Real Deal

Gotta watch this garbage feed. This is the second or third time my NBALP has gone out.

Nobody said they were entitled to a championship. They only felt that way AFTER he did what he did to them. Nobody would've had a problem with LeBron had he stayed in Cleveland and made the attempt to do what he promised to do, and that's obvious. I don't care who Dirk had on his team. Hakeem Olajuwon won a championship with Otis Thorpe (who was out of his prime) and Vernon Maxwell (who sucked that season) as his teammates. James didn't accomplish a miraculous feat that no other player reached, and he didn't bring it home at the end of the day. The dude is making himself look even more ignorant every day, and we still have people trying to take up for him? Cleveland has every right to be pissed off, and for him to leave with a middle finger in the air, they can do the same and state over and over again why their respect for him has gone out the window.

He had two 60-win seasons. Before that, two seasons of just 50 wins, one 45 and one 42, and a 35. You're making it sound like he won them multiple championships and created a dynasty. LeBron hasn't even done as much as Dirk Nowitzki has for Dallas. And, again, the team was built specifically for him, designed in the same way the Sixers were for Iverson. Same exact concept. He was basically the GM, and approved of everything that went down. He wanted Shaq, made a big deal about the acquisition. Him and Daniel Gibson were butt buddies. It's not what he did for the team itself, but for the franchise. It's all negated with what he did TO the franchise. He lets them know he's leaving, exploring FA options and not going to return to Cleveland, fans wouldn't have been embarrassed. I think Cleveland fans had a feeling he wasn't going to stay to begin with, but putting it on national television, making everyone sit on their hands and chew their fingernails, not telling anyone and giving Cleveland (the front office) hope that he'll return so they wouldn't have to go looking for max contracts, OR trying to work out a deal like Denver is doing right now...lol, it's not even up for debate, in my opinion. His jersey deserved to be burned by the fans.

Crawford was locked up in that third, didn't hit anything after having that crazy first half. I saw a bit of the fourth, too...and I really thought that Bargs was going to hit that three at the end, haha. Pretty close.

I think they served him just as much as he served them. They put out the money for his jerseys, bought tickets to see him, traveled to see him play on the road, purchased his shoes, made him the next best thing to a god in the city of Cleveland, put up massive banners and murals with him on them...so, yeah, he got the respect while he was there. Once he disrespected Cleveland, they gave him a taste of his own medicine. All this is, from LeBron, is an attempt to become the villain, to gain even more attention, much like what he does when he re-tweets people when they say he is the greatest and how much they love him. So, no sympathy here, and I don't blame anyone in Cleveland for being mad.

The problem with that is the fact that there's much, much more Euro talent that hasn't had much success over here, or that went undrafted because they underperformed in pre-draft camps. Just looking at last year's draft... #17 - Kevin Seraphin (France) He was the only first-round pick, and he's getting under 10 minutes a night on one of the worst teams in the NBA, and doing poorly at that. Tibor Pleiss, Nemanja Bjelica, Paulo Prestes, Ryan Richards, Pape Sy...all players taken in the second round, all doing nothing and will continue to do nothing. Guys like Sun Yue and Sarunas Jasikevicius, who looked promising in international play (against the US), they never worked out. There are probably a hundred more in the last decade, guys that were on the radar, given the chance, and just didn't get the job done. Dirk, Parker, Yao, Gasol, Manu...all exceptions, but they all didn't come to the league at once, either, and if we're going to get talent like that while dropping the majority of the international players like flies, I doubt it's worth trying to make it easier for those guys to get into the NBA. Players like Rubio would still have trouble dropping their current contracts to begin with.

