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.

MSH staple combos

Captain America:

d.c.fk-> s.rk xx strong shield slash or final justice
-shield slash is good for all-purpose safe poking; probably your best string to use b/c c.fk has amazing range(not often you're going to be in close for c.sk to hit); 28%, 52%, respectively

d.c.sk-> c.fk-> s.rk xx strong shield slash or final justice
-shield slash is good for all-purpose safe poking; 30%, 55% respectively

d.c.sk-> s.fk... s.fk(2nd)-> s.rk xx strong shield slash
-will only work on bigs or most opponents if standing; 33% life; if you connect this combo 2x in a row, they will be dizzy

jump-ins:
j.fk-> j.rk or j.dn.rk on smalls

air combos can either be started off of d.c.sk-> c.fp without a jump-in, or d.s.jp-> c.fk-> c.fp if off one(this string's more damaging, but less range); if either's blocked, cancel into strong shield slash

d.s.jp-> c.fk-> c.fp.../\ sj.sp... sj.fk-> sj.fp-> sj.rk
-36% roughly; if at corner, follow w:
sj.fp\/ j.fk-> j.fp\/ j.fk-> j.fp-> j.rk
-works on Captain America; roughly 45% life

corner air combo:
d.s.jp-> c.fk-> c.fp...\/ sj.sp-> sj.fp... sj.rk, sj.fk-> sj.rk\/ j.fk-> j.fp-> j.rk
-works on Captain America; roughly 45% life

off of a fk throw:
d.s.sp/\ air combo

i don't feel like doing anything, but don't want to waste too much time, so i'm just gonna throw a buncha one-liners w/o any elaboration in this post til i'm bored

i am the xanga and blogger ninja; i read what you say, have my own online journal, but don't necessarily comment

i bet 90% of msm doesn't even know i read their dkc xanga thread, just cause i don't post

i'm reluctant to post on a lotta xangas and stuff b/c my xanga pic is me half-naked playing w/my fender; i don't have a problem w/showing chest skin on guys, but some people in the church i go to do, and i'm too lazy to whip out my pc camera to retake it(ok so i lied; one of my 1-liners is long)

i have to start playing w/my fender again; i'm staring at my fingertips, and my right fingers have more calluses from playing cpu and arcade games than my left fingers.

those of you who didn't watch the bowl game missed a great game of college football(i picked texas to win after i realized they were the #1 defense in the nation); it was close to the end, and you gotta love vince young pulling out the come from behind victory on the 4th down after their defense made a huge stop.

chauncey billups is actually the cousin of usc runningback tyndale white

"pool em up" is actually a pretty good freeware pool game; i've enjoyed playing it everytime i've downloaded it

pistons at the spurs next thursday; with ginobili back and the spurs now on their home court(and apparently found their winning ways again), this one should be good(for the well, 4 people in the world who are not san antonio and detroit natives who care); too bad i'm be in a genetics lab class while that's going on...

speaking of the spurs and pistons, i crack up when i think about what gregg poppavich said during xmas day; "it's important for the jv teams to keep the audience attentive until the varsity teams show up" or something like that. heh heh.

keep track of the pistons' run compared to the bulls; this should get interesting if they keep this up

although, in the end, it won't really matter if pistons don't win it all; remember that the reason pistons were doing this in the 1st place isn't to show the world that they're something without larry brown(although, i would love to see that, just not if that might put their finals run at a tremendous risk); they just want homecourt advantage playoffs and beyond. i think they'll get that.

hmm, the white-guys-can't-defend team against the white-guys-who-can-defend team

wonder who won?

that game has got to be a dagger for bay area fans...

on top of mickel and foyle being out(there goes most of the warriors' D), troy gets injured, and right at the end of the game, when the warriors had a chance to win it down by 2, stephen jackson makes the improbable 3 pt play and suddenly the pacers won by 10

but to dagger it in, there's a possiblity that davis is injured... if he is, i have a gut feeling the warriors will miss the playoffs again.

that said, here are some things i've noticed...

diagu really is becoming a quality inside player on both ends of the court; i enjoyed watching him keep the warriors in the game with his inside post play(unlike all the other warriors who were trying to jack up 3s) and good help d. also had sound rebounding. if he's given a few more years, he could really become something. i'm sold.

that play where baron split the d and dunked it was sick.

as you know, part of why i admire indiana is because of jermaine o neal. another is *partally joking*, they are the only team which seems to have white guys who can defend and rebound(but it's really something i am impressed by). but another thing you have to be impressed by...

