IC 6: How about a Numa Numa Duet from Eddie and KDB?

In!

Random fact they don't tell you, college professors are all sorts of things. Right now, I have a professor who was on a Russian fishing expedition with a captain that worshipped Stalin. His defense when asked why he supported someone like Stalin such as his murders? "Everyone makes mistakes." Then there is the Japanese instructor who was asking everyone in Japanese if we liked to eat cats. And the prof I had that jumped on tables and his rants about all sorts of things.

I once had a high school teacher who only taught as part of his porbation due to some kind of white collar crime. He told us how to succesfully smugle drugs and alchohol acroos the US-Mexico border.

Seriously this happened.

anyone watching All-Star Saturday night.

I just catch the highlights the next day if anything was worth it.

obaka dunks from BEHIND the free through line and gets eliminated in the first round of the dunk-off

blake griffin jumps over the hood of a kia and wins the damn thing

you missed nothing

Thought Blake Griffin won on hype

Javal McGee had some great ones. The car one was fun but really not that impressive. The props are getting a little out of hand, but I guess the majority of fans like it as Griffin got a lot of votes.

tbh i think its becuase griffin is a more known player and therefore got the votes

but his hype was shit, a choir and a kia its not like he put on a superhero suit and got some air, and what pissed me off the most is he also tried to pull off a serious dunk, which he couldnt pull off and instead did what some useless "plan B" dunk

other than that, did i mention obaka dunked from BEHIND the free throw line

Coupe de France: Guy pranks championship team.

You have to watch this...

http://www.wimp.com/pranksteam/

lol that was awesome.

He's got some other really great videos. Can't remember his full name other than Remi. His fake bike race is great.

Melo is a Knick.

And we get curry! I hope this ruben plan works!! We have been sucking balls for god knows how long!!

Dumb deal all around, but I guess he wants to be in NY. Can't see how this Knicks team has a better shot at a championship than Denver did. Both were/are longshots, but I would think Denver had better odds against this years Lakers, Dallas and SA than the Knicks do against Boston, Orlando, Chicago and Miami, not to mention the East teams all entering their title windows as opposed to the West teams who have 2-3 years left max. All those teams barring maybe Miami are going to just ransack a frontcourt rotation of Turiaf, Amare, and Sheldon Williams, and Miami will kill them on the perimiter.

The last thing NY needed was another scorer that doesn't play much defense, and that's exactly what they got. Now if they get one of the big 2012 FA's like Dwight, Paul or Deron Williams down the road maybe, but right now I see them as the 5th best team in a suddenly stacked East (at least at the top).

Denver is not going to get anywhere anytime soon with this team, but at least we got something for him unlike Cleveland and Toronto. Melo should have just come out and said he wanted a trade to the Knicks and didn't want to play anywhere else. All his bullcrap all season long only served to gut the Knicks roster even more than if he had just said what he wanted. Wouldn't have ticked off Nuggets fans as much either, not that he really cares.

Not amused with some of the Pistons obviously, this is getting pathetic.

Really? You always trade a collection of nobodies for a star

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/110225/part1&sportCat=nba

agree with this

One of the strangest subplots this week: Everyone rushing to pick Carmelo's game apart, especially people who rely on advanced metrics and ended up getting caught up in small-picture stuff. Carmelo has one elite skill (he rebounds extremely well for a small forward) and one transcendent skill (he's as good as anyone in the league at scoring and/or getting to the line, especially in crunch time). You can absolutely, positively, unquestionably win a championship if Carmelo Anthony is your creator at the end of a basketball game. The Knicks didn't have anyone like that. Few teams do.

Now throw this in: He's only 26.

Now throw this in: Ten guys started the 2011 All-Star Game. In a 30-team league, the Knicks suddenly have two of them.

Now throw this in: The other players know. They know who's good. They know who's worth a damn. They know who they'd go to war with. So you can't discount (A) how well Carmelo played on the 2008 Olympic team; (B) how much the other guys respected him; and (C) how the key guys on that team were Kobe, LeBron, Wade and Carmelo. It can't be forgotten. It just can't. Neither can the fact that he nearly carried a limited Nuggets team to the Finals two years ago..........................................

