[397] Uh, he is tough.

[399] I was kind of wondering why nobody was talking about the Big East tournament or anything else. Does someone who does it more often and humorously want to submit a College Basketball Tournament Season thread?

Is it fair to say that he has a reputation for exaggerating ailments to look tougher? I'm not saying he actually does it (how would anyone know?) but I'm asking whether it is a commonly held belief.

I was picking on Kobe himself in [397] because, well, it's fun to pick on Kobe. Of course Kobe is tough and plays through a ton of injuries and has a high pain threshold, etc. - I'm not disputing that, I am in no way calling Kobe "not tough". To your point, well, exactly, how *would* anyone know - not to mention differences between guys in their pain threshold, how quickly they heal, etc. Where I think the might (might!) be smoke is that Kobe very much does seem to be keenly aware of the narrative being constructed around him and also seems to play a role in constructing said narrative. In this particular case, well, again, it's just more fun to pick on Kobe.

The larger thing I was (hamfistedly/jokingly) trying to get to in [397] is that typically when you hear "severe" ankle sprain, I think grade 3. Typically, those terms go hand in hand, if you read the basic descriptions of the grades. Considering that Tony Parker is currently out four weeks (though he may be back sooner) with what was reported to be a grade 2 ankle sprain - well, Kobe's sprain was clearly not "severe" (by that definition), I'm sorry, I don't care how tough or gritty or whatever he is.

Now, whether this was just lazy reporting or the Lakers or some PR person or Kobe himself or whatever - there is clearly a disconnect in the way the injury was reported ("severe") and the apparent timetable for his return. Also, does seem like he is doubtful tonight. Oh, and if he really does have a grade 3 ankle sprain and was trying to play tonight? Well, ####, that's not human.

I was picking on Kobe himself in [397] because, well, it's fun to pick on Kobe.

Now, whether this was just lazy reporting or the Lakers or some PR person or Kobe himself or whatever - there is clearly a disconnect in the way the injury was reported ("severe") and the apparent timetable for his return. Also, does seem like he is doubtful tonight. Oh, and if he really does have a grade 3 ankle sprain and was trying to play tonight? Well, ####, that's not human.[/quote

I think many (at least on this board) Lakers fans are ok at this point with the "Kobe as villain" angle that everyone plays up. There was a time when Simmons, Abbot and others bothered me, but its old hat. People love giving Kobe ####, so enjoy the party.

On the ankle point, I'd just refer you to his 2010 broken finger on his shooting hand that was quoted as being the finger of an "83 year old man". I know its easy to be cynical with Kobe injuries but he's proven that he has a pretty superhuman tolerance for pain. The man's knees were bone on bone basically, and he's played about 3 years post that (with a little help from the Germans). Tony Parker, while I like him, Kobe ain't.

#403 - Yeah, it's one thing to play through pain. But it's another thing entirely to try to play through major injuries when your body simply can't do what you need it to. A tough player (like Kobe) may be able to play through a mild ankle sprain, but having had a few myself, I'd have a hard time believing anyone could play effectively on a severe ankle sprain.

I know its easy to be cynical with Kobe injuries

Again, just to reiterate, I'm not even necessarily being cynical WRT Kobe himself. More the narrative that gets created around him and his percieved/actual toughness - some of which is the fact that Kobe really is one tough ############ who plays through things you and I and even many professional athletes wouldn't dream of, and some of which is almost certainly PR-driven BS. Both of those things.

Looking through the news stories about the sprain, it looks like the "severe" interpretation came from Kobe saying it was the worst ankle injury he's had since the 2000 playoffs. This was right after the game where he sprained it. My interpretation of that is he's making a purely subjective judgement about how it felt at the time he sprained it and after (I'm guessing he has a generally good judgement of his own injuries on the level of "a tweak I can play through" to "might miss a game" to "yikes! this concerns me"), but nothing near a reliable medical diagnosis.

Looking through the news stories about the sprain, it looks like the "severe" interpretation came from Kobe saying it was the worst ankle injury he's had since the 2000 playoffs. This was right after the game where he sprained it. My interpretation of that is he's making a purely subjective judgement about how it felt at the time he sprained it and after (I'm guessing he has a generally good judgement of his own injuries on the level of "a tweak I can play through" to "might miss a game" to "yikes! this concerns me"), but nothing near a reliable medical diagnosis.