rick charlisle has to be one of the most underrated coaches in the league.

remember last year when they seemed to have one of the best chances to win it all, and then that ugly brawl happened? they still made the playoffs, even with their best players out for most of the season. they beat the celtics, which no one thought would happen, to bring it all the way back to detroit.

today's game, i thought was going all indiana because of jermaine o neal... until i realized he was out with pneumonia. and this was when i saw the scoreboard and saw that indiana was up by 20. so you've got artest causing havoc again, their best post player is out, fred jones fouled out which should have sealed the win for the warriors, and they still won the game by 10.

i really don't think enough is said about rick charlisle; yes, i think detroit became better when they got larry brown instead of rick, but he's still one of the best coaches in the league; he just does not seem to accept losing as an option; one way or another, you are going to play defense and rebound if you're on his team, and you are going to win.

i would put rick charlisle up there in today's nba of top coaches with (no order) greg poppavich, larry brown, phil jackson, pat riley, *and possibly now* flip saunders. *don't ask me to rank them, they're all great coaches; i think in order to really rank them correctly, you'd all have to have them coach the same team, exact lineup, for the same time period; they're all brilliant in their own light(i personally think that phil jackson is NOT number one though)*

the only problem is that rick charlisle doesn't ever REALLY seem to take off offensively for his team. but i love the effort he makes everybody on his team play. it is really something.

i've never really had any religious talks w/my mom

so i was surprised to have 2 conversations w/her during break about stuff from the bible... lemme try to recontruct as best to my memory... keep in mind me and mom talk in a blend of taiwanese and english, but i'm just going to type it all in english...

m:how come man is so stupid? it's all adam's fault!
r:no it's not; eve ate the apple first
m:if adam did not eat the apple, we would not have all these problems... it's adam's fault
r:eve still ate the apple first; if she didn't, adam would not have
(we go back and forth basically saying this over and over in various ways)
r:no, you see, eve ate the apple wanting to become more like god... adam was just hungry.

m:how much was that king james bible you bought? (she's probably expecting 30+, cause it seems i buy the most random useless junk sometimes)
r:*grins* which one?
m:the small one you brought to church
r:*grins* (i like fooling w/my mom sometimes on stuff i buy, making her think i spent a lot of money)
m:30?
r:20
m:only cost you 20?
r:that's because the king james bible doesn't have a copyright; it expired years ago
m:how come my chinese bible doesn't cost that cheap?
r:that's cause chinese bibles are based on the NIV
...
m:does bob have a girlfriend?
r:haha... no... he's lived at home with his parents for quite some time, remember?
m:who says you can't have a girlfriend and live with your parents?
r:because no girl is going to like a boyfriend who does that!
m:you're just being silly
r:*racks head*
r:the bible says so...
m:WHAT?!?!?
m:where?
r:genesis
m:you mean where God says a man must leave his mother and father to become tied to another woman?
r:EXACTLY! if you don't leave your mother and father, HOW CAN YOU EXPECT TO BE TIED TO ANOTHER WOMAN?
m:tis a shame you bought that king james bible; i thought you were going to get smarter

you should all try frozen berries or cherries on cereal... yes, i said frozen.

i tried this during winter break when mom had frozen blueberries in the fridge and they weren't bad... i'm hooked.

less costlier than fresh berries, which are pretty seasonal and berries are pretty costly to begin with(plus, i see no real reason to eat fresh berries any other way than straight up), and adds a nice sweet tang to your morning food. so you don't have to go looking for sugary cereals to satisfy your sweet tooth.

plus, i'm assuming you already pour ice-cold milk on your cereal, so it's not like eating frozen berries are going to make your cereal any colder or untolerable during winter.

some random ish on my mind

chauncey will FINALLY make the all-star lineup i believe. however, i believe it'll definitely be as a reserve; people have too much love for dwade still(dunno how much of that is tied to the fact that shaq is chained to this guy, but hey, facts are facts). chauncey in fact, might make the case for REGULAR MVP this year; if pistons win the championship this year, i could imagine this might all go on his resume:

reserve all-star
2nd all-defensive team
regalar season mvp
finals mvp

rip, not as much luck. but he's doing a great job. not as much compared to chauncey though.