Just think Carmelo is the wrong star for that team. I like Simmons, but he is the same one who swore up and down the Heat gutted their team too much to compete and they got 3 superstars for doing that, not one (and they have more depth than the Knicks do currently). Carmelo is a pretty good rebounder and a good scorer, but he is a very poor defender and works well in an isolation offense. He is just a bad fit for a D'Antoni team, and too similar of a player to Amare. If they can snag Howard, or maybe even Paul or Williams they have a chance, but the simple fact is the Knicks had absolutely no problem scoring and they went after a scorer.

And if anyone in that trade should get credit for taking the Nuggets to the WCF a couple years ago it should be Billups, not Melo. Melo was one and done every single year until Chauncey came. More disappointed about losing him tbh. Melo is great and I'm not going to act like the Nuggets are a better team now that he is gone (although I think they are better off than originally thought), but he is what he is and he is never going to reach that level that Kobe, Lebron and others are at.

Just not sure what makes him not on LeBron's level. LeBron has proven to be anti clutch and a loser when it matters most. Carmelo is probably the 2nd or 3rd most clutch player in the league. Surely LeBron is a better all around player, but it's got him nothing at this point. And Players of Kobe's magnitude(Kobe) weren't available to the Knicks, so it's a moot point. Amare and Melo aren't very similar at all, surely less similar than wade and leBron.

The Knicks now have 2 players who are top 3 at their position in the League(who is prepared to guard these two in a series?), with cap to burn for another big player, job well done.

Edit: Simmons picked the Heat to win 62-63 games, they're on pace for 59-60, pretty accurate

Lebron has gotten a lot closer than Melo ever has on many more occasions, and he is a much much better defender. Melo is for the most part a very poor defender and does not get his teammates involved at all.

Sure Kobe wasn't available to the Knicks, but they didn't have to make a move right this second. Carmelo would have been available this summer in a sign-and-trade and they would have given up a lot less to a more desperate Denver for him then, and probably wouldn't have had to take on as much money as a result. As is, it will be difficult to add a 3rd player given that the new CBA is surely going to lower the cap and make it more difficult to find players. I really think this trade puts them in no mans land. They aren't going to get through in the east (There are 4 teams that have better odds than them), and they are a high enough seed they can't get a draft pick, and they have very few contracts coming off the books in the next couple years.

Wade and Lebron might be more similair than Melo and Amare but there is one big difference: passing. LeBron and Wade both are very good passers and creators, in particular LeBron who averages almost 8 assists a game. Those kinds of players can thrive with other scorers. When Amare and Melo are both on the court they are going to work mostly in isolation sets and at that point having two major offensive options is not nearly as beneficial. And again, the Knicks (and D'Antoni-led teams) problem is not scoring. They were scoring plenty, so why gut your team to add another scorer when points aren't the problem. Sure they will score a lot, but they are still terrible (even worse) on defense with this move. They just made Cleveland look like an offensive juggernaut. Sure their defense will get better with practice, but this is a team that will get absolutely torched by other contenders because Amare and Carmelo are two major offensive talents who don't really like sharing the ball or playing defense.

Trust me, I watched Carmelo for over 7 years. I know he is clutch, I know he is a great scorer, and he is a pretty good rebounder, but he is not a great all-around player. They have to hope desperately that Chauncey still has a couple good years left and Landry Fields improves dramatically and quickly if they want to even sniff the Finals much less win it.

Simmons initial reaction was that the Heat gave up way too much of their roster and couldn't possibly win with 3 stars and scrubs. New York has 2 stars, one good PG and scrubs. How is that better, especially considering the competition is much tougher now than when the Heat were assembled.

I would bet good money that barring a major pay cut by a big name FA or the new CBA working greatly in their favor, the Knicks will never be more than the 3rd best team in the East. The NBA is an all or nothing league with these long guaranteed contracts and I think the Knicks are stuck in a good but not great spot now. No trade assets, few draft picks, and long-term contracts.

You can't judge the Knicks compared to the Heat, the heat had all summer to put a team together, the Knicks can't do that right now. And let's not forget how average the Heat were at the beginning of the season and how subpar they still are against the top teams.

