I accidentally edited Beddie's post and dogged Duke. Sorry again, @BeddieKU23. I'm on phone today and screwed the pooch on that one.
@jaybate-1.0 preach on, brother. It's imperative to dispel the holier-than-thou Duke myth whenever it's presented as matter of fact.
@BeddieKU23 crap, I edited your post by mistake.
@jaybate-1.0 If and when he beats us with the press, there will be plenty of lamenting that we no longer attack on defense like the 2008 team.
I believe it can only help Self to have Huggins and now Shaka in the league. We need to play against teams that play with desperation before March.
...Are we gonna see Wiggins run more pick-and-roll this season?
Remember: The first thing you have to do to establish yourself is be able to post up inside and score or get fouled. We did the same thing with KG when he was 18.4 Then teams can’t put a smaller guy on you who is fast enough to take away your perimeter game. You chase those smaller guys off the court.
So I wanted him posting up. And in the second half of the season, he was right there with James Harden in free throw attempts. He put people in the torture chamber.
He has to get better at other things. He shot the ball well early, and then he got tired. He wasn’t ready for the drudgery of an NBA season. We put an unbelievable amount of pressure on him to score. We ran more pick-and-roll with him at the end of the season, and he got better. But he needs to be better.
He’s working on his ballhandling. If he improves, I’ll give him more responsibility. If he doesn’t, I won’t. He’s a blank canvas. Very few players enter this league with the ability to draw on that canvas and create any kind of game they want.
...
@Crimsonorblue22 there's a nice link in that article to a YouTube channel full of old basketball clips: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCFfDF7oCw7sVL7PzEg57E4g ↗
@jaybate-1.0 said:
It seems an elite club of one that he is apparently a member of.
Funny stuff :)
He was reputedly a OAD... I remember seeing clips of him going against Okafor in HS and thinking that either the person filming omitted half the highlights, or Cliff was getting pretty much destroyed by Okafor. Ah well. Crazy high expectations for a kid that raw.
Glad he caught on somewhere, but with Mason Plumlee, Myers Leonard, and Noah Vonleh on the roster, he's going to have to work his ass off to stick, including developing a jumper, and didn't he measure 6'9 with shoes at the combine? That's about the same height as Louisville's Montrezl Harrell, who was a proven beast, and whose game I'd consider a much more polished version of Cliff's game. If that guy averaged 15.7 points and 9.2 rebounds for Louisville his Junior year and went 32nd in the draft, I'm not surprised that Cliff fell off the board based on upside, regardless of the negative circumstances.
He'll probably need a whole lot of good luck too.
Another possible reason the Cavs moved on from Christmas is that they have another backup big-man option in Sasha Kaun, a 2008 Cavs draft pick who has been playing in Russia. Kaun, who also played at Kansas, met with the Cavs last week in Las Vegas. The team still has $1.2 million left of its taxpayer midlevel exception, and they might use it on Kaun.
Apparently the 76ers have been lying this whole time about the injury: http://www.crossingbroad.com/2015/07/report-joel-embiid-actually-did-re-break-his-foot-and-the-sixers-may-in-fact-be-full-of-sht.html ↗
@Crimsonorblue22 Frank is down...
@Crimsonorblue22 Ty Lawson will always be the guy I thought was built like Sherron with comparable skills/game who was a whole lot luckier than Sherron. I don't wish him ill will, but it sounds like the writing is on the wall.
Speaking of SMU point guards who are not named Moore and didn't actually play for SMU, Emmanuel Mudiay is looking good in Summer League for the Nuggets and Ty Lawson just got his second DUI this year.
This really sucks. Get well, big guy. When they all forget your name, come back with a healed foot, make Jahlil look pedestrian and claim your throne, Lion Killer.
@Statmachine lol. thanks for sharing.
Thanks for weighing in, Jethro...
You know, of the basketball shoes I've owned, the Nikes I owned either fell apart or got gross fast and the adidas shoes were too narrow. Both kind of sucked. But I guess I didn't spend enough money on them.
It's hard to get a read whether it was mutual or not but it seemed to me that NBA walked away first and the adidas line about taking another approach while maybe partially true was in large part damage control.
