Did he always get sent off as well?
The NBA Thread 2011/2012
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Did he always get sent off as well?
Ha. True.
Whoever comes out of the East, I pray beats OKC. Miami is better equipped to beat them imo.
Gutted. Boston beaten by the fucking heat.
At least Lebron et al will lose to the thunder. Fuckum.
At least Lebron et al will lose to the thunder. Fuckum.
You want LeCock to win a NBA championship because a team of good guys beat your team? Come on ... fuck LeBron, fuck wade, I hope they get swept (they won't, they'll win in 5 i think)
They are most certainly not good guys, they are a team of cunts, in a city full of cunts, in a state full of cunts. The only debatable point is who out of Harden, Westbrook and Durant is the biggest cunt.
The fact they beat my team is not the sole reason, I have always hated Durant since his lone year at UT, I always felt he is hugely over rated.
Wow, everything this guy just wrote is the opposite of the truth, besides the opinion which can't be true or false.
The more I think about it the more difficult it is to predict a winner. I personally don't care who does because the team I want to win is already out of it; however this series is all about matchups.
James-Durant. Battle of the MVPs. James can do everything. Durant is going to have to do more on defence than the last few series. James is a superb defender too and Durant will have to be on top of his game all series. I am not too sure however if defending James will wear Durant down and in turn affect his offensive game. OKC has one of the least number of assists per game if I recall (Westbrook, Harden and Durant usually create their own shots and seldom passes) so this could work to their disadvantage. Defending James on one end and then trying to create your own shot against him (or even Battier) at the other? Big test of Durant's stamina.
Wade-Harden. Harden is annoying but he is good. Wade had a mediocre series against Boston and he needs to step up as James cant do EVERYTHING against OKC. If Miami wants to win they need the big 2 (+ Bosh) to do well. Wade will have his hands full defending harden though; and when Harden rests he will have Sefolosha to content with. Sefolosha is a darn good defender who can do well against Wade.
Bosh-OKC's bigs. Ibaka and Perkins will have to come out to the wing more often than not as Bosh will unlikely stay in the post as much as Duncan/Bynum/Gasol. When one of them goes out the lane is open for either Wade or James so they will have to defend smart. Offensively we shouldnt expect much from the OKC bigs but their physical style might just bother Bosh.
Who can contain Westbrook? Will Spoelstra throw Battier at him to combat his length? Battier cant compete with Westbrook speed wise but he's a wily veteran who can scrap. I think Westbrook can roam on defence because apart from the Miami Thrice, there isnt anyone who can consistently score.
It's going to be an exciting series. Watch out for 2 of the best and most exciting fastbreak teams in the NBA, 6 of the top 30 players in the NBA and 2 coaches with something to prove.
My prediction is Heat in 7. I think James really has something to prove and I think this time he will finally come through and will the Heat to a hard fought victory.
James-Durant. Battle of the MVPs. James can do everything. Durant is going to have to do more on defence than the last few series. James is a superb defender too and Durant will have to be on top of his game all series. I am not too sure however if defending James will wear Durant down and in turn affect his offensive game. OKC has one of the least number of assists per game if I recall (Westbrook, Harden and Durant usually create their own shots and seldom passes) so this could work to their disadvantage. Defending James on one end and then trying to create your own shot against him (or even Battier) at the other? Big test of Durant's stamina.
Wade-Harden. Harden is annoying but he is good. Wade had a mediocre series against Boston and he needs to step up as James cant do EVERYTHING against OKC. If Miami wants to win they need the big 2 (+ Bosh) to do well. Wade will have his hands full defending harden though; and when Harden rests he will have Sefolosha to content with. Sefolosha is a darn good defender who can do well against Wade.
Bosh-OKC's bigs. Ibaka and Perkins will have to come out to the wing more often than not as Bosh will unlikely stay in the post as much as Duncan/Bynum/Gasol. When one of them goes out the lane is open for either Wade or James so they will have to defend smart. Offensively we shouldnt expect much from the OKC bigs but their physical style might just bother Bosh.
Who can contain Westbrook? Will Spoelstra throw Battier at him to combat his length? Battier cant compete with Westbrook speed wise but he's a wily veteran who can scrap. I think Westbrook can roam on defence because apart from the Miami Thrice, there isnt anyone who can consistently score.
