Bibby's World/Team Dreamin' 2011: Atlanta Hawks

At No Regard, we love basketball. We love the spectacle and strategy of the game, but sometimes the league's lack of imagination confounds and disappoints us. Call us optimists, visionaries, or kids who watched too much Space Jam, but we have ideas. Damn are we gonna share 'em. In this particular instance... Mike Bibby will be sharing his ideas for making the Atlanta Hawks the perfect team going into the 2011 season.

Alright, let's talk. Atlanta Hawks 2011. Eastern Conference Champions. Finals Champions. Rings all around.

You've got the questions; I've got the answers.

How are we going to pull it off? With one simple motto:

MVPreseason

So I think we're all pretty confident that Kevin Durant is indeed going to be the indisputable number one fantasy player this year. But now we're talking a whole different ballgame!

So let's put this new conversation up for discussion: Should KD also be the consensus preseason pick for MVP? Or do you think that most of these GMs are just spitting back the sour grapes LeBron stuffed down their throats this summer?

Personally, I think the GMs are right. LeBron simply won't be as "valuable" to the Heat as he ever was to Cleveland. Miami would be a very, very good team with D-Wade (provided he's healthy), Bosh, and the rest of the supporting cast they've assembled. And while LeBron certainly takes the team to another level, they would be in decent shape without him.

Think about the Thunder without Durant. As much as I love Westbrook, Jeff Green and James Harden, a KD-less OKC isn't winning more than 25 games. In the coming years, he will lead the Thunder into the elite tier of title contenders, and this season stands to serve as the moment when that process really picks up steam.

This blog is certainly no stranger to drinking the Kevin Durant juice (get your mind out of the gutter), and while I don't want to stoke the flames of unrealistic expectations, this outpouring of GM love doesn't hurt the idea that in 2010-2011, we're all going to Witness a change in the MVP landscape.

Hurt Me Soul, For Real

I was serious when I said I worried that Carlos Boozer's injury could be related to a domestic dispute. I am more serious when I tell you that this post on TrueHoop about athletes and domestic violence is a must-read. Reader Mike Stephenson gets straight to the point: athletes, no matter how wealthy or famous, must be treated like normal people when it comes to this issue. That means that they must be held accountable, but that we must also look at the issues behind their horrible actions and have an open discussion about how to stop these kinds of things from happening. This is bigger than the game, and it is essential that when confronted with articles about athletes as aggressors or victims of domestic abuse, we remember that it is real life. Very real life.

Hurt Me Soul: The Truth Behind NBA Injuries

When I heard about Carlos Boozer's hand injury yesterday, I went through the same reaction process that I assume many of you did. Initially, I thought about how tragic it was for those unfortunate enough to have picked him in early fantasy drafts. Next, I wondered if he had actually been beaten up by his partner. Finally, once I realized that tripping over a bag is too goofy to be a cover-up and came to terms with the fact that fantasy implications are, I guess, less important than real-life implications, my thoughts turned to how embarrassing this must be for Boozer! All the cool kids are out there tearing their ACLs or getting hard-won groin injuries, and here was Carlos, just lumbering around like a giant and falling over grounded objects that are too far away for him to see. Sad! He must feel like a real klutz, ya know?

Wall's 360 Layup

This doesn't suck to watch.



via Skeets

Top 5 Player Tweets of the Week - In Pictures!

From Skillanueva's half-time tweets to Gil's fateful outburst, we're keeping tabs on this whole Twitter thing.  Each week we wade through the rants, shout outs and sheer insanity to bring you the best micro-blogging the NBA has to offer.

5. "No 1 lives forever, no 1. But w/ advances in modern science & my high level income, it's not crazy 2 think I cn live 2 B 245, mayB 300."

- Rudy Gay

4. "Tlc-no scrubs"

- John Wall

Highlights from the email thread in which we decided not to dedicate a post to the LeBron James race comments

Yesterday morning, when the LeBron James race comments were catching fire across the web, we had a rather lengthy email thread about the topic. Ultimately, we decided that the whole controversy wouldn't quite pass the David Letterman "Is this anything?" test, no matter what Paul Shaffer would think. That said, we had a pretty interesting conversation about it, and we wanted to share some of the things that came out of the dialogue:

Kerb Your Enthusiasm

Congratulations to Trey Kerby on his new gig. I'm not exactly sure what this means for Ball Don't Lie, but Kelly Dwyer is certainly competent enough to hold shit down for now. We here at No Regard are trying to figure out a way to go all Thunder Team Dreamin' and apply for the job as one sixty foot tall supereditor.

As for The Basketball Jones, an already great blog just got even funnier and scarily deep. I'm looking forward to watching that gluttony of talent in action.