[Live 05]07-08 Blazers- D-Miles Trade Rumours

[Marquis]

Cool stuff. Even with your grafic card, these photos of 3PT contest look good.

Haven't been visited this section for a while. Probably will come here more if there are good dynasties with the release of NBA Live 08 for PC.

[Its_asdf]

Lewis Upsets Richardson in Dunk Contest Finale

Judges and Contestants


From right to left: Clyde Drexer, Julius Erving, Dee Brown, Dominique Wilkins and Spudd Webb


From right to left: J.R. Smith, Jason Richardson, Ben Wallace and Rashard Lewis

*****Round 1 (1st Attempts)*****

J.R. Smith: 50
J.R. Smith did not waste any time to show off his gravity-defying leaping ability. He started off the dunk contest with a nasty behind the back shovel pass over his head and caught the ball mid-air and threw it down, but not before leaving people baffled by putting the ball between his legs.

Smith's fancy toss
Putting it under his legs!
And after a century later in the air, throwing it down from behind

Jason Richardson: 50
Not to be outdone by Smith's early suprise, Richardson also brought out the big guns early by throwing the ball off his knee and catching it and finishing well above the rim with the infamous "chicken wing" slam.

An interesting lob off his knee
Richardson well above the rim
The icing on the cake with J-Rich's arm in the rim


Ben Wallace: 42
Wallace isn't very well known for being a monster leaper, and it showed. The Chicago centre did get creative though, throwing a nifty lob pass off the backboard to himself and finishing it with a 180 slam. However, the judges didn't seem all too impressed.

The "bowling ball" toss by Wallace
Slamming it home

Rashard Lewis: 47
Last up was Lewis, who managed to get a nice crowd (and judge) reaction by throwing the ball at an angle off the glass and used his length to throw down a dunk far away from the rim.

Throwing the ball off the glass...
...And Lewis' length allowed for the lethal cockback action on this one hander

*****Round 1 (2nd Attempts)*****

J.R. Smith: 40
After Smith's awe inducing first dunk, many expected something nastier to follow. Much to the crowd's disappointment, Smith settled for a 180 double pump slam. Impressive if it were done in game, but considering the previous dunk made by Smith this one did not help him out a lot.

Unlike his last dunk, there was nothing too original here by Smith

Jason Richardson: 43
Like Smith, Jason Richardson seemed content with his first 50 as well, going for the same dunk as Smith except throwing it off the glass.

The catch off the glass
And practically the same finish that J.R. Smith had

Ben Wallace: 50
Ben Wallace managed to redeem himself and get back into contention after he lobbed the ball off the jumbo-tron and throwing down a perfect reverse windmill.

Wallace's toss off the jumbo-tron suprised the crowd
The reverse windmill came as even more shocking

Rashard Lewis: 50
Lewis seem to do a similar dunk to his first attempt, but added a little extra flavour when he threw a nearly uncatchable lob off the cameras.

A lob off the camera?!?
Lewis' length once again allows him to seemingly catch a pass from anywhere and slam it home

*****Round 2 (1st Attempts)*****

Jason Richardson: 50
To start the finals off, Richardson tried another knee toss, this time off the window. Richardson then catches the ball and finished with an impressive 180 throwdown.

Richardson once again using his knee
Richardson's head at rim level as he catches the pass
J-Rich then makes a 180 for the 50 point finish

Rashard Lewis: 44
Lewis tried to answer Richardson's dunk with a one handed lob from behind his back. After catching the lob in mid-air, Lewis threw down a dunk similar to that of Richardson's earlier double pump reverse off the window, which was probably why the judges failed to give him any 10s.

The fancy lob
The reverse double pump failed to earn Lewis a perfect score

*****Round 2 (2nd Attempts)*****

Jason Richardson: 40
Richardson tried to finish off the dunk contest with a Jordan-esque free-throw line dunk, but the judges seemed too tough to please as they gave him 8s across the board for a dunk that they've probably seen time and time again.

