In thinking about the LMA contract extension negotiations, an idea for the new CBA solidified in my mind. I know this could probably go in Dave's post of a week or so ago, but I'm afraid no one would see it, and I really want to see what people think of this. In fact I don't have a lot of detail, but long story short:

make all contracts a percentage function of the salary cap.

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So, for those of you that want to see more of Milan Macvan, here is a link to Greece - Serbia game(already in progress).

http://www.justin.tv/prasinapedia_2

Serbia has a really young team this time, with only Krstic being an NBA player(well, Perovic had a short stint in Warriors, but that did not pan out).

Watch out for Teodosic on PG and Bjelica playing PG, SG or even SF - thos two kids have a looot of potential.

Clone

Bill Simmon's wrote an article recently about his experience watching the US vs. Mexico match at Azteca stadium. It evolved a bit into his take on the state of US soccer as a whole, making the common observation that the best US athletes don't usually pursue soccer. This prompted a barroom discussion between myself and a friend last night about which active American athletes would have made sensational soccer players had they gone in that direction.

To those that feel inclined to debate whether soccer sucks or not, now would be a good time for you to return to the main page.

Some of my considerations:

Visible athletic ability - This is obvious, and the source of the debate.

Kinetic skills - The best example I can think of would be decathletes. Their speed, endurance and strength would never limit their ceiling for soccer, but they don't have much chance to demonstrate their ability to pass a ball accurately (or the ability to see the open man in the first place). Similarly, while I think NFL cornerbacks are some of the greatest athletes alive, they don't have to handle a ball much, and I feel that detracts from an argument that they'd make great soccer players.

..... On another level, some players are very skilled, but their exhibited skill sets are so narrow, it seems difficult to envision them doing more than just that one thing. NFL kickers, or baseball pitchers (think Mariano Rivera and his wicked cutter) come to mind. In soccer, while there is a place for, for example, set play specialists, you need to be able to do multiple things well. While a baseball player can make an incredible career out of doing one thing really well, they pretty much have to be both an All-Star hitter and Gold Glove fielder to make me consider them here.

Size - While Walter Jones (sad news, by the way) and Cecil Fielder are evidently very talented, I can't seriously picture them running up and down the field for 90 minutes. For this reason, lineman are pretty much universally excluded from consideration in my mind, as are the fatties in baseball. Some of this is conditioning, I know, so perhaps a linebacker or someone like that could play soccer - I'm not sure.

Height - NBA players look the most like footballers to me - they do lots of sprinting, are incredibly skilled, should be able to see plays develop, etc. However, some guys just seem too tall. Peter Crouch appears to sufficiently define this ceiling, so to be approaching 6'6" or taller, you'd have to really be something special.

By position, my dream team looks like:

Striker - Allen Iverson (If his skills were in any way transferable, he would have been all world spectacular - maybe one of the best strikers of all time)
Striker - Michael Vick (minus the psycho/headcase aspect)
Center Mid -  Jason Kidd
Center Mid - Chris Paul (him and J- Kidd are essentially playing the PG position of a soccer team here)
Outside Mid - Ken Griffey, Jr. (left handed, which would help playing on that side)
Outside Mid - Dwyane Wade (would win every corner kick or cross in the history of the universe)
Center back - Champ Bailey (was an all-American quality football player in multiple positions in college - offense, defense, and special teams)
Center back - Kobe Bryant (though I hate to admit it)
Outside back - Adrian Peterson (After soccer conditioning, who knows what he'd look like, but as of now would make Wayne Rooney look like a creampuff.)
Outside back - Evan Longoria
Goalie - Lebron James (could probably be a professional in ANY sport)

Sub - Nnamdi Asomugha
Sub - Jimmy Rollins (spark plug off the bench)
Sub - Brandon Roy (I picture him as being a great sub for the midfield. Everything he does is so well controlled - he is the sort of guy that could control the pace of play down the stretch.)

(Seriously, try to picture LeBron James at keeper for the US national team. I'm drooling at the thought of it. I think he could supplant Tim Howard after 6 months of training. Hell, while he's at it, he could just go ahead and be the best keeper in the history of the sport in one year.)

To bring it back to the NBA and the Blazers, how do you think NBA athletes could transfer their skills to soccer? Brandon Roy in particular? Are there any athletes you think I totally overrate or forgot about completely?

T$

It seems like the media and fan obsession with all things Lakers hypes marginal players into stars.  Or turns guys who are superstars into messianic deities.    Has there ever been an underrated Laker?  Probably not.  And now that they won the title last season, the hype train is in overdrive. 