------

pistons are doing great; but the year they won the championship, their bench was huge for them. the wallaces seem to be playing a LOT of minutes which makes them more injury-prone, so you got to wonder when darko's finally gonna achieve his potential, or are they going to trade him away for a quick fix.

------

i agree with the all-star lineup marc stein's got; here's more or less my picks for starting 5 and coach:

west coach: poppovich(props to avery though, and deantoni for preaching defense and holding the fort w/o amare)
guards: nash, kobe
forwards: duncan, dirk(w/mavs being the only team remotely close to detroit and spurs, are we really gonna put kg in there?)
center: camby(mvp performance on the defensive end; something china hasn't really gotten from yao yet)

east coach: flip(no contest)
guards: chauncey, iverson(kinda shaky about ai, but then i'm not sure about dwade in his place; maybe rip, but he pales compared to mr. big shot)
forwards: lebron, jermaine(hard to make a really good argument here; east forwards don't seem THAT dominant as a whole)
center: ben(b/c shaq hasn't played that many games yet)

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not really TOO computer-savvy, so i gotta ask this question; can you record music(.wmw's, .wav's, and .mp3's) onto dvd-r's and then play them back on a regular cd player? they seem to be able to store a LOT more stuff on them(4.7 gb, 120 min compared to 700 mb, 80 min for a cd-r). granted, i don't have any movies on my computer, and i realized ucd's cpu's cd drives are cd-rw, not cd, so i could take a load of crap off of my memory-laden laptop.

the music on my laptop's about 300 mb, so it's not too bad. easily coverable. and the abandonware and emulators i'm hoping to copy should easy be covered with a 700 mb disc(abandonware is typically small; zipped, each game doesn't even reach 1 mb, except for maybe a few). there's various other video and music stuff on my cpu, but nothing too huge.

my virtua fighter matches in total, though, are quite huge; i think i have just slightly over 1 gb of match reel play. a lot of it is akira and sarah players, which are my fave characters.

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i might get another usb drive before break's over; seems my old 128 mb drive broke or something. and i wouldn't want my 512 mb drive breaking during school; just something for backup.

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i will have after today, 4 chapters of revelation left to go. strangely enough, i consider it just barely grazing the surface, although i've probably spent 1 hour each chapter. that's because i've probably only cross-referenced using two kjv bibles. when i start trying to look up the historical facts of what has occurred, and using bible software to quick-search similar words, well, that might take a lot longer, especially considering my winter break's almost over.

revelations, daniel, ezekiel, isaiah, jeremiah, and various other prophetic books in the bible; now there's where the fun's at.

-----

b/c i'm writing this at the library, i don't have the notes i wrote down this sunday during sermon and sunday school. there's notes i usually write when i'm following the speaker, but see something in the kjv that others don't see in the niv or nasb or nlt or *shudders* the message. but for the sake of not interrupting class or sermon(cause you know how if i brought up the kjv, i would probably have to bring up my beliefs about it, and the evidence, which would open another whole can of worms and eat up all the time during the sermon and sunday school), i keep quiet, but let my mind wander, and see if the verses i look takes me anywhere else.

btw, it was nice to see a lotta old faces during christmas sunday and saturday service. laura, the hwang sisters, the yeh siblings, mandy, the liu sisters, the lin brothers, morris, jean(heh; she comes back from taiwan just when joe takes off for japan then taiwan! somebody's trying not to become a fob, someone else is!). tomio and alice were back too, and i did not expect sam to attend our church AND our sunday school(when's the last time THAT happened?). the usual suspects from college were back though; alice, justin, me.

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last thing for tonight, cause i should get home, and shower, finish my 2nd chapter for today, and start on a rough resume to send to phil. as well as eat.

have you noticed an increase of the use of "the message" bible? i have. dunno how prevalent this is at canaan, but it seems to be a lot more common in college. basically, the premise behind it is that something god's message just isn't hitting the people like the other bible versions are. supposedly, the bible needs to be in OUR language for it to really hit home. that's why it was created.

i have problems with it. lemme try not to get into the whole kjv thing. or how the scriptures they use are corrupted(i'm pretty sure they used the 2 corrupted versions of the greek manuscripts accepted by the roman catholic church). lemme just try to explain it in another ways why i feel bad about it.

if you've ever read it, have you ever gotten a sense that they are cheapening the word of God? it seems like it. because they're using idioms common to our language, and not theirs. you can look for yourself; look on the side of my webpage for a link titled "bible search" and try "the message" bible for yourself. try psalm 1 in the niv or kjv. now try it in the message. do you see what i'm talking about? try other verses. basically, you get the feeling that they concentrate way too hard on getting the bible "in our commonday language" that there are chunks of meaning taken out of the bible.