That seems to be my impression as well, after researching it a bit. Sounds like he talked to some Lakers beat writer who turned around and reported that, followed by everyone else running with it.

Has anybody seen this? Scalabrine got sick and tired of hearing trash talk from would-be challengers, claiming they could kick his butt one-on-one so he challenged them to play. One guy was a bench guy from Syracuse last year. He kicked their collective butts 44-6. You can watch in its entirety here:

Toucher & Rich’s ‘Scallenge’ No Challenge For Brian Scalabrine

Has anybody seen this? Scalabrine got sick and tired of hearing trash talk from would-be challengers, claiming they could kick his butt one-on-one so he challenged them to play. One guy was a bench guy from Syracuse last year. He kicked their collective butts 44-6. You can watch in its entirety here:

Toucher & Rich’s ‘Scallenge’ No Challenge For Brian Scalabrine

I saw the Syracuse guy. It was incredible the ease with which he backed this guy down (who I believe was 6-7/8 himself) to get easy baskets. Just a massive difference in quickness/strength - and this is a retired Brian Scalabrine playing an NCAA D-1 guy. Worth watching.

Scalabrine was a pretty good college basketball player, making the All-Pac Ten team. People forget how good these guys like Scalabrine are because the level of competition is so high.

smileyy,

There is a college hoops thread now, in case you don't know.

I'm asking whether it is a commonly held belief.

I think it is among people who don't like him and are bothered by all the praise he gets in the MSM, yes. There are a couple of guys on the Lakers' board I go to who are odd combos of LakersFans (or so they say)/KobeHaters, and they both immediately accused him of exaggerating the severity of the injury for dramatic effect.

As to his fingers, I have talked about that many times. Several players have talked about it; Metta once said that he "can't believe how f'd up" Bryant's fingers are, and it is a simple enough thing to Google, either through search or images. I have no idea how f'd up they are medically, but just looking at them, there are a couple of them that appear to be permanently damaged, and he supposedly added basic dribbling drills to hos workout regimen as way to try to deal with it.

This DEN-MEM game looking like a dogfight early. Check it out if you have league pass.

That's a big win for the Lakers.

As one of the people who was saying that Kendall Marshall would suck in the NBA at this time last year, I'd like to point out he has negative Win Shares, a 7.1 PER, and a -11.6 simple rating.

-11.6 simple rating is only bad if you are trying to be an NBA player. It's perfectly alright for a guy off the street trying to play.

Also, I told you the Lakers would go 2/3 on that trip. Good Rox-Wolves game, but I don't think these guys will redeem Gtown and Team USA today.

Very weird game for the Rockets.

They score 39 points in the first half, and score 35/ 34 in the 3rd 4th respectively.

Lin and Harden was playing like Lebron and Wade in the 2nd half though.

That's a big win for the Lakers.

It's a monster win. With Bryant down, Blake and Jamison really stepped up. Not a game the Lakers should have won, but they found a way.

Nuggets-Grizzlies is going to give me a heart attack.

Wall 12-15 from the floor tonight, 3-3 from down town (3-20 on 3's prior to tonight, 3-42 last year).

Oh, well. It was a little much to expect the Grizz to win out this entire road trip.

.

I like how Kobe gets credit for the win even if he barely plays. Every story tonight is leading off with a variant of yahoo's: "When Kobe Bryant couldn't be the tough guy on the court Friday night, he resorted to being an MVP coach."

Man, the Warriors are in bad shape. Bulls crushed them in Oakland last night. This about sums it up:

Marcus Thompson ?@gswscribe
Warriors are down 29. At home. In a game they need. Against a team depleted by injuries. On national TV. In sleeved jerseys

Marcus Thompson ?@gswscribe
Warriors are down 29. At home. In a game they need. Against a team depleted by injuries. On national TV. In sleeved jerseys

The last part is still the worst.

And now they get to play in Houston, a team that beaten them 3 times already, the last time they were in Houston, they had to foul non stop for the last 3 minutes to avoid getting their name into the wrong end of the record books.

Of course that means they'll crush Houston 150-50 or something.

I like how Kobe gets credit for the win even if he barely plays. Every story tonight is leading off with a variant of yahoo's: "When Kobe Bryant couldn't be the tough guy on the court Friday night, he resorted to being an MVP coach."

That's the AP wire, you know. Every story on any night leads with the AP wire's copy.

Man, the Warriors are in bad shape. Bulls crushed them in Oakland last night. This about sums it up:

The Dubs are built to break your heart.

