Built Ford Tough

Don't play together... haha. Biyombo got drafted by Charlotte.

Gasol yeah, but they already re-signed Randolph last season. After the first few games of the Spurs series, they gave Randolph basically the same contract that they gave to Gay.

Umm, what? They are nothing alike.

I'd feel great about it considering how poorly Philly has been run lately. That is two divisional teams that you can basically write off because of their GMs making terrible decisions and running the team into the ground. Although if Stefanski did come to Toronto he would basically just be a figurehead and Colangelo's puppet. Colangelo is way too much of a control freak to not have the final say in any move that Stefanski, or anybody else he decides to bring in, would make.

I like Valanciunas more (potential bias, perhaps, but I had Valanciunas and Kanter pretty much equal on my board for most of the draft process), but I think Kanter fits better with Utah and since neither one of them are head and shoulders above the other, I think you go with Kanter. He compliments Favors more than Valanciunas does as I think if you pair the two of them together you won't have enough post offense as both of them are more pick and roll/athletic finishers type of players on offense, while Kanter can create his own offense from the block better. I think Favors and Valanciunas would be a little redundant, so Kanter is my pick even though I like Valanciunas more.

I'm pretty much in the same situation as CMS, although the Sixers loss in 01 definitely sucks since I was a fan of the Raptors at the time, although not to the degree I am now considering I was 9 years old then. I would say that is still the most painful loss of my time as a sports fan, though. Outside of that, though, the sports teams I have followed have been too crappy to have any sort of expectations for so no losses have really been painful. The Blue Jays haven't made the playoffs since I started watching them. The Leafs had some decent teams early in the 00's but were never really contenders, although the overtime loss in game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals against Carolina hurt considering it was such a surprising run to the ECF's in the first place. Considering the injuries they had and how relative no name players like Alyn McCauley really stepped up without guys like Mats Sundin and Mikael Renberg in the lineup for most of the playoffs. It also hurt because Sundin scored with around 20 seconds left in the game to tie it, only to lose 8 minutes into overtime, which was also the 3rd overtime loss of the series for the Leafs. And then you have the Raptors, which are obvious. They have sucked too much to have painful losses.

Stefanski will interview with the Raptors. http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/214758/Sixers_GM_Stefanski_Will_Interview_For_Toronto_Job#ixzz1SIaaqJ7y I still think that Thorn is the brains behind these two, which isn't exactly saying much as I don't think Thorn is all that great either. Of the three "candidates" I'd prefer either one over Thorn. I wish the Raptors hadn't lost Masai Uirji to the Nuggets last year, though. I think that he would've been a great guy to have in this position and I really liked what he did this past year in Denver. I think he is going to become a very good GM.

This is the first I've heard about this story since Feschuck broke the story a month or so ago. Don't know much about Bower as I never really paid much attention to his work there when he was the gm. As for Stefanski, I'd pass on him. Never was a fan of his work and I don't think too highly of him. I literally know nothing about Lindsey, but he would get my vote for one simple reason. He works for the Spurs. Just working in the Spurs front office is good enough for me.

I know you can get tickets to a Whitecaps game in Vancouver for around 35 bucks, while if you want to go to a Canucks game you are paying at least 100 bucks and that will only get you nosebleed seats (assuming it is a half decent team in town).

