If he was smart, he'd refuse to sign any extensions and just go to OKC via FA next summer.

It'd be amazing to watch OKC v Miami or Chi for years and years.

OKC would be very interesting.

Who knows. But he's cited that the Mavs are one of the teams he'd like to go to.

Hey

Fantasy BBall

Draft tomorrow Friday Dec 23 @ 9:30p EST

Send your email to etrace@gmail.com for an invite.

WTF Is Up With Ppl Bein' Mad At LeBron? Doesn't HE get to decide HIS team???

Kevin Durant is overrated.
Boston is having it's last good season for a while
Ricky Rubio is the best rookie.

T-Wolves are going to the playoffs!!!

Maybe slightly, but that will change.

I wasn't aware they were having a good season...

I'll take Irving by a few miles.

They certainly have enough talent, but I couldn't say.

Kevin Love is the most complete player in the game. He's second only to Dwight Howard in rebounds. He's fourth in the league in scoring. There's not a more skilled big man in the league. Dwight Howard dominates with athleticism and size; Kevin Love does it with sheer skill. Plus, he hits game winning three's and wins the three point contest. There is no dominate post player who has the shooting ability he does, and he's only 23.

I assume you mean the most dominant big man? If so, I agree. He's insane. However, he doesn't have that great of a post game compared to other bigs, but his rebounding/shooting combo is easily the best.

LeBron is easily the most complete player though.

He's also the wolves best jump shooter. The wolves need a explosive shooting guard. Somebody who allows klove to play the post and not have to shoot the ball for us, then you will see improvement in his post game.

Also got to dramatically improve turnover ratio and free throw percentage. Pretty sloppy in those area's.

The heat look like they're going to the finals without much struggle again this year.

Lebron is a pretty good shooter, not a great one. His bread and butter is his ability to drive to the basket and finish. He's a good defender and good passer. Doesn't have much of a post game.

Kevin Love has a good post game. He doesn't have the size or athleticism of Dwight Howard, he just gets it done with skill. He has a great turnaround hook shot, it's actually more like half of a hook shot. He has the ability to put the ball on the floor, take it to the rim and slam it down. He's a dominant rebounder, and he's an amazing shooter. The only other big man who can shoot like that is Dirk. He has the shooting ability of Dirk Nowitzki and the rebounding ability of Charles Barkley.

I think it's pretty close between these two when it comes to being to most complete player. Blake Griffin is a great ball handler for someone of his size, I think that gets overlooked. When he actually dribbles the ball, you can tell he has good handling skills. He has a pretty decent jump-shot as well. I've seen him take it full-court and cross some people over.

The all around most skilled big in the league is Pau Gasol; Howard, Love, Bynum, Z-Bo, Aldridge and his brother a bit behind. If I could choose one to have, it'd be Howard easily.

Love is a excellent rebounder, having said that, there a certainly that are better at it. He tries harder to get boards on a nightly basis to get boards, but come playoff time I wouldn't count on him vs a few of the people I've named (big Gasol, Bynum, Howard).

Blake Griffin can't shoot a jump shot to save his life (36%).

****. Kevin Love would dominate Gasol all night and any other forward you mentioned. Can't really compare him to Bynum, since Bynum is a center. Although, he can rebound better than Bynum. Love averages 14 per game. I'd take Love easily over anyone you mentioned except Howard. None of those bigs can score as good as Love, and the only one who can rebound better is Howard.

Dirk is one of if not the most all around skilled big man, next to Love. He had a slow start to this season, but his knees weren't 100%. Over the last 11 games, he's averaged 25 and 9. And right now he has 20 and 9 with 7 minutes left.

He can't back you down and slam on you, but he can still take it to the rim. Since you didn't already mention him, I'm sure you're going to say: "All he can do is shoot, he has no post-game, he's soft, etc." If that's what you think, you clearly didn't watch the playoffs last year. Dirk was taking it to the rim all the time in the playoffs last year.

In the Mavericks sweep of the Lakers, Dirk averaged 25 points and 9 rebounds a game; shot 72% from the three-point line, and 57% overall.

Gasol averaged 12.5 points and 9 rebounds a game; and shot 42% overall.


Perhaps you need a reminder.

Here he is on the biggest stage, taking it to the rim from the three-point line and finishing with a beautiful left-handed lay-in. He's not even left handed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMGObegToPY

Show me another 7 footer who has done that in such a clutch situation, in the finals.

In Pau's defense, he's probably the best big at passing in the league.

Am I the only one who has noticed better officiating this year? I'm seeing travels being consistently called, and their letting the players play, not giving them automatic fouls just for driving to the hoop every time.

It's been a few seasons since I've really watched basketball, but I swear the NBA stepped it up due to the negative publicity of the lockout or something.

If you swapped Bynum for Love, I'm pretty sure Gasol would have better stats. Who else scores or rebounds for the Twolves?

pekovij
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...mberwolves.jpg

Bynum might score a point or two more a game. And Love might score two or three points less.

On your previous post...

You can't just exclude Bynum whilst including Dirk. Dirk is a 3 in a 5s body. I usually lump PFs with Cs into a larger group called "big men".

I think you are underrating defense. I said all around. Pau and Bynum are two of the best post defenders in the league. Conversely, I consider Dirk slightly below average on D. Love is average but will improve.
I saw the playoffs last year yes. Something was wrong with Gasol in the playoffs. I consider it an aberration. I think truer to form was his performance vs the Celtics in the finals, where he was an absolute beast at both ends.

