THE NBA THREAD - THE N STANDS FOR
 

NICE! :love

This is a thread to talk about the NBA. The nuttiest sport of the Big 4. The playoffs are only a month a way so it's time to talk Finals!

Watching Boston destroy the once invincible Rockets really depressed me today. Boston's record against the West is probably more staggering than their regular season record is. If they get to the Finals they will probably win it. Don't get me wrong, I think Kevin Garnett is awesome but I don't like this for many other reasons.

1) It shows that you can tank a season in the NBA to become a success. The Timberwolves and Grizzlies are in full force of that.

2) If the Celtics or Pistons win, it's going to be the biggest waste of a season for the Western Conference. They are playing phenominal regular season basketball while the Celtics and Pistons are just cruising to the Eastern Finals.

3) James Posey is scumbag.

Anyway, my guess for right now is that the Celtics and the Lakers will be in the finals, which means ESPN is going to hit us over the head with "HEY THESE TEAMS PLAYED ALOT OF FINALS IN THE 60'S AND THE 80'S".

Stupid: At the All-Star break I said there would be a Hornets-Pistons Finals with the Pistons prevailing. Even stupider I said at the beginning of the year that it would be a Bulls-Mavs Final with the Mavs Winning. But at that time I thought the Bulls would at least get Gasol or Kobe. Instead they got eachother I got Drew Gooden.

Who do you think is making the finals. Who do you want making the finals? Did you know Elton Brand screwed over crew members on the Rescue Dawn set?
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Manu is Teh King

I pretty much think exactly the same thing. The finals will likely be Lakers Vs. Celtics. It will be a good series, but will it be the classic it was in the 80s? I don't believe so. For one thing, most teams these days, as was implied earlier, are going for the "Best team money can buy". Sure there are exceptions, the Spurs for example. But the trend in the NBA (and all of sports for that matter) is to use your money to build a super squad to win right now, generate interest and through that, money. Consequently, that takes away the dynasty factor that the Lakers and Celtic both had in the 80s. Another thing that makes me think this series will lack the luster of the 80s is the lack of personalities in it. The Lakers and Celtics had great personalities in the 80s, Jabbar, Bird, Johnson, and Ainge are good examples. The personalities of nowadays just feel much less interesting to me. I will watch, but it will likely make me pine for the NBA of the 80s, which is not coming back. I guess I will have to take what I can get though, and the playoffs will be interesting regardless.

I wonder if the Timberwolves, in order to secure a better shot at drafting Michael Beasley, give Mark Madsen the order to shoot and miss 7 threes in one game like he did last year.

Also, I found this amusing video on Kevin Garnett being drafted right out of high school. Note Isiah Thomas' hilarious plan for Garnett.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ol3JLceeHRE&feature=related

I wonder what the entire Sixers team has been smoking lately. Back at .500 and ensconced in the playoff picture? I know they'll probably be spanked in the first round, but even so, this is something to build on for next year.

Check it out, David Stern wants to raise the minimum age to enter the NBA!

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slu...yhoo&type=lgns

Not sure how this makes NBA fans feel, the author of that article is for it. I see it as a good thing for college basketball though. sophomore stars will help make for better teams which is always good for the game and the fans

Woo Hoo! The Sixers crack .500 for the first time this season. And by beating Boston at home!

Yeah, they'll still probably get booted out of the first round of the playoffs, but this is hugely better than they were predicted to do at the beginning of the season - I think SI had them next-to-last in the Eastern Conference.

Right now pound for pound the Sixers are one of the more interesting things going in the NBA

I agree. However, this may already de facto be happening. With the globalization of the draft becoming more the rule rather than the exception the pool of talent is becoming ever larger. Kids who might have toyed with the idea of coming out early (or even fresh out of high school) are staying in college. So while I think Stern has a good point, it might already be moot.

Well, we'll know for sure in 2 years, when the CBA gets renegotiated.

Chris Webber retired again today after a short 9 day comeback with the Warriors. It's hard to believe that he played 15 years in the league already. Seems like yesterday when he was inadvertently calling extra timeouts.

Webber's inability to count timeouts has been a source of amusement for me for years :lol

Hey, is this the thread to start handcapping the playoffs, now that March Madness is winding down?

I'm looking for the Sixers to somehow secure the 5th seed and perchance play Cleveland in the first round. I think this is the only possible matchup that could get them to round two, where they undoubtedly will get smoked.

Boston is the real deal, and will come out of the East, while the West is a crapshoot - the Lakers always seem to play their best ball in the Spring, but SA has been playing well. Hell, even the 8 seed in the West will have a legitimate shot. And where did New Orleans come from?

What do you all think?

I stand by my original prediction. Lakers vs. Celtics. That said, I would much rather see the Suns vs. the Cavs :)

Yes, I am editing this post but only because I want to go more in depth....later.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080415/...l_anthony_dc_2

Wow, Carmelo Anthony caught drinking and driving. Come on Carmelo, you're better than that, or at least you should be. Word is he has since apologized for it, but he needs to not do something so lacking in judgement in the first place. All I can hope is he really is sorry and has learned from this.

NBA = Not Being Astute

Manu has Kobe like numbers off of the BENCH. One thing I know about the Spurs, then they turn it on it is hard for any team to stop them- I think last night was a little preview for the Suns. They hosted a playoff clinic for Denver and I don't see anybody beating them in less than 7 games this year.

Now that the T-wolves gracefully finished the season at 22-60, my interest in the NBA is 0.0002 units of Giving A Shit.

My interest is a little higher than this; admittedly, the Sixers did finish below .500, but still secured the 7 seed, which means they'll be booted by Detroit in round one.

Tell me, WR, what is your take on what Kevin McHale did to the Wolves? I'm thinking he's channeling the departed soul of Red Auerbach in some sort of Satanic mind control thing. Was there any rhyme or reason to his decimation of what could have been a respectable franchise?

He drafted KG. That seemed to work out fine. He drafted Ray Allen and then traded him for Marbury minutes later. He entered into illegal contract negations with Joe Smith, which led to the NBA stripping us of 3 first round draft picks (which fucked us over pretty badly in the long run). He gave up on Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell after only 2 seasons (Sprewell could've gone...but ditching Cassell was a bad move). Trading for Ricky Davis and Mark Blount....yeah, that worked out just fine for us...

With that said, I will say that trading Garnett was a necessary move. Having only advanced past the first round of the playoffs once in Garnett's tenure as well as his huge contract eating most of the cap space, it was time for KG to move on. To tell you the truth, I'll take Al Jefferson over Garnett any day of the week. He's a 20 and 10 guy with a lot more upside at only 23 years of age.

After all that McHale is looked at by most minny fans as being a huge fuckwad that needs to step down/get fired. People are just tired of his Celtics fetish and his other related shit.

PS - forgot to mention that he drafted Brandon Roy and traded him later that night for Randy Foye. WTF.

Philadelphia 90
Detroit 86

WTF? How the hell did that happen? Iguodala had a crappy shooting game from the field and Dalembert didn't fare much better, yet they still managed to come from 13 down at halftime to win by 4.

So much for the Sixers getting smoked - looks like they'll give Motown a series. My interest is piqued.

I'm just waiting for the 2nd round of playoffs where the real action will begin. The celtics are going to detroy the hawks. :zzzz

Fixed :)