Buy: He acts like he never made a mistake once during his career.

Buy or Sell: Shaq was worth the $100 million the Heat signed him to today.

Sell - Not at this stage in his career

BUY or SELL - Miami will win a title in the next 5 years with Shaq (remember, they would still have to get past Indiana, Houston, Detroit, San Antonio)

Sell - First off, Shaq isn't going to play another five years. They would have to win it all in the next two years. It could happen, but I think Detroit, San Antonio, Phoenix all have better shots than Miami.


One more point about Pippen. If, as Buffer and the columnist claim, that Pippen played exactly (Buffer's words, not mine) the same with and without Jordan, then one question: Where are Scottie's rings without Jordan? I don't like or dislike the guy. All I said was that he was very overrated. Put it another way - Pippen wasn't the player you build a franchise around. Coaches didn't draw up plays to stop Pippen. Jordan being double teamed left Pippen wide open quite often.

BUY or SELL - LeBron will average a triple double next year.

Sell - It's too hard to do it in today's game I think

BUY or SELL - Carmelo Anthony will win a title

Buy: He's still young and has so many years left in the league, chances are he'll win a title eventually. He just might not lead his team to a title, but he'll probably play on a championship team.

I respect your opinion goombah. That's the argument I always hear people bring up about Scottie, but the thing people must seem to forget is that Scottie won just as many titles without Michael as Michael won without Scottie. So to say he was a failure because he couldn't win a title on his own is a very weak argument in my eyes. I think most people would agree that Stockton and Malone were very worthy selections as top 50 all-time NBA players and they couldn't even win a title together . That top 50 list is littered with guys who never won a title(Ewing, Drexler, Barkley) or won one as the second banana(Worthy, Parish). That doesn't mean they weren't great players. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Buy or Sell: Antoine Walker will be worth the headache for the Heat.

Sell - I'm not sold on the idea

BTW, Drexler unfortunatley did win a title with Houston when they repeated

BUY or SELL - George Micken was the greatest center to ever play the game?

Sell: It is impossible to compare players from that era to ones from today because of the rise of atletic training as a science. George will just have to settle for being the best player of his era. It is quite an accomplishment in itself.

Ya, that's right about Drexler. You'll just have to throw him into the second banana category of my post then. Thanks for the correction Irishman.

Buy or Sell: By the end of the decade the Spurs will be regarded as one of the greatest dynasties in NBA history.

Sell - One reason, it's too early to tell, but it may happen. I think part of what makes a team a "dynasty" is winning 3 of the past 4 seasons or 2 of 3 like the Patriots did and the Cowboys of the 90's did. If the Spurs win again this year, they belong right up there with some of the best teams of all-time. I guess part of my hesistation is that there was the 4 year gap the between the '99 and '03 titles.

Buffer - good point about the so-called "second bananas." I hadn't considered Worthy & Parish in that category. I think those Laker teams would have still been pretty great without Worthy considering they had Magic & Kareem.

BUY or SELL - The best rivalry in the NBA during the 80's was Lakers v. Celtics.

Buy: Without a doubt. In fact, I think a solid case could be made as the greatest rivalry period in any sport. I don't think anyone could ever agree on something as subective as that, but it would at least have to be considered among the greats of all-time.

Buy or Sell: Neither Vancouver nor Toronto has an NBA franchise by 2010.

Sell - I think the NBA will hang onto Toronto because they'll wanna keep expanding further. Plus, Vancover doesn't have a team anymore as the team moved to Memphis

BUY or SELL - The Bulls vs Knicks was the greatest rivalry of the 1990s for basketball?

Buy: It wasn't really that huge, but there weren't a whole lot of great rivalries in the 90s.

I know the Griz are in Memphis, I just wanted to make a point how basketball in hockey country was destined to fail.

Buy or Sell: The Clippers win a title in the next 25 years.

Buy - Can they really suck for that long? I mean, just look at the Red Cocks

BUY or SELL - Pistol Pete Maravich is the greatest player in NBA history never to have won a title?

Nobody playing this anymore?

BUY - What are the other alternatives? Charles Barkley?

BUY OR SELL - The Atlanta Hawks are a bigger joke in the NBA than the L.A. Clippers.

Karl Malone

Buy - Currently yes, historically no. Since you didn't specify I bought it

BUY or SELL - Magic Johnson could still play ball today and help Kobe win a title?

SELL: c'mon, the man is not a machine!

BUY or SELL: MJ could.

SELL - Ya how many times did MJ take the Wizards to the playoffs? Exactly!

BUY OR SELL - the Miami Heat will go to the NBA Finals.

Buy - On paper talent wise they should but that still doesn't mean they'll win it (see 2003 Lakers)

BUY or SELL - Larry Brown takes the Knicks to the Easter Conference Finals before his contract expires

SELL: c'mon, the man is not a machine! (#2)

BUY or SELL: the Suns' orange-PHX uniform is the ugliest in the game.

Buy. I haven't seen them, so I'll take your word for it.

Buy or Sell: After making off-season deals with both Shareef Abdul Rahim and Tractor Traylor and having them both fail their physicals, the Nets should get a new team - of doctors.

Sell - Better to know now than later when you sign them for all those millions of dollars and they only play 25 out of the 82 games. Then the fans will cry to management asking why they signed them

BUY or SELL - Miami beats San Antonio this year for the championship

Sell - Miami will not make it to the Finals from the East. Indiana will.

BUY or SELL - With their offseason acquisitions, the Cavs will finish no lower than a #4 seed in the East and win 1 playoff round.

Sell - They should definitely make the playoffs but they should have this past year and collapsed

BUY or SELL - Detroit will come out of the East again this year?

Sell.



Buy or Sell: Last year's Finals were boring?

Sell - I can appreciate the argument partly, since the series didn't really take off until Game 5. But, come on, a 7 game series is tough to call boring. There have been better, no question.

BUY or SELL - Isiah Thomas will not be with the Knicks by the end of the 2005-06 season.

Sell - A lot of people are giving Isiah a black eye but remember the shape the Knicks were in when he got that job. He's bringing people in (Marbury, Larry Brown) to help win a championship

BUY or SELL - Unfortunately Jason Kidd will retire without a championship

BUY - He will not get one, but I don't agree with the "unfortunately" part.

BUY or SELL - Ron Artest's presence will be enough to propel Indiana to finish in the top 2 of the Eastern Conference.

Buy - Them and Detroit

BUY or SELL - San Antonio will repeat with the acqusitions of Nick Van Exel and Michael Finley

Thanks for reminding me about this one, Goombah.

Good time to revive it, now that the season is fully underway.

BUY or SELL - San Antonio will repeat with the acqusitions of Nick Van Exel and Michael Finley.

I'll go with a tentative "buy" on this one. So far it looks like the Spurs and the Pistons are the best teams again, but there's still a long way to go.

Buy or Sell:

The L.A. Clippers are for real