ZoomSlowik

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 23, 2014 -> 09:23 PM) But are they anywhere near that efficient? Way to move the goalposts. You asked if they had anyone capable of having that kind of game. No, they're not as efficient as the Heat, but a lot of that is Lebron setting them up. Lebron makes Mario Chalmers look like a useful offensive player.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 23, 2014 -> 09:16 PM) Is there anyone on the Thunder ever likely to put up a regular game like that? Are you intentionally being obtuse? They have a guy named Westbrook that's only played 5 fewer games than Wade despite actual knee issues instead of mileage problems. Also, Ibaka averages only 2 fewer PPG than Bosh and Jackson only 2.8. OKC is one of the most talented teams in the league.

QUOTE (Boogua @ Jan 23, 2014 -> 09:01 PM) Lebron is taking ultra efficient shots for sure, but Durant is averaging 5 more PPG and isn't too far off TS% wise and he doesn't have the supporting cast that lebron has. Theres really nothing that would lead me to believe that lebron could come close to that efficiency while scoring 30 PPG. I just feel Durant is a much better scorer. I don't think Diaw will play 5 feet off of durant in the WCF. Lebron is still most likely better overall, but the gap isn't really large at all. Okay, you're the second guy in like 15 minutes to say this now and it's bugging me. Durant doesn't play for the Cavs. Westbrook is a top-10 player in the league when he's on the floor (and you can make the same criticism about Wade), Ibaka is a well above average big man, and Jackson and Lamb are decent scorers. Outside of the Big 3, the Heat are comprised of a bunch of guys that are past their prime or never had a prime.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 23, 2014 -> 08:51 PM) The question then is how efficient Durant could be if he decided the league was too hard unlesshe had 2 allstars to make things easy for him. He had two, and still would if not for the luxury tax. Martin and Ibaka don't exactly suck either.

I have a hard time calling anyone a "much better scorer" than a guy that's shooting 58% from the floor while scoring 26 PPG. Better, okay. But that's still insane production and efficiency.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 09:38 PM) Fantasy question. I'm in 1st place (w/Durant) and lost my 2nd point guard (1st rose, then Jrue) but have Isiah whose been good. Considering a Rubio/Love for Lee/Dirk deal. I'd be getting Rubio and Love. Does that make sense? For god's sake, get Love before the guy comes to his senses. Getting a desperately needed PG is just a bonus.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 07:34 AM) They'd be in the #8 slot right now if the season ended. They've got 15 wins, teams 12 and 13 are Charlotte and New Jersey with 18. Playoff teams don't pick in the lottery. The Kings would have to finish with the 2nd best or best record of the non-playoff teams for the Bulls to get it, meaning they'd basically have to get to .500 to be in the running.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 20, 2014 -> 01:08 PM) No, my argument is that as it stands now, one guy (Kobe) has a better overall record of performance, and while Lebron might be a more skilled/bigger/faster/whatever, at this point he hasn't achieved nearly as much and thus it's at least debatable (not indisputable) that Kobe would still be considered the better player. If Lebron never wins another title but still puts up his normal numbers, would you consider him better than Kobe? I wouldn't. The only reason he has a "better overall record of performance" is because he's played 6 extra seasons (well, 6 1/2 since this season isn't done and Kobe is barely playing due to injury), generally with much better teammates.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 20, 2014 -> 11:38 AM) I bet he still wins a championship (or multiple championships) if he's given some decent guys around him. He's one of the best offensive players ever to play. And I wouldn't call the 2008 and 2009 Laker rosters amazing. Again, you have Gasol, which fine, is better than anyone Lebron had, but then you're throwing out guys like Lamar Odom, the corpse of Derek Fisher, Ron Artest, etc. What titles are more impressive to you - Kobe's 2 without Shaq or Lebron's with Wade and Bosh (and Ray Allen even)? "A" championship is very different from 5, which is the whole argument you were trying to make. Much like with Lebron, it's far from a lock. Maybe you end up with a legit All-Star big, maybe you end up with Mo Williams and Zydrunas Ilgauskas. The latter is far more common. The Cavs lost a playoff series where Lebron averaged like 35-8-8. If Lebron wins one in Cleveland (or if Kobe hypothetically won one in Charlotte), that has a MUCH higher degree of difficulty. The second part is arguing minor differences. You don't win two titles by yourself. The Lakers were still a very good team those 2 other rings. They had arguably the best frontcourt in the league between Gasol, Odom and Bynum (and MWP the second title) and Fisher wasn't anywhere near the corpse he is now at that point (not a great player, but still a 8-10 PPG game guy that hit some shots). The Heat's top-3 was stronger, but they've been hurt/bad for a lot of the last two runs and the Lakers didn't have a glaring lack of interior muscle. Their supporting players were also pretty terrible when they lost in the finals, they were starting a last-legs Mike Bibby and Joel Anthony.

