BigDirty

Batista would be stupid if he re-signed with the Hawks. With the addition of Horford his chances for playing time are even worse than last season. He could get more playing time on another team or more money & fame in Europe. Plus he dislikes Woodson since he said that Batista has language problems.

Did you even look at the list? It's a list with current players, not the 500 best of alltime, and of course it's 100% useless.

France G Tony Parker (San Antonio Spurs) G Yohann Sangare (ASVEL) G Joseph Gomis (Valladolid) F Boris Diaw (Phoenix Suns) F Yakhouba Diawara (Denver Nuggets) F Tariq Kirksay (Kazan) F Cedric Ferchaud (Pau Orthez) F Florent Pietrus (Estudiantes) C Frederic Weis (Bilbao) C/F Ronny Turiaf (Los Angeles Lakers) F/C Pape Badiane (Roanne) G/F Sacha Giffa (Strasbourg) France are certainly a medal candidate. Their coach doesn't care about names and left players like Pietrus, Petro and Gelabale at home because he thinks that they don't fit the european style, we'll see if his plan works or if it would've better to nominate them. France's roster is well balanced, but I think they lack that go-to-guy who can take over the game when the rest is struggling. Slovenia G Sandi Cebular (no club) G Jaka Lakovic (FC Barcelona) G Aleksandar Capin (Varese) G Goran Dragic (TAU Ceramica) - #5 international '86 on draft express, #53 in 2008 mock C Rasho Nesterovic (Toronto Raptors) F Matjaz Smodis (CSKA) F/C Uros Slokar (Triumph) G Jaka Klobucar (Slovan) F Goran Jagodnik (Hemofarm) G/F Domen Lorbek (Estudiantes) C/F Gasper Vidmar (Fenerbahce) - #11 international '87 on draft express, #46 in 2009 mock F/C Erazem Lorbek (Lottomatica) Yeah, yeah, they have some nice players, but they always do and they always disappoint, so I think they will disappoint again, especially since they're missing some players. Czech Republic G Maurice Whitfield (Olimpiada) G Stepan Vrubl (Brno) F Jiri Welsch (Unicaja) G Pavel Benes (Nymburk) F Michal Kremen (Nymburk) F/G Lubos Barton (Joventut Badalona) F Ladislav Sokolovsky (Nymburk) F Radek Necas (Nymburk) F/C Petr Benda (Nymburk) F Lukas Kraus (Liberec) C Ondrej Starosta (Zaragoza) C Jakub Houska (Decin) They should be happy to be in the tournament. Maybe it helps that five players are playing on the same team, but I doubt it. The star is obviously ex-NBA player Jiri Welsch.

The European Championships start in a few days and I thought that I could already open a thread to start posting the final rosters so you guys know which NBA players are playing in this tournament. Germany PG Mithat Demirel (no club) C Patrick Femerling (ALBA Berlin) SG Robert Garrett (Bamberg) SG Demond Greene (Bamberg) PG Steffen Hamann (Bamberg) SF Guido Grünheid (Groningen) SG Johannes Herber (ALBA Berlin) PF Jan-Hendrik Jagla (Joventut Badalona) PF Dirk Nowitzki (Dallas Mavericks) PF Ademola Okulaja (Bamberg) PG Pascal Roller (Frankfurt) SF Sven Schultze (Udine) Not a very strong team, the PGs, SGs ans SFs don't have international quality and the big guys are getting older. So like every tournament everything will completely be on the shoulders of Nowitzki, if he plays average this team will exit early, if he plays MVP like then they might get a medal. By the way I hate Dirk Bauermann, the german coach, he's using the national team more for trying out players for his club Bamberg that building a good team. Serbia G Milos Teodosic (Zeleznik) - #12 international '87 on draft express G Branko Cvetkovic (Girona) G Vuk Radivojevic (Fuenlabrada) C/F Dragan Labovic (Zeleznik) - #17 international '87 on draft express G Marko Jaric (Minnesota Timberwolves) C Darko Milicic (Memphis Grizzlies) C/F Nemanja Aleksandrov (Crvena Zvezda) - #2 international '87 on draft express, #27 in 2008 mock G Milenko Tepic (Partizan) - #4 international '87 on draft express, #42 in 2008 mock G Stefan Markovic (Hemofarm) - #15 international '88 on draft express F Novica Velickovic (Partizan) C/F Zoran Erceg (Zeleznik) F Milan Gurovic (Prokom) Serbia have been struggling the last few years and they're in rebuilding mode, but Hemofarm and Zeleznik are starting to produce many good players again, so Serbia could be real good again quite fast. Aleksandrov and Markovic have the biggest NBA potential in my eyes, but I would be lying if I said that I could make an accurate assessment of all the players. In my opinion Serbia is a dark horse candidate for a medal, they don't have the star power anymore, but they do have good, fresh, young talent. Poland G Lukasz Koszarek (Anwil) G Andrzej Pluta (Anwil) G Robert Skibniewski (Turow) G Iwo Kitzinger (Turow) F Filip Dylewicz (Prokom) F Przemyslaw Frasunkiewicz (Slupsk) F Radoslaw Hyzy (Slask) F Bartlomiej Woloszyn (Anwil) F Robert Witka (Turow) C Szymon Szewczyk (Rostov) C Adam Wojcik (no club) C Kamil Pietras (Olimpija) The only player I know is Szewczyk cause he played for ALBA Berlin a couple of years ago, I even think that he was drafted, don't remember by whom, maybe Seattle, anyway he was a german league backup in his prime. Considering that most of the other players play and Poland and not for the stronger teams, I guess they won't play a big role in this tournament. In strange news, polish PF Maciej Lampe, who played in the NBA, is said to be disappeared and he won't answer his phone. To my knowledge the other teams haven't announced their final rosters yet, but I'll post them as soon as I find them.

