There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning. --Louis L'Amour

The end of an era has come and at the end of the Free Agency Summer of 2010 the NBA will look very different than it does today. For the Cavs - coach Brown is as good as gone (deservedly so), Shaq and Ilgauskas are free agents, and of course nobody knows what LeBron will be doing next year. For the rest of the NBA - LeBron, Wade, Bosh, Joe Johnson, Ray Allen, Amare are just a few of the names that are weighing their options and rumored to be on the move this summer. The competitive balance will change unlike any time since Gasol revived the Lakers and the "Big Three" teamed up in Boston.

For me - I am a LeBron fan first so I could care less about "loyalty" to Cleveland. What does that mean anyways? Basketball is his profession...do you and I "owe" it to our hometowns to stay in Cupertino, San Diego, or wherever you hail from.... No.
So I say go wherever you have the best chance to WIN. Whether that is in New York where they have enough cap room to sign to Max players (but terrible recent track record in terms of performance and front office management) or Chicago, where he could join a rising star in Derrick Rose and a solid player, as much as I hate to admit it, in Joakim Noah.

As a LeBron fan, his early exit from the playoffs against the Celtics this series was devastating, but there is a silver lining ("we can build on this!!").  All my fears and unease about the Cavaliers over the past few years surfaced in this series.  It took a resurgent Celtics team that appeared to have filled their Gatorade coolers at the fountain of youth to expose the fact that despite the roster changes this Cavaliers team has not been able to win without LeBron at a 100% every game.

BREAKING UPDATE: Brown out! http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5189101

Just look at the performances in this series of some of the "key players" that were supposed to help LeBron win a championship:

Mo Wiliams (reg. season/playoffs vs. celtics):
fg%: .442/.409
3p%: .429/.211
pts: 15.8/13.3

Antawn Jamison:
fg%: .461/.422
3p%: .344/.188
pts: 18.7/11.8

Anderson Varejao: (not his fault, Mr.Potatohead Brown decided not to give him more than 20min a game)

fg%: .572/.458
reb: 7.6/5.8
pts: 8.6/6.2
min: 28.5/21.5

J.J. Hickson: (another victim of Potatohead despite being one of the most effective players against the Celtics during the season)

fg%: .554/.647
reb: 4.9/1.2
pts: 8.5/4.8
min: 20.9/9.3

anyways, the point is that LeBron doesn't show up for 2 games in a series and you get a "LeBacle". Contrary to popular belief even the best players in the world have "off" games. Look at this list of kobe's high profile "off" games taken from Bill Simmon's article on ESPN.com

THE LIST OF KOBE NO-SHOWS

• Game 6 of the 2003 Spurs series: Lakers eliminated in a 32-point blowout (Kobe scores 20, commits seven turnovers).

• Game 3, Game 4 and Game 5 of the 2004 Finals: Kobe went 4-for-13, 8-for-25 and 7-for-21 as the Pistons finished off L.A.

• Game 7 of the 2006 Suns series: Lakers lose by 32, Kobe mysteriously stops shooting in the second half in a rarely seen Eff You To My Teammates performance.

• Game 4 of the 2008 Finals: Boston rallies back from 25 down to win in L.A. Kobe finishes 6-for-19.

• Game 6 of the 2008 Finals: Boston wins the title with a 39-point blowout, Kobe goes 7-for-22. 

It's bound to happen due to great defence, injuries, whatever...

But when nobody else steps up you are NOT going to win an NBA championship. Teams in the NBA are too good. LeBron may be the best, but he is not better than Pierce and Ray and Garnett and now Rondo. Hell, he's probably not even better than two or three of those players by himself. THAT is the difference. Pierce can not show up for the 4 out of 6 games this series (13ppg, .345 fg%) and the Celtics are still on their way to the ECF.  Kobe can not show up for 4 out of 6 games against the Thunder in the first round (23.5ppg .408 fg% 4rpg 4apg) and still the Lakers win in six.

LeBron goes for 26.8ppg 9.3rpg 7.2apg 2.17steals and 1.3 blocks .447 fg% and the Cavs get convincingly beat in six games...

It doesn't seem fair, but that's how it works out sometimes.

LeBron has definitely been prematurely crowned "king" of the NBA. I completely agree that he needs that ring to legitimize his career.

He's still young at 25 though, and just as quickly as people were to crown him, they are just as quick to dismiss him as a fraud after he fell short this week.

All the cliches about it being "darkest before the storm"...."every end is a new beginning"..."When one door closes another door opens"... they all apply here and I still believe LeBron is the best in the NBA. What jersey he is wearing come November reamins to be seen, and he may or may not be on the cover of SI or maintains his season pass to a place on ESPN's top play's of the night, but I am sure that we haven't seen the Last of LeBron....just the beginning.

no contest. argument is and has been dead...

First of all CLUTCH STATS: 

According to www.82games.com, from 2003-04 through February 2008-09 (the most recent data available), including the playoffs, James hit 17 of 50 shots (34 percent) and assisted on six others with 24 seconds or less to play, and his club tied or down by as many as two.

