Diesel

Who said the titles were watered down? Only that the championship teams in the 80's had more talent on them. lol -Tony Parker and Manu arn't HOF players. If it wasn't for the Spurs being the best team of the decade they wouldn't even be in the discussion. -Jason Kidd is washed up and way past his prime. I said HOF players in or around their prime. -Billups isn't a HOF player and Melo has the potential to be, but no as of now. If you don't consider Gasol a HOF player I don't see how you can consider guys like Manu or Billups.

I havn't seen him around on the forums lately? What's up with him?

Yeah but they were ranked 19th in points allowed which is a better indicator since points is where the big fantasy numbers come from. 15th against the pass and 22nd against the run isn't a good defense. And my bad about Bly. Does he suck now?

I see you still havn't used that shovel. -_-

Agreed, they couldn't win last year with a better team. Hedo Turkoglu is better than Vince Carter alone. He created more mismatches for Orlando which is something they lived upon. He was a better shooter and passer. Then you get rid of Courtney Lee, and Rafer Alston and I don't see the improvement. They better hope Jameer comes back strong. Courtney Lee is going to be a very good player and NJ got a steal in trading an overpaid player thats way past his prime for that young stud.

http://www.toysplash.com/images/products/121547B_L.jpg Here's a shovel and bucket to assist you with getting the sand out of your vagina. It's texting dude. It takes like 30 seconds tops to send anything. And no when I text I never tell them what I'm doing unless they ask. Sorry, but I don't go to the gym just to brag about it. Sounds like someone knows that feeling a little too well Being on your phone isn't some kind of strenous activity that takes a lot of time dude. I have it in case someone needs to know something, or if there is something else going on later in the day to plan it out. And lol @ you being worried about people judging you. This isn't middle school dude; who gives a rats [expletive]. And sorry, but I don't like the mostly old guy's bothering me talking to me about bull[expletive]. I made that mistake early on and I find myself stuck in conversations that that take way too long.

The Lakers comment was to imply that the team plays hard and doesn't give up despite being outclassed by talent. I'm not sure how many times that has to be repeated. No need to get all defensive any time someone says something about the Lakers that doesn't praise them. "Please stay out of the topic if you aren't ever going to contribute anything to the forums. " Also show me where the the "Philly dicksucking" took place. PM this because you arn't contributing to this thread.

Dude you completely missed my point at all. It was a different league then. Before the expansion teams came into the league teams were more stacked with talent. Any of the top 4-5 teams in the league would kill the champion of today's league with all the talent on those top dogs. The only team that's ever come close to having 3+ HOF near the prime of their career since the 80s has been Boston Celtics as of now, but even their getting really old and their window was really short. You can't add up talent now like you could back in the day. Now I'm sure you've played "fantasy football". What league is your team more likely to be better in, a 8 team league or a 12 team league? Your 8 team league squad is going to be way better. There are less teams for the top talent to be on meaning more talent for your team overall.

The thing is Dirk is Boston/LA's main concern and he is #1 on their gameplan defensively. With Gasol and KG there are options (Kobe, Pierce, Allen) that teams worry about hurting them even more offensively. Thus Dirk sees way more double teams than either of those players ever will playing with HOF teammates. There is no way in hell Gasol would do a better job single carrying that franchise the way Dirk does.

In 2006 Gasol's Grizzlies were a 5th seed. The 4/5 matchups can usually go either way. I'm not going to fault Gasol for losing , but I am going to fault him for not winning a single game. And guess who he got swept by? Dirk Nowitzki and his 31 PPG on 51% Shooting. Here's what I find funny, you make a joke in your latest post about comparing the Dirk of years ago to Gasol of years ago, but here you are giving exclusive examples of things that happened in the past. It's obvious when your franchise player is having a poor series then the team will lose. Dirk has carried the Mavs for the past few years ever since Nash and Finley left. They only go as far as he goes and unlike other stars like Gasol he doesn't have a Kobe Bryant to take an extreme amount of pressure and attention off of him. Dirk is the franchise in Dallas while Gasol is simply a sidekick. As a franchise player Gasol would never be able to lead a team to the finals the way Dirk has and if you honestly think a nucleus of Gasol, Josh Howard, and Jason Terry would be able to win 60+ games and get to the Finals then you sir are an idiot. Am I the only one who saw Gasol be useless offensively against the Spurs last postseason? If Dirk had a series in which he averaed 13 PPG and 43% shooting I don't think you'd let anyone hear the end of it. But Gasol again has a better team than Dirk's ever had and when Gasol struggles it doesn't mean certain doom like it does with the Mavericks. Gasol was shut down in that series. Dirk has had his fair share of abysmal postseason series, but he's mad more good ones and his playoff average of 25.5 PPG 11.0 RPG 2.6 APG on 46% shooting is no joke. AS you can see Dirk has actually stepped up big time in the playoffs improving his career average the regular season of 22.7 PPG 8.6 RPG 2.7 APG. What a failure that Dirk Nowitzki is. Leading a team to the playoffs for 9 straight years(something Gasol has never done once as the head honcho), winning a league MVP award, getting All NBA 1st Team Honors, and completely changing the basketball culture in an NBA city. Gasol will never do any of those things at any point in his career. Yes the Lakers would've been even better with Dirk rather than Gasol.

