The Return - Fngb3's Blog - Operation Sports

Fngb3's Blog

The Return

Posted on February 14, 2012 at 05:44 PM.

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The summer of 2017 was the grandest free agency period since "The Decision." Some argued that this one had even more drama, more twists and more impact on the shape of the league than the defection of The Chosen One seven years earlier.

The NBA had never in it's existence seen the kind of talent that saturated the league at this point (25 players in the league rated 90 or above overall; easily triple that many 80 or above overall).

But the prize that loomed above them all was number twenty one, Ion Falls. Generally discussed amongst that most exclusive group of players in NBA history that could truly do it all; Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson, Lebron James. But in addition to the ability to shoot from anywhere on the floor, rebound and involve teamates, just like these earlier players could do, Falls had an impact defensively that had never occured alongside such offensive talent.

ESPN held complete coverage over every detail they could discern. They created an exclusive app for the iPhone 10, the only purpose of which was to organize the mountains of rumors and heresay that preceded Falls' next big signing.

As usual the fanbases of nearly every franchise had their own hopes and strange logics for why he was headed their way. In fact, the only place people were sure he wasn't going was his former home in Florida.

That's why the shock of Falls returning to the Magic was so great.

He resigned with his former club for 5 years $73+ million and the rampant conspirital speculations began. Eventually most people believed what happened was that the Magic felt they weren't able to improve their team through free agency or the draft, so they traded away their best asset for other pieces; the Magic's record and first rounder from the Caveliers netted them the 5th overall pick and another late first round talent, as well as another young potentially dominant bigman (80 overall comin into third year) who came over as part of the trade and fell nicely into the 6th man role.

The Caveliers ended up renting Falls for a few months and a championship, and in return greatly strengthened the Magic's roster. No one knows if Cleveland was aware that Falls was going to return to Orlando. There were rumors of a brief investigation by the league regarding a potential breach of ethics but ultimately what the Magic and Falls discussed while he was their player was beyond reproach. No other teams players or free agents were involved and if Falls and the Magic planned this before the trade they were never punished by the league for doing so.

Thus when Falls moved back in to his old locker down at the Ozone he found himself surrounded by a supporting cast that was as good as almost any in the league. At the very least they were constructed to take better advantage of his unique skillset than any other club. The roster was filled with high flying transition finishers, dominant bigmen, and deadly threepoint shooters.

While he wasn't exactly demonized for leaving Cleveland, afterall he brought them a championship and had never commited to them long-term, most of the league and fans looked at Ion as something of a rebellious young star upon his controversial return to Florida. He embraced those sentiments with his appearance: for his return Falls let out his cornrows, shaved just the sides and threw it up into a tall, bad-*** mowhawk.

45 games into the 2017-18 season Ion Falls is first for Most Valuable Player, first for Defensive Player of the Year and is once again in the running for Most Improved Player, in third.

He leads the league in assists, his alley-oops to Dwight Howard come like clockwork every game, and his teamates take to calling him a new nickname, "Dimes."

The ball club is 39-6, first in the East with the number one point differential in the league (96.3 ppg, 82.0 papg [+14.2 diff]).
Team Stats
FG% .466 (1st) - 3P% .338 (8th) - FT% .765 (22nd) - 24.0 APG (1st) - 50.3 RPG (1st) - 8.9 SPG (1st) - 6.4 BPG (2nd) - 12.8 T0PG (3rd)

Ion Falls statistical averages through 45 games
34.3 MPG - 29.2 PPG - 8.6 RPG - 8.6 APG - 2.5 SPG - 2.0 BPG - FG% .565 - .445 3P% - .939 FT%

Ion Falls noteable Metric Stats through 45 games (rankings are for whole league)
PER 39.8 (1st) [EFF 38.7] - TS% .665 (5th) - AR% 25.4 (33rd [1st among non PGs]) - TOR% 10.1 - 6.7 (11th) - 13.9 EWA (1st) - AGS 28.6 (1st)

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Trying to figure out why I can't upload screen shots and videos from my PS3 to NBA2k.com but those things would break up all this text nicely too.

Sorry I can't capture footage like on a PC : /
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Comments

# 1 rainmaker2 @ Feb 15

Are you ********?

# 2 Fngb3 @ Feb 15

I can't tell if you're swearing at me or have a question, sorry

# 3 Jadakiss88 @ Feb 15

I liked it dude. I mean hey 2k won't do it so somebody has too. I do this ever so often in my NCAA dynasty. Nice read. That second pic looks almost unreal your vert has to be a 99.