Poe

And how many championships did Cleveland win? Though LeBron and Wade may have better ball handling abilities than the vast majority of wing players in the league, neither have the offensive mentality of a true point guard. Whenever LeBron or Wade take up the ball, it's either a pick and role, an isolation, or some sort of freelance offense. They hardly ever run a set offense, which is the reason Arroyo started for a good portion of the season. Recently Chalmers has been given that role to be a floor general (to some degree), and the Heat did a particularly well running and sticking to a set offense last game against the Magic in the first half, as they built their 24 point lead. It was in the second half when LeBron and Wade felt the pressure from Orlando creeping in on the Heat's lead, and they felt the need to "do their thing" and match their opponent's scoring by themselves. At times it may work since they are such damn good players, but against good defenses that know how to take away the sweet spots from the superstar, you are rolling the dice playing isolation basketball. Against the well-coached Magic team with their DPOY in the paint, the Heat suffered major droughts, and the Magic were able to shoot their way into a victory. Chalmers does not have the experience, toughness, the basketball IQ, and also has zero influence over the "Big Three" to get them to settle down and get in the right places in key moments of the game. This is a very important "intangible" in basketball, and possibly the reason a guy like Derek Fisher still starts for the Lakers despite lacking in some ability. It's also a key part of the reason the Knicks beat the Heat last weekend, because Chauncey excels at this leadership stuff. This is something I hope Bibby is capable of, though I don't know him well enough to know for sure. At least I know he will bring shooting, a decrease in team turnover ratio, and an underrated screen-setting ability. I hope he starts soon enough.

It's interesting how a vast number of people feel they have the superior frame of mind to judge against this man's life, despite how he hasn't committed harm to anyone (other than perhaps himself), especially when their lives aren't even a fraction as interesting. It's still better to be hated than to be unnoticed, perhaps.

Can anybody give me a description as to what specifically in Barnes' abilities (or lacking) as a basketball player makes him better or worse than Irving and/or Jones? This is just out of curiosity since I don't watch college ball or keep track of high school ranks.

I have high hopes that Mike Bibby will become the floor general the Heat have strongly needed all season, particularly late in games.

http://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/funny-awesome-win-10.jpg

http://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/daily-today-40.jpg

What's more important than the raw skill and talent being exchanged is the flexibility this gives for the Knicks. Their only player contracts larger than 2M/year or so lasting past the summer of 2012 will be Melo's and Amar'e's, unless I misread/misremembered something. Getting a player like Chris Paul, Deron Williams, or Dwight Howard, all of which are annual top 10 MVP candidates respectively, is worth MUCH more than keeping Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton, Danilo Galinari, and the Knicks' current lack of depth and interior size combined, even if it takes two years to acquire one of these mega stars. There are only a small handful of players in the world that can truly be the center piece for a successful team, and the Knicks could potentially gain a third player of this magnitude. The ends often justify the means, and Knicks may slowly be unfolding a dynasty. While the Knicks have traded away today's good team for tomorrow's super team, the Nuggets managed to squeeze as much value as possible for a player that would leave inevitably, and have acquired even greater depth than before. Though they traded away a superstar, somehow they may possibly have become an even stronger overall team than before, and it's not just the release of some speculated distractions. They may not have any single, highly dominant players, but every player, from positions 1 through 5, starter or bench player, can have a high impact on this team in any game. Their best player may very well now be Aaron Afflalo (though I'm sure many would argue it to be Raymond Felton, or perhaps Chandler or Nene), but their VERY worst player out of their entire first and second unit is Chris Anderson, who is a reputable shot blocker and rebounder and a player the I would love to be in the Heat's starting line up. Minus the upcoming probable role adjustments, the new starting line up combined for an average of about 67 points, and the second unit 52 points. Altogether, 119 points. Of course, the combined average players of two separate teams won't remain this high with the distribution of minutes, but still, this team looks to me like a championship contender, and their best player? Arron Afflalo?? Well, at least in my opinion. It's the most well rounded team since the '04 Pistons.

Someone in the comments use some term "round-worlders". I can imagine this was used a lot 500 or so years ago. It's odd how people give a name to those who don't believe in a made up idea. Kind of similar to the word "evolutionist", and of course, "atheist".

Hmmm... a bad organization known to make poor choices, or a Pat Riley led organization? a young, inexperienced team, or a team filled with veterans with its core from the same draft class? a team with a top 5 PF and Dwyane Wade or a team with a top 5 PF and nobody as good? a non-playoff, lottery team or a team that made the playoffs two straight years? Such a tough choice! Okay, how about I put it this way. Take LeBron off the Heat at it's current state. Led by Wade and Bosh, plus Miller, Chalmers, Haslem, Big Z, Dampier, Jones, and House, this is still at least a .500 record playoff team. Not to mention a good 15M not spent on free agents. Take LeBron off the Clippers and.... oh wait.............

