BigDirty

The Euroleague finals are in Istanbul this year so there is an arms race between the Istanbul clubs, combined with the financial troubles of the greek teams it makes Turkey one of the most likely destinations for the possible lockout players. But you also have to consider that the turkish sportsnewspapers write 99% crap so I wouldn't believe most of the rumours.

Abolish the salary cap but keep a luxury tax. Abolish trade restrictions along with Bird Right's and all those ad hoc elements. Strip the league into 12 team conferences, expand the playoffs into 9 teams. Those 6 teams that don't make the playoffs get relegated to the D-League and are replaced by the top 6 D-Leaguers.

I would love to see a relegation system, it would eliminate tanking, adds excitement for the fans of the worse teams (right now fans of the Cavs/Wizards/Raptors for example don't have a real reason to want their team to win, cause they already have almost no chance to make the playoffs, so they could care less if they win or not, they might even be happier if they lose, cause it increases their lottery chances) and gives D-League games a purpose (as it is now who cares if the Utah Flash become DL champ or finish dead last? Even the player developing aspect isn't really taking advantage of because many teams rather keep their prospects on the NBA bench instead of sending them to the D-League). But it'll probably never happen in US Sports, because owners of the relegated teams would lose a lot more money and I guess many fans don't want to see a NBA that might not have the Lakers, Celtics, Knicks, etc.

one more win basically secures Georgia a place in Eurobasket 2011, which is the Olympic qualifying tournament.

What? That was the first game of that group, each team plays 8 games and they have to finish first or be one of the best 2nd placed teams, so one more win will not secure anything. ;)

120 million, but can't afford some condoms... :slap1:

In the Greek league he leads his team in every stat.

What?!? That's not true at all, the only stat he lead his team in was points (16.3). [He does have more total blocks, rebounds & steals, but that's only because he played in more games than most of his teammates.]

By the way does anyone know why Chillz didn't play in the first greek semi-final game on Sunday? Is he injured or did they simply rest him because Marousi is such a bad team?

Anyone have any info on how he has done in the last couple of years?

He played around 5 minutes per game the last two seasons for Dynamo Moscow.

Meh, it's not like the UFC has a great heavyweight division, the only UFC Fedor fight I would've wanted to see would be against Brock (hmm, maybe Brock will join Strikeforce when his contracts ends.......ok maybe not). I'd say the UFC HW division and the non-UFC HW division are pretty even.

Nope, sorry.

Hmm, I've never seen him play PG or had heard anybody describe him as a PG (except american "experts").

He's 6'6 by the way. ;)

I've read that he wants to train in the USA this summer instead of playing for the A2 team. It's also 100% certain that he'll leave Efes.

I've seen Akyol play in at least 30 games... He was probably the best prospect PG of his class in Europe!

He never played PG, he was always a SG/SF, are you sure you didn't watch Hakan Demirel? ;)

He's also not a good player and not a member of the national team anymore.

I have my own sim league which has been active since 2004. We've been using the Gary Gorski games (so we had to restart twice, I believe we had 4-5 seasons with the first game and then 6-7 seasons with the second game) and are currently using DDSPB (we're near the end of the regular season of our 5th DDSPB season). I have been the Hawks GM from the start and my biggest success was making the finals.

We also have a college league (the players go on to play in the pro league) which first used the Arlie Rahn game and then the Gorski games.

Right now we have 9 openings in the pro league: Nets, Cavaliers, Pistons, Heat, Grizzlies, Spurs, Warriors, Lakers & Suns (it's kinda hard to find new GMs because not many Germans know about these games and as always with online leagues many people just disappear after a few weeks/days)

Our site: http://www.eastside-sports.de/eastside/include.php

Our message board (almost everything happens on there): http://www.eastside-sports.de/wbb2/board.php?boardid=42

Speaking German is not a requirement to join, we're all able to speak English so that shouldn't be a problem.

So a healthy Smith will accept less playing time? Yeah we've seen how mature he is in the past. His shots would decrease too because Crawford, Teague & Andersen would take more shots than Flip & Law.

Woody will suddenly give Smith time at SF eventhough he got almost no SF time during the last two years?

A healthy (and hopefully further improved) Marvin will get less minutes?

How did Zaza react when Horford took his starting job? I'm sure he'll be super happy to lose even more time. He agreed here for 4/19, he could've easily gotten a similiar offer from another team.

With your fantasy land minutes you'd have at least two disgruntled front court players.

Bury Andersen on the bench if he struggles? Thanks for making my point, that's exactly why it doesn't make sense for him to sign here. Why would he take less money to walk into a situation that just might waste one year of his career, dude isn't 20 years old, either give him a big enough role or leave him in Spain.

What you always seem to forget with your minute breakdowns is that players have egos and Woody has proven time and time again that he'll play his starters heavy minutes and forget about the bench.

In fantasy land that minute breakdown might be possible, but there is ZERO chance that this would happen in reality. Smith most likely will not accept a reduced role. Zaza didn't sign here so he could play less than before, if you think he wasn't promised a certain amount of playing time you're kidding yourself. Andersen would get Acie minutes at first and considering that he'll most likely need some time to adjust to the league his minutes (he needed more than a month to adjust to the spanish league) would sink even more under the Woodster.

