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Apparently with accusations that the arrest was to keep him from playing in the game: http://rt.com/sport/basketball/fenerbahce-forward-passport-sato-758/
Howard and Miles (and Bell) were all kinds of terrible last year. I can't imagine Evans could have been any worse, so what would have been the harm in giving him a chance? I'm not saying he should've started or anything, but I don't see how the team would've been worse if they'd given him 15 of Josh Howards minutes at SF last year.
It'll be a little tougher this season to find PT for him if they run their big lineup more often (Jefferson at C, Favors at PF, Millsap at SF), plus working in Marvin Williams too. But I think they could have absolutely made it work last year. Corbin's obsession with veterans - even terrible ones - was almost as frustrating as Sloans (I loved Sloan, but his disdain for young players was maddening sometimes).
I was just assessing probabilities. I definitely didn't expect him to be out this quickly. In any case, this is not what I meant by getting Elton Brand more playing time.
Deron Williams is probably going to say that he didn't sign with Dallas because Dirk's knees didn't come to the meeting with him.
*-If you message me and I don’t respond within 12 hours just post something on this thread
EDIT: PS3 and 5 minute quarters.
From Lowe's Grantland column on the Nets. Looks like it's "redeeming my stupid theory day" today.
that made my day.
1, deron williams, joe johnson, gerald wallace, and brook lopez all played 30+ minutes, and the nets still lost by 10. as a team, they shot 44/26/60 from the field/3P line/FT line, and considering all of the turnover on the roster, and the fact that brooklyn was supposed to have a pretty good offense, that seems like a pretty good indicator of the quality of the defense.
2, the most notable aspect of the sixers preseason so far is not the 4-1 record, but the fact that they've scored 100 points in all 5 games. considering their record-tying run through the playoffs last season, it's quite fun to watch an offense that doesn't suck.
3, coming into tonight's game, the sixers had shot 47% from beyond the arc. tonight, they were just 7/21, and even then, they hit their first 4 3PAs, so they actually played the last ~40 minutes shooting 3/17. and despite that, they still beat the nets by 10.
4, something that's notable about that last point is that the sixers were in the top 10 last year in 3P%, but they did that while being in the bottom 10 in 3PAs. this year, they've added 3 wings (nick young, dorell wright, and jason richardson) who took more 3PAs than anyone on last year's team, and beyond that, they appear to have doug collins' blessing to chuck it at will.
5, with all of that said, the sixers are still playing without one of the best offensive big men in the sport.
Bless your soul, Steagles.
deron williams, joe johnson, and brook lopez should be a pretty damn effective scoring trio. most of the other nets, though, they're not really ideal role players.
What I like about it is that his spelling and punctuation are both pretty meticulous. He just refuses to use capitals. I have read so many of his 76ers posts at this point that I don't really notice anymore.
That said, as is normally the case, the MSM/traditional media guys are mostly more bullish on the Lakers than the stathead blogosphere intelligentsia guys are.
And of course, Hollinger has them winning 53 and Pelton has them winning 55. Obviously, if things break right, a team on that level could win 60.
Celtics fans worrying about the Lakers right now makes about as much sense as Lakers fans worrying about the Heat. ;- FWIW, 56 of the 104 ESPN "experts" picked the Lakers to win the West, bringing knowing smirks from the Haberstroh/Mason/Abbott/Hollinger group, who like OKC and think people are once again "sleeping on the Spurs". 42 picked OKC; 6 picked SA.
Personally, I think the Lakers are third in line behind last year's finalists and I think I would put them at about 5-1 to win it. But they could certainly be the best team in the league if things go their way with health. And yes, Howard has never had guys this good around him, even if all three of them are old.
I don't think anyone is, except maybe dumb guys at Miami and OKC fan sites. But Hollinger has them 4th in the conference and is on record saying the bench is "terrible", and I seriously doubt that either of them will pick the Lakers to win the title or even to make the Finals. I assume that they will pick Miami over OKC again, which from a stathead POV makes sense.
On another note, BaskPro is pretty high on the Hawks (I have read three team essays--LAL, ATL and BOS). Has them at 49-33, pulling in at #2 in the East.
