NBA 2017: Fleecing the East and Kyrie to Boston

[Calibandar]

To continue..

Shocking trade. Even though Boston was rumored to be in the mix, Phoenix seemed more likely.

But they refused to give up Jackson ( let alone Booker) and Boston certainly did not have such qualms.

As much as it is a loss for the Cavs to have to let Irving go.... what a haul.

Thomas is as good a point guard replacement as they were going to get, rated higher than Bledsoe. And an excellent value piece in Crowder.

And the 2018 Nets pick, which is a surprise. However we should perhaps not assume that this is a guaranteed top 3 pick like this year. The Nets are getting a bit better and there's some teams in the East in full on tank mode.

Cavs line-up: Thomas, Smith, LeBron, Crowder, Love, or Love with Thompson and Crowder off the bench.

Celtics: Irving, .....,  Hayward, Morris, Horford

Can I say I'm a bit underwhelmed by the Celtics team? Irving and Hayward are spectactular additions, Morris and Horford solid starters.

Feels like they gave up a bit much. Either keep the pick, or Crowder.

[Rhom]

On your Cavs roster, don't forget that they have Derreck Rose now coming off the bench and likely will add D.Wade.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Better title: NBA Offseason: It Takes A Flat Earther To Go East

That said, everyone wins in this trade. The Celtics got a slight upgrade in Kyrie, and more importantly, they don’t have to deal with the headache of resigning IT. Kyrie gets to be the alpha dog on a title contender. The Cavs are still a win now team and are set up beautifully when LeBron leaves.

[Maithanet]

I'll start this by saying that I don't care for either Kyrie or IT's game.  I think they're both overrated in terms of actually helping a team win a championship. 

With that caveat, I think the Cavaliers got a great haul.  I don't understand how the Celtics weren't willing to trade the Nets pick when George or Butler were available, but are willing to do it for Irving.  I feel like this current Celtics roster is clearly not talented enough to win a championship, and unless they hit the jackpot with one of their remaining picks, they're probably going to be very good but not great for a long time. 

The Cavs are closer to winning a championship.  I think they'll defeat Boston without particular difficulty.  They're deeper, which they needed, and they've got one more great defender in Crowder, which will help a lot.

If it weren't for how ridiculously stacked GSW is, they'd be right there.  Sadly, it still isn't really close to enough.  Lebron is getting older, he looked less dominant in 2017 than he did in either of the other two GSW Finals (but still great, obviously).  Durant, Curry, Thompson and Green are not slowing down.  GSW's depth remains intact, somehow.  That superteam really saps the fun out of the NBA for me.  Until Durant arrived, GSW was the great team that isn't as strong in the postseason, and that can be beaten.  Now, the NBA is just a formality until that core breaks up.  You cannot have two top 5 and two other top 25 guys on one team, it is just unsporting. 

[Calibandar]

I don't think they were brought closer to beating Golden State either, but I never thought that was even remotely on the cards when Kyrie asked to be traded. Did you? They've turned a real problem into a possibly improved team.

I agree with you on Boston, they look very good but not great. At the same time though, they're 1 piece away from being great. Maybe it's Tatum. There's a chance they don't get a single lottery pick next year though. Whereas the Cavs now have Brooklyn's pick, which I'd rate as top 5 but possibly not even top 3, the Celtics get the Lakers pick as long as that's within the top 5. There's a chance it falls outside of that IMO. They will be better this season.

I think Irving will change his game in Boston. Simply out of necessity. I don't agree with the complainers on for instance ESPN who say Boston doesn't need this ball hog. There is simply no way he could continue playing in Boston the way he did in Cleveland and you have to think Kyrie knew that full well when he submitted his trade request. His assist number is going to go up dramatically in Boston, no question. He's the sole point guard now, that team doesn't function if he doesn't do his job.

[Maithanet]

12 minutes ago, Calibandar said:

I don't think they were brought closer to beating Golden State either, but I never thought that was even remotely on the cards when Kyrie asked to be traded. Did you? They've turned a real problem into a possibly improved team.

I think they're better now than they were last week, and that's really all you can ask of a trade like that.  They got a far better haul than the Clippers or Pacers or Bulls did. 

[Fez]

The Warriors will probably still be intact the season after this one too; unless Durant decides to sign elsewhere after winning another championship this season. And even for the 2019-20 season, Curry, Green, Iggy, and Shaun Livingston are all under contract already and there should be room to keep either Durant or Klay easily. Both would be tricky though, unless someone takes a discount; and I wouldn't be surprised if someone does.