That 1980 series was against virtually the same Sixer team as in 83 plus Moses Malone of course who wouldn't be assigned to Magic in any matchups anyway. Maybe you should ask Kareem how Moses dick felt all the way up his [expletive] as Moses averaed 26 PP and 18 RPG winnin Finals MVP. Kareem averaed only 7.5 RPG in that series as Moses continously beat him on the glass and threw him around like a rag doll. And it's funny how you say Magic was so bad in that series as he got more RPG than Kareem LOOL. 19.0 PPG 7.8 RPG 12.5 APG were certainly more valuable to the Lakers than anything Kareem offered that series. Magic was still his teams MVP in that series and made a positive contribution to the team all over the court. And to be fair that Sixers team is one of the most talented teams of all-time and would own any Lakers team. Yeah especially when it says "Minus the rings and the MVP's" lmao Magic 5 time NBA Champion 3 time MVP 3 time Finals MVPs All numbers that own Kobe's. It's a shame that Magic's career was cut short. He did all that in only 12 NBA seasons. Kobe has played 13 NBA seasons so he's already played more than Magic and his accomplishments don't even come close. Lmao at excluding the coaches for Kobe's team, but not Magic's. It's a different era. With all the expansion teams now, team's arn't as stacked anymore as they were in those days. The Celtics(and Sixers at a certain point) had just as much talent on their teams. So I guess Kobe's current championship Laker team would have a chance against Magic's Lakers? C- Andrew Bynum F- Pau Gasol F- Trevor Ariza G- Kobe Bryant G- Derek Fisher vs C- Kareem Abdul Jabbar F- AC Green F- James Worthy G- Michael Cooper/Byron Scott G- Magic Johnson Please this anal rape would be worse than the 2007 finals between the Spurs-Cavaliers.

Go with Desean easily Thanks guys going to go with Bryant. Didn't realize Ward was #2 on the Bucs depth chart, and Jones is more of a risk.

N4S you gotta go with the biggest talent in Week 1, which is clearly Brandon Marshall here. Once you see how they do a bit then you can try picking some guys who can be upset picks, but right now go with Marshall. Cincy isn't a good defense, the Broncos still have Champ Bailey and Dre Bly in the secondary so Coles might not be that good especially with a rookie QB. Derrick Mason might be a safe pick, but Marshall has way more upside. Ok here's a predicament I got. Derrick Ward vs Dallas Antonio Bryant vs Dallas Felix Jones vs Tampa Bay Yes I know their all in the same game lol, but which one do you guys think will do the best?

No, Jordan did nothing for the Sixers except own them when he played them. I wouldn't want to see his number up there. I'm not a fan of retiring jersey's of players that never played for the team. And wouldn't that mean everyone with #23 would have to change their number?

Oh drat you got me. lol only looked up to 05-06 since that's when LA made their first playoff appearence post Shaq. I forgot about that other year. It was the Bobcats first year and the Lakers only won by 1 against a starting lineup that featured Primo Preznec, Jason Hart, Theron Smith, Keith Bogans and Okafor. With a team that had Kobe playing, Odom playing, and Butler playing it isn't really that great to brag about a one point victory over a first year expansion team. But the Lakers 2-6 record against a Bobcats team since their playoff season in 05-06 is indeed a fact.

I stopped reading when I saw Pau Gasol ranked higher than Dirk Nowitzki. Do you honestly think that Dallas would be a better team if you replaced Gasol with him? The same guy that has won a whopping 0 playoff games as the franchise player. Gasol cannot be a number one option on a good team the way Dirk has for his entire career. He is a good 2nd option, but is now being overrated like hell just because the Lakers won the championship. And Dirk coming up empty in the clutch is bull[expletive]. Other than guys like Melo, Wade, Kobe, LeBron, Paul, and Roy Dirk had the most points in clutch situations over any player this year and yes that includes EVERY other bigman. Gasol didn't even crack the top 35. I also disagree with KG over Dirk, but that is at least debatable. And Dirks defense isn't that bad. It's only bad when Dallas asks Dirk to man the middle and play the KG role which he is incapable of since he is not nearly as quick or long. Dirk has went on to become an ok help defender.