Oh, I'm not worried about them in the sense that they strike me as a big obstacle to a Celtics title. There are, as you note, plenty of more immediate obstacles to such an occurrence. I'm worried about them just because I think they might be really good, and that will make me really sad.
P.S. Gun to my head I still pick Miami to repeat, but I think health is the only thing standing between LA and the Finals, and maybe between LA and the title. It's possible that age-related decline will keep them from a title, too, of course. And health is a bigger question mark for LA than it is for OKC. Still, I suspect the staheads are may be underestimating them.
Which strikes me as about right (I'm a little less bearish than him, but only a little).
Hollinger says 53 wins, #4 seed, B-Pro says 55/4 (and also suggests that they should get to the finals / are OKC's top obstacle in the west).
The biggest short term question for me is: how are they going to succeed with no size on the wing?
How often do you all think this sort of thing happens? Around draft time, Jorts was evaluated like a regular big so no one thought he had a chance to ever be in the league, then the Knicks shock the world by drafting him and everyone is confused/laughs...until it turns out he's like a disease-ridden deathbed near homeless man's Kevin Love. Why wasn't it known, at all, that he could potentially be a stretch 4.5?
Gasol 0 MWP +7 Howard +5 Nash + 7 Bryant +7
___
Jamison -11 Ebanks -16 Sacre -6 Blake -9 Duhon -5 Meeks -14
All the starters played 32-36 minutes, and Howard played. Kobe did more or less exactly what people supposedly want him to do with this group: 6/12 from the floor, 8/8 FTs. Howard took 12 shots, Gasol 8. MWP, surrounded by HoFers and left open a lot, took 6 3s and hit 3 of them and took 11 shots.
Nash was only 2/6 from the floor and did not take a 3. Not sold on this Princeton thing for him at all.
and since i know that everyone is waiting with baited breath to hear my thoughts on tonight's sixers-celtics game, which the sixers won 88-79, bringing them up to 5-1 in the preseason:
1, i want to see dorell wright play ~40 minutes per game. he has been extremely impressive, and right now, i think he is clearly the best player the sixers have on the wing. of the 4 guys they have at the position (wright, young, richardson, and turner), he is easily the best defensive player, from an individual standpoint, from a team standpoint, and from a versatility standpoint. and offensively, he's as good a shooter as any of the others, and he's been great running the floor in transition, and his handling seems to have been significantly underrated. 2 years ago, he averaged 16 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, a block and a steal, while leading the NBA in made 3 pointers and falling just short of a 2:1 assist:turnover ratio. if what he's done this preseason is any indication of what he's capable of doing during the regular season, i think he could easily match that, if not improve on it, due to an increase in usage and/or efficiency.
2, the defense was extremely impressive during the 2nd quarter. there were multiple plays where boston had the sixers' defense off-balance and were passing the ball around the perimeter, trying to get it to an open shooter, but every time the ball was moved, one of the sixers defenders was closing out at a full sprint and boston just never got a clean look. the whole thing looked frantic and pretty ragged, but they challenged everything and they were very effective.
3, evan turner left the game in the 3rd quarter with a sprained ankle. he was already favoring a sprained knee coming out of training camp, so, this season is not looking especially promising for him.
4, jrue holiday has had a quiet preseason in terms of scoring, but tonight, he did just about everything else. 10 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 steals in 26 minutes.
5, jeff green had a pretty solid game for boston. 12 points, 10 rebounds, 4 blocks, and 2 steals. since i was talking about him a few days ago, i feel it's necessary to mention that he looked much better than i remember.
6, lavoy allen fouled out in 16 minutes tonight guarding kevin garnett. that's not ever good, but tonight, with andrew bynum and kwame brown sidelined with lower body injuries, and thaddeus young taking a maintenance day, that left the sixers really thin up front. if i had to guess, i'd say that dorell wright and damien wilkins combined to play ~30 minutes at PF during the game, and again, that is not ideal.
