Poe

The Heat looked very, very good against Atlanta, especially Wade and Beasley. If the Heat come out with the same energy tonight as they did against both Charlotte and the Hawks, and sustain it throughout the game, I think the Heat should win, even without JO. EDIT: Nevermind, Jermaine is playing.

Carlos Arroyo to remain with Miami Heat Carlos is staying, and it appears Rafer is still planned to sign with the Heat on Thursday.

OK. I didn't mean anything by it if it offended you. I just used that name out of haste, not sure what else to call you on top of all the other names.

Well at least this time Yugo and PFG are separated, which I believe was always the main problem, right? (Just making a guess, I haven't really been here for that long)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/miami-heat/sfl-rafer-alston-miami-heat-010509,0,107100.story So, by the sound of it, the Heat will be signing Alston AND extending Arroyo. This is interesting, cause neither of the three have a guaranteed starting role. There will be a big battle in practice for minutes, that's for sure.

It doesn't seem like he even wants to come back.

Dude gets banned on BTA, so he decides to come here... just sayin. JK, as long as everyone gets along, I'm sure everything will be fine

My bad. Didn't realize this was already posted. Go ahead and delete my other thread if you want. Anyway, good deal. This might mean Arroyo is almost guaranteed to stay with the Heat, and I think Quinny will have a solid rest of the year with the Nets. He's not a bad player. It's good to see him get a chance.

http://www.seattlepi.com/scorecard/nbanews.asp?articleID=272315

Stats are always misleading one way or another. It's not like baseball where you can just look at a batting average to see if the player is a good hitter. You can sometimes make a rough outline of a what a player can do based off of statistics and averages, but really, there are just so many minor areas to the game of basketball it's tough to evaluate a player based on what is averaged each game. Point per game, for example, can be a product of how many shots a player is given through how many plays are set up for them, how many touches the player gets, his tendency to attempt a shot in each touch, how good of an offensive rebounder he is, etc, etc. Chris Kaman averages more points than Chris Paul, Tim Duncan, Ben Gordan, and Pau Gasol, yet would you say he has a better overall ability to score than they do? Like PPG, individual stats are often affected by the situation of that player compared to the rest of his team. +/- is no different. Actually, it can probably be the most misleading stat. There are plenty of reasons why it can be misleading. Try a scenerio of mixing a D League player with 4 All Star caliber players, and you'll probably get some good +/- results despite the individual player not being a positive impact to the team. Not to take away what Varejao does, but try taking him out of the Cavs and putting him on the Nets or the T-Wolves. I think it's almost guaranteed his +/- will dramatically drop. +/- is a much better evaluation for how 5 guys function on the court with one another. This can also be situational, like what teams these 5 particular players were on the court against, whether they were matched up against starters or bench units, or whether the coach put these 5 in the game only against particular match ups (whether a team goes "big" or goes "small"). Even then, +/- is still much more reliable as an evaluation for a 5 man line up than an individual player.

A first round pick would make this a lopsided trade.

There's a chance the Heat may get rid of him. The Heat aren't short on point guards. Aside from Mario there's Chris Quinn, who isn't as bad as some people seem to think (and Pat Riley seems to like him a lot for some reason), and both Dwyane Wade and Dorell Wright can fill in at the point if needed. Still, Arroyo has played very well. I like the way he sets the tempo for the starting line up, and Spoelstra seems to like his presence on the floor. Thing is, Pat Riley envisions Chalmers as a guy who can put up a solid 36 mpg, and as I said, he likes Chris Quinn. Quinny can bring more 3 point shooting that this team desperately needs. Arroyo has been solid this year, but he isn't someone the Heat really need, nor would he be in their future plans after this year. The fact that he's been a part of the starting line up recently may give him hope to remain on this team.. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

I think Hinrich is possibly even MORE valuable than Butler. He's easily a much better defender, and some even believe he's one of the better perimeter defenders of the decade. He's had a couple off years offensively, but if he can push his way out of his slump, he could be nearly as valuable as Caron is on the offensive end.

This. Simply no reason to not resign him.

LOL, I love how every game the Heat play the Hawks, SOMEONE gets blown out. It's like whoever has the lead within the first 5 minutes is pretty much guaranteed to win the game. I didn't watch the game earlier this year where the Hawks beat the Heat by 15, but at the beginning of the year, I had a hard time imagining the Hawks as a good team, and this game continues to make me believe that. In the summer, I thought the Hawks might even be out of the playoff race. Just looking at their roster, with an undersized center, a limited and immature PF, an underdeveloped SF, an old PG, and a selfish sixth man... it was just hard to make me see these guys as a good team. I think it has a lot to do with the coaching. My first impression of Mike Woodson was that he was a bad coach. Now I actually think he's underrated. The ball movement of the team to start the game looked very good, which I think is how they usually played this year. He's helped Josh Smith mature into a better overall player, and his BPG may put him in talks for DPotY. I'm pretty sure their team defense is normally much stronger than this. Nevertheless, I still expect the Hawks' record to drop this year. I predicted earlier that the Hawks would have a worse record than the Heat by mid to end of January. I knew they were about to have a 4 game losing streak. They should probably lose around 4 or 5 of their next 6, and I think the Heat is going to have a pretty strong winning streak around the corner despite a reasonably tough schedule themselves. The Hawks' record may eventually wind up being challenged by the Raptors, like CF said.

Between Kidd and AI, Allen Iverson may have a higher chance of scoring individually in each possession, since he attempts more shots, but Jason Kidd creates a higher chance for his TEAM to score in each possession.

My god has Beasley come a long way. Hopefully he can keep it up this time around.

I'm loving this game so far. Great energy out there. Defensive rotations are superb. Beasley is hot to start the first quarter, and Wade is really looking good out there. He's rediscovering that lean mean scoring machine Riley was talking about earlier this season.

Then come over to Miami. Nobody shows up till halftime, but at least we sell more tickets than you

http://www.realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/63775/20100102/heat_havent_made_assurances_to_arroyo/ Well, two more days... Is he a keeper? I'd say so. He's been playing way better than Chalmers, who has done no such thing to regain his starting position back, that's for sure. Or else, alternatively, the Heat could move Wade over to the point and start Wright at the 2, or vise versa..

Yep..

I'm just sayin... they're a tougher team to beat than their record shows.

:o

Sounds like a reasonable trade. Bulls need offense on the wings, and Hinrich can bring some good things to the table for the Wizards.

It sure feels like it, lol, but the Heat aren't the only ones on a 3 game losing streak. Should be a heck of an ugly game, though I doubt anyone's going to get blown out... although we do have a history of blowout Ws and Ls with them......... Do you remember the last close game against these guys?