Diesel

I didn't realize big Z was an expiring contract until just now. If LeBron opts out this year Cleveland has 46 million coming off the books with LeBron, Shaq, Big Z combined. That leaves the Cavs with roughly 30 million under the CAP. Now imagine they sign Wade to a max contract. Do the same for LeBron with the Bird rights and then retain Shaq. Does anyone else see this as a possibliity or what? That team would have some serioues potential. Wade is talking like he wants out any maybe he wouldn't mind reuniting with Shaq and his friend LeBron to give the NBA one of it's all-time great teams.

I've seen a deal that consisted of all-star Pau Gasol in the prime of his career for Kwame Brown, Marc Gasol, and Crittenton. Gasol is better than Bosh and Beasley is better and has more potential than everyone in that package LA gave up. You don't trade Wade. What an idiotic question. He is in the prime of his career and a top 3 player in the league. Trading him sets the franchise back another decade. You try and surround him with pieces and wait for opportunities. The Heat want to pair him with Bosh in 2010, but let's hope Wade has the patience to wait.

Hopefully the Phillies are back for good now. Looked really good tonight. The Jayson Werth grand slam was the biggest [expletive] slap of the night IMO

dude looks like a manlet too. That's really impressive though. I'd like to see what his workout routine looks like.

Interesting discussion. I'm not sure which side I would go with. You could always improve both ways. Ball Handling and jump shots are learned through repetition as well as lateral quickness by moving side to side picking your feet up as fast as you can. Defense requires more Basketball IQ though as it's important to know your oppenents tendencies. I think it's easier to learn offense though. Just takes a lot of repetition.

brah you said in quotations that Kobe Bryant is a better player than Michael Jordan. I'm not talking about first few seasons in the NBA. Your saying overall and in general Kobe Bryant is a better player which is not the case. He was rusty from playing so little during that entire year. It's only obvious. It's amazing how he can just come in during the playoffs and score 63 points in a game. Try not playing basketball for a good 6 months or so. See if your shot is effected from that and come back to talk to me. Yes Horace Grant was a key contributer of the team. Point? All championship teams have key contributers. Take Lamar Odom off this years Lakers and they wouldn't have won it all. Great Teams win championships and great players only help boosting the percentage of winning. Obviously a team of Jordan and 4 Rookies isn't going to win championships nor would a team of Kobe + scrubs, or anyone else in the history of basketball in that case. Right here brah "What exactly did Michael Jordan do better than Kobe Bryant? He's not a better pure scorer, not a better defender(most over-rated aspect of his game), and he did NOT make his team-mates better." Like the 2nd thing you said in your initial post. Exactly so the only teams it effects are the expansion teams. None of which Jordan has to even encounter in the playoffs where he dominated and won championships against the legit clubs. It didn't matter one bit. Magic was injured in the 90 Finals which was the year before that. Maybe that's what your thinking of. The Lakers posted a 112.1 Offensive Rating that year and a 105.0 defensive rating. In 1988 they won the championship with a 113.1 Offensive Rating and a 107.3 Defensive rating. Very similar numbers and they were actually superior defensively even without Kareem and Cooper. When the Lakers won the title in 1988 Kareem was 40 years old and averaging 14 PPG and 5 RPG in the playoffs. The production of Vlade and Perkins was easily superior to that old Kareem. The Lakers were only on the downfall because that would be Magic Johnsons last real season with the team. They were still winning the same amount of regular season games they'd normally win that year. Noone saw his HIV thing coming. Ok dude I just owned you on your claim of Jordan losing to teams with dominant bigmen and I was merely explaining some more details about that one loss. The Bulls wre 31-31 when Jordan decided to come back and 14-3 with him playing. Had Jordan been playing he would've been in better basketball shape and posted superior numbers to his 27 PPG and they would've gotten a better seed. It's a known fact Jordan wasn't in the best of shape that series. He airballed a potential game winning shot and had the ball stripped from him which blew the game against Orlando. Nick Anderson had some words to say too upon the Bulls elimination "He didn't look like the old Michael Jordan," remarked Magic guard Nick Anderson. Anderson took a lot of heat for that comment, but it was true. Deep down, Jordan knew it, too. So after the Bulls were eliminated by the Magic in six games, he rededicated himself to becoming the old Michael Jordan again. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=1250345 The guy was playing baseball for a year and a half. Obviously he was rusty and we saw what happened when he rededicated himself to playing basketball again. Russell: The Celtics also lost Hall of Fame player Sam Jones to retirement the same year as Russell. Two Hall of Fame players retiring is going to take quite the toll. Wilt: Jerry West(the effing logo!) missed more than 50 games the next season and didn't play in the playoffs. Probably the hird best SG of all-time missing the majority of the year. Combine that with losing one of the top 3 centers of all-time and your going to see a huge drop off. Oscar: 18 PPG scorer Lucious Allen also missed the entire season. Bird: His team was only worse by 3 games, I'm not sure where your getting your information from. Magic: James Worthy missed half the year and the playoffs as well. Divac missed more than half the year as well. Injuries certainly did it's job as did the loss of Magic. Most of these can be explained. Losing a HOF player is bad enough, but there were other losses. The one that really surprised me was Oscar Robertson though. That decrease was crazy.

