NBA Season 2008-09: The Balance between Eastern and Western Conference

I just watched a Yahoo Sports interview with Kenny Smith and Marc Spears regarding the top teams in the NBA. To my surprise, what I was supposed to be writing a few months ago was exactly what Kenny Smith has been talking about in the interview. Well, I guess every avid NBA fan knows about it though but I just would like to stress out that what Kenny has been telling us is a fact thru statistics.

In the last regular season of the NBA, teams get to play with their conference opponents 52 games out of a possible 82 games while the 30 games are against opponents outside their conference. Combining these simple statistics with the knowledge of the rosters in the NBA for both conferences, I'd say it's pretty obvious that an NCAA format of tournament rankings should have been implemented instead. Of course if this would be possible, in which I doubt would be happening in the soonest possible time, conference games would be narrowed down. But in reality, it's more than just a mere tweaking of the playoff arrangements. Of course that format will cost way lots of money than the current conference and division set-ups.

Going back, I think the only way we could see the balance between both conferences now would be on the emphasis on the quality of the GMs in their respective conferences and salary cap of course. Taking a look at franchise building, it's amazing how the Portland Blazers and Oklahoma City Thunder have delighted us by turning their teams to playoff contenders especially in the Western conference. Kevin Pritchard and Sam Presti have done remarkable jobs at constructing their teams. Sam Presti is deserving to win this year's GM of the Year if not for Daryl Morey's surprisingly better team Houston Rockets riding oft-injured franchise players Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming. Teams from the Eastern Conference, with the emergence and downfall of the Detroit Pistons and the rising of franchise players such as LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Joe Johnson and Chris Bosh, have done simply nothing to improve their teams except for the almost effortless Boston Celtics reconstruction. Instead of taking advantage of the predictable decline of the Pistons, Eastern conference GMs were contented with minor tweaks and settling for a subpar record but a playoff opportunity. Chicago Bulls should have been strongly contending, so should the Toronto Raptors and the disappointing Washington Wizards who gave up tons of money for a fake franchise player Gilbert Arenas. And while many people and analysts consider Atlanta Hawks as a powerhouse team, I don't. This team should have also taken care of its homework. With its current roster, it's impossible for them to compete against the Celtics, Magic and the Cavaliers. They are happy to be bullying the Eastern conference with their lineup and beat playoff contenders such as the Miami Heat. This team is supposed to be strong but put it in the Western conference and it's just an eighth-seeded team going into playoffs.

Western conference GMs took the other way around. While the Los Angeles Lakers have been consistently beefing up their roster, other teams took the challenge head on and beefed up their rosters too. After Shaq got traded to the Eastern conference, many would have thought the Texas triumvirate San Antonio Spurs, Dallas Mavericks and the Houston Rockets and the Phoenix Suns would have clearly dominated the NBA but things have changed pretty fast when Memphis Grizzlies threw away Pau Gasol for the younger Marc Gasol which is now actually starting to pay off. Denver Nuggets went from first round playoff contenders to a sudden conference finals contenders by acquiring Chauncey Billups and finally a healthy roster. The Spurs are again a team to watch out for after having been acquired Richard Jefferson and Antonio McDyess. A lot of Western conference GMs took no season to relax their budget by making bold moves in their roster as they attempt to squeeze out the best out of their franchise players during their primes such as Dirk Nowitzki, Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, Brandon Roy, Kevin Durant and an already declining Spurs dynasty.

Having these things been pointed out, Eastern conference powerhouse teams Magic, Celtics and Cavs will have fresher legs come Finals time since their starters are well-rested while developing their bench players as the season goes on. The trend for lower tier Eastern conference teams will still be the same for the years to come unless they start on not relying too much on the NBA draft. They've got LeBron James and Dwayne Wade and have the up and coming Derrick Rose and Brandon Jennings but the Western conference still have gotten the better of these recent drafts - Kevin Durant, Brandon Roy, Andrew Bynum and Tyreke Evans.

