The Perpetual NBA Thread

[kimpOy]

imho the AJ XX3 is ugly...

[mazdamazda]

vote na!

[theveed]

you voted for melo, felton and wade???

[mazdamazda]

you voted for melo, felton and wade???

I just voted on whoever is in my FNBA Leagues.

:lol:

[theveed]

hahaha... I voted for the reigning DPOY for C... :D

[ssaloon]

Tony Parker the hip-hop star!!!

[mazdamazda]

Same pala ang medical condition ni Nene & empy: Nene's Surgery

:shocked2:

[chain]

nice, heart-warming article on Nene:

BABY BOY
by Lang Whitaker

Baby Boy stood on the pitch and held the ball in his dirty hands. It was not the kind of that ball he’d grown up with. This ball was orange and pebbled, a little bit flat and worn down soft. He was used to the paneled ball, with big black and white octagons, smooth all the way around with slight indentions on each seam. And that ball, the futbol, he was never allowed to touch. Now this orange one, he wasn’t allowed to kick? What the hell was this?

A car horn honked, not a strong HONK! like a locomotive but a weak bleep, like a goose being strangled. The kids surrounding Baby Boy on the soccer field giggled and pointed as Nivaldo Meneghelli drove up in his jeep. Meneghelli ran some federation or something, Baby Boy knew, but he did not know exactly what it was. Bass ball, or maybe Back is ball, something like that. What he did know is that Meneghelli would show up from time to time with his jeep, then stick a long pole onto the trailer hitch. The pole had a wooden board and a metal ring stuck on the top, and when Meneghelli set the whole contraption up, it looked like some sort of tremendous bird, hovering high above them all.

The boy did not know that Meneghelli was a basketball missionary. The government of this city they lived in, Sao Carlos, in the Sao Paolo state of Brazil, slipped Meneghelli a little bit of money from time to time — because in Brazil, money is almost never openly given but nearly always slipped under one table or another — and told him to go and proselytize the children, to teach them to play basketball, to keep them busy and out of trouble. Meneghelli had a tattered court at his school, where they would sometimes play, but he usually had to go find the kids. Since there were few basketball courts, and the only vast stretches of land were dedicated to soccer, Meneghelli would have to drive up and across the touchlines and put it in park right there on the withered grass. If heaven is a playground, then this was a parallel universe, some bizarro, displaced heaven.

After dark, Baby Boy would go to his cinder block house. When it rained, he would lay in bed and listen to the drop rat-a-tat off the tin roof. Although his name was Maybyner, everyone called him Nenê (pronounced “nuh-NAY“), which means Baby, since he was the youngest of the three Hilario children. Nenê shared a room with his older brother, Maykon. Their only sister, Mayaramy, one year older than Nenê, also lived there, as did their parents and their grandmother. They all shared two bedrooms, until a few years passed and they saved enough to add a third bedroom.

They were not rich, but they got by, pitching in and helping out. Nenê’s dad, Jose Paulo, worked as a radio technician. His Mom, Carmen, was a nurse. Life in Brazil revolved around family and love and samba and, always, soccer. Nenê’s favorite team was “always Sao Paolo. I’m a Sao Paolistano.” The boy’s hero was Edson Arantes do Nascimento, another kid that grew up in a small Brazilian town, turned pro early, and became known everywhere by just one name: Pele.

One of the biggest problems the Hilarios faced was the big problem: Nenê. He may have been the youngest, but he was huge, easily the tallest kid in his class. His feet dangled off the end of his bed at home and his clothes struggled to keep up with his body. The name Nenê quickly became a joke.

As Nenê was such an enormous kid, and since he was a great natural athlete, when he was 12 years old, one of his teachers sent him to Meneghelli, who enrolled Nenê in his basketball school. When Nenê’s parents couldn’t afford to send him any longer, Meneghelli allowed him to continue his lessons for free.

Nenê got his first dunk at 13, and soccer became an afterthought. Though Nenê’s favorite soccer players were other one-named Brazilians — “the great ones like Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Romario, Bebeto, Cafu” — if Nenê wanted to be known by just this one name, it would be through basketball.

