And you have the habit of writing one thing and then claiming it was something entirely different. I read your second and third bullet points just fine, and even responded to them. (Which you in turn happily ignored) Specifically, it was my second to last line; if you want to replace Duncan or Manu with Nash, that means FOUR pure point guards on the West roster. That's way too many. You would never find minutes for all of them, unless you plan to play Nash for 30 seconds, an insult, and something which is never done in an NBA All-Star game. Going through All-Star rosters year by year, I can't even find a single one where a team had 4 pure point guards. It just doesn't happen. Yes, and statistically speaking, the numbers of Chris Paul, Deron Williams, and Russell Westbrook are all at least as good as Nash's, while playing far superior defense, leading much better teams than the Suns this year, and playing harder, more grueling minutes every night. This is really the Golden Age of point guards, and is one reason for the explosion of talent in this league. Rejoice that there are so many great ones that a former two-time MVP didn't make the All-Star game despite only a marginal drop-off in play. No it isn't. Looking at both advanced stats and most importantly, the evidence of my own eyes, Nash is not quite the player he was a few years ago. He's still great, but not the same, in terms of either speed or endurance. I don't get this at all. If you agree he is worse than the other three point guards, how is he getting the "shaft"? I would actually put c) ahead of a) and b) in order for the coaches' selection of the All-Star reserves, and I think the recent history of the All-Star game backs me up on this. If not, then tell me, why did 4 Celtics players make it this year? Why did Duncan make it? Why did 4 Pistons get selected 5 years ago; Billups, Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace (VERY dubious selection, by the way), and Ben Wallace? Why did Mehmet Okur replace Carlos Boozer a few years ago, despite being a mostly boring center? Because coaches wanted to reward the successful teams, that's why. In fact, for my article, I looked back at previous years, and found that only about 2 reserves total in a given year (so only one per team, on average) came from a team that had a losing record and was out of play-off contention by the All-Star break. And even then, in each of those unusual cases, their team won at least 30 games. (Might not happen this year with Love's Timberwolves) Entertainment is why the fans get to vote on the Starters. But the reserves, as voted on by coaches, has always primarily been about rewarding team success, the ultimate statistic in basketball. Memphis is not that good and Randolph plays poor defense and has questionable decision-making (not to mention a bad rep around the league), so he won't make it. As for Aldridge, I guess the coaches felt (rightly, perhaps) that Griffin and Love were just too far superior to him not to include. I don't have a problem with Love replacing Yao, but Love is probably more of a PF than anything. Ditto for Gasol and of course, Duncan, Griffin, Aldridge, Randolph, and Nowitzki. It's really funny, but perhaps the best guy in the West to play more of a classical center has been Al Jefferson. Funny because he started his career as more of a PF too (he has a sweet jumper), and hasn't been that great this year, although his stats of 17.0 ppg, 9.1 rpg, and 1.9 bpg are still very strong.
Unrelated: I think Blake Griffin is going to be a disappointment in the dunk contest.* Impressive power dunkers are always something of a let-down to me. *Unless he's allowed to use the ridiculously named Timofey Mozgov as a prop.
So what you're trying to say that he's going to be a disappointment to you specifically, and not in general because you don't like his entire genre of dunking. If you don't like a genre that is a person thing. That is like saying "Scream 4 is going to be a bad movie because I don't like scary movies." Because there is no way in hell he's going to be a disappoint to the masses unless he messes something up. Pretty sure he's just going to have large robots lob alley-oops to him from the outside the arena and he's going to catch them and dunk them. And yes, I whole-heartedly support the Timofey Mozgov idea and I want them to say his whole name, every time. Not exactly what the entire Kevin Love argument is because I'm only reading half of it, but I don't think Kevin Love should be in the All-Star game. I don't know about you guys, but I don't jump up and cheer for when he grabs rebounds. "OH MY GOD! DID YOU JUST SEE THAT REBOUND! THAT SHIT WAS AMAZING!!!" isn't something that comes up. "And number 1 on Today's top plays, Kevin Love's rebounds the ball! That definitely is a top 10 play!" I think you get the point. "The All-Star game is meant to entertain." Hahaha, that is the funniest shit I've heard all day. Really? Is it? Didn't know that. So that makes the other games not about entertainment. Oh wait, nevermind, I'm just being a jackass because I thought all sports was for entertainment purposes. Wait, they are.
Or even the entire Knicks defense. Just line them up: Danilo, Timofey, Wilson Chandler, and then Amare Stoudemire could pretend to go up for a block then think better of it. Anyway, I meant a let-down to the people in general. Power dunkers are impressive because they can go up regardless of who's around; without people to dunk on, it just looks like somebody dunking really hard. Alley-oops tend to get boring after a while. When I think about the best dunk contest peformances in my lifetime (Vince Carter, Josh Smith, Andre Iguodala), they're all sick body control guys. I think people are going to get bored with Blake. Or he could be reading this post and decide to show me up. I'm pretty sure he's a lurker here, so if I'm wrong and he goes nuts, you'll know why.