There are some serious pace issues standing in the way of that.
i'm not a big fan of predictions, but i've just started to take a look at the early season schedule, and it kind of looks like they should be 13-3 going into december. with or without bynum. i say 'should', because i fully expect them to lose another game or three, but really, they have 10 games against the dregs of the NBA (NOH, TOR (x2), CLE (x2), DET, ORL, PHX, DAL, CHA), and another 6 against teams that are (mostly) in their league (DEN, NYK (x2), BOS, UTA, OKC). if they take care of business in that 1st set of games, and then split the 2nd, that's 13-3.
something else that's notable about their schedule is that they again finish the season with a pretty road-heavy stretch. 12 of their last 16 are on the road, and while there are some (supposed) gimmes there (SAC, CLE (x2), CHA (x2), DET, WAS), that could screw with their seeding going into the postseason.
Must be fall.
I like Dorell and think that moving to Philly and Doug Collins could work wonders for him (and specfically his defense, which comes and goes a bit - it's been suggested because he's worried about injury).
That said, I expect a good year, not a great one.
Square peg, round hole.
They hired EJ before landing Nash, right?
Don't worry, Mike Brown is a great coach!!!
For some reason this memory always stick in my mind: It's Halloween 2006, I had just gotten off the train at Franklin Avenue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn around 10pm, it's like 40 degrees, dark and windy, and as I'm walking back to my apt I hear a guy holler "damn you see that Heat score, they got run over!" (or something like that). I holler back at the guy "Go Bulls!" but it gets lost in the wind.
Man that seems like a life ago that I was in Brooklyn and Ben Wallace was the big FA pickup for the Baby Bulls.
Anyways, continue on.
Agreed, his role wasn't what I was hoping for, though he kept making the assist on someone else's assist. The offense did look overwhelming at times because of the movement of the starting 5. Even after one game, I think that an easy prediction is that the Lakers are going to easily spend the most time at the line in the league.
Couple other things for Lakers/Sacremento:
1)I can't overstate what unbelievable shape Metta is in this year. My gf has weighed in and she's sure that its a non-gluten diet.
2)Marcus Thornton was in mid-season form. I've got him on my list as the next Jet. He's going to make some GM look good once he gets to a good team and comes off the bench.
3)Aaron Brooks is one of my favorite non-Lakers. It might be because I've watched him torch Fisher over the years in playoff series, but I just don't get why he's so undervalued.
And the Bulls swept the defending champ Heat out of the playoffs that season in the first round, before bowing out in 6 the next round. I think steagles would accept that outcome for the sixers this year.
SCOENE is pretty bearish on Paul this year, it seems. That probably has less to do with his skill and more to do with settling into his surroundings with so many other guys who are going to want/need shots. Love has always been quick to recover, and I generally feel that I can piece together a playoff team in a H2H format, so an early season injury that is unlikely to linger would not prevent me from taking him. I say Love by a small margin.
Probably not a coincidence that the teams who are truly elite at this skill are LAL, MIA, OKC.
Plus teams may deliberatly do the hack-a-shaq on Howard.
i'm actually really, really optimistic about him. that's probably not very shocking, you know, me being optimistic about a sixer, but if you look at what he does, there's a whole lot to like. it's easy to dismiss him as a chucker, but he's also a good rebounder, a good defender, he gets steals, blocks, and assists. and then, yeah, he's a chucker, but he's also a very good 3P shooter, and really, the best sixers scorers over the last 15 years have been allen iverson and lou williams, so i don't think chucking is too much of a dealbreaker in this town.
Lord almighty but that is a circular argument.
sixers are playing without jrue holiday, evan turner, dorell wright, kwame brown, and andrew bynum. royal ivey and damien wilkins have each played 18 minutes. tyson chandler has played 18, carmelo anthony has played 15.
so, of course, the sixers are up 62-44.
can you say density?
the 2nd half has not been nearly as clean as the 1st, but hey, at least we're giving our oldest player 40 minutes of playing time in a meaningless game because noone else is healthy. so, there's that.
from tonights game, there's not a whole lot to point out, but i'll go with these:
1, jason richardson was 6/12 from beyond the arc. he ended the game with 23 points, 7 rebounds, and 6 assists. that's about as good a line as i expect to see from him this season. i cannot imagine that he will ever have the ball in his hands as much as he did tonight, and it's also fairly unlikely that he'll take such a high percentage of shots, compared to the rest of the team.
