bobobrazil1984

So now, assuming the kidney thing isn't major... the Blazers ALSO get Dorrell Arthur... JESUS CHRIST!

Well, apparently, Arthur has some kidney issue and his people refused to do some certain test/bloodwork/whatever, which has raised red flags across different organizations. That's what ESPN said at least.

My theory is that when GMs dont expect a guy to fall to them, they discount him, and get scared when he actually becomes available, because they didn't workout or prepare properly. Too safe. They just go with whoever they planned for.

That's the part that jumped out at me. I never heard of him but I at least expected them to say "this guy was dominant in the french league and michael jordan thinks he can translate that to the NBA game" or some such thing as justification... lmao

The Trail 'fuckin Blazers. How can you not root for these guys? I love their spirit.

Not handle as in stop or anything, but in terms of giving you a threat at the 3 who needs stopping as well, who's not going to get run over. he's not better than lebron by any means, but RJ is a physical 3 who is not afraid to body up guys, and has scoring output of his own. Having a 3 who can score and isn't passive on the defensive end is pretty much essential if you have any hope of getting by a Pierce or Lebron. ie, see how well Caron Butler played against Cleveland (of course the rest of the team blew, but i digress)

Jermaine O'Neal to Toronto, Jefferson to Milwaukee, and the Clippers getting the 4th pick (!)? Hell of a draft day so far. Here's to one or two more big deals to round out the day! Its a helluva deal for Milwaukee. They dumped a bad contract and a guy who never wanted to be in Milwaukee to begin with for Jefferson, now they have a great 3, which means no big match-up problems against the top SFs of the East (Pierce, Prince, Lebron).

The most important thing about Schilling is that he is a huge WoW nerd who plays in my guild (though to be fair it's a huge frikken guild, so its not like i interact with him yet)

Those Euro teams are really busting out the big money. Anthony Parker is going to be making 10 million a year for 3 years (!). To be fair, Parker was a genuine superstar in the Euroleagues, so from their POV they're not paying for a "scrub".

I'm not sure why he would get a lot of "stick" (or shit, whatever) for getting involved with the script. Norton is very accomplished in his writing and has directed films too. It's not like he's some dumbass actor who knows nothing about making films stroking his ego. He's heavily involved in every role he's had and guess what they're mostly all good. The Arctic scene and an actual subplot involving Samson would both have been great.

I saw it tonight, it was a good fun movie. Edward Norton did a good job, and his struggles to keep the Hulk in check were very watchable. Good action, moved at a nice clip, the last battle was sort of silly but still cool in a smash em up sort of way. I do want to see the Norton/Letterer longer cut of the film that Marvel nixed though.

I always thought Cleveland conviently won the lottery to save the franchise. They, surprisingly enough, tied for the worst record in basketball that year with Denver. Cleveland snagged #1 and Denver slipped to #3. Leads one to wonder, though, if Denver gets James and Cleveland's got #2/3/4, do they take Wade, Anthony, Bosh, or everyone's favorite trivia answer and the Human Victory Cigar, Darko Milicic? Melo or Darko, depending on who they needed more. They do not take Wade or Bosh. Nobody had them projected to break the Top 3. It woulda been like if Yi or Horford were drafted at #2 ahead of Durant or Oden. There was no chance of them breaking the top 3, that's just fanboy hindsight now that everyone sees how good Wade/Bosh are and how sucky Darko is. Every GM in the league had Darko at 2 or 3. I do think its likely Cleveland would choose Carmelo over Darko, since Melo is also a great 3, and is the next best thing.

I'm starting to think that the Final Five ARE actually Earth humans, and skinjob technology is just really advanced human technololgy (we're already talking about cloning, downloading of memories, in a few hundred years we'll probably have them). When Mechanical Cylons went into hiding, they found Earth, and were "repurposed" by the last surviving humans (who are basically the skinjobs). Final Cylon being the leader of them. Alternatively, the Final Cylon could be the force that wiped out the people of Earth, and the force who compelled the Cylons to attack the 12 Colonies, and all the visions and head Six characters and mystical games is this guy trying to lure all the remaining humans to him to finish the job.

Well there's only half a season left, so the last half will probably be about what happened to Earth, who the Final Cylon is, and what mysterious force has been pulling them all series long, talking to Baltar in his head, etc etc. I think we're going to get one "master villain", at the end that the humans and Cylons will have to team up to take down. Hell of an ending though. Very planet of the apes.

Pistons interviewing Woodson was just a favor to help him get his Atlanta extension (since Woodson is a friend of the Pistons), he never had a real shot, Dumars has been grooming Curry as his hand-picked successor for a while.

That's pretty much how I feel. There are way too many variables in basketball to "rig" it with any consistency, its very difficult. Here is an interesting bit I read on ESPN.

I just saw that right now at work and I couldn't stop laughing at the (remote) thought of Dick Bavetta getting nailed somehow. You know whats funny, I was just reading some article on ESPN, some columnist saying something like "you know something's wrong in the NBA when we're in the middle of a huge ref credibility crisis... and one of the refs of an NBA FINALS GAME, is a ref who got suspended for corrupt refereeing owing to personal grudges, and for tax reasons." Now Dick Bavetta it comes out was being questioned by the FBI... and hey look he just reffed an NBA Finals Game too. Does it bother ANYONE that after Game 2, seeing the FT discrepency there, we all immediately knew that Game 3 was going to have a huge FT discrepency for the Lakers? I mean we all KNEW it was going to happen and it's the damn finals. Even if everything Donoghy says is made up and it very well might be... there is something rotten going on in the ref house. Its like the Bush administration, you honestly cant tell if its just incompetence or corruption.

iPhone 3G is actually more expensive. What was once $60 a month is now $75 (the SMS is now an extra cost too). Do the math and you'll see the "price decrease" gets made up like 13 months (just over halfway) through the contract. What software did you buy? I've converted some DVDs to mp4 using two programs (DVD Decrypter and Videora), but it's a clunky long process. Using "one step" programs I've tried all end up with audio sync problems.

The allegations/information were actually revealed by Donoghy to FBI/whoever back in July 6 and September 6 (both in 2007) according to court docs (up on the smoking gun). it was only "made public" now (likely for the reasons you described) but it was all there in the case last year. The court docs are actually a much more interesting read than the "sensationalist" style reporting of their contents, mainly because there's interestling little detail allegations that don't mean much in the grand scheme of things, but are worth reading. Like people in NBA's "ref observer" program going into the ref room, and asking refs to buy his book in exchange for positive ratings, etc etc. I think its likely the more sensationalist of Mobster D's allegations are exaggerated but there's something rotten at the core of referees, even if its not clear what it it is. The other problem is, making shit up to federal investigators is actually ANOTHER crime and digs a deeper hole... so Donoghy better have some corroborating evidence here or he's in more trouble.

In two days, Michael Curry said everything I waited and waited for Flip Saunders to say. Fuck yeah. I like him already. That's all I ever thought the Pistons needed. If they fight tooth and nail for rebounds, make real efforts to have an inside-out offense, and they still lose? that I can live with. But not this near-last in points-in-the-paint and getting outhustled on the boards and only chucking up jumpshots, with all your big men only being jumpshooters, and your only banger being an undersized role player who can't rebound, bullshit.

I never got the big f'n deal here. It happens all the time. Coaches or players see something complain, the refs make a point to adjust. LIke when Josh Howard was tripping suns players going up the court in the Suns Mavs series a few years back(pure genius by the way). The suns pointed it out, the refs called it, Josh Howard stop tripping people. I don't get the big deal. I think the big deal was that the orders were (allegedly) to only call those calls on Yao Ming and nobody else. Not that I particularly care for that story either, that's one of the "weakest" ref controversies. I'm more amused by the way ESPN glossed over the 2002 stuff... it's unclear what series they are talking about? Even though the letter mentioned a Game 7 which ESPN forgot to put in their summary?

ESPN's version of this article focuses on a different part, references to the 2005 incident where Jeff Van Gundy said a referee had told him that the refs were targeting Yao Ming after Cuban complained about something. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3436401

Does anyone know what the chances are of the Feds actually investigating this? i have no idea of the legalities and process and if they'll actually do it. Its one thing is Donoghy says this. Its another Feds investigate and come up with something. I don't know how relavant to the case it would be though. To be fair, WCF 2002 is a pretty easy target, it's always been clear there was either gross incompetence that should have resulted in ref firings or corruption going on there, so its the natural thing to pick if you're making shit up. I wonder if there's any CORROBORATING EVIDENCE?

Debate: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketba...istle_on_n.html So is anybody outside of LA truly shocked at the 2002 bit?

I feel that's pretty close to the mark. Fans of other teams really like Maxiell because they essentially only see his best. At his worst, he is invisible, unable to get a rebound, easily discouraged and when that happens, good bye to that hellraiser energy. He can be a major limitation on certain matchups too. He was eaten alive what little he played against the Celtics front-line (one nice block on KG aside, which actually illustrates my point, to the casual fan their #1 memory of maxiell from that series probably was that sweet block on KG). He also got really tired and hit the wall a little over halfway through the season, and sucked for a month or two before regaining his old self. Like Flip Saunders' coaching/offense-system, you kinda gotta watch em night in and night out to see the shortcomings though. I mean he's good but I wouldn't trust him to be the primary starter at the 4 for a full season. pistons should try and keep him as he's a very good 6th man for them, but he is one piece they could probably trade and fare well with because other GMs/teams will overrate himl.