Re: the official Dwayne Wade >>> you thread

[LeSwagg James]

I don't know which 'League Pass' site I was looking at before.. Can't seem to find it

If 'Game Time' is not available in the U.S. (says so on watch.nba.com site) then how will you get it?

[McAgger]

Did anyone watch the 30 for 30, "Benji" on Tuesday night?

I thought was another brilliant movie from the 30 for 30 series. Will try to make a more detailed comment on it later.

Btw does anyone here have NBA league pass?

I'm going to get it in a few days. Probably just going to go with the 5 team League Pass. Besides the Celtics, Knicks and Nets which I all get on local cable, I really would only want to watch the Lakers, Thunder, Heat, Pistons and either Houston/Clippers/Charlotte.

I recommend you watch my Warriors. We are going to be a a force this year.

[dmize]

James Harden just got traded to Houston for Jeremy Lamb and Kev Martin. OKC should probably keep Martin for the rest of the season simply because Lamb isn't ready yet. IMO, this year this deal hurts OKC, long term it's a good move. Wouldn't be surprised at all if Lamb got to Hardens level.

edit: LOL @ Harden though. Turns down a 4 year, 52 million dollar deal, to hold out for an extra 8 mill and then gets dealt.

[McAgger]

HAHAHAH Can't believe that deal just went through

Tbh I think Lamb will turn out a much better player than Harden would ever hope to be.

[LeSwagg James]

Durant will replace Kobe in LA, after realizing he can't win a championship in OKC for at least 5 years

[The Franchise]

I heard that OKC told Harden, if you decline the deal we offer we are trading you.

I dont get Harden. I know, he can get more money from us at the Rockets but he was in a position to change for the NBA title...doesnt that mean anything?

Anyways, im happy, I hated Martin and I really like Harden. But I think we again are in that just outside the playoffs position were we dont get a high draft pick. But at least its something to build upon as he is young aswell as talented.

[Le Samourai]

I heard that OKC told Harden, if you decline the deal we offer we are trading you.

I dont get Harden. I know, he can get more money from us at the Rockets but he was in a position to change for the NBA title...doesnt that mean anything?

Anyways, im happy, I hated Martin and I really like Harden. But I think we again are in that just outside the playoffs position were we dont get a high draft pick. But at least its something to build upon as he is young aswell as talented.

You're signing on for a long time there with no guarantees that you won't be traded at less than market value.

He can make alot more money while being the Guy on the team in Houston....plus Houston's core is among the most talented in the league so perhaps down the road it's worth it for him.

I'm happy, one less person to deal with , Kevin Martin is a jumpshooter don't see what he brings to the table other than some servicable points. Maybe like 10 or so a game.

I hear they're looking to trade the pieces they got for a low post presence.

[dmize]

plus Houston's core is among the most talented in the league

What am I missing?

Lin
Harden
Parsons
Jones
Asik

Only one real scorer on that team, Parsons is probably a good 3rd option not 2nd.

Martin gives OKC scoring off the bench, closer to 15ppg than 10. He's a nice stopgap for 1 year. They will miss the playmaking ability of Harden though, that's for sure.

I doubt they trade Lamb and their picks for post help, because 1. who's out there, Josh Smith maybe? 2. I think OKC would rather keep Lamb, and make him their SG of the future. He's on a rookie contract so he'll be much cheaper than Harden while allowing them to sign a low-post scorer.

All in all this trade hurts OKC this year, but damn they are going to be set up for a while: Lamb, PJ III, Torontos lotto pick

They got more in return for Harden than Orlando did for Howard

[Le Samourai]

plus Houston's core is among the most talented in the league

What am I missing?

Lin
Harden
Parsons
Jones
Asik


Motiejuanas
Royce White

I really think those two can be fantastic players.

Houston has Cap for more pickups as well as well as pieces remaining to trade.

[The Franchise]

Your dreaming my friend...our core sucks ass...we have the worst frontcourt in the league.

White and Motie are question marks for different reasons, untill proven otherwise there is nothing to talk about.

Harden is a fool, if im saying this as a Rockets fan I think it says something,

OKC have little to worry about..Martin can score just as well as him and will get to the line alot more (he gets to the line a heck of alot) and he is a 1 year rent. Lamb will be the future there for them and he has a chance to be easily better from what I see.