With that said, who on the current Laker roster is MOST overrated.  Because all Lakers are overrated, you have to pick the one who is most overrated.  My pick right now is Lamar Odom.  That dude has a long history of disappearing during crucial games.  And now that he had like 3 good games in the playoffs last season, he is all of a sudden a top 10 power forward in the game?

So who is it?  Comment below, vote in the poll, or both.

[ Bumped to Front Page, good job Kap -- Ben]

Here is the latest version 1.1 of my Portland Trail Blazers Transactions Flowchart. 

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Henry Abbot of TrueHoop recently posed the question to his 'Truehoop Network of Bloggers' who is your second favorite team and why. I would definitely be interested in other people's take on this including Ben and Dave.

This site seemed like a good place to pose this question as 90% of us already know what each others' first favorite team is, and I thought it would be interesting to hear who else you root for in this league of ours. If you don't have a second favorite team I would heartily suggest finding one, and hopefully some other commentators can convince you to watch theirs. A second favorite team gives you more chances to watch other games, a commitment to seeing how a different style fares against the different match-ups. And the freedom to root for a team, and never feel the deep disappointment when you see the team fall.

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The Blazers have great prospects for a deep playoff run this year.  

Remember how our incredibly young team played last year in the face of what many call the most difficult schedule ever.  54 wins.  This with our starting small forward out for the season and our #1 draft pick center coming back from microfracture surgery, out of shape, and suffering from several injuries during the season.

We had 3 rookies contribute significantly, and the jump to second year is often the greatest. Rudy hit the most 3 pointers of any rookie ever, and Batum was a surprise defensive stopper assigned to guard the league's elite.

Our franchise guard -- Roy -- had a season that only Jordan, Kobe, and Carter have equaled in terms of high output, mistake free ball.  He is one of 17 guards in all NBA history to make 2nd team all-NBA in his third season.

Our franchise center -- Oden (ludicrously labeled a bust by many) -- despite his injury and shape issues, had rookie year offensive rebounding percentages that were equal to the rookie years of Rodman and Moses Malone, and better than those of Buck Williams and Barkley (the 4 best O rebounders of the last 35 years).  And his O rebound % was higher than Dwight Howard's last year.

Finally, look at how we played during the stretch run last year.  Over the last 10 games of the regular season, we played incredibly well, and much of this was defensive, not the efficient offense we heard of all year.  These are just the defensive stats:

    * #1 in opponents points allowed (wide margin)

    * #3 in opponents field goal percentage

    * #1 (tie) in opponents 3 point percentage

    * #1 in opponents assists allowed (wide margin)

    * #1 in opponents rebounds allowed (wide margin)

To this, we add Andre Miller, the best free agent point guard (Sportsline), a savvy vet who is one of the better assist men in the league.  He is a long term starter, and played 75% of point guard minutes for Philly last year.  Point guard was a weakness for the Blazers last year, with a positional net PER of -0.2.  Philly had a point guard positional net PER of 3.8 (3rd in league), which is about the same PER advantage the Blazers had at power forward (LaMarcus/Travis).  So this is a very significant upgrade to the team.

Before adding Miller, we had the following positional net PERs:

PG  -0.2, 16th in league
SG  +6.1, 3rd in league
SF  +2.7, 7th in league
PF  +4.0, 2nd in league
C    -0.8, 16th in league

So we covered quite well one of our weak PER areas, bringing in the PG from the team with the 3rd best net PER in the league.  Blake played 55% of PG minutes with a net PER of +1.2, so he outplayed his opposition.  It was our backup PGs that take our rating negative: Sergio (30% of PG minutes at net PER -1.1) and Bayless (11% of PG minutes at net PER of -5.9).  

The other PER "weakness" is center, but we have the #1 rebounding center position in the league, and this advantage is likely to increase as Oden stays on the court more.

The surprise our ranking in net PER from the SF position.  We were ranked 7th last year.  This is misleading, as Roy played 25% of our SF minutes with a net PER of +18.3 (phenomenal!).  Batum played 35% of SF minutes with a net PER of -1.6, and Travis played 37% of the SF minutes with a -3.1 PER.  Of our "true" SF, Batum should improve, and Martell is back, replacing Travis.  Martell's net PER in 07/08 was -2.7, so not much difference in net PER from Travis.