CMS was pretty much spot on with his analysis, but I figure I might as well throw in my two cents as well. If you had to classify him as either an offensive or defensive oriented player, he would be classified as a defensive one. Some people just like to think that he is a poor defender because he only played 15 minutes a game for Rytas last season, fouls a lot and, as much as it is annoying to say this, because he is European. His defensive instincts are really good and he understands where he needs to be on the court at all times. He is very sound positionally and is a good shotblocker. The vast majority of his problems on the defensive end is that he is still developing physically and gives up a lot of strength to most of his competition. You have to remember that he was 18 years old playing against grown men this past season so he was severely outmatched strength wise. He got pushed around very easily down low by most of the competition and he tried to compensate for this by playing overly aggressive, which resulted in him picking up a lot of fouls, which in turn gave him the reputation (by some) as a poor defensive player. The thing is that the fouls weren't because he was in poor defensive position or has a poor basketball iq or anything like that. He has solid defensive fundamentals, it is just a matter of him needing to put on muscle and add some strength. I wouldn't be too worried about him being a revolving door defensively or anything like that at all because I expect most of his contributions in the NBA are going to be on the defensive end of the floor, as well as on the glass as he is an outstanding rebounder. I mentioned this earlier in the year in the draft thread that we had going on throughout the season, but the rate that Valanciunas rebounded the basketball was higher than Dwight Howard and just below Kevin Love. http://www.in-the-game.org/?p=14644 He isn't going to come in and immediately be a force on the defensive end because his lack of strength is going to be even more of an issue in the NBA, similar to the adjustment that guys like Tyson Chandler and Joakim Noah faced when they first came into the league, but I definitely think that by the time he fills out and gets some more experience under his belt that he is going to be a good defensive center. I'd actually be more worried about him on the offensive end of the floor than the defensive end. Outside of putbacks, lobs and easy baskets around the rim, he isn't particularly skilled offensively. His post game is pretty robotic and he has no confidence in his left hand at all right now. He shows glimpses of some nice offensive moves, but you can also tell that some of the stuff he was doing in the U19's wouldn't fly in the Euroleague, let alone the NBA. He has solid fundamentals in that he keeps the ball high at all times, sets solid picks and is a very good free throw shooter (which is usually a good indicator of a guy being able to develop a mid range shot) but I definitely would be more worried about his offensive production outside of easy baskets. Of course it is still very hard to judge him considering he is still only 19 years old, nobody really knew much about him (other than Givony at DX who first saw him when he was like 15) before this season and you never really know how a player is going to adjust when making the jump from Europe to the NBA. He will never be a star or anything like that, but I do think that if all goes well he can develop into a good starting center similar to a Joakim Noah or Tyson Chandler (not as good as them, but the same kind of impact). Seeing how he plays in Eurobasket at the end of August (assuming he makes the team) will be much more telling about his game than anything he did during the U19's.

Here are Valanciunas' highlights from the finals. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCMXxQGhGzQ&feature=player_embedded

In the Gold Medal game today against the Serbian team, Valanciunas put up 36 points, 8 rebounds, 3 blocks and 3 steals to lead the Lithuanian team to an 85-67 win. Valanciunas was named to the All-Star team as well as taking home MVP. With this gold medal, Valanciunas has now led the Lithanian's to U16, U18 and U19 gold. He also won tournament MVP each time. He finished the tournament with 23 ppg, 14 rpg and 3.2 bpg, all of which were tournament highs. He also led the tourny with 7 double-doubles and he was 2nd in FG% (Canada's Dyshawn Pierre led in this catagory). Obviously he is on a different level than the vast majority of the players in the tournament, but it is still definitely nice to see him put on the dominant performances that he did throughout this tournament.

He shouldn't be, or at least he shouldn't be a lock by any means. What exactly did he do that would warrant being in the hall? Taking injuries into consideration, his career was basically only 6 seasons long, and its not like he was out of this world dominant during his time on the floor. Career averages of 19/9/2 on 52% shooting isn't exaclty anything to drool over and neither is his 5 All-NBA apperances, when you consider that 3 of them were 3rd teams. Those are good accomplishments, don't get me wrong, but considering how little time he spent on the court I would expect more from somebody to consider them a lock for the hall. Other than his 3 year stretch from 05 to 08 (where he averaged 23.4/10.1/1.8), his career wasn't exactly all that great. Obviously injuries are a huge reason why he didn't continue to put up these kinds of numbers for an extended period of time, but that is just part of life. It is also worth noting that in these 3 seasons he only played in 160 games, which is less than 2 full seasons. Don't get me wrong, I liked the guy a lot and when he was healthy he was a great player, but I just don't see any reason, outside of maybe the popularity that he brought from China, why he should be considered a hall of famer. He spent almost half his career on the injured list, and when he was healthy he wasn't some dominant force like a prime Shaq or something. You could even go as far as to say that there might not have ever been a point in his career that he was the best center in the league, at least the clear cut best one. He certainly wasn't ever a top 5 player in the league, either. Sucks that we won't ever be able to see him on the floor again and that he career was ended because of injuries, though.