Richardson took off exactly at the free throw line
The judges must not have liked Richardson's impersonation of Jordan


Rashard Lewis: 50
Now with a chance to win after a poor miscalculation by Richardson, Lewis capitalized on the opportunity by creatively lobbing the ball off of his elbow and throwing down another long-armed swooping slam. This dunk gave him a perfect score and left the audience's jaws wide open as Lewis was crowned the new slam dunk champion of the NBA.

Lewis knew how to work the crowd with an off-the-elbow pass
Lewis' one handed finish to win the contest


Lewis stunned the audience by beating out two-time dunking champ J-Rich

[McDwyane]

In the all-star of your dynasty,many unbelievable moments happened.

[Donatello]

In the all-star of your dynasty,many unbelievable moments happened.

WHAT THE HELL? I swear to GOD you are a robot.

Anyway, good job here, Its_asdf. I haven't checked this out in a while but it's a good read.

[Its_asdf]

man Crawford winning , i would of never guess that from someone who is doing horrible behind the arc. but overall nice recapp

Thanks a lot, I was pretty suprised at Crawford winning it too. But then agian... It IS a video game after all.

Nice recapping of the 3pt contest They dont really give you much to work with, to be honest im looking forward to you getting back to the regular season.

To be honest, I'm itching to play a regular season game at the moment, but I'd feel like I would be cheating if I didn't recap the all-star festivities. I think there will be definitely a lot more updates in the future after I get the all-star weekend over with because playing these games were a chore.

Very nice update on the shootout Ouch,reggie lost!

I'm not sure if this is a joke, but Reggie wasn't in the contest man.

taking away Big Ben's crown that he secretly trained for all season, everyday, long after all others players and coaches left the gym - that's sooo NOT right!

YOU, my friend, should be under immediate investigation by Stern and the Association for these alleged Dunk Contest tamperings and ties to Tim Donaghy

Yeah I know, I should be jailed for fraud. Honestly though, what are the chances of a guy like Wallace winning the contest? I know Lewis winning it is also fairly inaccurate, but I can never picture a big man with detetriorating athleticism to win the contest. It was too much for me.

Damn.. Korver should of won..

But a good presentation..

Big Ben is awesome..

Thanks for the compliment, and I was also rooting for Korver to win it as well... Bastard disappointed me though.

Damn I am impressed that you are still going with this, one of the "consistant" dynasties left. Crawford does seem like the odd winner in all this.

Yeah I've been sort of going through a mini-slump in terms of dynasty posting lately because of school and the fact that I don't like recapping all-star games. I'm going to try to finish up this season and I might end it at that. Looking at someone like BoomDizzle, however, has swayed my opinion a bit since the guy has played like two seasons now with generated rookies, so this dynasty might even stick around a bit longer even though I tend to dislike the inaccuracy that my rosters have.

Cool stuff. Even with your grafic card, these photos of 3PT contest look good.

Haven't been visited this section for a while. Probably will come here more if there are good dynasties with the release of NBA Live 08 for PC.

Glad to see you post again, Marquis. Fingers crossed for an 08 dynasty from you.

[jonthefon]

In the words of Magic Johnson: an ESPECTACULAR dunk contest. I'm always shocked how CPUs pull out such dunks in the contest.

Looking to check out your AS game recap too

[Clutch]

Awesome dunk contest my man and what's with J-Rich thinking that taking off from the freethrow stripe on his final dunk would impress the Doctor himself? Darrrrr

A couple things:

I can never picture a big man with detetriorating athleticism to win the contest. It was too much for me.