Finally, our subtractions were minimal: mainly Sergio (backup point guard with 31% of point guard minutes last year) and Frye (3rd string power forward with 19% of power forward minutes),

We should be able to field a starting team with mostly strongly positive net PERs (82games):

Miller + 2.9
Roy + 9.4
Batum - 1.6
Aldridge +6.1
Oden +2.8

Our backups would be:
Blake +1.2
Rudy +4.5
Martell -2.7
Travis +3.1
Pryz 0.0

I imagine we will play more Rudy at SG (net PER of 4.5) and have Roy play more SF.  While Roy's net PER at SG exceeds Rudy's by a lot (9.4 vs 4.5), Roy's net PER at SF exceeds anyone we've got by a far cry.  This would give us the following team, which is probably our 4th quarter closing team::

Miller + 2.9
Rudy +4.5
Roy +18.3
Aldridge +6.1
Oden +2.8

Roy's surprising strength at SF deserves some comparisons with the league's best (showing % of team's minutes at that position and net PER)

LeBron as SF: 56%, +20.8

Roy as SF: 25%, +18.3

Wade as SG: 67%, + 17.0

Kobe as SG: 72%, +14.1

Howard as C: 71%, +12.8

Roy SF/SG: 72%, +12.5

Roy as SG: 47%, +9.4

Anthony as SF: 54%, +8.2

Pierce as SF: 72%, + 5.7

This makes the Roy as SF idea all the more intriguing.

Let me now address our competion's "adds."  The Lakers added Artest (net PER 5.3), big upgrade from Ariza (net PER 0.8).  Took an average position and made it strong.  The Spurs added Jefferson (net PER 3.4) big upgrade from Finley (net PER -2.6).  Took a weak position and made it pretty good.  So both of these teams got much stronger at the PF position, now our weakest position.

So we are poised to be an improved team, but our competition improved as well.  We have strong prospects of making a deep playoff run, but it won't be easy.  Go Blazers!

In a long interview published this week by "GIGANTES" (only available in paper, so there´s no link) Rudy talks about many subjects including the Blazers and the Spanish national team. Here you have the quotes about the Blazers:

About Andre Miller: "I think he´s a veteran player who knows very well the NBA and can help us, the young players with short experience in NBA and play offs, a lot, so we can pass some rounds."

About Andre Miller being the kind of point guard who fits very well with Rudy´s game: "That´s something we´ll see when we meet and know each other on the court. What it´s important is that he´s a proved PG who can improve us a lot. Hope he knows his role and helps us to reach our goals for the next year."

About Sergio leaving Portland: "Personally, he was very good for me, because he helped me in every aspect, inside and outside the court. But I look after him and what he was looking for, what he wanted. To have another opportunity, another team, and a coach who could give him the minutes he wants, for playing with that easy we are used to see him. Something McMillan couldn´t do (give more playing time to Sergio). I´m very happy Sergio has a new project."

About his performance in the Olympics, helping him going into the NBA. "Indeed, my performance against USA, dunking on Howard (he didn´t mentioned Howard, but I don´t know how translate: “tener una jugada muy mediatica”), it helped me to get fans´ support in every moment. After that, along the season, my work has been getting better and people have valued it amazingly well."

I am Spanish, and yesterday for curiosity I was looking at hearings of tv in USA. I was surprised when I saw that the finals of the NBA did not have great hearing. About it I want to ask you What is the ranking sport in USA. In Spain is:
1-soccer 70 %
2-bascketball 15 %
3-Tennis, cycling ... rest

Ah, and other question: Did you like the yesterday game? (Spain-Slovenia).

Thanks!! and the next season Blazers champions!!

UPDATE: LaSexta has rectified its mistake and now shows broadcasting will start at 11:30 Portland time.

As it was announced three days ago, Spain plays today against Lithuania. This game starts at 20:30 (Spain time, 11:30 in Portland), with warm-up and commentators´ stuff, the game itself about ten minutes later , and broadcasting will start "somewhen" between 11:30 and 12:00 Portland time. I´d like to work for LaSexta, where it seems nobody has to take care of anything (its site has the game at both times, depending the page you look at).

Link to the Spanish online broadcaster La Sexta. That´s the best quality link when it works. It doesn´t work for me using Mozilla Firefox. It did work using Microsoft Internet Explorer. I didn´t check it out with other programs.

Rojadirecta.com usually provides links too. This links have worked before:  http://es.justin.tv/escarabajopelotero1 

http://www.rojadirecta.com/justin/masdeportes02tv

We´ll be here at 11:30 to look for another link in case these don´t work.

Lithuania roster.   Spain roster.

 If you couldn´t watch Spain versus Slovenia, you can watch the whole game here.