2019-20 NBA Thread of Threads

[AustinFromBoston]

7 hours ago, Rockstar Matt said:

We get it, dog. You don’t like LeBron or the Lakers. 
 

Lest you forget, everyone was picking against the Lakers this season. We kept hearing all season about how the Lakers were still a year away and outside of LeBron & AD, they didn’t have enough talent to make it far. That the Clippers, Bucks and (insert team here) had a better shot at the title than the Lakers. 
 

Let’s not change the narrative after the Lakers blitzed through the West and the teams that were suppose to be better than the Lakers failed to reach even the conference finals, let alone eliminate them.
 

I don’t want to hear about how “did anybody really think the Lakers would lose,” after hearing all about how good the Clippers and Bucks are; how the Blazers are the best 8 seed in history; how the Rockets would shoot the Lakers out of the gym.
 

Nahh man. None of that now. 
 

Just sit back, and enjoy watching the Lakers match the Celtics in titles.

That's what annoys me. People deluding themselves into thinking any team had a chance when it's Lebron & the best sidekick he's had since Dwayne Wade. I always thought it was ridiculous how people thought they weren't going to tear through the League. Why would you doubt Lebron after all he's done with vastly inferior teams, and now you give him a top 5 player alongside him?

 

If you like watching a  league when you know the champion before the preseason, good for you. Personally, I'm sick of people pretending a guy making his 9th Finals in 10 years has at any point been a :censored:ing underdog. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

LeBron James has been an underdog in 2007, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. 2014 was even. He probably would have won the 2015 Finals if the Cavs' second-leading scorer wasn't Timofey Mozgov. The 2017 and 2018 Finals were an impossibility, as the second-best player in the NBA joined a 73-9 squad creating the most stacked NBA team of all time.

 

But whatever.

 

In other news:

 

Good luck Steve Nash!

 

Also, my new dream NBA trade is:

- To LAC: Russell Westbrook + picks

- To HOU: Caris LaVert, Spencer Dinwiddie, Taurean Prince + picks

- To BKN: Paul George

 

Who says no?

 

[Germanshepherd]

As a Heat fan, I’ve changed my focus from winning the series to hopefully stretching it out to 6 games and proving that we at least belong on the same court. 

[IceCap]

2 hours ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

Good luck Steve Nash!

This'll end well.

[Krz]

I hope it goes to 7 just so the Lakers can win in the Kobe jerseys. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

4 hours ago, Krz said:

I hope it goes to 7 just so the Lakers can win in the Kobe jerseys. 

 

It can't go to 7 because there's no way LeBron is losing a close-out game to the Heat. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Missed most of game, but caught the fourth. Looks like a lot closer than I expected, but the Lakers won with defense against a smart-ass team.

 

First time LeBron has been up 2-0 in the Finals! And AD went 15-20! Goodness.

 

 

[IceCap]

22 hours ago, Krz said:

I hope it goes to 7 just so the Lakers can win in the Kobe jerseys. 

I don't see that happening after the way these two games have gone. This is pure dominance on LA's part. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

5 minutes ago, IceCap said:

I don't see that happening after the way these two games have gone. This is pure dominance on LA's part. 

A Miami Heat victory in 6 or 7 would require the Lakers losing 4 of the next 4 or 5 games. They lost 4 games in a row once this season, and that was against the Pacers/Bucks/Clippers/Nuggets. They lost 3 in a row in the bubble warm-up games, but that feels like a million years ago now.

 

Barring injury, Miami is done.

[tBBP]

Which begs the question (especially after what I just experienced up here over the weekend): if when the Lakers wax, will it be the Lakers fakers fans will be celebrating--or will it be LeBron they'll be celebrating? (Furthermore, how many of those same fakers fans were as decked out in Heat gear five or six years ago as they are Lakers gear now? Frontrunnin' behinds...)

[AustinFromBoston]

3 hours ago, Buc said:

Which begs the question (especially after what I just experienced up here over the weekend): if when the Lakers wax, will it be the Lakers fakers fans will be celebrating--or will it be LeBron they'll be celebrating? (Furthermore, how many of those same fakers fans were as decked out in Heat gear five or six years ago as they are Lakers gear now? Frontrunnin' behinds...)

I have a felling most Lakers "fans" were earing Curry & Durant jerseys up until last year. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

42 minutes ago, AustinFromBoston said:

I have a felling most Lakers "fans" were earing Curry & Durant jerseys up until last year. 

 

That's so far off.

 

I became a Lakers fan in the mid-2010s, and have been a LeBron fan since he went to Miami.

 

My read of the dynamics was a lot of Lakers fans were initially annoyed that James signed in LA. They felt like 1. he could never replace Kobe (and he can't, obviously) and 2. would never be able to jibe with the Baby Lakers core, especially Ingram and Lonzo. And if James was bringing his old ass to LA to destroy the development of the young core, what good would that be.

 

What couldn't have been predicted is that LeBron -- after a shaky 2018-19 season -- had a lot left in the tank and was absolutely right to dump the Baby Lakers in favor of AD.