They will miss Hardens playmaking and his defence is superior to Martin, but I dont think it makes them much weaker at all to be honest.

[Le Samourai]

What type of player is Martin exactly...is he an off guard who mostly shoots or does he get to the rim?

The thing is....here's how this team plays.

It's Durant post up and Shooters wait or Westbrook may cut...and it's Westbrook slash and shooters wait. Unless some sort of decent ball movement system is implemented Martin might not get the shots he needs to score 15 points a game.

Harden got them because he came in and handled the ball and got his own looks. Martin is going to be dependent on Westbrook for them..(they actually have no other point guard at the moment.)

I watched Moitiejuanas a bit in pre-season. He looks really good on offense, has a full array of decent post moves and can knock down the outside shot. His problem is really team defense....just doesn't have the movement and rotations.

Royce White I heard was asking for private transport and all sorts of special accommodations so yea....there may be problems.

He's talented though.

[dmize]

What type of player is Martin exactly...is he an off guard who mostly shoots or does he get to the rim?

Harden got them because he came in and handled the ball and got his own looks. Martin is going to be dependent on Westbrook for them..(they actually have no other point guard at the moment.)

Martin does both. I believe he was 1st or 2nd in the league in Free throws attempted a few years ago.

And they do have another point guard, they got Eric Maynor back after his ACL injury last season.

[Le Samourai]

^^ Did not know that. Anyway we'll see how he does, I say he averages in the 10-12 range.

On another note.

Dante Cunningham noticed when he reported for work in Minnesota this fall that his new Timberwolves team is unlike any for which he has ever played.

"Day One, we were all in the elevator and I kind of looked up," he said about a crowded ride with many of his new teammates, "and I was just like, 'Where is everybody?' "

Everybody, in this case, being black teammates. Come opening night on Friday, Cunningham will be one of five black players on a 15-man Wolves team that has reversed the National Basketball Association's historical racial percentages with a roster that is the league's whitest since the Boston Celtics teams of the 1980s.

Raised in Washington, D.C., and educated at Villanova, Cunningham played his first four professional seasons for three different teams in a league where American-born black players constituted 78 percent of roster spots last season and have been at least 75 percent since 1991-92.

Twin Cities black leaders have noticed, suggesting the franchise strategically has rolled back the calendar by decades in a league that long has been at the forefront of diversity among America's professional sports leagues.

"How did we get a roster that resembles the 1955 Lakers?" asked Tyrone Terrell, chairman of St. Paul's African American leadership council. "I think everything is a strategy. Nothing happens by happenstance."

That strategy, Terrell and others in the black community believe, is to sell tickets to the Wolves' fan base, which is overwhelmingly white.

"Patently false,'' said David Kahn, Wolves president of basketball operations. He and other Timberwolves executives instead call it a coincidence of circumstance and a purposeful plan to scour the globe for the best players they can possibly obtain. They will start the season with players from Russia, Montenegro, Spain and Puerto Rico, a total of five international players among a group that also includes five white American-born players.

Included is injured All-Star Kevin Love, the game's greatest American-born white player -- a vanishing species in the league -- since John Stockton starred for Utah in the 1990s.

When everyone's healthy, the Wolves will start Love alongside Europeans Ricky Rubio, Andrei Kirilenko, Nikola Pekovic and American Brandon Roy, a three-time former All-Star who in attempting a retirement comeback on degenerative knees is their only black starter.

Roy said he never noticed the distinction until a friend mentioned it after he signed as a free agent with the Wolves in July.

"It's just basketball," Roy said. "I never really had to feel like I'm the only black guy out here. I've played on teams that maybe had all black guys and the feeling is just the same when I'm out there on the floor playing with these guys.

"The only problem we have is in the weight room, arguing over what music we're going to listen to."

A changing game

From a historical perspective, the NBA long has been the leader in America's professional sports in providing opportunity for blacks. It was the first to have a black head coach, a black general manager and the first to have blacks claim more than 80 percent of roster spots in a single season.

For many blacks, the NBA is identified as an important part of this country's civil rights movement.

In 1957, the league was 93 percent white. The number of black players rose throughout the 1960s, even though many believed there was an unspoken quota system among league owners that former Celtics great Bill Russell, the NBA's first black head coach, once described as "you're allowed to play two blacks at home, three on the road and five when you're behind."

