Real Deal

Go figure.

Guess they were wrong, also, because it was stated from the start that it wouldn't be completed until late Fall (projected), and it's nearly impossible to build something that large so quickly, let alone finalize the sale, find and hire the crew, plan the architecture, and actually do the work AND open the building. Not sure who started that rumor about 9/11, but it was ridiculous and just something to release to the public to gather more negativity around the project.

A mosque, and a floor for prayer in a community center, are two different things. A mosque would not be open to the public, to go in and play basketball, to swim, or whatever. Otherwise, like I said, a YMCA must be a church. And there was never any plans to open it on 9/11. Ever. When it was proposed and the plans were laid out, there was no way they would've been able to build the 13-14 story building and open it up that quickly. They even stated this.from the very beginning. But I'm assuming you heard about this on Fox News, because that's actually where I heard about it opening up on 9/11...and I laughed, because they said just ONE week ago that it was going to open on 9/11. Absolutely amazing to build it that quick, lol.

I don't think they'll be bad defensively, I just don't think they'll be better than a team with Artest, Kobe, Barnes, Blake, Gasol, Drew and Ratliff. Top three isn't out of reach for Miami, but telling us who they gained doesn't give me much, given the fact they lost three of their best defenders from last season (and again, this is what the Heat fans were saying all year long about Jermaine, Richardson and Wright). Should be Boston, LA and Miami, in that order (assuming Miami breaks the top three). Tomorrow, I'll put LA on top. The next day...Boston. Charlotte may have lost too many pieces to be top three (they were #1 last season). Losing Felton and Chandler could bump them out of the top five, actually (although Felton wasn't THAT good of a defender, he's still better than any point they have). Not sure what will happen with the Bucks...their defensive rating was second in the league. Orlando was third.

Discuss the topic or don't post.

No, I'm saying a mosque is a prayer center, and that's not what is being built. Again, if nobody knew who was building it, nobody would care and nobody would be calling it a mosque even after it was built. Once they found out it was a Muslim, now it's a mosque? There is nothing anyone can say that proves it's not a community center. If this is a mosque, the YMCA is a church. As for the rest of your post, I've already stated everything I needed to. Yes, people are ignorant if they associate Muslims with terrorists...I don't care who they lost.

Lakers were 4th, Heat was 6th, based on overall defensive ratings. And you guys lost Jermaine O'Neal, Quentin Richardson, and Dorell Wright...all three good defenders, and I definitely remember the OTR Heat fans telling us how important all three were to your defense.

It sucks mainly because we will all have to "snail mail" topics back and forth, on letters, and we will have to write our posts out. And it just wouldn't be the same without a banner on each letter, so I'll need to draw them out with a pencil for each topic letter. Blah. Lots of work.

Bosh will have to prove to me he can defend at the four. I saw this argument before, with Amare: people saying he can defend Duncan well, said he would be a better defender if he wasn't guarding centers, saying he showed signs of his defense here and there...but it was all a hoax. Cleveland fans were saying the same thing about Carlos Boozer when he was there, and many believed he just needed time to develop. Never happened. James and Wade aren't first-team defenders. Wade may be a second-team defender (no, not talking official teams and their voting, talking about top 10). I wouldn't say LeBron is a better defender than Howard, Artest, Kobe, Afflalo, Sefolosha, Hinrich, Wade, Allen, Oden, Battier, or Wallace (and that's just 10 players, there are more...Roy, Granger come to mind). Still a good defender, just not a stellar one.

Don't know how you follow the WNBA...just too difficult for me to stick with it. Sparks game is Saturday, right? I think I saw it advertised on ESPN2 this morning. Not sure why I'm going to try and watch it, though. The Storm are going to advance. No Parker, and Seattle is too good not to lose this time around.

Well, he's not as good of a defender as he was a few years back, but he's definitely better than Nash in that regard. Other than that, though...yeah, I agree.

