NBA Finals 2019: Can the Raptors Claw Out a Win?

[Maithanet]

Kevin Durant has announced that he did indeed have surgery to repair his torn achilles tendon. 

That sucks, hope him a speedy recovery. 

[Jaime L]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

The kinda scary/crazy hypothetical is if the situation would have been any different if Durant were under contract for 3 more years.  It's no different for Durant himself (the calculus is the same), but for the Warriors trainers and coaches, they have a lot more incentive to think about next year if they know Durant is going to be a Warrior.  Whereas if he's 90% gone, then the only thing that matters is whether he can help you win this year.  In which case, you do everything you can to push him onto the court.  I don't know whether that happened or not, but it's very possible.

Yes, I've thought about how different this whole situation would have play out had it been Curry, not Durant. The level of pressure to come back would be like 1/4th what we saw. Sure there would've been eagerness to have him help out but it just would've been generally assumed that if he wasn't playing it was because he couldn't. 

And there wouldn't be nearly the presumption of ulterior motives the player (when he was sitting out) or the team (when he did return). 

[Fragile Bird]

Now here’s a dumb question - who pays KD’s salary for the year he’s out?

Does this mean he’s forced to pick up another year or two on his GSW contract to get paid? No one is going to sign him, he’s going to need a year off to heal. TSN put up the numbers on other Achilles heel injuries and it took between high 200s and high 300s in days to heal.

And surely any option year he has with GSW isn’t going to be for the money he would have made with a new team.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Gee, the last I heard most of North America was cheering for the Raptors to win, now they’ve flip-flopped?

Probably not, but I suspect some of the hate for both the team and the player has been diminished. At least I hope so.

Quote

Drake was asked to be the Raptors’ global rep back in 2013, so you know, he kinda meets players from every team and has done so for years. Not to mention he’s a rap star. Not to mention he has a mansion in Hidden Hills, outside LA, which is in California, which is where GS plays, so it’s ok to be a fan of players not playing for Toronto. And that includes players who used to play for Toronto and who Drake just may have been a fan of, who moved to a team that became champions and then moved to another team that became champions. If you get my drift.

The bolded section offends me to the core!

And yes, while he does have many friends across numerous sports leagues, Drake takes jock sniff to heights the likes of which we’ve never seen before.

[Jaime L]

1 minute ago, Fragile Bird said:

Now here’s a dumb question - who pays KD’s salary for the year he’s out?

Does this mean he’s forced to pick up another year or two on his GSW contract to get paid? No one is going to sign him, he’s going to need a year off to heal. TSN put up the numbers on other Achilles heel injuries and it took between high 200s and high 300s in days to heal.

And surely any option year he has with GSW isn’t going to be for the money he would have made with a new team.

He has a player option to return to the Warriors next year for $31.5m but otherwise has the ability to go out into the free market and see what kind of longterm deal he can get. 

I expect multiple teams to still offer him a max (or near max) multiyear contract even knowing he won't be able to play next year. The Knicks, Nets and Clippers all opened max slots specifically with the hopes of luring Durant. I'd be surprised if all of them were scared off by this injury. He's a top 3 type talent in the NBA when healthy and those virtually never come available. Someone, somewhere is going to go all in on the hope he can fully recover his former athleticism. He's still only 30 after all. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

12 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Now here’s a dumb question - who pays KD’s salary for the year he’s out?

Does this mean he’s forced to pick up another year or two on his GSW contract to get paid? No one is going to sign him, he’s going to need a year off to heal. TSN put up the numbers on other Achilles heel injuries and it took between high 200s and high 300s in days to heal.

And surely any option year he has with GSW isn’t going to be for the money he would have made with a new team.

It’s not a dumb question at all, because the answer we don’t know. KD has a player option on his contract. He can either opt in and get $31m from the Warriors or he can hit the free market. Honestly there’s no “right” choice. Personally I think he should opt out because a team will give him a super max deal knowing he’s out for at least a year and that he’ll likely never be the same again.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Just now, Jaime L said:

He has a player option to return to the Warriors next year for $31.5m but otherwise has the ability to go out into the free market and see what kind of longterm deal he can get. 