Bobby Jones(former Sixer all-star in the 80s)- he was at my friends church so I met him at a breakfeast thing where you could just talk to him and stuff. I remember it was the morning after the Spectrum game this year as I was wearing the shirt . He gave me some tips on defense and was just overall a really great guy. Brian Dawkins- I saw him at the gym doing his workout on April 1st this year. I'll always remember that because noone would believe me and thought I was April Fooling them. I felt like such a badass though working out in the same room as Brian Dawkins hahha. I didn't want to bug him too much because he had headphones on so I got the impression he didn't want to be bothered, but I had to meet my favorite football player of all-time . I just shook his hand, wished him luck in Denver, asked him why he was still in the area, and let him know of my mancrush on him. Winston Justice- at yankees stadium for the Phils-Yankees game a few months ago. Flyers and Phightins were there as well. I basically just shook his hand and told him to win a superbowl this year lol. dude was mammothly. And I'm pretty sure Akers went to my school before when I was little, but I don't remember it at all. I got a signed team photo though with him and Mike Bartrum's signatures on it. I mind as well add this even though it isnt me, but my dad worked at the Marriot when he was younger and it was right next to the Philly airport. He would see a lot of the visting teams players and personnell come in. The only sport he really likes though is football so he didn't know them by names, but he says he met Larry Bird and exchanged some words with him.

ECN before I begin let me tell you my last two paragraphs were to kingfish, not to you since you seemed confused. Then don't open up your first post with a statement such as "Kobe Bryant is a better player than Michael Jordan" or "What exactly did Michael Jordan do better than Kobe Bryant?" You basically opened up your statement comparing the two. And MJ may have had a losing record, but his rookie year be brought the Bulls to the playoffs for their first of 14 consecutive appearences in the Jordan era. MJ's 2nd year in the league he played 18 games in the regular season starting only 7 of them because of a broken foot. I'm not sure if that year should even count. However in the playoffs he scored 63 points against arguably the greatest team of all-time in the 86 Celtics which is the highest amount of points ever scored in the playoffs. Ever. More than Kobe or Wilt. He averaged an astonishing 44 PPG on 51% shooting in the series. This is coming from a 22 year old kid against arguably the greatest NBA team of all-time and when he's coming off a severe foot injury. Yeah You said that Kobe is a better defender than Jordan which isn't the case. You mentioned Jordan didn't always guard the best player. I reminded you that Kobe didn't either who you claim is better(which isn't the case). Young Jordan was way better defensively than any Kobe. I don't care. Dirk has a much better overall offensive skill-set and can get a different arsenal of shots off than Prime Shaq, but that doesn't mean he's a better scorer. It's all about being dominant and nobody could stop MJ or force him into bad shots. It's why he routinely shot around 50% nearly his entire career. lol dude just wow. You use a watered down league as an excuse for Jordan's dominance. I hope you know that by bringing down the "overall quality" this affects every team including Jordan's bulls. Jordan proved to be able to play against the top competition and dominating them so I see a watered down NBA as a bull[expletive] excuse. Hakeem, Shaq, Ewing, Robinson, Barkley, Malone/Stockton all had the luxury of playing in this watered down NBA during their prime yet all of them walked away with 0 titles during the years in which Jordan played a full season. I was talking about the 80s when I mentioned the Celtics, Pistons, and Lakers. The Lakers were still a good basketball team in 91 by the way. James Worthy was only 29 at the time and was around the prime of his career. Magic Johnson averaged near a triple double for the entire playoffs with an amazing 22 PPG, 13 APG, and 8 RPG. He was still Magic as he was still All NBA 1st team and was the MVP of the league just one year ago. Byron Scott was still playing at a high level. And Sam Perkins and Vlade Divac more than made up for the loss of Kareem combining for 31 PPG and 15 RPG in the playoffs providing legit inside forces. The Lakers were still a damn good team. They went 11-3 in the playoffs up until facing Jordan's Bulls. Yeah but how many times did Shaq lose to guys like Shaq, Ewing, Robinson, Hakeem, and Zo? He didn't see much of Hakeem and Robinson since they were out West, but he was 10-1 in playoff series against Shaq, Ewing, Zo with his only loss coming in a year in which he just jumped back into the NBA right at the end of the year. It was really his preseason for 95-96 in which he came back ready and determined leading his team to an NBA record 72 wins. People like bringing up the 55 wins Pippen led the Bulls to in 94. What about the Bulls in 95 before Jordan came? Not many people realize that team was 31-31 when Jordan announced he would come back. Jordan only averaged 27 PPG though in his comeback which was uncharacteristic of the 30+ he would get year in and year out. Not to mention he was working on his baseball game for the past year and a half. The Bulls went 13-4 with Jordan back and it helped them get 47 wins which wasn't that good of a seed. Nonetheless without Homecourt they upset the higher seeded Charlotte team with a "dominant bigman". With a full season to get in basketball shape and if Jordan returned earlier to get the Bulls homecourt throughout the playoffs there's little doubt Jordan's Bulls would've been playing Hakeem in the Finals that year. The guy got back into basketball right at the moment after playing baseball he wasn't preparing at all.

