NBA 2008-2009 Season

[Stee]

Amare's living in fantasy land with his twitter page

Amareisreal: Breaking News! Amar'e Stoudemire to the Lakers!!


Bastard made me panic and think we traded away someone important for him.

[Dimmauk]

Amare's living in fantasy land with his twitter page

Amareisreal: Breaking News! Amar'e Stoudemire to the Lakers!!


Bastard made me panic and think we traded away someone important for him.

The NBA....I mean the Lakers traded Mbengaaaaa!!!! for Amare. LOL This is the Lakers you know.

[Stee]

The NBA....I mean the Lakers traded Mbengaaaaa!!!! for Amare. LOL This is the Lakers you know.

To summarize:

Jerry West/Mitch Kupchak >>> whoever you have over there

[Dimmauk]

To summarize:

Jerry West/Mitch Kupchak >>> whoever you have over there

Anyone would look like a genius if they got to rape teams like the Lakers have. Kobe for Vlade and Gasol for Kwame. LOL

So, who will win their 5th first? Kobe, Shaq, or Duncan? I seriously think its a toss up right now. Which mean next season will be epic.

[Devia]

Sorry Dimmy, it won't be Duncan. His team is busy standing in line to collect social security benefits.

[Dimmauk]

Sorry Dimmy, it won't be Duncan. His team is busy standing in line to collect social security benefits.

Old Joke is old. Hey did you riot at the hospital Micheal Jackson died at? I saw a crowd, and figured a riot was imminent. I pictured retards in Lakers jerseys moon walking on turned over police cars.

[Stee]

Anyone would look like a genius if they got to rape teams like the Lakers have. Kobe for Vlade and Gasol for Kwame. LOL

So, who will win their 5th first? Kobe, Shaq, or Duncan? I seriously think its a toss up right now. Which mean next season will be epic.

Yar any credibility your NBA rigging trades claim had is now gone once you mentioned Kobe for Vlade.

As for next season, it should be interesting seeing how all three players have at least some claim to be the greatest player of this generation. Whoever gets the 5th ring first will at least advance their reputation a bit in the conversation.

[Heavencloud]

Wow Blair is 6-7 265 lbs. What an animal lol. Spurs gonna do well next year.

[Dimmauk]

Wow Blair is 6-7 265 lbs. What an animal lol. Spurs gonna do well next year.

Jeff McDonald, San Antonio Express-News: Pittsburgh forward DeJuan Blair might have been a lottery pick. Blessed with an instinctive rebounding ability but cursed with two surgically repaired knees, Blair instead slipped to the second round of Thursday night’s NBA draft. The Spurs were waiting. And almost salivating. When Blair was still on the board at No. 37, the Spurs — after a long wait just to get on the clock — wasted little time in using their first pick of the night to try and fill their most pressing need. 'They were the one team that believed in me,' Blair said by phone late Thursday night. 'Since they believed in me, I’m going to give them 1000 percent.'"


I like the chip on the shoulder. This will be good. He could start if they move Duncan to Center.

[Dimmauk]

There was 3 confirmed Rasheed Wallace sightings in the San Antonio Airport today. We cant officially talk to him, but he can visit with players.

[Dimmauk]

Rockets could lose Yao for season—or longer

By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports 1 hour, 0 minutes ago

As the NBA draft approached, the grim truth about Yao Ming’s(notes) broken left foot hung like an anvil over the Houston Rockets. The fear isn’t that he’s just lost for next season, but longer.

The Rockets and Yao’s reps are frightened over his future, and the concern is the most base of all: Does Yao Ming ever play again?

“The realization has hit them that this is grave,” one NBA general manager said.

For now, the Rockets have privately told league peers it could be a full season before Yao might be able to return to basketball. Multiple league executives, officials close to Yao and two doctors with knowledge of the diagnoses are describing a troubling, re-fracture of his navicular bone. Three pins were inserted a year ago, but the foot cracked in the playoffs and isn’t healing.

“It sounds like he’s missing most of next season, if not the entire 82 games,” one league executive who has had recent discussions with the Houston front office told Yahoo! Sports. “That’s all that [the Rockets] will concede quietly, but they know it’s probably much worse.”

Houston general manager Daryl Morey refused comment on Monday and a team spokesman said the Rockets will not have further comment until Yao undergoes additional medical tests.

