"The '06 NBA Playoffs"

[dreamtheatre]

1987 europe championship finals and 1989 europe championship semifinals. greece vs ussr. both times the squads are nearly the same. both times greece wins while ussr is the great favourite of everybody(including me. i was about 13 -15 years old then and cried every time sabas's team was beaten)

USSR sabas, volkov(atlanta hawks), marchulienis , kurtinaitis (another great european player), khomucius , walters , belostenny , tikhonenko ( at 2,06 meters he played for major teams till 2000 or so but never became the player i thought he would. but he became really famous . He lost an airball to tyron bogues at 1986 finals)

Greece: yannakis , fassoulas , kristodolou and gallis . The fifth man i can not even remember. no reserves. remove gallis and put hornacek. let me tell the result. Two more ussr championships.

This might seem a stupid comparison but gallis was the heart of every team he played for. The ussr squad above beat USA in 1988 . USA had david robinson, mitch ritchmond, danny manning, .... .

by the way i am not so pessimistic about my player's play off chances. Utah and Orlando are good teams and have a good chance of making play offs.

all europe team

centers (5)

Sabonis
Radja
Divac

Forwards (4)

nowitzki
gasol

Forwards(3)

stojakovic
kukoc
danilovic
karnishovas
krilenko

Guards (2)

gallis
hedo

guards (1)

petrovic
marchulienis
tony parker

sorry for the spelling mistakes

[dreamtheatre]

and i will bet my last penny on dallas . they will beat miami 4-2.

comparing dirk to bird (my one time hero) is not comparing a star to a superstar.

it is comparing two superstars.

bird always played with great players . i will never go as far as criticizing bird's talents. i just wanna say that dirk is a great player and deserves more respect.

one thing is certain that he deserved the mvp reward this year.

comparing him and bird the only great difference is birds superior passing skills. dirk is a tough player too. he is a great shooter. grabs as much rebounds as bird did. he is still not as good as bird but not so far away either.

[johnsteed]

***

dreamtheatre

by the way i am not so pessimistic about my player's play off chances. Utah and Orlando are good teams and have a good chance of making play offs.

That's fine, but both of those teams didn't even make THIS year's playoffs. You were talking about this year's playoffs. I like their chances next year ('06-07), but the FINALS start later on in the week so there's only 2 teams left.

comparing him and bird the only great difference is birds superior passing skills. dirk is a tough player too. he is a great shooter. grabs as much rebounds as bird did. he is still not as good as bird but not so far away either.

Bird is often considered the greatest small forward of All-Time. Some people consider him the greatest (not many, but some), and I can't put him much lower than Top-5 on my All-Time list. Big Dirk is extremely talented, and has a better long-distance shot (check out their lifetime 3 pt %'s). Neither Dirk nor Bird are/were great defensive players, although I'd give Bird the edge because he seemed to play some when it mattered most. I like the comparisons between the two, and it's not so unreasonable anymore. Dirk can hang with Bird, but I don't think he's on the same level... yet. He has to do this for a little longer, and he has to become a winner. He seems like a completely different player in these playoffs and I'm rooting for him.


Is Dirk a tough player? I'm not sold on that yet. We'll see in the Finals. Again, I hope he steps up. I've always liked him. You're right to suggest that he doesn't get enough respect. He doesn't, but if he wins it with this squad, he'll be inching closer to the Bird comparisions, making it a reality.


Was Dirk the MVP? It could have gone to a few players this year, and I have no problem with Nash winning it. If we're talking about the best player in the game, I'm going to have to go with Kobe Bryant. I know LeBron and Wade are younger and are incredible talents, but so is Kobe, and he'll be awesome for several more years still. He's still young!


Great list by the way. I've always hoped that the European players would do well, and the landscape has certainly changed for the better over the past few years. I think the NBA is better for it. Dino Radja sure put up some nice numbers in his brief stay in the NBA.


Steed

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[dreamtheatre]

i have made an all time white players list. all of them at their peak form and only the ones i have actually watched.


john stockton
chris mullin
larry bird
dirk nowitzki
arvydas sabonis

reserves

steve nash
predrag stojakovic
andrei krilenko
toni kukoc
yao ming
emmanuel ginobili
pau gasol
mark price
ilgauskas or vlade divac


do you think this team has any chance against a jordan, barkley, drexler ,kobe , shaq, malone, duncan , kemp (i believe he is as good as duncan or malone), mourning, iverson team?

i believe they have. it would be fun to watch.

[dreamtheatre]

i have forgotten a key player.

kevin mchale of course. he would be great help at the power forward. and i should have included hornacek too.