Seeing that Nenê was getting the hang of basketball, Meneghelli began having him play on the jeep-goal while he was driving. “He would park and then drive,” Nenê recalls, “and then I’d have to get the rebounds.” This made Nenê probably the only player in the history of the NBA that learned to rebound on a basket that could be measured not only in feet but in miles per hour.

The NBA was not on regular TV in Brazil, and since the Hilarios did not have cable, Nenê had to go to the homes of friends who had “better conditions” than his own to catch NBA action. He did not get many games or many players, so when his friends would ask him if he knew about this player or that player, or if he had seen this move or that move, he would say “Yeah, yeah, he’s great,” or, “I love that move,” and pretend that he knew what they were talking about, just so he could fit in.

Soon after turning 17, Baby Boy began his journey, leaving Sao Carlos and moving to the soul of the country, Rio De Janeiro, to play for the Vasco de Gama basketball club. He had been playing basketball for only five years. Standing nearly 6-9, at a solid 230 pounds, with a 7-5 wingspan and a bodyfat ratio just under 7 percent, Baby boy was now a man, with arms as broad and wide as the enormous Jesus statue that stands watch over Rio, arms stretched to the heavens.

Nenê finished his rookie year averaging only 7.9 points and 5.9 rebounds per game, though Vasco won the Brazilian championship. Nenê earned a spot with the Brazilian National Team, and the 18-year-old played with Brazil in the South American championships and made the All-Star team. When the 2001 Goodwill Games game around, he earned a trip to Australia. Even better, he got to wear his lucky number 13 (he was born on September 13).

The team to beat in Australia was from the big bad United States, starring names he sort knew, like Jermaine O’Neal, Kenyon Martin and Baron Davis. Nenê picked the right time to shine. With America’s hoops heads watching Brazil play the U.S.A., Nenê blocked O’Neal three straight times on one play, and he also swatted shots from Miller and Wally Szczerbiak. O’Neal would later say that Nenê looked like he was “on a trampoline.”

Although the U.S. ended up winning in overtime, Nenê scored eight points and snagged seven boards to go with his five blocks, even though he played just 18 minutes due to foul trouble.

[chain]

part two:

Back in Brazil, his salary of just over $1,000 a month was not ridiculously low. The problem was that Vasco de Gama, like many businesses in Brazil’s constantly struggling economy, was having trouble writing checks on time. Nenê had been in touch with a talent scout named Joe Santos, who lived in Brazil. Santos had been talking to an agent in Cleveland named Michael Coyne, who came down and watched the big kid play. They saw what the world would soon see.

By early 2002, Nenê was running out of options. He had not been paid in a few weeks, and his parents were both out of work. And so on March 25, Nenê got on a plane with Santos and Coyne and came to America.

They landed in Cleveland, where Nenê saw snow for the first time. As confusing as that snow was, his life was even more of a question mark. NBA teams knew he was built like a more-muscular Kevin Garnett, but his fundamentals were a disaster. Scouts said that Nenê had “unlimited potential,” which is deceiving in that while it implies that he could get better, what it doesn’t say is that he wasn’t very good at the time.

When he got to Cleveland, he began working out vigorously, on the court and in the weight room. He’d grown an inch to 6-10, and his lifting sessions bulked him to 260. Coyne, Santos and Nenê hoped Baby Boy might be good enough to make the NBA. If he wasn’t they hoped he could go to Europe and play. If worst came to worst, he was still under contract to Vasco de Gama.

NBA teams came to Cleveland to see this whispered-about phenom. Then Nenê hit the road, working out everywhere from Golden State to New York. When he got to the NBA pre-Draft camp in Chicago, the Baby Boy who grew up with nothing destroyed every proven commodity on the physical tests, finishing second overall to J.R. Bremer, but well ahead of Jay Williams (who was seventh) and Amare Stoudemire (twelth).

Life bent one like Roberto Carlos on Draft night, hours after Ronaldo led Brazil to a World Cup championship, when Nenê was drafted seventh by the Knicks. Fans chanted “Fire Layden” and booed Nenê mercilessly, simply because his name meant nothing to them. Three minutes later, he was traded to the Nuggets. “To be honest, I didn’t really know what was going on,” Nenê recalls. “I just wanted to be chosen, and the longer I waited, the sweatier my hands got.”

