tremor

One of the greatest dunks ever.

Getting Melo means hitting critical mess for Nets. After moving to NY they'll easily bring another star and some veterans next year to complete roster. Maybe even Chris Paul.

W/ Harris, the Bobcats are alot better too.

I don't know, Cats are half court offense, well defending team.

On OS overall ratings of starting fives were posted: starting fives ratings

Hawks are rated as follows:

Bibby 73

Johnson 88

Williams 66

Smith 83

Horford 78

9 players are rated higher than JJ. Marv's rating is brutal.

That's just great:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Znnoebfh6VI

Dude deserves his own pinned thread IMO.

After release of the demo the game has excellent reviews. Some already dubbed it as the best basketball simulation ever. Nearly every aspect of the game improved since 2k10.

Elite 11 is Live rewritten from scratch, and seems to be not finished yet. Reviews are devastating, although some players like the new control system, which has steep learning curve unfortunately.

LD has a lot to improve imo. He has never been a head coach and coached here under who? Come on, I know some of you are totally on the bandwagon and I want to support him too.

I just have pause to blindly thinking a assistant coach off the same team can turn this thing around ESPECIALLY since the front office did ZERO in acquiring addtl needed veteran talent in the post.

LD has a BIG uphill climb IMO.

Which for me translates to one regular season credit of (almost) unlimited trust and patience. Unless teams totally collapses I'll be behind him this season. The play offs is what I'll judge LD on.

The Bucks are strong and its unknown what the Bulls will do with the Boozer pickup.

With those teams being stronger there won't be Fab-Four in the East anymore, but six team competing for 1-6 PO spots (or five teams battling for 2-6 if you will) and several next competing for last 2 spots - Bobcats, Knicks, Wizards, maybe 76ers. I believe that Hawks will take either 4th or 5th spot but they are always rated lower that their actual potential by so called experts.

Finally I know how to pronounce his name. I'm excited about this signing because that's something unusual, a mystery, and bold move from Drew. You can tell from this move that new coach has strong personality (while being also nice person, which is rare). Both our rooks can play on the both side of the ball and are hard workers and are well suited for fast paced offense with exchangeable roles (Teague fits the bill too).

One thing's sure - Pop got the contract because he showed tremendous dedication. And that's what makes talented players great. We just don't know yet how talented is he.

That's surprising move, not in Hawks management style, but it's positive surprise. All our three youngsters are able to play at least decent D, another good sign.

Thanks Tremor for the youtube links. Very heartfelt. You can tell that the guy is very well read. Not a TV zombie. Those clueless superstars should be proud that they were in Etan Thomas's company. Who do you think Obama felt intellectually closest to?

Ethan actively supported Obama in his campaign which might be actual reason for the invitation. He was also present at Sikh youth mentoring lunch at the White House.

You should find this interview interesting.

Very sensitive guy with good taste in RAP IMO.

This anti death penalty article is well written too.

He has some talent.

Way to go, Zaza! :thumbsupsmileyanim:

http://www.fibaeurope.com/cid_KNce8jInH7Qj1EsyH5rjn2.compID_qMRZdYCZI6EoANOrUf9le2.season_2011.gameID_7663-C-2-1.html

Zaza: 26 pts, 8 rebs, and 2 assists in 27 minutes

Gortat: 10 pts, 3 rebs, and 1 assist in 28 minutes

Georgia (or Sakartvelo, as they call it in Tbilisi) routed Poland 84-65. The Polish Hammer got nailed.

I watched part of the game. Gortat looked as clueless about what to do against decent players in Europe as he does here in the States. I've always said that no one would even know Gortat's name if he weren't backing up a superstar. One game doesn't prove that, of course, but it's particularly satisfying to see Zaza crush him in what was a pretty significant game - one more win basically secures Georgia a place in Eurobasket 2011, which is the Olympic qualifying tournament.

Well done, Z!

I wouldn't draw conclusions from single game in which Gortat got 2 quick fouls.

