NBA 10-11

[DinoDB1975]

Going to have to disagree. I like Phoenix, especially with Steve Nash and Grant Hill, who are great players as well as individuals, but I see this as Phoenix's front office (under the direction of owner Robert Sarver) being cheap. Phoenix could have won a championship by now had Sarver been willing to spend. They came close last year (if only Jason Richardson had boxed out Ron Artest), but they had their best chance before Chris Wallace essentially handed the Lakers the keys to the Western Conference by trading Pau Gasol for peanuts.

Gortat and Pietrus are decent pick-ups. Vince Carter is washed up; sure, he'll show flashes of brilliance, but once in the playoffs, opposing teams foul him hard and he no longer takes it to the basket. I guess the silver lining is Carter's expiring contract; and though Phoenix gets Orlando's 2011 first round pick, it's going to a late first round pick especially since Orlando will make it to the Eastern semifinals, if not better. And of course, the cash considerations, which Sarver is happy about.

Orlando reloaded to combat the Celtics and Heat. In Arenas and Richardson, they've picked up two more shooters to open up the floor. And in reacquiring Turkoglu, they got back the guy who was the catalyst to their finals run two years ago. In crunch time, the ball was always in his hands to run the offense.

 

[azurepred]

i just don't think Orlando has gotten that much better. I have a feeling Arenas will be an issue and they dont play good defense as it is. If you saw Howard last night against Phi, he was gassed in that game, and even with the trade, they dont have a back up center. Hedo's one great year when they went to the Finals was a mirage imo, i dont think he will be the same. Orlando is better offensively, but they didnt get better on defense, which is the most important thing for this team.

 

[tbay]

I'm a big fan of Nash and Hill so I hope this trade works out for Phoenix.

I think Gortat fills a couple needs for the suns - interior defense, pick and roll finisher but the other 2 guys aren't really going to help them much (Carter is a soft ball hog and Pietrus' defense is overrated and he's a complete idiot on offense).

 

[jstep13]

i just don't think Orlando has gotten that much better. I have a feeling Arenas will be an issue and they dont play good defense as it is. If you saw Howard last night against Phi, he was gassed in that game, and even with the trade, they dont have a back up center. Hedo's one great year when they went to the Finals was a mirage imo, i dont think he will be the same. Orlando is better offensively, but they didnt get better on defense, which is the most important thing for this team.

Im not sure which Orlando team you're watching there but its the other way around.

They're already 4th in the league in D so how is getting even better on D so important?

The truth is, they are only 21st in the league in offense so they were looking for more firepower on the offensive side. This trade makes perfect sense for them to take on the only other legit threat in the East, the Celtics.

Now they have J Rich, Gilbert Arenas and believe it or not Hedo. And Hedo will play better in Orlando. Shooters like Hedo need an inside presence to be effective. The center draws the attention, kicks it out to a shooter. He did not have that in Tor or Phoenix. He is not a star by any stretch but can play a solid role. He also did quite well in SA because, surprise surprise, he had a post player to draw attention. He'll be fine in Orlando.

 

[azurepred]

umm.............i think their coach Stan knows more about his team than you do and hes been saying their defense needs to step it up for quite awhile now , not to mention Howard called his team out, like last week that the team needed to step it up. Don't look so much into stats, stats don't tell the whole story.

 

[jstep13]

That doesnt make sense. Why would he insist on the team stepping up on D, yet traded for 3 offensive players that dont play a lick of D? C'mon if youre gonna make stuff, at least make it believable, lol.

But lets say he did say it. A lot of coaches say different things to motivate players, but actions speak louder than words. And if he traded for O, then he must have needed more help on O, than D.

 

[azurepred]

Stan isn't the one responsible for trades, he may give a little feed back, but he doesn't make those decisions, that's not his job. Do some research man, there is no "lets say he did", if you watched basketball more often, you might pick up on those things. Howard called out his team for their defense and at the POST conference interviews of many games, Stan has called out his teams defense, there's nothing made up about it. He's a very honest guy, and he knows his team doesn't have championship type defense. Orlando doesnt have the defense to compete with LA, Miami, Boston, or SA, so they're trying to make up for it with big names on the offensive end.

 

[jstep13]

ok, whatever fantasy you want to believe is fine with me. It would just seem to me that it would be HIGHLY unlikely that a team(already 4th in the league in D), would ignore their coach's desperate pleas for more defensive help, would then pick up even more offense when they needed, according to you and your basketball knowledge that only you can see more than than the entire Magic front office, more defense. Riiiiiight.

 

[azurepred]

https://www.nba.com/magic/news/denton_feature_121710.html

https://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5927372

https://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/22964/orlandos-defensive-coaching-challenge

``Our offense needs work too, but until we get our defensive intensity back we’re not focusing on anything else. That’s where it all starts for us,’’ Van Gundy said. ``Until we get that defensive intensity back, we can’t move on.’’

"I just think we've sort of very quickly here lost our identity as a defensive team," Van Gundy said. "But within two weeks, I think we can get it back just as quickly if we're committed to doing it."


"I don't get impressed if we come out and practice hard," he said, recalling the talk. "That's easy. We've been a hardworking team every day in practice, but us as a team, we have to be able to go out and play hard in the game."
................................................................

What desperate pleas? You have no idea what your talking about. You just can't trade for certain players and all of a sudden become a great defensive team. Defense is effort and repetition. Yes, statistically, they have good numbers, but maybe if you read stuff once and awhile, you would see that both Howard and Stan both feel that this team isn't playing like a top defensive team, like what got them to the Finals. Its a team effort, getting rid of this guy or that guy solves nothing as a defensive unit. I've never said they aren't capable of improving or that their a bad defensive team, but like i said, stats don't show everything, but you seem to think they do. Its a long season, but right now, this is NOT a good defensive team. I will go back to my fantasy world. Thanks

 

[jstep13]

I’m only going off your initial asinine quote that their trade for offense did not improve them as they did not get better defensively. Why you think a team, only 21st in the league on offense didn’t improve by getting 2 good scorers and 1 offensive role player because they “did not improve their D” which was already top 4 in the league doesn’t make sense to me. And if the front office truly from the heart agreed with Stan, then they would’ve focused their efforts on acquiring more defensive help instead of offense.

Furthermore, like I mentioned in the above post, if he did say it, which you quoted, then it’s basic coaching 101 to motivate his existing players to step up defensively. All coaches will say motivational things like this throughout the year.

So yeah, if you think the front office’s motivation was that “they're trying to make up for it (defense) with big names on the offensive end”, then yeah, have fun in fantasy land.

So instead of backpedaling and digging yourself a bigger hole from your obvious faux pas, take a time out, step back and think about which idea makes more sense, a team ranked 22nd in the league offensively would simply try and improve that by getting more offense, or a team ranked 4th in defense would try and shore up their apparent defensive struggles by "making up for it with more big names on the offensive end"?

Im sure the Magic front office knows historically, the most sucessful way to overcome defensive struggles is by acquring more offense right? /sarcasm

 

[Bodie The Cursed]

Who cares about the Magic pre or post trades anyway, they're not going to the finish line. Why did they let Matt Barnes go? That guy is awesome..

Lakers sure laid a poop tonight. They look soOooOo bored. Hope they wake up in time to give The Heat a lump of coal Christmas day.

 

[The Josh]

Yeah, two things I want to see Christmas day NBA wise. Lakers whooping the Heats ass and the Bulls doing the same to the Knicks.

 

[jstep13]

Who cares about the Magic pre or post trades anyway, they're not going to the finish line. Why did they let Matt Barnes go? That guy is awesome..

You have a point...

Yeah, two things I want to see Christmas day NBA wise. Lakers whooping the Heats ass and the Bulls doing the same to the Knicks.

Santa will be good to you on both of these wishes...

 

[The Josh]

I hope so.

 

[Nitro]

Yeah, two things I want to see Christmas day NBA wise. Lakers whooping the Heats ass and the Bulls doing the same to the Knicks.

Thats what I'm hoping for!!

 

[macapaolo]

Can't believe the Warriors won last night. Steph needs to hurry and get better from his injury.

 

[jstep13]

Wow Spurs got manhandled tonight. Turkoglu, Arenas, J-Rich were 18 of 34 for 40 pts. Sure glad Orlando "didn't get that much better"...

Anyways,with games coming up against Lakers, Mavs and Celtics, this will be a good test for SA coming up. It'll be interesting to see what kind of mettle this team really has after beating mostly pretenders these past few weeks...

 

[Deeznutz6]

Yeah, two things I want to see Christmas day NBA wise. Lakers whooping the Heats ass and the Bulls doing the same to the Knicks.

KNICKS ARE BACK!!
Gonna kick the bulls arse's
You win some games and make it back on NBC

 

[The Josh]

KNICKS ARE BACK!!
Gonna kick the bulls arse's
You win some games and make it back on NBC

we shall see.

 

[NosferatuBill36]

KNICKS ARE BACK!!
Gonna kick the bulls arse's