It's going to be an exciting series. Watch out for 2 of the best and most exciting fastbreak teams in the NBA, 6 of the top 30 players in the NBA and 2 coaches with something to prove.
My prediction is Heat in 7. I think James really has something to prove and I think this time he will finally come through and will the Heat to a hard fought victory.
You're saying one of the, if not the, best scorers in the NBA is overrated?
Based on the way everyone talks about him as the second coming, he is overrated. He disappears for large parts of the game, but for some reason gets a pass from the media and fans alike, because people see him as a likeable guy. He is the supposed leader of that team, but for years has allowed himself to play second fiddle to Westbrook in the 4th quarter of games, just because he does not have the balls to take charge. He scores a lot of points, but he also takes a lot of shots, his efficiency his horrible. Like the rest of that team, he lives by the jump shot and dies by the jump shot.
All the role players on that team played out if their minds to beat the Spurs. No way that happens again, and Durant is no where near good enough to win it in his own.
Heat in 6.
And Shelvey, in the words of Kurt Angle, "Its true, its damn true." Although you're right it is my opinion, and maybe a little harsh, but I really can't stand anything about that team.
Why We Should All Root for the Miami Heat
Dave Zirin on June 11, 2012 - 12:09 AM ET
The 2012 NBA finals presents more than a match-up of two young, exciting, athletic teams. They present a rooting litmus test. In one corner, we have the Miami Heat, a team scorned for being built around a hastily assembled group of free-agent all-stars Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and the great LeBron James. No player in NBA history has been scrutinized, picked apart and even despised quite like James. The three-time MVP’s unforgivable crime, now two years old, was neither a felony nor misdemeanor nor even a bad attitude. It was his awkwardly managed departure from the Cleveland Cavaliers and “taking [his] talents to South Beach.” He also earns arrows of anger for his alleged inability to step up his game when the game is on the line. In addition, his patchwork Miami team in the eyes of many is as plastic, superficial and empty as the city they call home.
In the other corner, we have the Oklahoma City Thunder, a small market franchise beloved by the sports media and fans for “doing it the right way.” They drafted beautifully and evolved organically toward greatness. They are also led by Kevin Durant, the NBA’s most endearing superstar. The “Durantula” is only 23 but already has three scoring titles, and he absolutely lusts for the big moment. He also, unlike LeBron, signed a long-term contract to stay in a small market because he wanted to take the team that drafted him to a title.
With such seemingly opposite teams and stars, the media are already writing the 2012 finals script of “good vs. evil.” It’s an easy, by-the-numbers narrative. It’s also bizarro world bullshit. This is one case where good is evil and the evil in question resides in shadows where fans choose not to look
I would argue that how we choose to see the Heat and Thunder is a litmus test. It’s a litmus test that reveals how the sports radio obsession with villainizing twenty-first-century athletes blinds us to the swelling number of villains who inhabit the owner’s box. And in Oklahoma City, we have the kinds of sports owners whose villainy should never be forgotten.
Strip away the drama and the Heat are called “evil” because their star players exercised free agency and—agree or disagree with their decision—took control of their own careers. The Thunder are praised for doing it the “right way,” but no franchise is more caked in original sin than the team from Oklahoma City. Their owners, Clay Bennett and Aubrey McClendon, with an assist from NBA Commissioner David Stern, stole their team with the naked audacity of Frank and Jesse James from the people of Seattle.
For non-NBA fans, as recently as 2008 the OKC Thunder were the Seattle Supersonics, a team of great tradition, flare and fan support. They were Slick Watts’s headband, Jack Sikma’s perm and Gary Payton’s scowl. They were a beloved team in a basketball town. Then the people of Seattle committed an unpardonable offense in the eyes of David Stern. They loved their team but refused to pay for a new taxpayer funded $300 million arena. Seattle’s citizens voted down referendums, organized meetings and held rallies with the goal of keeping the team housed in a perfectly good building called the KeyArena. Despite a whirlwind of threats, the people of Seattle wouldn’t budge, so Stern made an example of them. Along with Supersonics team owner and Starbucks founder Howard Schultz—who could have paid for his own new arena with latte profits alone—Stern recruited two Oklahoma City–based billionaires, Clay Bennett and Aubrey McClendon, to buy the team and manipulate their forcible extraction from Seattle to OKC.
