supermariowest

The past four years = making a run at a championship. If we don't trade Josh, consider three possible scenarios:1. Josh demands a max contract, pricing himself out of Atlanta. (Will he get it somewhere else? That's another conversation.)2. Josh decides he doesn't want to play in Atlanta and signs elsewhere.3. Josh softens his stance on the max contract and signs a reasonable contract with the Hawks.I think the general feeling is that the third option represents the most unlikely scenario. In other words, it doesn't really look like Josh will be on the team next season. Because of this, trading Josh for some combination of young players, draft picks, and miscellaneous "pieces u can't even get to the playoffs with" would be a very reasonable thing to do. Nobody here is arguing on behalf of constant losing.

Same here, I think turning an expiring Josh into Larry Sanders would be a pretty good deal. I don't see why the Bucks would do that, but I like it.

12% would be a pretty large margin of error.But I agree with your larger point: assuming a 23 game sample is large enough (and I don't think this is true), this result would still not be statistically significant. The sample size would have to be around 50 for the difference to be statistically significant.A kind note to the reader: Not that it's terribly hard to run a quick significance test, but I do have a degree in Statistics.

What would the Wizards offer?

I don't know much about Daniel Orton, but it looks like Portland would (basically) be trading Miller/Camby for Nelson. As Portland's GM, would you do this?

Take it easy. I said I can see good arguments on both sides -- in no way did I overreact. On one hand: Teague played a great series against the Bulls. Our offense seemed to be at its best when Teague was involved. For the most part, he played solid defense against the league's MVP. Further, our captain-trio-experiment did us no good. And what better vote of confidence could we give to the young point guard? On the other: Though he played a great series, Teague did not do much else the rest of the year. We don't even know for sure that he will start next year.

Is it too early to make Teague the captain? I can see good arguments on either side.

Looking forward to watching Captain Kirk in action, he must be glad to be playing with a playoff caliber team again.

I always thought we were better than the Melo-Nuggets, and I am pretty sure that the Melo-Nuggets were a better team than this Melo-Knicks team is. The story may change if/when they get Chris Paul, but I am fairly confident that we would beat them in a seven game series. On a side note, did anybody watch the Nuggets/Celtics game last night? I like this Nuggets team a lot, their second unit is probably good enough to beat a handful of NBA teams.

Is it possible that Joe really doesn't see this?

Would it be wrong of Joe to say: I think we need to make a move. -- ? You may disagree, but I do not think it would be wrong. In fact, I would love to hear him say that.

My favorite part: "...changing some players here or there..." That's just laughable. It's like he's not sure. Anyway, I think the prevailing line of thought is that we very much do need to make a move, else we'll be ousted in the second (or first) round of the playoffs again. I find it hard to believe that Joe disagrees.

This would be more appropriate if Billy King and Billy Knight were the same person.

Analysts and executives and NBA fanatics will be analyzing this move for years and years. I think the only way Lebron can be justified is by winning five or six championships in a row -- and I'm not being sarcastic. If Lebron is wearing rings on both hands six years from now, then perhaps this move was the right one. It's hard to win that trophy, and it is even harder to win it five times in a row, no matter how many superstars are on your team. If these three don't do big, huge, gigantic things, Lebron's legacy will not be that of a leader and a winner.

Very admirable indeed. It's easy to like kids like this -- hopefully he does well.

At this point, I'd say Chicago with Joe is closer to a championship than Atlanta with Joe. Everybody says that Atlanta is missing a PG and a true center. As you said, Chicago has rising stars at both. I think I'd trade any two players on our roster for Rose and Noah. Plus, Gibson, Deng, and Hinrich are all pretty good players. I hope Joe decides to stay here, but the Bulls with Joe would be fun to watch. (It is, of course, my opinion that they are fun to watch even without Joe.)