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[nba] franken-warriors rise as curse of the brook settles over lakers
Jebus314
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Registered User regular
This is an NBA thread that didn’t start in 2014. Things are ending, and stuff is happening.
These guys are the champs:
These guys are not anymore:
Big names could be on the move this year, including:
I guess Anthony Davis wasn’t a free agent, but rumors say he is headed to LA for Ingram, Ball, Hart, #4 pick, and other first round picks. To which I say, “fucking Lakers man.”
Will the warriors abandon ship after the playoffs of injury madness?
These guys are the champs:
These guys are not anymore:
Big names could be on the move this year, including:
- Kawhi Leonard
- Kevin Durant
- Kyrie Irving
- Klay Thompson
- Kemba Walker
- Jimmy Butler
- Demarcus Cousins
- Keistaps Porzingus
- Nicola Vucevic
- Tobias Harris
- Anthony Davis
I guess Anthony Davis wasn’t a free agent, but rumors say he is headed to LA for Ingram, Ball, Hart, #4 pick, and other first round picks. To which I say, “fucking Lakers man.”
Will the warriors abandon ship after the playoffs of injury madness?
"The world is a mess, and I just need to rule it" - Dr Horrible
Jebus314 on
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Rip seven year NBA discussion.
The Pelicans turned basically nothing into a heck of a lot when they had apparently little leverage, so for sure I think this was a good deal for them. If they could have mended fences with Anthony Davis and paired him with Zion Williamson that would probably have been a better outcome for next season at least, since their team is going to be incredibly young unless they flip some of those players / picks into some veteran presence, but long term it has a good shot at working.
So the Lakers dealt with an immediate crisis situation of their own making, and the Pelicans got a substantial return on a star player that was almost certainly going to leave for nothing. Anthony Davis got his preferred destination, LeBron James gets an established star on his team, the Lakers youngsters basically get away from the Lakers and their terrible handling of this whole situation. Really about the only loser in this is LaVar Ball who will end up with less media attention (hopefully).
For sure this was close to, if not the best scenario for NO. They got a ton for a guy that was going to bolt for nothing first chance he got. No way they mend things after his temper tantrum.
I just find it annoying after years of teams like the blazers struggling to get anyone to even consider them, that the lakers basically fail into two generation level superstars.
For Christ sake Toronto just won a championship, and even then no one is sure it’s enough to convince Kawhi to stay.
If it were me I’d bring the franchise tag from football to basketball. You can designate 1 player per team that can’t be a free agent (provided their salary is the max) until/if you remove the tag.
And by demands the max, I mean I hope he gets it from someone else and leaves.
Durant to NY. Thompson to Orlando. Let’s see how good curry really is.
it'll be really funny if kawhi goes to the lakers. i'm hoping for that just because it would be the most team chaos thing to happen in the west.
No way. I hate dynasties but I would take another warriors championship over the Lakes being dominant again for the next half decade.
Curry got paid, but if you want to keep KD and Klay then you probably are saying goodbye to Draymond, unless you can convince him to take a serious pay cut.
But tbh the NBA is just learning the same lesson many corporations have, which is that location is a big factor in attracting talent
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
But seeing daddy ball say the Lakers will never win another championship and raging warms my heart.
The Lakers management was in panic mode, basically. After the whole Magic thing blew up in their faces I'm pretty sure their fanbase has been quite unhappy. They already failed to get Paul George by waiting for him to hit free agency, which hurt their "mystique" of being the most prestigious franchise in the league. If they waited for Anthony Davis to hit free agency, and he instead re-signed with the Celtics (since apparently the Celtics had a serious offer for him as well) for example? That is not something their current management can allow to happen. In their minds, better to pay too much for Davis than to let another star player get away.
Never mind that their team from last year was actually doing well before the injury and would probably be slightly better with another year of experience. The Lakers absolutely have to be the most desirable franchise (in their own minds if nowhere else), and this comes closer to accomplishing that then waiting to maybe get Davis when he hits free agency.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
No way AD goes for just one pick. Boston drives that price up even if they're just trying to get outbid.
A single first rounder was a little hyperbolic, but word was Boston was getting nervous because Kyrie made it clear he has no loyalty. So if they gave up Tatum and then Kyrie and AD both left at the end of next year (when both would be free agents), they would have been fucked.
I mean cousins went for essentially two first rounders. griffin went for, Tobias Harris, Avery Bradley, and a first. I think by next February, NO would have taken way less. Especially if AD kept alienating all the other players and continued to play below his norm.
Kanter would be nice, but honestly, Meyers played well enough last year that I think him and Collins would be enough for backup 4/5.
Just have to hope Nurk comes back strong and Collins can take the next step to legit starter.
if they do that then they're also giving up any serious chance of contending next season, because both Klay and KD are going to be out for so long that it's going to be tough to even make the playoffs let alone contend.
Boogie is no AD nor is Griffin whom is way past his prime. Also, LA probably had to pay a premium to get a deal done with them at all. Drive the price too low and NO trades him anywhere but LA out of spite after what Rich Paul pulled.
