In which case we say f it and post in one thread.

No chance. Houston will max salary, max years him the first chance they get.

Also, the non-TZ NBA threads in SE never generate good discussion, even when they have good OPs and a good topic. I'm really not trying to sound smug, but I just don't see it being very likely that some IrishHandesque poster is going to come out of nowhere and start contributing if we have two threads. Maybe John Hollinger might, I'm sure Bobbo has PMd him on APBR and asked him to enough times, but that'd be a longshot.

Check last year's MLB regular season thread and tell me how much in-game posting was done itt.

Not much, but there wasn't really much general discussion done in that thread either compared to this one. You can only argue about who reads fangraphs better in so many different ways.

could have to do with the fact that watching baseball on tv is really, really boring :P

Tell that to Greear and the Tigers thread.

really the only problem is the massive amount of OT discussion itt imo.

I do think TuT is right though, as much as outsiders call this a circle jerk, most of them don't realize how ****ty the discussion are in the threads they frequent. TZ has a good amount of deep content imo, and thats even after all the bitching.

You really don't think that there are smart, knowledgeable NBA fans on this site who just can't be bothered scrolling through 10 pages of ingame twittering and then 5 pages of early-morning OTing every day on the off chance that some quality NBA discussion has taken/is taking place?

The "f-em if they can't hack it" approach is basically just "f-em". Probably not the best approach if you're wanting better/broader basketball discussion. Don't get me wrong, I totally get that there are a dozen people for whom TZ is a Facebook/social substitute - I just think it's incredibly naive to think that doesn't raise the barriers to entry for the more casual poster.

No, I really don't. There's plenty of days where lengthy, high-level NBA discussion goes on for hours and hours and they would have seen that and had a chance to jump in. Through all the twittering and OTing, there are still more NBA posts than not itt. They would have made themselves known by now.

If they're out there and not posting, what makes you so sure they'd post in some new, super-boring thread?

But I'd be willing to guess that there are plenty of people like me, who have a growing interest in the NBA, and who have difficulty with the filtering aspect.

I have enjoyed trying to keep up with this thread, and have certainly been a contributor to some of the offtopic stuff (fantasy bball, crockpot goodness), but it's tough for me to grasp some of the more serious stuff when it's embedded in 100-200 ingame posts.

This seems like the best reason to try it. If its better thats great, if its worse we merge the threads and return to Zilla status.

Shawn Marion is out tomorrow with a strained oblique. fffffffffffuuuuu.

Guess this means Roddy starts again...

I don't know, it's never been hard for me to skip right past the in-game stuff and stop when I see discussion but I guess a more casual viewer might not bother with that. Not really a concern of mine. There are enough top-notch posters posting a ton. Don't really care if we get new people or not. I guess I'm just being a selfish prick in not wanting two threads, but I really just couldn't care.

Ubuntu!

Rondon, and no, she's white. Pretty tall and attractive, too. However, she walks with the grace of a penguin. It's really off-putting.

man, t lue's face in that pic is priceless

Did any non-Celtics fans know this guy Bill Walker existed? Apparently he was on the team last year... Bill Skywalker 2008-2009 Mix

every time i want to talk about something nba, i come to this thread, see off topic or in game stuff and say forget it. no biggie, just stating what has happened to me in the past. this might be my first post in this thread for this exact reason even after much lurking.

james

I'm as bad as anyone else with OT and in-game stuff, but I'm pretty sure if you just start NBAing in the thread you will get good responses.

EDIT: For example, it seems like a lot of times when I'll post some roster/salary/FA question IrishHand drops some knowledge

Actually the reasoning behind that change was very well laid out and was designed as a solution to a common complaint from SE posters at the time.

you guys go to the draft thread and pick a team for the mock draft

I use the ignore poster option pretty much because it's the only way I can follow this thread.

edit:
I'm not sure casual posters will post enough to warrant a change away from the social networking regulars enjoy in this thread. At least I don't think I would post much more.

Agree with both of these (well, the second is validation of the first really). I don't have a solution, yet - but do know that any attempt to change things too radically will lead to alienating a large percentage of the regulars, regardless of whether their objections are rational or just bitching. Largely because they have been given free rein to run amok to this point.

Heretofore I've agreed with the idea of users steering the discussion while getting more and newer people involved, but these two things seem increasingly at odds. It's too late to do anything about this now, but for next season it should definitely be considered that post whoring is to be discouraged lest this discussion continue to drift closer to a BBV4L LC thread than actual on-topic discussion. It's on pace to have 4X the posts of two years ago with nothing close to 4X the number of regulars or 4X the topical discussion. There has to be some sort of compromise.