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Post by futuretrunks on Apr 30, 2024 0:20:59 GMT
KD is going to have one of the weirdest legacies in NBA history. An all-time great scorer pretty much by his 3rd year who provides a ton of length defensively that helped make the OKC Thunder a team to watch during their early years. Gets to the Finals young and loses handily to peak LeBron and then has a string of bad luck for the 3 seasons after - Westbrook gets hurt, Spurs' beautiful game, KD gets hurt. Throughout it, though, he wins an MVP and is widely seen as the 2nd best player in the game behind LeBron. 2015-16 they beat a legendarily great Spurs team (do people even remember they won 67 games and had a better net rating than the 73-win Warriors?) and are up 3-1 on the Warriors before he and Russ have a legendarily terrible chokejob. He goes to the Warriors after they one-up him with their own chokejob and wins Finals MVP twice going directly toe-to-toe with LeBron. But of course, nobody puts a ton of respect on those rings because they were already an all-time great team before they got him (and even won later without him) and anytime KD is out, the team hums along without a hitch whereas they struggle to keep up whenever Steph (now a fringe all-time top 10 player) is out. He gets hurt in the 2019 playoffs and suffers a devastating Achilles tear when he tries to come back for the Finals, then hops along superteam to superteam with the Nets and the Suns all to disappointing results. With the Nets, he was literally within an inch of beating the eventual champ Bucks while leading a depleted squad but then the following year he and Kyrie get swept by the Celtics. Now with the Suns, he again takes the eventual champs (Nuggets this time) further than anyone else before the following year getting swept again this time by a Timberwolves team that while really good I don't think anyone is expecting to make a Finals run. I just don't know how to look at him. If he didn't have the Warriors rings, I'd guess he'd be looked at like Barkley or Malone as one of the best never to win but still a level below those who accomplished that. With the rings, he's talked about like he's top 15-20 ever but both of those rings came on a legendarily stacked team and while he has the Finals MVPs, the fact Steph led those teams to titles before and after while KD has never sniffed a ring otherwise makes it hard to give him the bulk of the credit. Was KD the best player, or did he just get to feast on open looks and 1-on-1s while teams were chasing Steph around? Of course, where KD fits in the all-time hierarchy is not the most important things since he's obviously a great and has won everything the sport really has to offer, but it is a thing I wonder about. Yeah, I can't think of an analogous situation in basketball. He's sort of like if the CP3 to the Lakers trade happened, CP3 won two rings with Kobe, left for the Knicks or something, and then had what we think of as a CP3 career thereafter.
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Post by ibbi on Apr 30, 2024 15:33:43 GMT
This Denver-Minnesota series could be spectacular. Probably someone gets crippled in game 1.
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tylosaur
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Post by tylosaur on Apr 30, 2024 19:07:09 GMT
This Denver-Minnesota series could be spectacular. Probably someone gets crippled in game 1. My money would be on the Minnesota Coach other knee.
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Post by getclutch on May 3, 2024 21:34:40 GMT
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dazed
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Post by dazed on May 4, 2024 3:54:34 GMT
man i wish we got a game 7 in that 76ers/knicks series. what a great matchup. after it was all said and done, knicks outscored them by one point haha (650 to 649). felt like a game 7 was destined.
anyways, my predictions for the semi finals:
mavs in 6 nugs in 7
knicks in 5 celtics in 5
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Post by ibbi on May 4, 2024 19:53:18 GMT
The series in the West both look like they could be incredible. The East has gone back to being the dumpster fire it was 5 years ago.
That Cavs-Magic game last night was great though.
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dazed
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Post by dazed on May 7, 2024 15:59:30 GMT
holy shit timberwolves
they have jamal murray in hell lol. from a neutral fans perspective i hope the nugs can win a couple on the road to make it more competitive but what the wolves are doing on defense is amazing (esp last night without their defensive anchor).
antman has been amazing too. heβs been on a new level this playoff run.
i read a stat that 6 teams in history have come back after starting 0-2 at home. with todays offense and how fast 15 point leads can be squandered iβm sure it will happen at least slightly more often, but still. nugs are in a pretty big hole according history. as well as antman has been playing, they do have the best player on the floor imo. so iβm not counting them out yet.