The rings argument is just asanine. So many things have to go in your favor to get one that are out of a guy's control. A lot of very good to great players only get one or two legit chances, and even then you might run into a far superior team. So much is determined by what franchise you land with. Kobe ended up on the Lakers, one of the marquee franchises and a team that won 53 games the year before he got there. Lebron landed on the Cavs, a frequent doormat that won 17 games the year before he got there and never added a legitimate second star. They didn't have nearly the same opportunities to get rings. Kobe's teams were threats to make a deep playoff run from day 1 when he was still averaging 8 points a game and nearly every year after that. Lebron had to carry a s***ty roster to legitimacy for the first 7 years of his career before switching teams. You're kidding yourself if you think Kobe has 5 rings if the Hornets never trade him.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jan 16, 2014 -> 08:49 PM) Sacramento currently has the 8th worst record in the league and has been playing better since the Gay trade. We have a shot at getting that pick this year They need to get to 13 this year in order for it to be conveyed. That would mean they have to finish around .500 to keep up with the likes of Minnesota, Denver and Memphis.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Jan 14, 2014 -> 10:27 AM) In general while this draft is deep in potentially really good players and there are multiple guys who could become stars in the league there doesn't appear to be the slam dunk franchise player that people expected there to be a few months ago. Depends on how you classify "slam dunk franchise player". I don't see a Lebron/Duncan/Durant level prospect, but I think all of the top-4 are on the John Wall/Blake Griffin level of prospect where they would be an easy #1 in most drafts, and possibly Exum. There may not be a guy that I would bet a significant amount of money on to make an All-NBA team in his career, but there are a lot of guys that look reasonably safe to be capable starters, obviously with the potential for a lot more.