At this point, I'm hoping Blake Griffin shatters a backboard during the dunk contest. Might as well play to your strengths, kid. Duncan, to me, was a bit of a surprise All-Star, particularly when Kevin Love was initially snubbed. I disagree that team success should factor in as much as it does. Then again, I also think it was horseshit that Rasheed Wallace was included in the 4 nominated Pistons back when. Maybe as a tertiary bit of criteria, but individual achievement should really be what it's primarily about, IMO. And in related awesome news, my beloved Cavaliers are making history on a nightly basis. Come onnnnnn #1 pick. Goddammit.
I think you're correct. Blake Griffin is like a Shawn Kemp or Dwight Howard in that sense; an amazing, highlight-reel, in-game dunker, but in an actual dunk contest? Nice, but nothing spectacular. (And yeah, I know Howard won it in an otherwise atrocious year, but he didn't exactly make history or do anything memorable)
I'm a Shawn Kemp fan. I still have a Sonics jersey in the old, old colors with #40 on it. And I agree with KIMaster: Dunk contest: In game: Hands down, one of the best in-game power dunkers ever. Dunk contest? Not so much.
Video time muddafuddas: Blake in the Mcdonald's contest. It's almost like he's...too powerful. A couple of these are nice though: Dwayne Polee. Too bad he's not good enough to be a legit wing, because he's springy as fuck. And the best dunk contest performance ever. EVER.
As incredible and amazing as the two reverse 360 windmills and bounce pass through-the-legs dunks were, the other two weren't that great. At the very least, I think Vince Carter's performance has heavy competition from Jason Richardson's in 2003; That off the bounce, backwards between-the-legs dunk at the end is just insane; like Carter's reverse 360 windmill, I'm not sure if any other player could make it.
That arm through the net thing was absolutely sick. It still doesn't make any sense. Have you ever tried to do that? The logistics of it are trickier than a 360 windmill, in my opinion.
Well thanks for shitting on my dreams about this year's Dunk Contest being worth shit guys. Thanks a lot. Anyone play the NBA Live where the incorporated the dunk contest with the crazy controls so you could do the double under-the leg Vince Carter dunk? Fuck the rest of the game, that was the best shit in the world.
2008 was a good year: And I don't give a fuck if it was a dunk or if he threw it through the rim. If you can get up high enough to throw the ball straight through the rim, you're the fucking man. Dwight Howard in 2009. He's awesome.
Except it's pure bullshit Webb won it over Wilkins. No way were his dunks even remotely in the same league, but the judges wanted to favor the amazing little man who could jam. Not even Nate Robinson winning over Andre Iguodala was that big of a dunk contest injustice; instead, you would have to look at Candace Parker winning the McDonalds' All-America Dunk contest over the likes of Josh Smith for a more blatant robbery. How dare you! 11.6 ppg on 43% FG for a power forward are All-Star numbers (he was just snubbed!) and the Cavs are a Ewing Theory team that will make the play-offs!
Melo sure knows how to quit on his team. I mean, what a quitter. He only put up 50 (16-24) points against Houston! OFF WITH HIS HEAD! Lost the game by 5 points though. Without Melo? Which starter can give them 20 points? <a class="postlink" href="http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=310207007" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=310207007</a>
Well, considering Billups averages 16.2 ppg and Nene is at 15.3 ppg, not to mention Afflalo at 13 ppg and Harrington and JR Smith at 11.5 each ppg, I think the answer is "all four of the other starters plus one guy off the bench!". If your only source of basketball insight is box scores, you won't know this, but Denver is at least a decent ball-club without Melo. It's no accident they won when he missed games earlier in the season because of personal reasons.
Nuggets in talks with Lakers about Melo. Knicks talking about a 3 teamer with Minnesota. Shit is getting interesting. The Nuggets can't make a bad deal, but they really have very little leverage because they know what Melo has to move so they don't get LeBron'd (that's a word now.) Side note, its awesome that Chris Broussard has inside info, but why do I hate him? I think I'm holding his LeBron ball-jocking earlier this year against him.
You never know with these things, but I would be shocked if Melo ends up on the Lakers, especially if the centerpiece of that deal is freaking Andrew "30 Games" Bynum. I don't doubt that the two teams have had preliminary discussions, but I don't think it will go through. Also, I believe the Nuggets have more leverage than people realize. Melo doesn't want to go into free agency without a deal in place, as no one has any idea what will occur with labor talks, and whether that means he will lose a cool $30+ million in salary as a result of not re-signing. Also, the Nuggets won't hate the prospect of simply taking a monster contract off the books, as it's clear they are no longer serious contenders anyways.