NBA Off-season thread

12 points and 7.4 rebounds, which Wallace produced last season, is not shabby. It's not like he can't offer anything at this stage of his career.

 

Reports have it that Hedo Turkoglu has agreed to terms with the Portland TrailBlazers. Apparently, the fact his wife loved Toronto really didn't mean much in the end.

 

starman,

re: rasheed, you're talking out of your ass and don't know what the hell you're talking about at the same time.

Wallace isn't never has and never will "destroy teams from within". In fact, he's considered a model teammate by anyone he's ever played with. He loses his temper, yes. He gets techs, yes. He's terrible with the media, yes.

At the same time, he's been unselfish anywhere he goes. He plays defense, has never, ever complained about touches, and has never been aggressive enough offensively for the talent he has. He's not a lockerroom cancer. In fact, it's the opposite.

I know he has his antics on the court, but before you spout off about a player, you really should know what you're speaking of.

 

Or maybe it did.

http://ken-berger.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/11838893/15880246

 

I stand corrected. Turkoglu will fit better in Toronto's style of play than Portland's, if he does in fact end up a Raptor. If I'm Portland, I find some way to get Kirk Hinrich, who has been on the trading block for a couple of years now. He's a much bigger need than Turkoglu.

 

Rasheed Wallace, Stephon Marbury and Allen Iverson are poster children for everything wrong with the NBA. Their acts are old and tired. Here's hoping they go away... and soon.

 

I watch the NBA and the Pistons plenty, and I know exactly what I'm talking about.
Ask Rueben Boumtje-Boumtje (drilled in the head by Sheed with a basketball at practice while he was actually working on his game, as opposed to fucking around kicking basketballs into the stands along with Ruben Patterson, another model citizen) what a great teammate Rasheed is.

Sheed hasn't drilled anybody in the head with a basketball lately, but he's continued his general fuckaround attitude at practices and shootarounds, because he's a 'seasoned veteran,' and he doesn't need to practice. Ain't no coach, especially no white coach, got anything to teach him. Younger players take note.

Of couse all of Rasheed's (current) teammates say he's great, an incredible team player, etc etc yadda yadda blah blah. On any team on which Rasheed Wallace is on the roster, there is an absolutely inviolate unspoken rule:

Nobody connected with the team in any capacity whatsoever can ever say one single word even remotely negative about Rasheed Wallace and his conduct. (Not even 'off the record' -- if 'anonymous teammates' start popping up in media reports dogging Sheed, he takes it upon himself to turn the locker room upside down to find out who the 'snitch' is, which of course requires other teammates to pick sides and snitch on the snitcher, a brilliant strategy to turn any team into a mini-version of the Battle of Evermore.)

In order to avoid this, the word goes out: Never will be heard a discouraging word. If ever asked by any member of the public or especially the media about Rasheed Wallace, you must immediately parrot the party line about what a great teammate he is, how he fires everybody up with his "energy," yah yah yack yack blah blah.

This rule is in effect because everybody knows goddamn well if anybody dares utter a discouraging word about Sheed, he'll REALLY go off the deep end. The team has a lot of money tied up in him, so they have no choice but to mandate an absolute kid-gloves policy for the Sheedster.

Rasheed Wallace fucking assassinated Flip Saunders in the locker room, yet Saunders never said a word. Sheed turned around and sandbagged Michael Curry too, and Curry kept his mouth shut. Chauncey Billups, Antonio McDyess and Tayshaun Prince quietly seethed at Sheed's constant game-losing bullshit -- the constant bitching and haranguing has one main effect: it pisses the refs off at the whole team, which pays off in a big way in key calls at crunch time (Tie game, one minute left. Billups dribbles up court. Sheed from the bench screams, "Ref, open your eyes, you been fuckin' us all game long, you blind motherfucker." Two dribbles later, Billups is called for double dribble) -- and never said a word. The Sheed Code was in effect. Undoubtedly it will be too at whatever lucky team gets to sign him up next.

 

Good luck, Orlando, getting back to upper heights without Hedo T.
He was so vital and in no way selfish.
Clears the way, I guess, for the Chicagos of the league to more rapidly ascend.
Damn free agency! Damn it, damn it, damn it.
So bad for the genuineness of the league.

 

Wrong,

The NBA officials are those "poster children."

What's so wrong with Iverson? Those tats scare ya?

 

Seriously, nobody in the league played harder or spilled more blood than AI.

 

I have thousands of game tapes of Iverson and dude does not know the meaning of pass. He's a low-percentage volume chucker. Yes, he plays hard every game, and in today's league, that qualifies as a "skill." But it should not surprise anybody that he had a big hand in ruining Detroit's season last year and that he's getting hardly any attention as a free agent this year.

 

Six dimes a game career average. Methinks he knows the meaning of pass. Also remember that the best players on most of his teams were guys like Aaron McKie, Dikembe Mutumbo, Eric Snow and Tyrone Hill. Yea, he had better teammates in Denver, but that system was out of control. The Detroit situation was volatile from the start and destined to fail. I think AI is underrated as one of the best athletes this millenium. The fact that he's never won a title is no fault of his own.