So Russia pretty much safely cruised to a semifinal berth earlier today (AK47 ruled yet again). Shved had a poor game but what I liked about him was that he looked legit as the main ball handler for the team and wasn't afraid of taking shots (altough he bricked most).

Spain - France is ending as I type this, France led most of the game but got beaten in the 4th.

Batum just went COMPLETELY CRAZY, hitting JC Navarro with a fist to the groin (23 seconds left, 6 points down, a foul was needed). This guy has a temper... after he hit Navarro, Calderon jumped towards him (but without any physical altercation) and while the ref was dragging Batum away from the angry Gasol brothers, Nic tried to pull Calderon towards himself (to hit him too? lol I dont know).

I watched most of the games (well, besides power matchups like Nigeria-Tunisia) because I'm euro and could see most of them in the afternoon ... and I'm really happy we ended up with Kirilenko instead of Batum. Nic was unimpressive, not a game changer and he went out like a complete nutcase, acting as a Ron Arest wannabe. I understand you're frustrated you're about to lose the quarterfinals but... uhh, not classy at all.

AK47 on the other hand is at his best basketball. Granted, he always scored more playing for Russia than in the NBA, but he does it all. Scores, rebounds, defends, is a leader. Shved looks very good too. He can shoot (not today though), pass, defend pretty well and has this swagger which screams "give me the ball" all the time he's on the court.

Shved is a very delicate personality from what I've seen. You have to handle him the right way to get the most of his talents. Today was actually one of my favorite performances even though he shot horribly. I thought he was actually pretty good defensively and made some very nice passes

Good stuff czaras, thanks much for sharing it! I enjoyed the recap.

Wow, Batum... really?

Fail: www.twitpic.com/ah00y2

czaras wrote:
First off, HOWL to you for finally getting this thread rolling.

Secondly, I agree with you. Not how I envisioned it, but now that everything is said and done, I am glad we got AK over Batum too. AK has been WAY better in the Olympics. He has been very impressive, while Batum has done what he has done most of his NBA career, and that is blend in and not make a huge impact. AK will also give us more of a steady, veteran presence (I think, at least). KAHN really lucked out on this one, but the Wolves are better because of it.

Holy moley the USA dudes looking studly out there right now against Australia. (Sorry AusWolf and TWolf in Sydney! )

K-Lav having himself a very nice game too!

I think we might have dodged a bullet on Batum at that price. He's never going to be an assertive player, except when he's punching dudes in the junk. Right now he's basically just a pretty good version of Less Johnson, although he does have the potential to be really good. I'll rather take AK47 for 1-2 years and then fill the position long term after that.

Our boy Kevin Love is just a MONSTER on the glass, but you guys knew that already. 8 Offensive Rebounds??? That was more than the entire team of Australia combined

Love really picked it up in the Olympics. He had horrible exhibition games but you could blame that on Mike K going small for far too long in some of them. When Duke K actually realised you need to utilise a big man in the offensive game Love started crushing opponents because Tyson Chandler hates offense and Anthony Davis has an unibrow. Only K-Love can throw some points on the board around the basket.

Seeing how the teams looked up to now Russia/Spain is anybody's guess (Russia won in the group stage) while USA Love should have another monster game against Argentina... mainly because they play Scola at C and Nocioni at PF (hahaha).

I'm also suprosed by Timofey Mozgov. Nuggets really struck gold on this dude (throw-in to the Carmelo trade). He is a really mobile big-man, who just goes straight for the power dunk. Now I'm not joking; he's a more assertive Pekovic on offense, at least on the national team.

czaras wrote:
No, he's not. Pekovic has extremely good hands and foot work. Mozgov is good, knows where to go, and aggressive, but he is not nearly as good as Pekovic.

College Wolf wrote:
I was trying to post this. That is a bitch move.

wolfenstein wrote:
P.S. Enjoy your $12M/yr sacktapper, Portland. Suck it.

wolfenstein wrote: Hahahaha. I like (liked???) Batum and all... but yeah, suck it Portland. Hell, even I'll take 1 year of AK over Batum for $50 million.

AK is going to be better than Batum this year, and probably next as well. Thus paying $20M for 2 years of AK is better than paying $23M for 2 years of Batum in order to get the privilege to pay Batum $23M more for 2 more years when he *might* be as good as AK is now.

The AK deal is better in every conceivable way (Shved!). I am pretty certain the guy who couldn't win so he punched JC Navarro in the junk is not going to come back to haunt anyone but the team that overpaid for him.

In summary, suck it Portland.