Well exodus you always liked D.J. Mbenga right? So what about Timofey Mozgov (7'1, 22 years old), Draft Express calls him the russian D.J. Mbenga: (article from March 2009)

We discussed Mozgov last year already in some depth, talking about an incredibly raw 7-footer with a WWF wrester’s body and intriguing athleticism for a player his size. No NBA team heeded the call, and despite being draft-eligible, Mozgov’s name was not called at Madison Square Garden theater, making him a free agent for all 30 NBA teams now.

It’s not hard to see what makes Mozgov unique on first glance. He is a true 7-footer who is built like a house, with long arms, and outstanding strength and athleticism. Imagine a bulkier Andris Biedrins, or a Russian version of D.J. Mbenga.

Mozgov is an extremely limited offensive player, who is mostly relegated to catching and finishing around the basket, and making his presence felt on the offensive glass. He is an absolute force as an offensive rebounder in fact, leading the EuroCup in that category per-minute. He loves to set bruising screens and then roll to the basket for an empathic alley-oop lob, and does a great job throwing his weight around in the paint and moving opposing centers around. His toughness and activity level are both top-notch, and help make up for some of the many shortcomings that he suffers from at this point.

Despite being a tremendous finisher around the basket, Mozgov possesses little in the ways of touch, post-moves, dribbling ability, footwork or any of the other skill-based attributes that most big men need in order to be effective at the highest level of competition. He’s not terribly coordinated, often looking like a bull in a china shop trying to execute advanced moves, thus being fairly turnover prone. While he gets to the free throw line at a solid rate, he only converts around 50% of his attempts, and is obviously incredibly limited when asked to do anything offensively outside of the paint. No one is going to confuse his passing ability or basketball IQ with that of Arvydas Sabonis anytime soon.

Defensively, Mozgov is a major presence, as he’s extremely difficult to post up on the block and has all the size, length and athleticism needed to swallow up opposing centers whole, and then grab the ensuing rebound for good measure. He blocks one shot for every 9 minutes he’s on the floor, and grabs a rebound every 3 minutes, which obviously makes him one of the more productive players you’ll find at his position in Europe. He brings very good intensity to this end of the floor, and has the added bonus of being agile enough to step out and hedge screens, showing very nice agility in the process. Mozgov still has a ways to go in terms of improving his fundamentals and all-around court awareness—he still makes too many rookie mistakes to be trusted by most top-level coaches. He’s also fairly foul prone and has a tendency to bite on pump-fakes, being a bit naïve as you might expect from a player with little experience.

All in all, Mozgov looks like a very interesting prospect that teams would do well to keep tabs on, as you just don’t find many players with his combination of size, strength, athleticism and intensity. Considering how much he’s improved over the past year, and the fact that he’s only 22 years old, there is no telling where he’ll be in a few years, as he’s obviously a late-bloomer who is only getting better by the day.

He played ~16 minutes per game for the second best russian team last season and was one of the league's top shot blockers. I haven't seen him play, so I can't judge if he is any good or if he has any potential.

EDIT:

The Eurobasket staff voted him in the russian league all-defensive team AND the EuroCup all-defensive team.

Seems like he actually leaves the ground when he dunks. ;)

So Andersen is the bad guy now because he wants to actually EARN the money he'd get? He just doesn't want to walk in the same situation like other not so young Euros like Kutluay & Macijauskas, if he can't get 15-25 minutes it would just waste his and the team's time. Now that Zaza is re-signed it's just very unlikely, that he can get those minutes, cause the guard minutes will be completely eaten up by Bibby/Teague/Crawford/JJ/Flip???, SF minutes will be used by JJ/Evans/Marvin(hopefully), so that leaves 96 minutes, Smith and Horford will get around 35 each, now we have 26 minutes left, the Hawks didn't pay Zaza to sit around (and he wouldn't have signed if he wasn't promised regular playing time), so he'll get at least 15, which means Acie Law minutes for Andersen. Of course it would be nice for the Hawks to have additional depth, but I believe Andersen would've left anyway after a year with so few minutes.

Good deal.

Akyol, 6-6 SG-SF, he can dribble, penetrates very often, draws fouls, shoots very well and is a pesky defender. would be a great back up SF for us.

No, he would not be a great back up for us, unless we play against Selcuk University 82 times a year, then he would be ok.

It's not negativity, but another international pick who is not likely to play for years..

It's a stark truth...

So we should rather draft a college guy in the 2nd round of a weak draft, where even 1st round college guys might not contribute much, and then cut him during training camp because he wouldn't help us (or let him sit on the end of the bench for 2 years and then cut him)? In a weak draft it's always the right choice to gamble on a international prospect that we can park overseas.

He played for a bad ukrainian team, but at least got a honorable mention from the eurobasket guys when it came to all-league teams awards.

I would've liked Savas, De Colo or Mills better as far as prospects than we can park overseas.

EDIT: Ha Dijon Thompson was the defensive player of the year in Ukraine according to the eurobasket guys. :laughing5:

The pick is from the Bobcats, not the Hornets, it is protected though.

Charlotte’s own 2010 1st round pick to Denver (top 12 protected in 2010, top 10 protected in 2011, top 8 protected in 2012, top 3 protected in 2013, and unprotected in the 2014 NBA Draft). [Charlotte-Denver, 6/25/2008]

There is no way Minny is taking a pg again

I guess Minny will make some trades.

Thank you kind sir.

Seems like Hollinger bases EVERYTHING on PER without looking at the situations these different players were in.

Could somebody with ESPN Insider post this article pretty please? :helpsmilie:

Nice work Diesel. :thumbsupsmileyanim: