Manu Ginobili

He didn't stop being Nigerian. He became BOTH. Therefore, he is a Nigerian. Aaaaaannnnndddd........ yes, he is an American, too !!! He didn't lose his first nationality, he gained one and kept other one. 1 + 1 = 2 Do I have to repeat every sentence in my posts? Thing is...if Manu had gained US nationality during his basketball career and actually PLAYED FOR ITS NATIONAL TEAM (I believe he is already an Italian national too), then I would stop considering him international as far as US/NBA players. Fact is, Duncan is an American Citizen. Ditto for Hakeem. Manu? NOT

Your close mind doesn't allow you to evaluate that, since they acquired US Nationality, they were able to play for the US National Team, which is a perfectly valid reason to call them US NATIONALS Same as in every other sport where players take a new nationality to play in their national team. Now they may have double nationality, that does not mean they are NOT Russians/Italian/French. It means they are BOTH That is the reality. What you consider is irrelevant next to the power of reality.

I don't know who she is, but if she is in the Russian National Team, I consider her Russian. Same as Camoranesi Italian, Trezeguet French, Deng British

Didn't consider Duncan and Olajuwon because they were both in the US National Team. Manu is better than Divac, Petrovic, Peja's best moments in forever, Detlef....he is par with Parker and Nash, and less than Dirk.

I guess any young player who is given a lot more minutes and a bigger role wins MIP....Hell, there are like 234 MIPs a year, right?

I got the same "sample size" bull when I started RA's thread.

I HOPE we win lots of games. I EXPECT we win 14. I HOPE I am wrong and some of this young kids (Nicholson / Harkless) are the real deal. I HOPE we can keep games close and outhustle/outrebound opponents. I HOPE we can come back to those days when no ball was lost without diving for it. I HOPE Vaughn does a good job of motivating this guys and keep them at a high level, thus improving trade prospects / future team expectations.

Chris Duhon just placed #358 in ESPN's NBA players rankings. The fact that he outranked 142 other professional guys is as mind numbing as Howard talking about loyalty.

I will always cheer for my Magic to win Surely tanking looks like the "best way to rebuild" out there. But season starts and I want us to go 82-0. It's a real pain to know you are going for 2 or 3 years minimum of loses piling up.

League will be only for 3 teams the upcoming year: LAL, OKC and MIA All the rest will be fighting for decent playoffs eliminations and lottery picks

Probably. He sucked since 2005 until 2011. But still he was good last season. He will never live up to his #1 pick status, but he can be a Dilfer for this team. Our D and the depth we have now is impressive.

They are just around the corner, and it wouldn't be other than me creating this thread. This thread will honor the legend of the greatest generation of basketball players my country has ever (and probably will ever) seen. "La Generacion Dorada". We will be riding Ginobili's magic, Scola's quality and Nocioni's balls all the way through. For this generation, that made basketball relevant again for the country that won its first World Championship (1950), that brought home the gold from Athens (2004) and was Top 4 in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008, all their honors in their way out. All this post-30 guys, counting also Kammerichs, Jasen, Leiva and Leo Gutierrez among them and some "younger" blood (Delfino / Juan Gutierrez / Mata) will go for the miracle of getting to the podium again.

We (49ers) will be right there in the conversation for best team in the league

I feel this guy could develop into a decent role player with great defense, with an Omer Asik - Ceiling. Not happy to see him go, but well, I am not happy with what happened since that disastrous flu trades.

Double post

He's the reason we won that game. As far as his overall contribution to the team, it was really much lower to what I expected and what the team expected, according to what we sent out in order to get him. Jason Richardson = Dissapointment

Manu giving it his all. Lamas is stupid for taking him out, he must play the entire 40 minutes. Kobe started on fire, but behind Delfino and an aggresive defense, we can call it a game losing by 7 with a half to go. This team will not go down quietly, it has too much heart for this not to be a competitive game.

I would have ADMIRED hennigan if he sent him to Cleveland for picks... And now...