I expect multiple teams to still offer him a max (or near max) multiyear contract even knowing he won't be able to play next year. The Knicks, Nets and Clippers all opened max slots specifically with the hopes of luring Durant. I'd be surprised if all of them were scared off by this injury. He's a top 3 type talent in the NBA when healthy and those virtually never come available. Someone, somewhere is going to go all in on the hope he can fully recover his former athleticism. He's still only 30 after all. 

He was top 3. That’s gone.

It’s crazy to think how many plans this injury disrupted. I wonder if anyone is still willing to join him on a team with two max slots open.

[The Anti-Targ]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

It’s not a dumb question at all, because the answer we don’t know. KD has a player option on his contract. He can either opt in and get $31m from the Warriors or he can hit the free market. Honestly there’s no “right” choice. Personally I think he should opt out because a team will give him a super max deal knowing he’s out for at least a year and that he’ll likely never be the same again.

Is there a typo there? You wrote that a team will offer him a super max deal but by saying  he's out for a year and "he’ll likely never be the same again" it suggests you really mean no team will offer him a super max. Which therefore suggests his best course is to opt in to staying with the Warriors, but you say he should opt out.

Interestingly, KD's build always made me feel like he was fragile and subject to breakage. He looks all arms and legs to me so easy to get these things tangled up and damaged.

[Rhom]

17 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Is there a typo there? You wrote that a team will offer him a super max deal but by saying  he's out for a year and "he’ll likely never be the same again" it suggests you really mean no team will offer him a super max. Which therefore suggests his best course is to opt in to staying with the Warriors, but you say he should opt out.

Interestingly, KD's build always made me feel like he was fragile and subject to breakage. He looks all arms and legs to me so easy to get these things tangled up and damaged.

I don’t think he misspoke.  In a world where Joe Johnson was a max player, I don’t think it unrealistic to think a team would offer KD a SuperMax and yet also think he will never be quite the same.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 minute ago, Rhom said:

I don’t think he misspoke.  In a world where Joe Johnson was a max player, I don’t think it unrealistic to think a team would offer KD a SuperMax and yet also think he will never be quite the same.

Yeah, I was just having a text convo with my son, and he gave me that perspective, which means @Tywin et al. post makes sense to me now.

[Relic]

Someone will offer Durant the max. That's pretty fucking certain. 

Tgese conspiracy theories about the injury are fucking ridiculous, btw. There is no way a guy like Durant doesn't get a second opinion before he decides to play. He, and only he, can make the decision to return, and he did. End of story. 

[The Anti-Targ]

What are the conspiracy theories? I haven't heard of any conspiracy theories.

The player can only decide not to play, but the coach / management can decide not to play him if they aren't happy with the medical clearance, and the player can't force himself onto the team. But yes, and of the day Durant does have the right to exclude himself from playing if he feels unfit or at risk of aggravating his injury. I would think most sports people are itching to get onto the court / field before they are fully fit, and it's up to the medical team and management to hold them back if they aren't ready. So as soon as the medical assessment passes him as fit to play, KD would have wanted to be out on court.

There's room for management to put some pressure on the medical staff to give a star player the all clear perhaps earlier than they might. But that's about as far as I would think any kind of conspiracy might go. If there's any suggestion he was played too early in the hopes that would seriously injure himself, that seems highly unlikely.

[Maithanet]

10 hours ago, Triskele said:

To Maith's point about how a med staff's saying "not at risk of further injury":

It's a bit tricky to reconcile DG's points with that one.  Yes, I would think that it's true that no med staff ever really means that they can say this with 100% certainty, but they cannot be so medically illiterate, indeed no one less so, as to not be aware of the concept of how one injury impacts how you move, how you rely on other small parts of the body more heavily to compensate, etc...No huge point to make on this other than to just add fuel to the fire about how many ways there are to think about this.  

But man, let's say the med staff was genuinely as close as they could reasonably be to the "not at risk of injuring it further" stance.  If that's true, what happened out there to Durant is the stuff of nightmares for that med staff.  Suicide watch time.  

