Balta1701

QUOTE (MHizzle85 @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 03:31 PM) This is supposed to be green right? Nope. This Heat team is going to murder the rest of the league. And in most games, it won't take very long.

"Handy map demonstrates where you can marry your cat but not your girlfriend"

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 03:23 PM) OK, I give up before I even start this argument. Carlos Quentin is so bad it overshadows the incredible hot streak he is on. Now, please follow with 20 posts about how bad his defense is. He is soooooo bad. It's disgusting to see him penciled in the lineup and sickening to see him run out to right every inning. It ruins every game for me. I agree. The stats prove how bad he is defensively. His D overshadows everything about what he's done lately. OK, let's move on. No one is saying that his D overshadows anything he does with the bat. This is just embarrassing on your part. Seriously.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 03:20 PM) I thought they were? Lebron is, I don't know about Bosh...but that's also one of those "they've already decided which city they're going to" cases, so that's still as much/more than they could have gotten just signing there.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 03:21 PM) All this depth talk is overrated if Riley's only going to use a 8 man rotation. I think he'll use a 12 man rotation most of the year. I think that's the case though because I think the Heat will be up 40 on most teams by the 3rd quarter so anyone watching the NBA will get a large dose of those 2nd round picks they drafted/any D-league guys that the Heat sign.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 03:20 PM) That it's ridiculous to always post negative s*** about somebody. No, he is not horrid defensively. He is not a train wreck out there defensively. He's average to below average defensively, not horrible. It was a great f***ing catch and people are b****ing about it. I love Carlos when he's hitting, but yeah, he's a disaster out in the OF these days.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 03:16 PM) Keep searching for that perfect player. Maybe you'll find one. A-Rod? Pujols? Seriously, what are you even arguing here? That Carlos Quentin isn't bad defensively?

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 01:32 PM) They will have trouble in the playoffs due to lack of good depth, Really, I disagree. I think they'll storm through it.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 12:40 PM) I think their max deals would have been 6 years, 125 million, but they got 6 years, 110 (107 for wade). That's only if the 2 of them coming in were done as sign and trade deals though.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 12:26 PM) I'm confused. Are you arguing that the Bird rights are good or bad? To me, that's the only way teams like the Cavs can keep their drafted superstars after their rookie year ends. I just don't like the idea of a free for all in a sport where only 5 guys play. You'd be creating the Yankees but on an even worse scale. I think this year is an aberration because you talked 2 superstars and one all star into taking ~15 million less just to play together. That's a pretty unique situation. Did they take $15 million less? I got the impression it was about $5 million less. Anyway, I'm not arguing against the Bird rights per se, but the whole NBA system is a mess. You can't be competitive without spending a ton, but if you try to be competitive by spending a ton you're likely to get screwed anyway. I'm coming to the realization that the owners are probably right, and the thing the NBA is going to need is to move to a partially-guaranteed contract situation to give the owners a way to compete on the FA market but to do so without killing their team if they miss.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 12:15 PM) but quite frankly, considering the amount of players on a basketball team, and the amount of revenue teams make...i just don't see how that isn't a reasonable contract. There is already a cap. That should dictate. This is a stupid system. Which contract? James for $30 million or Boozer for $28 million? I think reality as I see it is that James for $30 million is actually just about a fair deal, given that he's worth something like $200 million in additional franchise value and revenue to a team. The top guy in the league is probably worth that much. Kobe's probably been worth $30 million a year to the Lakers over the last decade. But beyond those 2 guys...there's maybe 1 more guy in the league who's a $25 million a year level player, and that's Wade. The rest of the players, except MAYBE Howard, belong at or below the current max salary level. But what would wind up happening without a max salary is that guys like Lebron and Wade would get deals that are fair for them unless they decided on this Miami party BS, but just as teams now are dumping crazy money on Tyrus Thomas, Hakim Warrick, Rudy Gay, etc., teams would wind up bidding up Carlos Boozer and Luol Deng up to $20 million in order to make sure no one steals them, and those salaries are already killers even at lower levels (look how badly having Deng and Hinrich to pay has hurt the Bulls even though they've been somewhat productive). It's not guys like Lebron and Kobe getting Max deals that has put the NBA in such financial trouble. It's guys like Thomas getting $10 million a year. It's guys like Deng getting $11 million. It's Joe Johnson and Carlos Boozer getting max or near-max deals. It's Gilbert Arenas getting a max deal, it's Zach Randolph making near max money. It's paying lower tier guys big money so as to tread water that is killing these teams. You land a James, your revenues go through the roof. You land a Boozer for the same money as James, and suddenly your cap is a mess and you're forced to pay the luxury tax to hang onto your backup SG, you finish 4th in the league every year, and you have no idea how you got into such a mess.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 12:14 PM) Gavin's 08 wasn't very good Zwuh?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 12:09 PM) But if you don't impose the max deal there's no way Cleveland ever gets a guy like Lebron. The Draft? I'd respond to that with 2 points. First...if you keep the Bird rights, then Cleveland could have kept upping the ante until no other teams left. Miami could offer him up to the salary cap but no more, then Cleveland could counter with a $30 million a year offer, and frankly, for Cleveland, he'd have been worth it. Second...if you keep the cap in place, I think it makes it more likely that a smaller market can afford a guy like that, because even a team like the Grizz, if they could clear $25-30 mil in cap space, would suddenly have the opportunity to dump it all on one superstar and win the race for him. The problem of course would wind up being that 5 teams would clear max space and somehow the Bulls would wind up paying Carlos Boozer $28 million/year.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 11:43 AM) tweet via Michael Ian Black: That's awesome.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 11:42 AM) The Cavs offered him a max deal, he chose not to take it. I dunno what more Stern can do. I think he's saying that if the owners hadn't imposed the Max deal, guys like LBJ would likely earn even higher salaries and as such a team like Miami couldn't afford to bring in 3 FA's on huge deals all at once. That is one plausible effect of creating a max deal at that level...it brings some of the 2nd tier guys up to "max" level (see: Rudy Gay) but forces the top of the top of the top (i.e. James) down in salary.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 11:13 AM) Wow, impressive, I thought he would be out of the league like C-Webb. All he has to do for Miami is take up space in the lane on defense and grab an occasional rebound, which it sounds like he should be able to. Ugh, I keep hating the Heat more and more. With that front 5, he'll be an adequate backup if he stays healthy, and they're going to wind up having so many 30+ point blowouts that the 2nd rounders they just drafted and any Dleague guys they sign will get a good chunk of the playing time anyway.