2, since the season will likely begin with lavoy allen and thaddeus yonug as the starting forwards, i'll note that they combined for 30 and 21 on 13/19 shooting. young provided most of the scoring there (22 points), while allen provided the bulk of the rebounds (13 boards). if they can give you that while bynum recovers from his knee problems, that'd be pretty great.
that's pretty much it. though i could point out that the knicks are choking dogs for failing to complete a comeback against the likes of damien wilkins and royal ivey, i'll abstain from doing so. after all, the knicks were missing such noted difference makers as amare stoudemire, marcus camby, and jr smith.
This. That's why I never liked the idea of superstar calls, cuz then it becomes the chicken or the egg question; do certain players get more than their fair share of calls because they're stars, or are they stars because they get more than their fair share of calls?
(and I'm not referencing any particular player, just the general star system in place)
It depends on the categories and the rest of your team/the league.
Are you punting any particular category? Typically, I think that G's help more than bigs in most setups. CP3 will help you more with FT%, A, A/T, S and FG%. Love will help you more with R (obviously huge here), ppg, 3pers.
I think that in most set-ups, CP3 is more valuable, before you get into the missing time aspect. Love is probably likely to be healthy for fantasy playoffs, and actually trying in those games.
This is my only fantasy league (one through work, a way of roping introverts into social activities) and I'm all but a lock to make the postseason if past experience is any indication, but I'm worried about losing out on the first round bye you get from winning a six team division if I'm down my only stud for the first several weeks.
Does anyone know if the rule this link references has since been changed so that any points a 6th player scored wouldn't count?
SA: I'd read that SA was debating between Curry and Brown - looks like they waived both.
A trick question!
</connery>
I was too young to understand exactly what happened, but I was aware of his death (and Len Bias's). It was a huge deal in Chicago, and it was a big deal for the UofI basketball team. He was a pretty big and significant get for Henson. I am looking forward to the film as well.
Simeon has a great tradition of basketball talent, including Wilson, Rose, Nick Anderson, Deon Thomas and Bobby Simmons.
considering that there wasn't even supposed to be an "it" for memphis to begin with -- seriously, zach randolph was eating his way out of the league when they got him, they traded pau gasol for an unknown 50th pick, and tony allen plays 30 MPG for them -- that's not exactly the most meaningful prediction. they're already playing with house money.
just to mention the most glaring question, can any of those 3 be on the floor at the same time? there's only 1 ball to play with on offense, and considering all 3 are undersized guards who are average-to-below defensively, they don't really seem like complementary talents.
i agree with both of these. both players were big favorites of mine throughout last season and going into this past offseason.
yeah, i'm right with him on this, too.
I'm not sure if they should be on the floor together, but they probably will be. The Hawks don't have any good* perimeter defenders. If they're a top-15 defensive team, Smith and Horford will probably both deserve All-Defense consideration.
I figure they'll lean on Teague/Harris/Williams more against teams who can be attacked by little guards off the dribble and Korver/Morrow/Jenkins against teams they want to attack through Smith and Horford. I suspect we'll see more of the latter as Larry Drew has emphasized the three-pointer and Ferry has shown a clear affinity for shooters so far.
*DeShawn Stevenson is a competent defender, but, he's also DeShawn Stevenson. And I'm hoping (finally) to be right about Damion James being useful but I'll wait until he actually makes the team before jinxing that.
I'm down w/ both STEAGLES'/467 and Buddy's 468. Did anyone see the deadspin takedown of DeShawn the other day? Pretty amusing.
I'd be up for one.
I want to see Der K in it this year!
that might be the best 30 for 30 they've done yet. at the least it's right alongside the two escobars, into the wind, and once brothers. just an awful, awful story, in every way, but powerful, and very well presented.
i don't know that this is meaningful, but something that all 4 of these 30 for 30 films have in common, at least for me, is that i really knew nothing about the subjects before watching them. i mean, i knew who vlade divac was, and i knew pablo escobar, but for the most part, i was hearing everything in these films for the first time.
Yeah, towards the end there it was me, you and a couple of other guys and that was about it.
