Precious Roy

MDM?

I don't get how anyone who's actually been watching the Playoffs could say that the Pistons are better than the Lakers. More balanced? A lot of good that did them against Boston. And the Lakers aren't balanced? Not only have the Lakers been much more impressive, they've got the best individual player, the better coach, a better low post scoring option (Rasheed just doesn't bring it down low enough) and a better bench. The Pistons lost 7 games and are sitting at home, the Lakers have only lost 3 games and are playing in the NBA finals. I don't think the Pistons could have beat the Jazz or the Spurs, much less handled them the way LA did.

Pierce plays pretty well against Kobe on both ends, and he always seems to have big games when he returns home to California. Both teams have good depth and some energetic young players, I'm not ready to call a winner yet, but I think this is going to be a really good series

Pierce plays pretty well against Kobe on both ends, and he always seems to have big games when he returns home to California. Both teams have good depth and some energetic young players, I'm not ready to call a winner yet, but I think this is going to be a really good series

I agree with Ripper that it's ultimately up to the refs that witness a flop up close and personal and call the foul, so if players are going to be fined retroactively, the refs should be too

Pretty much, yeah.

Should? Yes. Will? No.

I'm glad they're not going to do an integrated top 16 playoff format where East/West teams play before the Finals, because I fucking hate that idea, it completely negates having two separate conferences, and it ruins the NBA Finals where the winner of one conference plays the winner of the other. Yes, the East has been weaker for most of this decade, but historically there is an ebb and flow where one conference is stronger than the other, it all balances out over time. I'm not as strongly against the idea of "re-seeding" each round like the NHL does, in fact I don't think I'd really mind it that much, but I don't necessarily see any reason to do it either.

nothing to see here

Spree is another good pick. I didn't take him because of the whole "psychopathic chucker living in his own world" thing, but that's just me. I've gotta say that personally the draft is getting harder for me the closer to the end we get, not because there aren't players to choose from, but because there's so many good players left that I can't make up my mind, and that I have to keep fighting the temptation to draft guys that I don't really need but think are too good to still be on the board. There's about a half dozen guys I want to take with this pick and it's hard to decide on just one. But, I did. The guy getting under Magic's skin, Danny Ainge My specific need with this pick is a sharpshooter, and Ainge is that. About 38% from long range on his career with 4 seasons over 40% (including a blistering 44% in 86-87), 47% FG overall, 85% from the line. Led the NBA in 3's in 87-88, and was in the top 10 6 times. In addition to being a great shooter he was tough and scrappy and a pest defensively. He had a knack for pissing off the best player on the other team with his defense, as seen above with Magic, and also in various altercations with Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas. Won two championships with Boston and helped Portland and Phoenix get to the finals before running into Jordan and the Bulls.

I was wondering when Scott was going to go. Seems like he lasted a lot longer than he should have. EDIT* Cassell and Finley are fucking excellent picks. Damn you!

One thing my team needs at this point is another big body to throw against the tougher matchups at center, Shaq specifically, but also Chamberlain, Kareem, Ewing, Robinson etc. etc. But this isn't just any big body, this is the reason we have shatter proof backboards and break-away rims, the death defying, babies crying, rump roasting, bun toasting, from the planet Lovetron, CHOCOLATE THUNDER! Darryl Dawkins was a GREAT dunker. The way Dwight Howard is now, just an unstoppable dunker from anywhere close to the basket, that was Darryl Dawkins. He absolutely threw down. He shattered two backboards by dunking so hard. Dawkins shot 57% on his career because practically all his baskets were dunks. He was also a good rebounder and shot blocker, and freakishly athletic at 6-11 250. His "per 36 minutes" averages from Basketball-Reference are 18 pts, 9 rebounds and 2 blocks, but he wasn't shy about fouling people (5.8 per 36 minutes) and never really played more than 25 minutes a game. But that's perfect for me because his role on my team is to a) provide backup minutes and fouls against the bigger centers, and b) dunk in dude's grills.

Bowen is a great pick. The only thing I don't like about him is that he doesn't do anything but play d, doesn't rebound, doesn't dribble, and his offensive game consists entirely of three pointers from the corner. I don't think I've ever seen him shoot from, say, the top of the key. But for a 9th or 10th man he's a great pick. My pick is forthcoming

Shut the fuck up Marvin. Was I acting like it was the end of the world? Really. I'm pretty sure I wasn't, and I'm pretty sure I said I don't panic with this team. I'm disappointed because it sucks losing games to your pathetic franchise, that's all. As for Joba, I stand by it being a bad move for this team. Maybe, or maybe the bullpen blows the lead as they did so many times in the period between having Tom Gordon and Joba Chamberlain. There's going to be a trickle down effect by removing Joba from the pen, and it's going to make the entire thing more unstable. AND there's no guarantee of performance from Joba as a starter, it's not like we should have total confidence that he'll immediately be a stopper. He might struggle a bit. I might be wrong, I just don't like the move for this particular team. I still think they'll make the playoffs or come damn close either way.

Yeah, you can't disband a team at this point, and despite the joke picks his team isn't actually that bad, well, his starting 5 isn't that bad at least.... I'm a bit discouraged by the pace of the draft. It seems like things move fairly quickly when we get to the front and back ends, but it's really been dragging the past couple of days. I'd like to just get this thing done so we can start on the judging process, because I figure that'll take a week in itself. McDyess was a fine pick, he was one of my sleepers but after I took Marion he didn't make sense and I figured he'd be gone around this point. I like the Mark Jackson pick a lot, he was one of the guys I was considering when I took Terry Porter. Rod Strickland was another good pick, I considered him but didn't have him on my board for style of play reasons, but he's great value this late.

