rasheed's an interesting case, i'll give you that.

probably very misunderstood.

i think the reason is you THINK he's this troublemaker. with that past history in portland of t's and weed. he's not, although i won't discredit the t's.

he's just very vocal. and even then, not a smartass towards the other team and its other players.

he still gets the t's occasionally just cause he's so emotional on the court and complains to the refs when something doesn't go his way, but you have to realize he's almost like the vocal leader of the pistons, and i believe without him, even if they got the same talents that he has in a trade(excellant 1-on-1 post defender, spot-up 3-pt shooter), his motivational fire of making them always think they're the underdogs is irreplacable; i'd say close to 10-15 of their wins every season is gotten because he's in the locker room, making them think the world is rooting for the other team. and he's a great teammate both in terms of how he plays and how he supports the other guys.

watching last night's cleveland game, although he was never mic'd up, i always heard his yelling picked up over the mics. it was so funny.

doc rivers said it best IMO when he was commentating during the 2k4 finals: "rasheed just wants to win so badly." that's why he's so vocal. you could say that about all the other guys who get technicals, but i can't remember the last time rasheed was in a pistons uniform that he actually got into a fight. granted, the number of fights in the nba has drastically cut down compared to the past, but even the number of minor altercations he's gotten is very few. he had that nasty cut with cleveland's "z," but that was just 1 incident. and he's one of those guys you always see joking on the court, not necessarily to his teammates.

so i have a problem with ppl who think he's bad for this game just because he picks up technicals. kobe bryant was either 2nd or 1st in technicals this year, do you think he's a bad person too(in general; let's leave the grizzlies incident outta this)? what about carmelo anthony? think he's a bad ass cause of those t's as well?

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btw, what was up w/kobe going soft in game 7? i thought he was way over this in the past in that game vs the kings where he did not take a single shot. it's OK, KOBE; if you're down 20 and time's running out, and kwame and lamar haven't gotten it going, it's OK to go off. seriously, sometimes i think kobe does things that are detrimental to his team in order to prove something about himself at times.

but it's alright; watching how everybody in la suddenly jumped from the lakers to the clippers in the 2nd round is priceless. PRICELESS; WHAT'S A HARDCORE CLIPPERS FAN? never heard of one(except for david)

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meh.

i seriously wonder how bowen gets away with stuff other defenders don't get away with. i'm not hating on him, but i'm just wondering. are refs really that gullible just because you're holding your hands up? cause what bowen likes to do is hold his hands up. and yet, he's still running into the guy he's defending.

i wonder how many things i learn from watching tim duncan do stuff offensively in the low post. cause it's a fairly long list. screening to switch to a smaller defender, then posting up, trying to go inside, and only using baseline if you fake inside, using a linear floater. using your arms to brush away the opponent's arms to get into position.