Re: SI's HORRIBLE Power Rankings <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (The Lefty @ Oct 19 2006, 06:45 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I love how everyone thinks just because the Suns get Amare back makes them the automatic champs... pretty crazy</div>Yeah that's the only reason.... Not the fact that with a healthy KT they were a 60-win team with pretty decent defense and Barbosa and Diaw are going to continue to improve.. And that was without a back-up for Nash, only a couple good rebounders and not as much depth as this year, so injuries really hurt. They were banged up so much in the last series and took a great Mavs team to 6. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think they will win.
Re: SI's HORRIBLE Power Rankings I think that if they couldnt get in done in 05, they arent going to get in done now. they had a better starting 5 back then and Amare WILL NOT be as effective this season as he was in the Spurs/Suns WCF in 05.
Re: SI's HORRIBLE Power Rankings They are much, much better than '05. Raja Bell gives us everything JJ did as a 4th option on the offense, Q was an addition by subtraction and anyone in the starting line-up in the playoffs is better than him, hell if you put in Pat Burke and told him to do nothing except set picks he would help more than Q did. Nash will be Nash, Marion will be Marion. Amare is not the same as he was but if he can get us some scoring and some rebounds the team won't be stopped. The defense and depth is just SO much better on this team, it's not even close. The starting line-up is the same and Diaw gives us more than JJ did. Barbosa of 2 years ago sucked, last year he worked a lot on his offensive game and now he's getting better on defense too, he's a much better player than he used to be(Thank you Dan D'Antoni). Kurt Thomas has done much more for us than Steven Hunter has ever done. Nash finally has a back-up, and one that can play D. A better player than Jim Jackson was. The only thing on the team that got worse was Amare, but his recovery has gone very quickly and during playoff time it will be more than a year and a half since his surgery. He should be putting up pretty good numbers by then. I bet that if you take Amare out of both teams the supporting cast of this year would sweep the one two years ago in a series, they aren't even comparable. They took the Mavs to 6 with 3 key injuries, Nash playing with a busted back because of logging a career high in minutes, Marion playing beat up again...there was just so many problems while the Mavs only had to deal with Josh Howard's little injury.2 years ago it wasn't Duncan who beat us. It was Manu driving at will. With Kurt down low and Raja guarding him, someone who he said he doesen't like to play against, he won't have that as much. And we have someone now who can also give Parker some trouble for part of the game. We never had that. And having Kurt and Amare down low against Duncan will be good.
Re: SI's HORRIBLE Power Rankings Are you completley oblivious? How does Raja Bell give u more as the 4th option on offense? Joe Johnson averaged 17 points per game on 46 percent shooting. Raja Bell caught fire in the playoffs. He didnt do that much during the regular season. What did he average? 10 points per game? I dont understand how he gives u more as a 4th option. Also, Raja Bell is a very overrated defender. I love the fact that their is a big hype about him and Kobe when Kobe rapes him just as bad as he does any other normal defender. Pat Burke can set screens and add more to the table than Quentin Richardson? WTF? Q-Rich averaged 16 ppg and 6 rpg and led the league in 3 pointers made. If that isnt the worst statement I have ever heard in my life, I dont know what is. The fact of the matter is, Quentin Richardson was more effective as the 5th scoring option than raja will be as the 4th. I use numbers because that is the way to prove it. Both players are shooters, but Quentin made more. Amare Stoudemire put up 37 points a game on the Spurs in the WCF in 05. He will not be half of what he was in that series this year. He is raw, and is prone to injury now. He will miss more time again this year, I guarantee it. Boris Diaw will not be as effective this year. His minutes will go down, and he will be playing mainly as a SF where is not as effective. Depth is overrated and that is the ONLY thing this year's team has on the team of 05. When the players that come in off the bench, are eating up better players minutes, I dont understand how that will help you a whole lot. Sure, it gives the players rest but they dont need that much rest if they have a day to rest between each game. Pro Basketball players are in pro basketball player shape and could go all 48 minutes if necessary. If Barbosa goes in for Nash at any point of the game, the Suns will automatically have a worse team on the floor. Steve Nash is the fuel that keeps the Suns going. period.And you list all of those players injuries, but all NBA players have things wrong with them at all times. It didnt affect their play because they did just as good in the playoffs as they did in the regular season. And if their numbers were lower in that series than in the regular season, it was due to the fact that they were playing the mavericks.And Duncan didnt beat the Suns with 27 PPG and 14 RPG? Good call on that one buddy. And the Spurs absolutley dominated that series. They won in 5 games and beat the suns at their own game.