I don't think Korver alone would make the Lakers the greatest offensive team in history, though Korver would be a tremendous upgrade over Artest. With Bryant's lack of trust in the team offense, Artest's inability to understand the triangle hurts the Lakers even more (as well as his awfully low shooting percentages and overall tendency to take random, terribly inefficient shots early in the shotclock)... so before even bringing up the substantial difference in shooting ability, Korver's offensive IQ alone would not only provide another weapon within the offense, but his spacing and offball movement would certainly increase the scoring efficiency of the players around him. Korver also provides a type of scoring that the Lakers don't have a lot of, and that's a player that scores primarily coming off screens. While Korver provides a much needed strong outside and off-ball presence for the Lakers, it isn't quite enough to make them a complete offensive team. For one, they have a player shooting a very low 48% true shooting percentage wasting 6 shot attempts per game (Derek Fisher). Plus he isn't able to create for others very well, and he's definitely not a factor for anything else that benefits an offense that doesn't involve scoring or creating (like offensive rebounds). Simply put, Derek Fisher is a negative asset to the team's offense. Some other things the Lakers would need improving on is range coming from their big men. Neither Gasol or Bynum are very affective outside the painted area. Only Odom is able to stretch the floor. Another area the Lakers are missing is a player in the starting line up that consistently attacks the basket, though Shannon Brown provides this off the bench. Another area that is an issue (and is more of a current issue and would be less of one replacing Artest with Korver) are bench players that differ from their starters. Some players do on this team, though. Odom differs from Gasol with his versatility, ball handling, and range, and Brown differs from Bryant with his youth and quickness. However, Blake is almost an identical player to Fisher, except younger and more efficient, and Barnes is a smarter, but less big and strong version of Ron Artest. And Gasol is basically Bynum's back up, and he doesn't provide much a different look either other than having a higher basketball IQ. So overall, Korver's offensive abilities greatly exceed Artest's, and would give the Lakers some much needed range at the wing position, but there are still some holes to fill.

Why are people talking about defense in this thread?

Sasha could most certainly score 20-30 points at any time... if he was given 50 shots per night to do so.

The only even comparisons between Kobe and J.R. Smith is their height/weight, athleticism, and body control. Just because J.R. can do similar moves from time to time doesn't mean these moves are a part of his skillset. If his skills are truly comparable to Kobe, he needs to be able to execute these moves on a consistent basis. If you watch a particular highlight video of Kobe on youtube (I think it's called "greatness personified"), you will find that Kobe seems to have a move for every situation, and he doesn't just execute these moves once or twice, but extremely consistently throughout his career. It's because of how vast his skills are, and also his discipline, focus, and work ethic to continue growing his overall game. J.R. Smith, on the other hand, will do these moves very rarely, and more often than not are mere attempts. I can understand that an argument can be made that IF J.R. Smith had Kobe's level of discipline, focus, and work ethic, then he MIGHT be just as good. Thing is, these 'what if's are a far fetched argument, because that would be like saying "if Chris Quinn had Nash's brain and whatnot, he would be just as good", or maybe it would be like saying "if I worked on my math skills 10 hours a day, I could be the next Albert Einstein". Because the reality is, J.R. isn't genetically inclined to have the same level of drive as Kobe, nor the level of intensity, nor the mental toughness, and so on and so forth. Yes, the brain is as much of a genetic as your body. Overall, even though there may be a couple similarities, there are too many elements in the game where J.R. does not stand close to Kobe, and much of it starts from a mental aspect and work ethic, which J.R. does not have. J.R. Smith is simply NOT Kobe Bryant.

@ 00:24 "You just got dirked by Dirk with a dirk."

You are repeating yourself, and I understood what you said the first time. My response wouldn't be any different now than before. And James Jones and Joel Anthony have the first and second best offensive rating (yep, above LeBron, Wade, and Bosh). Sure helps your advanced stat argument a ton there, doesn't it? I suggest that you be less self-absorbed into your own argument, and to open your mind and comprehend what I'm saying. Again, I'm not talking stats. I'm talking intangibles. Spoelstra has proven himself to be a top quality coach, and before we criticize his in-game decision-making over raw stats you must try to see things from his perspective. What elements was Joel bringing that Spoelstra valued in him and believed would be a reason to help the Heat win? The Heat were the best rated (SRS) team in the league with Anthony starting (actually, second best behind the red-hot Hornets), and they are the best rated team now. The explanation for the early losses was that the Heat had a tougher schedule early on, and then lost Haslem to his injury. Their rating dropped as they went through an adjustment period without him, but it didn't take more than a couple weeks to go back up.