I don't get why people say that. There are 28 states in the US that don't have an NBA team. The league would cease to exist if you remove those people from their team's fanbase. Some people are born in Los Angeles, and are raised being a Lakers fan. They don't even get to make up their minds. Maybe we should consider some of those fans puppets? They can't decide for themselves, right? There's too much thinking when it comes to this mess. If people are following the team, and have proven to do it through the best and the worst, that's all that matters. It shouldn't matter where you were born, or why you started to follow that team in the first place. There are Lakers fans, born in Los Angeles, with bedrooms that are lined in purple and gold, have been to many games, and they STILL would get swept away in a debate with me, over anything Lakers. They can present themselves as the bigger fan, but there's more to it than that. Kansas doesn't have a pro football, basketball or baseball team. The Chiefs and Royals are in Missouri, and so were the Kings. It takes me five minutes to drive into Oklahoma, from where I'm at...but the state didn't have a professional team to root for until the Sonics were sold just a few years ago. I'm emotionally attached to sports, so I'm naturally going to find teams and players I'm emotionally attached to, whether I live in Kansas, Montana, or Honduras. If I didn't choose to do that, there would be no reason for me to watch professional sports.

Ditka, Ryan and Edwards all have what...one conference championship game appearance among them? I'm assuming Ditka won the SB that same season, but still...and if I recall correctly, when they were talking Herm Edwards on ESPN a while back, they showed that he had a losing record, both in the playoffs and in the regular season. Buddy Ryan didn't have a single winning season with the Cardinals, and had just three in his career, all with the Eagles. No playoff wins. It's safe to say that Dungy had a more successful career than all three of them, combined. I'm not really sure if they were good examples...nothing really worked for Ryan or Herm.

LeBron was "seeing everything" in his opinion...no need to look any further into that. He probably thinks he's really God. No surprise here. If he doesn't think that, though...it's good to know he believes Cleveland struggles because of God, and that he associates God with karma.

I was born into a football family, and the only person who actually liked basketball was my cousin. The Kings had just left Kansas City (I was almost two years old), and there were no other teams in the area as I was growing up. I watched my first game, a Bulls/Sixers game, back when I was 6 or 7 (1990), and my two guys were Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan. Barkley went to Phoenix, so I decided to follow a team and became a "die-hard" Suns fan. I knew every player that ever played for them, from Barkley and KJ to Oliver Miller and Joe Kleine. It was ridiculous. In 1995, my cousin had tapes of Kobe Bryant, playing in HS. I watched them, and started trying to imitate him on the court. Watched them quite a bit, actually. This was when I was in 6th grade, before he was drafted. I told myself I was going to root for the team that drafted him, no matter what...ditch Phoenix, Charles, Jordan, everyone else. The Hornets took him, and for that split second, I was a Hornets fan...lol. LA ended up getting him, and that was where it started...no Shaq, a 53-win season, no reason to like them other than Bryant (and Shaq came to LA a week later).

I know a handful of people, personally, that have thrown trash at their church, spun their tires in the grass, burned tires in the drive, and backed into their little gate. If I ever went to Topeka and saw one of those idiots on the side of the road, I'd cover my license plate and speed by them with a big cup of coffee, launch it at one of their faces and drive off.

I think he knew what he was doing, 100%. Old classmates described a time where he actually met Gabby, said she was ignorant and didn't know what she was talking about. Then, he was running his chops on YouTube for the last month or so, all about the government. His MySpace account was littered with rubbish hinting that he was going to do something stupid, and he was taking jabs at the police and the government on there for months as well. He was just some loner who got into a little trouble with the law, decided the world was against him, and wanted to take lives to make an impact because he was too much of a worthless POS and a coward to make that impact any other way.

Copy and paste the code below, filling in the blanks. All correct answers get you five points. No late entries accepted. If you don't turn yours in by the tip-off of the first game, you miss out, no exceptions. Thursday, January 13th Orlando @ Oklahoma City (TNT) Winner: Leading passer: Miami @ Denver (TNT) Winner: Leading scorer: Friday, January 14th Dallas @ San Antonio (ESPN) Winner: Leading rebounder: New Jersey @ LA Lakers Winner: Player with the most threes made: Portland @ Phoenix (ESPN) Winner: Player with the most turnovers: Saturday, January 15th Toronto @ Washington Winner: Leading rebounder: Miami @ Chicago (NBATV) Winner: Leading scorer:

Postponed due to snow.

Five techs...in ten seconds. Beasley looked like he messed that ankle up bad, by the way.

LeBron, Wade, Durant, Kobe, and other superstars could've had the same success. Come on, guys...you can't expect the Cavaliers to do anything when they don't have a facilitator. The team was built for him, shooters around the facilitating, penetrating scorer. Deserving of his MVP, but not deserving of all the credit he's getting because he didn't average 95-100 PPG.

