NBA Thread 2009-2010

[Chris_Moderato]

Figured the NBA might deserve it's own thread for the next season, even a few months ahead.

Also, a good excuse to post this video (http://ebaumnation.com/2009/07/22/jordan-crawford-dunks-on-lebron-james), for those who haven't seen it yet.

[JanShan12]

Poor Quentin Richardson. Traded for the FOURTH time this summer!!! Is he that big of a piece that this many teams want him or are they trying to use him as a trading piece to get more?

[JanShan12]

Just bought tickets to the Pacers - Cavs game. Haven't been to an NBA game in 3 years since the closest team to St. Louis is Indianapolis. Thought the perfect Christmas present for my brother would be tickets to see LaBron James and Shaq. The game isn't until the end of January, but I'm really excited.

[Middle Man]

Wizards are gonna kick some butt this year - top 2 in the east regular season and finals in post-season. You can doubt me if you want, but don't say i didn't warn you.

[JanShan12]

I'm going to the Bulls/Pacers pre-season game tomorrow in Indianapolis.

Found out yesterday I got free tickets to the game for purchasing tickets to a regular season Pacers game a couple weeks ago. I'm excited to go to a game... especially for free. It's about a 3 hour drive from here, but my brother is going with me, so it won't be too bad.

[JanShan12]

I'm going to the Bulls/Pacers pre-season game tomorrow in Indianapolis.

Found out yesterday I got free tickets to the game for purchasing tickets to a regular season Pacers game a couple weeks ago. I'm excited to go to a game... especially for free. It's about a 3 hour drive from here, but my brother is going with me, so it won't be too bad.

[Devil Wears Prado]

Huge Hawks fan here. Looking forward to talking NBA with you ChopNation'ers... excited to see how Crawford handles the role of sixth man and hoping he becomes efficient off the bench instead of that chunker that he's grown to be known for. Jeff Teague is very impressive so far ... much more impressed with him than I was with Acie Law at this point in their careers. Teague has much more potential than Ty Lawson it seems (and Lawson was the player I wanted more than Teague). I also hope to see less jumpshots from J-Smoov and more driving... gotta take advantage of that athleticism of his.

My bro's buying the NBA League Pass and I know it'll be worth it. He is a Knicks fan so it will be double worth it as we get to watch as many games as we want of each team. For NY, I'm excited to watch Hill and to see if he is that other big man that D'Antoni has been looking for to play in the future.

Finally, I am interested in how Hasheem Thabeet, AJ Price, Ben Gordon, and all of the other UConn graduates do this year! Go UConn!

[The Rap]

Interesting because I am a Knick fan and don't hear as much as I thought I would be about Jordan Hill who I believe will develop into a star in the NBA. Then we have Danielo (or whatever) who looks like a potential offensive monster. Supposedly Eddy Curry has lost weight so now he can be a thinnner lump of sht than he was before. I think David Lee will be the center this year and that the guard situation will bury the team.

[Devil Wears Prado]

Last I heard about Danillo Gallineri (spl?), he was being criticized by coach D'Antoni for being out of shape. I think he's good for the Knicks' system but he hasn't impressed me when I've watched the Knicks play this year.

[Middle Man]

Wizards are gonna kick some butt this year - top 2 in the east regular season and finals in post-season. You can doubt me if you want, but don't say i didn't warn you.

never mind

[The Rap]

Gallineri has been very good thus far for the Knicks who seem to be playing much better with the main reason being David Lee.

Wizards will miss Arenas who will be on vacation I think for the rest of the year. Dumbass deserves what he gets.

[Middle Man]

I must say, I argued against re-signing both Arenas and Jamison. I think the management felt like they'd have a fan mutiny on their hands if they did that, but it would have been in the best long-term interest of the team. Neither guy can play any defense and Arenas is clearly a headcase.

Now they've got a ton of money tied up in Arenas. The best thing that could happen to the Wizzers is if they can somehow void the remainder of Arenas' contract and restock with guys who can play for Saunders.

[luvdembravos]

never mind


I'm just listening to you when the MLB playoffs come around. ;)

[luvdembravos]

Washington Sports (Nats, Redskins and Wizards) is a BIG joke. I guess the Caps are decent but I don't follow hockey. Maybe I should?

[JanShan12]

Can't wait to head to Indy this Friday to see LeBron, Shaq, and the Cavs take on the Pacers!!!

[Lauren T.]

Can Hawks forward Marvin Williams solve a Rubik's Cube in under 2 minutes? http://bit.ly/9ap9DR

[Lauren T.]

LeBron is on Twitter now (http://twitter.com/KingJames), if tweets are your thang.

[Middle Man]

Can Hawks forward Marvin Williams solve a Rubik's Cube in under 2 minutes? http://bit.ly/9ap9DR

This girl is waaaay better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHOXZ80KZu0&NR=1

[luvdembravos]

So ESPN is going to devote a full hour during prime time so that LeBron James can announce where he's going to play?

Umm, it takes about 5 seconds to say "I am going to play in _____"

Lord knows how they'll fill out the other 59 minutes and 55 seconds.

