Poe

I think NBA history has proven that the regular season and the playoffs are a different ball game. LeBron won games as a supreme player with efficient role players, but he couldn't win a championship without a true second option.

But Shaq wasn't a 20 and 10 player like on the Heat, or a 30 and 13 player like on the Lakers.

Scottie Pippen, Kevin McHale, and Magic Johnson are among the elected 50 greatest. If there will be a hundred greatest in the future, Shaq will a part of it, but not Mo Williams or Antawn Jamison.

That's not a game worth playing. Neither of us have any control over the teams we root for.

Michael had Pippen. Bird had McHale. Kareem had Magic. Wade had Shaq when he still put up 20 and 10. The best player LeBron ever played with was Mo Williams.

Hopefully he doesn't let his dancing do the talking this time. Good boy.

I don't think the issues last season had much to do with whether Bosh could be a vocal leader or not. I'm sure Jarret did a fine job with that role. On second thought, it may have been an issue though in the sense that the team struggled to find it's true leader. Whether it would be Bosh himself, or Hedo, or Calderon. When they found out the best man for that role was a bench player, that probably created some balance issues on the team (along with the tangible issues like the lack of both perimeter and interior defense). He was probably just answering a question about it. I don't think we need to assume anything more than that.

The overall ratings are questionable because 2K's flawed rating system, but looking through each player's individual ratings, they are much more accurate.

I compared the ratings of Durant (88) and Dirk (83) in 2K10. Apparently post defense is weighted a lot for power forwards and centers, so that really hurt Dirk's rating. Perimeter defense has a higher weight for wing players, and Durant has decent ratings there, so that gives him an advantage over Dirk. I tried increasing Dirk's post defense and shot blocking, only two separate ratings out of the 40 or so total, and Dirk's rating became even with Durant's. Again, the 2K Insider (the guy who's paid to judge the official ratings) is absolutely awful, while other guys like Rashidi ( http://thereal2kinsider.blogspot.com/2010/09/rashidis-nba-2k11-player-ratings.html ) do it in their spare time and put up downloads on 2K share, and actually do a better job (though even his ratings are arguable, he uses extra means to create his ratings like Synergy Sports, and they are much better than the guy who's freaking paid).

Right now, before watching them play together, I believe we could be witnessing the greatest trio of all time. I don't know if they are the best overall team yet, though. There are still some question marks in the roster. Tough question. Right now, for this season, I'm going to have to say 'no' because of some overall imperfections in the roster that might lead to enough losses throughout the regular season to not break the record. However, after a year or two together when chemistry to built to the max and all positions are solidified, I think they have a good chance to break it.

Dirk's low overall isn't for lack of ability ratings, his scoring ratings are very high and he's easy to score with in the game, it's just the rating system isn't properly weighted for elite scorers, with players like Jason Kidd getting the same rating despite his decline in his career because of his high ratings in multiple areas such as rebounding, defending, passing, ball handling, and shooting threes. Nevertheless, these ratings look roughly the same as 2K10, where the "Insider" didn't rate players well there either.

Who is considered the leader of this team today? Who do I consider to be the leader? Dwyane Wade. Who is considered to be the leader by the general public? Probably LeBron. After the upcoming season ends, who will be considered the leader? Whoever wins Finals MVP, which I believe will be Dwyane Wade. If they somehow fail, I will still consider it to be Wade, but the general public may consider the two time MVP depending on who performs better throughout the season and the playoffs. Six seasons, how many championships? If healthy, there's a chance they could very well win all six. As for a solid prediction from me, I'll say 5 for now since there could be injuries, or perhaps another organization could build a better team within that time, or some other random possibility that prevents the Heat from continuing to win championships. Who will knock off the Heat in the 2011 Playoffs? Nobody. Will Pat Riley end up coaching the Heat before season's end? I have faith in Spoelstra. He's a very good coach and has the capabilities to pull through. If the Heat fail to win it all this season, what will be the biggest reason why? Injuries. Which trio would be better? I'll take the trio with 2 of the top 3 players. In your opinion, was "The Decision" disrespectful and unnecessary? Disrespectful by interpretation of the public and the Cavs organization? Yes. Disrespectful by LeBron's intention? Perhaps. If so, then "The Decision" was necessary to what LeBron was trying to accomplish (and as a side-thought, I'd like to know the reasons behind his intention if it was in fact intentional). If not, then the hour special was unnecessary, other than ESPN profiting from its views. Will the Heat piss off Joakim Noah by dancing around and laughing during games? Will the Heat dance to piss off Noah? I don't know. Would Noah be pissed off by it? I really don't know. Will the Heat dance and laugh and successfully piss off Noah? I really don't [expletive]ing know.

