niremetal

Sure, if he's ok with taking the vet min and being the 7th or 8th man. Otherwise, no.Actually, even if he is 7th or 8th man, I'm not sure about him as long as LD is head coach.

So...you think NBA coaches assess opposing players using "empty stats and ESPN highlights". Kind of an odd argument, both because NBA head coaches are the group LEAST likely to decide things based on "stats and highlights" since they watch actual game tape, and because "empty stats and ESPN highlights" that sounds like exactly the sort of decisionmaking process that WOULD lead to Josh getting accolades. Josh's game looks great on the "shallow" level - looking at stat sheets and watching his spectacular blocks and dunks. It's once you actually watch him during the course of a full game that you start seeing how gaping the holes in his game are.

Taken as a whole, NBA head coaches are the most qualified set of people in the world to decide who the best players in the league are and who the best defenders are. It's the DPOY and MVP awards and All-Star starters voting that are a joke to me. The coaches see that Josh doesn't defend the ball well, and they see that both he and JJ take lots of defensive possessions off (yes, moreso than KG, even during the regular season). In any case, I don't think it's a snub, and I'll take the opinions of the head coaches over crunching stats any day.

Impregnated? How would that work? Something like this?

The All-NBA and All-Defense teams are chosen by NBA head coaches, not journalists.

Don't forget rating Conley above Nash and Rondo.

Pau Gasol is still one of the 2 or 3 best offensive big men in the game today. He can score anywhere inside the 3 point line, is one of the best rebounders in the game, and is a great free throw shooter for a big. His defense is passable - I actually would say he's a better on-ball defender than Josh, though by far worse in transition and on help. He has at least 2-3 years left of All-Star caliber play. Plug him into our lineup alongside Al and JJ and we become a serious contender.That said, no way the Lakers go for this deal. If they're trading Gasol, it's because they're rebuilding.

Wait...people still go to movie theaters?

This is all your opinion, and you're still being very condescending, talking as if you're some kind of expert on this subject. I don't think Conley is a top 5 (or even a top 10) PG in the NBA today. I rate Rose, CP3, Deron, Westbrook, Nash, Rubio, Parker, Rondo, Harris, Wall, Curry, and Irving (not in that order) ahead of him. I put him in the next tier of PGs - alongside solid starters like Calderon and Lawson. He's a good distributor, but not so good that it makes him elite in light of his (IMHO) mediocre on-ball defense and streaky shooting. I'd rate Teague in the tier right below that, comparable to guys like Felton and Holiday - starting-quality, but with obvious holes in their games.To me, that difference is marginal. The success or failure of replacing a guy in Teague's tier with one from Conley's tier will turn more on that player's "fit" than on that player's talent/skill. Put most PGs in Hollins' system, including Teague, and I bet you get around 6apg from him. Put them in a Nellieball system, and I think Teague would run circles around Conley. On the other hand, put any PG outside CP3/Deron/Rose/Westbrook/Nash in our ball-stoppers paradise, and I bet you get a PG who looks like he can't run anything.It all comes down to this: I just don't think Conley is an elite PG. You do. And I do think that if Teague played on a team where he actually got the opportunity to develop flow and rhythm, he'd prove himself to be a solid starter. You don't. I don't think Teague will ever be mistaken for Rose or CP3, but then again I don't Conley will either. I bet you'd agree with that.In any case, I don't think this team would become an instant contender if we simply swapped out Teague for Conley. The improvement would be (here's that word again) marginal.

When you keep accusing me of having "a complete lack of understanding" of basketball, it makes your "apology" seem rather hollow.I would argue that rating Mike Conley as the 5th best PG in the NBA is absurd. I would argue that hating on a guy who was among the 10 most efficient shooters among PGs in the league this year is absurd. And I certainly would argue that it's absurd to compare my statement "Conley is marginally better than Teague offensively" to saying "Aaron Brooks is better than Peyton Manning." And I bet I could find a lot of quality posters around here who would agree with me.Everyone knows you hate Teague and love Conley. But lots of people disagree with your assessment of both. The only thing that is "crazy talk" in this thread is your claims to know what NBA GMs think of the relative quality of players. We're fans. Not experts. Don't pretend otherwise.

I guess the whole "not saying anything personal" thing is over now?

