briantw Posted March 28, 2018 Share Posted March 28, 2018 6 hours ago, Jaime L said: On Love, he's a big time help to Lebron, but I think it's largely because a ) you can run the offense through him and he's big for spacing the floor as a 5 and b ) he's the only other player on the roster who is demonstrably above average this season. Love is also basically a guaranteed 20-10, which is big. The team was struggling to score consistently before he came back, but now that he's in the line-up again their offense is back to historically great levels just like they were early in the season before Thomas came back and mucked everything up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briantw Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 Man, Durant is just the biggest bitch imaginable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Relic Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 3 hours ago, briantw said: Man, Durant is just the biggest bitch imaginable. Nah, not even close. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IamMe90 Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 9 hours ago, briantw said: Man, Durant is just the biggest bitch imaginable. Really? He's always seemed like a pretty down-to-earth guy in the interviews/media appearances I've seen. My experience is limited, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaime L Posted March 29, 2018 Author Share Posted March 29, 2018 9 hours ago, briantw said: Man, Durant is just the biggest bitch imaginable. Yeah, this is vastly different from every other defending champ who, if I recall, says that the following season is both super easy and that they've just smoked everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briantw Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 2 hours ago, Jaime L said: Yeah, this is vastly different from every other defending champ who, if I recall, says that the following season is both super easy and that they've just smoked everyone. I mean, the dude just complained that other teams are loading up to beat him when he joined the greatest regular season team of all time...a team that won 73 games the year before without him. Come on. There's a difference between saying the season is super easy and complaining about something that's absolutely absurd. No one expects Durant to say the season is easy. What we do expect is for him not to bitch that other teams are stacking the deck when he stacked the deck in an utterly unprecedented way just a year earlier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaime L Posted March 29, 2018 Author Share Posted March 29, 2018 26 minutes ago, briantw said: I mean, the dude just complained that other teams are loading up to beat him when he joined the greatest regular season team of all time...a team that won 73 games the year before without him. Come on. There's a difference between saying the season is super easy and complaining about something that's absolutely absurd. The question he was answering was why the Warriors are struggling so much more than previous years. His answer was just a variant of "the champ gets everyone's best shot". Feel like people are just looking for things to get outraged about him, just like Lebron 2010-2013. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Arryn Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 On 2018-03-27 at 8:32 PM, Jaime L said: I would've sworn Lebron would have started slowing down by now. There's no precedent for what he's doing. The closest is, like, Kareem who was great for an insanely long time. But even he doesn't match Lebron somehow still being at the peak he reached a full decade ago. You'd really have to dig in deep to figure out if his '09 season or this one was more dominant. On Love, he's a big time help to Lebron, but I think it's largely because a ) you can run the offense through him and he's big for spacing the floor as a 5 and b ) he's the only other player on the roster who is demonstrably above average this season. The Cavs chart is just nuts. The fact Lebron can barely be seen on it is further testament to his greatness: I think they are wrong, but many fans seem to think Hakeem’s peak was in his early 30’s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Arryn Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 Also, I will never get the double standard re: ‘loyalty’ that fans have for teams vs. players. Teams who DON’T do the equivalent of Durant joining the Warriors would be considered incompetent. Can you imagine a team passing up adding All Stars because they want to prove how they can win without them? Fired. But a player for some reason is supposed to make career choices based on a John Wayne-ish machismo ethos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briantw Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 23 minutes ago, James Arryn said: Also, I will never get the double standard re: ‘loyalty’ that fans have for teams vs. players. Teams who DON’T do the equivalent of Durant joining the Warriors would be considered incompetent. Can you imagine a team passing up adding All Stars because they want to prove how they can win without them? Fired. But a player for some reason is supposed to make career choices based on a John Wayne-ish machismo ethos. In my opinion, there's just something wrong with joining the team that just beat you. People killed Ray Allen for doing the same thing and I thought it was as justified then as it is with Durant now. It's a bitch move, especially considering the Thunder should have beaten the Warriors and would have if Durant had played a little better down the stretch. LeBron certainly has his issues, but when those rumors that he'd consider the Warriors this summer popped up, he shot that shit right down. He knows that, as a superstar player, you can't join the team that bumped you from the playoffs without it hurting your legacy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanteGabriel Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 8 minutes ago, briantw said: In my opinion, there's just something wrong with joining the team that just beat you. People killed Ray Allen for doing the same thing and I thought it was as justified then as it is with Durant now. It's a bitch move, especially considering the Thunder should have beaten the Warriors and would have if Durant had played a little better down the stretch. Can you please leave off calling people bitch? This is pretty sexist and retrograde language. There all sorts of creative ways to insult a player you dislike. It says a lot more about you than it does about Durant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Arryn Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 11 minutes ago, briantw said: In my opinion, there's just something wrong with joining the team that just beat you. People killed Ray Allen for doing the same thing and I thought it was as justified then as it is with Durant now. It's a bitch move, especially considering the Thunder should have beaten the Warriors and would have if Durant had played a little better down the stretch. LeBron certainly has his