Sports and Such
Had a solid "happy hour" with bretty and mike (thefuture22) we discussed sports in detail. I drew several conclusions. First, people buy into hype and potential way too much. Recently my neighbor said that if Lebron retired today he would have a better carreer than scotty pippen. Lets examine.....scotty was an MVP, has 2 gold medals, 6 nba titles, countless time all star, 50 greatest player of all time. Lebron is a six year guy who has an MVP and a scoring title. Is Lebrom more dominant than scooty, of course he is, but his careeer is not better. I will always take the guy who has alredy performned over the "potential" of anyone.
Second, dont EVER compare Lebron to MJ.
Fantasy Football is going to be insane this year, im hoping for some more prop bets vs hoppman. Viks are looking GOOOOOOD to me. According to bretty we improved our Oline and getting Tavaris out can only help. I cancelled my season tix once i heard Favre was coming, i just hate the man.
Side rant: Favre is not that good relative to his reputation. He lead the lueague in picks last year and still made the pro bowl over Rivers who had like 3500 yrds and 35 tds with like 10 picks. yes hes a 3 time MVP buts lets take a closer look. I believe in 95 he split the MVP with Barry Sanders (greatest rb ever) when barry had a 2k season. Any back who goes for 2k should be hte hands down MVP, its only been done like 5 times. And he won a WHOPPING 1 title, so did trent dilfer.
Anyway, no seaon tix so i got the Sunday Ticket on Direct tv, should be a good time, i will be having football parites pretty much every Sunday. Viks win the division for sure, but disappoint in the playoffs.
Ricky Rubio was an awful pick. simply awful. typical wolves. hes a white boy who cant shoot.....in the euro league, whats he going to do vs grown men in the nba. Im sick of having pgs who cant shoot, telfair was one seaon too much for me, he shot worse than 40%. I loved the Lawson pick, he reminds me a young chauncy billiups, of course we insta trade him for a pcik next year. Flynn will be a solid role player, hes so quick and athletic, exactly the type of guy that makes it in the association.
Had my worst day of the year a few days ago, only broke my phone which is a pretty chill reaction compared to........i pretty much just laughed it off cuz honestly we all know im gonna grind it back……real fast.
Im done with this stogie im going to go inside and watch some sopranos, season 5…..best one so far.
Happy 4th
-Tyom
i only read the first line... when the FUCK did scottie pippen win an MV-fucking-P award?
ah, ok :) he did win an all star MVP... but that doesnt count.
Rubio will be good. Guys can develop a jumpshot, but you can't teach that kind of passing ability.
white boy who cant shoot but makes cool looking passes, sounds exaclty like Jason Williams aka white chocolate, look how he panned out. Everyone in the NBA can pass and everyone can shoot, if you cant do both then everyone is going to play him for the pass and double team off him Sebastion Telfair style, he was open every game and shot less than 40%.
Im just sick of these over hyped Euro white boys (darko milicic, Gallenelli, Žarko Čabarkapa, Andris Biedrins, Pavel Podkolzin, Viktor Khryapa, Sergei Monia, Beno Udrihi, Fran Vázquez, Yaroslav Korolev, Andre Bargnani, Oleksiy Pecherov)
Now exactly why do you think a white euro boy who cant shoot will be good? The list above is all white euro guys drafted since 2003. Darko was the #2 overall pick, Bargnani was the #1, Beno is a back up pg possible starter now for the worst team in the league. I think its safe to say everyone on this list is a huge bust and most are not even in the association anymore.
Histroy and his skill set both lead me to beleive hes going to be a huge bust, i await one argument for why hes going to be good other than "he makes alot of flashy passes i see on ESPN.
-Tyom
Arty, I would agree with you except the guy is 19 and he played Deron Williams, Chris Paul, and Jason Kidd pretty much even in the Gold Medal game for Spain. He's not just another NBA passer, he's elite. I would have loved to see him on a running team like the Thunder or the Knicks, hopefully that happens. He can make everyone else better.
Don't go reverse racist, give the guy a shot. I'm calling all-star level point guard by year five with a reliable jumper to go with the rest of his creating game.
Also disagree about Favre. Never had a losing season as a starter (since 1992) is pretty unreal. You're right he lucked into some MVPs but he's a top 10 all-time QB no matter what scale you're using, and that's pretty damn good. The Vikings will be better with him at the controls but he'll probably fade in New York or Carolina in the playoffs.
It was impossible for Minnesota to pass him up with two picks. His potential gives him more trade value than anyone outside the top 2. It doesn't look like he wants to be in Minnesota either.... especially after they drafted Flynn.
Now they just need to find a good deal and take it. Hopefully they don't trade him for another PF.
Picking a white guy is never a good idea anymore.... like at all. The league would be better putting some type of pigment restriction in....
