The 2017 NBA Playoffs: This Is A Recording

[CLEstones]

15 minutes ago, Lee Noire said:

I've never been a fan of this argument. If the suits do it then it's ok, but if the players decide then it's a problem. That's some slave owner mentality stuff. Not saying you think like that, but it's scary how many do. Free agency is as valid as a draft or a trade, but something about that word free(dom) just drives people mad.

 

I think its fine for players to explore free agency.  I'm with you, the only measure in today's society is rings because the older generation doesn't want to believe that the game has gotten exponentially better since Jordan, Bird, Magic, and Kareem played.  So the old guard pushes number of rings in order to be the "GOAT" but then bitch at guys who ring chase, i.e. LeBron, Durant.  Its hypocrisy.

 

However, the slave owner mentality, in my opinion, is a bit much.  Not to get all PC social-lib on everyone, but I think its a poor comparison.  My Libertarian side wants to say, yeah go do whatever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want, as long as its not hurting me or mines.  But the sports fan in me goes - and maybe this is the LBJ/CLE bias - is Gilbert and the Cavs did everything the LeBron wanted, bent over backwards, paid record luxury tax (at the time), and then he bolts, leaving the organization high and dry with no assets, no draft picks, etc.  So allow for a franchise tag, allow the Cavs to keep control for a year or 2, so they can at least accumulate some more draft picks and/or trade assets.  Its mutually beneficial.  The player gets a crazy salary and the owner/GM get a year or 2 to position themselves.

 

I think its something that couldn't hurt to try for a couple years.  If it improves the parity in the league AND gets guys paid... who can really complain?

[Lee Noire]

3 minutes ago, CLEstones said:

 

I think its fine for players to explore free agency.  I'm with you, the only measure in today's society is rings because the older generation doesn't want to believe that the game has gotten exponentially better since Jordan, Bird, Magic, and Kareem played.  So the old guard pushes number of rings in order to be the "GOAT" but then bitch at guys who ring chase, i.e. LeBron, Durant.  Its hypocrisy.

 

However, the slave owner mentality, in my opinion, is a bit much.  Not to get all PC social-lib on everyone, but I think its a poor comparison.  My Libertarian side wants to say, yeah go do whatever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want, as long as its not hurting me or mines.  But the sports fan in me goes - and maybe this is the LBJ/CLE bias - is Gilbert and the Cavs did everything the LeBron wanted, bent over backwards, paid record luxury tax (at the time), and then he bolts, leaving the organization high and dry with no assets, no draft picks, etc.  So allow for a franchise tag, allow the Cavs to keep control for a year or 2, so they can at least accumulate some more draft picks and/or trade assets.  Its mutually beneficial.  The player gets a crazy salary and the owner/GM get a year or 2 to position themselves.

 

I think its something that couldn't hurt to try for a couple years.  If it improves the parity in the league AND gets guys paid... who can really complain?

 

I get that. I guess I'm just pro athlete because it's easy for them to be discarded when their usefulness is up. All in the name of the organization. Depending on the sport it's never a mutually beneficial thing. I don't buy into loyalty to team. Exhibit A: the comic sans letter.

 

LeBron gave the Cavs organization everything for 7 years, but the moment he decides it isn't working that is quickly forgotten. The story is then how Gilbert did everything and y'all don't need LeBron. Maybe that is the CLE bias and that's fine. I'm on the outside looking at a guy that was tired of doing everything for minimal return.

[CLEstones]

12 minutes ago, Lee Noire said:

 

I get that. I guess I'm just pro athlete because it's easy for them to be discarded when their usefulness is up. All in the name of the organization. Depending on the sport it's never a mutually beneficial thing. I don't buy into loyalty to team. Exhibit A: the comic sans letter.

 

LeBron gave the Cavs organization everything for 7 years, but the moment he decides it isn't working that is quickly forgotten. The story is then how Gilbert did everything and y'all don't need LeBron. Maybe that is the CLE bias and that's fine. I'm on the outside looking at a guy that was tired of doing everything for minimal return.

 

I don't think I disagree.

