NBA Discussion Thread

[Shaun Tait]

Was that a serious comment?

Nope wasnt meant to be

 

[sohum]

Lakers lost the one useful guard they had left on the bench (Shannon Brown). They're looking to trade Sasha Vujacic so that leaves their bench even barer than it was before. I guess Steve Blake is going to be playing a lot of minutes as both their rookies are forwards.

 

[nightprowler10]

Ill be betting the farm on the Heat to win it.

You'll lose your lot then. The Lakers have made some serious moves just to take the Heat down a notch, and even without those moves LA will beat Miami with their size (that beanpole that followed James to Miami can't be taken seriously). And the Lakers aren't the only ones who have made such moves. I'm actually really excited about the upcoming season as I believe Chicago has made some great moves and signed some good role players for dirt cheap.

A starting lineup of

Noah
Boozer
Deng
Ronnie Brewer
Rose

with a deep bench of

CJ Watson
Korver
Gibson
J Johnson
Omer Asik
Kurt Thomas

so far, I'd say we're a top four team in the East, at least on paper. The weakest link is Johnson, who doesn't seem to be improving his game much offensively so he should probably be traded for another wing shooter (we can always use Brewer on 2/3). I know the front office is really into Rudy Fernandez but he might be too expensive.

I am particularly excited about Thibs as our new coach. They've built a team specifically for him and around Rose, which really excites me as he's one of my favorite athletes from all sports and its nice to see the ownership treating him with a lot of respect.

 

[Shaun Tait]

I am so happy that Rose has a very good partner in Boozer

LeBron, Rose and Boozer wow would have been ace but the Bulls are on the way back probably no were near MJ but they should be able to win a championship

 

[sohum]

Bulls won't win the championship, at least not this year. In fact, they're going to have a hard time even getting to the East Finals with Orlando and Boston still rugged and Miami the new superteam. They'll play well but if they win the championship, it would be a major underdog story.

The Lakers' moves have been interesting but their rotation is going to be very tight, which means that they may be tired going into the playoffs. Furthermore, Kobe has looked more prone to injury and without a solid rotation behind him, he's going to have to clock more minutes. Let's look at their depth:

PG: Fisher, Blake
SG: Kobe, Barnes Shannon Brown, Vujacic
C: Bynum, Ratliff, Mbenga
PF: Gasol, Caracter
SF: Artest, Odom, Ebanks, Morrison, Walton

The scorers they have are Kobe, Gasol and Odom. Barnes is more of a defensive specialist. Not sure about the rookies. But their bench isn't balanced at all. This is assuming they lose Shannon Brown and Vujacic, as the rumours have been suggesting. If I was Mitch Kupchak I would be looking to retain Brown as badly as possible. I think this will be a breakout year for him.

Don't forget Kobe had surgery earlier this summer and Bynum just had surgery, either!

To finish off, I'll look at the balance of the Rockets rotation once again.

PG: Brooks, Lowry
SG: Martin, Taylor
C: Yao, Brad Miller, Chuck Hayes
PF: Scola, Jordan Hill, Patterson, Jeffries
SF: Ariza, Battier, Budinger, Harris

We get away with a short rotation at the SG position since Adelman frequently plays small line-ups (Brooks and Lowry at the same time, for example). Of course, he may run things a bit differently now that Yao can't scamper down the court.

Anyways, I don't expect the Rockets to win anything, but on paper they should do a lot better than in previous seasons.

 

[pcfan123]

Can't do worse than the Stros

 

[sohum]

Sorry, don't watch baseball. I don't think I've watched a single full game of baseball in my life. In fact, if you add up all the baseball innings' I have watched, I don't think they add up to a full game, either.

 

[pcfan123]

Shame, as a cricket fan you would surely appreciate many aspects of baseball. Perhaps one day

 

[nightprowler10]

I watched baseball and followed the White Sox for a few years, even went to a few games at the US Cellular Field. Hell, I even remember trying to convince Sohum that baseball wasn't all bad all those years ago. After a while though, the interest just faded away for me and I started finding the sport inherently boring and simple. The fact that its 162 games a year didn't help (FTR I feel the NBA season is too long as well). Despite that, I do keep up with the results now and then as I take pleasure in knowing that the Cubs will never win a World Series in my lifetime, or my children's, or my children's children's...

My loss of interest did coincide with my renewed passion for Test cricket though, so there might be something there.

 

[sohum]

Shame, as a cricket fan you would surely appreciate many aspects of baseball. Perhaps one day

I've tried watching it but it bores me out of my skull.

Rice would've been as good a place to get into it as any (given that we could take beers and watch the game at the hill next to the stadium that just happened to give a great view of the game and our team was actually good) but it's the one sport where nothing is happening for too long to make it interesting for me. Kinda like golf.

 

[sohum]

NBA schedule was announced yesterday.

Rockets-Lakers and Celtics-Heat opening night (although those games had been announced a while back). Rockets have a relatively easy schedule this year.

 

[nightprowler10]

Bulls playing on Christmas for the first time since the Jordan years.

 

[pcfan123]

Regular season games in London too

 

[SciD]

NBA schedule was announced yesterday.

Rockets-Lakers and Celtics-Heat opening night (although those games had been announced a while back). Rockets have a relatively easy schedule this year.

With Shaq in line up now I don't think Celtics will find hard to beat Heat.

 

[sohum]

Shaq is hardly as dominating as he used to be. In fact, he's been not very special for a while. Last season were his lowest career numbers in PPG and RPG. The only reason he's been brought in is because Perkins is injured and Glen Davis is still fresh and could benefit from Shaq's experience. And of course to sell tickets, although the TD Garden doesn't really need Shaq to do that.