 

The Lakers might only win one title with LeBron, but it's the hardest one in NBA history and it's one more than they likely would have won waiting on Ingram and Lonzo.

 

So in answer to Buc's question, my read is Lakers fans were intially trepidatious of LeBron until he proved it. And now he's proven it. He'll never be a Magic/Kobe/Kareem-level Laker, but he might be a Shaq-level guy. And that's pretty good.

 

AD, on the other hand, might have another 8-10 years to go in LA, and has the talent and has learned how to win in the playoffs. If they can keep a max guy playing with him year after year, AD might hit that Kobe level with another title or three. Anything's possible with him.

[AustinFromBoston]

Are we talking about the same Laker fans that were protesting outside the arena last year?
 

Also unless Lebron suffers a major injury, Lakers are the new Warriors. No one is stopping Lebron + AD. 
 

Which is why I despised AD taking the easy route like Durant. 
Like KD, he could have joined nearly any team making them serious championships contenders. Instead he chose the team most likely to win a championship without him. 
 

And before bringing up how bad the Lakers were in 2019, keep in mind Lebron and most of the core were injured.
Take away AD from this team, they’re still a championship team, just a lot more beatable. 
 

Likewise once Lebron retires, the Lakers will still be good with AD taking over the team, but will be far more beatable. 

[tBBP]

Let me sorta qualify my earlier post...

 

...So I stay up here in South Dakota, right? (If you wanna call it that) Ain't no way in the world it's that many Lakers fans running around up here. Y'all, I was up in Buffalo Wild Wings this past Friday--why were half the people up in there decked out in Lakers gear like they been fans their whole lives?  Somebody pulled up in there in a yellow Hummer H2 with yellow rims and purple trim. Now that's just perpetratin' right there--where was dude at all last year?  That's the mess I'm talking about.

 

(The great irony to all this is that the G-league team in town here, the Skyforce, is affiliated with the other team in the Finals, and yet for all that...)

[dont care]

4 hours ago, AustinFromBoston said:

Are we talking about the same Laker fans that were protesting outside the arena last year?
 

Also unless Lebron suffers a major injury, Lakers are the new Warriors. No one is stopping Lebron + AD. 
 

Which is why I despised AD taking the easy route like Durant. 
Like KD, he could have joined nearly any team making them serious championships contenders. Instead he chose the team most likely to win a championship without him. 
 

And before bringing up how bad the Lakers were in 2019, keep in mind Lebron and most of the core were injured.
Take away AD from this team, they’re still a championship team, just a lot more beatable. 
 

Likewise once Lebron retires, the Lakers will still be good with AD taking over the team, but will be far more beatable. 

AD was traded, totally different. Also AD isn’t joining a team that beat him in the conference finals and won 73 games the year prior. The lakers weren’t even a .500 team last year. And losing so much of their young core nobody thought they were going to be as good as they have been. Everyone assumed the clippers were taking it with the finals MVP from the last year, and Paul George and the rest of the team that were plenty good already without them. You have by far the worst takes when it comes to basketball, and continually use revisionist history to try to prove your faulty logic.

[AustinFromBoston]

1 hour ago, dont care said:

AD was traded, totally different. Also AD isn’t joining a team that beat him in the conference finals and won 73 games the year prior. The lakers weren’t even a .500 team last year. And losing so much of their young core nobody thought they were going to be as good as they have been. Everyone assumed the clippers were taking it with the finals MVP from the last year, and Paul George and the rest of the team that were plenty good already without them. You have by far the worst takes when it comes to basketball, and continually use revisionist history to try to prove your faulty logic.

Not really that different when you realize he strong-armed his way to LA. He wouldn't even consider other teams. 

And it's not revisionist history when you remember they were actually off to a great start in 2019 before Lebron, Rondo, Ball, & Ingraham all got injured. 

 

If you want a bad take, it's thinking The Lakers team would be bad with Lebron when he was coming from a significantly worse Cleveland team he dragged kicking & screaming to The Finals in '18. Again, the only reason they didn't make the playoffs was injury. 100% they make it if everyone was healthy. 

I don't see any Logic in thinking a team with Lebron is bad when he has proven time & again he only needs a few role players to get a team to The Finals. Give him a star like Dwyane Wade or AD, and it's almost not even fair. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Butler just had a game like LeBron did in the 2015 Finals.

 

I still think Lakers in 5, but that's a change from the LA sweep I thought after Bam and Dragic went down.

 

Maybe AD can play next game.

[alxy8s]

 

Let’s goooooo

[Digby]

The funny thing is I thought Miami's great playoff run, while Butler has been good, has been just as much thanks to the emergence of Bam and their ability to get high-value contributions from every corner of their roster. But tonight was just simple Elite Player Drags Team to Victory. Just stellar stuff from Jimmy.

[Germanshepherd]

40-11-13 with Kelly Olynyk and a rookie as the #2 option most of the night against 2 All-NBA First Teamers. Jimmy Butler just had one of the greatest Finals performances of all time.