Author Topic: Official NBA Thread (Read 650439 times)

RatBastich · « **Reply #1820 on:** September 30, 2007, 05:09:42 PM »

Unlike the Olympic qualifying tournament Team USA just won, in which the starry hosts saw few familiar faces and even less competition, Eurobasket 2007 is teeming with tough teams and famous names.

RatBastich · « **Reply #1821 on:** September 30, 2007, 10:05:41 PM »

MINNEAPOLIS -- Juwan Howard couldn't have been happier when the Minnesota Timberwolves acquired him in a trade with Houston earlier this summer.

The veteran forward was finally going to get the chance to play with Kevin Garnett, about four years after Howard said he made a mistake by not signing with the Timberwolves as a free agent.

RatBastich · « **Reply #1822 on:** October 02, 2007, 04:10:06 AM »

The NBA and its public have never endured a more depressing summer. Never, ever. Tim Donaghy, Eddie Griffin, Greg Oden, Seattle and its Sonics, Isiah Thomas and the Knicks in court ... it's too often been horribly bad or sad news.

Yet it's time to move on -- or at least try -- and this is the best first step we've got. The return, after an absence of 167 days, of your beloved NBA Power Rankings.

RatBastich · « **Reply #1823 on:** October 02, 2007, 05:27:57 PM »

PHOENIX -- Suns forward Amare Stoudemire will undergo minor arthroscopic knee surgery on Tuesday but is expected to be sidelined only two to three weeks.

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NEW YORK -- A jury decided Tuesday that New York Knicks coach Isiah Thomas sexually harassed a former top team executive, subjecting her to unwanted advances and a barrage of verbal insults, but also said he does not have to pay punitive damages.

RatBastich · « **Reply #1824 on:** October 04, 2007, 02:14:18 AM »

HONOLULU -- Los Angeles Lakers center Kwame Brown, charged with disorderly conduct and interfering with a police officer after his cousin was charged with drunken driving last weekend, claimed Wednesday it was simply a misunderstanding.

"The truth will come out like it always does," Brown said after the Lakers' second day of practice at their training camp. "I can't go into any case that's open."

jlk · « **Reply #1825 on:** October 04, 2007, 05:26:13 PM »

Quote from: L-san on October 02, 2007, 04:10:06 AM

The NBA and its public have never endured a more depressing summer. Never, ever. Tim Donaghy, Eddie Griffin, Greg Oden, Seattle and its Sonics, Isiah Thomas and the Knicks in court ... it's too often been horribly bad or sad news.

Yet it's time to move on -- or at least try -- and this is the best first step we've got. The return, after an absence of 167 days, of your beloved NBA Power Rankings.

you forgot to mention Kobe acting like a spoiled brat which set off a chain of spoiled brat performances by andrei kirilenko, and shawn marion. These players get paid millions of cash and yet they complain like they're playing for free.

and don't forget, elton brand's injury takes him out for over half the season.

RatBastich · « **Reply #1826 on:** October 04, 2007, 07:42:42 PM »

HONOLULU -- Maybe it's the general tropical nuttiness that is Waikiki, where the Lakers are staying. Or maybe it's holding the first two days of training camp at a high school, conjuring up the time in everyone's life when anything seemed possible. (Heightened by the fact that the school, Iolani, considers anything less than four state championships in a year as a major disappointment, based on the wall banners.) Or maybe the Lakers have just decided to take a page out of Stuart Smalley's book and eliminate their many shortcomings with blammer rays of positive thinking.

RatBastich · « **Reply #1827 on:** October 07, 2007, 01:37:39 AM »

MIAMI -- As was the case a year ago, the Miami Heat are more focused on their recent past than they are on their future.

Last October, they were fat and happy, and it carried over into a season of complacency.

This October, for a change, they're slimmer and grumpier, hoping their mutual sense of self-disgust can fuel a resurgence back into the NBA's elite.

RatBastich · « **Reply #1828 on:** October 07, 2007, 09:56:23 PM »

ROME -- The Boston Celtics' Kevin Garnett era began 4,000 miles from home Saturday, in a fashionable green, white and red-emblazoned uni and an unfamiliar introduction from a Roman announcer.

"Numero cinque, Kevin Garnett."

RatBastich · « **Reply #1829 on:** October 08, 2007, 10:39:07 PM »

LAIE, Hawaii -- Skepticism that the Golden State Warriors can sustain the crazy ride they took us all on last spring is natural. Can a single human being, much less an entire team, survive that many emotional jags over seven months? It would defy conventional NBA thinking, which is that high emotions are the shoals upon which seasons are dashed. After all, they barely survived three weeks of it, considering the broken bodies and ejection-earning outbursts produced in mad-dogging Dallas before fitfully succumbing to Utah's pounding.

RatBastich · « **Reply #1830 on:** October 11, 2007, 01:06:37 AM »

LONDON (AP) -- Somebody forgot to tell Ray Allen that the Celtics are Kevin Garnett's team.

