Official NBA '17-18 Season Thread

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TheValkyries

proudly reppin' 2 superbowl wins since DEFLATEGATE
It's almost identical to how the Patriots have dominated with Tom Brady dinking and dunking up the field for the last 15 years, but you still manage to be entertained by them haha
That’s a real bad take friend but this ain’t the nfl thread so whatevs.
 

Coronis

Impressively round
is a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
I’m not super big into basketball so take my onions with a grain of salt but I can tell you it’s not a sense of jealousy that makes me dislike the warriors dominance. I love dominant teams and learning about dominant players and teams in different eras is a favorite hobby of mine. What I don’t like is how boring the Warriors in particular are. The dominance I enjoy the most is more on the defensive side to begin with but also I want to see people “struggling to succeed” or rather I want to see a dominant team be forced to be creative to access their dominance. Something like Steph Curry or Klay Thompson pulling up for a their fast release long range threes just... it’s the same thing. They’ve been doing it for years. There’s no defensive solution to them being able to shoot that quickly or that accurately from that far out. And until there is their dominance just isn’t gonna be entertaining enough for me to give a shit. It’s more interesting to watch the guy who can do it all than to watch the guy who does the one thing no one has figured out how to stop yet.
Funny, I know people hate that the Warriors are dominant, but I’ve never heard complaints about their brand of basketball before. Also as you are not “super big into basketball” let me enlighten you, the Warriors are far more than Steph/Klay shooting 3’s, rather their success is mainly based on a top tier defense and (despite what people seem to think) one of the best mid range shooting teams in the league.
 

TheValkyries

proudly reppin' 2 superbowl wins since DEFLATEGATE
Yeah but if you took 3-5% off of Steph and Klays three accuracy it’d put their defense and mid range shooting in the spotlight as not being AS dominant, right? Like no good Team is good because of only one thing but the dominance tends to be singular and a dominant advantage needs support to be leveraged (sup bronbron).

One of my favorite descriptions of strategy in all sports is that the offense wants to create space and the defense wants to shrink space, and what Steph and Klay are really good at is using smaller amounts of space because of how fast their shots are. The Warriors are then adept at finding good enough space within range that wouldn’t be good enough for others. And that’s cool for me I super dig that. But the rest of the leagues response hasn’t been to then try and shrink that space in other ways or attack from a different angle I.e. idk make them getting in range more difficult. I mean easier said than done right but just I don’t feel like I’ve seen anything even approximating adaptation in the face of what the Warriors can do offensively. What I feel like I have seen is adaptation from the league to try and keep up offensively with teams shifting to focusing on the 3 as well (hey hows it goin Houston and Boston who went like what 7/80 in their game 7s?).

Ultimately I guess it’s less the Warriors dominance I’m not a fan of and it’s more that I’m not a fan of the leagues reaction to the Warriors dominance.
 
Yeah but if you took 3-5% off of Steph and Klays three accuracy it’d put their defense and mid range shooting in the spotlight as not being AS dominant, right? Like no good Team is good because of only one thing but the dominance tends to be singular and a dominant advantage needs support to be leveraged (sup bronbron).

One of my favorite descriptions of strategy in all sports is that the offense wants to create space and the defense wants to shrink space, and what Steph and Klay are really good at is using smaller amounts of space because of how fast their shots are. The Warriors are then adept at finding good enough space within range that wouldn’t be good enough for others. And that’s cool for me I super dig that. But the rest of the leagues response hasn’t been to then try and shrink that space in other ways or attack from a different angle I.e. idk make them getting in range more difficult. I mean easier said than done right but just I don’t feel like I’ve seen anything even approximating adaptation in the face of what the Warriors can do offensively. What I feel like I have seen is adaptation from the league to try and keep up offensively with teams shifting to focusing on the 3 as well (hey hows it goin Houston and Boston who went like what 7/80 in their game 7s?).

Ultimately I guess it’s less the Warriors dominance I’m not a fan of and it’s more that I’m not a fan of the leagues reaction to the Warriors dominance.

"tl; dr: I don't like the Warriors' dominance because all the other 29 franchises were incompetent."