Please no, I took Fitz in the first round of my fantasy league. DAMN

Obviously the NBA Finals part was a joke, but it is a known fact that the Lakers struggle against the Bobcats. You cannot deny it. And unlike the Magic the Bobcats have had the Lakers number nearly every year. The Lakers have never won a season series against them in the history of the Bobcats franchise. It is an example of that Bobcats team being a team that plays hard and doesn't give up even when being outclassed in talent.

Wow it takes you 5 minutes to write a text? -Do a set -Write a text -Do a set -Read response to text -Do a set -write response and it goes on Don't see what the problem is. You should always take a min or so to rest between sets at least and I don't see how just sitting there staring into emptyness in that same timespan is any more beneficial. Or talking to some dude that's going to drag out a conversation for many minutes. Usually noone bothers you when your texting. And again I don't do this all the time, just something that happens usually when I have something going on afterwards.

The fat in Peanut Butter is good fat though. I know that might sound weird, but it's not nearly as bad as the Fat you see in a McDonalds burger or anything. You need some fat in your diet and if peanut butter is where a lot comes from that isn't bad at all. You have to get the natural peanut butter though. The kind that has the oil at the top of the jar. Not the commercial brands with tons of sugar. It's like how apples and chips both have a lot of carbs, but the ones in the apple are good carbs.

Do you k now how many rings Kareem won in LA before Magic Johnson? None. If Kareem was "the man" in 1980 then explain why Magic Johnson won the Finals MVP leading the team to a championship as a rookie with Kareem on the sidelines. When Kobe was a rookie he was riding the bench, not leading teams to championships. I repeat Finals MVP. Kobe never sniffed one of them his first few championships as he rode Shaq. It took him til his 13th season to get it. A 42 point, 15 rebound, 7 assist performance while playing every position on the floor is something we will never see again. As a 20 year old rookie may I add. Can't emphasize that part enough. Clearly he had no problems against the daunting defense of Mo Cheeks and Julius Erving in that series lool.

What was the point of bringing up my post from the "best team of the decade thread". Since the Bobcats have been in the league the Lakers have been in the playoffs every year making them a perennial playoff team. And lol @ last 14 games. Your stretching dude. I'm not looking up, but I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that the 15th game against them resulted in a Boston win. Stop trying too hard to come up with irrelevant statistics. It is a known fact that the Lakers struggle against the Bobcats. You deny this?

No..... There's a big difference between Carmelo Anthony, Marcus Camby, JR Smith and Keith Van Horn, Eric Snow, Aaron McKie. That team was more talented and better, but what did they accomplish? An 8th seed in a Western Conference full of terrible teams that were free wins. The 50 wins are inflated.

Sorry this isn't 2003 anymore and Iverson is no longer able to carry a team like that. 2005 was the last great year of Iverson and he made All NBA first team that year. He did good....individually. But is it also a coincidence Iguodala was nothing more than a 8 PPG scorer until Iverson left and he became a star in such a short time? Iverson has never been able to co-exist with another all-star offensive player and have success. The only time in his career he had success was in the prime of his career with a team full of defenders and rebounders.

Ding Ding Ding Ding Real Deal is just relying on the stats which don't tell the entire story. Denver's Offensive Rating increased with Billups(even though everyone had worse numbers gee what a coincidence) and their Defensive Rating increased too. Billups is not a liability on defense like Iverson and ever since he broke out in Detroit the guy has been a winner every year. I love Iverson, but the excuses people give are so [expletive]ing funny. - "Oh well in Denver Nene and Chris Anderson weren't playing" When he was in Philly and his scoring partners never worked out it was because they were always old or washed up. Then he got Carmelo who is arguably the best pure scorer in the league right now. That didn't work as the team duo won a total of 1 playoff game together and 0 series. Now that it didn't work out in Denver the excuse is now Nene and Birdman? But what about Detroit? Billups brought that same team to the ECF just the year before while Iverson marked the end of the Pistons dominance in the East. Rip is an all-star, Prince is a great two-way player, Sheed lost a step, but he's still Sheed who is better than the majority of bigmen in this league. People love making excuses for Iverson and it's enough. Every team improves upon getting rid of him and Detroit will bounce back as well(though don't expect them to make any ECF runs). Philly with Miller did better than they did with Iverson in the last two years. The team played harder than anyone and even though they didn't have much talent they never gave up an easy win and no lead was safe with this team if you weren't careful. Please don't argue that Iverson in his final two years in Philly did a better job than Andre Miller.