Heh. <a class="postlink" href="http://offthebench.nbcsports.com/2012/06/22/cleveland-weatherman-cant-believe-he-has-to-say-heat-and-thunder-on-thursday-night-of-all-nights-video/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://offthebench.nbcsports.com/2012/0 ... hts-video/</a>
Awesome. I'm not the biggest fan of Cuban, but Skip is yet another mindless ESPN hack so I found this most entertaining.
Well, again I know next to nothing about any college sports/athletes. I know who Anthony Davis is, and that barring a miracle he's going to New Orleans, but other than that...nothing. Let me know if our Bulls do good in the draft.
You know, of all the sentences I've ever read, this one is in the contention for "most hateable". <a class="postlink" href="http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8079565/carles-why-root-lebron-james-win-nba-championship" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/807 ... ampionship</a>
Local radio host, columnist and ESPN contributor Dan LeBatard responds to some of the Heat's critics: Best part is the collection of clips from the "experts" at the beginning.
Was anyone else surprised at how knowledgeable Cuban was? It wasn't just, "You're a moron." It was, "You're a moron, and it's because of this, this, this and that."
Are you suggesting that none of the more recent Number 1 Picks have been worth shit? Because Dwight Howard and Derrick Rose seem pretty damn nifty to me. Dirk going 9 shouldn't be surprising. First of all, he really went sixth: the 9th thing was the product of a shrewd trade by Don Nelson, and absent that trade the Mavs would have picked him at 6. Foreign players are always a bit of a question mark, and doubly so in 1998. Add in that he was fairly skinny and had a very bizarre game for someone his size. The five ahead of him included well-known and well-proven college players in the draft (Bibby, Jamison, Carter) that went on to long and successful NBA careers, and a guy (LaFrenz) who made Paul Pierce look like the second best player on his team. Sure, it's an oversight in retrospect, but not one of the more egregious ones. I always dislike this sort of backwards-gazing second guessing, because it rarely takes into account what everyone thought at the time. For example, almost every GM in the league wished he had the opportunity to take Greg Oden.
I'm a fan of Cuban (as I generally am of rich guys that just don't give a fuck), but even so, he went in. I don't follow basketball very much, so I didn't hate Skip Bayless before, but just listening to him spew nonsense makes my blood pressure rise.
Completely agree with you. There are essentially four types of draft choices; 1. Expected, logical choices that turned out to be good. 2. Expected, logical choices that turned out to be bad. 3. Unexpected, questionable choices that turned out to be good. 4. Unexpected, questionable choices that turned out to be bad. GMs and scouts rarely get enough credit for 3., and deserve to get blamed for 4. However, being blamed for 2. is bullshit, especially when the reason is something fluky and impossible to foresee at the time, or when the pick carried large amounts of both risk and reward. With Oden, there were some abnormalities with his legs, but he had no history of injury in that area before the draft. At the same time, if healthy, we're talking about a top 2-3 center. Dikembe Mutombo with a much better offensive game. If GMs thought there was a 75% chance he became that player and a 25% chance he went down due to injury, is it a bad selection at first overall? Not necessarily. Also, who knows what would have happened to Oden if he didn't go to a team with the worst medical staff in the NBA? You can't judge picks solely by their outcome. If someone wagers a dollar on a choice that will be correct 90% of the time, but he happens to lose, is he an incompetent idiot? No.
Just over an hour til the parade starts. Supposed to get feeder band rain from the storm in N Florida, so that should make it interesting.
Pretty uneventful draft last night. Not even any really good suits. Now I understand that a lot of these guys have kids coming out of college, bus jesus christ, are they supposed to be like 11? Some of those HAD to be little brothers or sisters or cousins or something. If you got a kid that has his/her own cell phone, and youre not even 23, youve made some early lifechoice errors.
Thank God the Bobcats didn't fuck up their draft. Totally a chemistry, culture move getting MKG (who doubles as the name of a Lincoln Town Car). Lamar Odom might be going to the Clippers, that fuck HAS to be in L.A. huh?
And Riley all but came out in his PC and said: Thanks Steve Nash, but no thanks. And Ray Allen? Call me. Riley hates rookies and drafts. If he could just forfeit his pics, he would.
I was listening to some NBA expert on the radio the other day and he said Odom's issue was not with Dallas, but the fact that he felt abandoned by LA and it tapped into his high school days where he was basically shipped from 1 HS coach to another because his parents didn't give a shit. The coaches just used him to get him to their school and thats why he totally shut down after LA told him they weren't going to trade him and then did. I'd like to see him on the Heat too, but he might not be willing to take less money.
It's official, Odom's a Clipper. <a class="postlink" href="http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/06/28/report-lamar-odom-to-clippers-deal-finalized-mo-william-to-head-to-utah/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/ ... d-to-utah/</a> Meh, this is good for him/them I guess(assuming Odom returns to form next season, of course). I still don't see the Clippers getting past the second round next year, but who knows, a lot can happen between now and then. In other news, is this the most neutered Olympics ever? No Rose, Howard, Wade, Aldridge, and now no Bosh either.
Forgotten about the 2004 squad, eh? Aside from Tim Duncan, it was a bunch of youth and ball hogs. LeBron, Wade, and Carmelo were all coming off their rookie years (still good players, but not the mammoths they are today), Amar'e his sophomore year, and Okafor had just been drafted a month prior. The only other guards on the team were named Iverson and Marbury, and the squad was coached by Larry Brown...gross. It was called 'The Nightmare Team' for a reason. Besides, this summer's team is still poised to have LeBron, Durant, Kobe, Carmelo, Deron Williams, Chris Paul, Kevin Love, and Tyson Chandler. Anthony Davis and James Harden have been named to replace Howard and Rose. It's not like the teams of '92 and '08, but it's hardly 'neutered.'
Out of that group, Howard was the only one likely to start for Team USA, and he spent most of the 2008 Olympics on the bench with foul trouble.
I know pretty much nothing about the '04 Olympic team(was traveling most of that year, so just didn't pay attention), but after clicking on that link, I rescind my statement.
Don't make excuses for him. He got $9 million to play on the defending champion Mavs in a great city, for a great owner and organization, an all-time great coach, and one of the 20-25 greatest players ever in Dirk. Over half the guys in the NBA would fucking kill to be in that situation. Despite this, Lamar didn't even pretend to give a shit. Didn't even fucking try. Vince Carter at his worst didn't commit highway robbery towards his team this blatant. I was a fan of Lamar since he played for Rhode Island...but after last season, I fucking hate the guy. Players who are apathetic and don't try are the worst, most repugnant thing in basketball to me, and when they do it in such an amazing situation? I wish Lamar would just fucking go away. Retire and then film his dumbass reality series. I don't want to be reminded of him in the NBA. As for the Clippers, bad move. Odom originally played for them, began smoking marijuana heavily, and was labeled a bust before resurrecting his career in Miami. I doubt we will see much production from him.