Canon Powershot G11

The new top of the line Canon point and shoot camera has been released. The review can be found here.

Here's my two cents about the camera:
1. Trimming down of 14.7MP to 10MP. While an ordinary user may always tend to max out the image size to 14.7MP, users with past experience of using cameras may tend to disagree about it. It's a good idea to focus on the other functions of the camera but the trimming down will lessen its attraction to a newbie to cameras. Ordinary users do not usually go to Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop to post-process their still images. The highest possible megapixel resolution is advised for users who do post-processing and cropping of pictures. Let's face it, while you always have the largest resolution of photos taken, other people won't be able to see it online because photo sharing sites won't allow you to store very large photos unless you have premium accounts or viewers won't always zoom in and take that in-depth look at every photo. So what's left? A thumbnail resolution - trimmed down version of your photo. So for me, it's okay to have the megapixel trim down.

2. Low light mode. I actually haven't used and seen this camera yet but I'm looking forward to using this mode. It's a great thing especially for those users who often take shots at night.

3. Finally, with all the hype surrounding Panasonic LX3 and the arrival of G11 and other high-end point and shoot cameras, if you love to shoot to places where a DLSR is prohibited, compact cameras are the best option and love taking whatever has captured your attention, then go for these cameras.

Microsoft File Transfer Manager

Just doing a quick post/tip here. Whenever you want to download large files using your MSDN account, it is best to use Internet Explorer. The ActiveX control Microsoft File Transfer Manager will then be prompted for installation. In this way, you will be able to pause and resume your downloads just like any normal file transfer.

Warcraft Patch 1.24 and the future of DotA

Warcraft patch 1.24 has been released. Every previous version of DotA won't work on the latest patch that's why IceFrog is now preparing for the new version to work on the latest patch. This will be the start of the patch upgrades of all the DotA players as well as the LAN shop owners to the latest patch because the new version will definitely only work on 1.24. In addition to this, the map size limit upgrade from 4mb to 8mb is a huge help for IceFrog since newer heroes and additional gameplay requires additional space on the map.

We've seen a lot of changes recently in the game. Lots of remade skills for old heroes and new heroes were added at the same time. But still, the latest stable map is 6.59d. While many of us have welcomed the recent changes, a few others still play 6.59d. And since this is the latest stable map, this is also the map being used most of the time in official tournaments. With this, I hope that there will be more gameplays and skills added to increase the uniqueness of each hero.

Jump to .NET

Starting on the next month, I'll be fully engaged in .NET projects. It has been four years of development in COBOL, QuickTest Professional and a little bit of C#. I'm looking forward to giving this blog a ramp up in terms of technical articles relating to .NET and other related stuff.

In the meantime, I'll try to write COBOL and CL tutorials in general as a tribute to my work there. It's been fun writing codes for procedural programming and as I move on to OOP, yet again, I'm bringing with me the respect, understanding and great knowledge I gained from legacy languages.

How to use Warcraft Version Switcher

Warcraft Version Switcher allows you to have multiple versions of Warcraft without having to install the game multiple times. Why is there a need to do so? Well, there are various reasons on why I think gamers use this but some of the reasons are as follows:

1. Playing in different Garena rooms. Currently in the Philippines, Warcraft patch 1.20, which is probably the oldest most used patch these days, is needed to be able to play in the pubs. So if you want to downgrade to 1.20, you need to use Warcraft Version Switcher.

2. Watching custom map replays. Tournament games are always played with the latest available patch of Warcraft and you won't be able to watch replays of these games if your patch version is older than theirs. Sometimes, when you had a good game in Garena, you also save your own games and watch the replays and chances are it has a different version than that of the tourney games.

3. Avoiding maphacks. With Warcraft patch 1.23 and the upcoming release of 1.24, the majority of the update is on the custom map maphacks. These versions allows the game to detect differences between originally made custom maps and those that are "purposely" modified to inject cheats in the game.

