I read a lot about basketball. You read a lot about basketball. We all read a lot about basketball.  So we should all be familiar with the excess metaphors or slang words/phrases that make up a very large part of our ballin' diction.  Granted, I like many of these phrases.  "Hombre" is good.  "Three point land" has a nice whimsical feel to it. "Swish" is a high point in the annals of onomatopoeia. "Called for steps" is just about perfect, and "traveling" itself is great.  But many more of these words/phrases I do not particularly like. Put another way: I @#@%@#%@# hate them.  They are (in no particular order)

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So in the comments to the Top 20 thread, I found that apparently more than couple of BSoS frequenters believe that Chris Paul is not a franchise player.  Also, apparently at least part of this sentiment was based on this Fox article by Charley Rosen.  Since I think Chris Paul is one of the best players in the game, I tracked down the article to find out what exactly were his flaws.  

Unfortunately, all I found out was that apparently Charley Rosen doesn't care anymore and pretty much just says what he wants.  I don't really have any good way to explain other than to go through his claims one by one and talk about how astoundingly wrong or unimportant they are.

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So being that it's the OFFseason, I've been doing some idle basketball speculation.  Most recently, I've been trying to come up with a list of the Top 20 most valuable players (as in current + potential future value) in the NBA.  I've found that it's pretty much ridiculously difficult.  I mean, to me, it seems that there are 11 players that would be on almost everyone's list even if they're not necessarily the top 11.  They are (in no particular order):

1. Kobe
2. Lebron
3. Chris Paul
4. Dwight Howard
5. Kevin Garnett
6. Tim Duncan
7. Kevin Durant
8. Brandon Roy
9. Chris Bosh
10. Dwyane Wade
11. Derrick Rose

After these eleven though, I get pretty lost.  I mean, there's a number of candidates but that's why it's so hard to choose. They're not really that distinct. So I guess my question is if you had to choose the 10 most valuable players excluding the above eleven players, which players would you pick? Warning: it's much harder than picking the top 11.

My list looks like (once again in no particular order):

1. Danny Granger
2. Tony Parker
3. Blake Griffin
4. Manu Ginobili
5. Amare
6. Pau Gasol
7. Andre Iguodala
8. Rajon Rondo
9. Al Horford
10. Gerald Wallace

I know you can certainly disagree with some of those picks or the exclusion of others, and I'm not even sure that I agree with myself.  But it's hard, you know?

Anyone else want to try? It's a great way to kill time and make you look up stats for no reason.

So the Grizzlies didn't extend a qualifying offer to Hakeem Warrick, which means he's likely on the market and probably for cheap.  The Suns still have some exception money laying around.  I'd be all for them pursuing him, I think.

He's not really a great fit, but he does have a solid offensive game and he can dunk impressively.  When motivated he's a decent perimeter defender but he's too little to guard any real post players.  And he doesn't rebound too well. Remarkably, he's like a poor man's Travis Outlaw (and what a poor man that must be).  Alternatively, he's like a Bill Gates's version of Taylor Griffin.   Plus, he'd probably be ton of fun to watch in our revived SSOL offense in which we hope to win by scoring 154 ppg (and giving up 153 ppg). In a sense, he's an ideal Suns player: all offense, very fast, mediocre defense, no rebounding.

So what do you think? I'm all for embracing our true identity because if we're going to go down, I'd like to go down ridiculously.

I love DraftExpress. L-O-V-E it. So I don't want to sound ungrateful, but has anyone else noticed that DE has been completely dead since the draft? There's a brief blog entry on the "suprises" of the draft and then nothing. No detailed draft reviews, nothing on the Orlando Summer League, nothing on Las Vegas Summer League.There's only been a couple of articles about the Lebron skills academy (which were cool).

This strikes me as very strange, since they're normally so militant. I'm kind of going through withdrawal. I was just wondering if anyone knew anything about what's going on over there or at least had also recognized the silence.

And I guess to give this post reasonable length, I'll add an off-topic poll:

So now it looks like Oklahoma City may be furthering its quest to be the most hated team in the league by having a positively awful team name, "Thunder," that my wife so poignantly deemed as "something a guy would call his penis."

To help them then, I've come up with another team name for them that I think will fit the culture of OK and perhaps start a new trend in diversity.

I recommend the name: The Oklahoma City White People.

I figured since it's so popular to name teams after Native Americans, even when they use flagrant slurs like "Redskins," why not extend the fun to white people?

You know, they could have a guy in khaki shorts, loafers, and a pastel polo shirt as their mascot, and who wouldn't pay to see Chris Wilcox in a White People jersey?

I don't have Clay Bennett's e-mail but if any of you come across it, let me know. I'd love to run this idea by  him. And, of course, if any one else has a good idea, I'd love to hear it. We can send one long e-mail to Clay.