[Dreamscape]

Well, on the plus side, all money from sponsors will be donated to Boys and Girls Clubs of America. So, it's not all bad.

[Hillbilly]

Well, on the plus side, all money from sponsors will be donated to Boys and Girls Clubs of America. So, it's not all bad.


Yeah, that's a good thing, but this is a bit much for me. Which is more over the top?: Lebron's one hour special, or Roger Clemens' over-dramatic announcement over the PA system from the owner's box at Yankee Stadium that he was returning to play for the Yankees a few years back? I can't decide.

[Dreamscape]

After all that, you leave your home state and its undying and unapologetic love for you so that you can go to Miami. Yay, you win a title...on the shoulders of others.

To make a public spectacle of screwing the Cavs, Cleveland, and the entire state? May as well pack up from Akron and move down to Miami. Because that was an awful way to treat your "fans."

I can only hope that the Cavs pull off an upset and knock out Miami in the playoffs next year.

[Hobbes]

The ego it takes to handle the announcement this way is staggering. At least put on a facade of humility, even if you do have the same big ego of other superstars. I haven't had much of an opinion about LeBron before, since I don't watch the NBA. But this makes him look pretty bad in my eyes.

And the donation to charity is just an attempt to put a noble veneer on a crass ego show.

[KB 34]

I watched a couple minutes of the announcement since it had some historic value. This spoiled brat has to have the biggest ego in sports today to make an announcement that way. I was pretty neutral before but next season I will definitely be on the anyone but Miami boat. I hope they end up with D Leaguers filling out the rest of the team and can't compete when they have to play 3 on 5. Hopefully some of the physical players in the league take this as an opportunity to kick some major but. Oh and Lebron, you aren't the best ever and just to spite you everyone will claim you're the second option on your own team. Have fun with that. I won't be buying any Lebron merchandise.

[Dreamscape]

Oh and Lebron, you aren't the best ever and just to spite you everyone will claim you're the second option on your own team.
Maybe that's what LeBron wanted all along. Maybe LeBron never desired to bring his team up, but instead be a complimentary player who makes everything work. Seems that way. My facebook status likened him more to Scottie Pippen than Michael Jordan. Now, LeBron is a much more talented player than Pippen ever was, but I think LeBron has always wanted for a team to be someone else's and the Heat will remain D-Wade's team. Now, LeBron can play second fiddle and not have to be "the man." He won't have to be counted on to have the ball with ten seconds left, down one. He won't have to create the play, either by penetrating and putting the shot up or finding an open guy for the shot.

LeBron can finally be what he may have always wanted to be.

But I can't help but hope for his failure. I want him to end the season in heartbreak and watch his easy way to a ring fall around him. It would have been fine to hold a news conference to announce his decision to sign with Miami. I would have understood. But to do so in this fashion, to screw his fans this much...no...I hope you fail, Prince James. I hope you fail miserably.

[luvdembravos]

Before last night's announcement, Lebron James was pretty well liked and respected from what I've read and heard but boy did his stock drop last night. Talk about an egotistical bastard.

[wordslayer©]

If I had a job where I had a lot of friends who did what I did in different places, and if I had the choice to leave where I was and go to work with them, then I just can’t see a problem with that.

Honestly, if all things are pretty even, who wouldn’t rather work in Miami over Cleveland?

If you had a job where you could be wined and dined and everyone fawned over you because of your talents, wouldn’t you like it?

Was it silly for him to stage the show and bask in all the attention? Of course it was, but he is still a pretty young guy, and I would bet by the time he is 30, he will say how foolish this all was, but I can’t begrudge him for wanting to leave Cleveland for Miami, especially when he can choose to work with people that he really likes.

His behavior seems more normal to me than the behavior of all the media that whines and cries about his leaving. Maybe they are just jealous that he has the freedom and the talents that can take him where he wants to go and they don’t.

[Andy G.]

I pretty much agree slayer. It's not Lebron's fault that ESPN spent 23 hours a day covering his free agency...and people WATCHED. He's a product of the system. Yes, he shouldn't have done the special, but give me a break.

People are acting like he's a deplorable human being, when he just decided to take less money to play with friends and have a better chance at winning a championship. It's not Lebron's fault we invest WAY too much into sports in this country. People need to stop whining. It's really annoying.

[Dreamscape]

See now, I think your tune would be extremely different if Lebron James's accomplishments and story was that of Joe Johnson, who the Hawks gave everything to and did everything for, only to find Johnson schedule a little special on ESPN to give them and their fans an ultimate middle finger. But because it wasn't that way...you can blab about whining and tell others to give you a break. That is pretty annoying, actually.

Regardless, though, it was the way he did it, not what he did. I can't fault him for wanting to go to Miami and I don't think anyone can. But he chose to attempt to do it this way. To go to ESPN for the sole purpose of making everything even more about him (why are they being whined about when it was James's marketing team that went to them?) Again, he could have held a news conference like everyone else that ESPNews would carry as breaking news and Cleveland and its fans would have been bummed, but it wouldn't be this stinging betrayl.

