NBA 2017: Take That For Data - MVP Edition

[DunderMifflin]

Nash had sick handles indeed

[DunderMifflin]

5 minutes ago, Calibandar said:

Hoping the Clippers beat Utah.

Second round projections:

Golden State over Clippers in 4

San Antonio over Houston in 6

Cavs over Raptors in 5

Celtics over Wizards in 6

Spurs vs Rockets interesting, but not a series I think I will love watching. 

Celtics I think have now found their groove and their mental toughness may be too much for the Wizards, that is my feeling. Team quality will win over the fact that Washington may have both the best and secondbest player in this series ( maybe I'm selling Thomas short here, but I'd take Wall and Beal over him by a small margin).

 

Agree except I think Raptors will actually give Cavs more of a scare than that.

And I'm hoping the Rockets can stretch it to 7 games.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

 Looking like the Jazz will move on. They lead the Clips by 16 with about 2 minutes left in the 3rd. 

[Relic]

2 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Heres an hour or so of crazy talk. Notice how HE NEVER takes AI or any of his peers off the dribble........except for a hundrend or so times. He was better and more valuable than any point guard in the league during his prime. 

 

Some really impressive moves there, but he's still no Curry in that department. Look Nash was a great great point guard. But he wasn't a better PG than Curry OR CP3. But you don't have to take my word for it. Google Top Ten PGs of All Time and see what other people are saying. 

[Jaime L]

1 hour ago, Calibandar said:

Celtics I think have now found their groove and their mental toughness may be too much for the Wizards, that is my feeling. Team quality will win over the fact that Washington may have both the best and secondbest player in this series ( maybe I'm selling Thomas short here, but I'd take Wall and Beal over him by a small margin).

 

I tend to reflexively discount Thomas because his size is a liability and I'd take Wall over him, but I gotta admit he's better than Beal. His ability to create instant offense with just a sliver of space is unparalleled. Wizards are not a good defensive team and they're going to struggle to contain him and all the Celtics 3 point shooting all series long. They gotta abuse him on the defensive end which they didn't do in game 1. 

Wizards are thin enough as is and Markieff Morris misses any time at all, could be in some big trouble. Wizards one big competitive edge is having the better starting 5. But switch Morris out for Oubre and you lose a lot of size and simple basketball know how. 

[Relic]

Whelp...the Clippers should look pretty different come October...

[Jaime L]

2 hours ago, Relic said:

Whelp...the Clippers should look pretty different come October...

I have no idea what they do. Running it back seems extra depressing at this point.

Paul has millions of reasons to stay but he's leaving his prime and is ideally at the phase of his career where he could attach himself to another star and go get a ring that he never will in LA. Feel like he needs to be the expert facilitator for someone with more of a killer instinct than he has. He took almost exactly 20 shots every game of this series, even after Griffin went down and the Clippers had a dearth of other offensive options. Not sure if he just gets tired or what but he seems to value perfect efficiency over dominance but this series the Clippers needed the latter.

But align him with other young stars and that has promise.  If he signed with Milwaukee or Minnesota, that'd be fun as hell. But if I could choose, would love to see him sign with San Antonio. I mean how badly does he want to finally beat the Warriors? That's the only place that'd give him a real chance.  

[Calibandar]

11 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 Looking like the Jazz will move on. They lead the Clips by 16 with about 2 minutes left in the 3rd. 

They were truly awful. Rarely seen a game in which a team was so bad.

Last night in their own stadium, they did everything wrong. Can it be called choking? Maybe not if you were never good in the first place, and they've taken a ton of losses in the regular season as well. But this? No offensive play was executed. Just dropping the ball, going beyond the shot clock, shooting airballs, it was incredible how poor they were. What a team. 

I was reading this weekend that the Clippers will do whatever they can to hang onto Griffin and you can see why. Jordan is very limited offensively and cannot pick up any slack in Griffin's absence. CP3 is not dominant enough and to be honest looks a little past his best, he does of course have many miles on him. For all of Griffin's injury problems which directly cost them this series against a mediocre Jazz team, they can certainly use him.

But I think this team gets blown up. Redick and Crawford have consistently been shadows of their former selves as well, and that applies to Griffin as well.

[Relic]

8 hours ago, Jaime L said:

 If he signed with Milwaukee or Minnesota, that'd be fun as hell. But if I could choose, would love to see him sign with San Antonio. I mean how badly does he want to finally beat the Warriors? That's the only place that'd give him a real chance.  

I'd love to see all three of those scenarios come to fruition. Would be very very interesting to see what a guy like CP3 can do with the likes of the Wolves or the Bucks. Or when being coached by Greg Pop.

However, I'm inclined to believe he will stay with the Clippers. And the rumors of Melo to the Clips have been getting stronger, altho I'm really not sure how Melo helps this team get past the second round. He's definitely an upgrade over JJ, but seems to me the Clips need a couple of 3 and D guys, not a ball hoggy wing who rarely tries hard on defense. 