This strikes me as kind of like with the talk in the past about getting a "real" center. Where is this mythical "real" point guard who is both better than Teague and worth the players and picks we'd have to give up to get him?Yes, we could have had Chris Paul or Deron Williams 7 years ago instead of Marvin. We didn't really have a shot at trading for them last year because, as much as people love to use Trade Checker to show how it would have been "possible," the simple truth is that we had nothing like the package of young talent and lottery picks that the Jazz extracted for Deron, nor the absurd package that the Hornets managed to get in exchange for Paul (if the NBA vetoed the Pau Gasol package, they would have laughed Josh Smith or Al Horford out of the room).Our only real trade assets are Horford and Josh. Assume we keep Horford. Who do we get for Josh? Conley? Please. He's marginally better than Teague offensively and worse defensively (unless you think letting yourself get backed down or burned 10 times a game is ok as long as you get 2.2spg). And Memphis probably wouldn't part with him in exchange for Josh anyway because they don't need frontcourt help; we'd have to make it a 3-way deal.Rubio and (as I said) CP3 are pipe dreams - their teams won't give them up. Same with Ty Lawson (who was, of course, taken 1 spot before Teague in the draft), at least considering the assets we have to offer. We don't have the cap space to sign Deron nor the assets (read: lottery picks and young talent) that the rebuilding Nets would demand in a S&T for him. Now could we get a PG who is a better fit for our talent than Teague? Maybe. But PnR PGs have long been a dying breed. We actually have one of the better ones already in Hinrich, which tells you how neglected a skill running the PnR has become among young PGs. Most of the best PGs in the PnR department today aside from CP3 and Deron are aging veterans like Andre Miller and Nash. Our best bet? A guy like Ramon Sessions. And I don't see him as a game-changer.I know you hate Teague like cats hate water, but there's no plausible route to getting a significant upgrade over Teague this summer, nor has there been in the past 2 summers.(And besides, I've always been of the opinion that the importance of PG is way, way overblown in the modern NBA)

This.This actually makes sense if they're planning to blow the team up and start from scratch this summer. Al will respond to him and the young guns may tune in where Josh and JJ tune him out. We wouldn't be getting a decent coach with a rebuilding team anyway.If the front office is just planning on making another run with the current group, though, then keeping him is just another piece in the krazy puzzle.

How Johansson couldn't do it for any heterosexual male is way, way beyond me

I would call it crazy if he uses that as an excuse not to shake up the core (i.e. bye-bye Josh and/or Joe). But he's absolutely right about the team being hurt, not getting calls, and not getting credit/love from the league. I mean, how many times did we see that 20-second "you better hope you're right" Celtics commercial in that series?

I heard he had cancer a year or so ago, but I didn't realize it was life-threatening. I guess I should have figured it was bad after they cancelled the tour for their last studio album because of his illness. Here's a great article with the thoughts of Reverend Run and DMC - the MCs of the other pioneering hip hop trio of the 80's - on Adam both as a person and as an artist: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1684546/adam-yauch-mca-beastie-boys-run-dmc.jhtml

An ESPN article that doesn't write the Hawks off at the drop of a hat? Jackie will be fired tomorrow.

He also didn't play defense. JJ did.

The problem is that Josh's part of his game that we "just have to deal with" unquestionably hurts the team. Kobe being a ballhog is a pretty damned good mindset for him to have 95% of the time because is arguably the hardest player to defend 1-on-1 in NBA history other than the MJs. He is one of the best ever at going solo, so him going solo isn't a bad strategy.Josh isn't Kobe. Josh is not one of the best jumpshooters of all time. He isn't even one of the best jumpshooters on his team. If he cut out that part of his game, he'd have made 5-straight All-NBA teams by now, and would have been a MVP candidate this year (think of it this way - 5 fewer jumpers probably would translate to ~1.5 more ORBs per game).So no, we shouldn't just have to live with it. It's an easily correctible flaw that he downright refuses to fix. This year, I prefer Josh-with-flaws to no Josh at all. But frankly, not by much. And really, the only reason we have to make that choice is that Josh is being a stubborn ass about that part of his game. So it's not even a choice we should have to make.

I was thinking the same thing.

They both played great D tonight. People often forget that in the playoffs, the best players finally start giving a decent effort at the other end. Tonight, it showed.I'm especially impressed with JJ. Pierce can't do his "draw ticky-tack fouls" routine on him. He actually has to, you know, play basketball. And frankly, Pierce is past the point where he can get 30 points unless he gets to the line a bunch. Hopefully JJ and Marvin can keep him under wraps the rest of the way. With a gimpy Allen, that might be all the Hawks need to win the series.

No. We would have won 49.69696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969696969... games.Geez, get it right.

Yes, it is, unless they changed the rule since last year.