Re: SI's HORRIBLE Power Rankings <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (KMart @ Oct 19 2006, 09:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>So how about them Raiders? :happy0144:</div> :no1: but...ADRIAN PETERSON!!!
Re: SI's HORRIBLE Power Rankings <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (The Lefty @ Oct 20 2006, 09:22 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>:no1: but...ADRIAN PETERSON!!!</div> I would hope for Petersons sake that he doesn't end up in that hellhole franchise. He would just get injured running into walls there, he won't be able to run the ball with that offensive line.
Re: SI's HORRIBLE Power Rankings I see they finally see that we will make an impact after our 5-0 pre-season start.
Re: SI's HORRIBLE Power Rankings While it's good you are excited about your team playing well, I think you should know that Cleveland is 1-3, Miami is 1-2, New Jersey is 0-4, San Antonio is 0-2, and Dallas is 1-4. I say this so that you know, preseason basketball is often times not a measure of how the team is going to play this season, because do you really see any of those teams missing the playoffs this year or playing horribly?
Re: SI's HORRIBLE Power Rankings While this is true, how often do coachs put their entire second units onto the floor during the regular season? Not to often, they try to keep one of their main players on the floor at all times. So in the regular season they are going to be facing the teams starting units for longer, and their star players for longer amounts of the games.
Re: SI's HORRIBLE Power Rankings Yeah, I know. Im just glad that our 2nd unit is playing well, along with the rest of the team.
Re: SI's HORRIBLE Power Rankings <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ballerman2112 @ Oct 19 2006, 10:01 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Are you completley oblivious? How does Raja Bell give u more as the 4th option on offense? Joe Johnson averaged 17 points per game on 46 percent shooting. Raja Bell caught fire in the playoffs. He didnt do that much during the regular season. What did he average? 10 points per game? I dont understand how he gives u more as a 4th option. Also, Raja Bell is a very overrated defender. I love the fact that their is a big hype about him and Kobe when Kobe rapes him just as bad as he does any other normal defender. Pat Burke can set screens and add more to the table than Quentin Richardson? WTF? Q-Rich averaged 16 ppg and 6 rpg and led the league in 3 pointers made. If that isnt the worst statement I have ever heard in my life, I dont know what is. The fact of the matter is, Quentin Richardson was more effective as the 5th scoring option than raja will be as the 4th. I use numbers because that is the way to prove it. Both players are shooters, but Quentin made more.</div>Raja actually averaged 14.7 points per game on 45.7%, not 10 points and playoffs are what matters. He came back from an injury that took him halfway into the offseason to heal to help his team while Joe Johnson stayed out a couple games even when he was cleared to play. Raja's D is not overrated, no one puts him as Kobe's equal, it's just fun to watch them go at it but let me ask you, can you even name 2 players that have had consistent success guarding Kobe? I can't. I watched plenty of Raja and JJ and their man-to-man defense is equal and say what you want about his flopping, although as a Spurs fan you should say nothing, it does help the team.The comment I made about Q was because of how detrimental he was to the team during the playoffs. He did help in the regular season but I said I'd rather have Burke in the starting line-up just because I think that doing nothing is better than what Q did. During the playoffs he shot so many 3's, a lot of them really bad shots, and he shot them at such a gawd awful percentage that I was just praying that they would replace him with Hunter in the starting line-up. And he missed that pretty open, barely guarded game winner against the Mavs in game 2. He was a choker in the playoffs but kept attemting those stupid shots instead of passing it to the good players.