Zaza's not playing in the Olympics or the European Championship. He's trying to get his team promoted from Division B to Division A. His opponents right now are teams like Luxembourg, Cyprus, Iceland, I doubt he'll learn much in these games.

I know most of you guys won't care (and I'm not sure that I care about this tournament ) but maybe some of you are interested in the stats the NBA guys put up in this tourney. It's a six nation tournament with Turkey, Serbia, Poland, Latvia, Croatia and everybodies favourite China. Day 1: Poland-China 83-66 Sun Yue 1 pts, 2 reb, 1 ast Yi Jianlian 28 pts, 10 reb Wang Zhizhi 14 pts, 2 reb Turkey-Latvia 74-68 Engin Atsür 0 pts, 1 reb, 2 ast Ersan Ilyasova 0 pts, 1 ast Ibrahim Kutluay 12 pts, 2 reb Mehmet Okur 9 pts, 9 reb, 1 ast Hidayet Türkoglu 16 pts, 5 reb, 2 ast Cenk Akyol 0 pts, 1 reb Andris Biedrins 29 pts, 11 reb, 1 ast Day 2: China-Serbia 76-96 Sun Yue 12 pts, 1 reb, 2 ast Yi Jianlian 17 pts, 9 reb Wang Zhizhi 10 pts, 1 reb, 2 ast Mile Ilic 12 pts, 8 reb, 3 ast Marko Jaric 2 pts, 3 reb, 5 ast Darko Milicic 9 pts, 4 reb Nemanja Aleksandrov 13 pts, 1 reb, 1 ast Turkey-Croatia 60-72 Engin Atsür 2 reb, 4 ast Ersan Ilyasova 8 pts, 3 reb, 1 ast Ibrahim Kutluay 10 pts, 1 reb, 2 ast Mehmet Okur 10 pts, 5 reb Hidayet Türkoglu 5 pts, 2 reb Roko Leni Ukic 8 pts, 1 reb, 1 ast Marko Tomas 5 pts, 3 reb Zoran Planinic 13 pts, 3 reb, 6 ast Mario Kasun 14 pts, 8 reb, 1 ast

Damn, and we thought the Braves pitchers are stuggling.

Oooookay, you obviously think you and your "scouts" know more about european basketball talents than Europeans. By the way how many good players have the Hawks signed from Europe? That should tell you how good their international scouting is. They even promised to draft Nikagbatse (but then changed their opinion in the last minute to trade the pick to the Spurs) who isn't good at all and quite the headcase, every german basketball fan could have told you that, but those smart Hawks scouts wanted him. Maybe you could tell me where all the pre-draft hype for Akyol was when he's such a good talent? Oh right there wasn't any hype, everybody was just asking "who?" and those "scouts/experts" claimed that he was a PG eventhough he never played PG. You have to realise that "scouts/experts" will make things up about unknown drafted players so that they don't look dumb (because they didn't know the player) and then can brag if the player turns out to be good. Being drafted and playing for the national team doesn't mean anything. Peter Fehse was drafted in the 2nd round, NOBODY in Germany knew who he was, he played in the THIRD german league which is really really really bad, but because he was drafted everybody assumed he was talented and he even got some play in the national team without ever having played in the first league. As it turned out he wasn't a talent at all and continued his career in the second german league and now he's a 3rd stringer in the first league. So he was drafted, played in the national team, "scouts/experts" said he could be like Nowitzki, so he must have been one of the better talents in Europe.