Steve Nash was the only real white boy all-star in 2008, and he shouldn't even count since he was born in Africa.
Second. Take MJ and his skill set and put him in todays game and he's quite a bit behind Kobe & Lebron.
I don't know who this donk neighbor of yours is, Arty, but there's no way he could have claimed that Lebron has a more accomplished career than Pippen. It might have been something more along the lines of.... Yes, Scottie Pippen is a good fkin basketball player, but is only in the top 50 all-time because of having MJ on his team. Lebron James will most likely pave his way into the top 50 on his own, simply because he is a bigger, faster, stronger, more intelligent and more athletic player than Pippen ever was. Thus the reason that Scottie Pippen is over-rated, and Lebron James is nearly a lock for a top 50 player.... bare minimum.
I completely agree with UKfan on the Rubio pick. I know you hate Rubio soooo much. So who do you draft in his spot instead? Just curious... Say we do draft someone else. Let's entertain Jordan Hill from Arizona. In turn, Rubio goes to the Knicks, and in 4 years suddenly becomes one of the top 6 or 7 PGs in the league. Would you be the same guy to bitch and scream about how the Wolves passed on him for some PF who is slightly above average?? Think about it....... I just think with the Wolves' current status that they are no way, shape or form in a position to try and take anyone except the guy with the most potential. The fans would FREAK if we reached down the board after trading up to the 5 pick and took a guy who ended up being a complete bust!!
Brett Favre is a good pick for the Vikes. We don't need him to be the gun-slinger that he had to be with the Packers for a long time and had to be with the Jets for a few games. Here's why I think Favre is a great acquisition for the Vikings...
1) The guy was 8-3 when attempting less than 36 passesper game last year. This fits perfect into the Vikings game plan with AP.
2) Despite his age (and assuming surgery recovery goes well) Brett still has one of the strongest arms in the NFL. With this comes the ability to stretch the field and hit the deep ball. With Bernard Berrian and Percy Harvin's athleticism, it's going to leave a lot of space for Peterson to find his holes.
Side note for above... Tavaris jackson completed 11% of his passes over 20 yards last season. THAT'S TERRIBLE!!!!
3) Vikings need a QB who has the ability to put the game on his back with 2 mins left in the 4th qtr. I'm not saying that Brett is as good at the 2 min drill as he once was, but he is hands down better than Tavaris or Sage.
Lebron is already top 50.
Lebron may one day be in the top 50, 6 year carrer with 1 mvp and no champs does not get him there yet, not even close
Favre couldnt make it through one season healthy and single handedly doomed the jets after an 8-3 start. So what makes you guys think that a year older and coming off major shoulder surgery Favre will be a good NFL qb who will make it the whole season, i seriously want to hear on logical argument. "favre has a strong arm" isnt a reason, he had the a stronger are and was younger last year before surgery.
Rubio will not be good for the twolves, hes white and cant shoot, until someone proves otherwise i stand by my argument. There are like 6 good white players in the entire league and yet you guys just drool over this kid like hes some god. I guess time will tell.
You can only compare players to people in thier generation. Saying MJ wouldnt be good now thus hes not as good as Lebron is like saying Bill Russel wouldnt be good now thus isnt good. Well obv times change and comparing former and current players makes no sense.
MJ averaged 32ppg his first 7 seasons in the league while shooting over 50% from the field and was all defensive first team 9 times in his carrer. Lebrons carrer avg is 27ppg and 47% shooting and he has never made NBA defensive first team. MJ has 6 titles, you guys can call me when he wins 1..........not 6 not 5 not 4 not 3 not 2...........just 1. He couldnt even beat the MAGIC!! MJ beat the shit out of everyone, lebron couldnt even get past Howard before he had an offensive game.
I will put up 10k on a prop bet of who has a better career mj or lebron, i challenge you all to put your money where your mouths are. I will take similar bets on Favre's stats this seaon and rubio being an all star in the nba.
Dude, basketball's a team sport. MJ had Pippen, Phil, Ho Grant, dead eye shooters like Kerr and Paxson, etc. Lebron had Mo Williams and Big Z completely disappear on him last year in the conference finals.
Not everything is statistics, Arty.
Favre made the Pro Bowl last season. Jets were, what, 4-12 the year before he came over? Yes, he faded after he tore something in that shoulder. Anyone could tell the guy wasn't right coming down the stretch, he was making those throws earlier in the year.
If you're the Vikings, you wouldn't roll the dice on the guy?
everyone shot 50% back in the day. I don't think Larry Bird even plays in the league today.
My all white team would include Kyle Korver.
Lakers and Celts steamroll to the finals.
Favre making the pro bowl last year proves my point. Hes OVER RATED. lets examine: Favre hand 22 tds and 22 picks last year (lead the league) and Rivers had 34 tds and 11 picks yet Favre not Rivers made the pro bowl.....why....because his name is Favre. Rivers should have made the pro bowl not Favre, just like Barry should have won the MVP not favre, hes just over rated and people think his name is equivilant to success.