Bryant was 14 for 56 (25 percent) with one dime. The league average was 29.8 percent.

"Experts" in the media are wising up:

"Know this: The Kobe-LeBron argument is dead. It's over. LeBron James is the best basketball player alive."

-Bill Simmons ESPN.com writer/analyst

Simmons joins a chorus of Charles Barkley, Jerry West, Scott Van Pelt and Reggie Miller -- who last season insisted the Lakers with LBJ instead of Bryant would have won "75 to 80 games" -- to name a few. Scottie Pippen was on the wagon as early as four years ago."

pictures coming!

shasha likes to take pictures. i will post some soon. they will be for sale for big money money

map to my house

http://destinationmaps.cloudapp.net/page?49b9a22c-af9a-4e17-9921-4abbf2e8bd15&Party+Time

Bing.com releases new Bing Maps features!

Bing.com, Microsoft's recently rebranded search engine, has added some great new features to their maps site.

Click HERE to head over and check it out. Click on the try out the new BETA button on the left side. It will prompt you to install Silverlight, which is similar to Adobe's flash.

Onto the new features that I will briefly cover here

1. StreetSide
2. Photosynth
3. Map Apps

First, StreetSide, which is Microsoft's new equivalent of Google's Street View.  Not many people know, but Microsoft actually was earlier to the Street View implementation that Google was. In early 2006 a public beta of Street Side was live on Microsoft's site.

So onto the new StreetSide, one major feature that differentiates itself from Street View are the smooth transitions as you "walk" down a street.  You don't skip/jump from view to view as you do when moving around on Street View, instead you slide down a street. This seamless transition is really cool to see.

One current drawback is that StreetSide currently does not cover many areas in most cities. I wasn't able to find my apartment, or even Qualcomm Stadium. <-- Home of the San Diego Chargers!!


Next is Photosynth.  This application/site is something that has been available from Microsoft for a while, but finally it has a venue where people will find it more useful.

Photosynth takes multiple pictures of a single object/location and mashes them together or, "synths" them, to get a 3-D view that can be turned around and view from several angles, depending on how many pictures are used.

This feature is now being integrated into Bing maps by having several major landmarks that have been 'Synthed" together.  These landmarks are specially marked on the map.  Something really cool is that hopefully in the future users will be able to submit their own synthed pictures of locations and landmarks through the website for other people to view.

The last feature is the Bing map apps.  These are basically layers that can be added onto your map view to show you anything from nearby attractions and businesses to traffic data and video.

Those are the main new features that were released today. Pretty exciting stuff. Hopefully they continue to release more as they try to build up their search marketshare which is currently sitting at around 10% vs. Google's 70%.

Go check it out!

excerpt KOBE vs. LEBRON

True and easily number one in most missed as well. This whole debate started with the "Are Lebron and Wade more clutch than Kobe?" thread. When comparing those three players all you can consider is the last 6 years. Those are the years that all three players have been in the league.

In the last five years, Lebron is number one, Kobe is number two, and Wade is number three in game winning/game tying shots. Lebron has made the most shots (17) , shoots the highest percentage of the three (34%), and has made more game winning assists (6) than the other two put together (3 from Wade and ONE from Kobe).

It is important to note that prior to 6 years ago, Kobe was an assassin in those situations. He still jacked up a lot of shots, but broke a whole lot of teams hearts with game winning shots at the buzzer in the process. Unfortunately, he has gone cold as of late shooting just 25% from the field.

You may not think numbers matter but I think we all agree that LOSSES matter. Kobe is 14 for 56 in those situations in the last five years. Thats 42 losses. That's a big deal.

-from NBA.com

Quotes from Late Night Comedy

"In a recent interview with People magazine, Kathy Hilton said that her daughter Paris Hilton may have gotten a rash from the sheets in her cell. Today the sheets issued a statement saying, no, they got the rash from Paris Hilton."
-Jay Leno

"It was a very big night for the very big-headed Barry Bonds. He has the all-time record for career home runs. There was big skirmish in the bleachers for the ball. Collectors say it’s worth somewhere between $300,000 and $500,000, which is actually a lot less than some other baseballs. Some baseballs have actually fetched millions of dollars so I guess taking steroids really does shrink the value of your balls."
-Jimmy Kimmel

"President Bush signed a law on Sunday that broadly expands the government’s authority to eavesdrop on our telephone calls and e-mails without a warrant. So our phone calls are being watched, our e-mails are being watched. The only thing not being watched? NBC. Why can’t we get some of that action?"
-Jay Leno

"Earlier this year, there was a strange story about Keith Richards. He claims he once snored a mixture of cocaine and his dead father’s ashes. That was the story, but he denied it. Now, though, he’s saying he did snort his dad; he did not mix him with some cocaine. He only snorted his dad. Stars. They’re just like us."
-Jimmy Kimmel

"According to Glamour magazine, 83 percent of women tell their friends secrets to their husbands. So women, if you tell your girlfriend something, 83 percent chance she will tell her husband. But the good news? One hundred percent of the men aren’t listening anyway."
-Jay Leno