While undoubtedly a very talented player, I’m not certain that he’s a great talent fit with the lineup we’re going to be fielding next year, I agree with you. I was more looking at it from a pure “would I take Mayo on the Blazers even though he has potential character issues?” standpoint and my answer is an unequivocal yes. From a basketball standpoint, I have my doubts—but I don’t really know X’s and O’s well enough to make an informed judgment, and if we draft him then lemme chug some more KP’s Special Kool-Aid Brewed by Nate and I’ll praise it to the heavens.

and an announcer even said that “Mayo needs to start demanding the ball more” when his team was down, that doesnt sound like a person who needs the ball a lot.

I watched a lot of USC and Ari games to check out Mayo and Bayless and for a lot of the time MAyo tried to get the ball to his teammates and when they had passed the ball around the 3pt line for 30 seconds they passed to Mayo with 5 secs and he had 2 options, shoot an off balance 3 to beat the clock, or try to bull his way into the lane and create somthhing there.

As for his fit next to Roy, he is amazing coming off screens, facing the basket and hitting the jump shot, kind of reminds me of Rip Hamilton in that regard. He D’ed up Rose better than anyone I’ve seen and held up Bayless pretty well also. He is a bigger guard as well and could defend bigger PGs and handle smaller ones as well. He is actually a pretty good passer as well, see:

http://video.google.com/videosearch?client=opera&rls=en&q=oj+mayo+pass&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wv&oi=property_suggestions&resnum=0&ct=property-revision&cd=1

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4867072857404725384&q=oj+mayo+pass&ei=lXcnSK2QN4aIqgP3qeC5CQ

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3009920147247616094&q=oj+mayo+pass&ei=lXcnSK2QN4aIqgP3qeC5CQ

He actually isnt as good at slashing and driving to the lane from what I have seen, he doesnt seem to have that explosive first step to get by his defender but rather can pull even with him and pull up for a nice midrange J.

So a guy who can hit the 3 at .408%, play lock down D sounds great next to Roy, in fact, Jonathan Givony of Draftexpress even compred him to Roy, as someone who is not uberathletic as some but has hign BBIQ and lets the game come to him.

I kinda like the thought of having 2 Roy’s in the backcourt.

KP will do his homework and if he wants him then Mayo is ours.

and Canada, lets invade them and turn it into the NBA C league.

DON’T make lots of money later on because of their participation in NCAA sports, no. Less than one percent of D-I basketball players get drafted into the NBA; for the NFL, the number is two percent. And that number is related only to being drafted and says nothing about making the team and making money.

So an overwhelming majority of students will not go pro, yet (I reiterate) barely half of D-I football players and scarcely a third of D-I basketball players graduate. Those numbers are an embarrassment. And I think that if there were stricter rules governing graduation rates (tying postseason appearances or scholarship numbers to graduation rates, for example) perhaps the student-athletes wouldn’t all of a sudden care a lot more, but the universities sure as hell would, and you’d see those numbers come right up.

I don’t necessarily advocate that the NCAA pay its student-athletes. But I think it’s beyond inane that those athletes can’t capitalize on their own gifts without severe punishment from the Infractions Committee. As a college student, I can be a world-class pianist and charge admission to my concerts to hundreds of people; I can sell my spectacular paintings to an art galley or a private buyer; but as a highly talented basketball player, I can’t host a basketball camp and charge my campers without losing my eligibility. In my opinion, that’s absurd.

I agree that the onus is also on the student-athletes to take advantage of the opportunity that’s being presented to them. But if you have it hammered into your head night and day that you are a football player, you are here for your ability to play football, you will bring pride to your university with your performance on the field, and your 100 teammates are all counting on you and you on them—where’s the focus going to be? On the classroom or on the field? A great part of attitude is expectation. If you treat kids like they’re really smart, they perceive themselves as more intelligent and perform better on aptitude tests. If you treat athletes as student-athletes and not just athletes, then that too will shape their autoperception and their behavior. I lay the blame for that squarely at the feet of those universities that, in my opinion, are letting their student-athletes down by not demanding more from them academically.

He’s a swell guy. I figured if I asked him if he like barbecue, he would have jokingly replied, “Are you asking me that because I am black?” The truth is, that was part of the reason. When I first moved here, I asked a Vietnamese cab driver where I could get good Mexican food and he told me to go to Taco Bell.

Throw political correctness out the window.

But there have been multiple incidents, lately where white people mentioned barbecue and black people and some folks were outraged. Most recently, the owner of the Atlanta Falcons said something about Mike Vick eating barbecue and French fries in prison. Some people got upset about it.

It’s a slippery slope and I was just trying to avoid falling down it.

Half the time, people don’t know it’s offensive until they offend someone. I didn’t know calling someone a”cancer” was offensive until I started hanging out here. I learned calling something or someone “retarded” was offensive when coworker called herself a retard, in front of another coworker who’s daughters have Down syndrome. I figured out that calling something “gay” was offensive on my own. Oh yeah, and I didn’t know “Lakers” was offensive until I came here as well. This is a fun little read regarding a word that is not offense but the guy lost his job anyhow.

Plissken…........anybody?