Hahah no worries man; I was just givin' you sh!t Big Ben would lose in a 1-on-1 dunk contest just against Lewis let alone throwing in the highflyers Smith and JR; good call on the mulligan


Looking at someone like BoomDizzle, however, has swayed my opinion a bit since the guy has played like two seasons now with generated rookies

Thx man but a slight correction on this - while I did start the dynasty in the '05-06 season, I simmed two full seasons to get to '07-08. I took it slow and kept a pretty extensive recap of events - who got traded where, who faced who in the playoffs, who became Champ etc - but the plan was to not "play" any games til this '07-08 season; just wanted to clarify; I would like to keep it going multi years because then it really would feel more like a dynasty and not just a season played; seemed improbable at first but then again I never thought I'd reach ASWknd so who knows? I think that's why I'm trying to keep track of other teams and players more (even comp generated ones) and build potential future rivalries as well to give me something to look forward to (like D-Will facing that bastard comp gen'd Golden Boy Tankosic or the 'pupil' Green facing the 'master' TMAC); but we'll see how interest and endurance hold up; like you, I try'll to finish out the season and see from there. game-by-game man, game-by-game.

Lastly, I misread this pic caption when I first glanced over it:

Throwing the ball off the glass…
…And Lewis' length allowed for the lethal cockback action on this one hander

It's definitely time for some shuteye when you misread the word, 'cockback' as 'cockblock'

[Its_asdf]

'Melo Named MVP as West Scrap It out for the Win



WESTERN ALL-STARS BOXSCORE
EASTERN ALL-STARS BOXSCORE

When it seemed as if Joe Johnson had the MVP trophy within his grasp, Carmelo Anthony and the West managed to step it up a notch and spoil the game for the East.

Anthony led all scorers with a game-high 34 points, including a 14 point outburst in the third quarter to help bring the Western Conference All-Stars to within striking distance in the fourth quarter. "I didn't really come out to play for the MVP," spoke Melo of his performance. "All I wanted to do was to go out there, help my time win and hopefully get the crowd excited and on their feet."

Peja Stojakovic also rebounded from a poor performance in the three point shooting contest to go 4 of 5 from beyond the arc and scored 18 points to compliment Anthony's 34 points. Yao Ming also bullied the East's frontcourt for a monstrous 17-14 double-double.

Joe Johnson served as the Eastern Conference's answer to Anthony, scoring 25 points but failed to match up to Anthony's scoring prowess late in the game. Simply put, Johnson's teammates never supplied him with enough offensive firepower to match the offence of the Carmelo-led Western squad. "They (the West) played really well and they were a fun team to watch," said Vince Carter of the New Jersey Nets, who scored 12 points for the East off the bench. "Carmelo has shown today that he is among the NBA's elite, but their whole team played really well."

Despite losing the game, the East led for the majority of the game, and their biggest lead was during the early second quarter when they were up 37-24. The lead remained intact throughout the second, but Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Garnett combined for 15 of the West's 31 points in the quarter to narrow the lead to single digits by half-time.

The East got a big boost from the Detriot trio of Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed Wallace and Chauncey Billups as they managed to re-extend the lead back to 76-64. The large lead was short lived however, as Stojakovic and Anthony both nailed three point bombs to bring the game back to single digits. The Eastern All-Stars began to lose confidence as they shot only 39% the rest of the way and began to succumb to Melo's nearly unstoppable offensive repitoire.

'Melo's dominance continued into the fourth, as he scored 7 of the West's 9 points. Melo's offensive spark coupled with a Ricky Davis three ball gave the West a 96-95 lead. Melo then buried another jumper and Garnett juked Chris Webber in the post for a turnaround jumper to put the West at the 100 mark and a 5 point lead with 2 minutes to go. The East's Prince and Billups both nailed three pointers, but anything the East threw at the West defence the Western All-Stars had an answer of their own.


Watching the Joe Johnson/Carmelo Anthony scoring duel was one of the highlights of the night.


