Miami Heat

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66-0
16-0 in playoffs

You heard it here first.

They could turn the rest of the NBA into the Washington Generals. A lot to say after 1 1/2 games, but they look that good; experienced, healthy, deeper.
 
66-0
16-0 in playoffs

You heard it here first.

Umm, no. A healthy haslem and that battier pickup are going to end up being the most important pieces though. They will be good, likely my expected #1 but if the clippers actually gel and the Knicks find some tenacious D (not the band) they could give them a run. The heat are still susceptible to a team with good strong interior offense AND defense. So ya they should be good, likely ~56-60 wins
 
I really like the thunder this year, most complete team in the league, and they've had a season to gel (way underrated IMHO). I predict it'll be the heat and Knicks in the east, thunder and clippers in the west. Lakers'llbarely miss the lottery.
 
Y'all really care about pro basketball? Why?
 
What is this "miami heat" you speak of? Why would there need to be a heating company in miami?
 
Y'all really care about pro basketball? Why?

I know, I ask the same thing about college anything. Just comes down to whatever one likes watching.
 
I really like the thunder this year, most complete team in the league, and they've had a season to gel (way underrated IMHO). I predict it'll be the heat and Knicks in the east, thunder and clippers in the west. Lakers'llbarely miss the lottery.

Thunder are excellent. Clippers are an intriguing unknown. I don't see all the Knick hype. Carmello is a bad attitude and need more than Chandler to be contenders.

Miami is an enigma. They run and blow out teams to huge leads, then slow down and look lost as opponents get back in the game, especially when LeBron pounds the ball in the halfcourt. They finally do have a point guard but still no center.

OK, maybe not quite 66-0.
 
NBA was gone for a while, and I realized I didn't really miss it. I think i may be done with it. Been looking for a window to get into hockey... i think it has arrived!
 
For many years, I felt that the NBA was fixed. Then came the referee scandal and my feelings about it were somewhat justified. I hate watching a game when it really only matters if you watch the final 5 minutes in almost all circumstances. The playoffs are almost always fixed so that they will provide the maximum number of games to line the pockets of owners and TV execs. No matter how much one team is better than the other, it is rare that you see a series not go down to the max (or close to the max) number of games...or at least that was how it was when I stopped caring about 12 years ago. I may be a conspiracy theorist when it comes to basketball, but something seems pretty rotten about almost everything about the NBA. The thug players certainly don't help the image. I learned to do without after being a pretty big fan and have been much happier since.
 
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Thunder are excellent. Clippers are an intriguing unknown. I don't see all the Knick hype. Carmello is a bad attitude and need more than Chandler to be contenders.

Miami is an enigma. They run and blow out teams to huge leads, then slow down and look lost as opponents get back in the game, especially when LeBron pounds the ball in the halfcourt. They finally do have a point guard but still no center.

OK, maybe not quite 66-0.

That "opponents get back into it" was their zone D. This us where battier comes in, I think he's the type of selfless veteran with the guts to slap lebron around when he goes into stupid 4th quarter mode. The Knicks SHOULD be good IF dantoni actually uses Chandler to get their D right.

I agree that the clips have huge potential and the Thunder will be really good. The shortened schedule will kill the old teams, lakers, spurs, celtics especially.
 
For many years, I felt that the NBA was fixed. Then came the referee scandal and my feelings about it were somewhat justified. I hate watching a game when it really only matters if you watch the final 5 minutes in almost all circumstances. The playoffs are almost always fixed so that they will provide the maximum number of games to line the pockets of owners and TV execs. No matter how much one team is better than the other, it is rare that you see a series not go down to the max (or close to the max) number of games...or at least that was how it was when I stopped caring about 12 years ago. I may be a conspiracy theorist when it comes to basketball, but something seems pretty rotten about almost everything about the NBA. The thug players certainly don't help the image. I learned to do without after being a pretty big fan and have been much happier since.

Shaqs magic vs Houston, lebron cavs vs SA, Philly vs LA are a few finals matchups I can think of off the top of my head that were sweeps are 4-1. I'm sure there's more. That laker team only lost 1 game the entire playoff.
 
For many years, I felt that the NBA was fixed. Then came the referee scandal and my feelings about it were somewhat justified. I hate watching a game when it really only matters if you watch the final 5 minutes in almost all circumstances. The playoffs are almost always fixed so that they will provide the maximum number of games to line the pockets of owners and TV execs. No matter how much one team is better than the other, it is rare that you see a series not go down to the max (or close to the max) number of games...or at least that was how it was when I stopped caring about 12 years ago. I may be a conspiracy theorist when it comes to basketball, but something seems pretty rotten about almost everything about the NBA. The thug players certainly don't help the image. I learned to do without after being a pretty big fan and have been much happier since.