I told you, I don't have answers. Perhaps there were some non-statistical things Joel was doing that made Spoestra feel it was important to keep him in the game, like I spoke of in nearly my entire other post. Something Spo may have felt exceeded the rebounding needs. But that's just one possible answer. Funny... I was talking about what doesn't show up on the stat sheet. Then you give me advanced stats. I never said anything about advanced stats.

They are already the worst team... and I believe may be worse than the Nets last year. But now without AV.... oh my. Edit: ...and people wonder why LeBron left lol.

If by situational you are talking matchups, Joel didn't play a single minute against Milwaukee, which was the game before Portland. If you look at Joel's game log, his minutes do vary depending on the size and muscle of the opponent's frontcourt. I didn't get to watch this game unfortunately. So regarding his rather impressively empty statline, I have no comments.. except perhaps a reminder that his greatest strengths as a player do not show up on the stat sheet. Like his quick screen-setting, quick and precise rotations, excellent man defense, excellent help defense, and altering shots (though the blocks are counted). His greatest weakness is his piss-poor hands, which is why he is last on the team in turnover percentage, which also appeared to have successfully made it's mark in the stat-sheet against Portland. His bad hands most likely affect his rebounding as well. What I would like to know about Joel against Portland are the things that should be added on statsheets, like how many screens he set for a player who either scored or dished an assist, how many deflections he got, how many bad passes he forced that led to turnovers (or perhaps the percentage of passes he contests that become turnovers), what percentage of shots that he contests are missed, how many "50/50 balls" (where neither team currently possesses the ball) he grabbed, and drawn charges as well (edit* oh yea, and screen defense.. how often does his man set a screen that leads to a score). Perhaps if we can get a record of those things, his statsheet wouldn't be so empty after all.

Oh, so when Europeans, Africans, South Americans, and sometimes Asians come to the USA to play pro basketball, there are no problems whatsoever. But if an American has to go overseas to play pro basketball, then you raise the red flag. I gotcha. Well that's Phil's problem, isn't it? Umm... has the thought of "overseas road trip" ever occurred to you? Play a string of games overseas, like 7 or 8 games over two weeks or so, then head back to the states and continue your schedule of home and away games as usual. Simple. Same thing for Europe. An overseas road trip of about 7 or 8 games, then head home. There may be an adjustment to have Euro teams play other Euro teams more often than American teams so that there is less major traveling, but it's not complicated whatsoever. I don't know what HCA is, but as far as traveling goes, the 2-3-2 playoff format should work. Plus, I honestly doubt it would lose TV hits because one of the two teams is from another country. That may actually majorly increase the number of Europeans who watch the game. I remember the China vs USA game in the Olympics got about a Billion hits! Basketball popularity is absolutely huge in China, and I know it's very big in Europe. European fans don't care for the Euroleague nearly as much as the NBA. I mean, it's not even close. Lots of kids there dream of seeing an NBA game live. I can imagine the stands in Europe filling up way better than some teams in the states. And there is absolutely no reason for US fan support to decrease because the NBA decides to expand to other countries. If anything, it might actually increase. "Beat England!" means a lot more than "Beat Minnesota!" Besides, other countries deserve to be a part of the best basketball league in the world. Not just European countries, but South American countries like Argentina, and even put some teams out in China. Especially since all of their best players are playing in the NBA anyway.

I do believe the NBA will expand, and I am very much looking forward to it. The more teams and the more countries involved... the better.

I would sure love to have that "loser" on the Miami Heat next to the big three.

-1. It's unfortunate people think this way. His shooting numbers are great. 58% TS, which is the same as Amar'e, Garnett, and better than Boozer, Bosh, Gasol, and much better than Josh Smith and Tim Duncan, though worse than Dirk's (who is the second most efficient scorer in the league anyway). And should the team's performance undermine the individual? This isn't the PGA ffs. It's not Kevin Love losing games, it's the Timberwolves losing games. The T'wolves suck because they are a bad team as a whole. Do I really have to explain this? Anyway, Kevin Love absolutely deserves to be an all star this year.