It is honestly hard to imagine any lower body injury serious enough to keep you out for a month that wouldn't put additional strain on the nearby joints/muscles when you return.  That's just how the body works, when one part of your body is weak, the rest tries to compensate.  Unless you are 100% recovered and 100% fit when returning (which is impossible, because you can't stay 100% fit when injured), then this is going to happen.

However, I would assume that when the training staff said "not at additional risk of reinjury" they nonetheless were clear that there's obviously a higher chance of something else go wrong.  But even with that higher chance, it would be really hard for Durant or any player to hold out of a championship simply on that risk. 

It's a real shame it wasn't something minor like a sprained knee or a pulled hammie that would let him know that his body isn't ready, because either of those he'd be back at 100% in another couple weeks/months.  Now he's looking at potentially the end of his prime before he's fully recovered. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 hours ago, Triskele said:

This is is a non-sequitur.  This could have occurred regardless of what various possible behind-the-scenes reality happens to be true.  

I’d go as far as to say it would have occurred, be it in games 5, 6 or 7. KD should have never played in hindsight. Like I said before, if I was his agent or in his camp, I would have advised him not to come back. There was simply too much money on the line to risk it.

[Fragile Bird]

I've been waiting for someone to comment about the fact that the NBA ruled the referees in Game 5 blew a foul call in the last 49 seconds of the game, that Cousins fouled Gasol and Gasol should have received 2 free shots.

That could have changed the tenor of the game.

This missed call is something you guys would usually be screaming about. Now if I were paranoid I'd say the referees were hoping GS could win and the championship game would not happen outside the US, or even if it did, Game 7 would come back Toronto and GS would win and show those uppity Canadians. 

https://www.cbc.ca/sports/basketball/nba/nba-finals-raptors-warriors-gasol-call-1.5171742

[Proudfeet]

1 minute ago, Fragile Bird said:

I've been waiting for someone to comment about the fact that the NBA ruled the referees in Game 5 blew a foul call in the last 49 seconds of the game, that Cousins fouled Gasol and Gasol should have received 2 free shots.

That could have changed the tenor of the game.

This missed call is something you guys would usually be screaming about. Now if I were paranoid I'd say the referees were hoping GS could win and the championship game would not happen outside the US, or even if it did, Game 7 would come back Toronto and GS would win and show those uppity Canadians. 

https://www.cbc.ca/sports/basketball/nba/nba-finals-raptors-warriors-gasol-call-1.5171742

Missed calls happen all the time though. The NBA publishes reviews on the officiating of the final two minutes but it doesn't amount to anything. You can't replay the game and the only thing you get are moral victories which count for nothing. It isn't like this is something that is super blatant either. People just shrug and move on now.

[Maithanet]

Plus, it's harder to get that kind of call in the final minute.  Now, I'd agree that it shouldn't be that way, but it definitely is.  Watching it live I wasn't particularly surprised they didn't call it. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Plus plus, Boogie was already having a horrific final two minutes. Do we need to make it even worse?

Also, the goaltending call on his dunk was kind of BS, so they balance out.

[Maithanet]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

Plus plus, Boogie was already having a horrific final two minutes. Do we need to make it even worse?

Also, the goaltending call on his dunk was kind of BS, so they balance out.

plus plus plus in addition to that goaltending call, the refs also called that moving screen on Cousins with fifteen seconds left.  Now, it was an illegal screen, no doubt, but that is a HUGE call and it doesn't get made in that situation very often.  The Raptors don't have much room to complain about the refs screwing them in game 5. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

11 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

plus plus plus in addition to that goaltending call, the refs also called that moving screen on Cousins with fifteen seconds left.  Now, it was an illegal screen, no doubt, but that is a HUGE call and it doesn't get made in that situation very often.  The Raptors don't have much room to complain about the refs screwing them in game 5. 

Plus times infinity, people need to stop saying that GS gets love from the refs. They are calling so many touch fouls against them, while at the same time letting the Raptors hammer people in the paint.

Honestly, why does Curry never get calls when he gets knocked down while driving? If he got the same fouls AI got he’d shoot 10 more FTs per game.

And yes, that was a suspect call.