[johnsteed]

***

I must say, that the idea is an interesting one. But Yao Ming is not white/Caucasian, he's Asian from the heart of China.


I'd ultimately have to give the edge to the African-American squad, because of the Jordan factor. Heck, even for the Kobe Bryant factor. They would have their way against that defensively inferior squad. Only Andrei Kirilenko and Sabonis at his peak could be considered defensive stoppers, with most of the others being great steals artists (but that doesn't mean that they're incredible defensively as in 1-on-1).


In a short series, it could go either way. It's not a racial thing, but I happen to feel that the guys in the All-White line-up would move the ball around better on offense and play better as a team.


I would have Barkley and Malone coming off the bench, only in spurts. There games get in the way of winning basketball, as far as I'm concerned. You mentioned that Kemp was just as good as the other power-forwards mentioned, and you know what, I concur.


Shawn Kemp was not a +20 PPG player, he was an 18 PPG player who played to win. He was incredibly explosive, strong, he could sky (4.5 foot vertical as I recall), he played great defense, and at his peak, Dennis Rodman said that he was the most difficult player he ever had to guard! That's high praise. Kemp could have been a HOFer, but it just didn't work out. I'm not saying he had a greater career than the other great power-forward, what I am saying is that at his peak he was right there.


I would never want Allen Iverson on my team. I love watching him play, I love his scoring ability, and he's a better passer than he gets credit for. He just doesn't mix well on a team with so many scoring options. Drexler did a little bit of everything, and as far as I'm concerned, was one of the most underrated players in the game's history. Even in his final year with the ROCKETS before calling it quits, he could still put up fantastic numbers across the board. Although it's never said, a far better player than a George Gervin.


If you included all of the All-Time greats, the decision would tip even further into the African-American squads favor. Think: Oscar Robertson, Chamberlain, Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Elgin Baylor, Nate Thurmond, Dr. J, Moses Malone, to name a few...


The great White players that could still be included would be Jerry West, Bob Cousy, Rick Barry, Bill Walton (at his healthy peak), Bob Petit, ect...


The thing is, if these teams played in a best-of-7 games series, you can only have a team 12 men deep, and you can only start 5. Despite what many would believe, it might be a draw. Again, I'd give the slight edge to the African-American squad because of Jordan.


Steed

***

[dreamtheatre]

great post Steed .thank you

and i agree with you completely. The Jordan factor is something to reckon with.

I always prayed for his team to lose (except for the 1991 lakers - bulls finals)
but of course my prayers always went unanswered.

Of all the teams they played agaianst at the finals (lakers, suns, supersonics, blazers ) only Jazz gave me the slightest hope that Jordan could be beaten. But god was always with Jordan . When it mattered none dared stop him. I always wanted him to lose when he played but now i miss him very much.

And once again i agree with you that among the currently active players Kobe is the second best after Jordan. People used to say tracy mccrady was a more dangerous offensive weapon than Kobe and i always laughed at the idea(i still do)

Have you ever watched Sabonis at his prime. (1985-1988)

I have a few videos of him shattering rims, blocking robinson's two consecutive shots, dunking over robinson and so on and i could send them to you.

By the way Sabas was often rejected from games because of punching opponets. Well i would not want to recieve a punch from him

[tennis_balls]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/067...lance&n=283155

this book is from 1994, but it's a great read for Euro hoops enthusiasts. it's of particular interest now as the writer follows Mike Di'Antoni (Suns coach) while he coached an Italian team. The writer is a bit of a tool IMHO and goes way overboard trying to schmooze any player with a hot wife or girlfriend to the point where you start laughing every time he does it. The writer isn't a total push-over though and he does take some shots at some of the American players who are playing a year or two in Italy for some cash. (Bob McAdoo in particular as I recall)

[johnsteed]

***

dreamtheatre

Have you ever watched Sabonis at his prime. (1985-1988)

I have a few videos of him shattering rims, blocking robinson's two consecutive shots, dunking over robinson and so on and i could send them to you.

I've only seen a bit of him in his prime, and from what I saw of him, it was on a lousy quality tape. Over the years, I've read countless critiques and studies on the domination and rise of his game throughout Europe, so that's pretty much all I'm left with to judge him by (and whatever tools he had left to work with in his final years with the Trailblazers). Something that I may or may have not mentioned before, was that Bill Walton had seen him play in his prime, and said that had he come over to the NBA in his prime, he could have been the center of that time. Those are steep praises, and ironically, both greats had succumbed to injuries that took their peaks away from them, before either one REALLY peaked.

I always prayed for his team to lose (except for the 1991 lakers - bulls finals)
but of course my prayers always went unanswered.

