ZoomSlowik

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 31, 2014 -> 03:17 PM) Pacers, Nuggets, Phoenix, Memphis and Portland all have good management and built those teams largely with only 1 top 5 pick and then finding gold in 8-15. Kind of silly to leave out the Spurs. Sure, they tanked bad for Duncan and Robinson was still around for their first title team, but they've masterfully added players over the years to stay relevant. As you said, tanking is far from a magic bullet. You're far more likely to end up with something like Charlotte's picks than OKC's. Ending up a pick too late happens constantly, like when they got MKG instead of Davis. Even if you do hit, there are plenty of one-star situations that didn't work. That said, there really isn't a sure-fire approach other than signing/trading for a proven stud. You might as well if you're going to win 30 games anyways. It's not like watching the Bucks was any better.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 24, 2014 -> 09:25 AM) Speaking of Borderlands 2, I finally got The Bee last night at level 51. That's going to make so many things so much easier. I honestly almost never used The Bee since I didn't get it until after they nerfed it. I usually rolled with a Sham or an Evo depending on whether I was facing gun-based enemies or not. I did plenty of damage with the slag/Unkempt Harold combo.

The "Kevin Love has never been to the playoffs" stuff really needs to die. There are several good reasons he hasn't been to the playoffs... 1) He's only been KEVIN.LOVE. for three of his six seasons. He played under 30 MPG his first two years while frequently coming off the bench and last year was a lost cause due to his hand injury. 2) The T-Wolves are in the west, which is significantly stronger. 3) His GM for most of his career was David KKKKKKKKKKKKKKAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNN. The team around him was horses*** before his last two years, and again, he missed most of one of them. 4) The T-Wolves were a playoff-caliber team last year. They had a point differential of +2.7, which was better than the worst three teams ahead of them in the West and would have been good for 4th in the East (even before adjusting for the fact it likely would have been better with an extra 20 games against the weaker conference). They sucked in close games, which can at least partly be attributed to luck. Now he's not a KG-level player that can single-handedly carry his team because he's an average defender at best (I'd rather not go down that rabbit hole. I'll leave it at "he has strengths and weaknesses"). However, there aren't all that many guys that can in the league right now. There's a sizeable drop-off after Lebron and Durant and people will have their opinions about which guys are better. It's not like he's the only elite player with issues defensively (Harden, Melo, Curry and Lillard are four that immediately come to mind). The bottom line is he's a very good player that can easily fit in on a good team. He's not the kind of guy that needs to dominate the ball to get his points, and his floor spacing is outstanding. He'll benefit greatly from playing with a PG that would actually win a HORSE tournament against Soxtalk members and a better/more mobile defensive center than he's used to (though obviously Noah would be a lot better than Varejao).

Oh s***, Destiny beta back early! On Xbox for you weirdos too.

QUOTE (TRU @ Jul 22, 2014 -> 08:39 AM) Level cap of 20 for Destiny? I sure hope not as I got to level 8 very quickly I don't think it's confirmed, but it's heavily rumored. I think Bungie's comment was something like they don't want to make you grind for dozens of hours to get to the good stuff. It also sounds like it's a "soft cap" in that you can keep adding skills and grabbing more powerful loot. Sort of the old line "the game doesn't really start until you hit the level cap." Once again, that's not confirmed, just what I've read on some boards.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jul 21, 2014 -> 03:52 PM) For me personally, Borderlands had fantastic writing in an intriguing plot. I have no idea if Destiny will deliver that, if it doesn't then it's just a good PvP game but nothing special. Considering the voice acting in Alpha and the somewhat better acting in Beta, I don't have high hopes for a massively entertaining storyline to help feed interest. I thought the random events and the strike mission were pretty interesting. Hopefully there's either more of those or the missions get a little more compelling as you get farther into the game. I thought the first few missions were pretty blah, but the last two were a little better. I'm hoping they add a couple more the last 4 days.

QUOTE (TRU @ Jul 21, 2014 -> 03:45 PM) It feels more like Halo than Borderlands. The loot drops and finds arent nearly as much as they are in borderlands. It has a lot of the same ideas though. Tough to tell since I maxed out the BETA in one sitting and cant progress or find anything better anymore. I kind of like that the loot isn't as plentiful. Yeah, Borderlands was loot-heavy, but I felt like I spent way too much time comparing guns and managing my inventory when I really only used a handful of guns. I'm fine with only a couple items per mission, depending on length of course. I also hope the damage scaling isn't as steep when you level, by the end of the game like 90% of the stuff you find isn't really useful. I think they're talking about a level cap of 20, which could prevent that. With the weapon upgrading, I also shouldn't have to replace my s*** every 20 minutes. I loved Borderlands 2, but those things definitely annoyed me at times.

