us men's bball - point guards

ok, figures i might as well; as we all figured out, international bball is not quite the same as nba bball; a lot more emphasis is on the perimeter. i thought i'd over the next few days post some good players that would help make up a good team. to be honest, some of my stuff might read like the entry one of the espn guys wrote up(read it for fun if you want to get your juices flowing as well).

read the article here

anyways, today i thought i'd list 4-6 guys good for the point guard position.

ideally, the point guard should be a guy who can distribute the ball offensively. being able to hurt from beyond the arc's very important, but that can come from your 2's and 3's.

jason kidd: the only remaining pure point guard so i guess we gotta list him. he is getting KINDA old, so he can provide good leadership on the court, and ppl will listen to him. all-around, he simply makes people better on offense; you don't need a lotta shot creators when he's on the court, just good spot-up shooters. and his defense is pretty good too. only weakness might be that he's not really that dangerous one on one; still good, but not great.
to best complement him: just surround him with good spot-up shooters or guys who don't need the ball to create(which is also good, b/c the spot-up shooters often tend to be better defenders than guys who create in a lotta cases, making your team good on offense and defense)

chauncey billups: obviously i'm a pistons fan, but hey, we gotta list him. he's not a pure point guard, but he has shown with the experience he's gotten with larry brown and flip saunders that he flat-out does everything a good point guard's supposed to do almost better than anybody else(except creating shots for others; jason kidd does that better). excellant perimeter shooter when the clock's winding down to bail guys out of tight spots, heavy so he can back guys down, good ability to create shots for others, always cool-headed, making him a great leader on offense, and on top of that, plays great defense. no real weaknesses i can think of.
to best complement him: put a spot-up shooter on the court; it will double his already good offensive abilities. or a defensive player to lockdown on the perimeter. remember that this guy like kidd can fastbreak, so athletic guys are gooood.

mike bibby: not a kings fan, but he used to be good when webber was around, reason being he had someone to run around before catching a pass and the pressure to make a shot wasn't all on him. he's one of the few kings who actually TRIES to play defense(though with the numerous games i've watched him, he still doesn't lockdown), and he is unselfish making the extra pass, so he would not be a bad fit.
to best complement him: a big man who can score w/the ball in his hands, and a 2 spot who can defend well.

chris paul: didn't want to list all all-stars or in the case of billups, strong potential all-stars, and chad ford listed him in his recommendations, but i am kinda stuck as to why he's good, only that he's one of the few players which are making the hornets look decent this year.

dwayne wade: guy can't shoot beyond the arc, and at the int level, ppl will just crowd the lane if you drive, limiting his mj-esque slashing dunks. but he is selfless on the offensive end(which is good; don't want all guys on the us team who seriously think they're the team's #1 scoring option), and very fast, which should free him off his man a bit and send a lotta double teams at him, giving his teammates wide open 3s. good defensive abilities thanks to his athleticism, though i think you'll need to prod him to really work on them to make team us shine.
to best complement him: a 2 guard who can defend well so that perimeter d doesn't go down the pipes when he's playing, and guys who can spot up for 3s well so that hopefully that lane opens up a bit more for him to operate

i sound like i'm being very redundant; sorry, except for billups, i'll admit i don't really look at the point guards(or maybe most of all the good pg's except for billups and kidd are int? parker, nash, etc); maybe when i tackle the 2s and 3s as well as 4s and 5s it'll be a bit less redunant.

to be continued next time: shooting guards/small forwards

is rasheed THAT good of a 1-on-1 post defender?

i gotta ask this because it's a DUH that rasheed defends better in the post compared to ben wallace. ben is of course the king of help d, but i've thought about how sam's told me once he thinks rasheed is the best 1-on-1 post defender in the nba.

i mean, i know rasheed is all-around a great defender. no question.

but could he really be THAT good? thoughts; hit me up on this one. what does he do that makes him so much better than say, kevin garnett, or tim duncan?

he's one of the few nba players who can defend duncan straight up, according to the espn.com pistons spurs recap, so would that put him up there? we all know how devastating duncan can be on offense(he rarely has an off night).

because if it is true, then i maybe am underestimating the true potential of the pistons' d. you've got arguably the best perimeter defender, best post defender and best help defender all on the same team; that's pretty hard to top defense-wise. no wonder they held 5 opponents in a row to under 70 in 2004.