There’s no reason for the Rockets to disclose the severity of the injury, nor the uncertainty over Yao’s future. Before the Rockets go public with a dire diagnosis, they plan to send him to three more specialists this week, a source said. For now, the Rockets have season tickets and sponsorships to sell. For now, the Rockets will publicly decry these doomsday revelations as premature, but this is the reality that they’re working under within the organization.

This has turned into an impossible situation for the Rockets’ capable GM. Even if Yao plays again, Morey knows it’s just a matter of time until his lower body breaks down. His feet and ankles just can’t support the mobility of his 7-foot-6 frame.

With four surgeries in three years, the Rockets worried they were reaching a breaking point. Well, it’s here. After missing 86 games in the previous three seasons, the 28-year-old Yao missed a mere five this past regular season before injuring his foot during the Rockets’ second-round playoff series against the Los Angeles Lakers.

It wasn’t until last week when Houston issued a statement saying Yao’s fractured foot hadn’t healed properly, that he would be unavailable “indefinitely.” Prior to Thursday’s draft, Morey tried desperately to trade into the high lottery to take Spanish prodigy Ricky Rubio(notes). Houston needed a young star, but had too few assets to make a deal with Memphis or Sacramento. It seemed odd to teams that Houston had thrown Shane Battier(notes) and Aaron Brooks(notes) into offers within weeks of pushing the NBA champion Lakers to seven games in the Western Conference semifinals.

Now, the Rockets have tough decisions to make: Do they keep pushing Tracy McGrady(notes) and his expiring contract on the market or let the $22 million expire next summer? So far, Morey is getting offered bad contracts and junk talent for him. What’s more, does Houston re-sign Ron Artest(notes) to a $40 million-plus contract when contention is no longer viable? Why not create cap space for the summers of 2010 and 2011? Why not get younger now? Yao could opt out of his contract next summer, but odds are that Houston won’t so fortunate.

The Rockets should do themselves a favor and just start over. That isn’t easy in a sophisticated and rabid NBA market like Houston, but what everyone long suspected has reached fruition: Yao and McGrady are no longer a faulty foundation, but a collapsed one. Houston needs to proceed with an understanding that they’re no longer chasing the Lakers, but beginning again.

Rest assured, Houston has long been fearful that Yao’s responsibilities to the Chinese national team were rapidly contributing to his breakdown, and perhaps they’ve finally been met. Yao wouldn’t have missed the Beijing Olympics for the world, but it was clear he wasn’t fully healed in those Games. The Rockets paid a price for his nationalism, his obligation and now the darkest fears are close to confirmation: It isn’t just a season on the brink for Yao Ming, but perhaps a career.

[Kajii]

wow that's terrible
rockets got by pretty well without him though

[Mizango]

Why couldn't it be Aaron Brooks' face?

[tyven]

Why couldn't it be Aaron Brooks' face?

they tried but he turned around to throw the ball backwards

[Mizango]

they tried but he turned around to throw the ball backwards

lol

[Andarvi]

So that narrows it down to the Lakers and Nuggets and hopefully a healthy Spurs to make things interesting. Blazers will be a year older and fun to watch. Sucks the Hornets are getting trumped by other teams moves over the last year, they are a player away from being in the discussion as well.

[Kajii]

Wonder where Hedo Turkoglu will end up.

[Headspace]

New Orleans.

[Dimmauk]

2009 Free agent list

NBA free agents: 2009 class - NBA - Yahoo! Sports

[Dimmauk]

Taco Bell is in, McDonald’s is out as NBA sponsor

By NANCY ARMOUR, AP National Writer 2 hours, 46 minutes ago

NEW YORK (AP)—Taco Bell has replaced longtime sponsor McDonald’s as the NBA’s fast-food partner.

Taco Bell and the NBA have agreed on a four-year deal that includes ads for the fast-food chain on ABC, TNT and ESPN, NBA-themed promotions at Taco Bell’s 5,600 restaurants and NBA-themed advertising. Taco Bell will be the title sponsor for the All-Star Saturday Night Skills Challenge and an associate sponsor of the All-Star Jam Session.

The agreement ends the league’s 20-year partnership with McDonald’s.

The package’s value was not disclosed, but a person familiar with the deal confirmed the details to The Associated Press on Wednesday. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal had yet to be announced.