Certainly hope when 3 of the best 5 players are on the court at the same time and two of the best three teams in the league are playing that it's a great game. There would be something horribly wrong if it weren't.
2015-2016 NBA Game Thread
- Thread starter ifmanis5
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I don't know who deserves more of the blame, Presti or Donovan. Presti's claim to fame is that he crushed three top 5 draft picks in a row, but other than that? He has a shown a tremendous talent for finding a variety of wings to clunk open threes though.
It shouldn't be that hard when you have an MVP caliber player as an asset to help you acquire those role players. Steven Adams is a nice player, but the fact that he's all that remains from the Harden trade is a pretty serious failure.
I also think they pretty seriously screwed up the Reggie Jackson process. Jackson is what he is, and is hardly a franchise changing talent. but the unwillingness to pay him only to turn around and give that money to Enes Kanter seems. . .odd. Especially given that this all happened after seeing that they'd have to get through Golden State to win anything.
This is on point. Presti nailed those drafts, but he's been one of the worse GMs in the league since then. This is not hyperbole. If you trade a 22 year old superstar and get back an energy big, you have failed badly. If you invest trade assets and max cap space in a player who should not be in your rotation (Kanter), you have failed badly.
Also, it seems to me the late Big 3 era struggled mostly because the Big 3 were in their 30s, and weren't quite MVP caliber anymore. Do we really think the issue was depth?
Not an entirely fair criticism of Presti. I think he has drafted very well. Not only did he nail those top 5 picks (plenty of other have failed to do so) he also drafted well later on. Ibaka and Reggie Jackson were both picked at 24. Adams at 12 has turned into a good young big (especially in the evolving NBA where protecting and rolling to the rim are most valued attributes of a big). Hard to look at the 2013 draft and make a convicning case there was a better pick other than Gobert, and that is only with the benefit of old handy 20-20 hindsight.
Trading, signing and evaluating existing NBA talent, not so much.
I'm fine with the Adams pick, but you're missing Giannis, Dieng, and Plumlee there too. But yes, the beef with Presti is the non-draft skills.
Setting aside Presti and record etc. Donovan has been bumblingly inept this season. Took him 50 games to finally realize he should stagger rest for KD and Westbrook. He insists on playing Waiters big crunch time minutes. His rotations are brutal. His timeout use is bad, he consistently screws up intentional foul situations etc. There is no area of on court coaching he hasn't been a miserable failure. Maybe he improves with time, but season to date he's one of the worst in the league.
Durant and Westbrook never would have allowed the team to pay Jackson who had been a major pain in the ass for both of them. I'm pretty sure KD/RW refuse to even mention him by name when he had left last summer. There was a ton of stuff going on behind the scenes there that made it necessary for Jackson to be shown the door.
I can't fathom criticizing Presti for the job he's done in putting this team together with the financial challenges that exists for OKC......he's absolutely nailed the drafts like nobody in the NBA has. They are essentially the Oakland A's competing for championships with the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers only due to Presti.
When was the last time the Western Conference had a team this late in the season in the #8 seed who had a losing record -- not to mention that the Eastern is all in the black?
The criticism of Presti's handling of Jackson is more that he turned that chip into Kanter on a max contract. Even if there was a 0% chance Durant and Westbrook would've allowed a Jackson re-sign, Presti still needs to use his best trade chip (at the time) to acquire a player who can actually stay on the floor against the best team in his conference.
And despite Presti's drafting success, it's absolutely fair to criticize a guy who has had half a decade to put together a team that compliments his 2 top 5 talents and hasn't been able to. They, more than any team in the league, have the makings of a small ball lineup that could give GS's best 5 a ton of trouble. Ibaka at the 5, Durant at the 4, with Westbrook making Curry work hard on the other end is Steve Kerr's nightmare. And OKC doesn't have two other acceptable wings that make that possible. Despite having traded James Harden and Reggie Jackson in the recent past. That's a valid criticism, regardless of Presti's draft record.
Sick of the Peyton ballwashing from this morning? Check out ABC for a heaping helping of Kobe ass kissing.
The Warriors clearly partied too much in LA last night. The best way to describe their play is "hungover". The 12:30 p.m. local time tip isn't helping either.
I will never forget when Duke started walkon Patrick Davidson against Paul and he basically lost his shit
For those in the audience who like to view such shenanigans.... http://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/03/chris-paul-kevin-durant-groin-hit-on-purpose-or-accident
Adios, Joey Crawford. Thanks for nothing in 2010. And for tossing Tim Duncan when he was sitting on the bench just laughing.
With 11:30 left, the Warriors and blazers are 3 three-pointers away from hitting the most in nba history
How many people were this optimistic 2 weeks ago before all these teams were laying down expecting a cakewalk vs the Suns? These games should be taken with a grain of salt.
It's not the games they're winning, it's the assets they'll have going forward.
I understand. My point was that two weeks ago the assets were the same as they were losing by 30 every night when nobody was talking about a bright future.
Your point doesn't make much sense to me. Len has recently come on strong and he's been solid for over a month now, Bledsoe has been hurt and is arguably their best player, and Booker has had a very good rookie campaign for a 19 year-old. They have the makings of a decent roster before you even factor in their 2016 draft, when they'll have a decent chance of landing Simmons/Ingram and another solid late lotto contributor.
Then simply scroll back a couple weeks and show me where all the "Phoenix Suns bright future" posts are as I must have missed them.
Did your girlfriend dump you today? Did your dog leave a diarrhea shit on the carpet? All I merely stated was MY opinion that there is a lot to like about the Suns' direction. Whether they were being discussed on Celtics message board is completely irrelevant to the brief point I was making no matter how hard you (unsuccessfully) try to change the narrative. And if you don't agree with me, cool. But your "point" makes absolutely no sense.
Sure it does. I'm not only referring to this board either. The Suns have challenged the Sixers as the laughingstock of the league over the past couple months up until teams began not showing up when they play the Suns.
Ok, we're done here. Good job doubling down on a failed point though, Donald.
Fine. If you change your mind and want to show me all the Suns great future talk from last month I'll be hanging around in here later.
IIRC HRB and I had a whole conversation about how great this draft was and I specifically cited Booker as a great value pick.
Utah downed Cleveland tonight without Hayward. Rodney Hood had 28 points and Kyrie Irving was badly outplayed by Shelvin Mack. That is a strange team.
Utah downed Cleveland tonight without Hayward. Rodney Hood had 28 points and Kyrie Irving was badly outplayed by Shelvin Mack. That is a strange team.
Yes we did and yes you did. I called it possibly the best draft in the history of the league last summer and I'm not backing off that one bit. Even the kids who I thought were overhyped, Russell and Booker, have shown flashes of greatness even at age 19! From the very top with Towns, to my Godzingis and Mudiay hype, to Myles Turner and Bobby Portis.......and they are still all so young.
Many people did. And he's only part of Phoenix's nice core of players. Len, Booker, Bledsoe, Warren, Knight (Although I like him more as a 6th man) is a nice group of young players and adding a top 3 or 4 pick along with a low lotto pick makes that situation look even better. If the last month or so of Len isn't a mirage, I'm bullish on their future.