Built Ford Tough

Durant will never be the playmaker that LeBron is, nor do I ever think he will be the same type of all around defender that LeBron is. He may develop into a comparable man to man defender due to his length and quickness at his size, but I don't ever see him being the same kind of monster when it comes to help defense. It was clear the moment that they both set foot in the league that they would both become exceptional scorers, good to great rebounders due to physical gifts (LeBron's freakish strength and athleticism and Durant's length at the 3) and would be franchise changing players, but Durant has never shown anything remotely close to the playmaking skills that LeBron has, and the playmaking ability that LeBron has is what makes him such a special player. Even when he isn't scoring he can still dominate a game through his defense and playmaking and I don't ever see Durant having that same kind of impact, or at least on the same level as LeBron. I think that Durant definitely has the potential to be the clear cut best scorer between the two, but as an all around player I don't see him ever being the force that LeBron is. That is no slight on Durant at all because I think he will definitely be the 2nd best player in the league for the duration of LeBron's prime, it is just how good LeBron is. He will basically be what LeBron was to Kobe for the early parts of his career and eventually surpass him when LeBron's game falls off a bit. Even if Durant matches LeBron, I don't see him ever leaving OKC, or at least not while he is in his prime, so unless OKC is able to lure another superstar I don't see how the Thunder will be good enough to stop the Heat from becoming a dynasty. They may win a championship during this time period, that is certainly feasible, but I don't see them eliminating the possibility of a dynasty.

Nobody cares what you think anyways, so run along.

Sorry about that. ABL mus'tve quoted you and for some reason I remembered his post agreeing with yours instead of your original post. My bad. As for your post, I'm not saying that they are going to be unbeateable and run through the league on route to winning the next 8 championships or anything like that. I am sure they will suffere a series loss here and there, but I would be willing to bet that they go on some sort of back to back streak, possible three peat or a situation that finds them winning 4 of 6 or 5 of 8 or something along those lines. I would definitely classify that as a dynasty. The thing about any potential trio being formed, whether it is Paul or Howard ending up in New York, or something like that, is that regardless of what happens, the Heat are always going to have the two best players out of the 6 involved in the trio, as well as the best player in the league. They will also likely be a step ahead of any other team when it comes to surrounding their star trio with good role players due to the fact that they will have had a 2 year head start when it comes to building the complimentary pieces. Best case scenario for New York is that they strike a trade during the summer for Paul or Howard and even then, they will gut themselves of all assets (if they even have any left) and it will be basically a 2010/11 Miami situation all over, just a slightly less talented one. Meanwhile, the Heat will have added a good role player or two this summer to surround their group with and another the following year when the hypothetical Knick team will actually have the ability to add role players. The Heat will likely be one step above the opposition when it comes to overall talent due to LeBon and Wade being the two best players regardless and when it comes to building an actual team instead of putting all of your eggs in three baskets. Am I saying a potential Knick trio has no shot at beating the Heat? Absolutely not, but I wouldn't bet against the Heat so long as Wade continues to play at an elite level and I don't forsee a significant drop off for at least another 3 or 4 years, barring any sort of serious injury. PS: I didn't predict a Celtics dynasty. I predicted a championship or two, but I did not think that they had the longevity required to actually become a dynasty due to their age, the fact that none of them were in their primes and all would experience some sort of regression in their games. The Heat trio are all in the middle of their primes and you could argue that LeBron can still even get better over the next few years. Best case for Durant is he becomes a poor man's LeBron. He can equal him, or slightly better him, in scoring but he will never become the all around player that LeBron is, and this is coming from a guy who really likes Durant and has never particularly cared for LeBron. Westbrook is never going to be a superstar like James and Wade are. Some people mock the whole Miami big three because of Chris Bosh being involved, but Bosh is and will likely always be the better player than Westbrook will develop into. Unless the Thunder land some huge star like Howard, Westbrook takes a quantum leap in his development and Durant becomes a more rounded player, I don't see them being dynasty material. A perennial contender? Sure. But not a dynasty.