I just hope it doesn't ruin OTR's servers.

Ah, I see. If the believers aren't watching, he will come as a thief in the night. That's what I get from that verse. Just confusing, that's all.

Sorry, let me rephrase what I said at the beginning: the Earth will "end" in the same way in regards to the seven days scenario, but with The Rapture instead of the Ark, and then God destroys the Earth with fire. The topic is more about the translation of the "one day is to 1,000 years" comment. To me, it's stating that the seven days he gave Noah are equal to the 7,000 years he's giving us...and if that's true, 2011 is the year. Almost sounds like some will know.

From my understanding, this is tying the Flood and the end of days together, saying that the world will end the same way. Could be wrong in the way I translate that, but either way, I ran across this as well... What does that even mean? I never understood the significance of this in the Bible. However, I just read about that new-age Ark (the topic here at TLN), and it got me thinking... Noah had a seven-day notice, from God. Is it possible that you can connect these three, in any way? The way I understand things, the Bible has related those seven days to 7,000 years (one day to 1,000 years). If that's true, and the Flood happened in 4990 BC, adding 7,000 years (no year zero) would mean that 2011 would be it. He gave the world seven days to get into the Ark. Is He giving us 7,000 years (one day to 1,000 years) to seek His safety? If you don't believe in God and plan on derailing the topic with ridiculous statements, don't post. You'll be banned from the Off-Topic forum for two months.

He's so right. When the Jets walk in to kick the hell out of the Pats (ha), I'm going to be putting ALL of my attention on the sidelines. Someone should tell Rex that he's not even on the same planet as Belichick, so it only makes sense that he would have to talk this loud to get his opinion heard. Pats should run the score up, if they end up blowing them out.

I'm almost inclined to say Melo...but then I think about how Cleveland has struggled, for years, in professional sports, and LeBron is BY FAR the best player they've ever had in the NBA, and one of the best among the four major sports. James honored his contract, but he didn't respect the organization enough to at least tell Dan Gilbert he won't be returning. Had he made his decision seconds before announcing it, I think I'd feel differently...but it became evident days before, and I believe Steven A. Smith called it and really stuck his neck out there, mainly by just saying it was a guarantee. Denver's last game was a wreck for Melo. He looked like he couldn't care less. He shot the ball twice in the first half, 11 shots total, passing the ball off and just watching his teammates play, not playing much defense...just not a superstar against the Hornets. At least LeBron played most of that final game with the Cavs. I think he eventually gave up and wanted to show his teammates how "worthless" they were, but he fought for most of it, and a big part of that was probably because he wanted to win, not because he wanted his team to win. But I digress. The kicker, like everyone else will probably note, is The Decision. No point in doing that on National TV, doesn't matter how much money you raise. Cleveland treated him like a god...it was completely unnecessary to go on TV and [expletive]-slap them in front of the world. The only way anyone can top that is to sign a six-year max deal, then punch two of your teammates in the first game, walk out into the home crowd and beat up a few fans, then leave the country, your team, and the league, for good.

The Grizz would deal Mayo in a heartbeat, but there's no chance they would throw Gasol in any package unless it gave them a legit defensive big man back (or Carmelo, of course). Birdman wouldn't cut it, and Nene doesn't know what defense is.

A defensive-minded team, one that targets the superstar (like Boston) will have trouble beating a team without a true primary scoring option a lot of times. It makes sense...just walking into a game, it feels like a "trap game" that you really don't have a game plan for. Who do you look to stop? And it really extends beyond those defensive teams, too. It seemed that way for the Cavaliers this season, too, back in late October and early November. Teams did start to figure them out, though, and now they are among the worst in the league. It's not that big of a surprise to me. I've seen the Lakers win games without Bryant or Gasol, saw Houston almost knock us out of the playoffs a couple of years ago without Yao Ming...so it was likely that the Celtics would struggle. Of course, missing Garnett is a big deal because there's no Perkins in the frontcourt, but a team with Pierce, Rondo, Allen and Shaq should be able to take it to a depleted Houston team...on paper.