BMP

http://ancientbear.bandcamp.com/ reminds me of Mastodon a lot. Tis awesome

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

No love for the Rockets and Pistons?

The 5-7 was more geared toward Barcelona, as they have the best player in the world along with several others that are either the best at their position or close to best. Still, Miami is an outlier and without the salary cap in place, the 10 best teams being loaded and the rest of the league absolutely awful would be the norm, and that's something I'd personally hate to see, because it would make the regular season even worse to watch and we'd lose a handful of teams because no one felt like going to watch a Wizards team with Blatche as their best player. . .

hahahaha

There is a HUGE difference between 3 players barely making max salary and joining the same team and Miami going out and buying 5-7 of the best players in the world by offering them more money than any other team. Those 3 could've chosen to play with a number of teams (with some obvious collusion involved). Wanting 10-12 teams to have a legitimate chance is just ridiculous. . . basketball it's hard enough to get 5 GMs to build good teams, let alone 10-12. It doesn't matter which system is in place if the GMs are bad at their job (and this is a surplus in the NBA). Still, over the last 3 years, 9 different teams were in the conference finals/finals. Lakers 3x, Orlando2x, Boston 2x, the rest were all different teams. Did these teams not have a legitimate chance at a title? What you want can't be achieved with 7 game series and unlike other sports, basketball is HIGHLY influenced by star power. You couldn't even distribute an entire all-star team amongst the league, and would have trouble filling up 1/3rd of the league with superstars, so yes, the few teams that do have the best players and good management will always make it to the top. I have no problem with that, especially since unlike Baseball and Soccer, the best of the best don't always end up playing for Boston/Lakers/New York The NBA itself seems watered down because of the talent gap between the superstars and average players and how much they affect the game and transactions. Only way I see of fixing that would be by contracting the league. . . or who knows, maybe making it 4 against 4........ or maybe we get rid of the salary cap and let the biggest teams buy whoever they want. Then you have around 10 VERY good teams, and um. . . absolute crap everywhere else. The Suns without Nash, Wolves without Kevin Love, Memphis without Gay/ZBo, Clippers without Griffin/Gordon, etc, etc.

Miami isn't much of an example. . . those three decided to play together for a small market team and took paycuts. That's not even close to the same. I guarantee you the amount of champions in the last 20 years would nearly double if you got rid of 7 game series and just made them 1 round. . . hell, maybe even the Magic would have one. Not a fan of that, though. Imagine the Magic getting bounced by Philly in 09.

The NBA's model ensures that those that build good teams, stay winning. It also prevents teams from just buying their way to the top. It severely punishes bad management and with the way playoffs work, it's hard to have parity. A lot of the NBA's problems also lie within the CBA, not salary cap. You can't honestly sit there and pin every problem the NBA has had in the salary cap when things like contract lengths and lack of parity are part of the CBA and league rules. The salary cap itself has done a great job preventing rich teams from doing whatever the hell they want.

You're talking about soccer, right? The biggest "problem" in the NBA is that it's VERY hard for upsets to happen and due to guaranteed contracts, easy to retain a championship team, and once a team truly gets it, it's hard for them to really lose it. Soccer, like baseball, just has the richest teams buying everyone that starts to become good. The NBA's system is far from perfect but I find it ridiculously better.

There's no way to "level" the playing field in the NBA, anyways. . . unless they want to get rid of 7 game series and do 1 game elimination rounds as well as make contracts not guaranteed. But it's nice that the system at least prevents teams from buying whoever they hell they want when they want. ..

Every time I watch them I remember how awesome it is that the NBA has at least some sort of salary cap. . . hard to get emotional watching their games because I expect them to win every time. Lame.

I probably will have some chicken, maybe cooked with some potatoes.

if he leaves im gonna be like awww maaaan and then go eat dinner or something

You mean kicked the ball at his head? Huge difference. . . both sides were dirty, anyways. Tons of dirty fouls Portugal also committed after the ball was gone that weren't called. Then there was that play right after Portugal's 1st when the defender pushed Williams (Willians?) off the ball like he was Nick Collison boxing out Zach Randolph in the playoffs, which led to no shot and the goalie saving it at the line wouldn't call the refereeing one sided a bit, it was just bad overall that goal definitely looked intentional by the way. He looked at the goalie, took a step or two, and as soon as he shot he looked straight at the goal

I was about to say, I thought the first 4 goals were all flukes. . . in one way or another. The first two by both teams were huge defensive lapses, the next two were bad goalkeeping. Oscar's third was awesome, though. Guys reminds me of Juninho so much. And yes, that ref was terrible, for both sides.

Brasssillllllll Oscar is the new Juninho

I've cared more about the under 20 World Cup. Finals tomorrow!

Who gives a crap? If you're trying to win, why the ***** would you ensure that you can't win by giving Miami Dwight? Trading for LeBron and sending Dwight to Miami, then keeping LeBron in the "hope" of competing for a title is one of the dumbest things any GM could do, and that doesn't include all the baggage that would come with such trade. . .

Unless you're flipping LeBron for a lot of lottery picks and some stud young players the moment you make the trade, you're not making a good trade, and even then, you're essentially saying you don't want a shot at the title for the next 3-5 years.

They're pathetic subhuman ape people

Anyone even considering Dwight for LeBron should go lay down for a few days

You could probably compare what Dallas did to the Magic keeping Hedo and Arenas and trading for a guy like Nick Collison, then signing a guy like Prince. . . not saying that's what I think it would take to keep Dwight, by the way

Hell, I would've been fine with Henry just coming down the ramp during their match, Orton getting sidetracked, and Christian beating him. Then having Henry interrupt in the rematch and have Orton lose that, making Super Orton Super Angry and having him be Mr. Super Angry climbing back up beating everyone. . . that would've been better than screwing Christian again.

After 2006, Dallas only made it past the 1st round once. Hell, they lost in the 1st round to the 8th seed. They had 43 year old Kidd, Jason "what are playoffs" Terry, and a bunch of other guys all deemed to be washed up/bad. I cheered for them after the Magic lost and can agree they played extremely well, but if you lose hindsight you'll remember lots of people claimed Dallas was done, Kidd was done, they're getting knocked out in the 1st round, etc, etc. . . Dallas had a HUGE underachieving reputation and no one would've guessed they'd beat the Heat in the Finals during the regular season. The situations are different because Dwight is Dwight and Dirk is Dirk, but to say Dirk had it much better is just being silly

The Bella Twins and Layla > goddamn Shrek Phoenix and Eve, and I think the Bella Twins have meh faces. Best bodies, though. Hell, that skinny useless blonde chick (forgot her name) looks better than Beth