Neal Clayton
05-23-2010, 12:01 AM
a thread then ;).
my observations thus far...
1) whoever let hedo turkgolu get away from the magic needs to be fired. if a different person thought vince carter was a suitable replacement they also need to be fired. not to mention the fact that those mistakes are costing them in the neighborhood of 200 million in wasted time on rashard lewis and dwight howard, who are much lesser players without turkgolu. speaking from experience in all of the time i watched bad owners and bad management waste time with the saints in the NFL, bad management does matter, orlando.
2) nice to see the suns get over the hump and beat the spurs. but it's obviously gonna end there. speaking of bad things that matter, mike d'antoni. getting rid of him and bringing in a coach to implement and demand defensive performance is the reason they're past the spurs. for all of the bad teams that grant hill has played well for over the years, it's nice to see him get a chance at a playoff run too. on a side note, really amare, twittering during the game for a 7500 dollar fine?
3) speaking of fines, wnba commissioner stern is passing them out like candy for people trying to get a leg up on the lebron courting extravaganza. mark cuban got 100k for talking about the lebron scenario in a CNN interview. steve kerr got 10k for joking about it on the radio. maybe they should take up bets on who gets the next lebron fine in vegas (but only if there's an NBA ref involved who can rig the outcome for the local mafia bookie, you keep those priorities clear, david stern).
4) as for the game, which is admittedly slightly less exciting than all of the drama, i think it'll be an honestly good finals between boston and LA, probably one of the better ones in recent memory. the lakers don't have a good option to deal with rondo and the celtics don't have a good option to deal with kobe. will ray allen show up defensively? will lamar odom? equally big 'ifs', not sure how it will pan out. on paper, i think it still favors the celtics, ever so slightly. they have the bodies to throw at gasol and bynum, the lakers don't have alot to throw at paul pierce and they will need lamar odom to contribute, he can't just foul out on pierce every game.
5) and, since no sports post is complete without a bold prediction, i'll go ahead and make one. the winner in the big free agent extravaganza of 2010 won't be the team that gets lebron. it will cost them an outrageous amount of money that they'll have to pay for later, and won't likely get a championship from it. lost in the lebron soap opera will be the team that gets dirk nowitzki. dirk is a matchup nightmare. he can lead your team in scoring and rebounds at the same time. he's a 90% free throw shooter so you can't throw fouls at him, and if you don't have a center who can guard him past 15 feet, dirk can even shoot threes over him. and if dirk's interest/price wanes in the big competition to woo lebron, some smart team will build a championship roster with dirk, instead of lebron.
my observations thus far...
1) whoever let hedo turkgolu get away from the magic needs to be fired. if a different person thought vince carter was a suitable replacement they also need to be fired. not to mention the fact that those mistakes are costing them in the neighborhood of 200 million in wasted time on rashard lewis and dwight howard, who are much lesser players without turkgolu. speaking from experience in all of the time i watched bad owners and bad management waste time with the saints in the NFL, bad management does matter, orlando.
2) nice to see the suns get over the hump and beat the spurs. but it's obviously gonna end there. speaking of bad things that matter, mike d'antoni. getting rid of him and bringing in a coach to implement and demand defensive performance is the reason they're past the spurs. for all of the bad teams that grant hill has played well for over the years, it's nice to see him get a chance at a playoff run too. on a side note, really amare, twittering during the game for a 7500 dollar fine?
3) speaking of fines, wnba commissioner stern is passing them out like candy for people trying to get a leg up on the lebron courting extravaganza. mark cuban got 100k for talking about the lebron scenario in a CNN interview. steve kerr got 10k for joking about it on the radio. maybe they should take up bets on who gets the next lebron fine in vegas (but only if there's an NBA ref involved who can rig the outcome for the local mafia bookie, you keep those priorities clear, david stern).
4) as for the game, which is admittedly slightly less exciting than all of the drama, i think it'll be an honestly good finals between boston and LA, probably one of the better ones in recent memory. the lakers don't have a good option to deal with rondo and the celtics don't have a good option to deal with kobe. will ray allen show up defensively? will lamar odom? equally big 'ifs', not sure how it will pan out. on paper, i think it still favors the celtics, ever so slightly. they have the bodies to throw at gasol and bynum, the lakers don't have alot to throw at paul pierce and they will need lamar odom to contribute, he can't just foul out on pierce every game.
5) and, since no sports post is complete without a bold prediction, i'll go ahead and make one. the winner in the big free agent extravaganza of 2010 won't be the team that gets lebron. it will cost them an outrageous amount of money that they'll have to pay for later, and won't likely get a championship from it. lost in the lebron soap opera will be the team that gets dirk nowitzki. dirk is a matchup nightmare. he can lead your team in scoring and rebounds at the same time. he's a 90% free throw shooter so you can't throw fouls at him, and if you don't have a center who can guard him past 15 feet, dirk can even shoot threes over him. and if dirk's interest/price wanes in the big competition to woo lebron, some smart team will build a championship roster with dirk, instead of lebron.