MSU Red Cedar Message Board

Also, why did the Thunder not pull the trigger for Howard? The Thunder in my opinion would have won the title this year with him and would be repeat champions next season and he would resign with the Thunder after two titles.

Give in to the NBA... people here hate it while the Pistons are irrelevant, but the league is better than its been in a decade and this year's playoffs were some of the best in recent memory. Next season will be a lot of fun with the Lakers and Nets (maybe) hopefully able to compete with the Heat, Thunder, and Spurs... and who knows about Chicago (we'll see how well Rose comes back) and Boston... another year older, but Pierce and Garnett can still play and if Green comes back and then some of the young talent they have???? Could be interesting.

Unfortunately, the Pistons are still a little ways off, they might sneak into the playoffs next year

I'm a big NBA fan already and things are only going to go up from here. Howard, IMO, makes the Lakers the favorite in the West or the Nets the 2nd or 3rd best team in the East and he absolutely has to be moved this offseason. Sure NBA players take plays off but you can't really afford to take the whole regular season off anymore. If the Lakers win some games they should have against the Pistons, Kings, Wizards, Cavs, etc they have home court and have a shot at beating OKC.

I think the NBA will start picking up more steam soon. 25% of the fanbase wants to jump on the Heat dynasty bandwagon while the other 75% want them to lose at all costs. While the Celtics are on the verge of mediocrity again, quite a few other teams are rising to the contest and should give the Heat and Thunder some very good competition.

With that being said, Stern still needs to go and they need to contract a couple of teams to really make things competitive.

Joe Johnaon really isn't that good, and because of him, Brooklyn cant get Howard

He may be overpaid but outside of Kobe and Wade he's the best 2-guard in the NBA and has been for quite some time. JJ is a very good player.

Agree the big three have to be healthy to keep the dynasty going. I still don't think people give their bench enough credit: getting Battier was a steal, Chalmers is good, Haslem came up big in a few games in their playoffs, and Miller (though looks old with his back problem) had huge games.

I think soon the Heat are going to get free agents willing to sign there that want to take pay cuts and win rings. I don't think their bench will be an issue.

OKC has great speed and talent but I saw nothing out of them that showed me they can top the Heat. For the record I'm not into OKC or the Heat. I'm hoping some other team can step it up and take down the Heat.

It already happened with Battier. The guy's defense and 3pt shot were unbelievable in the playoffs. How many crucial charge fouls did he draw against OKC in crucial moments? Plus that guy was hitting wide open looks when it mattered.

"The lockout gave me lots of time to consider what was important to me at this stage of my life and career," Battier wrote on Twitter. "Over the last week, I've played out every scenario in my head over and over. It always came back to one thing for me: a winning role."

Rumors are Dwight Howard is expected to go to the Lakers by the end of the weekend

Expect some major ego clashes on that team.

Dude wants to go somewhere where they are going to run the offense through him, and as we've seen in the past that type of O will create serious locker room tension with Kobe.

With out Phil Jackson I can't see the Lakers winning it all with Howard but I can see them being contenders.

Kobe will check him at the door. Actually, he already did at the trade deadline. He already made it clear that he's not willing to give the team up no matter what drama filled star comes to LA. There's a reason he openly accepted Steve Nash, who has even better credentials than Howard, and immediately recruited Grant Hill. Howard would be stupid not to accept his role for 2-3 years and take over the Lakers when Nash and Kobe retire.

The second Howard lands in LA there will be all kinds of vets for the Lakers to choose from at the vet min exception and probably a solid contributor at the mid level exception. The Heat definitely have dynasty written all over them but if you think a big 3 at SG/PF/SF is going to beat a big 3 at PG/SG/C, it's not likely.

The same guy who broke Nash to LA is also reporting Grant Hill agreed to sign with the team. If they land Howard and find a way to dump some salary in Artest, things are really going to get interesting.

I agree that dwight howard is a Tim tebow Christian athlete. However, howard, durant and westbrook are the only 3 players in nba that can compete with wade, Lebron, and bosh.

Mike Brown is pretty soft when he's coaching. If anything it'll have to be Kobe and Artest keeping him in check. Not many Lakers fans are happy with Mike Brown, mainly do to his stagnant offense that didn't work in Cleveland and didn't work in his first year in LA. With Nash you really need to be creative and run a lot of high ball screens/pick and rolls. I'm not sure what Brown has in mind but he's going to have to change something. Bynum isn't the guy you want to run those through either where as Howard would fit perfectly.