Then you need to read the definition of a mosque. It's a house of prayer, and strictly that. Nothing more. The community center has two floors (of the 13 or so) available for prayer. The rest are going to be used for many activities available to the public (which means, everyone). Ever heard of Charles Manson and his beliefs? Hear about a place in Texas called Waco? I can provide a lot of "religious" incidents in the states that would fit the bill quite nicely. Ignorant people associate Islam with terror, and the reality is that we have ignorant people everywhere. My neighbor is a racist, and he associates robbery with blacks because we've actually had a few blacks rob neighbors down the street. Doesn't mean much, but hey, we have incidents! One attack that happened in 2001 shouldn't mean we disrespect and spit on Muslims. There are plenty of them living here, just like you and me. Have you ever heard of a YMCA? There's a place for prayer in those. Ever heard of a JCC? There are 350+ JCC's in the states and in Canada...Jewish community centers that include a place for worship, NOT strictly a place of worship. Two different things. The Muslim Jihad was never our concern. Jihad has both violent and non-violent meanings, and the warfare has been traced back to Muhammad and the Qu’ran, way before any of our time. Even in the 1700-1800's, it was never our concern...the West Africa incidents, Sudan, and early stages of the Ottoman Empire. We didn't send troops over to stabilize the countries in need, and spend billions of dollars for no reason. If you don't care about them building one, why are you so adamant about this not going up? I doubt you could care less about the well-being of Muslims. That's DEFINITELY not the reason you started this topic.

Really? There are more people. A guy flew his personal plane into a building not too long ago because he was mad at the government. People shoot up schools. There are plenty of incidents I could find if this were actually important. I'm not for opening it up on 9/11. I'm for putting the building up, though, because our country allows it. People will cause trouble? That's life, and it's sad. I'm sure some of you would actually like that, though. We have something against Muslims, fine...so that means we should've never been in Iraq in the first place, because just what group of people are we protecting and spending trillions of dollars for?

By the way, it's not a mosque. I think the definition of the word proves that it isn't because it contradicts what it will contain. If we had no idea who was building it, nobody would even know what the building is. Since we found out it was a Muslim, NOW it's a mosque, for some reason.

Fine, I'll re-state it: are all Americans serial killers? One incident, of course. When Timothy McVeigh (an American) proved he was a terrorist because of what he did in Oklahoma City, does that make Americans terrorists as well?

You keep saying it's not fair and that he needs to realize that, but you're supporting that opposition against Muslims...so it really doesn't matter. You said it's like the Jews hating Hitler. I don't see how. Hitler is an individual that did terrible, inhumane things to be hated by EVERYONE. As more than one person (as a group of people), Muslims did nothing. As I said earlier, there are white serial killers. Tons of them. Does that mean white Americans should be viewed as serial killers? There are more white serial killers that kill in our country than there are Muslim terrorists that attacked our country. How many churches are allowed in Mecca? Why isn't the United States a Christian country (officially)? We could force Christianity on everyone, you know, and then we can ask how many mosques are allowed here. We can also force blacks and mexicans out of the country, like a lot of people would like to do (yeah, it's true, a lot of Republicans in Kansas would love to do that). USA...land of the free, but only kind of.

That's all that needs to be said. I'm sure Kobe would be consistent as well if he didn't have to put up 30 a game, but the point is, Kobe is the better defender. If you need one stop, you pick your absolute best defender to get that stop. So, in other words, he has had the help of a great defensive cast his entire career? In 2006 and 2007 (no Gasol, just Odom and Mihm, Smush and Walton, those fantastic defenders), Kobe was voted All-Defensive 1st Team. Just like LeBron and Wade were, the same argument you used in the "Lakers defense" topic. The 2007 Lakers were ranked 24th in the league, defensively. Bryant 1st Team All-Defense. Bryant's defensive lapses come from picking up Fisher's man, or covering a slasher and leaving open his shooter (usually, Kobe's opponents are left open for long shots, which he'd rather give up). Not exactly a defensive lapse. Bryant also comes over to help with bigs. There is a quote I'll look for, by Phil, that explains Kobe's role on the defensive end and why he never asks Bryant to lock down his man UNLESS it's at the end of a game, or if he's hurting the team enough to cause a loss (something along those lines). Are you trying to say that, if needed (if asked of him), Battier would do a better job than Bryant on, say, Durant...for 40 minutes? Guess it's a matter of opinion, then. I just don't think Battier is at that level anymore. Top ten is different...but I can't say he's a top five defender in the league. Bryant was injured for half the season, major injuries that would sit most players in the league, but you could only see it every now and then on the defensive end.

http://www.otrbasketball.com/forums/index.php?app=forums&module=extras&section=boardrules Not going to say which guideline needs to be read. Just read the whole thing if you don't know. There are members I really can't stand on every site I go to. I don't stalk them or make fun of them. I don't like half of the Lakers fans out there, but I still run a Lakers site with them posting 2,000-4,000 times a day. If one or two members are causing you grief and are breaking the rules, come to me about it. If they aren't breaking guidelines, and you are because of them, you probably won't last here. If they aren't doing anything wrong and you're having mental breakdowns because of something else, get help and go post somewhere else.

