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I survive entirely on caffeine and hate

This is why the Grizzlies lost in the playoffs last year (in what was the best series last season).

Fine the fool, then at least a charity would benefit from the dirtbag.

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Originally posted by choco man:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/gameon/2013/03/20/chris-paul-flop-los-angeles-cl ipp ers/2002353/

This is why the Grizzlies lost in the playoffs last year (in what was the best series last season).

Fine the fool, then at least a charity would benefit from the dirtbag.

edit: Harsh, I know. But they knocked-out my team last year.

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quote:

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Originally posted by choco man:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/gameon/2013/03/20/chris-paul-flop-los-angeles-cl ipp ers/2002353/

This is why the Grizzlies lost in the playoffs last year (in what was the best series last season).

Fine the fool, then at least a charity would benefit from the dirtbag.

edit: Harsh, I know. But they knocked-out my team last year.

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The sniper got him.

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****Attention****

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Originally posted by choco man:
Fine the fool, then at least a charity would benefit from the dirtbag.

edit: Harsh, I know. But they knocked-out my team last year.

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Not harsh at all. If they really want to cut down on flopping the NBA, not random blogs, or videos on ESPN or YouTube, the league has to make it possible to fine and/or suspend egregious flopping after the fact. The fact that the refs didn't call it a foul on Cousins is commendable, if only because of the Star power difference (ie: Paul gets the calls more so than Cousins would) but aren't they supposed to be cracking down on flopping this season? Or is that only on flop calls where you are the on-ball defender?

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Originally posted by skizzikmonger:
Melo who?

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Pfft. He was injured. Any team would like to have a Top 10 player on there team.

~MM

__________________
Blah, blah, blah werewolf. Smackity-smack not a werewolf. Suspicious of this fruit loop.
My vote this round will be for Player X.

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Originally posted by MeddlingMage:
Pfft. He was injured.

~MM

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Excuses are like ********. Everybody has one. With or without a healthy Melo, the Nuggets were going to blow out the Knicks.

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Any team would like to have a Top 10 player on there team.

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Originally posted by choco man:
Among the top 10 players you'd draft to start a team, there is a noticeable drop-off in quality.

Are the Grizzlies any worse than the Knicks because they don't have a top 10 guy like Melo? And even if they thought they needed a Melo, what would they give up to get a guy like Melo?

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quote:

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Originally posted by MeddlingMage:
Pfft. He was injured. Any team would like to have a Top 10 player on there team.

~MM

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The only problem is melo isn't a top 10 player this year (although he certainly was for the first 2 months of the season).
Top 10 in PER:

RK PLAYER GP MPG TS% AST TO USG ORR DRR REBR PER VA EWA
1 LeBron James, MIA 67 38.3 .627 23.0 9.5 28.2 4.7 21.0 13.2 30.96 784.4 26.1
2 Kevin Durant, OKC 69 38.7 .641 14.9 11.5 27.5 1.8 20.5 11.8 28.02 697.5 23.2
3 Chris Paul, LAC 57 33.2 .598 37.5 8.7 23.4 2.5 10.3 6.5 26.22 429.3 14.3
4 Brook Lopez, BKN 61 30.6 .570 4.8 8.7 25.4 10.8 16.9 13.8 24.98 400.3 13.3
5 Tim Duncan, SA 57 29.8 .555 13.4 10.0 24.2 7.6 29.7 19.4 24.72 335.1 11.2
6 Dwyane Wade, MIA 63 34.7 .574 19.1 10.2 27.0 4.7 12.9 9.0 24.55 458.9 15.3
7 Tony Parker, SA 56 33.0 .595 27.4 9.1 26.9 1.2 9.1 5.4 24.32 366.9 12.2
8 James Harden, HOU 66 38.5 .611 18.9 11.9 27.0 2.5 11.7 7.1 23.80 504.3 16.8
9 Blake Griffin, LAC 67 32.4 .581 17.1 10.4 24.2 8.9 22.6 15.9 23.79 397.8 13.3
10 Russell Westbrook, OKC 69 35.6 .531 22.8 10.4 30.8 4.9 11.5 8.4 23.52 458.3 15.3

Melo is sitting at 13th right now.

He's also not one of the best 2 SFs in the league (sorry, LBJ/KD are better), and both of those guys plus Blake trump him at PF (which durant doesn't play a ton, but plays some).

I'm obviously being pedantic here, but I think Melo is a really good player, but not a top 10 player until we can see him sustain a couple of season's worth of play at the level he was at the start of the year.

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Originally posted by skizzikmonger:
And the Nuggets are the 3-seed with tiebreakers over the Clippers and Grizzlies

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After just 2 days of that 35-second shot clock league, by now we should know that seeding doesn't matter

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Originally posted by choco man:
After just 2 days of that 35-second shot clock league, by now we should know that seeding doesn't matter

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Originally posted by skizzikmonger:
When you're 31-3 at home, it matters

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Originally posted by skizzikmonger:
Excuses are like ********. Everybody has one. With or without a healthy Melo, the Nuggets were going to blow out the Knicks.

[B]

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That's easy to say in a blowout win without Melo in the line up.