Nenê liked Denver, which was oddly like Sao Carlos. Both cities are quiet, in the interiors of their states and generally calm. (Though Nenê adds: “Brazil is Brazil. The men are different, the women are different.”)

Nenê used part of his rookie contract to buy out his Vasco de Gama deal, then purchased his parents a huge house in Sao Carlos. For himself, he bought an Escalade. In Denver, Nenê lives with Santos, who serves as his translator. Nenê spends a lot of time surfing the internet, answering email from his website (Nene31.com), watching BET or playing Xbox games. He likes watching the NFL because of “the way they always look like they’re beating each other up.” His CD changer is stocked with R&B and samba.

His inability to speak English kept him from communicating much with his teammates, though everyone quickly learned that some things are universal. During a game early in the season, Denver coach Jeff Bzdelik stood and called out a play. “Run five-up! Run five-up!”

Realizing Nenê was on the court, Bzdelik spun around to the bench. “Joe, Joe,” he screamed to Santos, “tell Nenê to run five-up!”

Santos stood and yelled, “Nenê! Run five-up!”

“X’s and O’s and lines on the chalkboard, I can’t really translate,” Santos explained later.

On the court, communication was all pointing or making eye contact. It worked well enough that Nenê posted double figures in either points or rebounds in every game but one in March. He played 80 games, plus the rookie/sophomore game on All-Star weekend, and made the All-Rookie first team, finishing the year averaging 10.5 ppg and 6.1 rpg.

“The speed on the court was the biggest surprise for me,” Nenê says. “Everyone is so fast, and they’re the best in the world. You finish one game, and the next night, everyone is just as good. Also, everyone can dunk on your head.”

To get better, Nenê needs fundamentals, namely a consistent jumper anywhere outside the lane. Dunking on everyone is impressive, but it cannot last. Nenê understands this, but as the first Brazilian player to really make it in the NBA, he still feels as though he has accomplished something.

“To reach the NBA for me was a success, as far as my first level of success. I want a lot more in the League. I want to become a recognized player and I hope to be more succesful.”

Once his rookie season ended, Nenê went back to Sao Carlos, where he saw the same friends he used to watch NBA games on cable with. “They were so happy to have seen me play,” Nenê says, although there were just three Nuggets games on TV in Brazil this season. When they asked him who his best friend on the team was, he told them Juwan Howard.

One day while he was back home, soaking up the Brazil that he loves so much, Baby Boy went back to Meneghelli’s basketball school, where he saw the basketball court he’d learned on, kicked the tires of that jeep he’d chased around, visited Meneghelli’s latest group of kids. The kids did not get to see much of Baby Boy on television this season, but the League has said it plans to show more Nuggets games in Brazil in the years to come.

But by seeing Nenê in person, seeing another of those one-named superstars, the words painted across one of Meneghelli’s walls probably made a lot more sense: “Nenê + Denver = NBA. Tudo comecou aqui.”

“Nenê plus Denver equals NBA. It all started here.”

[Eismann]

From ESPN Insider:

High-Priced Superstars Could Be On The Move
By Chris Sheridan
ESPN.com
Updated: January 17, 2008

The NBA executives we've spoken to are nearly unanimous in their belief that Pau Gasol of the Memphis Grizzlies is the most likely high-profile player to be dealt before next month's NBA trading deadline. They cautioned, however, that the unsettled situation surrounding the New York Knicks could change the league's entire landscape in the next five weeks.

Seems the fans at Madison Square Garden aren't the only ones chanting "Fire Isiah." Executives from a handful of teams around the NBA are voicing similar sentiments following nearly a month of all talk and no action emanating from Manhattan.

ESPN.COM'S TRADE MACHINE
It's your turn to be GM. Propose a deal using ESPN.com's Trade Machine

Sources told ESPN.com that the New York Knicks have been one of the more active teams in trade discussions around the NBA. But team president and head coach Isiah Thomas has quashed numerous proposals put together by his top assistant, Glen Grunwald, mainly because of Thomas' reluctance to part with the two players other teams ask for the most, Jamal Crawford and David Lee.