In rematch in Poland:

Zaza: 8 (1/10 FG) pts, 7 rebs, and 0 blocks (0 in first game) in 32 minutes

Gortat: 17 pts, 8 rebs, and 4 blocks (2 in first game) in 35 minutes

Stats from 8 games:

Zaza: 15.8 (48% FG) pts, 7.5 rebs, and 0.5 blocks in 28 minutes

Gortat: 18 (65.5% FG) pts, 8.9 rebs, and 2.3 blocks in 35 minutes

The book got very good reviews and has sold out. Can anyone post a sample poem?

This signing makes me question even more former acquisition of by far the worst Hawks player in recent years - Jason Collins.

Actually it doesnt stop and it didnt stop last year . We didnt isolate Crawford nearly as much as Joe in fact I would say that Crawford was our most effective pick and roll player . Considering last year Jamal was either spotting up for a jumpshot or running the high screen and roll with Al or Zaza the majority of time I dont get where people think we cleared out the side like we did for joe and let jamal go to work because that almost never happened.

Actually JJ is one of the best (the best last season) in the league when shooting off the pick'n'roll situation.

I'll take Smoove over Loozer seven days in a week!

Same here but I believe outside of Atlanta Boozer is considered as better player.

It sucks that he got snubbed last year for the all star team.

Every Hawks would agree.

With Kevin Garnett(fan vote), Chris Bosh, and Carlos Boozer in the East its going to be tough for Smoove to make the East squad.

Bosh and Boozer's numbers will drop. Former will have less opportunities to score and later will play alongside with well rebounding C and shoot first PG, neither is half a defender Josh is.

I think it's pretty fair assessment of how Josh ranks in the league right now. The good news is he still has potential and time to improve his game.

Have Hawks peaked? Maybe. They won't win East? I guess so. But they finished 6th (ex equo with two teams in Western Conf.) last season and qualified to second round of play offs along with other 7 teams in the league.

15th rank is actually huge drop and the only reason given is because Chicago and Milwaukee got better and assumption that West is always better than East. I would argue that the only two teams clearly better than Hawks in the Western Conference are Lakers and Mavericks. Suns (no Amare, aging Nash), Nuggets (aging Martin and Billups, chemistry issues) and Jazz (Boozer > Jefferson) actually got worse, Trail Blazers (health?), Thunder (growth from within) and Rockets (healthy Yao) might compete with Hawks record wise but I'd give our boys benefit of the doubt.

Anyway, even assuming that there are 6 teams better in the East and 5 in the West we're still at 12th not 15th spot in rather pessimistic prediction while 9th record seem to be more balanced prediction.

Josh played vast majority of his minutes at PF last season. He used to play SF early in his career. Usually you'll see him listed as PF/SF (e.g. at Yahoo) or just PF (ESPN). I can't recall him to play any guard position even one single time.

BTW good luck to Lithuania in upcoming FIBA World Championship. Interesting group. I expect your team to win 3 games (Lebanon, New Zealand and one of France/Canada).

Jamal Crawford The Difference? I like him but c'mon. This team won 47 games season before and had second round exit despite numerous injuries throughout, and won 6 games more and had unforgettable performance in play offs with Craw on the board. He's not the answer to Hawks issues (I believe also a little overrated by some fans) so if trading him can bring valuable assets I wouldn't hesitate. And Al's top priority, no discussion here.

I hope LD delivers. My worry was that we were promoting someone who couldn't fix this team's problems from the bench over the last several years which meant that either he didn't have potential answers or that he was shot down by the head coach and lacked the authority to do things like stop having Josh roam the 3pt line on offense. That doesn't sound like a winning gameplan to me, but things aren't always normal with the ASG so I am hoping LD can put this team in significantly better position to compete in the post-season than his predecessor (I am not expecting regular season improvement).

Neither do I. Learning comes with mistakes and those have to be allowed for the team (esp. young players) to progress.

Actually I expect below 50 wins in RS. I'll judge Drew not earlier than after offseason.

Players trust him, I hope he'll be able maintain authority in long run.

Between Lebron and Wade, who is willing to be Pippen. Moreover, the Bulls were not about offense, they were about a defense that shut teams down when they wanted to. Their offense was very simple, give the ball to MJ and move out of the way.

They don't have to copycat MJ and Scottie to succeed. The issue here is to agree on who what role plays (and what roles are to be played).

