The Pistons don’t open the season until Wednesday, but the action kicks off tonight with four games elsewhere in the league. So kick back, turn on TNT (or take advantage of the League Pass free preview) and enjoy tonight’s open thread. Welcome back, NBA, you’ve been missed!
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It’s so weird seeing Sheed in a Celtic’s jersey.
HOLY CRAP. LeBron just OBLITERATED Rondo on a fast break dunk attempt. Amazing block.
Yeah, that block was rediculous.
My wife and I just bought a new TV last night and I’m in heaven.
congrats Garrett, got surround sound?
Man I don’t know who to root for in this game. I can’t stand KG, but I hate Cleveland as a whole even more (baseball). I suppose I’ll side with Sheed this time.
This is just a damn good basketball game. 2 teams playing D. Go figure. Ra looks great out there.
I’m watching the Wizards-Mavs game right now.
What I’ve noticed so far:
1. Couldn’t be happier that we didn’t sign Drew Gooden. He’s looked beyond inept, and has already bricked to errant jumpers in like 3 minutes of PT
2. Both of these teams are not looking good tonight.
3. Shawn Marion is playing really well. Looks like he might’ve been an offseason steal.
4. Wizards have depth, but they don’t really look that good. I like their young bigs (McGee, Blatche), but they were never all that good even when they were healthy a couple years ago. Not sure what the big fuss is.
Two*
AHHHHH! Sheed’s got a Fro! lmfao
I enjoyed watching Lebron block the shit out of Rondo.
sheed so far playing well for boston, i think boston will be a good situation for him this year, and he doesnt even need to start b/c we know he’s slowed down a bit in recent years, but he’s still good enough to provide a good punch off the bench for a contender
still weird seeing him in celtic green though
washington-dallas game also exciting
When did KG get his tech? This is game one, right?
Woo!
I can’t watch the games tonight because I’m stuck in a library doing reading (this is my halftime). My advice to anyone who wants it- don’t take anthropology classes. They blow.
Wow, the Cavs really havent resolved there offensive issues…They better get it together or else its an Orlando vs Boston ECF for sure.
Also, just heard about Blake Griffin being out 6 weeks…Clips are cursed for real.
P_P, I was just about to post the same thing re: Clippers.
Kinda off-topic but did anyone watch the BET Hip Hop Awards tonight? Course you didnt. This is kinda Detroit releated but Eminem, Mos Def and Black Thought in the cypher with Premier cutting. Em fucking killed it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BExZ5VKDjaI
@P_p & QD: On SLAM someone linked to this crazy Bill Simmons article:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/090624&sportCat=nba
It’s kind of eerie now that Blake is dunzo for a while. Hopefully there isn’t any long-term damage but you don’t want to mess around with knees.
Shame too, cause the Clips looked like they had a team that could make a run for the 8th spot this season with Golden State
@J Dre - time management. I’m writing a diss. But I’m not missing opening night!
The thing I noticed about the Cavs/Celtics game:
* Shaq looks old and slow, but LeBron is still LeBron- they’ll be top 3 in the East, but I don’t think this experiment is going to bring Cleveland the ’ship.
* One of the announcers (can’t remember which) said that he thought Doc Rivers would utilize Sheed more in the low post later in the season- has he ever actually HEARD of Rasheed Wallace? That being said, Sheed is perfect for Boston because when he blows up, starts sucking, or just takes bad shots, Rivers can afford to pull him… something the Pistons couldn’t do the last 3 or 4 years.
Couple first [real night of basketball!!!] impressions:
I’m going to enjoy rooting against both Boston and Cleveland this season. Two of the least likable rosters ever assembled.
Rondo is turning into a Jason Kidd-esque point guard (especially defensively). He completely demolished Mo Williams, which threw the Cav’s offense way off.
Al Thornton probably has the lowest b-ball IQ of any NBA player that I can remember watching.
Eric Gordon is full of awesome.
Kaman looks solid- very, very good hands. I’d take him on the Pistons in a heartbeat.
Portland has a hell of a team. If Oden stays healthy and keeps developing, they are going to be scary.
This could be mere conclusion jumping, but have people seen this?
Rip trade in effect? I want to see calculated speculation as to where he’s heading, and who’s coming back. Go!
He’s not going anywhere right now.
@Projectz
I heard about the Cypher joint for months, and finally checked it out. Eminem is representing Detroit lovely. He sounded like the Shelter-era Em for a minute. Black Thought is one of my all-time favorites. Everybody involved is a certified legend though definitely.