Oddly enough, I was a big Magic Johnson fan, and I was very much rooting against Michael Jordan in the '91 Finals. It was painful watching this man control the game, and although he missed shots, I swear it seemed as though he didn't. He's the only player I watch in any sport, that looks like the game was scripted for him to look great, constantly prevailing when the other team looks as though they may have figured him out, but he'll win.


I really disliked Jordan in those days, and I did a complete turn-around when he decided to quit. People were laughing at how poorly he had done in Double-AA baseball (ChiSox farm club), and kept talking about how Penny Hardaway and SHAQ would be the new dynasty. Although that never became a reality, it sure seemed that they were pretty close to achieving that goal. I missed his game, and I knew that based on everything I saw of the man, that I knew he could get his game back. By that, I wanted him back in the game, and I realized how important and how great he was. I decided that if a player was this special, it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to start enjoying the journey. Frankly, I look back now, and wonder why I didn't like him in the first place. He was the perfect basketball player as far as I can see.


An odd story about when Jordan was with the Double-AA club, he and (then minor-league rising star) Ray Durham (who's only like 5-10) were seeing who could jump higher. Now, of course Jordan can jump higher, given that he was a GREAT leaper and he has about 8-inches on Durham (and an impressive wingspan with big hands). But based on vertical alone, Durham took a bet and beat-out Jordan's vertical. I guess that says more about Durham's athletic ability than Jordan's, but I was stunned when I read that.


I was listening to the "Dan Patrick Show" on ESPN radio the other day, and he had made an excellent point about how well Jordan would score in today's game. He averaged over 37 PPG back in '86-87, playing in the grind-it-out style made famous in the East. At that time, it was okay to "hand-check" on defense. That was about the only thing that slowed Jordan at the height of his scoring days. Patrick claimed that in today's wide-open game, Jordan could very well average over 50 PPG (as Wilt had done roughly 45 years ago). That might be a bit of a stretch, but averaging over 40 PPG would not out-of-the-question, nor would the occasional +80 PPG throughout any given season.

People used to say tracy mccrady was a more dangerous offensive weapon than Kobe and i always laughed at the idea(i still do)

That was the debate, up until a couple years ago when the Draft Class of '03 showed that they were set to take over the majority of the game's attention on who the next great one will be. I'll still go with Kobe, even over LeBron (and that will sound crazy to many). T-Mac is quite electric and smooth at the same time. He can play pretty good defense, but sometimes I question his wil and his enthusiasm for the good of the game. T-Mac is as talented as Kobe, but Kobe is just better. Funny to imagine, but I'm not sure if T-Mac has even turned 27-years old as I'm writing this! I really dislike T-Mac, but for his sake, I hope that he can get his health issues straightened-out. Although he's an awesome force, who thinks about T-Mac these days? That's how much his stock has dropped, fairly or not.

I always wanted him to lose when he played but now i miss him very much.

It makes me feel sad how you put it that way. I wonder if many people will feel this way about Barry Bonds 10-years from now.


It's funny, but I remember when the '98 NBA lock-out hit, I heard lots of talking about whether or not the BULLS ownership would bring their great team back. I remember talking to a friend of mine, and he wanted Jordan to retire once and for all. I asked him why felt that way? His reasoning was simple. He felt that he was sick of seeing Jordan, and wanted someone else to win for a change. He wanted one of the young guys to emerge and become the next great one.


I could never understand that line-of-thinking. I've always felt that to become the best, truly become the best, you have to go through the best. If no player at that time was up to the test, than they weren't worthy enough to dethrone the Jordan era. And no one did.

I have a few videos of him shattering rims, blocking robinson's two consecutive shots, dunking over robinson and so on and i could send them to you.

I'd love to get my hands on those!!!


tennis_balls

this book is from 1994, but it's a great read for Euro hoops enthusiasts. it's of particular interest now as the writer follows Mike Di'Antoni (Suns coach) while he coached an Italian team.

I'd love to buy that book. It sounds a bit jaded, but it could be highly entertaining. Michael Ray Richardson seems to be the perfect example of someone who did everything wrong in the NBA, and turned everything around in Italy. I have a documentary of him back home in Canada, titled, "What Ever Happened To Michael Ray?" It wasn't a great documentary, and I'm still wondering out of all the people they could have done a documentary on, why him? Nevertheless, it's still enjoyable.


Steed

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[Daffy]

Mavs win Finals in 5 games...Shaq will be a none factor...Dirk will run wild...Howard will smother Wade.

All of Dallas' dragons are behind them (Spurs, Suns)...Heat will try to play half-court...Mavs will run them ragged.

Pistons would have been even easier...East cannot play with West.

the dUck