Lol.

There are plenty of gay men that talk like any normal straight man.... do I really need to explain this?

Being gay doesn't change anyone's voice... which should be obvious enough. Some gays choose to talk that way, but it's not a direct part of being gay.

Is that a fact? Some people take time to realize they are gay. They may grow up thinking that they are normal and thinking it's just taking time for them to like women than normal boys, but they may not fully realize their attraction to men until they are later (or women to women). Or perhaps in other cases, they may try to date the opposite sex to somehow make themselves normal, but of course, fail to do so. And if someone is gay because it's a "fad" and somehow a cool thing to do, then they obviously aren't gay. Being gay is actually being physically attracted to the same sex, whether it's for attention or not.

As a whole we are wired to be attracted to the opposite sex to reproduce. However, genetics can [expletive] up the wiring sometimes, and that's where homosexuality can occur. As far as I know, nothing can turn a person homosexual, just like nothing can turn a person down syndrome (not to say anything is mentally wrong with homosexuals other than not being attracted to the opposite sex). They are born that way.

Homosexuality isn't "adopted".

She's only a reflection of the people that vote for her. Without any votes, people like her don't get power.

I don't see the Bulls making it past the 4th seed, behind the Heat, Celtics, and Magic. To be honest, I'm not sure if they are even better than the Bucks unless Rose and Deng can become true perimeter threats. It's a very crucial key to their success. They have the coaching, the defense, the rebounding, the scoring threats from the post and midrange, and perhaps some depth. They are just missing that one element. Whether Rose truly improves his 3 point shooting is going to have a bigger impact than even Rose might realize.

I think the Bulls are going to have to start Korver. His court spacing is too valuable for their offense. The Bulls have enough help defense so that Korver will become less of a defensive liability. It's unfortunate the Bulls don't have a cloning machine where they can combine the DNA of Korver and Brewer to create the perfect SG for their team.

Just because a player says he'll put the work in to improve doesn't mean he'll find results. Derrick Rose shot 28% from 3 in FIBA this summer, where the 3 point line is actually shorter. I agree with what Erick is saying about court spacing. It's something that's always stood out to me this summer about this team. Rose has never been a good three point shooter pending his claimed improvement, and Deng's 3 pointer is only fairly respectable. Perhaps giving Korver significant minutes will help, but while he's benched the Bulls will have a lot of difficulty finding holes in the defense for Rose, Deng, and Brewer to slash, and even finding room down low for Boozer and Noah to do their work in the post. With line ups such as Rose - Brewer - Deng - Boozer - Noah, the scoring range is often limited to the midrange area. The Bulls will be a good team because of their defense and talent level, but the overall lack of range will hurt this team greatly throughout the season, and especially in the playoffs.

Perhaps there were other things involved that made the Suns organization feel it wasn't a good idea to make his contract fully guaranteed. That's something we can only speculate. The fact of the matter is, financially the Knicks offer was better than the Suns.

If injuries continued to be an issue, perhaps.

Well in that case, if Melo is to go to the Nets, the situation isn't as similar outside of basketball since Amar'e left for money because the Suns wouldn't pay him, and Melo is leaving because of his wife (from what I know) even though the Nuggets are willing to extend and give him a max deal. From a team standpoint, the situation would be similar since they would both be leaving playoff "win now" teams and putting behind their second star (Billups/Nash), for younger teams with brighter futures including a rising star (Gallo/Lopez).