@Skylar
That guido in the checkered shirt behind Black Thought is pretty certified eh?
25 days to go…
PREPARE YOURSELVES
boston thoughts. they played their guts out in the playoffs without garnett. rondo and perkins are on the rise. allen, pierce and garnett still at top level. they have a chip on their shoulder going in to this season being dismissed as over the hill. sheed is best when surrounded by a great team. he is not good at the lead role.
flip wins first game for wizards.
@Sklar& Prophecy, those cyphers made it worth watching. and yes EM&B.Thought killed it.And yes to Kaman. prolly’ one of the more impressive performances of the night.
Rondo is turning into a Jason Kidd-esque point guard (especially defensively). He completely demolished Mo Williams, which threw the Cav’s offense way off.
I agree, I wonder if there was any truth to the rumor that he was offered to us. not trying to be a revisionist but Boston is definitely a good fit for him.
sheed seems to be picking up lots of fouls in twenty minutes. boston using him to defend in post? my recollection is that he was willing and good at post defense even if he wouldn’t go there offensively.
Cavs - Fell flat when LeBron stepped off the court. They still have not addressed that issue which will cause them problems in the long run. I like the Parker pick up for them in the back court, their guards are too small. (See Orlando series) Boston went to the post on their guards early in the game which will be a problem down the stretch.
Celts - Ugh I have a love hate relationship with this team. Am I wrong for wanting to see Sheed FAIL? (He mailed it in too many times for me) But he did look good doing his pick n pop. Just don’t expect him to touch the paint. Sheed thinks the post has H1N1 the way he runs from it.
Clips - Kaman & Gordon looked awesome last night. I root for the Clips because they are the NBA’s doormat. I hope they can grab an 8th seed but it seems as if injuries always catch up to them early and often.
Can’t wait for the Stones tonight.
Kaman looked fantastic. And that was with Camby and Deandre Jordan logging solid minutes too. If that guy stays healthy he’ll be starting for the West in the All-Star Game. You heard it here first.
The Cavs w/Shaq looked exactly how I thought they would– completely inept without Lebron on the floor. I still don’t get what positives there are for Shaq being there– he clogs the lane (where Lebron makes his money), can’t run the floor in transition (where Lebron makes his money), can’t keep up with athletic bigs (just so happens Orlando and Boston are stacked with them), and in general slows the offense down to a crawl, which isn’t good for a team that doesn’t run any real offensive sets other than “give ball to Lebron/get open/hope for pass.”
Celtics looked great, as they should with that roster. It will come down to health for them. If healthy, it’s Orlando and Boston in the ECF for sure, where I still like Orlando. FAS-baby Sheldon Williams will prove himself to be a fantastic pickup. Marquis Daniels is a great combo guy off the bench. Still, Orlando’s depth at every position and superior athletes at most gives them the edge.
The Rip trade rumors– if we’re taking back more than one guy for the Ripster (as the open roster spots/Washington cut would suggest), I’m extremely curious. Clearly we’d be trading for a big, but this would imply his salary’s less than Rip’s ($11mil) so that pretty much rules out any type of veteran, unless it’s a mid-level type guy and in that case what’s the point? If there is actually something brewing, it’s for a young big making around the mid-level plus some filler. Very curious. Who are the possibilities?
Pistons.com is predicting a loss tonight…
http://www.nba.com/pistons/news/prereport_091028.html
Is the rumor just based on Rip missing one practice for personal reasons? Players miss practice for personal reasons all the time.
@QD
Pretty much. It’s absolutely a reach of a rumor. Still, the literally pointless open roster spot is pretty curious. I mean, we have to pay Washington anyway and absolutely have room on the roster– why cut him? He’s been working hard and doing well according to all reports from the team. It just makes no sense unless there is a reason we need that roster spot. Again, lots of teams have open roster spots, but we’re already paying the guy guaranteed money… what’s the point unless something’s up?
Dumars always likes to keep one roster spot open just in case. It doesn’t mean a trade is coming.
That the 14th spot went to Chuckles was a surprise however.
Why cut him now though? We’re already paying him. We have the spot. You can always cut him later, and in the interim let him possibly get some spot minutes here or there– don’t tell me we couldn’t use an extra body tonight when we’re down two men. I get the “Dumars keeps a roster spot open” thing, I just don’t see the point as of yet. Again, already paying the guy. There just isn’t a point, unless there actually is.