* I'm normally not a great owner - I put effort into my draft and am hands off 'til then - I thought you guys deserved better
* Draft is Sunday? This weekend is pretty bad for me - I'll probably be available as of, say, 8pm EDT on Sunday, but not until then.
First thought: there are better products out there (BPro's annual for one), but this is interesting and worth your time.
I didn't realize it was that close. Makes for some interesting alternate history...
Not sure I could watch an episode of Shark Tank if Cubes wasn't on it.
---
I am so glad the preseason is almost over. I am the opposite of so glad that Funk and King are still the Bulls' TV announcers. Late in the 4th quarter last night*, they decided to revisit some of Stacey's keys to the game (why they do that in the preseason is...I'll move on). Anyway, one of the points was to limit the Thunder in transition and they showed that OKC was scoring over 100 points/game so far in the preseason (...). At that point, OKC was obviously going to finish under 100 points on the night so Stacey deemed that a success for the Bulls. He said that with a completely straight face, and while I'll give him a pass on not pointing out it was the preseason or that the Bulls slow pace always skews that number, but I won't give him a pass on not mentioning that neither Durant or Westbrook played and that might be a reason why they didn't score 100 last night. Geez.
*Only thing interesting about last night is that Harden was 2/17 from the floor. The entire offense revolved around him, but he had missed a bunch of time, so there's absolutely nothing to learn from that whatsoever.
that might be the best 30 for 30 they've done yet. at the least it's right alongside the two escobars, into the wind, and once brothers. just an awful, awful story, in every way, but powerful, and very well presented.
It was very good. I didn't realize how little of the story I actually knew. It was very well made and very moving.
He made a comment about Jazz fans/Mormons some years back that I thought was idiotic (which he later apologized for), but overall I've always thought he was pretty good too.
All star ballot will now be for 2 posts, 2 wings, and a pg. I approve.
I read that it was 2G, 3F. Your version is better, but I don't think we're there yet.
i figure that'll be a good mix of styles. toronto plays at a low pace and takes a lot of 3s, plus with valanciunas and lowry, they should have a really fun pnr. then houston has asik and terrence jones, who are two really exciting defenders, and also kevin martin and royce white and jeremy lamb, who have very unique offensive profiles. sacramento has a really interesting frontcourt, and i'm a really big fan of james johnson. utah has a massive frontcourt, so they should be good for some physicality. and san antonio is actually good, which makes them different from each of the other 4 teams.
and in addition to all of the young talent, there's quite a few philly natives there. lowry in toronto, marcus morris in houston, tyreke evans and jason thompson in sacramento, randy foye in utah, and gary neal in san antonio.
other factors in my decision making are the frequency of national games, and eastern/western conference affiliations, given that i'll be able to see a lot more of the eastern conference teams, due to their being in direct competition with the sixers.
wait - so is the draft on sunday?
Here's the link if anybody is interested.
http://www.truebluela.com/2012/10/17/3519926/true-blue-l-a-fantasy-basketball-league
Edit: The link is to the page with the information and password to join the league, not the link itself to the league. You will find the league's link on the page though.
now, what's holding him up is apparently not related to these treatments, but rather it's a bone bruise that is lingering.
now, i'm not a medical technician, but after seeing what's happened with chase utley the last few years, i'm gonna say that the main problem here is the month of rest, rather than any of the injections. i'm sure it's probably safer to stay off your feet and let everything heal, but i can't help but feel that you'll get better faster if you push through the soreness and immediately get back on your feet.
I think this is where I say "just remember ALL CAPS when you spell the man's name!"
I'm going to go another route: He's a 7 footer with a history of knee problems, that he continues to have knee problems is nobody's surprise, no matter what cutting edge techniques they are using.
I love great passing and PG play. Nash is one of my favorite players. I hate the Lakers. It would be a close tie, but Kobe pushs them into the against column. It will be hard to be that against them this yer though.
EDIT: Pablo Prigioni is like a poor man's old Rubio. He's looked very much like a contributor in the pre-season.
Probably told you this before, but I LOVE that album.
I signed up. The league is set for the draft Monday, though.
I may not make the draft live, but I'll try and prerank
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