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Post by ibbi on May 7, 2024 17:05:36 GMT
Yes, this is the series to watch if you're one of those people who think defense no longer exists in the NBA. Two games of absolute magic, with no reason to assume it's going to let up. That they did that last night without Gobert is pretty amazing. Not sure having the best player on the floor matters if you can rotate at least 3 different guys who can guard him and the only backup he has is the ghost of DeAndre Jordan. Malone didn't seem to have any answers at all. It will be sad to see Jokic go, but Anthony Edwards is fucking spectacular, so that's something. Denver's shortcomings, which everyone seems to have overlooked the past 12 months, are being exposed. They have absolutely no depth. No significant size or scoring beyond their starters. How/why they let Bruce Brown go makes no sense to me. He was a huge reason they won that title, and he's now bouncing around the league doing nothing. Leading that Lakers series for like 45 minutes across 5 games was the hint, and the hint has been blown wide open. On the other hand, that Knicks-Pacers game was a blast. Two incredible buzzer beaters, and the Turner 3 is one of the craziest shots I've ever seen considering how bad the pass was.
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Post by getclutch on May 9, 2024 21:03:14 GMT
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Post by ibbi on May 10, 2024 13:34:07 GMT
Between Vogel and Bud there will be some decent coaches out there. It will be interesting to see where they land, if they land, or if the trend of going young continues instead.
Anyhoo, amazing effort from Cleveland on the defensive end, and nice to see Mitchell getting some help on the offensive side. Great stuff from Dallas too, though I'm not sure how long they will last with the amount of beatings their guys are taking. Doncic looks like he's being held together by tape.
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Post by ibbi on May 13, 2024 15:15:27 GMT
Malone seemed to have some answers after all KAT certainly helped. Aaron Gordon catching fire and playing point, the bench guys suddenly producing. Can they keep it up? The key to game 3 was upping the pace and consistently sinking shots, and you'd think that would be tough to replicate but they improved in both departments in game 4. This series is finally living up to expectations. If I say Towns is a loser a couple more times he might catch fire too and this thing really might end up a blockbuster. He couldn't be their number 1 offensively so Edwards started playing in such a way to get comparisons to Jordan, he couldn't be their number 1 defensively so they went out and got Rudy Gobert, he's now second option at each end and he's not even consistent enough for that. Comparing these series in the East to the ones in the West is just sad. Though all due respect to the Knicks for grinding with not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 key guys all missing.
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on May 13, 2024 15:45:39 GMT
That extra day of rest between Games 2 & 3 made a world of difference for Murray's calf. Now he can do that change of gear that's so hard to guard and gets him to find his spots even in the face of good defense. And Aaron Gordon, just one of the great role players in this league. Whatever Malone asks him to do, he does it and it all just makes life so much easier for Joker and Murray.
The Timberwolves were going to have a tough time repeating the defensive all-timer they had in Game 2 and without turnovers their offense outside Edwards is going to struggle game in and game out. They also need to mature quick and not have godawful sequences like that 8-0 Nuggets run at the end of the first half, just horrendous execution after they had managed to pick up momentum to keep it close and ended up being a deciding factor in the loss.
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on May 15, 2024 4:42:09 GMT
JokiΔ seems to take special pleasure in attacking Gobert one-on-one. There's just no stopping him.
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Post by ibbi on May 16, 2024 19:20:44 GMT
This Boston team is embarrassing. If by some miracle they stumble ass backwards into being champions I will laugh my ass off. I hope the Knicks finish up tomorrow and we get that series, because sad is it will be to see them facing a third straight team without half their best guys, it could be a great faceoff between giant balls, and absolutely no balls.
Mavs are amazing. What a team. Assuming they finish this off, the WCF looks amazing whatever else happens.
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on May 17, 2024 2:56:25 GMT
Jesus Christ.
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Post by mhynson27 on May 17, 2024 3:11:32 GMT
The fuck was that?!
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Post by ibbi on May 19, 2024 11:43:22 GMT
Oustanding, Dallas. Every time they would get close OKC would shut them down defensively and they just kept battling and battling, and Washington was outstanding right at the end there.
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sirchuck23
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Bad news dawg...you don't mind if I have some of your 300 dollar a glass shit there would ya?
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Post by sirchuck23 on May 20, 2024 2:43:17 GMT
Manβ¦the Minnesota Timberwolves are a problem!
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dazed
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NBA π
May 20, 2024 17:13:29 GMT
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Post by dazed on May 20, 2024 17:13:29 GMT
what a series between the wolves and nugs.
celtics in 5 wolves in 6
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