Unless there's a Shaq-Kobe Lakers-level fallout, GSW seems set to remain super dominant for a while; and yeah, it's pretty boring. I'm fine with super teams to some extent, but this is just crazy. Only hope for now is that next summer LeBron brings together his own crazy super team (which I don't think can happen in Cleveland). And even that doesn't solve the problem of most of the post-season being a formality, but at least the finals would be interesting again.

[Maithanet]

13 minutes ago, Fez said:

Unless there's a Shaq-Kobe Lakers-level fallout, GSW seems set to remain super dominant for a while; and yeah, it's pretty boring. I'm fine with super teams to some extent, but this is just crazy. Only hope for now is that next summer LeBron brings together his own crazy super team (which I don't think can happen in Cleveland). And even that doesn't solve the problem of most of the post-season being a formality, but at least the finals would be interesting again.

Agreed, although I don't really mind the postseason being mostly formality, that's almost inevitable in basketball.  The teams that aren't real contenders can hope to make the second or third round, and that's the excitement.  I wanted the Wiz to beat the Celtics even knowing they'd get clobbered by Cleveland.

I think at some point guys are going to be tired of trading away real money to win championships, when they've already won several championships.  If you've won 2 titles, trading away millions of dollars to win more is less appealing.  And by the time Klay is up for an extension, he will probably have 4 championships in 5 years.  At that point his legacy is more or less as good as it's going to get under Curry/Durant's win.  A lot of times guys are tired of taking a backseat and want to show what they can do on their own.  Getting paid millions of dollars more also helps. 

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

I think at some point guys are going to be tired of trading away real money to win championships, when they've already won several championships.  If you've won 2 titles, trading away millions of dollars to win more is less appealing.  And by the time Klay is up for an extension, he will probably have 4 championships in 5 years.  At that point his legacy is more or less as good as it's going to get under Curry/Durant's win.  A lot of times guys are tired of taking a backseat and want to show what they can do on their own.  Getting paid millions of dollars more also helps. 

True. And from a legacy perspective I think a lot of guys would see 2-3 titles on a superteam plus 1 title where they were top dog as being better for their legacy than 5-6 titles on a superteam. 

Getting to Russell-era Celtics' dominance would be one thing, but I don't think anyone thinks GSW will stay this dominant for that many years.

[Maithanet]

9 minutes ago, Fez said:

True. And from a legacy perspective I think a lot of guys would see 2-3 titles on a superteam plus 1 title where they were top dog as being better for their legacy than 5-6 titles on a superteam.

Without a doubt.  Lebron's legacy got a HUGE boost by beating GSW just once.  Not that he did that "alone", but his team was clearly the less talented team, and it was only his greatness that pushed them over the top. 

I will say this about the Cleveland trade, they've improved to the point where if Curry or Durant are injured at Finals time, then I would consider Cleveland the favorite.  This is a real possibility - both those guys have some injury history.  If Green or Thompson were out, Cleveland would have a real chance, but I would probably still favor GSW. 

[Jaime L]

3 hours ago, Maithanet said:

The Cavs are closer to winning a championship.  I think they'll defeat Boston without particular difficulty.  They're deeper, which they needed, and they've got one more great defender in Crowder, which will help a lot.

I've seen people say this but I'm not sure it'll be particularly easy.They're still the favorite in the East but it's not the foregone conclusion it was the last few years. Lebron's another year older (and has about a million miles on him which I know he's superhuman but at some point it has to kick in, right?) Isaiah Thomas is no guarantee to be the same guy he was before this injury or even if he is, are we sure Cleveland's system will make a star out of him the same way Stevens' did? Crowder's a helpful piece but hasn't been the same defender he was in the past. 

Boston's better than last year with another legit star in Hayward. And Kyrie is a killer in the playoffs. It's now been beyond proven over the last two postseasons where he erupts for 40 points seemingly whenever their backs are against the wall. And when he deigns to play defense he actually can where with I.T., it's almost irrelevant how hard he tries on that end. Also who on Cleveland defends Kyrie? Kyrie lit up Avery Bradley, Klay Thompson, Andre Igoudala...some of the very best perimeter defenders in basketball...I shudder to think what he could do to Cleveland. 

Then again Boston could potentially implode with chemistry issues from importing an entirely new starting lineup and a guy who can be a selfish head case in Kyrie. They may also really regret now having to really rely on a terrible shooter like Marcus Smart. There's a lot of ways this can go terribly wrong. Just saying the range of possibilities for this season at the top of the Eastern Conference are much wider than recent years.

And don't get me wrong I still think Cleveland handily won this deal in a big picture sense. But in terms of just the short term and next season in particular, I think Boston closed the gap with Cleveland a fair amount. 

