tremor

That Portland team had no single top 10 player if remember well. I don't buy "one ball" argument. 1. Wade and James don't have to play together all the time. Actually Miami can have at least one of them on the court all the time which might be a serious match up problem for any second unit in the league. 2. No one is able to give 100% for 36 mins. Having another superstar is a luxury of getting some rest even while on the court. This is especially good news for Wade who carried his team offensively in last seasons. 3. James played 40 mins/game last season, he might see his minutes cut a little bit to save his energy for play offs. 4. Rested players are more efficient - see 2. and 3. 5. Both Wade and James make their teammates better. They should be able to do this favor to each other (and Bosh too). 6. Particularly neither James nor Wade have reputation of good jumpshooters. But these guys didn't have a chance to fire wide open shots being focal point of opponents' defenses and still maintained decent efficiency. Now they can create for each other, I expect FG% of both to go up. And Bosh can shoot. There's no doubt that all three, including Bosh, have to sacrifice individual stats to succeed. And this might become an issue. I think point averages at level 25, 25 and 20 are realistic. If Wade scores significantly more than James (like 27 vs 23) this may cause some tensions. Other than that I don't see any drawbacks of three excellent offensive players on one team. On paper Miami Heat is the best team in the league. But it doesn't mean that they'll win several titles as macdaddy already explained.

Melo to Magic is scary. Why? Because he fixes their biggest weakness - lack of player that can take the game over offensively and create for himself. Carter failed to fill this void. Moving to OT about Cavs. Let's compare player by player Miami Heat and top 8 NBA team which is Atlanta Hawks (with pro Hawks bias). C Ilgauskas << Horford PF Bosh = Smith SF James >>>>>>>... Williams SG Wade >>> JJ PG Chalmers = Bibby Their starting 5 is clearly better than ours despite lack of very good C (big Z will be saved for PO and won't play more than 20 mpg) and PG. The only flow in this line up is not so good interior D. Bench: C/PF Haslem, Anthony, Howard, Magloire >> Pachulia, Powell, Collins SF, SG, G, PG Miller, Jones, House, Arroyo = Crawford Sr., Evans, Crawford Jr., Teague Let's be honest here - on paper Heat are not even in the same league. Heat's biggest issue is lack of quality C which makes match up against Magic interesting. I believe that currently Wade is a counterbalance for that so James gives Heat the age in such comparison. If Orlando gets Anthony things will get more interesting.

Bret LaGree, Hoopinion: It's easy to understand skepticism over the Hawks' hiring of Larry Drew as their new head coach. As with any first-time head coach, Drew carries a certain burden of proof. But a larger share of the doubt appears to be cast upon (and reasonably so) those who made the decision and the degree to which they've presented Drew an opportunity to succeed. The length of the coaching search did nothing to minimize the impression that Drew was not the first choice for the job. But the nature of the search said more about the organization than it did about Drew. The three fractious groups that collectively own the Hawks simply don't make decisions quickly. Two summers ago, 38 days elapsed between the season's end and the offer of a second contract to former head coach Mike Woodson. This summer, management moved relatively quickly, by its standards, squeezing interviews with Drew, Avery Johnson, Dwane Casey and Mark Jackson into a 28-day period between announcing that Woodson would not be offered a third contract and introducing Drew as his replacement. That Drew served as an assistant to Woodson for each of Woodson's six seasons in Atlanta hasn't kept the organization from focusing on how different Drew will be. Granted, it's difficult to imagine any head coach being as tactically stubborn and reactive as Woodson was. But it's also difficult to imagine how different Drew can be given that he'll be working with essentially the same roster that has never finished better than 12th in the league in defensive efficiency and failed to put up much of a fight in successive second-round playoff series. The biggest change Drew promises is a shift from Woodson's isolation-heavy offense to a motion system. Theoretically and aesthetically, it's a welcome change, though there are practical concerns. As stagnant and predictable as Woodson's half-court offense could be, especially late in games and/or against top defenses, over the course of the 2009-10 regular season, the Hawks were the league's third-most-efficient offense. The lack of ball and player movement made turnovers rare, and the Hawks compensated for their rather ordinary field goal shooting with excellent offensive rebounding. Essentially, the Hawks chose shot volume over shot quality and, more often than not, that choice paid dividends during the regular season. There's the rub. Drew (commendably) is taking a season-long approach to implementing what he envisions as a positive change. But will the players, who appeared quite willing to tune out Woodson in the postseason, stick with something different and difficult if both the rookie head coach and his offensive system fail to hit the ground running? If the players do resist, how strongly will the organization support a head coach signed to the shortest and cheapest contract (just two years and $2.5 million of Drew's three-year, $5 million deal is guaranteed) in the league against those who take up the bulk of the team's cap space through the 2013 season? And, if the team doesn't do a better job of stopping its opponents from scoring, how much will any offensive changes even matter? The whole article: Use the force - read the source. These guys discredit themselves time after time and still are paid to this again and again. If you don't believe me check any of their past predictions. I wonder if this change is seen in such bad light by fans of other teams.

Something tells me that you didn't watch actual games. Perk always gives Superman good fits because of his strength, wingspan, but also unnoticed quickness under the basket. Sheed is tough, long and smart. He frustrated Dwight playing close to foul most of the time, prevented him from taking good position under the basket, even blocked him once in one on one situation. And when all this didn't work they were fouling him hard so Dwight had to earn his points at FT line. Plus Boston defends very well as a team, forced Howard to lose the ball a lot of times. Both sides of argument are right while not looking at the whole picture. It is very important to play your strengths and cover weaknesses while at the same time exploring weak sides of your opponent while trying to neutralize his strengths. Can you beat the Magic when Dwight scores 30+ points on > 60% FG and 15+ boards? Sure, if your team can do even more damage to them. Practically very tough thing to do.

