NBA/Basketball Thread

[Bandit]

I heard the Lakers are putting up the best offer for Westbrook right now.

[Big Boss Man]

I heard the Lakers are putting up the best offer for Westbrook right now.

Yep that's what I've heard too. The Wade talk has been squashed as he's not willing to accept the 3.5m vets minimum. I think the Westbrook to Cavs rumors were started via Paul Pierce's Twitter. Going back to D Wade he wants 50m over 2 years so his options are limited to those with enough cap space or willing to pay big money luxury tax. Miami are offering 40m and The Nuggets, Bulls and Bucks are all in the mix. So the big proposed moves were just rumors!

[Dr. Zoidberg]

[Big Boss Man]

http://uproxx.com/prowrestling/wrestlin ... rs-fans/2/

Plus the ones which started it all:

[Dr. Zoidberg]

[Big Boss Man]

TIM DUNCAN ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT
Five-Time Champion Concludes 19-Year Career in San Antonio
Posted: Jul 11, 2016

SAN ANTONIO (July 11, 2016) – San Antonio Spurs forward Tim Duncan today announced that he will retire after 19 seasons with the organization. Since drafting Duncan, the Spurs won five championships and posted a 1,072-438 regular season record, giving the team a .710 winning percentage, which is the best 19-year stretch in NBA history and was the best in all of the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB over the last 19 years.

Originally selected by the Spurs as the first overall pick in the 1997 NBA Draft, Duncan helped San Antonio reach the playoffs in each of his 19 seasons and became the only player in league history to start and win a title in three different decades. The Silver and Black won at least 50 games the last 17 seasons, the longest streak in league history, and posted at least a .600 winning percentage in each of Duncan’s 19 seasons, an all-time record for most consecutive seasons with a .600 win percentage in the four major U.S. sports.

The 40-year-old Duncan comes off of a season in which he led the NBA in Defensive RPM (5.41) and became just the third player in league history to reach 1,000 career wins, as well as the only player to reach 1,000 wins with one team. He helped the Spurs to a franchise-best 67-15 record and also became one of two players in NBA history to record at least 26,000 points, 15,000 rebounds and 3,000 blocks in his career (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar).

Duncan totaled 15 All-NBA Team selections (tied for most all-time) and 15 NBA All-Defensive Team honors (most all-time), garnering both honors in the same season 15 times, the most in league history. The 1998 Rookie of the Year was named NBA MVP twice (2002, 2003) and NBA Finals MVP three times (1999, 2003 and 2005).

In his NBA career, the 15-time All-Star appeared in a total of 1,392 games and averaged 19.0 points, 10.8 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 2.17 blocks in 34.0 minutes. He shot .506 (10,285-20,334) from the floor and .696 (5,896-8,468) from the free throw line.

The Wake Forest graduate is the Spurs all-time NBA leader in total points (26,496), rebounds (15,091), blocked shots (3,020), minutes (47,368) and games played (1,392), as well as third in assists (4,225). In NBA history, Duncan is fifth all-time in double-doubles (841) and blocks, sixth in rebounding and 14th in scoring.

As the only player in NBA history to play over 9,000 career minutes in the playoffs, Duncan ranks first all-time in postseason double-doubles (164) and blocks (568), third in rebounds (2,859) and sixth in points (5,172). For his career, Duncan appeared in 251 postseason contests (second all-time) and averaged 20.6 points, 11.4 rebounds and 3.0 assists in 37.3 minutes while shooting .501 (1,975-3,939) from the field.

Along with teammates Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, Duncan is part of the NBA record for most wins by a trio in both the regular season (575) and postseason (126). Duncan and Gregg Popovich have the most wins by a player-coach duo in NBA history (1,001) and the Spurs forward finishes his career in San Antonio as one of just three players in NBA history, along with John Stockton and Kobe Bryant, to spend 19 seasons with one franchise.

Source:NBA.com

Tim Duncan is one of my favorite NBA players. He's also somebody who was a great representative for the NBA and he excelled in his career, the stats above prove that he is rightly lauded as a future Hall of Famer. San Antonio and Greg Popovich will definitely miss his presence on the court next season and beyond, because of the impact he had on the team but I think they are in good hands with Kawhi Leonard who may be a long tenured Spur too like Tim was. He also was part of 2 great Spurs teams, the first alongside David Robinson and the second with Parker & Ginobilli which only recently won the NBA championship in the 2013-14 season.

[Bandit]

He didn't get enough respect for a guy with 5 rings. Same number of championships Kobe won, but he was never regarded as important to the NBA. The media always hated it when the Spurs won.

