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On the night of the extremely talented 2008 NBA draft, the Houston Rockets were sitting on the 25th pick in the first round. Normally many wouldn't expect anything more than a long-term project or 9th or 10th man off the bench, but tonight was different as the draft was stocked with great talent in both rounds. Houston tried to move up to the 'teen picks to try and snatch Brandon Rush or Courtney Lee, but Daryl Morey came to no avail. After the Orlando Magic selected Lee with the 22nd pick, the Rockets didn't pout and they set their sights on another prospect. Houston selected the ever so talented and potential loaded French native, Nicolas Batum. Batum was earlier thought to be a lottery pick but slipped to the Rockets' lap. Sounds like a great pick right? Sure but Daryl Morey and the Rockets were not done. Shortly after the announcement of the 25th pick, Houston traded the rights to Batum to the Portland Trailblazers for the draft rights to Darrell Arthur and Joey Dorsey. Arthur was considered to be a late lottery pick and many predicted to go to the Sacramento Kings at the 12th pick (they would take Jason Thompson instead), but a heart condition recently discovered in his physical caused him to drop. By making this trade the Rockets c-blocked their divisional rival, the San Antonio Spurs, and also picked up another pick (Dorsey). Arthur was a Rocket (most consider this a three team deal but many Rockets fans recall Morey trading for Arthur's rights) for all but 30 minutes to an hour. Houston would make another deal, this time with the Memphis Grizzlies, in which Arthur draft rights were traded and in return the Rockets finally received the player they were targeting all night long in Donte Greene. Greene was another projected late lottery pick but his stock dropped after word got out of Donte's poor attitude in a Nets workout. Houston was absolutely enamored by Donte's length, athleticism and high scoring ability. The sky was the limit and Tracy McGrady (at the time) seemed like the perfect mentor for the rookie. Just a couple of weeks after Donte Greene scored 40 points in a Rockets summer league game, he was traded along with Bobby Jackson and a future first round pick (Omri Casspi) to the Sacramento Kings for the controversial Ron Artest, Sean Singletary and Patrick Ewing Jr. Artest, a former All-Star and regarded as one of the NBA's elite perimeter defenders, would help lead the Houston Rockets to their first second round appearance in over a decade and force a game 7 with the future NBA champions Los Angeles Lakers. After the season many thought the Rockets would resign Ron Artest to a multiple year deal but after news of Yao's season ending injury got out, Houston got cold and merely offered Artest a $10 million one year deal. Artest was offended by the Rockets short term offer and would bolt to the team that ended his Rockets' season, the Lakers. Houston in turn signed the Lakers young athletic forward Trevor Ariza to a Mid-Level Exception (MLE) multi-year deal. Adelman would later state that Ariza would be the Rockets new #1 option as they try to turn him into an all-star. The experiment failed miserably but Trevor put together a strong performance in the second half of the season that included a triple double game against his future team, the New Orleans Hornets. With no sign of warning Daryl Morey traded Trevor Ariza in a multi team deal for the player he targeted 2 years ago, Courtney Lee. Morey and Adelman spoke very highly of Lee, praising his work ethic, basketball IQ and defense. Unfortunately the Rockets would struggle early on the season with a 3-9 record and Lee hasn't been able to show the skills that Morey has sought after ever so much. With rumors of a potential trade for an all-star to help the Rockets get back into form, could Lee be packaged? Or will Houston decide to keep Lee if he shows improvements as the season goes along? Only time will tell.

Kobe Bryant, and i'm not even gay.

Men do reproduce.

http://ambasketball.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/JeffVanGundy.jpg

Even if it ain't a typo it ain't that big of a deal to be honest... If another player wrote that I'm sure that no one would care. LeBron has really become the guy that everybody loves to hate, and this only because of a mismanaged departure... I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it to be honest lol.

Damn you, beat me to it. Did you fail bio, bearfan?

PG - Chauncey Billups SG - Kobe Bryant SF - Gerald Wallace PF - Kevin Love C - Anderson Varajao

Sam Cassell had heavy balls : http://www.insidesocal.com/tomhoffarth/sam_cassell_2.jpg http://www.slamonline.com/online/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/sam_cassell1.jpg

It’s a good thing if the raptors are winning personally I can’t stand watching a team lose the whole season just to get the number one overall pick especially since we’ve seen the lottery not won by the worst team in the league in the past couple of seasons. It’s not worth purposely tanking because the lottery could go the raptors way even if they’re 9th or 10th in the eastern conference.

Ron Artest had every right to go into the stands looking for the person that threw a beer at him. It's different if it was verbal abuse, but he was assaulted and I wish he went to town on the guy. Just in case you guys didn't know, athletes are people too.

I still would give it more games tbh.

Sorry

Jeff Green for Scola is a trade that has been thrown around a lot recently. Thunder get their inside presence and the Rockets rebuild with a decent small forward prospect. Makes sense for both sides. I'm not sure what I would want from the Pacers besides their unprotected first and Paul George (highly doubt they let him go) Right which is why I'm saying that any Scola trade would have to happen some time around the February trade deadline. To be honest though you may be the only poster here that still believes in this team. You and Yugo maybe. .

Well I think that part of the blame doesn't fall on Four Loko, rather the places where it is sold for not ID'ing and on the customers for not knowing their limits.

