ZoomSlowik

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Mar 16, 2014 -> 05:28 PM) Good luck, Wichita St. 2nd and 3rd games vs Kentucky and then Louisville. That's definitely nasty. Love me some Louisville, thought they're at least a 3.

Didn't expect this considering Iowa won the first two by 26, and that was WITH Jershon Cobb in the lineup.

QUOTE (danman31 @ Mar 12, 2014 -> 12:13 AM) Since Borderlands 2 got brought up again, I'll mention that I'm considering getting the Vita version, which comes out this month. I haven't touched a Borderlands game before, but have seen little bits of video gameplay to have a concept of what the game is about. Is there any way I should play or is it pretty self explanatory? People talk about level caps with that game, is there a set number of missions in the game or is there always random stuff that pops up? Is it linear? This commentary is about the console version, I haven't researched the Vita version. Progression is fairly linear. There are story and side missions with suggested levels with XP awarded for kills and mission completion. You can wander, but it's not terribly productive unless you're in a level appropriate area. You'll have to go through the story twice to hit the cap, obviously with tougher enemies the second time. Once you do that, everything levels up and you can run around killing stuff. There are a ton of bosses you can farm for loot, though they're mostly in the same place, not random. There's a ton of stuff to learn about gear, builds and playstyles, but you can get through the first playthrough faking it pretty easily.

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Mar 11, 2014 -> 10:42 AM) Is anyone still playing in Zoom's yahoo league? Only 3-4 people even update their lineups these days I'm not running any Yahoo leagues this year. If it's the one that Brian mentioned, I was asked to co-manage with Steve (AFTER the draft, bastard) and set the lineups regularly.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Mar 11, 2014 -> 05:47 PM) Roommate and I went back and played Borderlands 2 as different characters, then played some of the DLCs. There is one with Tiny Tina creating her own imaginative world that has a ton of GOT and other fantasy references, it was quite possibly the best DLC ever created (obviously I don't know that but it was about as perfect as it could've been). If you're a fan of Borderlands and GOT, you have to play that DLC and do all the side quests, especially the Prince Jeffrey one. So many great jokes. That mission was awesome, as is that DLC in general (especially some of the loot). The Torgue one is pretty funny too, but there is just waaaaaay too much DLC and a lot of it is short/mediocre. I gave up after the season pass stuff, I had no desire to hit ANOTHER level cap and reacquire my arsenal at level 72.

I've never been a big Russell fan. It seems like he gets 99% of the credit for those Celtics teams even though he was one of several Hall of Fame players. You always hear about his 11 rings, but you never hear about Havlicek's 8, two of which came without Russell. That said, I've always thought of him as Josh Smith with exponentially better basketball IQ. That's a pretty terrifying player.

The Bulls wouldn't give up anything that important, which suggests it'd never happen. Also, the Bulls can't sign Melo outright unless they do some serious salary dumping. They're projected to have around $10 mil in space even aftet dumping Boozer. That's like $12 mil short of Melo's max offer. It would also mean no Mirotic since you can't use the MLE and cap space in the same offseason.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Feb 9, 2014 -> 09:02 PM) Have fun with the Sixers now. If they get Wiggins, it's on for them. They got Noel coming back and MCW has proven to be flawed but plenty legit. That's potentially an elite ball-stopper, versatile wing defender and rim protector on the same team. They're going to get the Pelican's pick too unless it falls in the top-5. That's an extremely raw group though, it would probably take a few years. Noel's offensive game is bsaically non-existant, MCW's efficiency is terrible and getting worse as the year keeps going, and Wiggins probably isn't going to score 20 a night from day 1 (though I do think the NBA style of play is better for his game).

