22-23 NBA Season Thread

[Unocal]

Just now, sayahh said:

 

Probably just McHale wanting to help out his old team.  Also, TBF, David Stern did void the CP3 Hornets to Lakers trade.

 

basketball reasons

[Unocal]

Well  those 2 years of no LeBron in the 2nd round certainly was a change of pace.

 

Instead, it's another May with the Tom Brady of basketball (ie the guy who basically will play forever)

[DG_ThenNowForever]

14 minutes ago, who do you think said:

 

The league itself probably had something to do with it. Those teams weren't going to get much more than the Lakers' couch change package for those guys anyway. Enter Silver or some other shadowy guy from the league office getting in touch and saying "y'know, you could send those guys to LA and boost their roster; if they can shed Westbrook, get back in the playoff picture and make a run, that's more TV revenue for the league, which will find its way back to you, I'm just saying."

 

> nooooo conspiracy theory from biased Celtics fan!

 

I also think the NBA steered KG to Boston back in the day instead of Chicago or Phoenix or whoever else was reportedly in on that.

 

Yes. As everyone knows, Rui Hachamura and Jarred Vanderbilt and Malik Beasley are the NBA's greatest ringers.

[Unocal]

Go Kings

[who do you think]

11 minutes ago, sayahh said:

Probably just McHale wanting to help out his old team.  Also, TBF, David Stern did void the CP3 Hornets to Lakers trade.

 

McHale's enough of a doofus that this seems plausible on the surface, but I don't think that's what decided it. Not on a trade/player of that magnitude.

 

If I wanted to go even deeper on conspiracy theories about the league rigging things, I'd say that, in addition to small market owners throwing a fit and (since the Hornets were league-owned) actually having the power to spike the trade instead of just crying about it, Basketball Reasons unfolded because the NBA was already sniffing around on ways to oust Donald Sterling from the Clippers by that point, and with a seemingly good young core in place for the first time, the time seemed right for the Clippers to finally get turned around and made into a second legitimate LA franchise to be sold for big big money once they got Sterling to walk into the wood chipper.

 

As for the Lakers, how good would they really have been, and for how long? Kobe was old, Gasol and Odom were included in the proposed trade, Artest was well over the hill, and they would have been counting on a hell of a lot from a high-maintenance, often-injured Bynum.

 

1 minute ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

Yes. As everyone knows, Rui Hachamura and Jarred Vanderbilt and Malik Beasley are the NBA's greatest ringers.

 

Weren't you saying a few pages ago that D'Angelo Russell was the missing piece that turned this season around?

 

As for the other guys they picked up... well, they're getting depth minutes with apparently some success, considering they just beat the 2-seeded Grizzlies by 40 to clinch the series. Six months ago I'm pretty sure the Lakers' bench was the fried helicopter parts from the Kobe crash, so anything probably helps.

[JerseyJimmy]

53 minutes ago, Unocal said:

November-February basically means nothing in the NBA these days.

 

LA literally took half the season off and got away with it.

 

hence why I think we should do the exact opposite of the play-in tournament and cut the playoffs down to the top 6 teams in each conference. just follow the MLB/NFL bracket.

[Rockstar Matt]

 

3 minutes ago, who do you think said:

Six months ago I'm pretty sure the Lakers' bench was the fried helicopter parts from the Kobe crash, so anything probably helps.

 

This is a pretty gross analogy. A clown comment worthy of being on reddit/twitter, not here. Expected better from you.

 

On 4/14/2023 at 10:36 PM, who do you think said:

Grizzlies over Lakers: Last time the Lakers were the sp0000ky low seed they faceplanted in round one. Now they're two years older and have literal nobodies in the playoff rotation. I don't want to hear it.

 

Then again you make horrendous basketball predictions so maybe I expected too much from you. 

 

--------------------------------------------------

 

The Lakers are clearly not a typical 7th seed. Since the trade, they've been on a pace that would have had them competing for home-court advantage when that record is projected over 82 games.

