Articles worth mentioning

Nazr played in 51 games this year and had 9 assists!!! ... with one of the best surrounding casts in the NBA to pass to. That isn't for lack of opportunity.

This year, for about the same salary, Darko had 353 more points, 208 more boards, 100 more blocks, 81 more assists, and 17 more steals. And he was the best player for his team in the post season... compared to Nazr's humiliating 5 total playoff minutes.

Orlando/ SVG are just trying to get some negotiating leverage by pointing out a flaw. My point is just that 80%+ players in the league can be considered inconsistent. Also consider that Darko did not start more than a handful of games. How consistent are young bench players supposed to be?

Aren't most contracts insured for injury with a third party insurer?

If so, that should be taken into account.

The Jerome James deal was very bad indeed.

Yeah good work mikhail. You joined the board in March 2007, more than 18 months after I did and already you are less than 40 total posts behind me. (pumping out almost 15 a day wow!,,,how do you have time??).

Anyway a lot of good commentary, subject matter and opinions from you representing the west coast to go along with me, Buddha, TFD, Linwood, Aurora, LA Piston, The Low and others out here far from madding crowd.

Keep it up and Roscoe will be adding you to the late night forum staff

That is a pretty interesting article, mikh, on the history of Jews in the NBA. Red Auerbach's point about moving into the suburbs and away from the old "gym rat" type of activity makes sense. I don't think the article mentions this, but Red himself was one of the tribe, as we say. I didn't know that Johnny Most was also one of us (apparently his original last name was Moskowitz), and how did I not know that Mark Cuban is too?!

Another obvious point about the past that I don't think the article mentioned was segregation against African-Americans. When basketball (not to mention baseball, the sport where American Jews had the most success) was segregated, the ability to make the pros was completely skewed in favor of white people in general, which naturally made it less difficult for Jewish players to make the big leagues. None of the aspiring pro basketball and baseball players who were white, including Jews, had to compete against black players for roster spots. But as time went on and the barriers that artificially prevented blacks from reaching the pros came down, fewer and fewer white players ended up being good enough to make it to the top level, so naturally fewer Jews were making it as well.

A non-prejudiced meritocracy seems to help us in reaching huge over-representation in some areas (the academic sciences, writing Broadway musicals), but playing pro sports...yeah, not so much.

Of course he is, look how much $ he has.

The "influence" on the NBA is Cuban, Larry Brown, and Billy Davidson (doing nothing to dispel the 'cheap' sterotype)

What does Howard have to do with this?

Yeah, I forgot to finish my sentence...

I knew what Stern you were talking about...





DUDE
It's all a goddamn fake. Like Lenin
said, look for the person who will
benefit. And you will, uh, you know,
you'll, uh, you know what I'm trying
to say--

DONNY
I am the Walrus.

WALTER
That %%%%ing %%%%%!

DUDE
Yeah.

DONNY
I am the Walrus.

WALTER
Shut the %%%% up, Donny! V.I. Lenin!
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov!

DONNY
What the %%%% is he talking about?

WALTER
That's %%%%ing exactly what happened,
Dude! That makes me %%%%ing SICK!

DUDE
Yeah, well, what do you care, Walter?

DONNY
Yeah Dude, why is Walter so pissed
off?

Billups likely to be re-signed