Mr. S£im Citrus

I can't decide whether this is the stupidest idea I've ever heard, or merely the stupidest idea I've ever heard about wrestling.

Cindy Brunson: "With Kobe winning the MVP, he relinquishes the title of most points scored by an active player who's never won an MVP. That title now goes to Ray Allen." You've got to believe that Walter Ray holds that 'title' until he retires.

I'm saying the disparity is a large story in this series. Well, you're wrong. Jump shooting teams don't get free throws. The Hawks are a team of athletic slashers who attack the basket, and that's why they have a lot of free throws. The Celtics are a team of finesse jump shooters, and that's why they don't have a lot of free throws. There is no story.

I've loving this; the Wizards fucking annoy me.

Surely I wasn't the only person who volunteered for this endeavor that suffered from no delusions of what it was going to digress into? I wanted to do it because I thought it would be fun to think about what I think are the 20 albums I'd want to be stranded with. Seeing as how there seem to be only two or three people in the draft that even listen to the kind of music I listen to on anything resembling a regular basis, I was under no illusion that I had a shot at "winning." In fact, when it comes time for the voting, I'll be shocked if I'm anywhere other than dead last. But, I sure am enjoying myself; this is the most I've actually thought about music, ever.

Agreed; I care about the basketball matchups. The ratings can go get fucked.

I disagree; I think that the play-by-play between NBC and ABC is about equal, and I think that the studio analysis is also equal (though I'll admit to being biased towards ABC simply because I like Wilbon). I think that the production favors ABC which, to be fair, should be expected, given the advances in technology. But, basically, I just don't think that NBC did anything better than ABC does, let alone worthy of being remembered so fondly. I think that the people who have hardons for NBC just have some kind of stalker-ish love affair with "Roundball Rock."

On the Kings board I post at, people are always bitching about seeing the NBA brought back to NBC... After watching the hype package on TNT for Hawks/Celtics and Wizards/Cavaliers, I think those people ought to be hit in the head with a snow shovel.

If that were the only difference, then why did they only win one game? Why does it always seem, as I said before, like Phoenix can't win a close game against San Antonio? I mean, I'm not saying that the Spurs have a slight edge when the game is close, I'm saying that the Spurs ALWAYS WIN WHEN THE GAME IS CLOSE, and to me, that's not the sign of a team being evenly matched with them. What you're saying is not a big difference I'm saying is a huge difference. To me, a team that's mentally better is better, period, especially if that mental edge always seems to put them on the winner's end of a box score when the game is close.

I'd go with "San Antonio won four of the six games played." One of their 4 was against a depleted team and the other, just happned to have a convict calling bad fouls...that didn't change ANYTHING, huh? What I am saying here is that if, say Duncan was to go down for 2 games and the Suns win the series 4-2, are you guys going to actually tell me you would say "Well, the problem is that the Suns were just obviously a much better team than the Spurs. The Spurs should learn to play defense". I am just not buying that happening. Hell, I distinctly remember the lot of you still talking about how Chicago lost to the Magic when jordan came back not because Orlando was better, because Jordan just wasn't all the way back yet and it doesn't count. The same people now pretending that suspensions and injuries don't mean anything now is just funny. See, here's the difference between your argument and your examples: in the first example, you ask "What if Duncan were injured?" Well, in 2000, he was injured, and the Spurs lost in the first round to the Suns, and the next time the two teams played in the playoffs, Duncan was healthy, and the Spurs won. And, they've won every time since then. In your second example, you ask "Well, how come everybody gives the Bulls a pass when they lost to Orlando in 1995?" Well, because they played each other the very next year in the playoffs, and Chicago beat that ass, which fairly decisively ended all discussion on the topic. And, as the resident Kings homer, I'll throw one more example in the mix: Sacramento beat Dallas the first time the two teams met in the playoffs in 2002, 4-1. The following year, Webber went down in Game 2, and the Kings ended up losing that series 3-4, and Kings fans were all about how, if we'd have had Webber, we wouldn't have lost, and Mavs fans were all, "stop making excuses." And then, the next year, Webber came back, and we beat the Mavericks 4-1 again, which pretty much proved (at least in my mind) that the one year the Mavericks beat us was a fluke. Which is where I stand on this side of this argument: San Antonio proved that the Suns beating them in 2000 was a fluke when they beat them the next time they played in 2003. Chicago proved that Orlando beating them was a fluke in 1995 when they beat the shit out of them the following year in 1996. Sacramento proved that Dallas beating them in 2003 was a fluke when they beat them the following year in 2004... Phoenix has yet to PROVE that they're the equals of San Antonio, or that the fact that they lost because they were missing players was "just bad luck." If they were equals, they'd have won at least one of those series. So, again, what's it going to take for you to ever say that San Antonio is better? Playing 4-on-5? A two-game headstart?

You mean 4-1, 4-2, 4-1, right? Actually, I meant 4-2, 4-1, 4-2, 4-1. I went back to 2003. Actually, if you don't count 2003, that goes even further against Phoenix: that makes them only 2-11 against the Spurs in playoff games decided by single digits. So, in other words, your answer to my question is "I'm not ever going to?"

So, what you're saying is, he fit right in in Utah?

Man, Ripper, what's it going to take for you to ever concede that the Spurs are better than the Suns? How bad do they have to get beat? Sweep? 15-plus points every game? What's it going to take? Because every year you keep insisting that the Suns and Spurs are equals, and that they're "evenly matched," and this, that and a third, and all I see is 4-1, 4-2, 4-2, 4-1. Seriously, you're worse than the other Kings fans I hang around; how many times/how bad do they have to get beat before you lay off?

Maybe more like if Webber and Scot Pollard got suspended. I beg to differ; all those scores and series tell me is that Phoenix can't close the deal. The only margin of victory of any consequence to me is the how many games it took one team to win; how close the individual games are don't really matter if the team loses 4-1 and 4-2 all the time. You can play the "if" game all you want to, but the Suns didn't win those close games. Since 2003, the Suns are 4-14 against the Spurs in playoff games decided by single digits, and they won half of those in 2003. I should certainly like to think that if they were truly "evenly matched," like you say they are, that statistic would be a lot closer than that.

You know what you sound like? Kings fans after 2002. The average Kings Fan, to this day, keeps making excuses for why we lost, and we still don't want to accept that the Lakers were the better team (and man, did that hurt me to have to type).

Well thats just a crock of bullshit. I have never said the Suns were the better team. I said they were two evenly matched teams, which they were and which they still are. If they're so "evenly matched," how come the Suns always lose?

I take it, then, that after San Antonio puts Phoenix out, you're going to spend the offseason going on about how the Suns were "really the better team," like you did last year?

Maybe he'll be so kind as to explain the joke, then?

Honestly, this is why nobody respects the WNBA! Wha? What does one thing have to do with the other?

Fixed.

I'm going to go on record with saying that Larry Brown will be good for Charlotte. I predict that they will respond well to his coaching (unlike New York, all the kids in Charlotte are pretty good character guys, and all the core guys except for Wallace played at least two years at a major program, and are coachable), and I predict that, within two years, they will be in the playoffs. And, if I'm wrong... what the hell? It's only Charlotte...

I tell you what: if you'd have bet me before the start of the playoffs that the Hawks would outlast the Nuggets, that would have been easy money on your part... http://www.sports790.com/cc-common/mlib/58..._1209355170.bmp