New Album & The Beginning of Basketball Season

Maybe I was expecting a lot more from the No. 1 overall. Admittedly, I hardly see NO games and hardly see any highlights of Davis on recaps or front page news. I'll be taking more looks at him this season.
 
Lots of interesting news today

Kobe could return as early as this Friday

Bynum notches a double-double

Rockets beat Spurs

Odom could be returning to the Clipps. I was hoping the Lakers would take him

What game by Bynum. Hopefully his career will continue.
 
Thrilling game between Pacers and Clippers. I can't believe in the last few minutes the ball just didn't go in for both teams. Chris Paul's 2 misses down the line looked like they were going in but bounced out.
 
The entire Eastern Conference has only 2 teams above .500 - the 2 Eastern Finalists last season. Wonder how the playoffs, or lack of, will look like if this goes on. :D
 
I was noticing that only 11 teams in the league have winning records

Blazers are for real as they took down the Pacers last night

Chicago is dead in the water

Washington is looking good

The Thunder isn't playing with the intensity I would have expected

The Rockets IMO are only better than average

The Spurs consistently remain at the head of the pack regardless of Pop's aging stars

Lakers bench is the best in the NBA (go figure) as their bench has a multitude of 3 point shooters. I would go so far as saying that the Lakers bench commonly outperforms its starting lineup. Pau Gasol won't be part of this team net year (sooner if they could trade him) as his star is rapidly fading. He has gone fromChamp to chump

Interesting season so far
 
I was noticing that only 11 teams in the league have winning records

Blazers are for real as they took down the Pacers last night

Chicago is dead in the water

Washington is looking good

The Thunder isn't playing with the intensity I would have expected

The Rockets IMO are only better than average

The Spurs consistently remain at the head of the pack regardless of Pop's aging stars

Lakers bench is the best in the NBA (go figure) as their bench has a multitude of 3 point shooters. I would go so far as saying that the Lakers bench commonly outperforms its starting lineup. Pau Gasol won't be part of this team net year (sooner if they could trade him) as his star is rapidly fading. He has gone fromChamp to chump

Interesting season so far

And only three in the East, though the Pacers are looking good.

Does Woodson survive if Knicks lose to Nets on Thursday with JVG looking like he wants to coach the Knicks again?
 
Blazermania on the rise again. :D Their coach is doing a great job, and I only knew now of his name, Terry Stotts, former assistant of Rick Carlisle in Dallas.

The surprising team at the bottom is the Knicks. They might get a shot at Wiggins or Parker to pair with Melo.
 
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-b...xtension-dwyane-wade-dirk-175201534--nba.html


Ball Don't Lie
Following Kobe Bryant’s contract extension, Dwyane Wade and Dirk Nowitzki uneasily discuss their own futures
Kelly Dwyer
By Kelly Dwyer 6 hours ago Ball Don't Lie


Dwyane Wade and Dirk Nowitzki count the days until July. (Getty Images)

Kobe Bryant’s massive contract extension came as a massive surprise, because though it was apparent that both Bryant and the Lakers wanted to continue their relationship until the end of Kobe’s career, most assumed Los Angeles would at least wait to see how the recovering Bryant performed in 2013-14 before deciding to hand him more and more money. It turned out that the Buss family apparently had no issue jumping the gun and making Bryant the league’s highest paid player in both 2014-15 and 2015-16, even if it meant hamstringing the team’s attempts at rebuilding with Bryant at the helm. Because though the Lakers will have cap room to sign a high end free agent this summer, salary cap space will be hard to come by after that, and Bryant plus a star plus minimum-salaried filler is no championship contender at this point.

What the contract extension also didn’t do is alleviate some of the confusion both Miami and Dallas will enter their own offseasons with. The Heat are attempting three pretty gnarly things at once – defending their consecutive titles, steering clear of the punitive wrath of the luxury tax, while keeping their borderline-legendary triptych of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh around and happy.

All three can opt out of their contracts this summer to take in gigantic extensions, and all three will likely want as much money as they can possibly get in reaction to taking less money as free agents in 2010, and the two and possibly three championships that followed. The kicker here is that LeBron James is definitely underpaid at even the maximum price, Chris Bosh might be overpaid (considering his diminished role) if he makes the maximum, and Dwyane Wade stands the chance of being overpaid if his career-long knee injuries continue to limit his productiveness as the season wears along.

Wade, ever mindful of this, didn’t try to rock the boat when recently asked about a Bryant-like extension. From Brian Windhorst at ESPN:

“When I get into that position, it’s something I’ll think about,” Wade said. “You have to sit down at the time and see what is best for you and for your team.”