i've been meaning to post up some of my bible notes

some from xmas service, some from my previous bible study that i held w/the guys in my group, cause these were good thoughts, but i'll do that tomorrow. promise.

yesterday's "message" that we discussed was good though; "grace vs truth." essentially, the two components of jesus; his mercy and his just, holy side, and how these 2 qualities are almost contrasts, but yet fully part of jesus.

but to give you something to mull on in anticipation of tomorrow, i'll point out that the church of today has grown soft; they're too concerned about the upholding of the grace side of being a christian, and not about telling the truth, even if it hurts. look at proverbs 9:8. in fact, there's a lotta good verses telling about the value of rebuking; hit up "rebuke" on any bible search engine. everytime someone accuses the church of doing something wrong, it's always "why can't we just get along? what happened to the love that christ is all about?" you fool, christ's love can be see in two different ways.

"i don't want to hurt them" is a poor excuse for not being real; the truth will ALWAYS hurt. if you care so much about them, you will be willing to sacrifice the relationship between you and them to make the relationship between them and God that much better.

so my quest for a good kjv freeware continues

b/c "bible plus" is good, but does not point out the italicized words.

"bible database" looks good, but you can't install it onto another spot on your cpu, enabling you to carry it on your usb(which was my intentions)

so i'll be trying e-sword tonight and seeing how that goes; hopefully it'll work on usb drive, have the kjv, and the words will be italicized.

some more sports stuff

i wonder what's more likely; paul pierce getting some quality help, or him getting traded? both seem improbable. i like pierce as a player(as a celtic); all-around good player, and hope he doesn't get traded. though it's not exactly a match of titans, i'll enjoy watching him take on aix2 tonight. not going to be too concerned about heat and sonics; won't be able to watch it, and we know the outcome already.

(maybe all the "leastern conference" jokes during the reign of lakers and spurs came b/c of the atlantic; seems all the jokes we hear now are about the "titanic" division)

i wonder when lebron and dwayne are going to commit to really develop as defensive players. right now, they just showcase some potential but never develop it.

convert any file to .pdf for free

there's other good programs that don't require the internet, but this is probably the only one which doesn't require a driver(good for when you're using a uc computer in their lab)

but if you don't have that problem, PDF redirect is pretty good for that purpose.

(i'm posting this b/c i know if you send online resumes, it's a pretty good suggestion to convert your file to .pdf before you send it, not a .doc)

THIS... IS... UNREAL...

i keep giving san antonio the benefit of the doubt... cause i know san antonio really isn't a pushover team...

but detroit is seriously unreal.

if you told me detroit was going to duplicate what they did on xmas day(hold san antonio to 70 or under and beat them by 15) ON THE SPURS' HOME COURT, WITH A HEALTHY GINOBILI, i really would not have believed it.

unreal, period.

(on another note, too bad it looks like artest looks like he's going to the clips and the warriors lose to the suns)

don't look now, but

larry "play the right way" brown's knicks are rolling, and their latest win is over the mavs

najara's block back INTO shawn marion(?)'s face was disgusting...

though i'm not really a kings fan, corliss williamson had a really nice fake pass to peja as he was curling around him, but instead, spun the other way, drove in and 1-handed it down upon the rockets. took the rockets by surprise and his tomahawk looked really kewl.

again, i'm bummed i won't be able to watch the pistons visit the spurs tomorrow.

disciple - into black

don't you love the nfl playoffs?

too bad carson palmer went out with an injury, though...

i would've picked the steelers to win regardless, but the game lost a lot of its intrigue when that happened... i will admit though, that it looked like the bengals were still going to win this... they were 17-7 at the half. i guess i should've watched the rest of the game, to see that the bengals would get no further points.

i still think colts are going to win it all because their d has stepped up to supplement their already ferocious offense, but all the followup matchups as of right now look intriguing. plus, the regular season's always quite different from playoffs. and like they say, the champs are still the champs until you dethrone them. patroits have so much talent and experience, and a lot of the key players from last season, that until someone runs them over, they're still the team to beat. i will definitely keep a close eye on the steelers and colts matchup, and the patriots and broncos matchup.

too bad nfl playoffs are only settled in 1 game each round. allows for i think too much randomness to occur. i like the nba's format for playoffs.