I forget where I heard it, but here's an article that mentions it as well as some other things Kobe did as a leader. http://www.ocregister.com/articles/bryant-ariza-gasol-2464110-lakers-jackson

Arenas has played like 15 games the past two years. Noone even knows if he'll be that same all-star talent that he was and I Don't think he's going to be as good. If he is playing at a high level Washington will be an alright team. This team still has no bigs though and all their good players are perimeter oriented.

Maybe if Devin didn't get owned by "D-Whistle" and if he could guard him then he would have a ring. Letting Wade average almost 40 PPG for the final 4 games isn't exactly something that's going to help your team win the title.

That's because the Bulls teams were less talented in the 80s than those teams in the 90s which was when Pippen started actually playing. Look at MJ in 87(he was eventually swept by the Celtics in the first round. MJ averaged 37 PPG oon 48% shooting(Kobe has never had that high of a PPG average or a shooting %). Now those are amazing numbers and MJ did everything he could, but he still was swept. What's a guy supposed to do? Average 40 per game? MJ is not at fault for his playoff failure without Pippen. The only two players worth a damn on that team were Charles Oakley and John Paxson(to an extent). He was extremely overrated as a shooter too(Paxson) as he only averaged .6 3 pointers made per game. MJ didn't have any real support early on in his career. Oakley was a very good player, but your going to need more to compete against teams like the Celtics that have 3 future hall of famers playing all at a very high level of their carers. Kobe doesn't guard the best guard on the opposing team any more either so I don't see what your aiming at. MJ was a much better defender than Kobe though. I'd like to see Kobe win a DPOY award as a guard. Something only MJ and Gary Payton have done. Jordan was one of if not the best on ball defender in his younger days(until his retirement in 93) and noone was better at playing the passing lanes. Also I'm curious when did Pooh Richardson "light his [expletive] up". That's because the rules were different and MJ dominated scoring more than Kobe ever has. Just because Jordan doesn't have an individual game of at 81 points, or has a streak of 40 point games like Kobe does doesn't mean Kobe is a better scorer. Other than Jordan's rookie year in the league he averaged 30+ PPG in the playoffs every single year of his career that he played in the playoffs then. He turned his game up to another level. Even in his rookie year he averaged 28 PPG which is still better than Kobe's 25.0 PPG average in the playoffs. Kobe has been portrayed as a ball hog as well before he got Gasol on his team. It's called taking over the game because your better than your teammates. Kobe made negative comments about his teammates as well. He ran Shaq out of town, was labeled "uncoachable" by Phil Jackson(someone who coached them both) at one point in his career, and even made fun of Bynum on a camera. As for the expansion teams how many of them did he play in the playoffs. Also notice his numbers went up in the playoffs? Nice try though. Jordan didn't inflate his numbers from poor competition. He simply stepped his game up against better competition which is what the great ones do. Wait so the 80s competition wasn't as good? Back then in the league there were less team's, but nearly every team had an all-star or multiple all-stars on it. There wasn't any team like the Bobcats or Oklahoma City Thunder to rape on a nightly basis. There was the Lakers/Celtics teams with 3 HOFers, great Sixers teams, Bad Boy Pistons, and a plethora of dominant bigmen not just one or two. MJ essentially won 6 titles in a row seeing as how the two times the Bulls didn't win were because A) Jordan didn't play in that season or http://www.otrbasketball.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/cool.gif Jordan came back at the end of the season and for the playoffs not as prepared as he could've been. But as far as full seasons with Jordan he won 6 in a row. Good luck seeing Kobe do anything with that magnitude not to mention winning Finals MVP all 6 times. 33.4 PPG in the playoffs > 25.0 PPG 6 MVPs > 1 MVP 6 Finals MVPs > 1 Finals MVP 1 DPOY > 0 DPOY need I continue? Prime Jordan and Shaq on the same team would win 70+ games every year and the championship as long as their healthy.