The number of black players increased dramatically in the 1970s. By the early 1980s, the NBA's popularity sagged, and some blamed it on too many blacks playing before a fan base that was quite white.

In 1984, the league promoted to commissioner a lawyer named David Stern, who insisted teams remain color blind when building rosters. Later that season, the Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers played the first of consecutive NBA Finals in which race -- the Celtics had eight white players including superstar Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Danny Ainge on their 11-man roster, the Lakers with stars Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy were perceived as the black team -- was a prominent story line.

The league's television ratings and revenues soared.

In the present-day NBA, the number of American-born white players continues to diminish -- 85 were on rosters in 1990, 48 by 2005 and nine were regular starters a season ago -- while the sports blossoms globally and the number of international players rises.

Turning back the clock?

Ron Edwards, a longtime Minneapolis civil rights advocate, said he remembers a day last winter when he was watching the Wolves and the only black player on the floor was Wes Johnson, a situation he calls "somewhat disturbing." His sentiments grew stronger, he said, as he watched the team's roster grow even more white this offseason.

"It raises some real questions to me about what's really intended," Edwards said. "I think, personally, that it was calculated. Is this an attempt to get fans back in the stands? Minnesota, after all, is a pretty white state.''

Terrell calls it "scary" that the Wolves would assemble a roster almost 70 percent white in a sport so dominated by blacks. For Edwards, the numbers trouble him by the "historical view," what he calls a "nullification of diversity and a reversal of history."

Both men say their concerns are heightened by the fact the team does not have a black in a position of power in the front office. The team is one of the NBA's few without a black general manager, assistant general manager or head coach; the Wolves have had two black head coaches in their history: Sidney Lowe and Dwane Casey.

Team owner Glen Taylor did not respond to a request seeking comment.

Kahn said he has "consistently" believed that the team's front office should become more diverse and said he is "working behind the scenes" to make that happen this season.

Regarding the concerns voiced by some in the black community, Kahn said: "Well, I can say everybody is entitled to their opinion, but I don't think they're entitled to their own set of facts. There's absolutely no fact that matches that statement. ... The last thing I'm going to do is become defensive about it. In this case, I have nothing to be defensive about.

"Every decision we've made here has been intended to make the team as good as can be, as quickly as can be.''

In search of players

The Wolves targeted free agents Nicolas Batum and Jordan Hill -- both young, promising black players -- the moment free agency began last summer.

They painstakingly re- configured their roster so they could make Batum a $45 million-plus offer sheet that Portland matched. They offered Hill more money than his team did, but he chose to return to the powerful Lakers, and a chance to win a NBA title.

"What if Batum and Hill were here?" Kahn asked.

Instead, the Wolves' major offseason signing was Kirilenko, a former All-Star who's seven years older but has a game similar to that of Batum, to a two-year, $20 million contract.

"We're dealing with guys we thought could help us," veteran coach Rick Adelman said. "It just happened that's how the whole thing worked out. I don't think there's anybody we have here who isn't a proven NBA player.''

Adelman has referred to his players as a "smart team, a very smart team," a tag that likely will be repeated often this season in a world where black players often are stereotyped as athletic and white players as smart. He said players were not acquired specifically to fit his renowned and intricate passing offense.

In fact, Adelman scoffs when his system is mentioned and says there is no such thing. He says he has adjusted his offense to his talent for all of his 971 NBA career victories, eighth all-time.

"Rick likes good players, period," Kahn said. "Who doesn't?"

Both Kahn and Adelman insist each player individually was chosen for his unique skills and collectively for their athleticism, whether, like bouncy Kirilenko, Chase Budinger and Alexey Shved, they are white or they are black.

A byproduct has been what coaches and players alike consider a unified, improved locker room rid of what Love last summer called "bad blood," a reference to surly white center Darko Milicic rather than black Michael Beasley and Anthony Randolph.

"Obviously, our team is a little unique in [racial makeup], but everybody on our team gets along and everybody on our team can really play," guard Will Conroy said. "You've got a guy like Chase Budinger who can jump out of the gym and then you've got Brandon who's not jumping out of the gym, which is the opposite. Usually you have the black guys jumping out of the gym, but on our team it's switched around."