There's no close game plan. Options down the stretch is not good. Down the stretch, every championship team has always had that one guy that said give me the ball. Let me get my prediction out for you. If everybody involved stays healthy... The Heat will find themselves in a series against either the Magic, Celts, or Bucks and they will have to have a goto guy and won't be able to choose.

One time they'll choose Dwane, another James. What's the problem with taking such decision? Opponents will have to choose who should be guarded by their best on-ball defender.

Too much playstation. 2nd units are not real units. Usually every coach use their bench as "RESERVES". They have either a sub pattern where they bring in one or two players off the bench... or they substitute by hot hand/cold hand/tired. However, nobody in the NBA subs out all 5 guys and has one guy as being the "leader of the second unit". That's playstation terminology. Jamal is the 6th man. The first reserve off the bench if you will.

My son has PSP and I admit - I played Tekken 6 but there wasn't any second unit in it.

I might have used wrong term (which is usually used to describe set of 5 players that are reserves for 5 positions on the court) but you don't have to act like that. Imagine, I did it because of laziness, not ignorance.

What I meant (and you could have guessed) is the time when majority of the players on court are reserves and given team's best scorer is on the bench (in Hawks case last season it was usually Josh (+ Marvin/Mike) + Jamal, Zaza, Mo/Jeff. So, our reserves which, according to some, gave up too many leads in second half, might face this season Heat's reserves (Arroyo/House, Miller, Haslem, Anthony/Howard) lead by James/Wade.

Uhm... they are going to have to prove it. On paper, we should be devastating against the zone. Especially when Bibby plays. However, a zone defense brings us to a grinding halt. It makes us a jump shooting team. It will do the same to Miami.

To have tools is one thing, but to use them is another. Good ball movement is needed to find open man when playing against zone. Miami will have to learn to do this (or will grasp this instinctively). Here's hoping that with new offensive system Hawks will learn too.

link?

No go on Earl Boykins

1, THE Flaw in this is that by themselves, they were not champions. Usually, you match a player of that with a dominant big.

Jordan & Pippen anyone?

Here you have 2 ball hogging forces. I understand that for a while, they will be very complimentary of each other and they probably will share and look good. However, the end of a close game will come.

I can't even grasp what problem they can have at the end of a close game. Spoelstra has so many options that opposing team has no chance to guess which one he chooses given time.

2. This is true. They will be able to sit. But... will they be fruitful? Lebron with Wade on the bench is a worse team than he had in Cleveland. Wade with Lebron on the bench is a bit of an upgrade from his Miami teams but his Miami teams wasn't that good.

I'm talking about playing second unit + one of superstars vs opposing team second unit (e.g. Hawks with Jamal as leader).

5. Both Wade and James are ball hogs too. Both men need the ball in their hands to make their teams better. Somebody has to be Pippen.

They can share those responsibilities and adjust depending of match ups, daily disposition etc. Very few teams have starts playing good defense at both SG and SF (Hawks, Lakers, ...?). They'll be much better version of Jamal and JJ who are quite tough to stop.

6. I don't assume the defenses are going to leave either guy wide open. Most defense will either play Zone or straight up man.

Initially surly no one will be open, but both Wade and James are pretty good at playing one on one.

Also picks with Bosh will be deadly.

They have enough weapons to break the zone (Miller, House, Jones can shoot 3, Bosh, Haslem and Ilgauskas have nice mid-range game) from outside.

What you haven't explained is how they will play defensively. How they will play against teams with dominant bigs. How they will play when they are forced to run?

Chalmers/Miller, Wade, James = one of the best perimeter defenses in the league. Their bigs are good enough to guard majority of teams but they'll struggle against Magic, Celtics and Lakers. As I already stated that's their biggest weakness.

James and Wade are very good in transition defense.

You said that the PTL team didn't have a player who was top 10? Wallace was an alllstar. Pippen was 2nd team all defense. Smith, Stoudamire, and Sabonis were former allstars and standout. Then they had young players like Brian Grant, Bonzi Wells, Jermaine Oneal... and Crafty Vets like Greg Anthony and Detlef Shrempf. I don't think that there has been that much talent amassed on one team in history. They were deep. The reason they don't have personal accolades is because they bought into the fact that everybody should sacrifice and play.

I did and you indirectly confirmed. We're talking here about team that has 2 of 5 best players in the game.