“As a player, I loved it. Everyone who gets what they get deserves it, great,” Wade said of Bryant’s new deal. “There’s a reason the Lakers felt that Kobe should get that money. There’s no right or wrong.”

LeBron James, hanging around and ever-respectful of the Miami Heat legend, couldn’t help but chime in:

“D-Wade is getting that Kobe deal,” James said from the next locker.

That “legend” part is tricky. Wade is having another fabulous, All-Star level season as he averages 18.5 points and a combined ten rebounds/assists and 2.7 steals/blocks in only 33 minutes a night. The 11-year guard is shooting 53 percent from the field, and he’s shown no real signs of rust in a Heat offense that is ranked second in the NBA. That sort of production might not be worth the potential four-year, $100 million deal Wade could sign in this offseason, but it’s not far off. Especially when you add in the “Kobe” factor, because in spite of LeBron’s brilliance, Dwyane Wade is Mr. Miami Heat.

The problem is that the Heat don’t know if this sort of game-to-game production will hold up in a season that still has six (!) months to go before the NBA Finals tip off; assuming the Heat even get there. Wade was dragging his leg around during the 2012 and 2013 postseasons and had to drop out of the 2012 Olympics, and it’s worth questioning how much his “Mr. Miami Heat” status should play a part in how much he’ll be paid in 2017-18.

The luxury tax will soon be three times as onerous as it was in 2010, when the Big Three all signed their cut-rate deals to create a winner. While there’s no guarantee that Wade will demand the max from the Heat – he can always shave money off the yearly deals in exchange for years at the end of the extension – there’s a likely guarantee that the decision-making process won’t be easy. All sides – Wade and his reps, owner Micky Arison, Heat el jefe Pat Riley – respect each other and have winning at the top of their priority list. Sometimes that’s not enough, though, to eliminate uneasy feelings.

If anything, the Dallas Mavericks and Dirk Nowitzki seemed to have chased away any chance at an uneasy negotiation months ago, when Dirk floated the idea of taking a massive pay cut as a 2014 free agent if it meant helping the Mavs secure a superstar helper from this summer’s free agent class. Nowitzki went on record as saying “if [it] helps us to be better I’ll take a pay cut,” and while he didn’t exactly hedge on those words in the wake of the Bryant extension, he didn’t fully commit to them either.

After repeatedly talking about how he wasn’t “concerned about extensions at this point” in the 2013-14 season, Dirk offered this preview to Jeff Caplan at NBA.com:

“I don’t really want to look forward too much,” Nowitzki said. “I’m not going to extend, obviously. I want to play the season out and then we can talk about the summer. I want to have a good season. I want to have an injury-free season and then [his coach/agent] Holger’s [Geschwindner] going to take his leather coat and meet with [Dallas owner Mark Cuban] in the bunker suite and we’ll go from there.”

Ever the opportunist, Dallas owner Mark Cuban saw a chance to get a sly, if totally accurate, bit of pregame negotiating in. From Dwain Price at the Star-Telegram:

When asked if it’s a given that Nowitzki will re-sign with the Mavs, Cuban said: “You’ve got to ask him. But we’re going to do all we can to keep him forever.”

Cuban did say he believes breaking the bank and making as much money as possible is not Nowitzki’s cup of tea.

“Making hundreds of millions of dollars,” Cuban said, “will do that to you.’’

That’s the hope, at least. That the $204 million Dirk has made in Mavericks payroll alone will be enough to sway him to let his $22 million 2013-14 salary drop precipitously this summer as the Mavericks once again lineup for another offseason with plenty of cap space. Nobody is expecting Dirk to take the veteran’s minimum, but if he did the Mavs (provided they pass on re-signing Shawn Marion and Vince Carter, while keeping Samuel Dalembert) could have nearly $30 million in cap space and a solid foundation already in place.

That’s only the ownership’s wet dream, though. Because as Kobe Bryant confirmed last week, a whole hell of a lot changes for players when it comes time to talking real numbers, and turning down real money.
 
Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash Returns to Lakers Force Squad Shakeup

By Shahan Ahmed | Yahoo Contributor Network

COMMENTARY | With Steve Nash and Kobe Bryant both returning to Los Angeles Lakers' practice on Tuesday, either or both could return to game action as early as Friday at Sacramento.
"There will be an adjustment period," Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni said after Sunday's game.
If Bryant is the first guy back, he will move into the starting lineup with Steve Blake alongside him. Jodie Meeks will likely go to the bench and take on the role of guarding the opposition's backup point guard. With Jordan Farmar out for four weeks, ball-handling duties for the second unit would fall in the capable hands of Xavier Henry.
Henry is more confident on the ball than Meeks, and he served that function effectively when the Lakers almost came back from 20 points down in the fourth quarter of Sunday's game against Portland. Most impressively, Henry played point guard down the stretch and recorded only one turnover in the game.
When Farmar returns, the Lakers will conceivably have a whole different issue of which player to push out, but that headache can wait four weeks.
If Nash beats Bryant back, the Lakers will have the option to start Nash or use him off the bench. Prior to Sunday's game, Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni was asked if he would consider bringing Nash off the bench. D'Antoni appeared open to discussing the idea but said he had not yet thought that far ahead.
If Nash joins the second unit, he can slide into Farmar's role, and, truthfully, little else would change from the team that currently is. The Canadian can bring the ball up and run the screen-and-roll offense with any of the anchors of the second unit: Robert Sacre, Jordan Hill, or Chris Kaman.

Currently, D'Antoni prefers Hill to anchor the second unit, even though Hill has become a vital member of the starting and finishing units. However, Hill is beginning to wear down from a rough schedule and the physical style of his play.
With Hill's production slowly dropping due to bumps, bruises and minor injuries, Sacre has recently filled the role of second unit anchor. The primary reason both Hill and Sacre have flourished in that role is that both players have enough aggression and athleticism to dive to the basket -- rather than pop out for jump-shots -- off the pick-and-roll.
Since returning from a minor back injury, Kaman appears to have lost the coach's confidence and does not seem to fit in anywhere. At some point, that will likely change, but as far as the discussion of Nash and Bryant returning is concerned, Kaman is not immediately involved.

When talking about the Lakers' front line, it is impossible not to address Pau Gasol. Gasol's time on the floor usually sees the Spaniard play the entire first and third quarters before coming in to close the second and fourth.
Gasol improved his shot and clearly worked on making long-range baskets during the offseason. In the past, the 7-footer's scoring strength derived from dropping to the low post and utilizing his wide array of post moves. In the current offense, Gasol constantly finds himself 18-20 feet from the basket, and rolling to the basket off a screen is his not how the Barcelona-native operates best.

Instead, Gasol looks to takes shots that are available and open within the offense. His game is pick-and-pop. If his shots are falling, everyone is happy. If his shots are not falling, everyone screams for him to get into the post. This is the reality of a 33-year-old Gasol with D'Antoni running the show.
Apologies for the divergence, but that had to be addressed for a moment.
Now then, if Nash and Bryant both return to the team, the Lakers have the option to either start Nash or bring him off the bench. The Black Mamba always starts--no discussion on that.
If Nash starts, the Lakers will be slow in the backcourt and will want to keep Wesley Johnson's defensive athleticism in the starting lineup. Hill and Gasol would stay, and Blake would go to the bench.

Regardless of whether Nash or Blake plays point guard for the second unit, Nick Young, Henry or Meeks will fall completely out of the regular rotation. Picking which one to drop is an impossibly difficult decision, and there is no right answer. All options are bad options.
Meeks is tied for 11th in the NBA in 3-pointers made. Also, he started 12 games this season and has greatly improved from a season ago. Henry is coming off a 27-point game where he shot 9-12 from the field; he also played point guard and led a 20-point comeback that finished inches short. Since Young moved to the bench, he is averaging 16.4 points per game -- best on the team with the starters included.

When Nash and Bryant come back, one of those three guys will not be playing regularly.
When Farmar eventually returns, D'Antoni will need to figure out who else to sit down or whether Farmar should even return to the rotation. Considering Farmar was averaging 14.6 points and 5.0 assists in only 21.6 minutes in the five games leading up to the injury, leaving him on the bench is as difficult as asking Henry, Meeks or Young to leave their warm ups on for 48 minutes.

Undoubtedly, adding two future Hall of Famers makes for a better team, but the Lakers will lose something -- more accurately, someone -- in the process of welcoming Bryant and Nash back into the lineup.
 
Saw parts of the Detroit/Miami game. Pistons have a good lineup: Josh Smith, Greg Monroe, Andre Drummond. Brandon Jennings, Rodney Stuckey and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who as one announcer said, "with a name like that, you got to be good!" :D Drummond is a monster on the boards, but also a terrible foul shooter in the mold of D12 and DJ. To battle Miami with a hope to win, a team has got to have energy, and these young kids can run and fly. Good win by the Pistons.
 

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