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/adidas-says-not-renew-nba-contract-160924605--nba.html ↗
The NBA told Adidas last week it was opening up to new partners for the next contract, a source familiar with the process said, adding that Adidas's falling market share and upcoming chief executive change were behind that decision.
http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/nike-wins-nba-uniform-contract/298982/ ↗
Last year they signed 4 of the top 6. Let's see how many they snag this year. If Nike has the NBA contract for apparel and adidas is snatching up individual players, wouldn't the influence in steering players to schools be advantage adidas? Might there be some influence by Nike on the league in regards to increasing the salary cap this year? As people have pointed out LeBron's true value to the team is probably in the realm of 60+ million which cannot be realized with the current cap and the majority of his income comes from endorsements, unlike Renaldo and Messi. Having secured the uniform contract with promises by Silver to peddle their gear internationally as he attempts to add international teams to the league, it seems Nike has very much hitched their international expansion efforts to those of the league.
Just where will the salary cap end up? ESPN postulates that the immediate salary cap increase will result in one more max contract per team. While this may be the case for some teams and that added flexibility will certainly be there, I think that for teams with top tier stars, the effect will more likely be just greater compensation by the league. I also think stories like Dwyane Wade and the Heat being at odds because of sacrificed millions in order to recruit Bosh and LeBron is causing some pressure on the league to compensate big names so this talent bunching can continue. My guess is that while this current round of salary cap hikes are supposedly associated with the new TV contract, future contracts will be "just because" from the league.
I also think that adidas will be willing to throw some pretty large contracts at select lottery picks each year and this will make it more financially imperative for top flight kids to go early in the draft.
I'm sure I'm overlapping previous posts on the matter. It seems there are plenty of angles left to explore.
Ugh. No ESPNU. :(
@scaredmichael I'm scared!
@JayHawkFanToo Awesome!
@wissoxfan83I just fell in love with the team and Bo is leaving? I wish I had seen the light sooner. I hope the assistant coach gets the job, and that he somehow maintains the standards and level of play Bo has brought to the program. Big shoes. I'll be rooting for them.
About a few of the other hopefuls that didn't get their name called:
http://mashable.com/2015/06/26/nba-draft-free-agents/?utm_cid=p-outb-ent-traff ↗
There were others on Thursday night, too. Robert Upshaw from Washington, Brandon Ashley from Arizona, Aaron Harrison from Kentucky, Chris Walker from Florida, Trevor Lacey from North Carolina State, Michael Qualls from Arkansas — all left college early to declare for the NBA Draft. All went unselected.
Did anyone else notice Trevor Lacey didn't get drafted? And Chris Walker.
@justanotherfan there are some quality free agent bigs. Can you imagine them adding a LaMarcus Aldridge caliber player to that roster?
http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/12307054/nba-free-agents-2015-2016 ↗
@HawksWin it's a good point.
I agree that saying most young people don't want to work is a generalization that some may find insulting. I also think that doesn't need to provoke a hostile response. One can remind in a friendly way that lots of young people work very hard to find their place and that the workforce is very competitive.
If @hawkmoon2020 is hot about insulting young people, it is probably because he/she is a young buck, and headstrong, and that's the way young people are. Passionate and loose and gung-ho to battle any perceived injustice. And we need young people here as much as we need our salty worldly regulars.
So @globaljaybird it's easier to ask for a ceasefire from you my friend than to ask a young guy I don't know as well not to act young. Though I know you can be young and headstrong when you want to be!
@globaljaybird Relax bud. Please. Let's move on. If you go political you're going to catch some heat if people don't agree.. That's just how it is. Let's just not escalate and move on OK?
@jayballer54 I'm wondering if Turner got drafted so high because he worked out for scouts with Porzingis, and if that skewed his stock because Porzingis didn't separate himself significantly from Turner in that workout. If the GMs overvalued Porzingis, they might then overvalue Turner.
Oubre to my Wizards... Yisssss!
After reading up on Mudiay on Grantland I'll be rooting for him.
A couple baseless conspiracy theories that people can poo-poo..
@bskeet said:
I think folks forget that Oubre stepped into a spot vacated by Wiggins and almost made us forget about what we lost there. The fact that Oubre performed so well in the same system as Wiggins speaks volumes to me.
If he's not a lottery pick, it's a huge mistake.
Totally agree about his value to us, and his potential.. Hope you're right and that this outweighs any questions GMs have about his weight / shot / maturity.
This is a good opportunity to ask the age old question.... Why are there 239 beans in Irish bean soup?
Because one more would be too farty!
@wrwlumpy my guess is Kelly goes in the teens but out of the lottery because of the international players
@drgnslayr said:
My son is 22 months old and he's already a Jayhawk. He watched this past year's game closely and he knows what a Jayhawk is! I know... call it "indoctrination"... guilty as charged.
This made my day :) I remember those moments well!