And even this "statement" is dubious because the Dubs had a bit of luck at some point in those four years of dominance. The last lucky shot was in the WCF Game 7.

Dude, all those Rockets' misses was a cosmic event, It's like they won the lottery alone three times in a row and both teams w/o important pieces (CP3 for the Rockets, Iggy for the Dubs). If someone, I said a single one Rockets player dropped a three, that game would be completely different. And we're talking about the Rockets, the sixth best defense in the NBA. It's completely different from Cleveland who had the second worst D in the League. And we're talking about a team that has LeBron James. LeBron is incredible, but having the League's second worst defense some time will charge the bill.
 
Cleveland had no business in the Finals. The Pacers gave them a run, the Raptors got steamrolled, and if Boston had just one of Irving/Hayward, they'd have been in. People seem to focus on the Finals because it's supposed to be the series between the two best teams, but that definitely wasn't the case. It's clear that the real Finals was the WCF. The Rockets, apart from that 41-point pounding, definitely looked to be in place to overthrow the Warriors, it just sucks that CP3 got injured.
 
Man, is it just me or do people really overrate Kevin Love? People on r/NBA appear to really think that he can be traded for Paul George lmao. It's not even just this year, it was the same last year when PG was on the trading block from Indiana. IMO people who think/thought that are just LeBron stans hoping he can get another ring.
 
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But now Kawhi wants out of San Antonio.

I actually find it funny that Popovich is the one to talk to Kawhi when apparently he's not going to be around by 2020, some think Pop might even leave in 2019 to prepare for national team duties.
 
While I'm not a draft guy myself, I'm curious about what others think about the prospects this year. Ayton appears to be the consensus number 1, Porter has an injury history that could be troublesome, Doncic's stock appears to be falling, while Bamba appears to be on the up. Who do you guys have going to each team?
 
Suns - Ayton
Kings - Bagley
Hawks - Jackson Jr
Grizzlies - Doncic
Mavs - Bamba
Magic - Porter Jr
Bulls - Carter Jr
Cavs - Young
Knicks - Sexton
Sixers - Mikal Bridges
Hornets - SGA
Clips - Knox
Clips - Miles Bridges
Nuggets - Brown
Wiz - Williams

Past 1 there's a lot of uncertainty, but there are some tiers (not talent tiers but where they're likely to go):

Ayton

Doncic Bagley JacksonJr Bamba PorterJr

Sexton Young CarterJr MikalBridges

SGA MilesBridges Brown Knox WalkerIV Williams

Lotta good role players later on too, hope the Cs grab one of Melon DeVincenzo Brunson or Okogie.
 

Stallion

Tree Young
is a Tiering Contributoris a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Three-Time Past WCoP Champion
Suns - Ayton
Kings - Bagley
Hawks - Doncic
Grizzlies - Porter Jr
Mavs - Bamba
Magic - Jackson Jr
Bulls - Carter Jr
Cavs - Young
Knicks - Bridges
Sixers - Walker
Hornets - Sexton
 

Stallion

Tree Young
is a Tiering Contributoris a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Three-Time Past WCoP Champion
Suns - Ayton
Kings - Bagley
Hawks - Doncic
Grizzlies - Porter Jr
Mavs - Bamba
Magic - Jackson Jr
Bulls - Carter Jr
Cavs - Young
Knicks - Bridges
Sixers - Walker
Hornets - Sexton
Jjj apparently gave his medicals to Memphis. Switching my predictions

Grizzlies - JJJ
Mavs - Bamba
Magic - Young
Bulls - Porter
Cavs - Carter Jr
Knicks and beyond are the same.
 
And here we are:

MVP: James Harden (HOU)
Rookie of the Year: BEN SIMMONS (PHI)
Sixth Man of the Year: Lou Williams (LAC)
Defensive Player of the Year: Rudy Gobert (UTA)
Most Improved Player: Victor Oladipo (IND)
Coach of the Year: Dwane Casey (DET)
Executive of the Year: Daryl Morey (HOU)

Still don't understand why they do this after the playoffs and just before free agency when nobody really cares anymore. Glad Simmons won though, I thought the debate over whether or not he should be considered would've pressured some voters to vote for Mitchell.
 
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