Haha, a typo. For one, Olden isn't a word, so a phone wouldn't auto-correct to that last name. Two, typos usually happen with letters on the same row. You use the same finger for the first two letters, but you have to move your finger back down off the "O" to hit the second letter. Why a second letter? Finally, fans have called him Olden as a joke before, so it's a big coincidence that LeBron's typo would be that. Please. LeBron is just an idiot. Crack jokes when you're playing him and he's able to run up and down the floor, not when he just found out he's done for the year and probably inching closer to being done for his career.

lol dude, I know you a die hard heat fan but please get off them nuts.

50, StatCity, Smitty, HG.

On a serious note my top 10 is like this: 1. All Rockets fans 2. BuiltFordTough 3. AboveLegit 4. Jenneral 5. illwill21 6. check my stats 7. Fish 8. Erick Blasco 9. Oliver P 10. Nitro Not including Real Deal because he easily tops anyone's list.

The product is dangerous and people need to be seriously warned of the effects of this. It's a way the government is protecting the people. I think they should be able to still SELL it, and if people want to consume it over 21 it shouldn't be an issue. But the government has a right and SHOULD intervene and make the dangers of this product aware to its consumers.

He does look kind of old...

Sorry fellas, my activity has been down the last couple weeks. Forgot to post it earlier but I was selected to play JV basketball this year.

Again, statistically, Wade was a better man-to-man defender last season than Kobe, so even if Kobe is a better man-to-man defender (which I fully agree with, without question), Wade did better in those situations last season on tougher defensive matchups (because he didn't have the luxory of Artest). I also strongly disagree with disregarding Wade's help defense. Help defense is EXTREMELY important, even for perimeter defenders. Wade wreaks havoc with his help-defense, which can greatly disrupt the offense. His ability to play the passing lanes is elite, and that ability directly effects most passes that are within his vicinity...whether he actually gets the steal, forces the passer to look to another option, forces the player he is defending to catch the ball where he doesn't want to, etc... He has been the best shot-blocking guard in the NBA for years now, and many of them are straight-up blocks against big men when he comes over to rotate. As I said before, because he is so athletic he makes quick rotations, and his quick recoveries help negate some of the negatives of being a bit of a matador. He also helps deny the post and is generally just a pest. When he's matched up with guys like Allen, who run around countless screens and can't be left open for a blink of the eye, his defense can be exposed, but generally speaking he is an exceptional, underrated defender. Again though, if he isn't taking the other team's best perimeter player most games, and he isn't playing insane off-ball defense, I just don't see how he can deserve the highest defensive honor besides DPOY. Even though Kobe's defense was great on Westbrook and Rondo, they were poor jumpshooters last season. Kobe played very smart defense on them, but nothing I would consider "lock down." He played way off them and gave them about 5-7ft of room. Against Rondo it worked extremely well because Fisher wasn't giving Allen an inch of separation, Pierce can't do anything against physical defensive players like LeBron or Artest, KG looked like a broken man, and Perkins was a non-factor offensively. Kobe was still letting Rondo in the lane, not all the way to the basket, but he still let him get around 10ft within the hoop without much resistance. If Fisher doesn't lock up Allen like he did, and if that's Ariza instead of Artest on Pierce, Kobe's defense wouldn't have been very effective. I saw that last week when the Celtics played the Heat. Arroyo was playing Rondo the same way Kobe did, but because Ray had it going, Pierce got a few favorable mismatches, and the Heat are so small up front, it didn't do all that much. But yes, I know Kobe is a feared defender, and I know he's tremendous defensively when he turns it on. But for an award that's for an 82-game season, he just doesn't deserve it.

LeBron and Kobe both led the 2 best regular season teams last year. When Kobe is healthy and on, he's probably a better player than LeBron, and can put up nearly as impressive stats (he could still give you 31/5/5 if he wanted). I think it's a good analogy. Not perfect, but my point is that the award should not be given based on defensive potential, but rather productivity and body of work. I acknowledge it, but to say he deserves the selection over a defensive specialist like Sefolosha, who almost always defends the other team's best perimeter player and does a terrific job, or Wade, who last year almost always took the toughest perimeter assignment while also being arguably the best off-ball perimeter defender in the entire leage? I just strongly disagree. Kobe rarely takes the other team's toughest perimeter assignment, his off-ball defense isn't in the same league's as Wade's (not just with steals/blocks, but also fast recovery and rotations), and he has a tendency to play lazy. I am sure you can find game's where Wade and Sefolosha also played lazy, but it's not as common of an occurance, which is to be expected since he has a LOT more miles than Wade and isn't a specialist like Thabo...but it doesn't change the fact that he doesn't deserve it over them.

" There's a Soldier in All of Us".. just not Skip Bayless

statcity and smitty are my best friends, dont judge me.

Nash, Allen and Iverson are all 3+ years older. In 4 years from now Kobe won't be playing at the same level as he is now.

As long as it doesn't screw up his or the Spurs game TP could be banging RJs wife (Luke Walton) for all I care. I'm not shocked, athletes cheat and we all know it. Kobe, Favre, Woods, Jordan etc...

It's my 20th birthday today...as a birthday present everyone who passes this post give me a +1. If you don't, that's bad karma, and you will die in a horrible car crash....and your grandparents will be raped...by an evil monkey.... http://www.wikispaces.com/space/showimage/FM2063~Family-Guy-Evil-Monkey-Posters.jpg

That's exactly why his last few All-Defense selections were bull[expletive], and just on repuation. He doesn't bring it in the regular season unless it's against an elite perimeter player, and his off-ball defense is very, very lazy. Still, when the post-season comes around, he has that ability to lock people down, which is extremely valuable.

He won't let them chill? FIRE SPO!