QUOTE (GoodAsGould @ Jan 14, 2014 -> 06:48 PM) Hopefully whoever takes over for David Stern can fix it up. Imo I'd give every non-playoff team equal chance in the lottery most teams wont tank when they are a potential playoff team. Not sure how you go about fixing super teams besides making a 1 max contract per team allowed that is significantly more than the next available contract a team is allowed to offer. Or just scale back/eliminate the max salary restrictions. The current setup underpays the true stars while artificially creating a windfall for the other 90% of the league. It also makes it easier to create enough room for these guys when they can only make about $16 million under the new CBA. Let Lebron get the $25 million he's worth and suddenly he has to give up a lot more money to go play in Miami.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jan 14, 2014 -> 05:42 PM) The lottery was supposed to stop the worst few teams from tanking. Instead, 15-20 teams each year are tanking to get even the most miniscule shot at a top 5 pick. This is why the lottery has to go. There aren't anywhere near 15 teams that are tanking, even this year. There were only 5 teams legitimately trying to be awful entering the year: Philly, Phoenix, Utah, Boston and Orlando. That's an unusually high number as well because of a strong draft class. A lot of teams are just incompetent (Milwaukee, Sacramento, Cleveland, New York and Detroit), and several more have been murdered by injuries (Chicago, Brooklyn, Lakers, Atlanta, Memphis and recently New Orleans). A couple of those teams don't even have their first round pick, so there's no way they're tanking. That's not to say tanking isn't an issue, but there's a much easier fix: adjust the lottery odds so it doesn't favor the bottom 4 quite so grossly. Right now the worst team has a 25% chance of getting the #1 pick and 2-4 take up another 47%. The #4 team has a higher chance of getting #1 than teams 8-14 combined. Even out that distribution a bit and I doubt you see as many tankers with the incentive reduced. Make the worst record worth about a 13% chance (I'm bad at math) of getting #1 instead of 25% and more incremental drops. Right now, you improve your chances of getting #1 by a factor of 2.75 if you can drop from #7 to #4. If every drop is only worth an extra percentage point, the reward isn't nearly that high.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 13, 2014 -> 09:54 PM) Embiid looks like a young Olajuwon. If you just watch his highlights, he looks like the best prospect out there. He also makes more mistakes and disappears more often, but that's to be expected at this point in his development. Semi-related because of the draft: Parker is in quite a funk recently. His shot selection leaves a lot to be desired.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 11, 2014 -> 09:33 PM) With the 19th pick in the 2014 nba draft aka the most loaded draft since '84 or '96, the Chicago Bulls select *insert non-impact roleplayer* f***in' morons. Can't do s*** right. The demolition should've started 1.5 seconds after Rose went down. Let;s not go too crazy here, this draft might not even be as good as 2008. But yes, Bulls winning obviously doesn't do anything. Unfortunately, the East is beyond awful and guys keep getting hurt.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 11, 2014 -> 02:28 PM) Wouldn't it be ironic if LeBron wound up back in Cleveland with Irving and Deng? They would need to dump some people to make it happen, probably some of the high picks they missed on. They would only be at about $20 million in space without Deng even after they buy out Clark and Gee (Varejao is partially guaranteed, but they'll likely need him). The problem is that Jack, Waiters, Thompson and Bennett are $21 million on the books.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 11, 2014 -> 09:59 AM) Is that a new rule? Because somehow Miami was able to do it the year they assembled the big 3 and also gave the MLE to Miller. Similarly that's how the Bulls assembled their bench after signing Boozer. That's not what they did. It was all space since the Big 3 signed for starting salaries of about $14.5 mil. They just gave Miller a MLE-type contract. Same thing with the Bulls, remember that Rose and Noah were still on rookie deals. They signed Korver/Brewer/et al with the space they would have used on Lebron. You can also fudge it with sign and trades, which I think Miami did.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 10, 2014 -> 02:04 PM) That's going to be really narrow and I don't think the Bulls will be able to do it by moving Gibson alone. Rose, Noah, Butler, Snell, and Teague totals $36.725 million. A max deal for Melo is $22458401. That would push the Bulls to $59.2 million before any draft holds this year, and if the Bulls have 2 picks in the 10-20 range each of them will be another $1.5 million in held money. That puts them to $62 million. Dumping Teague for scraps doesn't get you there either. Dumping Teague, using any draft picks from this year on foreign players, not bringing over Mirotic unless he can be had for the MLE, and possibly dumping Snell might get you there. You can't use both cap space and the MLE in the same off-season. I believe there's another one called the "stretch exception" or something like that, but it's only like $2 million. In other words, you need close to $30 million in cap space for Melo and Mirotic. Rose and Noah alone take up almost half the cap, so...yeah, not happening.

Five Guys has amazing fries and a large order can feed an entire family. Their burgers are decent. Also, porchetta has become one of my favorite foods. I'm only had it a few times, but it's amazing. I can feel my arteries clogging just thinking about it.