Stern is a political liberal who has sat on the board of the NAACP. Bennett and McLendon are big Republican moneymen whose hobby is funding anti-gay referendums. Yet these three men are united in their addiction to our tax dollars. In Oklahoma City, where rivers of corporate welfare awaited an NBA franchise, Stern, Bennett and McClendon had found their Shangri-La.
Bennett, Stern and McClendon lied repeatedly that they would make every effort to keep the team in Seattle, McClendon however gave the game away in 2007, when he said to the Oklahoma City Journal Record, “We didn’t buy the team to keep it in Seattle, we hoped to come here…. We started to look around and at that time the Sonics were going through some ownership challenges in Seattle. So Clay, very artfully and skillfully, put himself in the middle of those discussions and to the great amazement and surprise to everyone in Seattle, some rednecks from Oklahoma, which we’ve been called, made off with the team.”
While Bennett said all the right things about keeping the Sonics in Seattle, a team executive dinner on September 9, 2006, tells you all you need to know about the man and his motives. On that fine evening, the Sonics management, all held over from the previous ownership regime, all Pacific Northwesters, gathered in Oklahoma to meet the new boss. Bennett made sure they were sent to a top restaurant, and picked up the bill. As the Seattle execs sat down, four plates of a deep fried appetizer were put on the table. After filling their mouths with the crispy goodness, one asked the waitress what this curious dish with a nutty flavor actually was. It was lamb testicles. Bennett laughed at their discomfort and the message was clear: the Sonics could eat his balls. (See Sonicsgate.com for a full accounting of this theft.)
If the Thunder win the 2012 title, the Clay Bennett/David Stern approach will be lionized throughout pro sports. The theft of the Sonics will be justified and cities involved in stadium negotiations will be threatened with being “the next Seattle” if they don’t acquiesce to the whims of the sporting 1 percent. A championship for the Thunder would be a victory for holding up cities for public money. It would be a victory for ripping out the hearts of loyal sports towns. It would be a victory for greed, collusion and a corporate crime that remains unprosecuted.
Clay Bennett and Aubrey McClendon don’t deserve anyone’s cheers. I don’t just want the Thunder to lose. I want LeBron James to make them wish they’d never left the Emerald City. That is why no matter how much you dislike the ill-fitting “Dream Team” in South Beach, or swoon at the sight of Kevin Durant, anyone who cares about the relationship of teams to their cities and decries the way pro sports is used as an instrument of corporate looting should know who to root for and whom to root against. Without equivocation, all true NBA fans, in the name of Slick Watts, should sound three words this championship season: “Let’s go Heat.”
Dave Zirin on June 11, 2012 - 12:09 AM ET
The 2012 NBA finals presents more than a match-up of two young, exciting, athletic teams. They present a rooting litmus test. In one corner, we have the Miami Heat, a team scorned for being built around a hastily assembled group of free-agent all-stars Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and the great LeBron James. No player in NBA history has been scrutinized, picked apart and even despised quite like James. The three-time MVP’s unforgivable crime, now two years old, was neither a felony nor misdemeanor nor even a bad attitude. It was his awkwardly managed departure from the Cleveland Cavaliers and “taking [his] talents to South Beach.” He also earns arrows of anger for his alleged inability to step up his game when the game is on the line. In addition, his patchwork Miami team in the eyes of many is as plastic, superficial and empty as the city they call home.
In the other corner, we have the Oklahoma City Thunder, a small market franchise beloved by the sports media and fans for “doing it the right way.” They drafted beautifully and evolved organically toward greatness. They are also led by Kevin Durant, the NBA’s most endearing superstar. The “Durantula” is only 23 but already has three scoring titles, and he absolutely lusts for the big moment. He also, unlike LeBron, signed a long-term contract to stay in a small market because he wanted to take the team that drafted him to a title.