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Feb 9, 2014 -> 08:54 PM) Yeah, the fire and passion example was off. But you know what I mean. And Barkley and Malone played before the internet/social media era. And are you serious about Dirk? Not only did his team blow a 2-0 lead to miami, they come back the next year and get bounced by the 8th seeded warriors. His legacy would look MUCH DIFFERENT if not for '11. I don't recall Dirk catching a lot of crap before he got his title, other than some people making fun of him for getting his MVP after getting bounced. Certainly nothing compared to Lebron, and I honestly remember Kobe catching more crap post- Shaq/pre-Gasol even though he had three rings. If anything, I remember reading several articles from the basketball nerds talking about how underrated Dirk was.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Feb 9, 2014 -> 08:47 PM) Then it would've been something else. KG was too unselfish. He didn't have enough fire and passion. He wasn't aggressive. And then somebody like you would've cited his supporting cast. Are you sure you've seen KG play? You don't really hear that much about Barkley or Malone other than "well, they didn't win a ring". I doubt that happens with Dirk either if he doesn't win.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Feb 9, 2014 -> 08:24 PM) Zzzzzzzz. He never won a title. Therefore you can critique and criticize. If KG doesn't win in '08 and Dirk doesn't win in '11, lots of people would be doing the same thing with those two. It's lame and boring and i'm done. T-mac was arguably the second greatest sg we've ever seen and his dominance was cut wayyyyyy short because of physical setbacks. The end. see ya. I really doubt anyone would question KG's work ethic under any circumstances.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Feb 9, 2014 -> 07:54 PM) Just because you're out there playing doesn't mean you're healthy or 100%. T-mac's slashing/penetration game was never the same after '05 and it's not because defenses figured him out. And Webber never had a peak as high as t-macs. therefore the drop wouldn't be as great. If you're on the court, you're in much better shape than Rose. No, he probably wasn't 100% a lot of those games, but neither were Kobe, Wade and Pierce for long stretches of their career. Those guys never had a 3-year run where they put up a TS% of .494, .515 and ..487 while still tossing up 20 shots a game. That's especially bad since he was still drawing seven FT a game through that stretch and shot a ton of 3's. He was perfectly content tossing up 15 long jumpers a game (3's and 16-foot plus jumpers according to hoopdata). Finally, you were missing the point a bit on Webber. T-Mac was basically done as a productive player by age 29. He shot 38.8% that year year. Even if he didn't win scoring titles, that's a HUGE drop-off. Webber put up a 23-10-5 line with 1.6 steals and 1.3 blocks in his age 29 season. He still posted three 19-9-4 type seasons after that, albiet his FG% cratered over that stretch. Tracy was already putting up some pretty terrible TS% even before that. That's why it might take him a while to get into the Hall of Fame.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Feb 9, 2014 -> 07:47 PM) That's what happens when your body doesn't cooperate. Chicago fans should know all about that. 2011 Rose more than likely was the best version of him we'll ever see. His issues weren't nearly as bad as Rose. He still played 78, 71 and 66 games 3 of those years in Houston and only missed the playoffs once in those 5 years. Chris Webber had similar/worse issues and didn't fall off nearly as precipitously.

I gotta admit, it's not a great sign when one of your nicknames is "The Big Sleep." Would have still gladly taken him at his peak, but he had a really short one.

Houston-era McGrady was quite the chucker. Sooooo many long jumpers. I have a very hard time blaming all of that on his back, though that obviously didn't help. Orlando-era T-Mac was a stud though, and he was still very good his first year in Houston. It's pretty flukey that he NEVER made the second round, though it was kind of funny that Houston made the 2nd round when he was out and went on a crazy winning streak largely without him.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Feb 8, 2014 -> 09:31 AM) You might get more development and a better quality of NBA. The actual skill level in the NBA has decreased significantly. Athletically, its another story. I've always argued the MLB approach, you allow them to go pro out of high school or they stay 2-3 years in college and continue to develop their game and then re-enter the draft. I have two issues there... 1) This rule really only affects around a half a dozen guys a year (maybe less in some years). It's not going to impact 99% of the players in the field. The guys it might affect are generally going to be the most "ready" of the field. 2) Getting high school guys out of the draft was a good thing. Only LeBron was really good immediately and only a few others were capable rotation players. The jump is just too big and scouting is damn near impossible since they outclass their competition so thoroughly. Going back to the days where Byron Mullens would go in the top 5 doesn't help anyone.