[Big Boss Man]

Yea that's very true. I think whilst he was a great player he didn't really have the media presence of a MJ or a Kobe, even a Allen Iverson. If he did, I'm sure he'd have been touted alongside them as an All-Time great. Whilst in theory he should be, he like you say has 5 championship rings, but because Mike was a megastar in his prime and Kobe was a superstar, Tim Duncan really never reached the heights he should have. I mean, I can't think of another sports star who was hugely successful yet didn't become a big, big star in the modern era. Found this article which might explain why Tim wasn't ever the big superstar he should have been.

Why the basketball world never embraced Tim Duncan
July 12, 2016 9:33am EDT July 11, 2016 12:59pm EDT Basketball, NBA, News, San Antonio Spurs, English, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan
By Steven J. Gaither
Omnisport


Tim Duncan has hung up his sneakers, ending one of the most awkward careers in NBA history.

The first overall pick of the 1997 NBA Draft, Duncan was the perfect player for a San Antonio system that wasn’t big on egos — just winning. He came into the league as David Robinson’s understudy, taking a backseat to the Spurs' All-Star big man despite his other-worldly talent.

Duncan would take from Robinson the mantle of the team’s best player during his sophomore season, when he helped lead the Spurs to their first NBA championship. He would go on to win four more.

Duncan’s greatness, however, was largely overlooked during his playing career.

Part of it could be because he wasn’t actually the best at anything, at least not statistically. He was a very good scorer, but he never led the league. He was an incredible rebounder, but never led the league in rebounds per game, either. He was a force at the rim on the defensive end, but never was named the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year.

Ironically, that lack of a defining skill helped him become widely regarded as the greatest power forward to play the game. Perhaps no big man outside of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has had a deep and varied skill set as the man Shaquille O'Neal once dubbed "The Big Fundamental."

One of the most consistent players in NBA history, Duncan came into the NBA as one of the top five players in the league and stayed there for nearly a decade and a half, before age and injuries started to take their toll.

The other reason he never resonated with the casual fan: He didn’t want to.

Duncan didn't want to be an icon. He just wanted to play the game, win and go home.

In a basketball world full of athletes that demanded our attention, Duncan eluded it. Once the Spurs' season was over, which was often June, you didn't hear from him until the ball got rolling again in October. There were no vacation photos on tropical beaches on blogs or rants on social media.

He never dunked like Shaq. He never dunked like Kobe. He wasn't a generational icon like Iverson. He never let us in emotionally like Garnett. So we ignored him until he wound up in the NBA Finals.

Duncan never embraced us, but we never embraced him. And that's our loss.

[Bandit]

Yeah, he was closer to Karl Malone than MJ. But he didn't have Malone's aura as the guy who wasn't the most gifted but worked the hardest, which made him beloved. Since you could never be Jordan, but maybe you could be Malone.

[Big Boss Man]

Yea, whilst in theory if he had the personality of say a Dwight Howard mixed in with his on court skills hed have been the face of the NBA for almost 20 years, or atleast when Mike retired. But when you think about Tim was almost the 3rd man on the Spurs team. You have Tony Parker as their big star although now its arguably Kawhi with Manu as the other star. Tim Duncan was almost anonymous in a sense of his off court presence. When you hear like about Draymond Green getting into a fight with a hater it kinda highlights how much of a classy guy Tim Duncan is. I think he's the true definition of a professional basketball player and somebody who if I were a NBA coach ID have a team of Tim Duncan's who don't cause no drama and who deliver on the court. Whilst the Metta World Peace, Rodman, AI etc are big characters they require a lot of man management and somebody like Tim must have been a great person to work with and I think Greg Popovich will miss him not only in the court but around the team. Maybe Pop will keep him around on his coaching staff as a guy with 5 rings and above all seems a great guy is somebody you should keep around and guys like Kawhi Leonard will learn a massive amount from him and he seems kinda like a Duncan 2.0 as there's no drama surrounding him either.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

[Dr. Zoidberg]

[Bandit]

He might be making fun of this ad

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Something nasty just happened in the NBL.


Vader-esque. Or Allan Ray-esque.

[Bandit]

Yao also gave a great speech.

[Bandit]

That's the least dysfunctional thing to happen to that team this week.

[Bandit]

They should let him coach to get the team back in gear. Melo needs an angry middle aged man to scare him from missing all those shots.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Vince needs to sign him for Wrestlemania.

[Bandit]

Let him fight Kendrick Perkins to see. I'd buy that on PPV.

[Big Boss Man]

Charles Oakley gets ejected and arrested for having the audacity to voice his disapproval of the Knicks which he has every right as a paying customer to do. Granted he went the wrong way about things but still, what a way to treat a former Knick. I'm hoping his former team mates and coach(s) stick by him. If this was the NFL I'd strongly wonder whether he was acting this way because of CTE. However I'm not sure how much head trauma NBA players have so maybe he was just pissed at the Knicks owner. When really every Knicks fan should be. If Phil Jackson can't fix them then you know there's an major issue.

As for Kendrick Perkins vs The Oak. Spike Lee as the special enforcer~!