Tweeting

[rodfromcranston]

I think Howard is a typical steroid case, with the NBA looking the other way.
I have a friend who is a professional trainer-body builder.
He says Howard's ankles and wrists are a giveaway that he's unnaturally large, because his ankles and wrists are very thin.
Howard relies on his size alone, too do anything. He's very raw offensively.
Look at a tape of Hakeem Olajuon. So many low post moves. So smooth and versatile.
Then watch Howard. Dunks or nothing, for the most part.
I'll give you that he's hurt, but for a guy with his size and strength, he only averages 12.9 rebounds a game
for his career.
I think his stay in LA has really hurt his future value.

[sf2010]

Agree with your post Rod, especially the bits about LA hurting his value (seems even MORE whiny and immature than before) and his offensive ability.

I think your point about "only 12.9 RPG" is a little misleading though, as he is by a wide margin the NBAs active leader in that category. In previous eras there were far more rebounds up for grabs and far less players with the athleticism to dominate the glass. In his time in the NBA, Howard has been if not the best rebounder around, then certainly in the top two or three.

[rodfromcranston]

Kevin Love is .6 away, and he'll likely catch up and pass Howard at some point in the future.
His first two years took away from his career totals, but today, nobody has better technique.

[SGreenwell]

Howard is clearly diminished, it's just a question of whether he'll recover to his previous level with rest, or if this is his level (and worse) going forward. Simmons and Zach Lowe had a pretty good exchange about it on Grantland, but those back injuries are scary - Larry Johnson went from being a real athletic player to being a guy who had to completely change his game by the time he was 30. Howard always seemed like more athlete than basketball player, so I imagine a transition would be especially tough for him, nevermind that it sometimes seems like he doesn't care 100 percent about dominating the league. (Like, he doesn't have the mindset of Kobe or Lebron, for example.)

[Rhody Guy]

SG, thats an interesting statement because I don't think that Lebron has the mindset of Kobe.

[rodfromcranston]

Agree, RG.
Only MJ had a similar mindset as Kobe does, among today's players.
Like him or not, he's a very serious, very competitive player,
who puts his heart and mind into his game.
He has a strong will to win, and you can see how much it bothers him
when he doesn't.

[SlyWilliamsCaddy]

Hello fellow Rams fans; this is my first post although i have followed the blog for awhile i finally found it necessary to join last week. with that being said i was so disgusted with what i was reading last week that it tipped me over the proverbial edge to join. here is my diatribe take it how you will.

I cant recall the board it was on but i find it fitting to post it here in the twitter board.

Rod, I have great respect for your commitment to and support of URI and this isnt a direct attack at you, but please for the love of god can everybody that is a fan of this program do me a favor and stop trying to directly contact players and/or more specifically potential recruits.

I am a lifelong fan, albeit a young one yet I can give some general perspective to this issue. I grew up off of south rd in south kingstown in sweet allen farm and had the pleasure of getting my a** kicked day in and day out by Erik and Alex Murphy. Im not a great ball player and dont claim to be but we in the neighborhood knew how good both of them and the youngest brother whos yet to play college ball would be from the age of 6.

When Erik moved to St. Marks and began to get really noticed was around the same time that facebook started booming. Everytime that I got a chance to see him driving by id stop and throw the old "come on bro come to rhody, you will be first team all conference freshman year" he would laugh and say "when billy donovan comes calling, you cant say no". with that being said he and his brother both told me that the most annoying thing about the recruiting process is having to deal with the random people that send rediculous comments to 17 yr old kids trying to influence the most important decisions of their lives through social media websites.

Id hate to see URI lose out on the greatest kid theyve signed since the Cat (and yes cuttino was and always will be better then lamar) because a couple tournament desperate old guys keep harrassing E.C. and his friends on twitter.

he maybe locked into a signed loi but i distinctly remember that joe young got out of pc pretty easy. just keep it nice and positive if you feel the need to tweet them. "good win nice 26 the other night ec, youre looking better then wes clark" would suffice.

look foward to some feedback on this

go rhody

[Ramulous]

SWC

For immediate feedback....I don't like the negative connotation of your user name....

....also the Murphy brothers had a father who was an accomplished player himself and played a significant role in their ultimate choice of school....

.....Twitter hadn't really blown up during their recruitment.....do they even have Twitter accounts now?

.....a lot of these kids love having followers on Twitter and seek the attention....they are getting it from everywhere and everybody.....old guys and young kids tweeting about their play and their recruitment....

....the people here are no different than fans at every major and mid-major school.....we may be even more low key and aggressive than some of the fans of the BCS schools.

.....and finally the kids can do what EC did....and terminate their tweeting if it really bothers them.

BTW....Joe Young did not have an easy time getting out of PC.....he was denied permission to accept a scholarship to Houston by PC...and he had to sit out a year....yes he left.....but most schools would have let him play immediately......PC stuck to it's legal guns and made it difficult for him....

