Hilfestellungen » Mike Conley to carry the load despite incomple

Who wants it the most? Thats what the six drivers still trying to get one of the last two spots in the championship race and to keep their title hopes intact should ask themselves before they strap into the race car for this final race before Homestead.Which two drivers transfer to the championship race will be predicated on many things: fuel mileage, tire wear, perfectly executed stops and, of course, the mechanical integrity of every piece making up the race car. But what weighs the most, in my opinion, is the desire and determination of those half-dozen drivers behind the wheel.Carl Edwards serves as the perfect example of this. Edwards came into last weekends race the furthest out mathematically from securing a spot at the Homestead final, and while it came down to several factors at Texas, front and center for me was watching Edwards empty the tank physically and mentally in the final 10 percent of the race with weather closing in and Joey Logano closing from the rear.Edwards demonstrated to perfection the adage, Save your best for when it matters most.Of the six, four are former champs.Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth, Kurt Busch and last years champ, Kyle Busch. There is value in having won a championship. Its the value of knowing you will retire with a ring, which eliminates apprehension. Perhaps it eliminates the urgency.But that may not be a good thing.Take Jimmie Johnson, for example. He is waiting for whomever is capable of joining him and Edwards to square off for next weekends title race.Jimmie is the model of a great athlete that steps up in critical moments, as his six titles will attest.So this is that moment for Logano, but more specifically for Denny Hamlin, because he is nearly 10 years older than Logano.Logano is going to win a title; hes just too talented not to, and you could see the past three years that he has come of age. Its been a linear graph from the lower left to upper right in terms of performance. But in full disclosure, Ive been saying the same thing about Hamlin for years. He is destined to win a title.Talent gets you to the door. Drive, determination, focus and desire are required to kick it open.The bottom lineIts the top of the ninth inning for these six drivers. You lose Sunday and you wait til next year. Among them, I believe Hamlin will be feeling the most pressure.He has above-level talent and has capitalized on it, winning 29 Cup races to date.Hamlin has won in every full season he has competed, 11 consecutive, and its a remarkable accomplishment. But it will be an incomplete career without a title. Incomplete because he has been worthy of a championship ever since entering the scene, finishing third in his first full season, being a legitimate title contender every season since.His strength is his qualifying; his weakness has been self-inflicted wounds (pit road penalties). Thats obvious. Whats not so obvious is the frame of mind he carries into the weekend.Can Hamlin simply make up his mind the same way Edwards did last week, or the way Harvick has the past few years when his back was against the wall?Every championship driver I can think of seemed to reach a threshold in his career where preparation converged with opportunity, and he capitalized. Im not talking about the elite ... Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon or Johnson.Im talking about the not-so-obvious ... Alan Kulwicki, Kurt Busch, Bobby Labonte and Brad Keselowski.They are all champions, and I truly believe that before Hamlin can join this group, he needs to want it the most. Kevin Butler Jersey . The 18th player to shoot 60 on the tour, Jamieson settled for par on the final hole when his 15-foot birdie chip grazed the edge of the hole and stayed out. After opening with rounds of 66 and 73 to make the cut by a stroke, he had 11 birdies in the bogey-free round. Maury Buford Jersey . The Nashville Predators were glad their captain was still on their side. Weber had a goal and two assists, and Roman Josi scored the shootout winner to lift the Predators to a 4-3 win over the Flyers on Thursday night. http://www.custombearsjersey.com/custom-roger-leclerc-jersey-large-1886t.html . 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Over the first half of September, while much of the sports world focused on the start of football season, I spent countless hours participating in fantasy basketball mock drafts in preparation for the season ahead.It was a fun and enlightening exercise, to be sure, helping to shed light on trends such as rising and falling players, strong and weak parts of the draft, and average draft positions of pivotal names like Ben Simmons and Chris Bosh.Through it all, I found one piece of advice that stands out like LeBron James on a fast break, at least for those in standard snake-style drafts. It is simply this:Make sure you draft point a point guard in the first two rounds.This might seem like common knowledge for longtime fantasy hoops players who realize the importance of a point guard-heavy roster, but it rings truer in 2016-17 than it has in years.Humor me for a second and think back to your youth, when you passed time by playing tic-tac-toe. You remember, dont you? If you were anything like me, typically your first turn always seems like a good move.Thats similar to the way the first round of fantasy hoops drafts feel this year.Looking through ESPNs updated rankings, you see a top 12 filled with big names like James Harden, Karl-Anthony Towns, Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, LeBron, Anthony Davis, DeMarcus Cousins and Paul George, who tantalize you with their upside and overall talent at positions other than point guard.{C}On the surface, it seems fine. It seems like any of the 12 make for a great foundation. At the same time, its worth realizing that four of them are point guards (Westbrook, Curry, Paul and Lillard).Going back to the tic-tac-toe analogy: The second move usually seems like a good one as well.For those playing in 12-team leagues, that move likely involves selecting one of the next 12 on ESPNs updated rankings:{C}This is a group that includes several big-name, well-rounded point guards who contribute as scorers, distributors, shooters and defenders, while shooting a high percentage either from the field or the free throw line.But, like before, theres aalso temptation to pass on a point guard for one of the other notable stars like Antetokounmpo, Whiteside, Millsap, Green, Butler or Griffin.ddddddddddddook up after two rounds, and itd be easy to be without a point guard without even feeling bad about it. After all, you might have a studly duo of Harden and Griffin or Durant and Butler or something like that.You might be thinking: How could that possibly be a problem? Arent there other point guards to get later in the draft that can round out the roster?While there are other lower-ranked point guards, the problem is the steep drop-off after the first two rounds; Rajon Rondo (46) and Goran Dragic (50) are the next two point guards in the top 50, and both are over 20 picks lower than Bledsoe.In case it isnt already apparent, that means the value in Rounds 3 and 4 lies in the other positions, particularly power forward and center. So if you already drafted a pair like Cousins and Griffin, that means you are suddenly set in the frontcourt while a swarm of bigs remain available: Kevin Love (35), Marc Gasol (37), Pau Gasol (38), Andre Drummond (39), DeAndre Jordan (40), Derrick Favors (41), Rudy Gobert (44), Nikola Vucevic (45) and Nikola Jokic (47).If you enter Round 3 without at least one of the 10 point guards ranked inside ESPNs top 25, youll feel like you just got trapped heading into your third turn of tic-tac-toe. Youll find yourself with an unbalanced roster thats too deep up front and woefully thin in the backcourt, dependent on second-tier fantasy point guards like Reggie Jackson, Brandon Knight and/or Mike Conley to carry the load despite incomplete fantasy résumés.Now imagine the flip side, going into Rounds 3 and 4 with a combination of Curry and Thomas or Paul and Lowry, for example. If you can pull something like this off, youll be set in the assist, steal and 3-point categories and benefit firsthand from all the frontcourt value that falls your way between picks 25 and 50. ' ' '