What kind of thought process is behind your thinking that the Knicks cannot be better than third in the East, why? It's a very shortsighted view point, no one has any idea what happens from here, you really don't think a player like Paul or Williams might take less than the maximum to get to this team? In recent years both the Celtics and Heat build teams from nothing to challenge, it's exactly what the NYY are doing now. The magic are completely dependent on one guy(who might not be there in 2 seasons) and the Bulls are young and up and coming, but not by any means elite. The Celtics did everyone a favor this season and will continue to age quickly. No fan of a team in the East wanted this deal to go through(including me, a Celtics fan).

The point about Melo and Amare, is Amare actually has the ability to score down low, nobody on the heat has that ability(Bosh plays almost exclusively 17-18 feet from the basket), and they always get exploited by low post scorers.

Also after next season when Billups contract is up, the Knicks only have 3 total players under contract, plenty of roster space and manuevering available.

The Knicks dont have trouble scoring, because of Dantoni's system, in the regular season, but they rarely have playoff success. With 2 players in the top 5 in scoring, good luck trying to shut that down over the course of 7 games.

And the Knicks did need to make the move now, NJN were making a play, and Carmelo wasn't gonna let the deadline pass without signing his extension and losing that money.

I am just not seeing your point, the Knicks traded 3 quarters for a dollar(and got a playoff experienced PG as a throw in), they now have two star players, locked up to make a solid run for years. It's definitely going to make them a better team in the longrun, and a better team for this season's playoffs.

Would you rather role into the playoffs with
Wilson Chandler, Galinari and Felton or Anthony and Billups? Not even close.

I keep seeing this being bandied around but it strikes me as one of the bigger myths in the NBA.

What has led to zero titles so far for LeBron has been his mostly hideous teams. Look at what the Cavs have achieved so far without him, the longest losing streak in the history of US sports!! And how many titles has Carmelo won with far better talent around him?

I like Melo and agree that you always try to get the star in a mega trade. I think he's a great fit for a New York team with another option and a potential 3rd wheel. But LeBron anti-clutch? I keep hearing it and I don't see it when I watch him play.

EDIT: Tried to find someting to back this up and fortunately ESPN did a nice article on this.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/trueh...t=haberstroh_tom&page=KobeLeBronclutch-101222

A lot of course depends on your definition of clutch and many choose to focus on accuracy with the last shot of the game, but I like how the article and the data from 82games.com pitches what is meant by clutch time.

EDIT x2: I post this, not to try and claim LeBron as the most clutch player in the league. But the fact that NBA experts can even have a debate about this surely indicates that whatever James is, anti-clutch is included.

I would never argue that Melo is a better player than LeBron or Kobe, but neither of those guys were available to them, so it isn't really the point. And if those are the two players you have to compare Melo to to poke holes in hi game, he's doing ok.

On LeBron, just a couple of nights ago he missed a 3 at the end of the game for the Heat, wasn't expecting him to make it, and in the Celtics matchup he had two free throws to tie it and missed, again, pretty much par the course. If Kobe had those shots, I'd be a lot more scared they were going in. I like neither one of these players, so don't take it as a biased thing, theyre probably my least favorite players in the NBA. I'd also point out the LeBron clearly quit in the playoffs last season, but Kobe did that too(against the Suns a few years back). I just have little respect for either.

On a side note, as the LeBron or Kobe, who is the greatest player in the post-MJ debate marches on, for me the answer is Tim Duncan.

Kevin Durant is the more apt comparison for Melo, he just happens to be a more likeable player(I love the guy), so the thought of him being a franchise player despite also not being a great passer, defender, or at getting teammates involved is easier to swallow for some. You dont have to be a great setupman to be a franchise player, it's ok to rely on a PG to distribute.


Edit: anti clutch is harsh on James, more accurately if I could pick 5 guys to take a last shot, i wouldnt even consider him

well said, but neither teams have the chemistry to take on the likes of LA/Boston. Ball is very much a play-off sport and a summer or a month makes very little difference when it comes to that stage.

Whatever happens with miami or the knicks, its still a bit to early to judge. Next season will be their true tests.

And don't forget the knicks have the rest of the season to see melo play and IMO will spend their remaining cap on the right player/s.