 

AD was phenomenal tonight, on both ends. When he's locked in defensively like he was in this game, he's quite clearly the best defensive player in the league. It's a travesty he's never won a DPOY. LeBron was efficient and picked his spots well; D'Lo was outstanding, along with Reaves and the bench was playing outstanding defense (as were the starters). Everybody was hitting 3's too, the Grizzlies really had no chance tonight.

 

These Lakers we saw tonight can beat anyone in the league. Outstanding all-around.

 

Bring on the Kings or Warriors. 

[who do you think]

8 minutes ago, Rockstar Matt said:

This is a pretty gross analogy. A clown comment worthy of being on reddit/twitter, not here. Expected better from you.

 

Clearly you're not a frequent reader.

 

8 minutes ago, Rockstar Matt said:

Then again you make horrendous basketball predictions so maybe I expected too much from you. 

 

I don't know, I kind of nailed it last year. Find another person here who picked Golden State to win it all.

 

I'm also gonna take credit for being properly skeptical of the Bucks and just being a round late on charting their collapse.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

13 minutes ago, who do you think said:

 

Weren't you saying a few pages ago that D'Angelo Russell was the missing piece that turned this season around?

 

As for the other guys they picked up... well, they're getting depth minutes with apparently some success, considering they just beat the 2-seeded Grizzlies by 40 to clinch the series. Six months ago I'm pretty sure the Lakers' bench was the fried helicopter parts from the Kobe crash, so anything probably helps.

 

 

Yeesh.

 

I'm not really sure what the complaint is here. Teams shouldn't make trades? We should change the rules halfway through the season because reasons?

 

Russell Westbrook's major value this season was he was an expiring contract. That's valuable to a team making space, so it's not like the Lakers weren't offering anything of value.

 

--

 

AD had the most dominant 14/16 of all time. That was amazing.

 

 

[dont care]

This place has turned into Reddit with the bad takes, and morbid references.

[The_Admiral]

11 hours ago, who do you think said:

Basketball Reasons unfolded because the NBA was already sniffing around on ways to oust Donald Sterling from the Clippers by that point, and with a seemingly good young core in place for the first time, the time seemed right for the Clippers to finally get turned around and made into a second legitimate LA franchise to be sold for big big money once they got Sterling to walk into the wood chipper.

 

Jog my memory: I do half-remember the walls starting to close in on Sterling around this time, but I can't remember what it was. Was it the revelation that he was taking people into the shower and saying "look at those beautiful black bodies"? Was it just general slumlordery? Something broke around the time the Clippers got good and it seemed like there were going to be big changes, it just took a while.

[FiddySicks]

46 minutes ago, the admiral said:

 

Jog my memory: I do half-remember the walls starting to close in on Sterling around this time, but I can't remember what it was. Was it the revelation that he was taking people into the shower and saying "look at those beautiful black bodies"? Was it just general slumlordery? Something broke around the time the Clippers got good and it seemed like there were going to be big changes, it just took a while.

The first thing I remember really sticking (he had long since been a detestable :censored: before this. The “black bodies” thing goes all the way back to the 80s, I believe) was the feud he had with Baron Davis. Sterling had a long history of antagonizing black players he didn’t like, but Davis was probably the highest profile player he had done that to at the time. That feels like the point where people started taking public notice on and pushing back on some of his trash. 

[The_Admiral]

Still wild that a senile Jewish guy was like "black people smell funny!" and as a result the Nashville Predators are worth $5 billion. 

[who do you think]

16 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

Jog my memory: I do half-remember the walls starting to close in on Sterling around this time, but I can't remember what it was. Was it the revelation that he was taking people into the shower and saying "look at those beautiful black bodies"? Was it just general slumlordery? Something broke around the time the Clippers got good and it seemed like there were going to be big changes, it just took a while.