[Maithanet]

7 minutes ago, Jaime L said:

Boston's better than last year with another legit star in Hayward. And Kyrie is a killer in the playoffs. It's now been beyond proven over the last two postseasons where he erupts for 40 points seemingly whenever their backs are against the wall. And when he deigns to play defense he actually can where with I.T., it's almost irrelevant how hard he tries on that end. Also who on Cleveland defends Kyrie? Kyrie lit up Avery Bradley, Klay Thompson, Andre Igoudala...some of the very best perimeter defenders in basketball...I shudder to think what he could do to Cleveland.

Boston is better because they signed Hayward, this deal doesn't change that.  The gap between them was smaller than we saw in last year's playoffs.  But I think that if IT can get healthy again, this deal put more room between Cleveland and Boston.

And as for who covers Kyrie?  Probably JR does for most of the game.  Then in crunch time, Lebron does.  You know Lebron will be motivated for that matchup, and the refs will be allowing a lot of contact. 

[KingintheNorth4]

The Cavs really made out like bandits on this trade.

[briantw]

28 minutes ago, Jaime L said:

Also who on Cleveland defends Kyrie? Kyrie lit up Avery Bradley, Klay Thompson, Andre Igoudala...some of the very best perimeter defenders in basketball...I shudder to think what he could do to Cleveland. 

The better question is who on Boston defends LeBron.  They sent away their two best defenders this offseason.  We already know they have no one who can guard Love.  Love and Thompson just abuse Al Horford, who by the way probably has the second worst contract in the entire league (Noah is first without question).  They also don't really have anyone who can defend Thomas, as once again they shipped out their two best perimeter defenders.

It'll be interesting to see if Thomas gets any better by playing next to LeBron, who will take a lot of the focus off of him.  He was the guy in Boston, but that also made it pretty easy for him to be game-planned for in the playoffs.  If you take him out of the game, Boston had no one else who could beat you.  Now he's got LeBron and Love, one of whom is arguably still the best player in the NBA and the other is easily a top thirty player.  Teams won't just be able to focus on defending him, because any time you double him it leaves somebody wide open, be it JR Smith for a three (and mind you, he shot exactly 50% from three in the playoffs last year) or Tristan Thompson for a free dunk.

Mind you, Kyrie benefited from all of that as well.  The obvious question, though, is whether or not Thomas can answer the bell in the playoffs, provided he's still on the team at that point.  We know Kyrie shows up when it matters.  We have yet to see that with Thomas, although again he's only ever been his team's best player in the playoffs, which is no longer the case.  I guess it's also fair to point out that he may have been injured, although I'm still a little dubious as to the timing of it.

[Jaime L]

39 minutes ago, briantw said:

The better question is who on Boston defends LeBron.

They got Marcus Morris specifically for this reason. Supposedly he does about as good of a job as anyone does against Lebron  (which means he gets destroyed like everyone does but makes him earn it). Avery Bradley's a great defender but he would never stand a chance against Lebron due to the size difference and was only used against Kyrie for that reason.  

Regarding who defends Isaiah Thomas, they have Marcus Smart. Not a perfect option but better than anyone Cleveland can throw at Kyrie. 

[Maithanet]

5 minutes ago, Jaime L said:

They got Marcus Morris specifically for this reason. Supposedly he does about as good of a job as anyone does against Lebron  (which means he gets destroyed like everyone does but makes him earn it). Avery Bradley's a great defender but he would never stand a chance against Lebron due to the size difference and was only used against Kyrie for that reason. 

Is Marcus Morris a significantly better defender than Markeiff?  Because Markeiff was getting toasted by Kelly Olynyk who is *ahem* not quite Lebron's caliber. 

[Jaime L]

1 minute ago, Maithanet said:

Is Marcus Morris a significantly better defender than Markeiff?  Because Markeiff was getting toasted by Kelly Olynyk who is *ahem* not quite Lebron's caliber. 

How dare you, sir! Markieff was a stud against Millsap. He was so frustrating to Millsap the dude promptly packed his bags and switched conferences.

As for Olynyk, the only truly effective defender for him is one of his own kind - an actual giraffe (with moderate to above average athleticism). 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

This should be one hell of an ECF if everyone stays healthy. 

[Maithanet]

2 minutes ago, Jaime L said:

How dare you, sir! Markieff was a stud against Millsap. He was so frustrating to Millsap the dude promptly packed his bags and switched conferences.

As for Olynyk, the only truly effective defender for him is one of his own kind - an actual giraffe (with moderate to above average athleticism). 

Where did Millsap go?  I don't even remember.  Was it the Kings?

[sperry]

9 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

This should be one hell of an ECF if everyone stays healthy. 

I don't think it's particularly close. I really think Cleveland eviscerates the Celtics here.