The only thing I have a problem with is the people saying Harris because Rondo has 3 other HOFers on his team. Rondo has no KG behind him in the playoffs this year which obviously made him more vulnerable on defense, but Rondo had his coming out party in these playoffs. The guy was .3 RPG and .2 APG away from averaging a triple double for the entire playoffs and that's in 14 games so it isn't like it's one series or anything. That is insane. He nearly got 17-10-10 in these playoffs and was by far the most impressive player on Boston's roster. Rondo was making his teammates look better, not the other way around. As for the people saying Rondo can't shoot, Harris can't really shoot either. Rondo's three point percentage is actually even higher than Harris's lol! lol!! Rondo shoots 30+ from three point land and over 50% from the field in general. He is more efficient. Rondo is probably the best PG in the league getting tips and deflections on defense which lead to turnovers for the other team in some cases or bad passes. He is freakishly long which is definitely comse to be more helpful than Harris's 6'3 frame. He is the best rebounding point guard in the league and the better passer. Harris is a better scorer, but when I'm looking at point guards that's not the first thing used to judge them.

Bibby would be awesome on this team. I'm guessing Stefanski's gameplan was to try and sell him a one year MLE offer and then up his contract after that one year with the Bird rights. Of course should Bibby end up sucking greatly it would screw him over as he wouldn't get resigned for anything more so he isn't going to do that. Good try though lol

Kobe gave Trevor Ariza his shooting program and it helped his shot a ton. Does anyone have/know what his shooting program is?

Hey Magic fans, u mad Turkoglu left? I think so. Turkoglu is better than Carter because of the mismatches he creates with his 6'10 frame and Carter isn't able to handle the ball as well as Turk. He is a better shooter as well. Not to mention you guys had to give up Courtney Lee. Gortat was also lost too so have fun.

I guarantee if Hansborough was black then people wouldn't look so down on him on his future in the NBA.

Yeah but Shaq isn't the one that's going to be carrying the team to a title. You forget they have a guy named LeBron James on that squad. Shaq gives Cleveland just what they needed, someone to guard Dwight Howard in the playoffs and a post-up option when the team struggles to find any offensive flow. All they need is to put someone like Dice next to Shaq on the floor and that team is going to win it all. They are looking very nice.

I'm feeling McDyess. His game hasn't fallen off nearly as much as Rasheed who takes countless rediculous shots. Dice will be more consistant hitting his mid range shot and defending/rebounding. Rasheed is just a bigger name and I would love to see the Cavs get Dice.

The Cavs are in the same predicament and probably need one of these guy's even more so. I'd be happy with Cleveland getting McDyess. SA can take Rasheed, his shot for some reason has fallen off as has his defense and everything else about his game. McDyess hasn't seen as heavy minutes in recent years so he is still going to be able to do his thing in 25 or so minutes a game.

Ok cool guy, guess what Shaq has 4 rings too and was actually Finals MVP for 3 of them meaning he led a team to a title for 3/4. Kobe is only a one time Finals MVP. Shaq's titles are more impressive since he got more sa the #1 option. http://images.usatoday.com/sports/nba/_photos2/2002-06-12-inside-shaq-phil2.jpg Shaq picking up his third consecutive Finals MVP award on a horribly hurt big toe. u mad?

I would go to the Spurs or Cavs. I wouldn't go to Boston since I'd be coming off the bench. Then it decides to who is more likely to win and I say it's the Cavs. A frontcourt of Shaq-LeBron-Sheed would be the best in the league.

Favorite Team: Philadelphia Flyers Favorite Players: Chris Pronger, Mike Richards Least Favorite Team: Pittsburgh Penguins Least Favorite Players: Cindy Crosby, Kennedy, Avery, Fleury, Lundqvist, and basically anyone that's not on the Flyers. Anything Else: [expletive] crosby and scott stevens

I think Malkin is the best player. It's absolutely absurd that Crosby is marketed so much when he's not even the best player on his own team. Something tells me if Malkin could speak legit English then the Crosby hype wouldn't be as high as it is. Malkin has all the tools. He is huge at 6'4 and strong as hell. He's nearly impossible to knock off the puck and is very dangerous at full speed(he's very fast), nearly impossible to stop without commiting a penalty. He has a nice touch for finding his teammates in good positions and unlike Crosby he doesn't have all those secondary assists. His vision is incredible. Malkin just has everything you need in a hockey player.

What endorsements could guys like Francis, Marbury, Marion still possibly have left?