 

I just think the LeBron situation was incredibly unique... not just because he was from the area, but because he developed some mysterious injury, that he didn't know when it happened, and some of the best doctors in the world and the best technology money could buy, couldn't find anything wrong.  In my opinion, he colluded with Wade, Bosh, and Pat Riley year prior and needed an out, so he made up an injury.  Then the way he didn't call Gilbert or anyone from the organization, did the ESPN special, etc.  But I digress... different conversation for a different thread.

 

Either way, I agree.  We too much expect 100% loyalty from athletes to our team/city, but then the second we can ship them off for a younger model... we push them out the door.

[Lee Noire]

1 minute ago, CLEstones said:

 

I don't think I disagree.

 

I just think the LeBron situation was incredibly unique... not just because he was from the area, but because he developed some mysterious injury, that he didn't know when it happened, and some of the best doctors in the world and the best technology money could buy, couldn't find anything wrong.  In my opinion, he colluded with Wade, Bosh, and Pat Riley year prior and needed an out, so he made up an injury.  Then the way he didn't call Gilbert or anyone from the organization, did the ESPN special, etc.  But I digress... different conversation for a different thread.

 

Either way, I agree.  We too much expect 100% loyalty from athletes to our team/city, but then the second we can ship them off for a younger model... we push them out the door.

We agree on a lot. I too think LeBron should've given Gilbert a heads up. I don't know about the injury stuff, but like you said, not the right thread. I do think that even if he did tell Gilbert LeBron still gets vilified by Cavs fans because of the selfish nature of fans in general. There was too much heat for that just to be because he did it on tv and gave money to the kids.

[Guest]

Is Matt Barnes the only player to play for all four California teams? If not, then is he at least the first player to play for all four who's won a title?

[The_Admiral]

8 hours ago, Lee Noire said:

I've never been a fan of this argument. If the suits do it then it's ok, but if the players decide then it's a problem. That's some slave owner mentality stuff. Not saying you think like that, but it's scary how many do.

 

This would hold water if it were a mentality limited to the NBA. I think most people want teams across North American leagues to keep homegrown talent when possible, add in free agency when possible, but not let any one team throw the curve and ruin the fun for everyone. No one's saying "I want superteams everywhere except the blackest league, where players must be divided and conquered." 

[BBTV]

On 6/15/2017 at 0:13 AM, the admiral said:

Yeah that's great but there's a 30-team league to run whether you like it or not and the situation should not be as dire as it is, where there's no point in supporting at least two-thirds of the teams. If you can consolidate all the top talent into three or four teams, maybe there just aren't enough people who are really good at basketball.

 

Yes, or alternatively, there are too few people that are really good, vs a lot that are just good.

 

Basketball's CBA rules are the absolute worst.  You need a PhD to understand everything, and it creates the situation we have now, where there are schmucks the average person has never heard of making $20M/year, just because they have to make that much.

 

NBA is a victim of its own success.  Hockey is diluted too, but I wouldn't say it's because of success.  There's too many teams - I'm not sure how that can be argued.  But in NBA's case there's also too many money-making markets to ignore.  How to you fix this?  I really don't know.  Restricting player movement sounds great but isn't legal or fair.  Even if you did that, you'd have 1... maybe 2 stars on half the teams, rather than 3 stars on 5 teams.  At least there are some good teams to watch, vs all average teams.  Granted, that sucks if you're a fan of an average team in a market that's not going to attract players, where you just have to hope to get lucky and draft a star, but how do you even know what youre drafting when they're 18 years old?

 

You can question his methods, but Sam Hinkie was absolutely correct in almost everything he said, and it's hypocritical to criticize him, because he was trying to build a great team through the draft, rather than assemble a super team.  Isn't that kinda what everyone wants?

 

 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Sam Hinkie sacrificed competition to win lottery night (and only lottery night). He did the equivalent of spending your salary on lottery tickets.

[Sport]

Sam Hinkie is the message board poster who would trade a championship trophy now for a number one overall pick next year and the possibility of a dynasty in 6 years that will probably never come.