now, i realize some people aren't as blessed as me in the intellectual sense(i'm not trying to brag in what i have saying that it's more than it is; i acknowledge that seemingly one of the unique gifts God has graciously given me is love of the scriptures, b/c i can pore over stuff from revelation and daniel and be fascinated with it, whetheras some people will get bored or confused to death), so they might need some self-help interpreting and reading the bible. I'M OK WITH THAT. what i have a problem is, is that often people take this travesty as the actual word of God.

i'm very sure the kjv is quite readable; it's not as ancient as people believe it to be. when i first tried reading it, i thought it was going to be chock-full of thee's and thou's and thy's and the like. the sentence structure may take a sight bit to get used to(reads something similar to what yoda of star wars sounds like sometimes), but nothing too hard.

but i guess when people believe in a meaning-for-meaning translation over a word-for-word translation, then we'll believe in different versions eh? strange; if i recall, when a court wants to translate a dead person's will to another language so that the descendants can understand, they use word-for-word translation(dynamic equivalence), so that the meaning of the dead person will not get mixed with a possible meaning from the translator. after all, Jesus has harsh punishments for those who tamper with the word of God, adding to it, OR taking away from it.

(i'll make this short, cause i just opened one specific argument); critics make the claim that you can't translate every single word perfectly into another language, and they are correct. even the kjv writers knew that. without adding any words, the bible translated would make no sense. however, you can see the honesty of the kjv translators, because when they added words, ALL of them are in italics. none of the words which other bible editors have added or taken away are specially marked in any sense.

now, should we remove those italicized words? perhaps, but if we did, we'd have to remove ALL of them. if you claim to only remove this and keep that, you are presuming to have the spiritual authority from God to do so. think about that for a second.

remember that scripture has stated that every single word of God is pure.

that is all from me today; if you want me to elaborate at a future time, you know how to reach me. good night.

something about game 7 finals losses must really bring out the best in teams

cause detroit's soooo gooood this season, it's really boggled my mind. they're on pace to finish as possibly one of the best records in nba history. i did not expect detroit to beat san antonio by 15 pts and hold them to 70. yes, manu wasn't there, but the key was in the boards.

it's really sad that detroit and san antonio get no respect. that people prefer the drama of kobe and shaq over team play.

(heh; i think people seriously need to play some arcade fighting games vs other people and read some of s-kill's articles on playing to win; then they might get a clue the way i have.)

and with the fact that when i watched the heat play, and they didn't really seem THAT dominant against the lakers, i would not be surprised if detroit brings the rape when the heat visit them on thursday.

but i'm expecting spurs to be ready after january, so it's not gonna be a cakewalk. after all, pistons were like that last season.

but for now, it's really exciting to see detroit almost mow over teams at will during the regular season.

i can take on average more than half an hour to pore over 1 single chapter from revelations

and i gun for two everyday of this break...

good thing i've got about 2 weeks to finish it off thoroughly before school starts...

so i thought to myself that perhaps true strength is being able to resist striking back when you want to

but then i thought of people who would actually be a lot more afraid to strike back on fear of losing the war that follows(not necessary physical contact; just afraid of anytype of conflict)...

so then i came to the conclusion that

true strength is doing what you are not comfortable with doing...

and righteousness would be:

doing what is right regardless of whatever you feel comfortable with it or not

if this was last nba season

and the suns met the heat in the nba finals, i would've rooted for the heat...

now i'm not so sure...

i still like dwayne wade, and i respect shaq's game. as well as pat riley's coaching brilliance.

but i have huge question marks towards antoine walker, jason williams, and possibly james posey. prior to pat riley's mark on the team, this team plays no defense outside of wade and possibly shaq and payton. and though there's no particular player on the suns i really like outside of amare and possibly marion, i'm starting to respect how they're emphasizing defense, and rebounding; the things great teams need to do.

basically, it feels like heat are pulling a 2003-2004 laker team all over again; let's throw as much talent together and see if it works.