With such seemingly opposite teams and stars, the media are already writing the 2012 finals script of “good vs. evil.” It’s an easy, by-the-numbers narrative. It’s also bizarro world bullshit. This is one case where good is evil and the evil in question resides in shadows where fans choose not to look
I would argue that how we choose to see the Heat and Thunder is a litmus test. It’s a litmus test that reveals how the sports radio obsession with villainizing twenty-first-century athletes blinds us to the swelling number of villains who inhabit the owner’s box. And in Oklahoma City, we have the kinds of sports owners whose villainy should never be forgotten.
Strip away the drama and the Heat are called “evil” because their star players exercised free agency and—agree or disagree with their decision—took control of their own careers. The Thunder are praised for doing it the “right way,” but no franchise is more caked in original sin than the team from Oklahoma City. Their owners, Clay Bennett and Aubrey McClendon, with an assist from NBA Commissioner David Stern, stole their team with the naked audacity of Frank and Jesse James from the people of Seattle.
For non-NBA fans, as recently as 2008 the OKC Thunder were the Seattle Supersonics, a team of great tradition, flare and fan support. They were Slick Watts’s headband, Jack Sikma’s perm and Gary Payton’s scowl. They were a beloved team in a basketball town. Then the people of Seattle committed an unpardonable offense in the eyes of David Stern. They loved their team but refused to pay for a new taxpayer funded $300 million arena. Seattle’s citizens voted down referendums, organized meetings and held rallies with the goal of keeping the team housed in a perfectly good building called the KeyArena. Despite a whirlwind of threats, the people of Seattle wouldn’t budge, so Stern made an example of them. Along with Supersonics team owner and Starbucks founder Howard Schultz—who could have paid for his own new arena with latte profits alone—Stern recruited two Oklahoma City–based billionaires, Clay Bennett and Aubrey McClendon, to buy the team and manipulate their forcible extraction from Seattle to OKC.
Stern is a political liberal who has sat on the board of the NAACP. Bennett and McLendon are big Republican moneymen whose hobby is funding anti-gay referendums. Yet these three men are united in their addiction to our tax dollars. In Oklahoma City, where rivers of corporate welfare awaited an NBA franchise, Stern, Bennett and McClendon had found their Shangri-La.
Bennett, Stern and McClendon lied repeatedly that they would make every effort to keep the team in Seattle, McClendon however gave the game away in 2007, when he said to the Oklahoma City Journal Record, “We didn’t buy the team to keep it in Seattle, we hoped to come here…. We started to look around and at that time the Sonics were going through some ownership challenges in Seattle. So Clay, very artfully and skillfully, put himself in the middle of those discussions and to the great amazement and surprise to everyone in Seattle, some rednecks from Oklahoma, which we’ve been called, made off with the team.”
While Bennett said all the right things about keeping the Sonics in Seattle, a team executive dinner on September 9, 2006, tells you all you need to know about the man and his motives. On that fine evening, the Sonics management, all held over from the previous ownership regime, all Pacific Northwesters, gathered in Oklahoma to meet the new boss. Bennett made sure they were sent to a top restaurant, and picked up the bill. As the Seattle execs sat down, four plates of a deep fried appetizer were put on the table. After filling their mouths with the crispy goodness, one asked the waitress what this curious dish with a nutty flavor actually was. It was lamb testicles. Bennett laughed at their discomfort and the message was clear: the Sonics could eat his balls. (See Sonicsgate.com for a full accounting of this theft.)
If the Thunder win the 2012 title, the Clay Bennett/David Stern approach will be lionized throughout pro sports. The theft of the Sonics will be justified and cities involved in stadium negotiations will be threatened with being “the next Seattle” if they don’t acquiesce to the whims of the sporting 1 percent. A championship for the Thunder would be a victory for holding up cities for public money. It would be a victory for ripping out the hearts of loyal sports towns. It would be a victory for greed, collusion and a corporate crime that remains unprosecuted.
Clay Bennett and Aubrey McClendon don’t deserve anyone’s cheers. I don’t just want the Thunder to lose. I want LeBron James to make them wish they’d never left the Emerald City. That is why no matter how much you dislike the ill-fitting “Dream Team” in South Beach, or swoon at the sight of Kevin Durant, anyone who cares about the relationship of teams to their cities and decries the way pro sports is used as an instrument of corporate looting should know who to root for and whom to root against. Without equivocation, all true NBA fans, in the name of Slick Watts, should sound three words this championship season: “Let’s go Heat.”