And that farce..."I never wanted to leave Cleveland"..."It was a tough decision because I know how loyal I am." It shows, Prince, it shows.

And by the way, please never bring up that he's taking less money. With the state taxes the way that they are in Florida, he's really not. Truly, the saddest part of everything is I don't even think James made a decision. He's always let those around him dictate what he does and if he truly never wanted to leave and is so loyal, he would be a Cav. Or at the very least, he would have joined the Heat without screwing over an entire state. I put James on returning to Cleveland at about 25% when the playoffs ended the way they did so I'm not shocked he would leave.

And of course, this had to happen to Cleveland. While Atlanta has been a loser town for years, Cleveland has perfected the art. Whereas the Hawks and Falcons have rised and the Braves look to be on verge of getting back to October baseball, Cleveland continues to fall even more behind. No titles since 1964. And the one bright and shining star they had to believe in goes away. No other city in America can feel the same pain over this. D-Wade had gone elsewhere...so what...Miami has won titles recently. LA could shake off Kobe leaving, not that he would. But this sets back a city even more. That's okay, live goes on. I can't blame Lebron for wanting to get out of the city and into a better situation.

But nobody asked him to do it in the most dickish way possible either. Oh, well.

[luvdembravos]

Honestly, if all things are pretty even, who wouldn’t rather work in Miami over Cleveland?

I dunno Slayer. I can think of hundreds of places I'd rather work in or live in than Miami. Cleveland? Probably not.. because that town is a dump; however, Miami (IMHO) isn't much better.

Miami has to be one of the most over-hyped and over-rated cities in America and isn't anything like the glamorous city portrayed on TV. It's greasy, slimy etc. Maybe South Beach has a good "view" but the rest of the city is a slum. Nice place to live for a cockroach but it's just not my cup of tea.

[wordslayer©]

I dunno Slayer. I can think of hundreds of places I'd rather work in or live in than Miami. Cleveland? Probably not.. because that town is a dump; however, Miami (IMHO) isn't much better.

Miami has to be one of the most over-hyped and over-rated cities in America and isn't anything like the glamorous city portrayed on TV. It's greasy, slimy etc. Maybe South Beach has a good "view" but the rest of the city is a slum. Nice place to live for a cockroach but it's just not my cup of tea.

I don't love Miami, but if all things were even, I'm choosing the beach and sunshine over Cleveland.

Let me say this....I don't have any love for James. I just find the news on his betrayal so ridiculous. Let James play five more years with Cleveland and not win a championship, and then let's see how loyal their "love" is.

Everyone agrees that it is a business, but then when it's treated like one, everyone is appalled. I had a good childhood. I have great parents. Even with all the structure and support that I had, I did some pretty ridiculous things when I was 25. I blew through a lot of money and made some horrible decisions. I did enough stupid to last me a lifetime at that age.

Fans are betrayed? Why? He is only a piece of meat to them. He is the vehicle that they can use so that they can call their brother in Detroit and say, "we kicked your a$$ in last nights game." If fans are so fragile that they derive their self esteem and value from a guy that puts a ball through a hoop, then we should feel pity for them.

Yeah, James had a big one hour special that announced his decision live. Which is worse, his doing it, or the gazillion of fans that sit around and watched it? It wasn't smart on his part to do it, but remember, this guy probably has never really had anyone close to him that could give him sound advice that wasn't looking to make money off of him. Like I said earlier, in a few years, I would guess that James will see the circus of what last night was and be embarrassed by it.

I've read too many history books on how athletes were done years ago by owners. Teams made millions of dollars off their players and just funneled out as little as they could to the athletes that made them their millions. The tables have turned now. I'm glad that the people who actually produce the product make the money off their talent. I wish all of us here that had jobs could have other employers that saw our talent and came begging at our door to have the opportunity of our services, and I wish we all could have the same luxury that James had.

In all actuality, did James really do anything so bad other than wanting to move to a situation where he thought he might want to go? Why should he even have to defend his desire to leave? Cleveland paid him for his services and he rewarded them with his talent and hard work....debt paid. He owed them nothing else. He left Cleveland because he wanted to go to a team where he thought he could win a championship.....that has been going on with almost every athlete for the past ten years. His biggest fault, I guess, was making a media circus, but again, he couldn't create the circus if there weren't people wanting to see it.

I can sort of understand the pain that fans feel, because I know how I felt when Smoltz left. It does sting some, because in his case, I felt he was owed by the organization, when in actuality, he probably wasn't, but I did feel that emotional attachment. But really, in the case of James, I think most of it is just jealousy, because people, in general, feel that no one should have so much freedom and control over their life. He owes the people who worshiped him a championship, and for him to leave and not provide them that is just more than they can stand.

[wordslayer©]

I dunno Slayer. I can think of hundreds of places I'd rather work in or live in than Miami. Cleveland? Probably not.. because that town is a dump; however, Miami (IMHO) isn't much better.

I gotta admit to you...I was a little uncomfortable when James said, "I've always wanted to live in a state where english is the second language."

[HaRdCoReBrAvEsFaN]

It's going to be nice seeing the So Called 3 Kings Crying come next June when Kobe's holding up #6...