Conference Finals Results

[StartOrien]

x

[Donoghus]

Hey, you're the one who made what seemed like an insinuation. 

We were just responding, nothing personal.

[Fafnir]

If you have questions about my thoughts on this issue it's best to PM me about it. It doesn't make sense to drag any kinda this out, and I've thought this draft has gone exceptionally well. I don't want to drag/soil out what IMO has been a great time.

You brought it up in public.

If you want to discuss it with me personally feel free to PM away. I'm perfectly comfortable about talking about it here since you were.

[Roy H.]

If you have questions about my thoughts on this issue it's best to PM me about it. It doesn't make sense to drag any kinda this out, and I've thought this draft has gone exceptionally well. I don't want to drag/soil out what IMO has been a great time.

I wish you'd followed your own advice.  The ugly allegations have kind of poisoned this experience for me.  It's very insulting to the team I was able to put together (and to me personally) to have it be said that the only reason I got the six votes that I did -- the six losing votes, I might add -- was because of insider's bias.

[StartOrien]

It was a mistake to bring up, I don't want to continue on it in a public forum.

[KCattheStripe]

Just remember, when the slings and arrows come at you on a public forum:

[dark_lord]

Just remember, when the slings and arrows come at you on a public forum:

im so glad my son is finished with his phase of the wonder pets! 

[StartOrien]

 I'll apologize in advance for the run on sentances, it's very stream of conscious as I didn't mean to offend / for this to blow up and am sincerely sorry.  Had I known there were allegations similar to this last year I absolutely wouldn't have brought it up. I remember last year getting a little nasty, but didn't recall those theories.

At the end of the day, I think its an unavoidable unintentional bias. Roy's status on Celticsblog is deservedly legendary for his insanely vast basketball knowledge, so much so that I purposely tried to limit the back and forth between him and I b/c I know it'd be a beat down.

So I think the votes are almost certainly him getting the well-deserved benefit of the doubt. And obviously if anyone's going to give him the benefit of the doubt its his closest allies on the site who more times than not agree with his take on basketball.


For those who were curious, here is why I brought it up:

I was relatively surprised to see my matchup as close as it was. Not because I thought we weren't close, I've acknolwedged many times that I thought we were, but because of the limited questions that my matchup recieved. Because of this, I thought most people wouldn't have switched their opinions to vote a 3 seed over a 1.

I took a look at the ballots and saw that all but 1 vote against my team was made by mods, all of which also unanimously vote for Chicago (a team I also voted for b/c I thought they were superior to Milwakee). I then took a look at the regular season balloting, where almost all of the teams that voted against me had me ranked higher than you in the regular season. Of those ballots, only Faf was openly critical of my team/decision making.

Roy rightfully then pointed out that its a tough place to be, as sometimes it can appear that a Mod is favoring/campaigning for one team to win over another, and obviously all of our Mods have a good deal of influence on this site. This is somethign I had never considered.

Like I said, its probably a case of like-minded individuals agreeing upon something and I wish I didn't bring it up, but again, I was tired looking at it quickly and spit off the first thing I thought/saw w/o thoughts to consequences.

All of you guys do a ton of work on this site, especially in this draft, and I'm very appreciative of the work you've done. I'm sorry.

[indeedproceed]

Start Orien I appreciate the post. Speaks well for your character.

I voted for Roy because he sold me on his team. The high points: Dwight Howard isn't a prolific scorer, Sac had 2 prolific scorers in the post, and Howard could only guard one, Derrick Rose was better a lot better than Baron Davis.

That said, it was a very close matchup that I originally favored Phoenix in. Regrettably, I just didn't have the time to get my head into it like I would've wanted to; I'd been fending off the wave after wave of arguments and counters from Rondo, who until I saw the votes I was about 50% sure I was going to lose to.

Roy is hands down the best advocate for a team in this thing out of any of the current GM's. He's smart, he'll out-post you both in volume and word count, and he's got a way of finding stuff you didn't even know was out there on your guys.

Does that mean sometimes people (myself included) might 'buy in' on a team that isn't as good as advertised? Sure. Does that mean his Sacramento team was overrated? I don't think so, but I know some people might.

In any case, I've voted against Roy in the Utah Matchup, and I voted against Start Orien in the Denver matchup. Neither team was the team I expected to see in the Finals, and I was wrong about both.

[StartOrien]

Ya, like I said, I thought it was a really close matchup but I reacted the way I did b/c I thought things went really well for me in the thread, and didn't see much justification for the votes. So I just said the first thing I thought, and didn't really think things out clearly.

Hopefully this'll all blow-over and I can get back to telling everybody how they're a bunch of haters and they don't know what they're talking about when they say Terrence Williams is the second-coming (of Latrelle Sprewell)

[barefacedmonk]

Roy is hands down the best advocate for a team in this thing out of any of the current GM's. He's smart, he'll out-post you both in volume and word count, and he's got a way of finding stuff you didn't even know was out there on your guys.

I agree.

[Redz]

Just remember, when the slings and arrows come at you on a public forum:

im so glad my son is finished with his phase of the wonder pets! 

I kinda liked the Wonder Pets...now Boo Bah on the other hand 

[Lucky17]

Hey, guys. Sorry for abstaining from the last round of voting.

I had a busy day at work yesterday, so I couldn't put in enough time to think about either matchup. The Chicago-Milwaukee series had two teams that I had voted out for the previous round, so I was somewhat less motivated to call a winner in that one.

[StartOrien]

"Hey Gloria, wanna party?"

-Rudy Fernandez

[wdleehi]

I voted Lebron because I said I would until someone proved they had the team defense that could stop it.  I was disappointed that the arguments were being made towards Chicago's strengths.  If the conversation was steered more towards what Dirk could do to help the team win, there was a chance I could have swapped votes. 



I voted Sac because the strategy of Phoenix.  Playing a SF at PF against a prime low post scorer sold me not to vote for them.  Sac gave us a clear strategy on how they were going to defend Howard (i.e. making it hard for the passer on the pick and roll)


At this point, the teams are all strong.  It comes down to argument. 


This is a new series.  Comes down to this for my vote, prove that Lebron can or can not be beaten in this round.  It should be easier with Howard (who has beaten him heads up)