NBA Off-Season Thread

Chris Kaman gets $8 million a year. Dear God, please tell me that's a typo!

 

And as Barkley pointed out, Bryant is in his mid-30s, while people forget that outside of Magic and Bird, most of those future Hall of Fame guys were still in their prime. This was Jordan pre-baseball break, Pippen pre-late career injuries, Ewing and Malone in their primes, etc.

 

At halftime, the US team, which should be up by 40 over the Dominican Republic, is up 50-27.


ESPN of course is jamming highlights of the about-to-die WNBA down our throats.

They now have a team called The Farmers.

 

Jordan and Kobe cancelling each other out? Shit, if you could make this a reality, Jordan would dominate Kobe -- to the point it would end in similar fashion to when Dalton fights the karate dude in Road House.

 

Tough to judge this team because PR has no one who can handle the ball against this pressure. But the USA is jacking up a TON of threes. I have no idea if that is the plan or not.

 

Out of curiosity, have you ever seen an international game where you thought the U.S. team was up by the appropriate amount?

 

Jordan would not dominate Kobe. He'd be the better player, but he wouldn't dominate him.

I know it's hard for people to hear this, but basketball is faster and bigger and longer than it was in the 1990s.

Jordan and Pippen couldn't guard everyone. Does anyone really think that Chris Paul wouldn't give Magic SERIOUS problems defensively? I love Magic more than any athlete ever, but I'm really happy I don't have to watch him, at age 33, try to guard Paul or Westbrook. And who on the Dream Team would have guarded Durant? You start looking at some of the match-ups and it gets a little dicey for the old guys. Charles Barkley might give LeBron a lot of elbows and trash talk, but LeBron would absolutely still be the superior player.

 

You're toeing dangerously close to blasphemy, DD.

 

And with Barkley apparently saying Kobe was at the Magic-Bird stage. Kobe was still 1st team All-NBA this year. Larry Bird was not quite at that level in 1992, considering he was basically crippled. If Magic had played that year, sure. But he hadn't.

DD said it, Jordan would not dominate Kobe. No, not even at where their careers were in 1992 and 2012. I know it's part of the Jordan myth that he would score 50 on anyone and hold them to 15 but it just wouldn't happen against Kobe.

Again, as great as the Dream team was, and I would pick them in a game or series, they didn't face anything in the same universe as what they'd face against these guys.

Although you might be able to make a better argument that the 2008 team would have a better shot against the Dream team. No Durant but you have in-his-prime Wade. And 29-year-old Kobe. And Howard, negating some of that inside advantage.

 

Again - they're not old in 1992. Pippen was 27. Jordan was 28. I think they'd have trouble matching up with Lebron, since he's built like Malone but has the speed of a guard, but everyone else strikes me as coverable. Paul and his gimpy knee gets played physically by the 92 team, and if Westbrook checks in, I think he gets destroyed mentally and goaded into taking too many shots. As far as Durant goes, meh - I think he has trouble getting the ball. I don't really consider Magic or Bird as getting major minutes; I think they only played as much as they did in 92 because it was seen as a sort of swan song for them, and because the team was so much better than everyone else, why not play them more than Chris Mullin?

Kobe averaged 27.9 ppg this year. Jordan in 92 averaged 30.1, and he also averaged about a rebound, a steal and half a block more per game than Kobe. Oh, and also, his team won a championship that year. If you want to say that Jordan at Kobe's same age would only be slightly better, fine, but Jordan at his peak (which is essentially somewhere in the 91 to 93 ballpark) is probably only matched by Bill Russell. Kobe is a great player, but if you're trying to convince me that someone is going to be Jordan's equal, you need to make the argument with Lebron, not Bryant.

 

We were discussing the 92 team vs. these guys tonight at work. One of my coworkers, not the one who thinks Derek Fisher is a hall of famer, said maybe three guys on this team would even make the Dream Team (LeBron, Durant, Anthony). I think Bryant and Paul would make it also.

 

This might be the only one:
1956: U.S. 101, Thailand 29.