It just makes no sense unless there is a reason we need that roster spot.
Yep– especially when he can dump Washington any day he wants to should a trade present itself, be that Nov. 1 or Feb. 1. Like you said, we’re paying him anyway, so it’s the timing that is cracking the tea leaves…
Anybody else have League Pass Broadband? Last season the games streamed smoothly with no lagging or anything. I tried watching the Wizards game last night and it was really choppy, like Justin Tv or something. It will be very disappointing if the Pistons game looks like that. Is anybody having the same problem?
Maybe they cut him because he was stepping on people’s faces during practice- that could hurt team chemistry.
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DrgNEZ8VR8 )
J Dre, that’s funny. That’s the first thing I thought of when he got cut. I don’t think that’s the reason but it was one of the first things to cross my mind.
Didn’t he punch someone in the junk too?
I dunno, but if he did we NEED him back- what’s more “Bad Boy” than that?
Also, though yesterday’s games were all quality, I feel the most impressive parts of each were the hairdos:
Bos vs. Cle- Sheed’s lil’ ‘fro is great, but I want it bigger! Why didn’t we get to enjoy that last year?
LAC vs. LAL- Baron’s beard is glorious.
Hou vs. Port- Though I can never read what it says, I like Artest’s graffiti stuff, and last night’s was as good as I’ve ever seen. Boogie the Barber’s on his A game.
Wash vs. Dal- Dirk can definitely pull off the long hair. Mike Miller definitely can not- what a boob.
Unless you’re from Europe or South America the ponytail = a hairdon’t. Am I right, or am I right?
Couldn’t Deron have at least been a useful practice player? Give someone for the rookies to build their confidence against, give them a different look to play against (crazy athletic), etc. Ah well. I’m psyched for the game tonight. Anyone else think Orlando will beat Philly by about 100?
I noticed that mlive has been including links to DBB posts. Any time I’ve looked at the comments to mlive articles, I’m amazed at how dimwitted they are. I hope we don’t see an influx…
The posters here, old and new, are great.
So the opening night starting lineup has been announced:
PG: Stuck
SG: Rip
SF: Tay
PF: CV
C: Wallace
http://bit.ly/2idcqA
j dre, you forgot Sasha Vujacic mercifully cutting his douchey hair.
thanks to whoever put up that rap video above. at one point em rhymes genitalia with paraphernalia, which made me laugh.
also, MCIAFI is, apparently, a LIAR!!!!!
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4602452
MCIAFL?
MCLIEAFI
@QD:
Gotta agree with that. I rarely post, but I’m reading the comments daily and I gain more from reading the comments here than any I do reading any article at ESPN, etc. It has always amazed me how many knowledgeable fans are gathered at one place. I’ve never seen anything like that on any other forum.
I’d love to start out with a win tonight.Question if the Pistons made a trade for Boozer would it be enough to push us to no 4 in the east.
“And that was just one of many lies. From a head-coaching standpoint, you don’t do that in the middle of the season. … You don’t try to throw your team under the boat because of a decision you wanted to make.”
“We loved him, he loved us. We were all friends, we were all brothers. Like I said, certain people make it complicated when it shouldn’t be complicated.”
I guess all of this kind of lends credence to that AI interview with slam mag. He wouldn’t point the finger at Joe or any guys on the team but he did say the team would quit on him if he didn’t come off the bench. Yet and still I feel had AI handled the situation better, we would have had a better season. Rip bitched about coming off the bench. but he still played like a proffesional.
Whatever the case, I dont know how to feel about Rip making this public knowledge, maybe he should have just told “us” about it, Im just glad that mciafi is gone along with his sidekick aiiafi.
Interesting read on Rip/AI/MCIAFI&L. I missed all the pre-season games but I’m pretty excited about tonight. I hope we can start the season right and put away teams like this early.
@Defor
I’m so unsold on this current Cavs lineup and the Celtics’ age/health issues that I’m not sure the top 3 would be out of reach, depending on if we don’t have to give up any of our precious few low post defenders in acquiring Boozer. You’ve got to admit though we’d be scary as hell– assuming that the addition of Boozer would push CV to the bench, we’d have probably the best second unit in the league (MFWB/CV/Kwame/others). But I think it at least would put us at the Hawks/Wizards level.
@joel, defor:
And a Wallace/Boozer frontcourt would likely neutralize much of their collective weaknesses.
