By the way Chuck, I miss you on here with the hoops thing. If i promise to simply agree with everything you say, will you post more?

Magic won't shoot 62% again, so Lakers will get the title.

I'm interested in when their real numbers come out. They say in the description that this is just a filler until they publish their more complex formula.

And your last paragraph may be the worst reasoning ever offered in the history of internet forums.

And if you took that last paragraph as anything besides me having a ltitle fun with Chuck then I would recommend a drink (goose and tonic).:)

At least you would be right more often...

If Trevor Ariza were a baseball player or a horse there would be multiple columns about how a bum suddenly became an decent player seemingly overnight.

Certainly about horses.

Sports? Bring the donuts and the coffee...:)

People are talking like he will be an all star. I can provide a link for you to one of those.

me? I think he is a very average role player that fills the lane well on the break, at times hits the open jumper and can play decent to good perimeter defense.

There are lots of "bums" that take a while to find their way. Look at chauncey Billups or ben wallace. Look at boris diaw who went from bum to decent player back to bum again. All about the team and the role for guys with middle of the road talent.

I agree with you! How about that. He is a good athlete that plays long and has suddenly found out how to hit an open jumper.

They also won't shoot 30% again like in game one. The point is that they are getting the same shots each game. The Laker defense is doing nothing to challenge them. It's simply a matter of make them and stay in the game or miss them and fall out of it. They won't 62% again but they won't do 30% again either.

i never said he was good. The disagreement was whether he was much different than delonte west. And my opinion remains that they are about the same level of player. Both of them get to feed off of playing with a great player and both were bums before they got in the right spot.

West's numbers in his second year in the league were better than this year in every possible way (PPG, RPG, APG, FG%) and that was from virtually identical minutes.

No they won't shoot 30% but the fact remains that even shooting 62% they were life and death to beat the lakers at home down 2-0. Regardless of the perimeter defense, the magic still can't get easy shots and i mean shots in the paint. You can't win a series like that.

the NBA kills the Finals by stretching the games out over such a long period of time. I understand the delay in starting the Finals when one series goes longer than the other but when you get action night after night for a month and a half it is hard to take two and three days in between games. Completely kills the momentum.

In Game 2, they shot terribly, played terribly, had every call go against them, and still were a missed layup from winning the game in regulation.

He was playing on a bad team that year with lots of garbage time where he was fifth on the team in average behind such luminaries as mark blount and ricky davis.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/BOS/2006.html

I still cant believe they missed those two layups at the end... and especially the one with less than a second on the clock.

Orlando would be up 2-1 and the whole SERIES would be different.

agreed and i had a money line bet on them at +280.:(

Game 2 was a weird game.

So playing on a bad team helped him shoot a higher percentage, dish out more assists, and grab more rebounds? Interesting logic, seems having Lebron as a teammate would help you shoot a higher percentage and dish out more assists for sure. So you could almost make the argument that his game has actually dropped off since his numbers have dropped in those categories despite the attention that opposing defenses pay to Lebron.

Or you could say he was on a team with 33 wins and there was lots of garbage time against bad players? Hmmmmm.