Another thought: I think this season from the Lakers is a nice big fuck you towards Phil Jackson. He considered them done, but they still have some life in them. They aren't the prohibitive favorite but anyone counting them out as a contender is bad.

Also, I don't think you realize what a black hole Kobe can be offensively.

http://i.imgur.com/jvX7S.png

I completely agree with Dirk not being a good defender. But he's a pretty good defensive rebounder, which counts for something. Dirk has the game of a 3 with the body of a tall 4, (he's too skinny to ever be a good 5) which is what he is . But that's what makes him so hard to guard. There has never been a seven footer with a game like Dirk. He's agile enough to put the ball on the floor and take it to the hole; he's skilled enough to drive and finish with his left hand; he has such a great jump-shot and fade away jumper, when you combine that with his height it makes for a extremely difficult shot to guard.

I will take Dirk over Bynum and Gasol, any day. Sure, they may be better defenders and rebounders; but Dirk is much more deadly on the offensive end and he can pull down 9 rebounds a game. So, Bynum and Gasol just have a slight (2 or 3 a game) rebounding edge over him, and of course the defensive edge. But like I said, Dirk is the better offensive weapon and is one of the best in the league. It balanced out with guys like Tyson Chandler and Shawn Marion on the team to aide on defense and rebounding.

I'll take Dirk's offensive production and play making ability and go with a pretty solid tandem of centers, rather than one star at center, unless that star was Dwight Howard. For example, Tyson Chandler and Brendan Haywood. And as everyone knows, that makes for a good championship team.

Replace Dirk with Bynum or Gasol on last years Mavs championship team, and I don't think they would have won it. Neither of them could have carried the team and made those huge plays like Dirk did. He averaged 26 and 10 in the finals. Could Bynum and Gasol has been more effective on offense with Jason Terry and Shawn Marion being the next best scorers? Definitely. But as effective as dirk was that series? Highly unlikely.

Look at his career playoff numbers: In some 120 playoff contests, he has averaged 26 points and 10.4 rebounds a game, while shooting 46.5 percent from the field. The only other 100-plus-game playoff performers I can find who have averaged at least 25 points and 10 boards in the postseason since the 1976 ABA-NBA merger is Olajuwon and Karl Malone (and Malone never won a championship). Dirk averages more rebounds and points in the playoffs than Kobe. Bird and Kareem were close at 24 and 10. As was Shaq at 24 and 12. Jordan averaged 33 points per game but only six boards. Not saying Dirk is better than any of these players, especially Jordan. I'm just saying, his numbers rank up their with the best of em.

But he never has had a second star in his prime to take the pressure off him, as Jordan had Pippen, Bird had Parish and McHale, Magic had Kareem and Worthy, Shaq had Kobe and then Wade, Kobe had Shaq and then Gasol, and LeBron now has Wade and Bosh. Nash played with Dirk but didn't really become a star until going to Phoenix. Kidd is about as good as you can get for a 38-year-old guard, but Kidd didn't play with Dirk in his prime.

Dirk's playoff numbers are a step up from regular season in scoring and rebounding, as he averages 23 points and 8.4 boards in his regular season career. Clearly, he steps it up in the playoffs.

No doubt, I agree with everything you just said.

Maybe Dirk lost a lot of haters after last season. But Kobe still called his jump shot "ugly" just a couple weeks ago. He did admit it was "extremely effective", but still. I think it's a thing of beauty. It's so effective and hard to guard and unique.

Winning a Finals MVP can't hurt...

I would argue that LeBron James will be the MVP of this season.

obviously.

No way its gotta be Tim Tebow, guys got GOD on his side.

Tebow will win MVP of every sport.

Timberwolves=white people with fundamentals can still win games :-D

Man, with rubio out, the wolves looked eerily like the team of the past few years last night.
20 some turnovers, bad passing, desperation 3 pointers. I forgot how bad all our shooting guards are, man did rubio help those guys out.

With barrea out as well, ridnour is going to have to play plenty of minutes and he can't even do the screen roll that well. It's not going to be pretty the rest of this season.

No barea and no Rubio equals pain for the T'wolves.

you guys got any trades your hoping for by thursday?

obviously it would be nice if t wolves could pick up paul gasol. Then we could leave K Love on the perimeter for 3s lol :)

I'm curious to see if boston lets go of any piece of their big 3.

I'm gonna be pissed when the Lakers trade Gasol for some guard.

I'm not hoping for Anything specific, just that the mavs make a de. I'm not sure who all is on the trading market. I'm real eager to get Lamar odoms ass outta here.

Why? If I were a Mavs fan, I'd be hoping he gets more minutes.

Seriously? The guy plays like **** every time he's on the floor. There's no reason to give him any more minutes. He could do a lot better, it looks like he's half-assing a lot of the time.

Good on Dantoni getting outta new york before the inevitable pinning on him for the teams mediocrity

Yep, I heard he already has a new job lined up.

It's kinda crazy how quickly this has happened since Linsanity.

New York came out and played tonight though.

Against a really deflated looking trail blazers, but still they looked pretty good all things considered.

The team has everything almost, i don't know why on earth they aren't working better

Carmelo is the most overrated player in the league. He rarely dominates portions of games. He just shoots a lot of low percentage shots and doesn't pass.