Also, if the other team began exploiting Boozer’s D, you could move Wallace to the 4 and bring in Kwame at the 5. If the opposition began exploiting Wallace’s invisibility on offense, you could move Boozer to the 5 and bring in Villanueva at the 4.
If Villaneutrogena is lacking at the 4, you could bring in Jerebko to deform things with his Swedish fists of fury.
My, how far have we fallen… Accuscore favors the Grizzlies 59% to 41 over the Pistons tonight. Blarf.
Just an FYI:
I will now only refer to Jerebko as ABBA songs, so if you see something like, “Man, Dancing Queen was on fire last night!” or, “Did you see Waterloo grab Reggie Evans’ nuts?” you’ll know what I’m talking about.
@wolf blitzer:
you could bring in Jerebko to deform things with his Swedish fists of fury.
Don’t you mean “Swedish Fish of fury”?
@Joel:
How many ABBA songs do you know?
@Joel:
“Man, Dancing Queen was on fire last night!”
The appropriate exclamatory remark would be “Mamma Mia!” Naturally.
“Mamma Mia! Dancing Queen was on fire last night!”
Accuscore? More like INaccuscore!
*rimshot*
Do you think Washington said, “Take a Chance On Me!” when Joe informed him he was being cut?
No, but Deron likely said “SOS.”
OT: Gotta love whores.
I bet Joe was like, “So Long.”
So Washington goes, “But, but, People Need Love!”
To which Joe replies, “That’s the Name of the Game. It’s Winner Takes All. Really, When All is Said and Done, it’s just about Money, Money, Money.”
Washington: “Knowing Me, Knowing You, I just want to say I Know There’s Something Going On. Does Your Mother Know what kind of dick you are?”
Joe D: “Ring Ring! That’s Mrs. D on the phone. Looks like this was Our Last Summer. Baby, Those Are the Rules. You’re living in a Dream World.”
Washington: “I Won’t Let You Go!”
Joe: “Love Isn’t Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough).”
And I’m spent.
Does anyone have a free link to watch the Memphis game tonight??
A bravura performance, Joel.
Go Pistons.
Suddenly, Monta Ellis’s moped accident doesn’t sound so retarded anymore:
http://nba.fanhouse.com/2009/10/28/kamans-backyard-is-fun-dangerous/
Dude’s asking to get darwin’d.
Game feed for tonight?
Out of town fan subjected to Toronto media.
Someone please help!
Alright my friends, who is ready for this?
I’m whetting my appetite with the 6ers and Magic until we start. And on the subject of the 6ers, kudos to them for bringing back the old school red-white-blue as the everyday unis. They are sharp.
So where can I watch the game? I ain’t got cable.
stde.net … Justin tv
atdhe.net
http://atdhe.net/7228/watch-detroit-pistons-vs-memphis-grizzlies @ 8 pm.
is someone trying to protect ai by not putting up a pistons grizzlies thread?
Thanks, guys.
@ Mike Payne- Ha, “Swedish Fish of fury.” That’s funny…and delicious.
The Pistons link you gave me isn’t working and I can’t search on JustinTV.
I dont think it has started yet, Yahoo stat tracker is inactive as well.
Boo-urns. You’re right — it’s just blank. Maybe it’ll come on in a bit? *crosses fingers*
So this is lame:
Any game that is broadcast on FSD isn’t available on League Pass (In MI, anyway).
That pisses me off.
Mason/
FROM VIRGINIA UNION UNIVERSITY! WEARING THE BIG RED THREE!!!!! B-B-B-B-B-BEN WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAALLACEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!
/Mason
That felt good.
The game hasn’t started yet.
Dude, there is so very little energy for the Grizz warmups in Grizz Country. This is really fucking lame.
err… intros, you know what I meant.
Game thread forthcoming, I just logged in to write one but Kevin’s got one on the way. *high five buddy!*
Let’s see if the Pistons can play some D… can’t wait to see what this team can do!
This is the first season coming in where we really have no freaking idea what is going to happen. In years past, I could pretty much call the plays the Stones would run… now it’s all new.
What the fuck? They announced the Pistons and then 3-6 Mafia did a concert before the Grizz came out… This shit is a ridiculous spectacle… It kind of got me hyped up though.
(Embarrassingly bare-bones game thread just posted …)
The 3-6 Mafia part wasn’t bad, it was the lack of any energy in the arena. Nobody yelled or screamed or cheered when they came out. It was just dead silent. WTF, why does Memphis have an NBA team?
Yeah, there is no energy in the arena. How can people not be excited for the “Grizz-Revolution”?