@brooksmd Scherzer? He pitched a 1 hitter complete game last outing. 16 strikeouts in that one. He was filthy.
@brooksmd hope you make it out there if it's your mind to do so.
@globaljaybird he should draw a giant asterisk on it then give it back.
@brooksmd my coworker lived in Oz. Always tells me that Perth is paradise. My dad was stationed in sydney before I was born (foreign service). Id like to go some time.
@brooksmd said:
Hey y'all. Worked range and been on skype with kids in Australia .
Cool. Do you know these kids? :)
@globaljaybird phone.
@Crimsonorblue22 it's true. But the batter worked hard on that at bat and the pitch got a little away from Scherzer.
Hey guys. Power is out here. Nasty storms. But they held out long enough for Max Scherzer to lead the Nats to a no hitter, and one out short of a perfect game!
Another asset the Cavs could use in a deal this summer are the rights to Russian center Sasha Kaun. The 30-year-old Kaun, who played at Kansas, was drafted in the second round in 2008. He played the last seven seasons for CSKA Moscow but is now a free agent and wants to come to the NBA. He averaged 9.9 points and 4.5 rebounds in 30 Euroleague games this season and projects as a backup in the NBA.
@dylans And the media, realizing the opportunity for enhanced ratings, amplifies the voice of vocal extremists (and omits the voice of quiet moderates), giving the false appearance to the public that we are all extremists. This leads politicians and other public figures to believe that they will only be heard if they espouse extremist positions and denounce entirely the position of the other side. And this leads some of the public to mouth similar extremism, and most of the public to feel profoundly disconnected from the positions that their leaders voice, wondering why our politicians all feel so fake and Washington is in perpetual gridlock.
It's time we take this country back from Big Media and their associated corporate interests, and find our way back to moderate, reasonable beliefs (which does not mean espousing more and more radical extremist beliefs in order to "find a middle ground" that was in fact the target destination of our personal agenda).
I'm agnostic, but I firmly believe we need morals that are pretty much in line with most of the reasonable tenets of the major religions. We should do unto others as we would have done unto ourselves. We should seek balance in our lives. We should love our neighbors.
We are worth more than our purchases. We are worth more than our vote. We are each a unique reflection of the human condition, all similar and all dissimilar. Our lives are to be filled with our experiences and connections, not to be exploited by others' interests and consumed by their tireless agendas. We deserve to be encouraged to pursue long and fulfilling lives, and derive our own meaning from them.
Onward, upward. Let the future be great.
@brooksmd nice nice. looks you got the start of a nice little win streak going.
@JayHawkFanToo If you're talking about this year... I don't know.. there really wasn't a dominant athlete that separated himself or herself... like Djokovic a few years ago, or Usain Bolt in the Olympics, or the people @Crimsonorblue22 mentioned. So maybe, because it was a down year, it was LeBron. However, he's on the decline; this was certainly not his most impressive year., his numbers are down and he seems to have lost some bounce. This is not the unstoppable LeBron that is going to slam it down your throat in transition, where there's nothing you can do except foul him and give him an extra point from the stripe. I might give it to him one or two of his years in Cleveland. Maybe one year in Miami.
If you mean that he's been consistently athletic / dominant in his sport longer than anyone else.. maybe.. It's really hard to say. I think if you put LeBron in the NFL his body would have broken down long ago, so its hard to say he's more athletic than some of the lead rushers year over year, or someone like even Vernon Davis (quoted in article), who runs like a running back but is gigantic.
I think we're in a holding pattern waiting for the next great one to reveal himself.
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@DoubleDD whether the Love trade happens before or after LeBron coming on board, you can be sure that it was part of the terms to LeBron's agreement. Without looking at the numbers, I remember a severe drop off of Love's 3 point percentage and field goal percentage after his hand injury and I believe that they're still low. If he can't shoot from outside I'm not sure he has nearly as much value alongside LeBron.
@BeddieKU23 said:
Kyrie was the last straw as he was dealing with a knee injury the entire playoffs it seemed. They were okay without Love but Kyrie was not replaceable. Hard to guard Curry and company with your backups in.
I haven't watched him closely enough to know, but most people say that Irving's defense is not good.
Now he’s got the foundation to become an all-star as long as Minnesota can field an actual NBA team.
Hoping they can invest in a few more quality bigs, and keep Dieng and Lavine.
@globaljaybird It is beautiful country. My brother lives in Charlottesville and 3 of my other siblings went to UVA. I really like that area. Another brother lives in C'Ville but went to JMU (I went to JMU as well). It's definitely home. Glad you got to spend some time in our fair state!