I always found it odd how in some cultures like in America, there is actually a belief that seeing people without clothing is bad, or how people believe that there is such a thing as a "bad word". I think it's similar to something I noticed about my dogs. Every time I feed them milkbones (type of dog treat) as a snack during the day, I usually have them eat it outside. One time I got lazy with feeding them dinner and I added those milkbones in their foodbowl inside. They actually took the milkbones out of their foodbowls, and asked for me to open the sliding door to go outside. It's like they have become so used to eating that particular dogtreat outdoors that every time they are fed it, they make the connection to bringing it outside, even though there is no reason to do so other than just becoming accustomed to it. ...unless you believe they are actually afraid of making a mess, which believe me, they have no problem doing. I think there is a similar connection with this "bad word" stuff. Kids become so used to being told how bad it is by their parents, told not to say it in public, plus a bunch a other negativity around it, that they eventually become programmed to associate a particular word with it being "bad", even though there is no reason to believe that other than being accustomed to it.

Those were also Pippen's prime years of his career, when he was at his very best. His rebounding and stealing average was at a career high, though his scoring (about 22 ppg) was barely better than it was 2 years before (21 ppg). His PER didn't change drastically either, though it was at a career high. In 91/92 it was at 21.5, then dipped to 19.2 oddly enough in 92/93. It went up to 23.2 and 22.6 the two years without MJ, then moves down to 21.0, 21.3, then 20.4. It is to be noted that there was a change and his usage percentage did go up by about 2% or 3%, but it seems to me that his PER increase was more due to the other elements of his game increasing. His steals and rebounding were up, and it was his first year he shot better than 30% from three, and the first year he took more than 1 three per game (93/94 he took 2.7 threes per game and made 32%). That's actually a very good point. I didn't think of that. I always considered PER to be THE per-minute stat. It's the summary of all stats, so the player with the best PER is the best statistical player (well, when playing in the same year I suppose). But stats only tell the stories that it shows. I feel stats are under-developed and need to be expanded. They are still barely good enough for me to base assumptions off of at least. Relative to Gervin's overall regular season performance in comparison to the years he played to how Pippen performed in the regular season of his own years, Gervin had better stats, but I believe Pippen may have had stronger competition making his stats more impressive to obtain. Looking at more in-depth stats than PER, like rebounding percentage, usage percentage, true shooting percentage, etc. I can make assumptions on who was stronger in which elements in basketball. For example, I can see that Gervin both scored in more volume and was a more efficient scorer than Pippen with a career average of 26 PPG with a 57% TS, while Pippen had a career average of 16 PPG with a 54% TS. I can also see that Pippen was used more as a playmaker with an assist percentage of 23.1 while Gervin had just 13.0, though Gervin was less turnover prone with a turnover percentage of 11.4 while Pippen had a 15.6. So again, through the rest of these stats, I can make assumptions on who was better at what, but PER shows the grand total, at least in comparison to their individual years against the league of that year. Anyway, just so I'm clear, I'm just saying who has performed better statistically. I didn't watch much of either player, so I don't have any opinions beyond the facts (stats). I'm just making an assumption based off of stats, and saying that Pippen was most likely the better player because he played in an era that had stronger competition that Gervin.

Statistically, Gervin was easily the superior player. However, both players played in different times, and I believe the game of basketball grows and evolves over time as the popularity grows, therefore the overall competition grows by a player, coaching, and training standpoint making it more and more difficult to produce the same numbers. For an extreme example, I'm sure that Jerry West, who played in the 60s when basketball was virtually a brand-new sport, would not even make the NBA had he been born in the mid-80s and applied for the draft in 2010. If you watch game-tapes of him, the guy could not even dribble the ball with his left hand whatsoever. A guy like Wilt Chamberlain, who played in the same era as West and actually put up 50 points per game at one point, would most likely be a project player today because of his height and athleticism. With today's training he would still most likely have star potential, though. It's possible that Magic and Bird in the 80s would just be role players in today's game. Perhaps still starters, but I consider it doubtful that they would still be the two main stars of the league today. Bird might be a stretch-4 being a rich-man's version of Matt Bonner with passing ability. Magic most likely wouldn't be able to match up against opposing PGs, so he'd have to be a point-forward. It would be more imperative that he develops a three-pointer. And even Jordan might not be THE star in today's game like he was in the 90s, but most probably would still be top 5 among the Kobe's, the Paul's, the LeBron's, and the Durant's. So with the above in mind, Gervin played in the 70s and 80s and produced a PER of 21.7, and Scottie played in the 80s and 90s and produced a PER of 18.6. Though Pippen produced less statistically, I assume that because Pippen played later and against stronger competition, his production was more difficult to accomplish, making Pippen the superior individual player.