Waiting for it to be just another stupid rumor is....WAITING IN VAIN???? :panicworker: :panicworker:

Houston trade was not only better than this one being reported, it was 1000x better As Bill says: "LOSER: Orlando I knew the pupu platter was coming. You knew it was coming. Even Orlando's fans knew it was coming. But when it actually happens and you're staring at those lukewarm spareribs? Man … there's nothing worse. What Orlando sent out: Howard and nearly $30 million of cap-clogging contracts belonging to Jason Richardson, Chris Duhon and Earl Clark. What Orlando got back: Arron Afflalo, Nik Vucevic, Al Harrington, Mo Harkless, three protected first-rounders, cap space next summer, three soggy fried shrimp, six half-cooked egg rolls and four sweet-and-sour chicken skewers to be named later. Hey, at least there isn't a storied history of NBA teams giving away superstars for 50 cents on the dollar, then totally regretting it after the fact … well, except for the two Wilt trades, the Kareem trade, the Dr. J trade, the T-Mac/Rockets trade, the Moses/Philly trade and the Barkley/Phoenix trade. Was it a bad sign for Orlando that they got significantly less for the league's only dominant center than the Hornets got for Chris Paul and the Nuggets got for Carmelo Anthony? I'm going out on a limb and saying "yes." Had I been running the Magic, there would have been a zero percent chance — repeat: zero percent chance — that I was trading Howard unless I was getting Bynum back AND dumping Turkoglu's contract. Without those two things, I'm just keeping Howard, letting the soap opera drag on and on for a few more months, then hoping I could do better in February. And guess what? I'm pretty sure that, six months from now, Philly, Denver and the Lakers would all still want to do a four-team trade in which all of them made out great and the Magic made out like crap. I hate how Orlando handled this saga; I hate that they caved; and I hate this trade for them." http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8254854/mailbag

BEST LESSON WE LEARNED: The Argentines have a ton of pride. As they were clinching this win over Brazil, Nocioni sprinted over to Delfino and bear-hugged him like they just won the NBA title. After the game ended, the entire team celebrated, kept celebrating and finally led the Argentine fans into a couple more chants. It was pretty great. Don't sleep on this Argentina team. I'm telling you. http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8249995/olympic-hoopalooza

Let's we go according to this plan. And we get a star next year. Suppose a KD. Pipedream. You get a team with a KD/Afflalo/JJ/Nelson/Harrington/Baby. This team puts you 5th or 6th in the EC. IT IS NOT A GOOD PLAN. Just blow it up and go Houston's way. Maximize picks and expirings and bring k mart and rookies to start rebuilding already.

How do you get rid of our garbage by NOT trading Turk/Duhon and GETTING Harrington?

Pau Gasol and Luke Walton would be an improvement over the Nets deal This deal as it is presented is awful. Not as bad as the Nets deal, not as good as the "supposed" Rockets deal Seems like we caved in to Dwight's camps demands

LONDON -- Down to a precious fews days together, Argentina's "Golden Generation" still glows. Luis Scola scored 17 points, Manu Ginobili and Carlos Delfino added 16 apiece and Argentina held on down the stretch for an 82-77 quarterfinal win over Brazil in the Olympic men's basketball tournament on Wednesday, setting up a rematch with the U.S. in the semifinals. Argentina lost to the Americans by 29 in the preliminary round finale. But if the heavily favored U.S. defeats Australia in the late quarterfinal, the Argentines and Americans will meet in the semifinals for the third straight Olympics. Argentina won in 2004 at Athens, and the U.S. Redeem Team avenged that loss four years ago in Beijing on the way to winning gold. For Scola, one of five leftovers from the beloved '04 team -- known fondly as "The Golden Generation" back home -- this is one last run at Olympic glory. "We are getting older," said Scola, 32. "We know we don't have two more Olympics. We may not have one more. This is a special chance for us." "We are going to play the Olympic semifinal for the third time in a row," Scola said. "That's pretty big for our country. I know some countries have done that in the past, but you've got to put it in perspective. This is Argentina. We've never done that before and this is the same group that did it the two other times, so it's emotional for us." http://espn.go.com/olympics/summer/2012/basketball/story/_/id/8248675/2012-summer-olympics-argentina-tops-brazil-set-rematch-us