[Optimistic]

Dan Hurley doesn't need any help recruiting from us on the board. Leave the recruits alone, they have enough to think about right now.

[twisted3829]

i don't think anyone on her really recruit through twitter, it's mostly nice game and can't wait to have you here

[rodfromcranston]

Exactly, Twisted. I don't bother anyone who isn't signed.
I welcomed EC and Hassan, and they both tweeted their thanks, back.
EC was taking a lot of grief from his peers for signing here. That's why he deleted his account.
I do talk to players. When I see them in person, I say hello, too.
WOOOOOOOO! How awful!
I tell them, "nice game" or "great win". Really Manti Teo stuff.
For the record, a lot of these kids ask for followers.
There are no rules about tweeting players or signed recruits.
Amazing.

[SGreenwell]

SWC, re: directly contacting recruits, I don't think anyone on here actually does it anymore. I believe it was during the summer or before when someone got a message from athletics about it, and since then, people around here are wise to the fact that it could be construed as an NCAA violation.

However, there is a guy who used to post here that's pretty... insistent... about contacting people on Twitter. I believe he has the same name as a URI employee, or he's taking the guy's name from The Office, which tends to make the whole thing even more confusing. I don't know if he's still at it - if I recall correctly, he also had a habit of changing or opening new Twitter accounts once people caught on. Unfortunately, I don't think it's an isolated incident as far as recruiting and college sports goes now, and I imagine it's even worse when you get to bigger programs.

[SGreenwell]

SG, thats an interesting statement because I don't think that Lebron has the mindset of Kobe.

I think Lebron didn't for a while, until the 2012 playoffs. The anecdotal story is that KG pushed him so hard in game five of the Boston series that it snapped him and drove him homicidal for game six, but I've never been a big believer in the "Lebron is a choke artist" theory anyway since is 2009 playoffs were absolutely insane as well (35 points, 9 boards and 9 assists per game on a bad Cleveland team).

Perhaps I should clarify, and say that Jordan and Kobe probably are on levels all their own. After that though, the next level would be the Lebrons and Durants of the world, who seem to get better every year even though they're already playing at a really high level. And I guess that would be my issue with Dwight, who's line seemed to stagnate after two years - 18 to 22 points a game, 12 to 15 rebounds, 2 to 3 blocks. That's essentially his line for five straight years, and while it's outstanding, you'd also expect some more improvement too.

[Rhody Guy]

SG, thats an interesting statement because I don't think that Lebron has the mindset of Kobe.

I think Lebron didn't for a while, until the 2012 playoffs. The anecdotal story is that KG pushed him so hard in game five of the Boston series that it snapped him and drove him homicidal for game six, but I've never been a big believer in the "Lebron is a choke artist" theory anyway since is 2009 playoffs were absolutely insane as well (35 points, 9 boards and 9 assists per game on a bad Cleveland team).

Perhaps I should clarify, and say that Jordan and Kobe probably are on levels all their own. After that though, the next level would be the Lebrons and Durants of the world, who seem to get better every year even though they're already playing at a really high level. And I guess that would be my issue with Dwight, who's line seemed to stagnate after two years - 18 to 22 points a game, 12 to 15 rebounds, 2 to 3 blocks. That's essentially his line for five straight years, and while it's outstanding, you'd also expect some more improvement too.

Agree with this. Dwight should definitely have shown more consistent improvement. I believe that Lebron is an excellent player with the desire to win, but still doesn't have the killer instinct. We will have to see this year. Durant, IMHO, will eclipse lebron. He is vastly more efficient and his rebounding and assist numbers are climbing steadily.

[Gonebarongone]

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Personally, having kids myself, if I saw some random dude hitting my kid up on twitter I would think he is a creeper. Don't get me wrong, I love twitter. Probably the best way to aggregate the news and events that you like. But, tweeting a HS kid. I'll pass.

[adam914]

SWC, re: directly contacting recruits, I don't think anyone on here actually does it anymore. I believe it was during the summer or before when someone got a message from athletics about it, and since then, people around here are wise to the fact that it could be construed as an NCAA violation.

However, there is a guy who used to post here that's pretty... insistent... about contacting people on Twitter. I believe he has the same name as a URI employee, or he's taking the guy's name from The Office, which tends to make the whole thing even more confusing. I don't know if he's still at it - if I recall correctly, he also had a habit of changing or opening new Twitter accounts once people caught on. Unfortunately, I don't think it's an isolated incident as far as recruiting and college sports goes now, and I imagine it's even worse when you get to bigger programs.

Oh he is still at it for sure. Its not quite as bad as the first time around though.

[rodfromcranston]

He'd ask other team's recruits, if they knew where
somebody was going.
Haven't seen much of that lately, but it's a quiet time in recruiting.
Teams are playing, and our two guys are having great seasons.