Tayshaun Prince made a solid all-star debut while also scoring the first Eastern Conference points via free throws
Garnett started off the All-Star Game with a nice fadaway over Rasheed Wallace
Peja looked unfazed by his first round elimination of the Three Point Shoot out last night as he went 4 of 5 from behind the arc
Ouch! Dirk gets a ball to the face from one of Sheed's 3 blocks
First time all-star Chris Paul had a rough night offensively, scoring only 1 point
Andre Miller helped get eveyone involved during the first half of the game when the East was leading the West
All-Star Game MVP Carmelo Anthony rocking the rim on an alley-oop from Nash
.....And Melo hammering another one down the following posession
Johnson also got into the dunking mood as he threw down a fast break slam
Former teammates Joe Johnson and Shawn Marion going at one another
Eddy Curry's dunk over Nowitzki is definitely Sportscentre material
Who else can bring fans to their feet in an All-Star game better than Vince Carter?
Suprise All-Star Ricky Davis tries to slither past New York's front court duo of Zach Randolph and Eddy Curry
Yao Ming's alley-oop in the dying seconds ended an action-packed All-Star weekend

[Its_asdf]

jonthefon, Thanks man, and good luck on your dynasty (that is, if you're going to plan on continuing it.

BoomDizzle#5, I know what you mean Boom, but what I really meant was that you've taken a pretty unorthodox route in your dynasty which normally wouldn't be successful.

McDwyane, Uh, yeah.

Donatello, Thanks man, I was wondering when you, a Portland fan would show up.

[TheMC5]

Check out Carmelo going for the classic nut-grab defensive tactic against Joe Johnson. Taking a page from Chris Paul's book, I see.

Nice ASG recap, ASDF. One little glitch, though. You messed up the bbcode here:

Peja looked unfazed by his first round elimination of the Three Point Shoot out last night as he went 4 of 5 from behind the arc
[url=http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/8824/wallacebackindirksfaceav9.jpg]Ouch! Dirk gets a ball to the face from one of Sheed's 3 blocks

Real nice otherwise. Now hopefully we'll get some more game recaps soon.

[Its_asdf]

Wow, I didn't even notice that little nut grabbing thing. If I can recall correctly, 'Melo was going for the "steal" during that play.

Thanks for the heads up. Fixed the minor typo.

[Clutch]

freakin' awesome recap my man! would've commented sooner IF I COULD ONLY FREGGIN' LOG ON!!! but a separate matter entirely

anyway, great recap and classic JJ vs 'Melo duel

my all-time favorite highlight hands down is 'Sheeds block in Dirk's eye. Damn. Dirk is always getting punk'd when the cameras are pointing his direction lol

[Fresh8]

Good ASG! Where was KB?

[TheMC5]

Wow, I didn't even notice that little nut grabbing thing. If I can recall correctly, 'Melo was going for the "steal" during that play.

Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

[Its_asdf]

Miles to be Dealt at Deadline?
GM Rumoured to be Shopping for a Point Guard

Feb. 20, 2008

In contrast to the relaxation and fun of the All-Star weekend, NBA players quickly step back into reality as soon as Monday hits them and it's back to business for all 30 teams in the league. Unlike the All-Star weekend, which is a time that players tend to look foward to, the few days that follow are a period of nervousness and uncertainly. This holds especially true for Portland Trail Blazer Darius Miles.

Recent reports from an inside source indicate that Miles is currently being shopped by GM Kevin Pritchard. "They're actively looking for a point guard," says the inside source. The insider believes that Miles is one of the few movable assets of the Blazers. "Miles has played great this season, but people might be reluctant to take him because of his hefty contract and his past, however, he still remains the top candidate to be moved because Pritchard really likes the young guys on the team."

Darius Miles' seemingly fairytale season has definitely raised some eyebrows and managed to catch a few teams' attention. After years of mediocrity and underachieving, Miles' playing days seemed over after he injured his knee and was out for the entire 2006-2007 season. Miles however, has made an astonishing comeback to the NBA, rigorously rehabbing his knee during the offseason and managed to get back into playing shape by the start of the season. He is currently the Blazers' second leading scorer with a career-high 16.2 points per game.
The reason for the move stems from the Blazers' current two game losing skid. Although losing two games consecutively might not launch the team into panic mode, Brandon Roy's inefficient play during those two games has. "They like what Roy does at the point for them, but they want him at the two-guard and the only way to do that is to get rid of Miles," explains another close member of the Blazers organization. "They want Roy to develop Roy as their go-to scorer and that can't really be done when guys like Q and D-Miles are the main shot takes on the team."