while having arguably the best duo in the game and nothing else might get you shafted say one of the all-stars gets injured(wade in this case last year vs detroit), IMO, that is no reason for the heat to plan TOWARDS THAT rather than the regular case(having a healthy shaq and wade ready to go); i'd take last year's heat team(which i actually liked) with riley coaching them rather than this year's heat team w/riley. i mean, that's like saying for the spurs, hey, td might get injured so let's trade away half our roster which clicked with him to get some other all-star JUST IN CASE he gets injured. all great teams have to take that risk of their all-star getting injured; if you think about it; the risk they take is actually a LOT smaller than planning for that risk; pistons have the best starting 5, but if one player gets injured, they usually get outta whack(notice what happens if rip or billups gets injured). does that mean something's wrong? no...

that is, it's not bad to have a total of 3 all-stars on your team. i believe it's bad to have beyond that. basically, when it seems like you're just throwing talent together, you're doing something wrong. maybe that's why i have so much respect for what joe dumars did with detroit.

(this may be why i still don't feel too great about fantasy basketball, because this would never fly in an actual so-called fantasy basketball league if it did happen)

but don't mind me; i'm just AsianMadBlog DOT COM right now...

lastly...

wing commander 1's a great abandonware game

you should try it

ykno, honestly, this is what makes me tick

kobe goes for 62 pts and the lakers win...

so now you probably got casual fans going OH WE WANT TO SEE THAT AGAIN!

but that's probably the exception, and not the rule.

yes, things like this can happen; a superstar going off and the team winning.

but it's not going to happen often.

just a side note, if kobe actually HAD played 4th quarter, i believe he would've broken the record for most points ever scored in an nba game. sam's right; if kobe ever went off like tmac, he'd probably break the scoring record.

surprises me how many pts he scored, but then, avery johnson DID get ejected; maybe after that the mavs lost some defensive leadership?

i seriously wonder though, why kobe amongst all the talented guards that can score, has the hardest time getting others involved?

---

again, spurs are confusing me with the loss to the bucks. i KNOW, i KNOW, they're not shooting for 60+. but we'll find out whether the best in the west or the best in the east is the best team come xmas day.

about some of the artest trade rumors

artest supposedly realized he spoke too soon(surprise! it's ron artest!) and now wants back. problem is, donnie walsh won't let him play, even if he does take him back. that would(if pacers decide to keep artest) the 2nd straight season that artest's season was cut short.

get this; out of the 30 nba teams, 20 want artest and have hit indy's phoneline. (let's count the ones which don't; lesse; detroit, san antonio, MAYBE dallas, MAYBE suns. from there, i'm pretty much stuck.)

and since indy doesn't look like they're gonna get any good packages from any eastern conference teams(the last thing they want to do is turn an eastern conference pretender to a contender and then end up shafting themselves), so sorry ron, if you're getting traded, you're going west. (maybe that's why he pulled back; he's probably going to a low team...)

houston looks better.

so do the lakers *cringe* then again, phil jackson's phil jackson.

and i hope artest does NOT go to the lakers.

the artest deals remind me a lot of T.O. everybody wants an all-star that pushes their team from mediocre to great. everybody thinks it's worth the sacrifice. difference is, even the crap teams in the nfl now don't want T.O. whereas the ppl in the nba have yet to learn. although artest isn't as much of a troublemaker compared to T.O., you still have to admit, like T.O., he seems to talk way before he thinks.

What exactly a ninja is

I'm not sure about exactly what a ninja REALLY is(media and entertainment have a way of blowing everything out of context), but it's best to sum them up as unenlisted samurai working in secret.

This page should prove an interesting read; clears up a lot of misconceptions.

anybody else interested in bringing ron artest to gsw?

that'd solve most of our defensive and rebounding woes in an instant.

but after seeing the way t.o. messed up the place in philly, i'm not exactly too sure about artest either; the guy's great really. i'm just not sure he can 100% stay at gsw and not sometime in the future cause some havoc.

pat riley's back

look for miami to be a tougher opponent vs pistons, not cause walker and posey and stuff will be good, but simply because pat riley will actually preach some defense. then again, pistons have gotten better this season, so...

so right after i'm puzzling over why the spurs lost to the hawks

the pistons lose to the jazz... and a LOT worse.

the temptation to watch tv is just too strong tonight

kings at pistons at 4:30, and then rockets at warriors around 8:00

ack! must not watch!

forgot to mention this

that ai crossover was sick... reminded me of ai on jordan all over again.

the difference is that jordan is great enough of a defender to remain on his feet and still put up a hand to contest ai's shot after getting faked... poor jacque vaughn just stumbled and fell over.