<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Amare Stoudemire put up 37 points a game on the Spurs in the WCF in 05. He will not be half of what he was in that series this year. He is raw, and is prone to injury now. He will miss more time again this year, I guarantee it. Boris Diaw will not be as effective this year. His minutes will go down, and he will be playing mainly as a SF where is not as effective. Depth is overrated and that is the ONLY thing this year's team has on the team of 05. When the players that come in off the bench, are eating up better players minutes, I dont understand how that will help you a whole lot. Sure, it gives the players rest but they dont need that much rest if they have a day to rest between each game. Pro Basketball players are in pro basketball player shape and could go all 48 minutes if necessary. If Barbosa goes in for Nash at any point of the game, the Suns will automatically have a worse team on the floor. Steve Nash is the fuel that keeps the Suns going. period.</div>I'm sure he will easily be half of what he was if not better. His rehab has been fine and it's a long, long way until the playoffs. Boris Diaw will be effective, they signed him to a nice contract and I don't know why you don't understand when I'm telling you that he won't lose many minutes if he will lose any at all. He will put up better numbers, I guarentee it. They won't keep a talent like that on the bench. Marion IS the small forward. There will be 3 players switching around the PF and center position. Defense is also a better part of this team. Last year's D with Kurt Thomas was much better than '04. The only weakness last year was rebounding and having Amare there to help out with that and not give up so many second-chance points will help. He's also back to blocking shots as seen in the preseason. The defense is tons better than it ever was with D'Antoni. Barbosa has been working hard on it this off-season too. He showed signs last year of being good, he has a long wingspan and even grew a half an inch last season. He showed a lot of progress after working with Dan D'Antoni last year and is motivated to continue to grow and get better. This team has sooo many solid defensive players. The only player that is bad on D is Nash. That's it. And now Mike D'Antoni and the rest of the players are focusing more on that because they know that's the way they'll win is if they pick it up on defense.Depth ALWAYS helps. Now if anyone but Nash gets a minor injury I know they will be okay. With Banks, Barbosa and Diaw handling the ball and our other offensive weapons on the floor they won't notice too much of a drop in production without Nash. Last year with House on the floor, more than half the time they played just as well without Nash. The only problem was that House was so short and by the end of the season we didn't have Kurt either so our D really took a huge step back. Without Nash's passing and still no D we couldn't gain any ground. Now I'm confident in our backcourt depth and Diaw to give Nash some depth. Banks, I know, is not a pass-first guard but he is better than House and we have other guys who can handle the ball and more defense so I don't think during the regular season not having Nash will be a problem.<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>And you list all of those players injuries, but all NBA players have things wrong with them at all times. It didnt affect their play because they did just as good in the playoffs as they did in the regular season. And if their numbers were lower in that series than in the regular season, it was due to the fact that they were playing the mavericks.And Duncan didnt beat the Suns with 27 PPG and 14 RPG? Good call on that one buddy. And the Spurs absolutley dominated that series. They won in 5 games and beat the suns at their own game.</div>Raja Bell couldn't get any lift, when you can't jump, you can't shoot and when your calf is busted you can't drive, or be quick enough on D. Nash did much worse, especially shooting, in the playoffs because of the back problems but the team just kept going and he pushed through it. You play banged up like Marion and see what you can do. Having Kurt was a 7 ppg and 5FG% against difference. He was huge for the defense. And then there's Amare.No it wasn't Duncan. He played well but no one can stop the superstar. You have to stop those around him. The Spurs didn't stop Amare but they stopped those around him. It was especially easy since Q sucked during the playoffs and you guys were able to win two fairly close games on the road with JJ not there. Watching that series I saw Manu as way more of a problem. He would just walk through the lane and lay it up with Amare just watching him. :shok: The team is much better defensively now and that won't happen. The Spurs are the oldest team in the league too btw. I'm really not scared of that team anymore. Their big 3 will be tough but besides that I don't see much cause for concern.