 

[Relic]

Draymond Green -

"I wasn't a Charles Barkley fan growing up. No disrespect to Chuck. He's a great player, but as I got older, I watched his game because I knew he was undersized and the things that he could do, I tried to add some of that stuff to my game. But nah, he didn't influence me at all."

 

Kids these days, huh? You compared them to a Hall of Fame player and they get salty. Also, you watched his game but he didn't influence you at all? Uh huh...

 

 

[Calibandar]

Well, he's an idiot. 

Barkley is clearly a very good comparison for Green.

[Calibandar]

Amusing article on the Decline of Dwight. Remarkable how he has deteriorated.

https://theringer.com/2017-nba-playoffs-dwight-howard-atlanta-hawks-1fab4ecca027

Makes me wonder if he will still be a starter somewhere in the NBA next season.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

7 minutes ago, Calibandar said:

Amusing article on the Decline of Dwight. Remarkable how he has deteriorated.

https://theringer.com/2017-nba-playoffs-dwight-howard-atlanta-hawks-1fab4ecca027

Makes me wonder if he will still be a starter somewhere in the NBA next season.

Dwight is the perfect case to show your children what wasted talent truly is. He just does not give a damn. He's made his money, has fame and he quit trying the moment he went to the Lakers. 

Or. And this may very well be true, The Mamba broke Dwight. 

[Tinker]

2 minutes ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Dwight is the perfect case to show your children what wasted talent truly is. He just does not give a damn. He's made his money, has fame and he quit trying the moment he went to the Lakers. 

Or. And this may very well be true, The Mamba broke Dwight. 

That is not true. Dwight fell off due to all the injuries he had from his last year in Orlando. His back has been stuffed since. 

[Relic]

9 minutes ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Dwight is the perfect case to show your children what wasted talent truly is. He just does not give a damn. He's made his money, has fame and he quit trying the moment he went to the Lakers. 

Or. And this may very well be true, The Mamba broke Dwight. 

Exhibit B,  Demarcus Cousins. 

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

1 hour ago, Relic said:

Exhibit B,  Demarcus Cousins. 

Indeed. So you think Kobe broke Dwight's soul?

[DunderMifflin]

3 hours ago, Calibandar said:

They were truly awful. Rarely seen a game in which a team was so bad.

Last night in their own stadium, they did everything wrong. Can it be called choking? Maybe not if you were never good in the first place, and they've taken a ton of losses in the regular season as well. But this? No offensive play was executed. Just dropping the ball, going beyond the shot clock, shooting airballs, it was incredible how poor they were. What a team. 

I was reading this weekend that the Clippers will do whatever they can to hang onto Griffin and you can see why. Jordan is very limited offensively and cannot pick up any slack in Griffin's absence. CP3 is not dominant enough and to be honest looks a little past his best, he does of course have many miles on him. For all of Griffin's injury problems which directly cost them this series against a mediocre Jazz team, they can certainly use him.

But I think this team gets blown up. Redick and Crawford have consistently been shadows of their former selves as well, and that applies to Griffin as well.

The Jazz are good, I think the Clips still lose with Griffin. To me it looked like the two best players on the court in this series were on the Jazz with Chris Paul being a distant 3rd.

They both went 51 - 31 in the regular season. (Also the Cavs and Raptors both went 51 - 31 this season) Which is only 4 games behind the Rockets 55 wins. 

[Relic]

27 minutes ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Indeed. So you think Kobe broke Dwight's soul?

I think a profound lack of self awareness broke Dwight,  as it breaks many people who get hyped as teenagers. 

[sperry]

Yeah, Dwight never seemed to be able to deal with the inevitable backlash after being popular. It happens every time someone gets really famous, really quickly. You go from being able to do no wrong to having every little thing dissected. The thing with Dwight was that the game changed. He was never a truly dominant offensive player. His strength was just shutting down opposing big men. Well, now there aren't opposing big men. His impact has been diminished due to the position he plays, and a guy like him is never going to be able to elevate a team to the top of the league again, at least with out major rule and or style changes in the league.

[Maithanet]

33 minutes ago, sperry said:

Yeah, Dwight never seemed to be able to deal with the inevitable backlash after being popular. It happens every time someone gets really famous, really quickly. You go from being able to do no wrong to having every little thing dissected. The thing with Dwight was that the game changed. He was never a truly dominant offensive player. His strength was just shutting down opposing big men. Well, now there aren't opposing big men. His impact has been diminished due to the position he plays, and a guy like him is never going to be able to elevate a team to the top of the league again, at least with out major rule and or style changes in the league.

The game changing didn't help Howard, but his diminishing skillset is by far the biggest factor.  If he could still play like he could 8 years ago, he would still be a top 10 player in the NBA today.  He did a lot more than just shut down the opponents big man - he grabbed rebounds at both ends of the floor and he was an excellent rim protector.  He's always lacked offensive moves, but he used to be pretty mobile for a big man, and could cover guys out in space if he had to.