issues, but when those rumors that he'd consider the Warriors this summer popped up, he shot that shit right down. He knows that, as a superstar player, you can't join the team that bumped you from the playoffs without it hurting your legacy. If the W’s had offered Cleveland the Splash Brothers for Kyrie, how would you describe their decision making process in taking or passing on it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briantw Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 9 minutes ago, James Arryn said: If the W’s had offered Cleveland the Splash Brothers for Kyrie, how would you describe their decision making process in taking or passing on it? You mean the Kyrie Irving that demanded a trade? I assume they'd take it, because he demanded to be traded and, thus, they'd certainly take the best offer available. They would have traded Kyrie for Jimmy Butler if Kyrie had made his request public a few weeks earlier (or months...don't recall the specifics of the timeline there). I do know for a fact, though, that the Cavs had no intention of dealing Irving before he threatened to sit out the season if they didn't trade him. But the thing is, I'm not killing Durant for leaving OKC or a lack of loyalty to them. I don't expect teams or players to have any type of real loyalty to the teams they play for, although it is nice when it's mutual between team and player. I'm killing him for joining the team that beat him. If he had, for instance, joined the Spurs, I wouldn't have given a shit. But one of the top five players in the NBA joining the 73-win team that just bounced him leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially since, as mentioned, they would have beaten the Warriors had Durant not played poorly down the stretch. This would have been like LeBron joining the Celtics back in 2010. He would have been rightly crucified for doing so. He was still killed for going to Miami, but, as someone who hated that he left the Cavs, I can at least respect that he put together his own team to beat the superteam that he couldn't get past in Cleveland due to a lack of other high end talent. And really, had he not done his stupid Decision special and simply released an article in the Plain Dealer detailing his decision and why, though it killed him to leave, he didn't think he had the talent to win titles with the Cavs but hoped to come back someday, it would have gone over a hell of a lot better and he wouldn't have gotten half the blowback he did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Chatywin et al. Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 KAT goes for 56 and 15, breaking the Wolves single game scoring record while also going 6-8 from three and gets no national love. We do exist up here in MN, fake news media! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaime L Posted March 30, 2018 Author Share Posted March 30, 2018 Holy shit, Markelle Fultz's cursed season continues. Comes back for 2 games and causes this: 4 hours ago, briantw said: But one of the top five players in the NBA joining the 73-win team that just bounced him leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially since, as mentioned, they would have beaten the Warriors had Durant not played poorly down the stretch. I think a lot of people agree with this. I wanted to see the basketball greatness potential so I didn't hate it, but I get why others did. At this point though I'm kinda glad Curry is out for awhile because I want to see Durant carrying the full load again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanteGabriel Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 5 minutes ago, Jaime L said: Holy shit, Markelle Fultz's cursed season continues. Comes back for 2 games and causes this: Obligatorily: "Buh gawd, King, that's Danny Ainge's music!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GAROVORKIN Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 37 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said: Obligatorily: "Buh gawd, King, that's Danny Ainge's music!" Im sure Philadelphia's front office wishes they had never made that momentous trade to the Celtics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IamMe90 Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 12 hours ago, briantw said: I mean, the dude just complained that other teams are loading up to beat him when he joined the greatest regular season team of all time...a team that won 73 games the year before without him. Come on. There's a difference between saying the season is super easy and complaining about something that's absolutely absurd. No one expects Durant to say the season is easy. What we do expect is for him not to bitch that other teams are stacking the deck when he stacked the deck in an utterly unprecedented way just a year earlier. Did he say that? That phrase would imply that said teams are doing something untoward, unethical, or in violation of the NBA's rules to beat the Warriors. I think a more charitable/reasonable reading of that statement would be something like, "it's hard to win in the NBA [generally, because the NBA is full of exceptionally talented players interspersed throughout all teams]. Especially when teams load up to beat you [because,when you are the defending champion, you are the team to beat.]" I mean, generally, through the draft and trades, teams attempt to bolster their roster in order to win more. AKA, "load up." Naturally, teams attempt to improve their roster so that they may ultimately... win at the highest level. That would, of course, involve defeating someone in the championship match, which might, ya know, involve, I dunno - defeating the defending champions? Okay, so that's just why I think it's completely reasonable for KD to say that teams are gunning for the GSW, or perhaps even game planning for them, because why wouldn't they? But to accuse KD of "stacking the deck" himself, as an individual player in the NBA, simply for joining a good team, is crazy. First of all, whether or not a franchise making smart personnel decisions and acquiring excellent players within the context of their salary cap could be construed as "stacking the deck" is debatable, and another conservation. But even if you accept that premise, that is on the franchise; laying the blame on any one individual player is ridiculous. Regardless, this entire discussion is based on interpreting a fairly generic interview answer by a star from the defending championship NBA team to the question "why aren't you guys doing as well as before?" as "the system is rigged." I just don't think that's a valid interpretation at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Relic Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 The most ironic thing is that Fultz hit Joel in the face with his shoulder, the same shoulder that kept him out of the lineup until right now. Crazy, and a sad end to Philly's season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Chatywin et al. Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 Shameless post for real estate reasons… Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.