I played quite a bit of the beta. It's definitely got a Halo feel, but it has a totally different feel than Borderlands. The loot isn't as plentiful (and they don't have much, if any rare stuff in the beta) and it's obviously not going for comedy. The writing was a big part of what made me like Borderlands (well, that and I was obsessive about getting loot and leveling). The early missions didn't blow me away, but they did start getting slightly tougher. The strike mission and random events were better. It's definitely my style with the solid shooting and RPG elements built in with your character development. I have no idea if the story is going to be any good or not, but keep putting interesting things in front of me to shoot and I'll be fine. I'm sure I will be playing it extensively when it comes out.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jul 9, 2014 -> 08:26 PM) it guarantees a certain percentage of the revenue going towards the players. That's why it's there. If you want to lower that floor, the players will need to get something else in return for giving up some guaranteed revenue sharing. I get they have to guarantee a percentage, but that's a crazy high floor and there are other ways to do it. Like I said, you can compensate by relaxing the crazy luxury tax penalties a bit or raising the luxury tax line so the teams that can spend/want to spend can go a bit higher. I'm sure there's other more clever ways to compensate as well. Even a $45 million floor would result in a lot of saved money for crappy teams, then they wouldn't need as much in revenue sharing money to stay viable. There's also already an escrow system set up for that purpose, they take a chunk of the player's paychecks and then distribute it as necessary at the end of the year. Most teams are at the cap once the year starts anyways, it just seems a bit goofy to me and would bother me if I were a team like the Sixers right now.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 9, 2014 -> 04:10 PM) Per @NBA: Salary cap for 2014-15 season jumps to $63.065 million. Tax level is $76.829 million. Minimum team salary is $56.759 million I did not realize the salary floor was so close to the salary cap. This is one of several things that annoys the s*** out of me about the NBA salary cap. Why should you be forced to spend nearly $60 million on your roster if you suck and you're rebuilding? It's basically forcing teams to flush money down the toilet. Lower the floor a little and maybe you can relax the crazy luxury tax rules that really only slow down smaller market contenders like OKC and Memphis.

"Emulating" the Spurs isn't exactly any easier. How many times are you going to draft a top-10 player of All-Time that plays for 17 years with an extremely limited injury history and acquire 3 more All-Star caliber players while he's on the team? Oh, and get them to take reduced salaries so you can still add other guys to the roster.

I gotta take back some of the things I said about this draft's depth. Seeing a lot more guys I kinda like in the 20's than I thought on first glance.

Put me in the group that would have rather had Harris or Young than McDermott, much less giving up the other pick for him as well. I don't trust him to do anything but shoot, while the other two might. Also, while I'm not a huge fan of Ennis, the Bulls do need to go into next year with three serviceable PG's given what's happened with Rose of late. No, Kirk doesn't count.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jun 25, 2014 -> 07:54 PM) This is a fun argument so I figure I'd post Chad Ford's GOAT prospect list since Lebron. There's of course no way to prove who is right and I obviously disagree with him too but here it is: 1. Oden 2. Durant 3. Davis 4. Embiid 5. Wiggins 6. Rose 7. Parker No one else in this draft in the top 25 from 2000 on. Of course if you looked at his big boards they tell a different story so me thinks Mr. Ford is also a victim of looking at things retroactively. I was going to make a post wondering where you got that, but then I realized you filtered out guys like Darko, Anthony, Yao and J-Williams (remember that guy?). I remember being somewhat bewildered that Williams was above Rose. Wiggins is really hard to place for me. He had an absurd amount of hype in 2013, but I feel like people have soured on him. His ceiling is so far from his current skill level right now. I wouldn't be surprised if he has some T-Mac like years, but he's got a wide range of outcomes.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 25, 2014 -> 07:43 PM) I agree, however, in terms of value that you get, he's still a really good get at 4, coupled with what you could get 6-8 picks later. I don't know, I feel like there's a reasonable chance that if you take something like Exum and McDermott you get a complete flop and a designated shooter off the bench that can't guard anyone. I'd feel a little better about #4 if Randle didn't have foot issues as well. I feel like he'll be at least solid, but I'm getting more nervous about injuries in my old age, especially with big men.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jun 25, 2014 -> 07:35 PM) And Durant was wayyy too skinny and Anthony was never going to develop an offensive game. How laughable in retrospect but the very same articles were there. It's easy to forget when they become allstars. While Wiggins didn't live up to expectations I'd still say those same expectations are a big part of the hype he's getting. I'd argue Jabari lived up to the hype but that's me. If you really believe that people think this is the best draft has little to do with the potential superstardom I don't know what to tell you. Take Wiggins and Parker out and replace them with depth like two Aaron Gordon clones and you'd laugh at someone saying that. Nooooo chance. Rose's stock rose way to say that. Edit: I'd even give you Beasley maybe but honestly a lot of his hype was based on making strange parallels to Durant that weren't there. And I meant Anthony Davis above obviously, not Carmelo. There are always SOME nitpicks. Even with Lebron and Duncan, some people were criticizing parts of their game. But the general narrative was still about them being future studs, which hasn't really been the case with these guys since about December. I also haven't heard the talk about this being "the best draft since year X" too much lately. It's still a good draft, but I don't think there's anyone GM's would bet their life on to make an All-NBA team. You would have found quite a few people doing that with those other guys. Personally, the only guy I might have been sold on was a healthy Embiid, and part of that is because the C position sucks.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jun 25, 2014 -> 07:24 PM) Rose & Beasley were extremely hyped as well. More so coming into the draft then Wiggins / Parker. I was debating whether to list those two or not. I feel like there's a lot of revisionist history with them. Rose had been kinda blah before the NCAA tournament while Beasley had dominated. I feel like 80% of people (including some dumbass named ZoomSlowik) thought Beasley was going to be a stud while Rose was more about upside and athleticism than production. Then Derrick just flipped a switch and starting dominating while Beasley got high and turned into Marvin Williams. I would say before their respective freshmen seasons, this group had more hype than Beasley/Rose/Mayo/Love/Gordon. I feel like the latter group was a little more loved around draft time though.