 

His process was "be bad on purpose and get high draft picks". That's called tanking and teams have been doing it for decades. There was nothing revolutionary about it except he wanted everyone to think him the smartest because of how patient he was able to be and how bad he was able to get the Sixers. Like some kind of dumb backwards GM street cred like "see how bad the Sixers are? Hinkie must really be onto something if he's willing to poison his fanbase this much. We're over here losing in the second round and selling tickets like a bunch of chumps!" At some point in the tank lifecycle you have to flip the switch and start trying and he never did. 

 

I want teams to build organically, and I want players to want to beat each other. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

This 2016/17 (and beyond I guess) season was so dramatically affected by the unsmoothed cap bump. It gave the Warriors cap room they basically shouldn't have had. And with that room, and Durant's choice, the NBA was turned into the EPL overnight.

 

The Warriors have been incredibly charmed. They deserve a ton of kudos for nailing and then developing those three draft picks (Curry, Thompson, Draymond), likely nailing McCaw, and making good signings. They lucked out with Curry's injury timing and injuries to other teams, including the one they did themselves. And they lucked that Durant is who he is.

 

The problem is the Warriors success can't really be replicated. No one really nails those picks in a row like that while simultaneously being able to resign then at a discount. Contenders generally don't sign the best players from their closest competition. One time cap bumps really only happen once.

 

All this really shows that Silver should have stepped in last summer. No one wants a lockout in their first year as commissioner, but the alternative following years of non competition might be worse.

[The_Admiral]

4 hours ago, BringBackTheVet said:

You can question his methods, but Sam Hinkie was absolutely correct in almost everything he said, and it's hypocritical to criticize him, because he was trying to build a great team through the draft

4 hours ago, BringBackTheVet said:

but how do you even know what youre drafting when they're 18 years old?

buhhhhh? How can he be absolutely correct in his methods if you just said the draft is a crapshoot and can't be relied upon?

[Sykotyk]

One interesting thing people seem to overlook about the advent of the 'super teams', is if the league eliminated the individual player caps on salary, you might see them spread out across the league more and not want to be grouped together. If Durant were able to get $50 million a year, would he really take the pay cut to squeeze under a cap to join the Warriors?

[DG_ThenNowForever]

39 minutes ago, the admiral said:

buhhhhh? How can he be absolutely correct in his methods if you just said the draft is a crapshoot and can't be relied upon?

 

That's the nut of it. The Warriors are where they are because they're awesome at drafting. Or awesome enough that they hit on some key players.

 

If the Sixers had aced the past few drafts, they'd had Giannis and Steven Adams instead of MCW and Noel, someone who plays basketball (Nurkic?) instead of Embiid, and Porzingis instead of Okafor.

 

No one is 100 percent in the draft, but if your team's philosophy is based on the draft, you better have way more hits than misses.

[dont care]

14 minutes ago, Sykotyk said:

One interesting thing people seem to overlook about the advent of the 'super teams', is if the league eliminated the individual player caps on salary, you might see them spread out across the league more and not want to be grouped together. If Durant were able to get $50 million a year, would he really take the pay cut to squeeze under a cap to join the Warriors?

the main problem that NBA has compared to other leagues is it only takes 1 or 2 players to completely change a team. the only thing comparable to that in any other sport is the QB in football but even then the QB still needs a decent O line and receivers to catch the ball. Even then the defense needs to be good enough to only give up enough points for the offense to make up, so yea that is not even a great comparison either.

[BBTV]

6 hours ago, DG_Now said:

Sam Hinkie sacrificed competition to win lottery night (and only lottery night). He did the equivalent of spending your salary on lottery tickets.

 

A top-3 pick has a better chance of panning out than you do at winning the lottery.  

 

5 hours ago, McCarthy said:

Sam Hinkie is the message board poster who would trade a championship trophy now for a number one overall pick next year and the possibility of a dynasty in 6 years that will probably never come.