LEBRON IS NOT COMING TO CHICAGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 8, 2014 -> 09:39 PM) You know what, I'm lost. I say every legit move the Heat has made since 2010 (lol@eddy curry) has worked out and you say "lol, the Heat have no assets outside of the big 3". WTF cares about assets? They've got the best player in the world, the third best sg of all-time, and a PF/C who does EVERYTHING and you talk about assets. They've brought in Allen, Battier, Anderson, Beasley, Cole to fill out the roster and they have another potential dynamic wildcard (yes, a HUGE risk) in Oden in waiting and you talk about future assets? Makes no sense. How many future assets did the Bulls have from '96 to '98? And it's a lot harder to fill out a team now that it was then. Every legit move (whatever that means) HASN'T worked. signing Joel Anthony to a 5-year deal was incredibly dumb. Mike Miller was 95% disaster and 5% success, the 5% just came at the right time. They decided they had to amnesty him he was such a great addition. Mike Bibby was a disaster. Rashard Lewis and James Jones haven't contributed much. They turned a first round pick into Justin Hamilton and a likely 2nd. Eddy Curry was already mentioned. They've added some good role players. So have a lot of teams. You just have a hard-on for the Heat so you ignore the things that don't remotely work and talk up Anderson and Beasley like they added Tyson Chandler and Kevin Martin. Assets matter because they can't keep running out the same roster forever. All three of their studs can opt out after this year and two of them seem to be getting worse (remember that Bosh was once considered a fringe top-10 player). The first Bulls 3-peat at least added Kukoc, which is more than the Heat have done, and the Bulls likely would have been in deep s*** after 98. Guys like Battier and Anderson are a dime a dozen, but Mario Chalmers isn't going to save them if Wade or Bosh declines. Assets are how the Spurs have been good for 15 years, how Boston got Garnett and Allen, how Houston went from a 30 win team to what they have now. I'm not saying the Heat have done a poor job, just that they're not batting 1.000 and haven't had any homeruns outside the big 3.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 8, 2014 -> 09:06 PM) I said the Heat got another potential impact guy for basically nothing, ala Chris Anderson. You said "hahaha, he smokes pot and he's not good and he'll bring the defense down" and whatever else. Now you're saying that he's playing well but that the Heat are so good that it doesn't matter? Or that you want to see him do this in the playoffs? I'm confused. Edit: Actually, I think it was 2k5 that said that Michael Beasley would singlehandedly take the Heat defense down from elite to average. But I already served him so it doesn't matter. The pot comment was a joke added on to legitimate basketball issues. He's improved those issues a bit. He also has a fair number of DNP-CD's though. Chris Anderson matters significantly more than Beasley because they don't have several other bigs they trust when it matters. That severely limits his "impact". I'll put it this way: if a Bulls' fan comes on here talking trash about a guy that's playing 18 MPG, you'd lose your s***. Beasley is literally getting fewer minutes per game than Tony Snell.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 8, 2014 -> 08:49 PM) Oh my goodness. I challenge you or anybody to find where I said Beasley would be a superstar or even a f***ing all-star and if you do I'll ask Kyyle or Rowand to change my name to greg776. I said he could potentially flourish in a secondary role with Miami and he's done just that. You said he would be a bust from jump. You wouldn't even acknowledge the potential reward. Please point out where I used the phrase "star". I'm too lazy to look up your original quote, but I'm sure it was something like "lol, they got Beasley, it's over." A large part of my point was that his role on the team would be so minor that it's not really going to matter. He's playing .1 more minutes per game than Rashard Lewis, who's been done for 4 years. He's played well in an extremely limited number of minutes on the year. So have Rashard Lewis and James Jones at times in the past. That's still a long way from being a guy that actually matters in a playoff series.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 8, 2014 -> 06:56 PM) Yeah, you were dead wrong about Beasley. #JimmyButlerWillBeTheDifference Lmao. Are you serious? Why the hell would they risk Oden In December against the Bucks, Magic and Raptors? Not every coach is as shortsighted as Thibs. They're saving Oden for Hibbert, Duncan/Dwight in May/June. This dude said Eddy Curry. Please. He was regular season roster filler. They'd have to discontinue food all together before a basketball genius such as Pat Riley would even think of counting on Eddy Curry for a postseason run. Beasley is playing well...in about 18 MPG. He's 8th on the team in that category and barely above Anderson and Lewis. He's also stayed on the bench for a bunch of games. DJ Augustin will probably have more minutes played for the Bulls than Beasley does the entire season by this time next week. Hardly the orgasm-worthy potential impact player you made him out to be. The Heat have added some nice role players, but their 4th best player is still Mario f***ing Chalmers.