OKC win game 1.
Interesting piece Ryan.
Interesting piece Ryan.
1-1
What comeback by Oklahoma!
They should've got a foul in the last seconds.
I only loosely follow basketball but because I'm off sick at the moment I've had time to watch the first two games of the Finals. I love the contrast between LeBron and Durant. Two superstars and the best in the game at the moment, style wise though they're quite different.
Lebron is spectacular, you know when's he playing well even if you know nothing about the game like me. Durant is clinical and efficient, but in a really quiet way. It's weird, how good he is kinda creeps up on you.
Lebron is spectacular, you know when's he playing well even if you know nothing about the game like me. Durant is clinical and efficient, but in a really quiet way. It's weird, how good he is kinda creeps up on you.
Couple of calls go the other way and they win. OKC just needs to take Perk out of the line up for this series. He's causing the starting line up to be over matched a lot.
Watched a mini-documentary on that Sonics' move to OKC, a while back and it was very disgraceful. For some reason the media has totally forgotten about how Seattle got screwed, also forgotten was David Stern's role in the whole thing. He is a first rate criminal.
I also don't get how OKC does things "the right way," I think their team has brainwashed people because in press conferences they say all the right things. In the court they are a mouthy showboating team, but nobody mentions any of that. Westbrook should have been ejected from game 1 for his antics in the 2nd quarter, instead a Miami player gets a technical.
I also love how Durant misses a clutch shot at the end of the game, and its because he was fouled. The amount of ridiculous soft calls that Durant gets called in his favor his egregious and insulting to basketball, especially the playoff series of old. Five years ago a player like Durant would never have made it in the NBA, he would have been hurt already, now he is protected because David Stern is in love with the OKC owner and money. Its a disgrace, and is ruining the game.
I also don't get how OKC does things "the right way," I think their team has brainwashed people because in press conferences they say all the right things. In the court they are a mouthy showboating team, but nobody mentions any of that. Westbrook should have been ejected from game 1 for his antics in the 2nd quarter, instead a Miami player gets a technical.
I also love how Durant misses a clutch shot at the end of the game, and its because he was fouled. The amount of ridiculous soft calls that Durant gets called in his favor his egregious and insulting to basketball, especially the playoff series of old. Five years ago a player like Durant would never have made it in the NBA, he would have been hurt already, now he is protected because David Stern is in love with the OKC owner and money. Its a disgrace, and is ruining the game.
You do realize that the mouthy showboating teams that won non-stop in the 80s were the Celtics (Bird was one of the greatest trash talkers of all time), Bulls (Jordan!? Come on!), Lakers (though this was more Magic) and Pistons (no need for explanation). Who doesn't mouth of, or show boat (alla the Heat last year against the Mavs)?
I was all about Heat after reading Ryan's article but then the one Ross posted had me doubting.
Ryan (as our resident fashion expert) what do you make of Westbrook and Durrant's fashion sense? It's getting a bit of attention on the tv over here. They are turning up to press conferences in ridiculous clothes.
Ryan (as our resident fashion expert) what do you make of Westbrook and Durrant's fashion sense? It's getting a bit of attention on the tv over here. They are turning up to press conferences in ridiculous clothes.
Yeah read that grantland article earlier, it’s pretty good.
Durant, Westbrook, LBJ and Stoudemire are all copying Wade’s style. Wade’s been leading the way in the NBA at least with this avant-garde approach for a while now, so I guess he’s the leader of that pack. But in essence, whilst they’re copying Wade, Wade is copying others anyway like Pharrell or Gordon-Levitt who’ve been pushing this ‘nerd’ thing long before the Neanderthals in the NBA had a fucking clue the word plaid even existed.
Durant, Westbrook, LBJ and Stoudemire are all copying Wade’s style. Wade’s been leading the way in the NBA at least with this avant-garde approach for a while now, so I guess he’s the leader of that pack. But in essence, whilst they’re copying Wade, Wade is copying others anyway like Pharrell or Gordon-Levitt who’ve been pushing this ‘nerd’ thing long before the Neanderthals in the NBA had a fucking clue the word plaid even existed.
Suarez there for game 5 last night.
