Hey folks, sorry for the delay in posting the next match-ups. It’s summertime and sometimes the days just blur together.

It has been an interesting off-season thus far with a few trades, a draft that pretty much went as expected at the top, and some big free agent signings. Yahoo! has a little mock draft going on for anyone jonesing for some fantasy hoop material. I imagine our pick-by-pick mock draft blog will be starting up in the next few weeks, so stay on the lookout for that.

There were no comments on last week’s picks, so I’ll be putting my own two cents on the games this week, with a little help from one of our original writers, Ron Chow. Thanks for the assist, my friend. Let’s finish off the second round and move to the semi-finals.

The premise: (Feel free to skip down if you have been here with us before!)

The rules are simple. 64 of today’s biggest stars, plus some fantasy forces and a few players of the “x-factor” ilk have been chosen to participate in this exercise. Assume each player is in perfect health and in peak condition, based on their current age and abilities, as well as their ability to work with a team mate. Players are teamed up randomly and each match-up is also determined randomly. Suppose these pairs of players play each other in a game of two-on-two: games to 11, two points for a three-pointer, and losers out (this is a change from last year’s one-on-one tourney where it was winners out). You can make your comment after each article. Please vote just once for each match-up. If you are so inclined, feel free to make up an imaginary commentary of how you see the battle going down and I will try to include your input in future articles. You have one week to vote, then the results will be published and a new pair of match-ups will be announced. So check back here every week! The players will randomly get a new team mate each round.

Last year’s one-on-one champ, Kobe Bryant, has not been included in the field of 64. Due to his one-on-one prowess, it seems too likely that a Kobe-Player X team would always win. So Kobe, hit the sidelines. I’m sure if Kobe knew about this, he might be a bit miffed at the lack of an invite, but surely he has bigger fish to fry than us!

Review of last week’s match-ups:

Round 2, Game 7: Yao Ming/Chauncey Billups vs. Chris Paul/Richard Hamilton
Round 2, Game 8: Steve Nash/Josh Howard vs. Lamar Odom/Dirk Nowitzki

CP3 will be one of “My 5” for the next decade running. And Rip is a solid running mate. And I really want to pick them. However…Billups is an all-star guard himself and should be able to negate either Paul or Rip in this kind of format. So that leaves either Paul or Rip to guard Yao, which would not be pretty, especially with a deft-passing point guard like Chauncey. Paul and Hamilton would still get their buckets, but it seems unlikely that they would ever stop Yao down low. A healthy Yao is very dangerous, and one block here and a rebound there would be enough to get by. Winner: Yao Ming and Chauncey Billups.

In the next match-up, again I have to show the top flight point guard the door. Nash and J5 are a nice combo, and I’m going to skip the generic “smoking break” jokes that have plagued “Honest Josh” for a couple of months now. Odom can play point forward, and Dirk is a tough match-up in any type of game. They are both longer than Howard, and Nash will be easily exposed as the defensive liability that he is. Like Paul and Rip in the other game, Nash will be able to create enough offensive opportunities, but I don’t really see Nash and Howard being able to stop Odom and Dirk too much at all. If the game was winners out, maybe it’d be different. But as it is…Winner: Lamar Odom and Dirk Nowtizki.

Can’t believe I just eliminated Paul and Nash in one big swoop. Sometimes the match-ups just aren’t favorable. Still, this round saw these players among those cut: Dwight Howard, Tim Duncan, Paul Pierce, Amare Stoudemire, Pau Gasol, Chris Bosh, Caron Butler, and now Paul and Nash. All of those players are all-stars, which I suppose is a testament to the players that remain. On to the next round!

And now on to this week’s match-ups:

Round 3, Game 1: Manu Ginobili and Allen Iverson vs. Dirk Nowitzki and Tony Parker
Manu previously played with Dwight Howard and Rashard Lewis and disposed of the Jermaine/Boozer and J-Smoove/Zach teams. The Answer teamed with Dwyane Wade and Shaq to beat Dalembert/Deron Williams and Bosh/Butler. On the other side, Dirk played with Shaq and Lamar Odom (interestingly Dirk’s partners were once traded for each other) and bested Ray Allen/Aldridge and Nash/Howard, while Tony Parker combined with Yao and Camby took out Gerald Wallace/Roy and Deng/Gasol. Tony Parker has lucked out so far with his partners; he gets another quality big man to run havoc with in Dirk. However there is a lot of speed and skill in the Manu/A.I. pairing. Sometimes the big man has been seen as the weak link in this tourney and other times the big man has been seen as the difference maker. This is a really cool match-up.

Round 3, Game 2: Andre Iguodala and Yao Ming vs. Antawn Jamison and Dwyane Wade
Iggy is still looking to get paid, right? Well, having Flash as a notch on his belt might go a long way. Jamison does have a new contract, while Yao is still trying to get healthy enough to play in the Olympics. Of course, in our scenario, everyone is 100% healthy. Can Iggy stop Wade? Can Jamison stop Yao? What say you, hoop fans?

See you next week.

Previous match-ups:
Round 1: Games 1 and 2
Round 1: Games 3 and 4
Round 1: Games 5 and 6
Round 1: Games 7 and 8
Round 1: Games 9 and 10
Round 1: Games 11 and 12
Round 1, Games 13 and 14
Round 1, Games 15 and 16
Round 2, Games 1 and 2
Round 2, Games 3 and 4
Round 2, Games 5 and 6
Round 2, Games 7 and 8