[412] rr - The latest college basketball thread I'm aware of is closed.

the sixers are still awful, but they got a hell of a performance from spencer olajuwon tonight against the pacers. 18 points, 16 rebounds, 8 assists, 7 blocks.

Weird play in the Jazz/Grizzlies game; Gasol loses his shoe running the court when Favors gives him a flat tire, and then he uses it to foul Favors on the other end as the latter drove to the hoop. It wasn't a hard or dirty swipe or anything, just...weird. (In Austin Powers voice) C'mon, Marc! Who fouls with their shoe? Honestly!

Not gonna pretend that the Jazz weren't a bit fortunate the Grizz were playing the second night of a tough back-to-back, but I'll take it. Much needed win for my boys in green (wearing road uniforms for some reason).

So 22 down, 11 to go? Actually, of the Heat's remaining schedule, the two toughest remaining games are probably March 31 at the Spurs (which would potentially be game 30 in the streak) and tomorrow game at Boston as the second part of a twofer.

The Raptors outrebounded the Heat 51-26 today and still lost by 17 points. Amir Johnson nearly outrebounded the Heat by himself. That's kind of weird. Chris Bosh's rebounding has really dropped since the All-Star break. He only got two rebounds today and is now averaging fewer than 5 rebounds since the break.

I know almost everybody palms the ball to one degree or another, but Raymond Felton's technique seems particularly egregious.

Why is the college basketball thread closed????

 RollingWave Posted: March 16, 2013 at 12:21 PM (#4389436)
And now they get to play in Houston, a team that beaten them 3 times already, the last time they were in Houston, they had to foul non stop for the last 3 minutes to avoid getting their name into the wrong end of the record books.

Of course that means they'll crush Houston 150-50 or something.

Guess the reverse jinx didn't work here... 107-77 Warrior win. the Rockets outside of Lin / Harden couldn't hit a shot to save their lives , the two of them had like 50 of that 77 . (efficiently too , especially in Lin's case.)

Also , Andrew Bogut apparently finally turned on the internet and saw people's reaction to his Fu Manchu.

What happened to Brooklyn in the fourth quarter tonight?

Just looked at the BKN box score, is Humphries just benched now? He's listed as a DNP-CD tonight, hasn't played at all in the last 5 games, and only played 2min the game before that.

Miami plays in Boston tomorrow. Garnett is "50/50 at best", says Rivers.

beats me voodoo, it's been closed for days...

The Boston-Miami game will probably be a lot less interesting if Garnett sits. Oh well. But Rivers says it isn't serious, at least. (Knocks on wood.)

There are 3 and a 1/2 games between seeds 2 though 7 in the East. In the West, there are 14 games between those seeds.

Factoids: Houston's 22-game streak ended on March 18, in Boston, five years ago. Shane Battier was on that team as well.

I've often wondered just how good that Rockets team would have been had Yao not gotten hurt that season. It's kind of like wondering about the 1978 Blazers and Bill Walton. Ah, big men and their fragile feet.

Yao's career WS/48 is about the same as Shaq, FWIW. granted, thats because Shaq's score got pulled down towards the end of his career by quite a bit.

Why do NBA teams use improper grammar on Noche Latina? It drives me crazy every year.....the Bulls should be Los Toros, for instance. My spanish is awful, but teams like the Bulls, Suns, and Heat are easy translations.

beats me voodoo, it's been closed for days...

Great timing.

I always felt like we were unfairly deprived of a good 7-game Shaq v Yao confrontation......

swisher

is it the lenth of your handle that is causing the front page to be squished on my laptopp?

I always felt like we were unfairly deprived of a good 7-game Shaq v Yao confrontation......

I love Yao and he would have made more of that than Dikembe did but good Lord would there have been some posterizing going on.

Yao's career WS/48 is about the same as Shaq, FWIW. granted, thats because Shaq's score got pulled down towards the end of his career by quite a bit.

I'm sorry, but Yao was nowhere near the player Shaq was at his peak. If you want to us WS/48, Shaq has 8 seasons better than Yao's best season. In my opinion, that overrates Yao, as Shaq played more minutes at their respective peaks (Yao's career high was 37 MPG in a partial season, Shaq had 6 seasons with more MPG than that)

This board has, to my mind, weirdly underrated Shaq. A few pages ago, people were talking about how if he had applied himself, he could have been a top 10 all time player. Shaq in my view is closer to #1 all time than #10.