Quote: Quote: So you think you know better than the scouts? How many times have you seen Cenk play? FYP No one disputes that Akyol had a disappointing season last year. That doesn't discount the fact that he still is one of the better young prospects in Europe. I seriously doubt that you're in a position to judge who are the better young prospects in Europe. Just because he was drafted and played in the national team doesn't make him one of the better talents in Europe, I could give you a looooooooooooong list of players that were drafted and/or played in the national team and never amounted to anything.

Erm, those raving turkish fans have actually seen Cenk play for some seasons while Grover has seen him in WORKOUTS, so I'd say the fans opinion is worth more. Also turkish people are VERY proud people, they wouldn't diss one of their own if he didn't suck. Cenk is also not a PG/SG tweener but a SG/SF tweener, he'll probably back up Kenny Gregory at the 3 spot this season. He averaged 4.2 pts and 1.5 reb in 11:40 minutes per game in the turkish league. In Euroleague games he played 3 minutes per game, yet some of you guys seem to think that he could come here and become a main backup immediately. I'm not saying that he can't be good in the future, but he has to prove that last season was only a result of personal problems and wrong tactics used by the coach. Oh I just found out that Turkey played against Latvia (with Biedrins) yesterday, Cenk was reportedly very bad and finished with 0 points and 1 rebound. You can watch the 3rd and 4th quarter here (I didn't watch it so I can't tell you which number he has): http://latvija.tv/watch.php?id=17042 http://latvija.tv/watch.php?id=17043

Ouch, Smoove and Speedy look really horrible in this diagram.

Quote: However, as the recent case of the wrestler shows (Benoit, I think is his name), steroids have a downside. Bad example, the things Benoit did took several days and were not an act of a sudden rage, Benoit's problems were a lot more complicated. A better example for the steroid mood swings would've been Steve Austin beating his wife (although I don't if roids were the main for this, cause afterall Austin also likes to drink a lot).

Whew, the Braves can thank Harris for the win today, they nearly blew it.

Quote: I should have included a smiley after my post. I wasn't really lauding Ben Johnson, just pointing out that he is looked down on by society for the same thing Barry Bonds has done. Hank doesn't owe him anything. Oops, sorry, you always make serious posts so I thought you were serious on this one too, my bad.

I totally disagree. Cheaters deserve no applause. Let's say you have to do a test for a job and you're the smartest one of all the candidates, but there is one guy who has a better test result because he cheated, you saw him cheating, but it's his word against yours and since you yourself can't prove it he gets the job, do you go over and shake his hand to congratulate him? Or let's say you played poker and it got a little bit out of hand, so that you bet everything you own and your opponent bet everything he owned, but he marked the cards before the game and you lose, another person tells you about the markings, do you go over to the winner and tell him "well, good game, I better start being more careful with my bets"? You only have to congratulate a cheater if you're a cheater yourself and he's simply better at cheating, you know like the Tour de France . So assuming Hank didn't cheat somehow I don't think his reactions are classless at all. Concerning Selig, he didn't do anything against it, so it be considered classless in his case.

Link Quote: by Dave Meltzer Adam "Pacman" Jones has either signed or is expected to sign a short-term deal with TNA according to Hope Hines of the WTVF, Ch. 5, news in Nashville. Hines said the signing was supposed to be kept secret until Jeff Jarrett returned on Tuesday from an international trip. We have independently confirmed that this story is correct. Jones was suspended by the NFL for his link to a Las Vegas shooting at a strip club over the NBA All-Star weekend that left former 1980s AWA pro wrestler Tom Urbanski, who was managing the club, paralyzed from the waist down. The negotiations with Jones are obviously an attempt for TNA to get mainstream publicity, even if the publicity won't be good, for the company. The timing of it, with pro wrestling's public image at an all-time low, will only reinforce the current reputation. Maybe Vick should become a wrestler too if he gets suspended.