Installation Procedures:

1. Back to the installation, just download and extract Warcraft Version Switcher in any of your folders.

2. Search for zipped files of the Warcraft patches preferably 1.20 to 1.23. You need these zipped files instead of the downloadable executable files because it contains the following files:

Game.dll, Storm.dll, War3.exe and War3Patch.mpq

3. You don't need to extract these patches on your local drive. Just store them in the WVS folder of your Warcraft Version Switcher.

4. Lastly, open the wvs.exe. Click the Switch version and choose the patch you want to use by double-clicking it. Open the Reign of Chaos or Frozen Throne icon on the right part of WVS.



5. After the game launches, verify the patch version on the lower right side of the screen. This is the version of the Warcraft patch you have chosen. Have fun!

NBA Video Game Ideas Part 1

As much as we all want to have all those detailed information in a video game, chances are only 20% or maybe 5% of the requests come to life. Here is what I have in mind:

1. Jump ball - Well, NBA 2K Sports has already incorporated this for many years now. How come NBA Live hasn't or probably rejected this idea? I know this rarely happens even in actual NBA games but hey it is still supposed to be included.

2. Technical and Flagrant Fouls - I think I've actually seen technical fouls called in the NBA Live series. I just forgot what year that was. Anyway, besides the defensive three and the excessive timeouts, I think these should be put on the game too and not just the players alone but also the staff specially the coaches. I know they're probably taking this feature away because of it may bring some negative aura to the game and more specifically the NBA but hey, like us, they're also humans who can't always control their temper. Maybe they can have a sort of "impatience" meter for each player and staff as well when things don't go their way or simply just got annoyed with the call. It can also affect the flow of the game in both ways - positively or negatively. Also, since player injuries can actually occur in the game, why not add flagrant fouls too. Also, they can also be rescinded or reduced after the game. Also, have the technical accumulations system in the NBA brought in the game as well. For example, a player has already been called 15 technical fouls in the season, he'll automatically get a one-game suspension.

3. Awkward shots, buzzer beaters and the 0.5-second difference - Have you ever watched actual NBA games wherein impossible shots still go in? Plus a foul? Three-point play or even four-point play? It's not that I'm trying to increase the possibilities of these shots happening frequently in a single game but at least it can still happen. Also, the buzzer beaters for both NBA Live and NBA 2K have been limited because they are not allowing the gamers to continue shooting the ball even after the buzzer sounded. Also, in the actual NBA game, there have countless times wherein less than a second is left in the clock and they are still calling plays. However, this isn't a possibility in the video games. Accuracy in stopping the time should have been better in video games instead of the actual game itself since it only computer generated.

4. Summer Leagues and Pre-season games - Off-season is all about developing skills, finding a potential and building chemistry. And gamers would love to have that experience in their game. The season and playoffs games are what the gamers are really looking forward to. But come offseason time, they look forward for more light and casual games like these playing with potential starters, role players and even discovering undrafted players.

5. Fatigue Factor - The fatigue meter has been in the game for a long time now. However, it is only in a per-game basis. How about accumulating fatigue for the entire season and playoffs? In this way, the video game will be able to replicate the actual NBA season wherein superstars play minimal minutes at the end of the season because the coaches try to get them fresh come playoffs time.

6. Customization galore - Let's face it. EA should be the one who has a lot of advantage in this area of the game. They have Maxis, the creators of the The Sims franchise. Is it too much to ask for a lot of customization for someone who has long been best at customization in simulation games? Maybe they should adopt some of the technologies used in other games they've developed themselves and be able to incorporate it into NBA Live. In Dynasty mode, after the first season, incoming rookies are called only by their numbers. Why not try to develop some sort of speech mechanism for their surnames to be called when the actual game is played? Also, creating an expansion team would be great. It has been present in the early years of the NBA Live series but they haev scraped off the idea eversince.

I think that's about it for now. I'd like to add a lot more. Hope some of these ideas will be considered by the developers.