Not sure what you're guys talking about. Rasheed was number 1 reserve center last playoffs.

Shaq's a Pisces? Pisces don's wash their feet before going to bed. How do I know? Because I'm a Pisces myself.

Paul's list: 1. Knicks 2. Magic 3. Mavericks 4. TrailBlazers Teams that don't mind paying luxury tax. No Lakers.

I'll keep an eye on Sanders. He looked like an NBA starter playing against Hawks SL "bigs". He dominated both side of the court, his defensive skills will elevate his career.

Wade with comparable supporting cast (when not counting James and Bosh) led Miami to 6th place in the East. Now he has league's MVP and one of best offensive PFs to help him. Only injury (well, maybe Orlando's Carter for Arenas trade) can prevent them from taking 1st seed in the East and getting to the finals.

Thanks a lot. What I've noticed from box scores is that both Teague and Crawford had 3 good games of 4 they played which is pretty consistant for such young guys.

When we talk about legit/true 7 footers to me 6'11'' guys qualify esp. when they have upside and/or long arms and/or exceptional strength. You could scratch some guys off the list (Ratliff, Mohammad, JO used to have some hoops but not anymore). Dwight is a different animal - although you're right - you can't call him legit 7 footer but it takes one to play against him as equal (Perkins is also 6'10'' but he has very long arms and is strong like a bull). The point is - it's a group of players that have close wingspan that has significant size and often strength advantage over Al (and any of current Hawks).

Diesel and Jody - very good points. Boston got to the finals with four very good bigs - Perk, KG, Wallace and, yes, Big Baby Davis. That's one of main reasons why they beat Cavs and Magic. It's possible to win 50+ games without true C and get to the second round but that's it. Game changed, no more true 7-footers? Let's look at last year PO teams in the East: Magic have Dwight and Gortat, Cavs had Shaq, Big Z and Varejao, Bobcats - Chandler, Mohammed and Ratliff, Bulls - Noah, Bucks - Bogut, Heat - JO.

I don't care about the number of wins as long as Hawks preserve 7th seed or better. I want Drew to prepare the team for off season, experiment, find out to exploit weaknesses of other teams through match ups, give young players some room for errors, less minutes for JJ (and I want to see him as finisher - 21/4/4 season is fine for me), I want to develop Al as 2nd scoring option and see him getting some PT at 4.

Horf is top 10 center in this league and I believe, given a chance, he has potential to be top 5 PF very soon. Whom are you expecting to get for him that would be as good or better? IMO we have two options already discussed many times: - bring real C as backup, a guy who can hold his own against Dwight and 7 footers for 15-20 mins. This gives us flexibility to play Al at 4 for some time and share fouls between bigs. I like this option even it means Smoove at 3 from time to time - he can hit outside jumpers straight to the basket decently and with his court vision that's the place I want to see him to roam when he's not down low. In this configuration he usually has smaller player against him. I don't mind 1-3 pnr from time to time either. Smoove would have to try harder at defensive end guarding his man and would have less opportunities to help others though.To sum it up: Josh at 3 for limited time is not the end of the world. - trade Smoove. I don't want to do this unless we get all star point guard or center in return. Not likely to happen.

He showed up late in the play offs and played close to 30 mpg. I don't think Magic will let him go unless his part of a big trade (Boozer?).

Please, no!

I guess the most controversial from this point of view is German NT. They have Ozil, Cacau, Klose, Podolski, Trochowski, Gomez, Marin, Khedira, Boateng, Tasci and Aogo. But if you look at them closer they all are German when it comes to football except maybe Cacau - they were taught football in Germany and that's what I think should matter the most. Also only Klose, Podolski, Trochowski, Marin and Cacau were born outside of Germany. The real mess is IMO in basketball. In Europe majority of national teams have "naturalized' Americans, most of them doesn't even speak language of the country for which they play.

:gift:

I don't want Jamal to start, but without him we have no one who can create a shot for himself. Can't tell if JC2 is good enough to play 20 mpg (if so he could start but get this amount of minutes, but I doubt it). Good point about rebounding - none of 4 guard we have under contract is even a decent rebounder, but Matthews' numbers don't impress me and Morrow played partially as SF in Nelly's crazy system. If Craw senior starts we definitely need a scorer off the bench but it doesn't have to be SG. Again, I like both players, I'm just saying we need to deal with JJ, JChill and get a serviceable big first IMO.

Wow, that's all I can say.

None of them is better than Jamal right now and young Crawford could be better than any of them in a couple of years. I'd rather go after Chill first.

posted before on wrong thread Joe is without a doubt one of the best SGs in the game. The strength of top 6-7 players on the team is what is taken into account when the team is evaluated. It means if the team loses one of top 3 guys and gets 2 decent ones it won't stay at the same level in general. Hawks certainly would be worse team without JJ but a lottery team? It depends on other factors - what would roster look like on 1st of Nov., what system LD will install, how young players develop, injuries during the season and, of course, strength of other teams in the East. It's too early to tell something about those factors at the beginning of the season and even more right now, but being borderline play offs team is quite possible but IMO Hawks would still be top 10 team and compete for 8-6 seed which is not what "lottery team" means.

I like them both too, but as it was said already a couple of times in other threads, we have other needs that should be addressed first.

Good guess, physh.

I think that JJ is seriously considering Miami and Wade tries to bring Bosh there too.