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Originally posted by walkerdog:
[B]The only problem is melo isn't a top 10 player this year (although he certainly was for the first 2 months of the season).
Top 10 in PER:

RK PLAYER GP MPG TS% AST TO USG ORR DRR REBR PER VA EWA
1 LeBron James, MIA 67 38.3 .627 23.0 9.5 28.2 4.7 21.0 13.2 30.96 784.4 26.1
2 Kevin Durant, OKC 69 38.7 .641 14.9 11.5 27.5 1.8 20.5 11.8 28.02 697.5 23.2
3 Chris Paul, LAC 57 33.2 .598 37.5 8.7 23.4 2.5 10.3 6.5 26.22 429.3 14.3
4 Brook Lopez, BKN 61 30.6 .570 4.8 8.7 25.4 10.8 16.9 13.8 24.98 400.3 13.3
5 Tim Duncan, SA 57 29.8 .555 13.4 10.0 24.2 7.6 29.7 19.4 24.72 335.1 11.2
6 Dwyane Wade, MIA 63 34.7 .574 19.1 10.2 27.0 4.7 12.9 9.0 24.55 458.9 15.3
7 Tony Parker, SA 56 33.0 .595 27.4 9.1 26.9 1.2 9.1 5.4 24.32 366.9 12.2
8 James Harden, HOU 66 38.5 .611 18.9 11.9 27.0 2.5 11.7 7.1 23.80 504.3 16.8
9 Blake Griffin, LAC 67 32.4 .581 17.1 10.4 24.2 8.9 22.6 15.9 23.79 397.8 13.3
10 Russell Westbrook, OKC 69 35.6 .531 22.8 10.4 30.8 4.9 11.5 8.4 23.52 458.3 15.3

Melo is sitting at 13th right now.

He's also not one of the best 2 SFs in the league (sorry, LBJ/KD are better), and both of those guys plus Blake trump him at PF (which durant doesn't play a ton, but plays some).

I'm obviously being pedantic here, but I think Melo is a really good player, but not a top 10 player until we can see him sustain a couple of season's worth of play at the level he was at the start of the year.

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All due respect to your list, there are a few players on there that I would not take over Melo. But you did say this year. But then you say Melo needs to prove it for a few years. So do these guys.

Lopez
Harden

Lopez and Harden are a long way off from being like LeBron, Durant, Wade.

Parker has rings, but he can't stay healthy. I would take Melo over him.

~MM

__________________
Blah, blah, blah werewolf. Smackity-smack not a werewolf. Suspicious of this fruit loop.
My vote this round will be for Player X.

Personally, I wouldn't take Brook over Melo, but for sure I'd take the others here. With the exception of maybe Griffin and Westbrook.

But just like any other "top 10" list, there are big gaps in the quality of the individual players. LBJ is a top 10 player of all time. How many other of the top 10 PER players are also there (Tim Duncan, past his prime).

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Originally posted by choco man:
Even if you don't follow PER, it's difficult to argue against the top tier of PER in any given season (A team of CP3, LBJ, Durant, Lopez, and Duncan is quite an impressive roster). Top tier of PER are probably All-Stars that year and played to at least a top 25 caliber that given season.

But just like any other "top 10" list, there are big gaps in the quality of the individual players. LBJ is a top 10 player of all time. How many other of the top 10 PER players are also there (Tim Duncan, past his prime).

Clippers and Grizz re-match is coming.

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LBJ a top 10 player all time? If he retired tomorrow, he'd be a top 50.

Better NBA players, in no particular order:

Jordan
Magic
Kareem
Wilt
Oscar Robinson
Bill Russell
Jerry West
Shaq
Hakeem
John Stockton
Karl Malone
Duncan
Bird
Kobe
Moses Malone
Oh, and Julius Erving, who spent 5 seasons in the ABA - imagine 5 young years added to his stat lines.

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Originally posted by speechjew:
LBJ a top 10 player all time? If he retired tomorrow, he'd be a top 50.

Better NBA players, in no particular order:

Jordan
Magic
Kareem
Wilt
Oscar Robinson
Bill Russell
Jerry West
Shaq
Hakeem
John Stockton
Karl Malone
Duncan
Bird
Kobe
Moses Malone
Oh, and Julius Erving, who spent 5 seasons in the ABA - imagine 5 young years added to his stat lines.

Cases could be made for about a dozen more players - if we're talking All-Time greats. Lebron can get there, but in terms of modern comparisons, he's got a long way to overcome Kobe and Duncan's career achievements.

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But imagine 5 more years added to LBJ's stats....

I'm not sure you can make the case for a dozen more players, when you're taking "all-time" a dozen is a whole lot. The thing about Kobe, Mailman, Stockton, Hakeem is that unlike LBJ you couldn't definitively say at any point of their careers they were absolutely the best player in the NBA. And I am a fan of Kobe (the basketball player, not the rapist).

I can't say much of the older players because I'm not old enough to have even seen Bird & Magic play.

Eventually, the NBA is going to old enough to where the "all-time" list is so big that it's not going to matter if it's top 10 or top 20 or....The biggest difference that will remain is that there will still be a "top tier" (eg Jordan, Russell, etc.) among the top.

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Originally posted by choco man:
The thing about Kobe, Mailman, Stockton, Hakeem is that unlike LBJ you couldn't definitively say at any point of their careers they were absolutely the best player in the NBA. And I am a fan of Kobe (the basketball player, not the rapist).

I can't say much of the older players because I'm not old enough to have even seen Bird & Magic play.

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and you're saying LBJ is? Depends on your definition of "best." PER? sure. But if I'm building a team, I'd want Chris Paul. But how I'd build an NBA team is different from someone else.

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Originally posted by speechjew:
and you're saying LBJ is? Depends on your definition of "best." PER? sure. But if I'm building a team, I'd want Chris Paul. But how I'd build an NBA team is different from someone else.

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If I have to build a team from scratch, I would take LBJ over Chris Paul any day of the week, and I don't even like LBJ.

If it's between LBJ and Durant, then it would be a coin flip.

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Originally posted by junichi:
If I have to build a team from scratch, I would take LBJ over Chris Paul any day of the week, and I don't even like LBJ.

If it's between LBJ and Durant, then it would be a coin flip.

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Durant is 2A.