He had a monster game today against the Polish team. 26 points, 24 rebounds, 6 blocks and 3 assists on 8/19 FG and 10/11 from the free throw line in 36 minutes. From what I read, he could've easily had another 6 points as well as he missed some really easy shots around the rim that he usually would make, but even with those misses, it was still a monster game for Valanciunas. They won 87-75 as well, but we won't see a rematch with the USA team in the semis as they lost to Russia today. Lithania plays the Russians tomorrow for a spot in the Gold Medal game on Sunday. The other semi matchup is Serbia vs. Argentina.

One thing that I find interesting is that Amir Johnson came in as the 77th most underpaid player in the league. When he signed his contract last summer pretty much everybody was calling it a terrible contract and saying how he was overpaid. Of course this whole thing is highly debatable in terms of validity considering how highly a guy like Kevin Love ranked in this, while a guy like Amare Stoudemire (who is clearly a better player than Love) was considered to be the 20th most overpaid player in the league, but if you do put any stock into this it does somewhat backup what I have said about Amir for the past 2 seasons. I do take this whole thing with a grain of salt, though. EDIT: And I just noticed that Calderon was considered to be the 85th most underpaid player in the league, which just goes to show how flawed this whole thing really is. I don't think it is debatable that he is, at best, the 2nd most overpaid player on the Raptors depending on your view of Bargnani.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogsjazznotes/52134096-62/kanter-jazz-roster-turkey.html.csp Not really all that suprising, but I do remember that there was some tension between the national team and Kanter so I wouldn't say that it was a guarantee that he would be on the team. It should be nice to see him finally play in some organized, competitive basketball.

He turned down the offer. http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/214556/Fernandez_Passes_On_$26M_Offer_From_Real_Madrid I actually thought he would leave for sure considering how things have gone for him since coming to the NBA, especially last season. I didn't think he would turn down that kind of money.

http://www.slamonline.com/online/nba/2011/07/michael-beasley-cited-for-marijuana-possession-and-speeding/

Brown's Pistons didn't have any superstars but they had 4 players who were legitimate all-stars in Billups, Hamilton, Wallace and Wallace, as well as a 5th player who, at the Piston's peak, was pretty close to being on that level in Prince. The current Nuggets don't really have any players who are likely to become on the same level as Billups, Ben and Sheed. Maybe Lawson and Gallinari can become fringe all-stars, but I wouldn't count on that. I don't think the Pistons route would work with this team because, while they do have a lot of depth, the Pistons team was more talented than what the Nuggets have here. So yeah, I would say that they need at least a legitimate number one option to become a contender. They don't need a bonafide superstar to simply become a contender because they do have a lot of nice pieces on the roster, but if they want to actually win a championship, I would say that they need to find a superstar, or at least somebody who is very close to being one.

Somebody uploaded the entire game on Youtube and, from what I read, it was supposed to be a very entertaining game so I thought I would post it here. Of course, I also am interested in this simply becaue of Jonas Valanciunas' involvement. Anyways, if anybody wants to check it out, here it is.

Lithuania picked up another win today against the team from Egypt. They were in control for pretty much the entire game and ended up winning by 19 points, so Valanciunas didn't really play that much but he still managed to put up 17 points, 13 rebounds and 3 blocks on 4/7 shooting and 9/10 from the line in 24 minutes. The Americans lost to Croatia today as well, which means that it is likely we will see a Lithuania/USA matchup in the semi-finals, assuming there aren't any upsets int he quarters.

http://afro.com/sections/sports/story.htm?storyid=71744

What do you think are some realistic moves that the Magic can make (when the lockout comes to a close) that would convince Howard to sign a long term extension with the team? They don't have many assets to work with, but the uncertainty around the CBA could potentially help them (or it could put the final nail in the coffin) make moves to get Howard to stay. Or do you think that there is literally nothing the Magic can do and he is gone next summer regardless?

He is pretty much the only reason why I tune into Raw or Smackdown for about 5-10 minutes a week and then get bored 5 minutes after his segments are done. It really is a shame how poorly he was misused by the WWE. The guy is a stud.

Bargnani was 2nd and Barbosa also made an apperance on the overpaid list, coming in at 27th http://dberri.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/untitled3.png Here is the entire breakdown, which is much more detailed as the single table I posted above. There are team by team breakdowns, lists of the teams who spend most wisely and all of that stuff. http://dberri.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/just-desserts-overpaid-underpaid-remix/ I don't really put a lot of weight into something like this, but I figured it was interesting enough to start a new thread on.