The Blazers, who were once third overall in the Western Conference and at the top of the North West Division, are now on the brink of barely scrapping into the playoffs; they are currently seventh in the West and third in their division after the red-hot Denver Nuggets have recently gone 9-1 in their last ten games and are currently in the midst of a 6 game winning streak.

The rumour mill has been mostly churning out three major names; T.J. Ford of the Toronto Raptors, Marcus Williams of the New Jersey Nets, and Jamaal Tinsley of the Indiana Pacers.

T.J. Ford has been the subject of Toronto trade talks ever since Jose Calderon has emerged as a competent back-up that can out-play the more talented Ford. The Raptors also have rookie point Aaron Brooks and Juan Dixon can also fill in occasionally at the point for Toronto, making Ford expendable despite being the starting guard for the Raptors. He currently averages a respectable 13.5 points per game and 6 assists per game, but his terrible shot selection (39% from the field) is what has gotten a thumbs down from the Raptors staff.

Jamaal Tinsley is in a similar situation to Ford, whom despite being the starting point guard, has been criticized for his poor shooting. He even averages an eerily similar 13.5 points per game and 6.6 assists per game on 39% shooting. Indiana, however is requesting for a package of Darius Miles, Dorell Wright and Mardy Collins but Blazers are reluctant to deal a young stud like Wright for an aging point guard with poor shot selection and solid playmaking skills. It is also rumoured that the Blazers are trying to work in either malcontent Raef LaFrentz or Joel Pryzbilla into the deal.

Marcus Williams has flourished as a back up point guard for the Jason Kidd and the Nets, averaging 7.1 points per game and 3.5 assists. Williams is still unproven however and outside of Richard Jefferson, Vince Carter and Kidd, the Nets do not seem to have any contracts/talent that they can spare to balance out the trade. Miles for Williams and Jason Collins has been one of the most frequently discussed rumours for Portland.


T.J. Ford, Marcus Williams and Jamaal Tinsley are names mentioned in Blazer trade talks

[Its_asdf]

BoomDizzle#5I know what you mean man, I have so much updating to do, but the freaking site keeps rejecting me. I don't think this site likes me very much.

Oh yeah, I didn't even realize that the picture looked like Dirk got a ball to the face until the very last second and decided to change the caption.

Sit Kobe Bryant unfortunately was injured. I think that's why you see second tier guys like Ricky Davis in the ASG.

TheMC5 Hey, that's what Reggie Evans tried to go for isn't it?

[TheMC5]

Yeah, Reggie Evans is pretty infamous for his ball-grabbing techniques. But Chris Paul actually punched a dude in the balls in college, entirely intentionally, as well.

Pertinent to your actual dynasty, though, I say trade for TJ. He's way younger than Tinsley, and less injury prone, too. As for Marcus Williams, he's just another player I can't stand, largely due to his role in stealing laptops in college. Come on, now. You're pretty much a lock to make the NBA, and you have to steal laptops? Zero class, right there. Plus, he plays for the Nets. Fuck the Nets.

An aside: Speaking of the Nets, did you see Toronto absolutely demolish them last night? I'm still giddy about it. It was beautiful. Hopefully you can lay a similar trashing on them in your dynasty next time you play them.

[Chaser7]

Hm.. Trade Miles for TJ ford, I like him as a player. Haven't really looked at this, but it looks very nice, good job and good luck, I'll be following!

[Clutch]

wooot! ASWknd was great but i'm glad it's over and excited for your team's season 2nd half; also won't be complaining to see Miles go - i know you 'rehab'ed him somewhat in your dynasty, but some fresh blood will be good for the team; also hope the trade is for none of those guys you mentioned as i like surprises; but if it absolutely has to be one of them? then Ford also gets my vote

[Mark.]

Sweet, glad to see you back into the reg season, I would deffinately say go with Ford, as well as being amazingly quick hes not a player that needs too many shots which should allow more scoring options for Roy.