Anybody else get the feeling watching today's game between the Heat and the Celtics that we are witnessing the birth of a Miami Heat dynasty? Sorry Kobe fans, but James is without a doubt the best player in the league right now, and as good as some of the young stars like Durant and Rose are, they will be lucky to be even close to the same level as James currently is (which is scary considering he can still improve his game as well) as an all around player. The way that he is playing on both sides of the ball is nothing short of brilliant and when you consider the fact that even when he does have an off night he has guys like Wade and Bosh who are more than capable of picking up the slack for him, especially Wade, it makes him even more dangerous. The way that he just ripped out the Celtics' heart and stomped all over it in Game 5 was phenomenal considering up unil that point he was having a relatively average game. He seemed to just flip a switch and the end and the light finally went off in his head where he realized that there isn't a single player who has a shot in hell at stopping him. Call me crazy, but I think finally getting past the Celtics in the playoffs, and being the one who basically put the nail in their coffin of irrevelenacy (lets be realistic here, the Celtics are done) is going to be the turning point in his career. Add Wade into this equation, who is going to be a top 5 player in the league for at least the next 2-3 years before he starts to experience any sort of drop off, as well as Bosh who, despite all of the shit he gets from pretty much everybody on the planet, including Heat fans, is a star player in his own right and you have basically the Heat team now. A team who relies entirely on 3 players to do everything on the floor and still look like the runaway favourites to win the NBA Championship. Now, think about this. The Heat look like an unstoppable team right now with prety much nothing but the big three. What is the rest of the NBA going to do in 2-3 years when the Heat will no longer have a bench of 100 year olds like Juwan Howard, Zydrunas Ilgauakas, Mike Bibby and Erick Dampier and instead will have added role players like Tyson Chandler's, Kirk Hinrich, Shane Battier, etc... (not saying these exact players, but the types of great role players that all teams need in order to be successfull)? You don't think that players are going to be lining up to sign for the MLE or partial MLE with Miami after they see the Heat win it all on the backs of 3 players? AboveLegit said in the game thread that it felt to him like there was a passing of the torch from one big three to another today, but I will take it one step further and say that we witnessed the beginning of a dynasty today. I am fully ready to eat these words in a few months time if the Heat flame out (no pun intended) and end up not winning it all this season, but I honestly don't see it happening and belive that we are going to witness the first of many championships for the Heat this season.

I don't think there has been a possession in this half so far where somebody didn't bitch to the ref afterwards. Wade has done it about 4 tmes, Bosh was too busy bitching to a ref to bend down and pick up a ball between his legs, Pierce has done it twice and both coaches seem to be yapping non stop as well. I understand that this is an emotional series and what not, but please just shut up and play basketball. Nice defense from Garnett on one end on Howard and then Bosh matches him with a nice block on Pierce on the fast break that followed KG's block. Very nice effort from both power forwards.

Wade deserved the foul becuase he made absolutely no effort to get around the screen. He basically tried to run through Garnett and made no effort to get around him. I may be wrong on this, but it also looked like Wade was holding onto Garnett's midsection as well. With that said, Garnett could've got himself a flagrant one or something like that for his forearm directed to Wade's head, but in a situation like that I'm kind of glad that they didn't overreact and just gave the double foul, which isn't something I say often as I think double fouls are, for the most part, ridiculous.

Very nice catch by Rondo there. I thought that was a turnover for sure the minute it left Allen's hands, but Rondo made an excellent catch, followed by an equally impressive little spin move to elude Chalmers for the easy layup.

He was better than Cousins this year, in my opinion, but I can understand having Cousins over him as Monroe didn't really start performing well until about the quarter way mark in the season. As for Crawford, I agree that he had the numbers worthy of making the team (even if they were ridiculously inefficient ones) but him only playing in 42 games has to be a factor. It is pretty hard to name a player to an end of the year award team if he has only played in half the games that season, regardless of the numbers that he put up during the games that he did play. I think that Bledsoe made the team because the voters were picking 1 PG, 1 SG, 1 SF, 1 PF and 1 C for each team, even though they are supposed to just vote for the 10 best rookie regardless of position. With each team being a tradtional lineup, it makes sense why Bledsoe made the 2nd team considering how brutal the point guards were in this rookie class, outside of Wall of course.

How did Kristic fumble that pass? At least he managed to recover and get to the stripe, but man, he was wide open under the hoop and the pass was right at his hands. This game has absolutely no flow from what I have seen (last 4 minutes). It has basically been a free throw shooting contest.

Bell's incident didn't come in the 4th quarter of a 30 point game in a series in which the Lakers were absolutely embarassed. Bell also didn't have a history of doing the exact same thing. This is the 2nd time this season that Bynum did this same kind of foul and the third time in his career that he has done this kind of play (he did it to Wallace a while ago and ended up puncturing his lung). Those circumstances are why people are calling for more games for Bynum. I'm sure if it was a close game at that point and Bynum didn't have a history of these kinds of fouls people wouldn't be calling for more games. A player's track record should definitely be taken into consideration when he is a repeat offender of the same kinds of fouls. With that said, I don't have a problem with the suspension. 5 games is adequate enough for this incident, but at the same time I can understand why people are calling for more given the circumstances.

