Real Deal

Haha, I LOVE seeing Irving destroy Pullen.

So, if Riley steps in, who will take the blame for another 8-6 run? Just curious. I'm going with the role players.

Well, he's only coached the Heat for two years, and part of this season (so, 190 games including playoffs), so I'm not sure about that.

Gasol has to take the game over, no more shying away from the basket when we need him most. The numbers are there, but if Kobe is struggling, it's Gasol's job to step up. Everyone else, maybe with the exception of Odom...you can't expect that from them because they play through Kobe and Gasol. Noah and Gibson will be defending him, though. I expect to see Kobe attacking like crazy when Korver is in the game, maybe the same with Shannon Brown.

The fighting wouldn't just centralize around the North and South Korea issues. If this turned into WWIII, it would be due to the production of nuclear weapons, which would involve Iran, and eventually direct its attention to a religious war. So you're basically looking at a nuclear + religious World War. You would see involvement from other countries, not just allies of those two going back and forth right now. We're talking Israel, Iran, Syria, and many others. A war of that magnitude would be devastating.

You keep saying that, so why are you so quick to want to fire Spo?

I don't know about all of that. Most every Heat fan I ran across here, and on a few other basketball sites, have been praising Spo up until the first loss of the season to Boston. How long until Riley replaces Spo? Other posts, other topic...this one about Riley hinting at coming back for the 2010-11 season. People (even you, as a non-Heat fan) thought he was doing fine and figured he'd be in in for the long haul, some of those posts above were even after they brought in LeBron and Bosh. The fact is, the Heat fans were made to believe they were going to start winning games now, challenging the Bulls' 72-wins now, and winning championships now. Since it's not happening immediately, they are already calling for someone's head, and who would be the first on the block? Easily Spo, because he doesn't have to be part of the team to win rings. You can replace him, realistically, and still get a championship. Same with anyone from Pittman to Arroyo, Chalmers, to Big Z, Dampier, Anthony, Miller, Jones, even Haslem. Blame anyone but the core and Pat Riley. Ride the wagon until all four wheels fall off. That's why the ship for Spo is sinking so quickly, no other reason for it.

*raises hand* No matter where I spit, how far I spit...always seems to be a problem.

I've brushed my teeth in the shower plenty of times, when I was running late to work...but most of the time, it's the sink.

ESPN (and any big media outlet, for that matter) does not want people to think this team is a bust. They feed from that hype. Of course, they may title one article, "Hype too hot for Heat?" They may have fans questioning it. However, that's sports writing. Anyone that has ever covered a sport knows that questioning an athlete, a team or the fans is a good way to get your article read. Do they end up saying the Heat are a bust? Hell no...it would ruin it all. But, they will question it, and that takes pointing out even the smallest issues.

Yeah, but how many NBA-centered writers actually cover anything less than the top five superstars or teams? It's not rare, but there aren't very many out there.

Shouldn't keep quoting pieces from it, but this is sick, also.

LOL, this dude is insane.

Beast article. Read the rest here... http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AlqXp3WyVh8BphS95awjGlQ5nYcB?slug=aw-kobebryantchat112310

Uh oh, someone's not livin' La Vida Nitro!

If you're relying on that 5 PPG player every game, down the stretch, you should start looking at your entire team as the problem. Give me the guy that can drop 20+ in a game. Does the situation matter? I don't know...because if you say you want a 5 PPG scorer if you already have a couple of 20s, you have more problems than just needing a clutch player, so it's not going to matter. Ask yourself this: did the Lakers need Derek Fisher to win their championships? Not necessarily. For all of the big shots he has hit, he's been part of the reason why we needed him to hit those big shots in the first place, because of his horrible defense and his missed shots earlier in the game.

The same was said for Dwight Howard before he entered the contest, also (I said it, and so did many others on OTR), and he turned out to be the most creative dunker the contest has ever seen. In fact, the same goes for Amare, but Nash actually made his run more exciting.

If a Laker gets the MVP, it's going to be Bryant. He's the most valuable player on that team, hands down. He runs the offense, he's the primary scorer, and he's the second best defender on the team (next to Artest, and only because Kobe doesn't play defense all the time). Gasol has been timid when we've needed him to step up in a few of the games this season, which is why Kobe started ringing off 30s to keep us in them. There's no way Gasol is an MVP candidate over Bryant.

CP3. He provides the best stats on one of the best teams. MVP criteria met.

...Mike Brown wasn't even coaching the team 95% of the time.

Merged topics. And Ajay, I edited your post because it was giving me some sort of an error on Safari. It may be the way you stick the URL in the quote. I was running an old version of Safari, so maybe that's it...but the code was still producing the error, nonetheless.

Anyone interested in running it?

Miami Heat added. http://www.otrbasketball.com/forums/forum/26-miami-heat-team-forum

Well, they are pulling non-NBA players into the contest this season (heard this is mainly due to Sprite, but I have no idea). There are a few amateur dunkers out there that look amazing, so it could really boost the popularity of the contest. But, if that turns into a flop, I say just ditch it next season and try to put together some kind of actual game that pits them against each other, similar to a game of 21.