 

His process was "be bad on purpose and get high draft picks". That's called tanking and teams have been doing it for decades. There was nothing revolutionary about it except he wanted everyone to think him the smartest because of how patient he was able to be and how bad he was able to get the Sixers. Like some kind of dumb backwards GM street cred like "see how bad the Sixers are? Hinkie must really be onto something if he's willing to poison his fanbase this much. We're over here losing in the second round and selling tickets like a bunch of chumps!" At some point in the tank lifecycle you have to flip the switch and start trying and he never did. 

 

I want teams to build organically, and I want players to want to beat each other. 

 

1. He didn't trade a championship trophy.  He had no chance of winning a championship trophy with the Sixers, and no chance of improving to that level by signing jabroni free agents.  The NBA make it darn-near impossible to build a team via free agents, and even then, they have to want to play together on your club.  You need to get some great players through the draft, then sign FAs to complement them.

 

2.  His tnaking was different.  It wasn't just be bad and get high picks.  It was also about trading anything with any value for picks, then packaging those picks for better picks, robbing the Kings into trading future #1s for jabroni players today, same with the Lakers.  Along the way he acquired so many freaking picks that if even a couple of them pan out, the team could be good.  What was the situation this year - they could have ended up with 3 of the top 6 picks had the balls bounced differently?  Something like that.  It was tanking, but it was calculated tanking.  Honestly, Sam Hinkie should be a verb.  "Hinkieing:Verb - Tanking... but better." 

 

4 hours ago, the admiral said:

buhhhhh? How can he be absolutely correct in his methods if you just said the draft is a crapshoot and can't be relied upon?

That's why he acquired so many picks that even if a couple panned out they could be good, and if just one of them proved to be a star, they could be great.  They took a lot of risks too on injured players, and we still have no idea how that will pan out.  If Embiid, Simmons, and whoever they get this year turn out to be what they should be (and can stay healthy), they're all of a sudden a home-grown super team.

 

3 hours ago, DG_Now said:

 

That's the nut of it. The Warriors are where they are because they're awesome at drafting. Or awesome enough that they hit on some key players.

 

If the Sixers had aced the past few drafts, they'd had Giannis and Steven Adams instead of MCW and Noel, someone who plays basketball (Nurkic?) instead of Embiid, and Porzingis instead of Okafor.

 

No one is 100 percent in the draft, but if your team's philosophy is based on the draft, you better have way more hits than misses.

 

Sam Hinkie died for our sins.  Plus, 'dat 17 page resignation letter doe.

 

I'm sick of all this Hinkie bashing.  Good day to you.

 

 

[The Six]

1 hour ago, BringBackTheVet said:

 

A top-3 pick has a better chance of panning out than you do at winning the lottery.  

 

 

But you have to win the lottery to get that pick...

[rams80]

1 hour ago, The Six said:

 

But you have to win the lottery to get that pick...

 

And show an inclination to do something with the pick you won ASIDE from trade it or the player you drafted for more picks.  That was the fatal flaw in "the process".  Hinkie never showed any signs or intentions to stop amassing picks.  (The long line of big men the Sixers drafted make it blatantly clear he never wanted to build , he's just basketball Matt Millen trading on STATISTICS and SILICON VALLEY and DISRUPTION.)

[BBTV]

When Ben Simmons is raising the Obrien trophy in one hand and a cat in the other you'll all feel stupid and I'll be on here to remind you of how stupid you were for doubting the process. 

 

In Hinkie we trust. 

[dfwabel]

2 hours ago, BringBackTheVet said:

When Ben Simmons is raising the Obrien trophy in one hand and a cat in the other you'll all feel stupid and I'll be on here to remind you of how stupid you were for doubting the process. 

 

In Hinkie we trust. 

I never thought that there would be Sam Hinkie "Stans", but there are and we got one Here.

 

 

Oh, and Shady McCoy made some money.

[rams80]

7 hours ago, BringBackTheVet said:

When Ben Simmons is raising the Obrien trophy in one hand and a cat in the other you'll all feel stupid and I'll be on here to remind you of how stupid you were for doubting the process. 

 

In Hinkie we trust. 

 

....

 

Does Simmons have to be wearing a Sixers jersey while doing that?