Line is down to Jazz+9 fwiw. And, I think the Heat win this one by double digits. Such a bad line.

Really no clue why teams arent gushing over to sign Dampier

Well, Joel Anthony has a 3.9 USG rate, so they're basically playing 4on5, which is how/why they have 2 guys in the top 5 of usage.

anthony and arroyo really are worthless on that team.

There's a really significant gap between arroyo-wade-james-bosh-anthony and wade-miller-james-bosh-anyaveragebigman. If I'm a heat fan I'd rather they just start haslem.

Joel really does have potential though I wanna still play him 20 min a game.. Could be great defensive and over all average starting center for his career

Arroyo is a joke and should be cut ... Give chalmers some minutes...

eh, anthony provides some tangible contributions as a shot blocker and on the (offensive) glass. but yeah arroyo doesn't seem to add muchthat they can't get from james or wade


edit: anthony sucks really badly on the defensive glass, so idk that he can ever be a "great" defender

re: Dampier, I think he's still in the stage of "I've agreed to sign with you, you just need to cut someone so we can make it official". And then all their PGs went down so they couldn't cut Ish Smith, saw a rumor somewhere that they are trying to trade Jermaine Taylor for a rack of basketball and a case of deodorant to clear the space now.

no chance. Aside from the shot blocking he's not really very good defensively as he's slow and undersized.

i lol'd pretty hard at this

Jermaine Taylor not really worth more then a rack of basketballs, is the problem

Yeah, when they're all out on the floor together Wade still seems to be taking tons of shots. Then he and Bosh ship off to the bench so its LBJ and the Special Olympics out there, where he understandably shoulders a ton of the load.

It cracked me up watching the Hornets/Heat in person. The second units would come in and ours is obviously not great. Theirs wasn't either, except for ****ing LBJ running the point. It's just a little ridiculous.

He isn't too undersized ... He can jump and is def quick for a big... He jus looks like he's never played basketball ever on offense

i was thinking that the iverson melo combo woulda been similar but not really. iverson was 27.1 and melo 33.4.

shaq and kobe were each at 31.6 and 31.8% usage in 2000-2001, putting them at 4th and 3rd in the league, respectively, for the season. pretty ridiculous.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/.../NBA_2001.html

Isn't the Jazz-Heat game in Miami? And aren't the Jazz annually mediocre at best on the road? There's no way I bet on Jazz covering, although I'd love to see Jazz crush, so I wouldn't bet personally

Wow didn't realize the Bulls beat Denver last night, biggest win of their early season by far. Noah is truly out of control on the boards this season, I don't think anyone predicted he'd be this beastly.

lol @ Jason Kidd with a classic Jason Kidd line

0 points, 10 assists, 3 turnovers on 0-5

Someone explain usage to me again?

lol @ joel anthony being an effective NBA starter, he's already been in the league for like 5 years and he's amounted to nothing.

I know lol sample size, but anyone who doesn't think Steve Nash is still the second best point guard in the league needs to go watch the 1st quarter of mem/phx from last night. He had 3 sick passes, here's one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HttBfQYAEYI

OH WHAT A ****ING SURPRISE THE ****** LAKER HATER MORON ****ING IDIOT PUTS MIAMI FIRST WITH A 5-2 RECORD AN DLAKERS SECOND WITH 7-0 CRUSHINTG EVERYYBODY AND HIGHEST +?_ - IN THE LEAGUE
ARE YOU ****ING KIDDING ME STUPID ****ING HOLLINGER WTF IS WRONG WTIHY OUR STUPID ASS BRAIN!?

Eahc team adds darft picks to the suns

http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMa...radeId=25e3p5v

If the suns struggle something like this around the deadline ???

When adjusting for strength of schedule heat have best +-

I want to make this clear: I am not trolling with this statement. Some may think I am, but I am not. 100% honesty below...

I was talking w/ GKA about Steve Nash yesterday. I made this statment: "Steve Nash is the greatest offensive player to ever play in the NBA".

I don't think it's untrue. I'm not saying he's the greatest player; that belongs to Jordan, Shaq, Wilt, LeBron, or whomever. Nash is, at best, slightly below average on defense while all those others are mildly positive to hugely positive. I don't even think his MVPs are deserved; at no point in his career has he been the greatest player in a single season.

That said, he's a surefire HoFer, and a very deserving one at that. He's greater then Stockton. Magic is unique and possibly not a PG; depending on how you view bulk accolades (AIDS, imo) Nash has a legit claim to being the greatest PG to ever play the game.

I don't want to get too off into "super secret stats" (I'm not even banking on KBFC here; I only have a vague idea of what his stats say for last/this year, since I haven't done any recent searches, and his stats don't go back any further then that) but in terms of RAPM, team wide statistics and his MPG, his non-hometeam assist bias (Phoenix hates giving people assists), and so on, I think it's a pretty fair argument that he truly makes teammates better on the offensive end. When broken down into the 4 factors, his insane ~+10 OAPM (slightly higher then LBJ, for the record, and keep in mind he's PAST his prime!) was largely related to the fact he was one of only several guys who posted a statistically significant ability to raise teammates' TS. And it wasn't just a slight increase; his effect was something like +2.5. No one else was even half that, with only select few elite players (LBJ, CP3, for example) being > 1.

Anyway, didn't want to rant and rave too much. But I love Steve Nash, and it's a shame he never played with a legit top 10 player in his entire career. His lack of rings will not fall on his shoulders; Stockton had Malone, Kevin Johnson had Barkley, etc etc. Nash has had only himself, and he turned marginal players into superstars. GOAT.

So the suns add 2 ****** draft picks (expectation ~25 and ~27) for expirings, all the while shipping out a MVP and a useful rotation player?

Magic add a backup center who is even more highly paid then Marcin Gortat, lose their wing creator, all to get back the guy that they REFUSED to pay that contract to initially (remember, they could've had him for that amount; it was a S&T and they said helllll no). Oh, they also chip in one of their primary wing stoppers and their draft pick this year.

Hornets take on salary (they dont mind having Peja expire FOR THEM), major downgrade at the C position, just to essentially buttress their 6th man support? (Peja and Willie Greens mins to VC, assuming you can still juggle Ariza, Belineli, and Buckets) Oh, in case CP3 gets injured and they miss the playoffs again, their lotto pick is gone too.

I think this is one of those trades all 3 teams would say "uh, no".

Who gives a crap, everybody in theri right mind knows LA is playing the best basketball right now, yet Miami is like 4 points ahead of LA on Hollinger's dumbass formula ranking garbage. I initially forgot it was his formula based rankings, I thought it was just his personal rankings, but I'm still annoyed. He's such a **** up.