I think it was when MLS restarted sometime in the 90s when they did have bigger goals and the shootouts. Good thing they changed it back, cause those things were quite silly in my opinion. But wait are you sure they didn't have shootouts after the year 1999? Cause I think when Matthäus played for the Metro Stars they still had them, but I could be wrong 100%. EDIT: Ok, I just found out that they abolished the shootout rule for the 2000 season (although I don't know if they mean after or before the 2000 season).

Quote: Differences that stands out are smaller courts, zone defenses (no restrictions), shorter 3-point line, jump ball alternate possession(very sissy)in my mind. You don't think these rules are made to keep weaker opponents more competitive? Erm, no, not at all, actually that sounds quite silly. The court size difference is minimal, 20 cm, that's 10 cm on both sides. Zone defense makes defense easier but only if the other team can't shoot, so how is that better for a weak team?!? Weak teams are usually weak cause they are not good on offense, so if the other team plays zone defense all the time it doesn't exactly help the weak team. When a team is fundamentally sound then it picks a zone apart like nothing. You could see exactly that during the USA-Serbia group game in the U19 WC a few weeks ago. USA led by 15 or so, then they switched to a zone and Serbia completely destroyed it and cut the lead to 3 or so in no time. International rules don't hurt good teams, they hurt teams that rely heavily on 1-2 star players and have no good team play. And are you sure that you're up to date with the rules? Cause I know that there are jump balls in international basketball (more than one time I've seen that a short player act injured so a bigger player can lineup for a jump ball ).

Actually the USA have changed soccer rules in their league. I don't know if all the rules are still active, but they did play with larger goals so there would be more scoring, they had/have some silly shootout when a match is a draw, I think they even had timeouts at one point. What are the basketball rules in Canada by the way? Do they play with international rules or with NBA rules?

Are you guys trying to be funny? The NBA & NCAA courts are 94x50 feet, the courts in the rest of the world are 92x49 feet, wow what a difference, totally keeps players from using their athleticism. The only other differences are the length (12 minute quarters - 10 minute quarters), the 3 point line (23'9 - 20'6), under FIBA rules you're allowed to touch the ball if it is above the cylinder and the traveling rules under FIBA rules are more like in the NCAA. And since every league in the world uses FIBA rules (except NBA & NCAA, but even they have different rules), surely the NBA should have to change the name of their game.

ALBA Berlin has signed ex-Hawk Dijon Thompson. Luke Schenscher has signed with german champion Brose Baskets Bamberg and Ed Nelson signed with Giessen 46ers. Right now it seems like there will be a tough fight for the crown between champion Bamberg and ALBA Berlin. ALBA: Goran Jeretin/?/Nicolai Simon Julius Jenkins/Johannes Herber Dijon Thompson/?/Philip Zwiener Goran Nikolic/Dragan Dojcin Patrick Femerling/(Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje?) Bamaberg: Steffen Hamann/Mark Dickel/Sajmen Hauer Desmond Greene/Robert Garrett Predrag Suput/? ?/Darren Fenn/Ivan Pavic Luke Schenscher/Chris Ensminger/Tim Ohlbrecht Bamberg lost two important starters (league MVP Casey Jacobsen and Vincent Yarbrough, they also didn't resign Sean Dockery, but he was disappointing anyway) so it shouldn't be easy for them to repeat, but they want to sign another good PF. ALBA has a new head coach, Luka Pavicevic) and is recontructing their team from an american style (last year they had 6 US players with William Avery, Sharrod Ford, Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje, Julius Jenkins, Koko Archibong and Chris Owens) to a traditional yugoslavian style.

Are those people like people that blamed the french for wrongly accusing a US rider for doping eventhough the french were to be proved absolutely right? The Duke Lacrosse was NOTHING like this case. In the Duke case you basically had a girl saying 'they raped me' and that was basically all the evidence. Here you have multiple people saying Vick was involved, you have Vick's house that was involved, you have dead dogs on Vick's property that were involved, etc., so there is actual evidence. But who knows maybe that evidence is all faked by the french who are jealous that they were never in the Conference finals.

It won't be that much harder for turkish players to develop, the rule is 3+2, that means they can have five foreigns and a maximum of three can be on the court at the same time. To give you an example from other european leagues, in Germany a team must have 2 german players in their game day roster, the other players can all be foreign and the german players don't even have to play, they just need to be on the bench. Most teams don't have a single german starter and there are more american players in the german league than there are german players. So compared to many other european league 3+2 is quite good for young players.

Braves choked big time tonight in the 9th, I hope they can still win, it's currently 4-4 in the top of th 13th with 1 out.

You're not making any sense AT ALL.