I can't believe we're losing a series to the Orioles. And we're in last place. Not that I'm worried, I never panic with the Yankees, but this is still pretty pathetic. And I'm definitely not thrilled about moving Joba to the rotation, or the month long process it involves. Maybe it helps solve some of our starting pitching issues down the line, but it's just going to cause problems in the bullpen and wreck a perfect combination we had going, one of the few things working right with this club, and in the short term the usage of Joba in preparation of the move leads to losses like tonight where we can't pitch Joba when we need him because he's on a stretching out schedule. Like tonight we used Mo for two innings in a tie game when it should be Joba in that situation, and that's exactly the kind of shit that wore him out when Torre was managing. Mark my words, and I've been saying it since the offseason, trying to balance this change from reliever to starter with the bullpen options we have is going to bite us in the ass big time. Maybe Hughes can work the 8th when he comes back. And maybe we can trade Joe Girardi for Willie Randolph, that would solve everyones problems. Does Don Mattingly still want the joba?

With hindsight Bosh would have been the best pick for that team, and even at the time if you were set on taking a big at #2 Bosh was the safer pick. I know a lot of scouts loved Darko, but personally I just think it's a big gamble to take a young, unproven European player that high, especially when you've got the kind of NBA ready talent that was in that draft. In a weak draft with no clear cut top tier players you can make a pick like that, but to pass on the talent that was out there for a project? Carmelo carried his team to a national championship as a freshman, Wade took Marquette to the Final Four and most people agreed that he was the most NBA ready player in that draft, and Bosh was an exceptional player who was drawing comparisons to Tim Duncan at the time. The only question with those 3 wasn't if they'd be good, but how good they could be. Darko was a huge question mark. Out of those 4 guys Darko seemed like the worst pick, the biggest gamble. And The Pistons, if they'd been more savvy about it, probably could have worked a trade and still gotten Darko. Yeah, they won a title, but Darko had absolutely nothing to do with it, and they might have won more than one if they'd handled that draft better.

The Bulls have Larry Hughes. Yeah, it's only Larry Hughes, but they traded for him and they're stuck with him for at least next season, so he's their two guard. Plus, the only notable two the Knicks really have is Jamal Crawford, and that trade isn't happening. There's also the matter of the Knicks giving up their lottery pick, another lottery pick to the Chicago Bulls for that matter, which would totally destroy whatever goodwill the organization has built up with the fans and the media in recent months.

Corey Patterson went 0-9. Who needs Jay Bruce when you've got Corey Patterson?

Well, I can probably thank that 18 inning game in San Diego for costing me this week's matchup. I went into today with a healthy lead in OBP and SLG, only to have Tad Iguchi and Edwin Encarnacion go a combined 2-18 from the plate!!!!! I'll be lucky to win either category now. Thanks a lot assholes. And good riddance Iguchi!

True on both aspects, the character issue on team chemistry may be null now too. Great pick with Divac too Matzo, I was hoping he'd be around in the last round. Yeah, I don't like this computer simulation idea, especially with it just being casually thrown out there halfway through the draft. A lot of us have been drafting with chemistry and style of play in mind, with the idea of that being a judging criteria, whereas a simulator will just raw crunch numbers and the best statistical team will win, and if that was the case from the beginning people would have drafted much differently. We should stick with the ranking of teams 1-19 by everyone to produce a consensus on the teams, and the team with the highest cumulative vote is declared to the winner. And I don't dislike the idea of turning that into seeding for a tournament and then having us vote on the matchups, but putting it in the hands of a computer simulator when we're all capable of analyzing it ourselves seems stupid.

Eh, this is a tough pick for me as I'm picking between 4 pretty similar players, all of whom are about equal in my mind, so I'm just going to roll the dice and go with Terry Porter, PG I need a reliable outside shooter and a true backup PG and he fits the bill. Two time All-Star, He had 5 seasons in which he averaged 17-18 points a game, was top 10 in the league in assists 5 times and 11th all-time in the category, 15th all-time in 3pt FG made, a career 39% shooter from behind the line, and an excellent free throw shooter. He was also a good defensive point guard, 6 seasons around 2 steals per game, and 26th all-time in steals. He also put up excellent numbers in the playoffs, and I like the following anecdote from Wikipedia:

You have GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME. I just debated my pick for like 10 minutes while waiting for you and finally decided on Allan Houston right before I refreshed this page. NICE PICK. Back to the drawing board

I was wondering when Hornacek was going to go, given this board's supposed man-crush on little white guys

Well, I feel bad about skipping VX again, but it's been over 12, and the dude is never around to make his pick in a timely fashion My hope was that Larry Nance would fall back to me, but I expected him to be gone, so I'm more than happy with this dude as my backup SF/PF "The Matrix" Shawn Marion This pick changes my rotation a bit, Marion will slot up as my sixth man now, and he's the first guy I'm really going outside of the original design of my team for, he's just too talented and versatile to pass up here. His ability to play the 3 or the 4 and defend practically everyone is huge for me, as I would have no problem going with Bird, Hill and Marion on the court at the same time and just giving the toughest defensive matchup of the 3 positions to Marion. My starting five is I think solid but unspectacular defensively, but having now two game changing defensive players off the bench in Robertson and Marion who can both mix and match in different lineups gives me a lot of flexability to play matchups.