QUOTE (Willard Decker @ Feb 7, 2014 -> 08:57 PM) It sounds like they're trying to encourage more student-athletes to finish their degrees and assume that if potential draft-picks are forced to attend school for two years that some of them will forgo the draft long enough to graduate. It's not a bad thing for a student-athlete to stay in college for three or four years- Damian Lillard and Victor Oladipo finished their degrees- but I wonder if the problem is not so much the NCAA's academic requirements but how collegiate athletes are evaluated. Potential lottery-picks are treated like new cars in that their value depreciates as soon as they've played their first game, as scouts being dissecting everything that's wrong with them as though said flaws weren't evident previously. Players feel pressured to enter the draft as soon as possible because they're concerned that protracted evaluation by NBA scouts will only hamper their draft position. Perhaps the NBA needs to revisit its methods of player evaluation before making any adjustments to the age-limit. --Captain Decker I wouldn't think most of the guys that this rule would affect fall under the ideal of "student-athlete" (which I think was actually a legal term so the NCAA didn't have to give out worker's comp to injured athletes before they turned it into a marketing ploy). Michael Beasley and DeMarcus Cousins don't seem like the kind of guys that are going to get much out of sticking around in college. I'm sure there are a lot of guys that don't care about that degree when they're about to become millionaires, and I'm not sure how much the NBA really cares about these guys getting degrees. I don't really agree with the "new car" section either. There are plenty of guys that improve their stock once they start playing games. Joel Embiid is a perfect example, he was a fringe top-10 pick before the season and a guy that might have needed another year. Now he's a top-3 pick, maybe #1 if he chooses to come out. That said, once your stock hits a certain point (first round for most, lottery for some, top-5 for the elite athletes), there's really no point in staying. Your risk of having your stock drop or getting hurt eventually outweighs the benefits of moving up in the draft depending on that player's ceiling. You also delay getting paid another year, which can cost you a significant amount of money down the road. Another key thing to point out is that you don't stop improving when you hit the NBA. Very, very few players are All-Stars from the minute they hit the league. Everyone still has things to work on when they start playing pros. It's really hard to project what kind of player an 18-year old kid will be in 5 years without seeing him play a single college game. You get a little more data seeing them play against college players, but you still have huge misses both ways. Your development after you get to the league is the real difference between a bust and a star most of the time. We've seen numerous guys come right out of high school and go on to have great careers, some of them even playing reasonably well as rookies, so more years in college isn't a prerequisite for success. This is getting off point a bit though. It would obviously help the NCAA because they would get guys like Parker and Wiggins generating money for them for an extra year. It would help more college players than it would hurt because you'd have fewer poor decisions regarding the draft and some guys would improve their stock/be more ready after an extra year. It would help the existing NBA players because fewer guys that can threaten their jobs would be able to enter the draft pool. However, I don't see why the league would want the rule. Execs want as many guys in the draft pool as possible to make choices, and the league has to wait an extra year to get the hyped up stud that can sell tickets. There are also a handful of guys every year that won't gain much from staying in school, with things possibly going horribly wrong. What kind of shape would Nerlens Noel be in right now if he were forced to stay? He's making $3.1 million while rehabbing now instead of sitting out likely the entire college season and hoping for the best.