Ok lebron made first team all defense 1 year, my argument still stands, so does my bet, but im pretty sure no one will take cuz everyone is all talk and has no clue what they are talking about...i await your responses
not everyone shot 50%, thats just an absured and ignorant statement
I think MJ will always be the best but how the hell would u structure this 10k bet?
Championships is probably the best way to do it. Lebron over/under 6.5 seems about right to me.
"Second, dont EVER compare Lebron to MJ"
Yeah - but only cause LeBron is 24. LeBron's 08-09 season is historically one of the greatest.
You're not going to be able to compare the numbers between Jordan and LeBron straight up. The tempo of the game was much faster in Jordans day, (think of how each side having many more possessions per game than now might make a difference).
I'm not sure how familiar you are with sabermetrics for basketball. In baseball people have gotten the message that stats like batting average and RBI's are very misleading - similarily in basketball you can't take most stats at face value.
One of the sabermetric stats for basketball that attempts to judge players across eras is called 'Win Shares'. Jordan owns the top 3 season's all-time for this stat (as well as #5, #8, #11), however you might be surprised that LeBron now owns #4 on that list.
Doubtfull LeBron can maintain such dominance as long as Jordan did. But it's not a travesty to compare the two.
GCP, joking about comparing players based on championships, right? It's hard to tell online.
Okay, so what no one really understands about Artyom, is that he doesn't REALLY hate Favre.... He hates the hype around Favre, and in turn he gets perceived as being a Favre-hater. Umm... I think this is a true statement. Looking back, maybe he really does just hate Favre? Who knows? Point being.... Tyom, you can't seriously look someone in the eye and say "I don't want Brett Favre to come play for the Vikings, T-Jack gives us a better shot at going the distance" or "I don't want Brett Favre to come play for the Vikings, Sage gives us a better shot at going the distance". Can you? The Favre signing would be a 1 year deal to see where the team can go with a legit quarterback. That's it. Next year we'll look to sign or draft someone once Favre is gone, end of story. Whether you hate Favre, or hate the hype around Favre, I'd just like to know what a better situation would be?!
As for Rubio, again, who would you rather the wolves have drafted? Don't say "anyone but Rubio"... Throw out a few names. And like I said before, the wolves front office would be booed out of Minnesota if we reached down the draft board, after trading up, and drafted ANOTHER first round bust. This is definitely the safest pick we could have taken at that spot from both a team and fan-relations perspecitive.
MJ averaged more points per game, but teams as a whole averaged more points per game like Royhobbstn pointed out... We talked about this with your roomie a couple weeks ago. Every game used to be 109-102 on average. It was ridiculous. So if you figure that teams average about 15% less scoring now, then Lebron and MJ are fairly close to one another in the scoring column... And I know you're big on comparing championship rings between players, but ironically you also are always the one to point out that MJ didn't win his first ring till he got Pippen on his team.... And I think when Lebron gets his "Pippen" in Chris Bosh, You gotta watch out. I really think it might happen.
No, I wasn't joking. How else would you judge Lebron vs. MJ? Statistics are skewed between eras and things like all-defense teams and all-star teams don't mean a thing to me, completely subjective. No, bottom line, how many rings, that's the way it has to be. MJ has six, that's the water mark at the moment. Yeah, he had Pippen, but Lebron will surely play with other great players throughout the course of his career. If not in CLE, then somewhere else.
I'd like to see LBJ in New York with Nash and D'antoni. That's my dream scenario.
Really, for me, and why I put Lebron right near the top of any greatest ever list, is the wow factor he brings. No one has his highlight reel. NO ONE. Up to and including MJ, Kobe, whoever you want to bring up. The guy is the most physically gifted athlete to ever play the game. He's just not the greatest basketball player... yet.
Nash is getting too old.
I agree, he needs to play with someone else who can handle the ball, so he can spot up and shoot some.
MJ has the sickest highlight real ever...........EVER!! They may not be the sick dunks like Lebron but how about all those game winning shots to WIN TITLES. Lebron will prob never have that. New cap is 10 million lower than expected so signing 2 guy to max deals is going to be way more difficult.
You guys are way to caught up in the hype and forget what MJ did for sports. He made athleats celebrities, he made so much money for Nike that he opened his own shoe company which nike immediatly bought out cuz they knew he could break them. Dont get me wrong, i like lebron as much as the next guy, hes prob the best player in the league right now but lots of guys have had that honor and none of them have come close to MJ.
My 10k bet stands any way you guys wanna measure greatness. Champs, stats, whatever, MJ will win in every catagory.
I will also make prop bets regarding Favre and Rubio, im open to all suggestions.
Posts: 732
Location: Minneapolis, MN