First Team DeMarcus Cousins Blake Griffin Landry Fields Gary Neal John Wall Second Team Greg Monroe Derrick Favors Wesley Johnson Paul George Eric Bledsoe http://www.nba.com/2011/news/05/11/all-rookie-team-2010-11/index.html?ls=iref:nbahpt2 Call me a homer, but Ed Davis was absolutely robbed. I would love to hear any valid argument for Derrick Favors to be on the 2nd team over him. Davis had better numbers than Favors in basically every single catagory you look at. His advanced metrics are pretty much better across the board as well. If Favors wasn't drafted 3rd overall and wasn't involved in all of these high profile trade talks (Melo for half the year and then actually being traded for Williams) nobody would care about him. Don't get me wrong, he is without a doubt full of potential and I fully expect him to be better than Davis in the long run, but there is no way that anybody can convince me that Favors actually had the better rookie season than Davis did and deserved the spot on 2nd team. EDIT: Wow, I just realized that voters were told to vote for 5 players on each team regardless of position. That makes these teams even worse, considering they voted in guys like Wesley Johnson and Eric Bledsoe over Ed Davis. Not to mention Monroe sitting on the 2nd team even though he was arguably the 3rd best rookie this season. To be fair, though, it seems like they voted by position considering the make up of each team.

Selby won't be around with the 40th pick in the draft. I'm 100% positive about that. I thnk with the limited star power in this draft some team will take a chance on him in the mid first just because of how highly regarded he was coming out of high school. At worst he will be picked up in the late 1st round by a team like Chicago or Boston and he will sit on their bench for a year or two in hopes of him putting it all together. I think he will probably end up going earlier than that, though, simply because he will probably look really good in a workout setting and that alone will end up boosting his draft stock a bit. He has talent, there is no doubt about that, and I'm sure some team will take a chance on him simply because of that talent level and they will overlook the fact that he is stuck between positions and doesn't exactly have the best head on his shoulders, especially in a draft that is lacking in talent such as this one.

I like the home jersey, but think that the away one is pretty ugly. The new logo looks great, though.

http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2011/5/11/2165657/robert-traylor-dead-puerto-rico It is expected that he died of a massive heart attack.

He wasn't even considered to be a top 5 pick in what is widely speculated as the worst draft since 2000 and you think he has any sort of chance at being a top 5 pick in a draft that is projected to be one of the deepest since 03?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/teachers-to-buy-td-stake-in-maple-leaf-sports/article2016869/ Pretty smart move for the OTPP in regards to selling their share in MLSE. They increase their share from 66% to 80%, which will obviously intrigue potential buyers more. I'm sure potential buyers were hesitant to shell out billions of dollars for a 66% share in MLSE, but I definitely think that the same buyers would be a lot more comfrotable paying that kind of price for an 80% share in MLSE, especially considering how lucrative that kind of ownership in MLSE would be.

A nice little article on the 4 main International prospects (Kanter, Valanciunas, Vesely and Biyombo). http://morningjournal.com/articles/2011/05/07/sports/doc4dc60355598e6225442799.txt?viewmode=default Kanter is probably my number one choice (after Irving and Williams, assuming he can play the 3 adequately) but I don't think that I would be too against taking a chance on a guy like Valanciunas, even though he is a huge project and has a good chance of being a bust. Biyombo scares me simply because up until a month and a half ago, he was probably not evern a first round pick and guys with his meteroic rise seem to always wind up being huge busts, but he definitely has intriguing defensive potential, despite being relatively small for the center position in the NBA (although he makes up for it with a ridiculous 7'7 wingspan). I don't really want any part of Vesely as it is looking more and more like he is not a small forward like people originally though. If he is just another athletic 4, I hope the Raptors stay away from him considering Ed Davis and Amir Johnson, both of which I think are better than Vesely is likely to be. PS: Exactly one week until the lottery. I doubt the Raptors move in the draft, but I just pray that they don't fall too far down because moving down to 6 would be absolutely awful.

I think that move gets underrated just because of how things ended with Ford. People remember the selfish Ford who pouted on the bench when he came back from that Horford injury and forget just how good he was for the Raptors pre-Horford. His play in the first year and a half with the team was without a dobut the best production the Raptors have gotten from a point guard since Damon Stoudamire and he was undoubtedly the best player that Bosh ever played with (since he became the number 1 option). He was arguably the biggest reason for the Raptors winning the Atlantic Division and kept that team afloat the following year when Bosh got hurt/was struggling and he put the team on his back. I still think that the injury he suffered against Horford pretty much ruined his career. He hasn't even been close to the same player since then and he was a damn good player in Toronto.

Look at that effort by Gasol. Only about 15 quarters too late.

The Lakers are trash. Absolute bush league shit going on right now. What a joke.

Stay classy, Odom.

Very impressive move by Dirk there. PS: Does anybody else think that it is awesome how Peja can barely even run, yet every time he gets an open look from three he drains it like nothing?

So the Lakers get torched by the 3 ball all first half, so what do they do in the 2nd half? The exact same thing that they did in the first half. Great adjustments.

Ron Artest .

Why does Stevenson even play? He isn't a good defender, can't shoot and chucks up terrible shots every time he gets the ball. Nice help from Artest to cause the turnover after Gasol got blown by. EDIT: Another stupid shot from Stevenson. Does this guy not realize that he is option number 6, even if there are only 5 players on the floor?