QUOTE (Willard Decker @ Feb 7, 2014 -> 07:41 PM) New NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is mulling an increase in the league's age-limit for entry into the NBA Draft from nineteen to twenty. I don't doubt he's serious about making the change- it's been hinted at for a while- but when does he plan for the change to take effect (assuming it's approved)? It would seem unlikely to affect anyone considering this summer's draft but could affect future student-athletes. --Captain Decker I don't get why they would want to do it. What benefit does the league get from pushing it to 2 years in college? So now you're giving the NCAA two years of superstar players when teams would draft the guy out of high school if they could? I get not wanting to scout high school players, but I just don't see the point in forcing dominant freshmen to stay another year. The only argument I could see is more development, but 99% of guys aren't "ready" for the NBA when they come out regardless of when they come out and guys that stay an extra year frequently see their stock drop. I could also see that creating a ton of eligibility issues for guys that barely get in as it is. It will also cause guys to look at the D-League and Europe as alternatives. Oh, and to answer your question, I would guess it comes up the next time they have to negotiate a CBA with the players.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Feb 6, 2014 -> 07:54 AM) Green? Let's be honest, his best teammate is probably Luol freakin' Deng right now. That team is built like s***. And before they got Deng, it was probably Anderson Varejao. If they draft Drummond instead of Waiters and Oladipo instead of Bennett, are we having this conversation? I doubt it. That team has very little talent outside of him and they don't have the coaching or team defense to make up for it.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 28, 2014 -> 08:10 PM) Anthony Davis has 15 blocks in his last two games. For those that have seen a lot of Joel Embiid, is he a better prospect than Davis was at Kentucky? Davis was probably a better prospect. It's hard to know if my memory is clouded though because of Davis' early dominance. My impression of his stock at the time was that he had huge upside (KG was thrown around as a comparison) if everything worked out but that his offense was still a work in progress and he needed to bulk up. I don't think most scouts were predicting him to average 20-10 in his second year. I also think he was a relatively safe prospect, meaning that at worst he'd still be an athletic big that starts in the league for like 10 years. I've seen about half a dozen Kansas games and watched the Draft Express scouting video of Embiid (those things are awesome). My impression is that he has the same type of upside as Davis, but he's not as safe. It's easy to see his potential if you just watch his highlights. He's huge, mobile and flashes some post moves that most NBA players don't have much less someone as inexperienced as Embiid. He also makes a lot of mistakes though. His shots out of the post aren't always pretty. He will throw up weak attempts in traffic, especially if there's contact. He also gets lost occasionally on defense, bites on a lot of fakes and makes some silly fouls. That stuff can be ironed out obviously, but I have a hard time seeing him play 30 quality minutes in the NBA right now. They're also very different players stylistically. Davis mostly uses his athleticism to find points in space (lobs, transition, pick-and-roll, putbacks, ect) while Embiid is more of a true post guy.

Never played BL1, but played WAY too much Borderlands 2. I finally got burned out since you keep replaying the same story if you want to keep leveling though. They also have an insane amount of DLC that I eventually stopped buying. They might have nerfed the Bee, but it's still fun wrecking stuff with an Unkempt Harold.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jan 26, 2014 -> 04:19 PM) It'd be Boozer then Dunleavy (whatever you can get for him) + picks. If the Bulls offered 3 1st round picks, I think it'd be hard for the Knicks to turn down, since they've traded all of theirs. It would involve the Knicks basically admitting that they're going to be irrelevant for the forseeable future. Their delusional owner was talking about them winning a championship this year. They're the type of franchise that thinks the cap space would turn into Lebron. They would have to be 100% sure Melo is gone, and even then they wouldn't be thrilled about taking Boozer. There's also a possibility that the return turns into two future firsts and a future second. Teams have been getting multiple 1sts for deals like Pierce/Garnett and Joe Johnson, not to mention the Jazz getting 2 for just taking a couple of bad contracts. It also doesn't help the Bulls that they're not a threat to sign Melo outright. It's not impossible, but I'm not holding my breath either.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Jan 26, 2014 -> 03:59 PM) I'm sure it's been answered a hundred times here, but is it possible to have Rose, Melo, Taj, and Noah? Only if you think Melo will sign for like $10 million, less if you want Mirotic too. Edit- A sign-and-trade is possible in theory, but it would involve the Knicks taking back a ton of salary. I have serious doubts that they'd take Boozer back, though I won't rule anything out with the way the Knicks are run.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 25, 2014 -> 11:42 PM) Holy f***@Ross! I didn't see that either. Has to be some kinda record that a player not even averaging 10 ppg at the time dropped 50+ Apparently, he does have the lowest season PPG of anyone that has done it so far. #2 is Tony Delk at 12.3.

We need to stop calling Butler "Jimmy Buckets" until he gets over 40%. Yes J4L, we know. I didn't think 13 a game on decent efficiency was too much to ask.