Cunningham has been asked since that first day in the elevator more than once about the last time he was on a team on which the white players outnumbered the black players.

"Honestly, I couldn't tell you I've had more than two or three white guys on a team before," Cunningham said. "It just happened to get dealt this way. There's just as many athletic white guys on this team as there are black guys who are athletic. It's no big deal. We're here to play ball, so regardless of whether we're white or black or yellow or purple, we're going to go out and play."

Unbelievable Really.

[The Franchise]

What type of player is Martin exactly...is he an off guard who mostly shoots or does he get to the rim?


I watched Moitiejuanas a bit in pre-season. He looks really good on offense, has a full array of decent post moves and can knock down the outside shot. His problem is really team defense....just doesn't have the movement and rotations.

Royce White I heard was asking for private transport and all sorts of special accommodations so yea....there may be problems.

He's talented though.

He gets to the rim more than anyone on OKC when healthy, he gets to the line a ton. He comes off screens, he can shoot from distance. His only problem I guess is off the dribble when he cant get all the way to the bucket..but my problem with him is defence, its awful. He also cant/wont pass.

No chance he going to average just 10-12 points...if he is healthy (thats a question mark) he will get to the line at least 6 times a game. You honestly think he isnt going to get 2-3 more buckets? He shoots it far too well for that. He is going to get 15 at least if healthy, book it.

And yeah, Monte can be hella talented but he is a rookie from Europe..its going to take time most likely. At this moment, he is part of the worst front court in the league.

I dont think we have alot of talent at all. Lin is a back up, Parsons is probably not a starter on a title contender..in fact we have an excellent bench for a title winning team, problem is they all start for us.

[LeSwagg James]

My thoughts on the trade is that OKC got a lot weaker, Harden is much better than Martin.. And there is no guarantee that Lamb will reach his potential.. Not to mention the effects it will have on team chemistry and moral

At first I thought Harden was an idiot for not resigning but the more I think about it, he would have left around $20 million on the table I believe if he re-signed with the Thuunder.. $20 million more plus a guaranteed starting role would be very very difficult to turn down for anybody let alone young'n like him, he's not a veteran chasing a ring or anything like that

What I would like to find out is if getting PJ3 made it easier to let Harden go.. Has he been playing well in the pre-season? Maybe the Thunder see something that we didn't, since they didn't even wait until deadline day to try and work out a deal

[Freeza]

20 million more? Wasn't he offered 54 million but turned down, because he wanted the 4 year maximum of 60 million

[LeSwagg James]

From OKC yeah.. But the Rockets can give him 80 over 5 years

[Amar]

Harden couldn't really leave that much money behind, but in no way is he ready to be a superstar in this league. Making the jump from coming off the bench to being the man is a totally different thing.

He'll no longer be facing teams whose primary focus was always on Durant and Westbrook. Teams defence's are going to adjust specifically for him and I don't think he'll deliver. I'm predicting 23-26PPG with a horrendous FG%.

For me OKC came out ahead in this deal. This deal sets them up to be a powerhouse in the West for years to come, specically with those two valuable draft picks. Kevin Martin may be not get to the line as much as Harden can, but he can score for days and with Durant on the court, he'll def. get more room to do his thing. Don't sleep on Lamb either, kid has ridiculous potential and he's going to be a top shooter and defender at the 2 in a couple years.

[dmize]

Just a few minutes away

[dmize]

Courtney Lee doing things for the C's already

[Freeza]

The Celtics can be strong this year, hope it will be another Lakers vs Celtics in the finals

[The Franchise]

Lee having a tremendous game, I get the sense he will have a great year for some reason. His defence is excellent and he hits shots.

Bosh playing well on both ends.

Wade getting shut down at every turn by Lee.

[The Franchise]

Forgot to add Battier is so good at his role its annoying.

Allen hits his first shot.

[Freeza]

Rondo already has 6 assist, he will def win the assist leader again

[The Franchise]

I dont know how he racks up assists so easily, he doesnt even look like he impacted the game in that quarter lol

Dropped off a couple transition assists and Bass hit a couple jumpers.

Heat look very confident and composed, like champions.

[The Franchise]

KG having a bad start, missed shots, turnovers, fouls, all stupid ones.

I love how Doc Rivers ALWAYS has a fresh line up for every damn game lol

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