I think the Warriors have already said they intend to offer max contracts to both KD and Klay, but they will save some by letting Boogie go.
I’m sure they will try their best next season, but it’s not going to be pretty. Curry is going to get beat to shit next season if he’s a one man band out there.
Switch - SW-7373-3669-3011
Fuck Joe Manchin
Hey, maybe there will be nba games next year where a team scores below 110!
I wonder though if Conley will go back to being a star defender or if they will take the offensive burden off of Mitchell and run the offense through Conely.
??? Klay got the max at the time, which was 4 years 70 million.
How good Curry is? We've seen it plenty. I can't tell how you were saying this (text and all), but the Curry hate in the league is ridiculous. There's a reason the Raptors were double/triple teaming him and playing box-and-1...
You’re right about Klay. I thought I remember it being reported as a not max contract, but I guess that was just a details thing. He got basically the max.
As for curry he is definitely top 5/10 in the league and a high number for all time. But those types of players sometime take on a cult like status. Its hard to to really compare him to other greats like LeBron, or Durant, or Kawhi. Easier if you can see him on a team without as much surrounding talent.
I mean, if you swapped curry and lillard, or curry and Kyrie, would we be talking about multiple MVPs for those guys, or is curry really what’s made GS so dominant? I’d love to know.
I 100% want the extra money from the supermax to not count against the cap above a normal max. The current system hamstrings precisely the teams it was intended to help. If you aren't getting LBJ or someone arguably near that level, giving players like Wall or Dame or Westbrook or effin Kemba the supermax is a death sentence for anything other than hoping that the homegrown star puts butts in seats and sells jerseys to hopefully balance out the ink.
and the gengars who are guiding me" -- W.S. Merwin
It helps retain players, but having a team hamstrung by a supermax won't retain players, so the two work against each other, at best cancelling out the benefit of the supermax and at worst making it a net negative.
Curry is singlehandedly what made the 2014-2016 Warriors a true superteam. Kyrie and Lillard and all of them are great guards but, like, what?
He is demonstrably the best shooter in league history by far, which absolutely warps and breaks defenses in every single conceivable way. Defenses break just because he lazily cuts across court! Just if he STANDS somewhere (which he never does, as he's a great off-ball cutter and is always in motion), ten feet from the three-point line, at least one or two players have hands inside his jersey, they're that terrified of him.
There are also tons of on/off numbers and stuff that show how much his team wilts without him, particularly as the Warriors have gotten super shallow recently.
There is no serious counterargument I can think of that makes him even remotely fungible or replaceable. The only guard who comes even close in my head is Harden and his 3-pt shooting was what, 8% lower than Curry's at their respective peak seasons at similar volume?
and the gengars who are guiding me" -- W.S. Merwin
Curry broke basketball
Dude shot like 45% on contested 30+ footers in his MVP seasons, and when the D is contesting that far out, they are covering too much ground and getting picked apart.
Put another way, Curry makes you have to defend the half court like transition...
His handle is actually probably as good as Kyrie, too- they are the top two in the league. Take Kyrie and upgrade his shooting by 15%, his defense by 10%, his scoring efficiency by 20% and his team chemistry impact by infinite percent and that’s Steph- you wouldn’t play iso like Kyrie does if you were that much better at everything else.
The shine only appears to come off Steph because he’s been playing alongside one of the biggest fucking babies in the league and they all adjusted for KD.
I think Steph + scrubs is a 50 win team, like Lebron and scrubs. Steph + Klay + not-fat Draymond is a 73 win team.
Steph and Klay on max contracts will likely prevent them from sniffing 70 wins ever again.
Still gonna root for Dame when I can too though.
I agree, still think Curry has a game-breaking skill that the game is adjusting to and just want to make sure that’s appreciated well enough
Harden’s sploits are game breaking (or breaking the game)
Beyond those guys, I see people who have physical attribute/skill combos that make them vastly better than others, but don’t fundamentally change how teams look to build rosters or what strategies they employ. It’s hard to duplicate physical traits...
Maybe Curry is like a top 5/10 player, but he might be #1 right now in terms of impact on the game the past few years (hopefully Harden isn’t emulated as much...)
I honestly don't think the hate comes from fans (even casual fans) because he's been probably the most fun player in basketball to watch the last several years. I think it comes mostly from 'traditional' basketball media people who somehow still can't understand that shooting 40% from three is as valuable as 60% from two
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Couple those events with Steph's transformative play style and you have a crazy situation that feels unprecedented on many different levels. The Warriors have been fun to watch and Steph is the primary reason but also easy to root against for the fans of 29 other teams.
Like captain inertia is confident curry plus scrubs is a 50+ win team. Well next season he will spend a lot of it without Klay and Durant, and green seems to be a step slower these days. Maybe Curry will still dominate! Or maybe he will be a little more down to earth. I’m just saying it’s hard to extract a player from their situation, and there are some other guys that are very, very good.