***Official NBA Thread***

[duffer]

Alright so as of now we have:

MrWright
pinchy
Clapo
Jackpot
nightprowler
duffer

up for the Fantasy league. If we can get 2-3 more then we'll have a good number for a competitive division and I'll get cracking setting it up.

[pinchy81]

Hoping that the TimberWolves can do better this season after last year's dismal performenace and hope that the Raptors can make a surge up in the East as well

[duffer]

Mike Miller and Kevin Love will help for sure. If O'Neal stays healthy he'll add some toughness which was very lacking for the Raptors as well.

[JackPot]

Originally Posted by pinchy81

Hoping that the TimberWolves can do better this season after last year's dismal performenace and hope that the Raptors can make a surge up in the East as well

raptors has better chance than wolves, IMO

[Anil]

Originally Posted by duffer

Alright so as of now we have:

MrWright
pinchy
Clapo
Jackpot
nightprowler
duffer

up for the Fantasy league. If we can get 2-3 more then we'll have a good number for a competitive division and I'll get cracking setting it up.

i'm in...

[nightprowler10]

Watched the Bulls get whupped by the Kings in the pre-season game today. They were playing like a real weak team with a few bright spots.

[duffer]

The Suns are so painful to watch now. I acknowledge that they're trying to tighten up an protect the paint a lot better, but Nash is half as effective in a slow half court offence and they're STILL giving up way too many offensive boards.

Really interested to see how Posey helps the Hornets this year. In their game today he knocked down some big momentum halting shots and was excellent on D.

[Mister Wright]

Bucks 1-1

[Anil]

0-2 start for the spurs....

[pinchy81]

Toronto 3 and 0 and T'Wolves 1 and 1 things are good

[nightprowler10]

Not a bad start for the bulls. I completely expected them to lose to Celtics so no surprises there. Rose showing plenty of promise.

[Anil]

a really good move for the nuggets, not so good for the pistons...iverson can still be an offensive force but they want to be a championship team again and i don't know how "the answer" is the answer for detroit...even if mcdyess doesn't turn up for the nuggets, billups provides the leadership that the nuggets desperately need on both ends of the floor...it will not make them a contender but he can certainly take them out of the playoff 1st round morass they are stuck in...

[ohtani's jacket]

Eh, both Iverson and Billups are old. Neither team are going anywhere. Dumars is hoping to free up some cap space, but he screwed up when he drafted Darko and Detroit have been suffering ever since. Billups and McDyess were heart and soul guys. Even in a weak East, this has gotta be the year where Detroit fall. Billups might give Denver a short term boost, but more likely he'll see out his contract while the Nuggets get no better.

[duffer]

Reckon the Nuggz could benefit big in the short term but suffer long term with this deal, while the opposite holds for Detroit.

For the next season or two while Chauncey still has some legs in him they have become an awesome awesome attacking force with him, JR and Melo all being huge talents on the offensive end and being a nightmare to guard because of their size and athleticism.

He's also brilliant on the defensive end and will MAKE Melo switch on defensively.

They might have problems with their bigs though. Nene, Kmart and Mac are all ridiculously fragile and with only Hunter and Birdman as backups they look very meh for me in the frontcourt.

Also, I feel they could've absorbed one more season of going out in the first round and cleared a helluva lot of cap space by letting AI walk and freeing up 20m on their already excessive wage bill.

Dumars for me will be the eventual winner out of this. He knows that Billups only has a couple of years left in him and wanted rid of his 4 year deal ASAP. He also finally got AI, whom he wanted for ages and can let him walk post season so that he can promote Stuckey their Point for the future to a starting role. They really really rate Stuckey, I remember Flip calling him a young Baron davis at times last season so if he is as good as they think they'll come out of this smelling roses.

In the short term though, Rip and AI in the back court will be fun but I reckon they'll get in the way more often than they'll help each other, plus they lose a whole lot of leadership and intensity on D.

EDIT: Just did some Math, Sheed is also expiring at the end of the season so if the Pistons let both of them walk that puts them a massive 20million under the cap at least. If they wait out one season then they could bid big for LeBron, D-Wade or Chris Bosh who will all be available come 2010. The more I look at it, the more I like what Dumars is doing.

[Anil]

yeah i guess dumars is in rebuilding mode....although iverson isn't a long-term option by any stretch of imagination...i saw a cnn article speculating that since mcdyess doesn't want to join the nuggets, they might waive him and he would then be free to resign with detroit...sounds unlikely but even if it happens, i don't think iverson as good as he is, as energetic as he is, as desperate for a ring as he is, is a game changer for them...especially seeing how effectively the lakers defense bottled him up in the playoffs last year...