway. I still disagree with it.

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Kobe is way too good at breaking down defenders... he's probably the best of all time at that. He'd definitely beat LeBron one on one. Even considering that, I'd love to see the two go head to head. One on one with no teammates. It would be a great event at the all star game.

I believe Chris Paul is the best PG in the NBA. Comparing him an Rajon from a statistical standpoint, RR is about even with CP3 in assists, steals, and rebounds. What separates CP3, and the only thing that significantly separates him statistically, is free throw shooting and three point shooting, which also gives CP3 a better true shooting percentage. Scoring wise, Rajon is about as good of a slasher as Chris Paul, if not better because he still manages to score at the rim so well despite how much defenses sag on him. Add shooting to Rondo's game, and he's up there with CP3. Statistically, at least.

Source I actually don't think that's too far fetched of a statement... if he had a jumper. We'll see how far he's gotten on that part of his game.

Source Wall - Arenas - Morrison - Blatche - McGee? :o

Who do you believe are the top 5 current coaches in the NBA?

Pick two people the same age and train them both to have the same perfect form and the same perfect work ethic, the person with the more favorable genetics to that particular task will be better. I've heard that Michael Phelps doesn't have the perfect swimming form compared to other top swimmers. He's a freak of nature with a great work ethic, which outweighed his form so greatly that he was still the best. Likewise, JJ Redick and Jared Dudley have different shooting forms. JJ Redick has the more ideal shooting form, yet Dudley both made more three pointers and shot a higher percentage last year than Redick. I'm not denying that both form and work ethic increase one's potential to shoot, yet genetics determine how high the individual's potential is, and it is the same with all things. Some people have a higher capacity in mathematics, yet I'm sure that no matter how hard some people work at math, they will never be comparable to the mathematical genius of Albert Einstein. Take an extreme case of a freak of nature mentally like an autistic person, who can do incredible things mentally with memorization and mathematics, yet are super unstable emotionally and socially. I've seen videos of a person with autism that took a helicopter ride over the city of Rome, and then was asked to draw what he remembered with no picture references allowed. He drew the whole thing perfectly (though on the flip side, he couldn't speak a word from what I remember). As far as shooting goes, it's the same on a physical level and a mental level. Some people have better hand-eye coordination, and have a better natural ability to hit their target regardless of form. Some people have a better sense of focus to consistently hit their target even when fatigued. Some people are more intuned with their bodies to naturally become more comfortable doing things differently than they are used to. Some people have a natural perfectionist mentality to do things at a more precise level (like remembering to hold their follow-through without being reminded to). And physically, some people have hands that are a more favorable size to shooting a basketball (which is one reason why Rondo has difficulty because of his abnormally large hands), and some people have longer or shorter arms. It goes on and on. There are many more things that come into play at a genetic level on being able to shoot than the above. I hope I've made myself more clear. I don't think a loss in athleticism causes a player to be more injury prone. Age itself, though, does make you more injury prone and unable to withstand certain tasks as much as in their youth. The biggest cause to injury is doing things improperly, like not having good form in weight training or doing simple things like running incorrectly. Most players... actually almost every player and american/european, don't know how to run properly, which over time causes ankle, knee, hip, and lower back pains, and makes them more prone to severe injury in those areas when doing physical activities like professional basketball. What I'm referring to is heel-strike versus landing in the mid-foot. Running heel-to-toe is not the way humans have evolved to run, yet the cushioning in our shoes makes running this way more comfortable, thus we put too much pressure on our joints because of repeatedly landing on our heels when we aren't supposed to. Now I'm getting offtopic again. BLAH. Anyway, perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe wear and tear does affect players longevity in the league more than I innitially thought. I'd like to see some examples of players that have played off the bench for most of their careers and see where they begin to drop off statistically, but I can't think of any examples to research. I'm not disagreeing with you as much as I'm disagreeing with the thread topic. I don't think LeBron playing more minutes early on will affect his game as much as people think, rather than his ability to adjust his game. I could be wrong, though.

I think the Raptors appear to be the weakest team in the league match-up wise against any team, but the Timberwolves are in the tougher conference and will likely face more good teams than the Raptors throughout their season. The Wolves are also in a much tougher division including Denver, Oklahoma City, Portland, and Utah, which all came off of 50-win seasons. The Raptors, on the other hand, have to contend with New Jersey, Philadelphia, New York, and then the Atlantic division's only playoff shoe-in, Boston. So while the Raptors could be the worst team, the Wolves seem to have the highest possibility at the worst NBA record.

Well, that's a different argument in itself. Whether LeBron will learn to adjust is something we will see over time once LeBron's athleticism does begin to decline, which it hasn't yet. My guess is that his dominance won't last the way Kobe has unless he adds a consistent jumper once defenses are more comfortable playing closer up on him, or unless he adds a real post game. But all of that has little to do with how many minutes he's played over the years, or even the amount of work ethic Lebron may or may not have. Some players naturally have a better shooting touch than others in a genetic sense almost the same way some players naturally run faster or jump higher. Players can strengthen their leg muscles, but some people will just never jump as high as VC. Likewise, some players can work on their jump-shot 5 hours a day and still not shoot as well as Ray Allen. Take Rondo as an example. I'm sure he works very hard at his jumper as well as the rest of his game, and has shown improvement in other areas of his game like his ability to see holes in the defense and finish around the rim, and his court vision and passing creativity. He just doesn't have the natural ability to shoot well. He will improve with practice and hard work, but he will never shoot like Steve Nash. With that said, LeBron may never shoot or post up as well as Kobe, because his natural shooting ability isn't at the same level. I can see him using his superior strength in the post, but other skills that come with the post game like a turnaround jumper won't be as much of a threat as many other players around the league, at least once players guard him more tightly and give him less elbow space. Anyway, now I'm starting to ramble and get further away from the main subject. Back to what was said originally, I doubt the minutes are going to play as big of a role as age itself. If LeBron learns to take care of his body the right way, his athleticism could last into his 30s. KG came out of highschool, and didn't experience a decline in his minutes until he was about 31. Duncan came out of 4 years in college, though started getting a decline in minutes at about 26, 27 years old. Kobe Bryant came out of high school, and is still averaging more points than his career average at 32 years old. Shaq spent a couple years in college, and experienced his decline at about 31, 32 years old. Jordan spent about 3 years in college, and his scoring wasn't consistently below his career average until about 33 years old, though it wasn't much of a dropoff because at 35 he was averaging just under 29 ppg. So really, whatever age a player chooses to come into the league doesn't seem to really affect how long they last. Duncan spent 4 years in college and started dropping off extra early, and Jordan spent 3 years and started dropping off extra late. Both Kobe and KG came out of high school, and KG lasted until he got held back by injuries, and Kobe is still going strong though his athleticism isn't the same. I could be wrong as well, but it seems to me that how long a player lasts depends mostly on how well a player can adjust his game throughout his career, how durable the player is, and how much they rely on their athleticism. Next comes how much age affects this particular player's athleticism (like some people grow up faster, some people grow old faster), and then comes the amount of minutes they've played throughout their careers and how much that wears them down over time. BTW, as a side note, I'm going to be more clear in my posts from now on like this one. I've been careless in the past which has led to misinterpretation, and I've even allowed myself to take things at a personal level, which I won't do anymore. Let me know when something I say doesn't make sense.

Reading reviews for the 2K11 game, it seems like all areas of the game are fantastic and worth looking forward to. But the one area on my mind, and the one part of the game on everyone's mind... is the online play. The reviews I read said the online ran smoothly, but that's with a limited amount of people playing on the servers... we have yet to see how well it plays with the masses once the game is actually released world-wide.