AboveLegit

Great research there B. I think this game will end up much like opening night where Boston jumped out to a huge start and lead the majority of the game. I see Kobe having a very good game as well as Pau, which should lead them to winning.

If anything, I'd be more in favor of the league expanding. The reason why some of these players put up such big numbers is because they're on bad teams. Place them on contenders such as the Lakers or Celtics, and suddenly they look a lot less impressive. Expansion creates more interest in the league. I don't see how that's a bad thing. So what if the majority of the league has no shot of winning a title in a given year? A lot of people (including me) love to support their hometown team. That's where the pride in the city comes in. I haven't witnessed one 50 win season for the Wizards in my life, but I will always support them. Sure there are some markets that have no business in owning a team, but there are a bunch of untapped markets doing fairly well.

Bynum's history with injury would turn any team off from trading a superstar for him unless he can go the next season or 2 injury-free, gets his game and lift back and develops in which case do you trade a guy like him? Would Ebanks really get enough PT now that they have Artest, Odom, Barnes, and Brown. And two years isn't too far away, I just don't think there's enough time for him to prove himself. In two years I don't Odom being a valuable trade asset that would entice a team like the Magic. Yeah I agree with that, and besides, Dwight does seem like the type of guy who would like to play in LA. Also, I honestly do believe he leaves, I'm almost fully sold on it. This whole situation with Orlando basically overhauling their roster is exactly like the situation in Cleveland last season. Both have major issues still, a ton of question marks, and don't seem like legitimate threats to Boston. http://i868.photobucket.com/albums/ab250/Zac_Sweeney/NBA%20Photoshops/Jersey%20Switches/DwightHowarLakersaaa_final.png Looks legit to me.

I can definitely see it happening, but it's just seems too far fetched. Remember, during those Garnett/Jermaine rumors, Bynum was being looked at as a stud with tons of potential, and Odom was only 28 years old. Odom will be 33 by then. So in all likelihood, the Magic are probably better off just letting Howard walk and use the cap space on others. And it would be pretty difficult to use Bynum as trade bait as they'd have to declare the final year of his contract before the FA period begins (as in, before they're officially allowed to talk to FA's).

Well done, looks great.

They could get into the playoffs with Miller and Jackson in the backcourt along with Diaw, Thomas, and Camby upfront. It also helps them long term by losing the contract of Wallace and Diop. As for Portland, I'm not entirely sure what they're thinking here. They would need to play more small ball with Wallace as the PF and LMA at C, so it doesn't create a logjam at the 2-3 spots. I guess they are trying to play Roy at point guard to free up minutes at the 2.

I don't care how bad the Clippers are, he is an absolute lock for ROY.

WOW, I didn't see this game, but I just checked the boxscore.. Utah scored 41 points in the fourth en route to a comeback win. I remember checking the score (not sure if it was the third or early fourth), and the Jazz were down by more than 10.. Utah = comeback kings.

Lol the boxscores and messed up, the Clippers are in the ball game.

You don't consider being in one of the most populated cities in the world a valid reason? You don't have to have a rich basketball history in order to explain why they sell out all these games and are near the top of the attendance rankings year in and year out... the people of NY are crazy about basketball.

Terrific help D by Garnett, sealed the win for the C's.

I'd say it was more of Flip Saunders blowing this game. He could have benched Blatche and brought in Booker. We needed a guy down low to get rebounds and play defense, two things which Dray doesn't know exists.. And it doesn't help when the refs are consistently making bad calls. They were terrible. Regardless, I want Blatche off the team. I don't care how good he can be on offense, I cannot handle having another chucker on this team that plays no defense.

Blatche is terrible. He frustrates me so much. But it was a solid effort from the team overall, Bulls are just the better team.

I really hate these advanced stats. PER seems to be the most popular one, but I think it fails in just as many ways as it succeeds. I believe the problem is that people are trying to create broad formulas that can boil a player down into one number, and it's really not possible because basketball depends so much on how a player coexists with others. I think sites like 82games.com and hoopdata.com are definitely helping, but I think that there's more we could be doing. As for all these advanced stats, I personally think +/- is the best, but I like the adjusted +/- stats from 82games, stuff like the On/Off stats and the Roland Rating (which combines PER with +/-).

I don't normally complain about refs, but they have been awful tonight.

The good: Nick Young, Kirk Hinrich The bad: Andray Blatche The ugly: Andray Blatche Story of the game for the Wiz thus far. I'm loving the chemistry Nick and Kirk have developed over the last few games.

Thanks. Weather has been around the 30's and 40's for the most part, supposed to snow on Saturday I believe.

Read more: http://basketball.realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/70727/20101222/silas_is_top_candidate_to_replace_brown/#ixzz18szD9Bka

Rashard making his debut tonight, but he will be coming off the bench. I'm interested in seeing how effective he is in our offense. Apparently Flip wants to use him more in the paint posting up smaller forwards, just like how he played in Seattle. Let's see if it works out.

About time, now they will probably have a firesale. And it's a good move for Larry, especially if it is indeed true that the team stopped listening to him.

Lmao wow, Chicago nearly doubling Philly's point total...

Sucks to be sick I hate this weather so much.

The Magic aren't a finished product yet, they wanted to make sure they had time between now and the trade deadline to make additional trades. They will have almost 2 months to scour the league looking for depth up front and they have a lot more pieces to float. They need time to gel with eachother. And while Hedo probably won't be what he was like in the '09 playoffs, I expect him to go back to his regular season form that season, maybe a bit lower. He will do better than what Shard was doing the past few years.

JRich...wow. Dude can't miss right now.

JRich with a huge three. Mavs need to pull it together, they have looked terrible the last 4 or so minutes.