Letters to the Editor
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It Seems an Odd Year to Make this Gamble
The Western Conference has ten good teams, so there won't be anything like a walkover in the playoffs for the Suns no matter what their seed (not that anyone should be considered a walkover after the Mavs ran into the Warriors last year). And the top three teams in the East are all far better than the Cavs were last year.
I would have thought the time to take a gamble like this would be when there was an opportunity to take advantage of a weak conference, or when a conference was topheavy and the gamble was to get over a specific obstacle. The Pistons won championships with both strategies, getting Rasheed to put them over the top in a weak conference, and gettin Mark Aguirre to finally overtake the Celtics in the late 90's.
But when the conference is this strong, I don't see completely changing your system mid-season. You have no idea whom you're going to play in the first or any other round, so you don't know if Shaq's remaining qualities, even if they do mesh with the rest of the team, will be what you were looking for.
So count me among the quizzical.
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My Case...
...for a playoff-void NCAA football season has just been made.
When a NBA team or teams (in this case, the Suns and the Lakers) can make a big move mid-way through the season and become contenders by setting up for the playoffs...well, the regular season is pretty pointless, championship-wise, isn't it? You either make the playoffs, or salivate at the opportunity to draft high the next year.
Obviously, the NBA is basketball, and it's professional, so any analogy is suspect. I know that. But I stand back at moments like this and marvel at what the NCAA football season has to offer us. And that's gut wrenching games from the first weekend in September.
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Suns Record
The Suns haven't been happy with their season so far but they still have the best record in the league.
The Suns have the best record in the West, not the league. The Celtics and Pistons both have them beat.
Agree with everything else, though (about Marion, not the no-foul shots)...
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Improving NCAA basketball
King, I like your ideas. However, until something like that happens, the number one way I think college hoops could be improved for the home viewers would be to muzzle Vitale. His content-free, repetitive screeching shreds my ears and blood pressure the same way it apparently does his vocal chords. And the agony only increases at garbage time, when we get to hear about what he ate for dinner and his conversations with various coaches and other supposed luminaries.
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The Suns
Need to swap Nash for what they can get. He's John Stockton The Second.
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Here's how you do it
At the final two minutes the shot clock is 15 seconds. If the leading team is fouled, it has the option of taking the free throws or having 15 seconds taken off the clock and getting the ball back at midcourt. If the trailing team is fouled, it has the option of taking the free throws or having 15 seconds added to the clock and getting the ball back at midcourt.
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Maybe I missed it
But if there are no foul shots, what keeps a coach from putting in a scrub whos job it is to run out onto the court and horsecollar-tackle whomever has the ball on the other team?
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The NBA? Ha, ha! It's a joke!
If the NBA had any relevance to anything at all, the news of Shaq moving from Miami to Phoenix would be BIG NEWS.
But the NBA is a meaningless exercise in which oversized, overly-skilled behemoths execute a nightly elephantine ballet that is little more than an exercise in meaningless perfection.
The NBA isn't a sport any more; it isn't even a game. It's a show; it's a product. It's like the Ice Capades; the performers are extremely skilled, but who cares?
The NBA had vitality during the '60s, '70s and '80s, when the Boston Celtics staged their titanic duels with the 76ers and the Lakers, and Larry Bird and Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan were in their prime.
But these days, the NBA is a dead man walking. Who cares? Shaquille O'Neal is just another rich soldier of fortune, stuffing the ball through the hoop with mind-numbing regularity.
When does the NCAA tournament start?
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Hard to argue with this one
Count me among the puzzled.
And the uncaring.
I think the solution to garbage time is always to be found on another channel or in early nap time.
March Madness is nearly here.
Man, this winter is long!
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Boring foul shots
A good start would be getting rid of the double bonus at the 10th team foul. Guys get 2 foul shots at the 10th, instead of one and one, which they get at the 7th team foul in each half. The double bonus was added as a measure to keep teams from fouling at the end of the game, but we can see how well that worked out. Bring back the one and one. Make teams really make their free throws. If a guy misses the front end, then the ball is in play and we don't have to sit through a second foul shot. Also, there would be a better chance that the losing team would get back into the game, thus eliminating the need for further fouls.
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Basketball rule changes
I don't like the idea of having different rules for the final 2 minutes - it seems arbitrary & forced. And free throws do serve a purpose overall.
A more elegant solution: allow teams to "decline the penalty." In football, a team can decline a penalty if they believe the result of the play is better than the penalty. In basketball, allow the recipients of a foul (at any point in the game) that results in free throws because the fouling team is over-the-limit to decline the free throws and elect to inbound the ball - if it's a shooting foul, the free throws will happen as normal. But this would discourage the pointless fouls that slow down the game, and inbounding the ball can be quite exciting in a tight basketball game.