Allen scored 28 points Wednesday night to lead the Celtics to a 92-81 preseason win over the Minnesota Timberwolves in Garnett's first game against his former team.

Pre-season underway and the regular season just around the corner.

RatBastich · « **Reply #1831 on:** October 11, 2007, 09:11:44 PM »

Months after Kobe Bryant demanded a trade, Lakers owner Jerry Buss openly talked about the possibility of dealing his star player this past offseason or even before February's trade deadline.

A trade might now be a possibility for Kobe.

RatBastich · « **Reply #1832 on:** October 12, 2007, 07:48:30 PM »

INDEPENDENCE, Ohio -- It's late afternoon in the Cavaliers' cavernous new practice facility in suburban Cleveland. A training camp workout has been over for an hour and just one player is left on the courts, the swishes of his makes and the occasional loud curse when he misses several in a row echoing off the walls.

RatBastich · « **Reply #1833 on:** October 13, 2007, 07:38:36 PM »

CLEVELAND (AP) -- P.J. Carlesimo earned his first win as SuperSonics' coach, 96-90 over the Cleveland Cavaliers in an exhibition game Friday night.

Cavs All-Star forward LeBron James was forced out of action in the third quarter because of a right shoulder contusion. The injury doesn't appear to be serious. He had 14 points for the Cavs.

RatBastich · « **Reply #1834 on:** October 16, 2007, 12:57:34 AM »

Last week brought us a new chapter in the Kobe Bryant saga, with Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss saying he's open to trading his superstar.

To assess where things stand now, we brought five of ESPN's top NBA reporters together:

RatBastich · « **Reply #1835 on:** October 16, 2007, 04:43:13 PM »

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- Kobe Bryant sat out practice for the second straight day Monday because of a sore knee, and said he didn't know if he'd play in the Los Angeles Lakers' next exhibition game.

The Lakers face the Seattle SuperSonics on Thursday night in Bakersfield -- the first of six exhibition games in nine days.

RatBastich · « **Reply #1836 on:** October 17, 2007, 04:43:35 PM »

After the latest wild spin on the Kobe Coaster, another 24-hour scramble of disorienting turns and steep drops with No. 24, things were actually pretty clear at the end of the ride.

So clear that the end of the Kobe Bryant era in Lakerland has never seemed closer.

daigong · « **Reply #1837 on:** October 18, 2007, 06:37:15 PM »

What up. Long time no check in the NBA Thread

(ROFL L-San you're banned for ten-tuple posting, keep up the good work

)

Don't forget guys...

Yahoo Fantasy BASKETBALL 2007!! JPHiPBA

Go here: http://basketball.fantasysports.yahoo.com

League ID: 84645
Password: rika

Using online live draft.

Custom League URL: http://basketball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/league/jphipba

PRIZES TO BE WON!! Like "Shaq's Big Challenge" DVD Box Set!

Those Euro games went well, eh? Look at dem Raptors tear shit up!! No doubt. KG-Ray Allen-Paul Pierce look good, I think?

...and well Kobe as a Laker. Good times *sniff* But that saying - Kobe and Shaq are my fave players EVAR (along with Magic Johnson) ... but at the end of the day, I wear the Laker logo on my chest. Jerry Buss pulled a FASSSSSSSST one on Phil and Kobe, that's for sure. They didn't see THAT coming. but it all seems like another episode of "As the Lakers Turn"

LAKERS TILL I DIE!!

RatBastich · « **Reply #1838 on:** October 18, 2007, 06:45:00 PM »

The Texas Triangle just might be tougher this coming season.

It's not what Manu Ginobili was going for, because giving new nicknames to teammates to entertain the media is not exactly standard practice for the San Antonio Spurs, but Ginobili unintentionally tagged Tim Duncan with a pretty good one during the 2007 playoffs:

The Big Sense of Tranquility.

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Let's make the safe assumption here. Let's operate under the conservative premise suggesting that the Dallas Mavericks, despite Kobe Bryant's increasing desire to join them, are not going to be able to make the ultimate change and swing a trade for the game's most fearsome individual talent.

So what happens if they can't come close to getting Kobe?

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It seems rather premature, some three weeks into the preseason, to be talking about any sort of Rick Adelman Effect in Houston.

Or does it?

The Rockets would debate you hard on that one, given their vivid recollections of how last season started. That was when Tracy McGrady made the very early -- and very unsettling -- disclosure that he was thinking about retiring when his current contract expires to try a sport that doesn't tax the body like basketball does. Baseball, namely.

RatBastich · « **Reply #1839 on:** October 19, 2007, 11:03:47 PM »

Mark Cuban has been known as a risk-taker during his tenure as the owner of the Dallas Mavericks. But Cuban won't risk trading reigning MVP Dirk Nowitzki in an effort to acquire disgruntled Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant.

According to The Dallas Morning News, Cuban said he will not trade Nowitzki, even if it meant he could get Bryant in return. Cuban spoke about the Bryant situation at a North Dallas dance studio, where he was taking a break from rehersals with Kym Johnson, his Dancing With the Stars partner.