QUOTE (Boogua @ Jun 25, 2014 -> 07:23 PM) I don't know what you're reading or listening to, but everything I've heard is that there are no top 5 players in the nba type guys in this draft, but tons of all star level talents. There are some pretty big holes in the top two players games. The way I see it, there are 8 guys that could be good-to-great, but it drops off after that. Pretty much everyone but Embiid has disappointed to at least some extent as well.

By the way, taking Exum at #1 would be the most Cavs thing ever. He's basically an Australian high schooler. While they're not exactly the second coming of Lebron and Anthony, it would be downright silly to pass on those guys for Exum.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jun 25, 2014 -> 07:12 PM) At the time of the draft? No way except for maybe Anthony, but that's why I said 11 years. Obviously these guys all ended up working out but hindsight is 20/20. They did not have the hype at the time of the draft that Parker and Wiggins do now. Honestly the right to Greg Oden is the best argument since 2003. Yes, at the time of the draft. Oden and Durant had significantly more hype at the time and were basically assumed All-Stars. Anthony was pretty close to that level and while people weren't QUITE as thrilled with Davis, there's no way anyone is passing on a big with his length/athleticism/upside. Wiggins and Parker had a ton of hype before the season, but it's died down considerably because they didn't meet those absurd expectations. I find that there are signficantly more articles/discussions about things like Wiggins' lack of offensive polish/killer instinct and Parker's lack of defense/contributing in areas beyond scoring than there are hyping them up.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 25, 2014 -> 05:56 PM) picks in this draft is like getting 2 top 5 picks in normal drafts. That's huge. I wouldn't go this far either. Is there anyone you REALLY like outside of the top-8? Admittedly I don't know much about Saric, but I wouldn't be thrilled taking Harris, Stauskas, McDermott et al in the top-5.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jun 25, 2014 -> 05:23 PM) That's a horrific deal for one of the two of the best wing prospects of all time. But yeah it is Cleveland. Seriously though, it's the single most valuable draft pick in 11 years. You better get a superstar back if you are trading it. Come on now, Durant and Anthony were better prospects than either of these guys. Davis definitely goes ahead of either of them too, and possibly Griffin. Now a healthy Embiid might have been a different story...

QUOTE (bmags @ Jun 15, 2014 -> 10:28 PM) I mean he has two championships and there was probably only one other on his team. Allen, but he's way past his prime.

The Heat would probably throw a party if Wade and Bosh opted out. Way better ways to spend $40 million against the cap the way they played for most of this year.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Jun 12, 2014 -> 11:31 PM) I'd actually agree on the 94-95 Magic but I don't agree on the Suns. Of course the Bulls lost to the Magic so the Jordan will to win thing doesn't exactly fly there (although Jordan clearly wasn't himself that season). I don't necessarily agree either, but it kind of depends on your definition of "talent". Those Suns could put the ball in the net and were pretty deep. The Bulls were a better defensive team and had 3 of the 5 best players, but take a look at their roster outside of their top-4. Not very pretty.