So, it seems like the Senate is cobbling together the basics of a dirty energy bill that is so bad that it can actually get Republican support. Here's a decent writeup from a couple months ago about how much solid quality there is in that Bingaman bill. Basically, it sounds like we get some additional regulation on oil drilling, some serious additional coal/gas/nuclear subsidies, extensions of some current energy efficiency tax breaks, and a national standard for renewable energy production...which I'm going to guess will be designed in a way that states are prohibited from enacting more strict standards. The dirty energy subsidy expansion then winds up overwhelming everything else. I like that phrase..."Less clean energy than expected under business as usual". That's what you have to do to get Republican support. Here's the original UCS press statement on that bill. It includes the word "Pitiful".

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 10:50 AM) Hell, if Alexei was a Yankee, he probably could have made the team. Fixed

QUOTE (hitlesswonder @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 10:50 AM) On the plus side, Chris Paul supposedly said that he and Carmelo are planning on coming to the Knicks to form their own Big Three there...that's a team that would be able to compete with the Heat...but we have to wait 2 years for that and I have trouble of thinking of a team I dislike more than NY and Miami.... Well, if it makes you feel better, you won't have basketbawful in 2011-2012 to endure en route to that superteam. Although, it's entirely plausible that a superteam through FA might be impossible once the union breaks again.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 10:49 AM) Juwan Howard?? I thought he was already retired, does he even have anything left? He averaged 22 minutes a game over 73 games for the Trailblazers last season and put up a PER of 10.0, which isn't half bad for a backup.

QUOTE (jphat007 @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 09:47 AM) How bout first half pitching stats? 2005's staff wins everything.

Heat officially sign both Haslem and Miller. They're maybe 1-2 7 footers away from basically having a complete roster, considering that the big 3 probably would play 40 minutes in any close game anyway. So much for that myth. I'll still sit around and hope they all get hurt.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 09:21 AM) So irritating. Seriously, I didn't even see anything special about them anyway - what was with that obsessive shoe discussion? OMG THEY HAVE TWO COLORZZZZZZZ!!!!!!! Somehow, I think Reebok paid a bit of money fo rthat.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 12, 2010 -> 09:57 PM) That would be an interesting argument for sure. The pitching has been incredible for the last month. The 83 team won a lot of blowouts during their run. Right now, the 2010 Sox are sitting in 9th in the league in offense. The 2005 Sox were 9th in the league in offense. The 2005 Sox hit 106 HR in the first half, with a .743 OPS. The 2010 Sox hit 100 HR in the first half, with a .744 OPS. The 2005 Sox were first in the league with 91 SB in the first half at a 72% clip. The 2010 sox are 3rd in the league with 80 steals at a terrible 65% clip.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 09:17 AM) I turned it off after the first round, because I was tired of watching the David Ortiz show. That was just an awful display of production of a baseball event. Awful announcers, ridiculous bias, and a focus on Ortiz that turned off everyone other than Red Sox fans. Seriously, when Cabrera and others were hitting, they even had to have an inset of Ortiz grinning while he watched the game. It kind of looked like... if ESPN is a buddy of yours, and he's had this huge crush on this female "friend" (Ortiz) forever, but continues to deny it. He (ESPN) throws a party under the pretenses of just having a party, invites the girl, and just sort of stares at her all night talking about her to anyone that will listen. Everyone there, including her, knows he has a crush - except he thinks its a secret. Kind of creepy and sad. And what about those shoes?