First of all, congrats. on the great performance of the Mavs. Yes, it’s still early in the season, but watching the game against the Heat, I’m sold on the concept of “building your team around Dirk”. What a great player he is.

Although I am not exactly a Mavs. fan (I don’t have any fav. team), I like players with solid old school ball fundamentals like Peja, Dirk, Gasol, Duncan, Kidd (unfortunately most are foreign players). With that said, not intending to suck up, I think you’re doing a great job with the Mavs. (last time I saw a Mav game live, the three Js were still there).

I’m a fan of the sport and the league in general, this comment of mine might not be totally related to your lead post but what the heck.

“To just let them play” is a ridiculous notion. I’m not trying to be an elitist but that sounds like an invitation to “play dirty” to me, and people like you gotta protect your (most valuable) investments, i.e.: the Dirks or the Kobes of the league.

A ‘funny’ take by Larry Brown on this article about extra points for layups ….. not seriously taking it, but found it funny nevertheless.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=stein_marc&id=1915464

My humble takes on our national team (post Athens):
http://hedonistix.blogs.com/main/2004/08/us_men_basketba.html

And finally, any big moves planned for the Mavs. before mid-season? (any slight truth on the Kidd rumors?)
)
–H

2 final thoughts:

1) Since Stern fined you for the negative comments, will he give you some cash for praising the league?

2) That was a “comming of age” dunk by Harris in the Nets game….better than that pre-season dunk I commented about earlier.

Go Defense! Go Mavs.

It’s about time the league made these changes. In my opinion, when they “let them play” the game becomes slow and very ugly, to paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield:

I went to a wrestling match and a basketball game broke out.

Let’s hope this lasts through the season and into the playoffs.

At the same time, I think they should also call it on the offensive if the same thing occurs. There are some cheap tricks the offense uses to gain an advantage too..

For example, one move is to do a cross-over, and then using your free hand..swap away at the defender’s hands while driving past (all done in a swift motion so that it doesn’t look unnatural). (in boxing terms, it’s like doing a right hook, and then as you pull the right hand back, u use ur right hand to pull the other boxer’s left hand away to create an opening for your left hand punch… same move in bball)

basketball is fun to play and fun to watch, but it gets really frustrating when people start doing cheap tricks.. i hope these new rules do help the play go more smoothly.

I would love the NBA if it was only a 32 game season. You would actually see every athlete play balls out.

First off what are the percentages of a succesful breakaway scoring chance? I have gone over game logs and it is somewhere in the range of 95-97% depending on the definition of breakaway.

.95 x 2 = 1.8 equity

Now take the average FT % and combine that with a teams average scoring efficiency. When you do that it becomes clear that this isn’t a benefit by any stretch.

What they should do to open up the game and create some more exciting basketball is ammend the rules to 2 free throws and possession. If you can’t get back and defend the breakaway, and inisist on fouling, good luck.