Uh huh...the police should be there in an hour.

Delete it, go to your Start menu and find it there. Right-click and send it to your desktop and see if you have the icon. If so, drag it down to the taskbar from the desktop. If you don't have the icon on the desktop after you "send" it, it's missing from your computer, somehow. Maybe because it's a download and not directly from the CD, and I'm turning you in to the FBI.

I don't see how you think he's a good on-ball defender anymore. If he was, he'd have the quickness to stick with the guards that blow past him. To be a good on-ball defender, you either need quickness/speed, or physical toughness on the defensive end. Battier has neither. You can be as smart as any player out there, but if you don't have either of those, you're toast. Luke Walton is a high IQ player and, believe it or not, defender...but he doesn't have the speed or physicality to be effective on that side of the ball. Same for Brent Barry, who would sometimes teach rookies how to play defense...yet couldn't play it himself once he was on the court. Kobe is stuck on my list over Battier because, if there's 24 seconds left in the game, there's nobody else in the NBA I want defending a player. Would you pick Battier over Bryant in that scenario? If not, that's basically telling me that, at their best and most motivated, Kobe is the better defender. I don't consider who is playing with these guys. When I stick each out on an island to defend one player, minimal help defense, I then make my list. Howard, Oden, Artest, Kobe and Hinrich make the cut. If injuries were considered, it rules Oden out...so I'm not going to say I considered them. I just don't think Battier is as good of a defender, on-ball + help (as in, him helping, not others helping him) than those five. Many argue that Rondo gets a lot of help from Garnett and Perkins, too. Some argue that Garnett's knee injury has changed his effectiveness on defense, and that Rondo holding his guards AND Perkins helping up front makes up for it. Some say Perkins would be worse off if Garnett and Rondo weren't so good on defense. Put them in separate scenarios, and suddenly, I feel like I can't put any of those three in my top five because of that. Houston vs. Oklahoma City, first round, series tied up. Westbrook is killing Brooks like he did Fisher. Does Battier switch over and hold Westbrook to under 40% shooting in the final two games of that series? I seriously doubt that.

Tony Allen averaged 16.5 minutes per game. Rudy played almost 24 a game last season, with Portland. The reason Rudy wants to be traded from the Blazers is because he doesn't get enough playing time. I seriously doubt he goes to Boston.

Easily Nash. He knows how to run a team and is better at everything other than defense. The Lakers would make up for that just like they've done with Fisher.

I think it's more about him not having a hand in the offense. There are defensive specialists that can produce offensively as well. Pippen comes to mind. Tayshaun Prince. Gary Payton.

I don't see why any of that matters. Battier was always defending Kobe, even though Bryant plays the two. He was always defending the best player at the two OR three, as far as I can remember. Seems to me like Battier lost a step, lost Yao AND lost Artest. The less amount of help, the less Battier looks good. You can draw that conclusion based on us agreeing that he usually always leads his opponents into help defense, which is why he's a smart player. If it was all about numbers and percentages (the opponent eFG%), you probably should've stuck Varejao in your five for what he did against the bigs, and Wade for the numbers he puts up. Plus, numbers plus importance of position played, leave Sefolosha off your list. Bryant looks to be the better defender. Granger defends the four as good as Garnett, according to the numbers, and he plays half of his minutes there (I actually didn't realize that). Kevin Durant looks like a good defender, also, at the three...much better than LeBron, in fact...by the numbers. On-ball defense, not a chance. If we're rating individuals, I would rather pick the better on-ball defender, not the one that has to rely on his bigs every single drive. Smart defense, but Fisher unintentionally does what Battier did last season. Fantastic idea when you have Dwight Howard, though.