 

15 hours ago, FiddySicks said:

The first thing I remember really sticking (he had long since been a detestable before this. The “black bodies” thing goes all the way back to the 80s, I believe) was the feud he had with Baron Davis. Sterling had a long history of antagonizing black players he didn’t like, but Davis was probably the highest profile player he had done that to at the time. That feels like the point where people started taking public notice on and pushing back on some of his trash. 

 

Sterling's racism and general repulsiveness was the league's worst-kept secret for decades; the general thought is that he was shielded from any real trouble by being on good terms with David Stern. The 2014 V Stiviano tape and aftermath (don't bring black people to games, Magic Johnson has AIDS, etc) was what opened Pandora's box and prompted everyone to drag out their fainting couches. V Stiviano is apparently also known by about five other names and was notoriously difficult to get a hold of in the wake of all this. Seems very legit.

 

The Chris Paul trade actually happened two and a half years beforehand, during that compressed "offseason" between the end of the lockout and 2011-12 opening night. The Clippers under Sterling had never made that type of move before, and the NBA did reverse backflips to steer him there, even stiffing their signature franchise in the process. The whole thing looks even shadier in retrospect than it did at the time, although for different reasons: back then it was thought to be an owner revolt against the Lakers always buying up all the stars while everyone else fought over scraps, nowadays it looks like the NBA moved the earth to officially start making the Clippers franchise respectable, and attractive to potential buyers. In any case, I don't recall hearing a peep from Sterling during those 3 regular seasons between the trade and the scandal.

 

As for the why and the timing, all I can do is slip on my trench coat and speculate, but:

- Stern announced his eventual stepping-down in late 2012, but it's very reasonable to assume that he had told team owners and other people in the loop that he was a short-timer well before then (maybe the lockout was the last straw). Which would put the wheels in motion for Sterling to get booted from the club, with his most important ally gone.

- Several teams were changing hands around that 2010-2013 time period, and it's known the NBA had a couple of whales sniffing around in Larry Ellison and Steve Ballmer, who wanted to bring teams to San Jose and Seattle respectively. The league evidently wasn't crazy about either of those ideas, but if Larry Ellison and Steve Ballmer want into your league, you just don't tell them no then validate their parking; you find out what franchise they would be interested in owning and keeping in place. How about a team in Los Angeles that's not currently performing or operating like a team from Los Angeles should? Who owns them now? Some embarrassing old turd we wish we didn't have to share BoG meetings with. He'll be dealt with.

[JerseyJimmy]

hey, knicks, there's a difference between not celebrating injuries and not capitalizing on them.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

34 minutes ago, JerseyJimmy said:

hey, knicks, there's a difference between not celebrating injuries and not capitalizing on them.

 

That was embarrassing down the stretch. The Knicks had 5 on 4 for 5 minutes and did nothing with it.

[Unocal]

Well, there goes any interest I had in these NBA Playoffs.

 

Tired of the Lakers, tired of the Warriors. 

 

LeBron, AD, Klay, Steph, Draymond- They've hogged the NBA spotlight for too long.

 

The NBA needs something new. Instead, we're stuck with ANOTHER tiresome Steph/LeBron rerun.

 

At least the casual fans will be happy.

 

This league needs new stars, new rivalries, new stuff.

 

Instead we're going back to 2018

 

No Ja, no Giannis, no fun upstart like sacramento

 

Instead, it's the same old crap we've had for the last decade.

[JerseyJimmy]

sincerely hope Denver violates whoever wins this series with a Coors bottle.

[Unocal]

I don't care what anyone says.

 

The NBA will be better off when Steph and LeBron go away for good

 

Tired of the old guys hogging the spotlight

[FriedPickles]

4 minutes ago, Unocal said:

I don't care what anyone says.

 

The NBA will be better off when Steph and LeBron go away for good

Totally agree. I hate having to watch the true legends of the sport play.