I get that sometimes series scream fix (lakers vs kings in 2002 I think especially), but if you enjoy a sport why not watch the pinnacle athletes play it? Sure maybe not every game is life/death and you may think the college kids play harder but overall better ball is played in the league. While I also love march madness for the any team can win and each game is so important feel, the NBAs playoff series are fun to watch because of the game to game adjustments.

You say you were turned off by scandal etc..... So do you just do without sports at all? If you're a college guy I don't get it, with the fact that most top schools commit recruiting violations, most top recruits take money to go somewhere then take whatever they can get throughout their college careers, there are plenty of bad attitude/druggies in the college world as well. How about Ohio states football team being found to have broken rules, collected tattoos etc but allowed to play in the bowl game instead of being suspended immediately because money was to be made, is that right? The dollar rules everywhere, especially in sports, so why not accept it and watch the best. Notice I didn't even mention the multiple molestation situations going on in the college game right now 😉
 
I get that sometimes series scream fix (lakers vs kings in 2002 I think especially), but if you enjoy a sport why not watch the pinnacle athletes play it? Sure maybe not every game is life/death and you may think the college kids play harder but overall better ball is played in the league. While I also love march madness for the any team can win and each game is so important feel, the NBAs playoff series are fun to watch because of the game to game adjustments.

You say you were turned off by scandal etc..... So do you just do without sports at all? If you're a college guy I don't get it, with the fact that most top schools commit recruiting violations, most top recruits take money to go somewhere then take whatever they can get throughout their college careers, there are plenty of bad attitude/druggies in the college world as well. How about Ohio states football team being found to have broken rules, collected tattoos etc but allowed to play in the bowl game instead of being suspended immediately because money was to be made, is that right? The dollar rules everywhere, especially in sports, so why not accept it and watch the best. Notice I didn't even mention the multiple molestation situations going on in the college game right now 😉

I have switched to following college FB and Baseball as my two favorite sports. College FB is indeed corrupt, but the team I follow the most has been pretty clean for a good while (at least to the outward appearance; I don't want to be completely naive). College baseball, which I have picked up over the past few years, has a lot of strategy and does not appear as corrupt as the BCS system in FB, so that is nice. The college world series is extremely fun to watch.

It is not JUST basketball that I dislike. I grew up a huge pro sports fan and knew all of the players, all of the stats, all of the strategies etc. The focus was always on the game itself and winning as a team. Players had loyalty to the teams and the fans and stayed with the team that brought them along, often for their entire careers. You could buy a jersey of your favorite player and feel relatively sure that you would not look stupid wearing it a year later because they were on another team now. The off the field antics were always there, but were not the focus and seemed much less common. The players mostly were decent citizens who played by the rules in most situations.
Enter free agency and we saw the disappearance of loyalty to teams and fans. It became all about who would pay the most money, so our favorite players wandered from city to city like high priced prostitutes. One day, they're your favorite team; the next they are on the team you grew up hating (in a good way like the Yankees/Red Sox or Eagles/Cowboys/Redskins are supposed to be hated because they are your rivals).
It was about 12 years ago that I made the transition to college sports and lost interest in most pro sports. I have missed it less than I thought I would.
The shine is certainly starting to wear off of college FB in the past few years as I have seen how blatantly biased and unfair the entire process is. But...I am currently a pretty big follower. A few more cheating scandals and off the field antics and I may have to change my mind again. But that is where I stand currently. College sports are no more or less corrupt than the pros, but I can fool myself into thinking that there is some loyalty to the teams and fans in most cases.
I certainly don't mean to judge anyone else for enjoying a sport, I have just trimmed down my interests considerably over the past 20 years.
 
Shaqs magic vs Houston, lebron cavs vs SA, Philly vs LA are a few finals matchups I can think of off the top of my head that were sweeps are 4-1. I'm sure there's more. That laker team only lost 1 game the entire playoff.

I'm sure that is true. I had already lost interest by that time and was no longer following pro basketball by that time, so my info is waaaayyy outdated ( and just my opinion).
I haven't changed my opinion on the fact that, for most games, you could just watch the last 5 minutes and call it good. I also don't like soccer or hockey much because they are both huge time investments for the rare exciting play and the final score of 2-1. Just never did feel like it was a good investment of my time. I would rather just let sports center edit the boring stuff and give me the 2-3 exciting plays of the game. I'm sure that makes me a bad fan. I just find that I am much too busy now to follow as many sports as I used to, so I have narrowed it down quite a bit.
 
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