One proposed deal would have sent Crawford and a cap filler (Malik Rose and/or Jerome James) to the New Jersey Nets for Vince Carter. Another would have sent Crawford and others to the Cleveland Cavaliers for a package built around Larry Hughes. A third deal, which was squashed by the Bucks, would have sent Zach Randolph to Milwaukee.

The feeling around the NBA, from discussions with front office executives, agents, scouts and coaches, is that the uncertainty surrounding Thomas' job status -- along with possible resistance from ownership -- is keeping the Knicks from pulling the trigger on any trades. But should owner James Dolan decide to fire Thomas and make Grunwald the new (and most likely temporary) architect of the roster, the breakup of the team would commence almost immediately, and there would then be a ripple effect that would impact other trade discussions around the league.

If Gasol is dealt, it would mark the 10th time in the past season and a half that a superstar player -- or at least a player making superstar money -- had switched teams via a trade. The legit superstars who were traded were Allen Iverson, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, and the paid-like-superstar players (currently earning at least $10 million) were Rashard Lewis, Randolph, Jason Richardson, Theo Ratliff, Wally Szczerbiak and Steve Francis.

With many other players like that scattered throughout the league, and rumors running hot, it's time to take a close, educated look at the trade prospects -- or, in some cases, the lack thereof -- for a wide cross-section of both the league's best and its highest-paid players:


Kobe Bryant, Lakers
If he hadn't vetoed every trade proposal that would have sent Luol Deng to the Lakers, he'd already be playing in Chicago -- and Scott Skiles would probably still have a job. But with the Lakers now sitting atop the Western Conference and Bryant saying they are a "championship caliber" team with a healthy Andrew Bynum, the landscape has changed considerably. Still, until Bryant says he no longer desires a trade -- and he has declined myriad opportunities to do so -- the issue will remain open.

Bryant's main leverage at this point, if he wants out, would be to tell the Lakers that if they don't trade him -- either by the deadline or before the start of next season -- he will opt out of his contract in the summer of 2009. He could then refuse to agree to any sign-and-trade deals, which would leave the Lakers getting nothing for him in return.

Shaquille O'Neal, Heat
Miami coach Pat Riley used the word "mandate" Tuesday when he said ownership wants him to get below the luxury tax threshold of $67.875 million, which would mean he needs to trim about $6 million off his payroll by Feb. 21.

Riley said he has no plans to trade O'Neal, who makes $20 million (this season and two more seasons). But he also threw the thought out there that a few teams might believe that Shaq is just the player to make them title contenders.

It is unclear whether O'Neal would welcome a trade, but keep in mind that he is going through a divorce and might embrace a move to a new city. With the Heat, losers of 11 straight, in last place in the East, we could envision O'Neal's being happier in Dallas (which could get him by using Keith Van Horn in a sign-and-trade) or East Rutherford, N.J., which is close to his Newark roots.

Jason Kidd, Nets
There is no question management was furious with him for his purported one-day strike last month when he skipped a game against New York with what he called a "migraine headache." But emotions have cooled down and the team has played better in the four weeks since.

Kidd still wants the Nets to give him a contract extension and bring in an athletic power forward. If neither happens by Feb. 21, we'll be awaiting his next tantrum.

An agent for one of Kidd's teammates believes the Nets would trade Kidd if they could get a point guard and a power forward back.

Pau Gasol, Grizzlies
When the Bulls wanted him last year, their refusal to include Luol Deng killed the deal. If that line of thinking has changed in Chicago, the Bulls can get him with some combination of Deng, Tyrus Thomas and/or Joakim Noah (and P.J. Brown in a sign-and-trade to make the salaries match). A source close to Gasol said the Cleveland Cavaliers were also trying to obtain him, but the Cavs' big man who interests them most, Anderson Varejao, cannot be traded until the summer. (NBA rules state a player cannot be traded for three months after he signs a contract, and Varejao was signed on Dec. 4, with the trade deadline looming on Feb. 21.)

...to be continued