The NBA thread

[Beezy]

The Sours

[Joe Molotov]

Heat can't mess with Texas.

[bachikarn]

[Brehvolution]

I can't remember seeing such savage beat downs in a finals series.

[benjipwns]

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/06/12/donald-sterling-hires-private-investigators-to-dig-up-dirt-on-nba-owners-commissioner/

Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s team of lawyers has hired four private investigation firms to dig up dirt on the NBA’s former and current commissioners and its 29 other owners, a person familiar with Sterling’s legal strategy said.

Investigators were given a six-figure budget over the next 30 days to examine the league’s finances, allegations of previous discriminatory conduct and compensation to past Commissioner David Stern and current Commissioner Adam Silver, said the person who spoke to The Associated Press on Thursday night on condition of anonymity. The person wasn’t authorized to talk publicly.

The person said the investigators also are looking into whether other owners made any off-color jokes, or racist or sexist remarks.

“The gloves are off, as they say,” the person said. “Have them dig up all the dirt they can find.”

[CajoleJuice]

I can't remember seeing such savage beat downs in a finals series.

Well, the record for combined back-to-back road win margins was 26 before the last two games. Now it's 40.

[benjipwns]

2004?

I don't remember the margins, but I remember Detroit dominated pretty hard.

Don't remind me  :'(

Best. Series.

 

Especially going in, all the "Pistons might win one game", after game one "remember 2001 this doesn't mean anything", after game two "now things are back on track, probably a sweep, six games max", etc.

Putting Corliss on Shaq one-on-one 

[Your Stalker]

[benjipwns]

This is a current picture of Antoine Walker:

[Stoney Mason]

First game where Heat didn't play an absolute shit first quarter. (Of course Lebron had to score like 17 for that to be the case) But I feel like we are just delaying the inevitable. Whether it comes in this game or the next.

[Stoney Mason]

So instead they have an absolutely shit second quarter.

[Stoney Mason]

"We're not going down. We're going to win this game tonight," Bosh said Sunday. "We're going to come. We prepare like we need to do. Plain and simple, we're going to win this game."

Asked if he was guaranteeing a victory, Bosh said: "I don't care about guarantees. We're just going to win the game."

Bosh at the half. 4 points. 2 of 6 from the field. Way to Joe Namath it there Bosh.

[bachikarn]

So how does Miami re-tool for next year? Clearly their record was inflated this year because of the shitty Eastern conference right?

[Stoney Mason]

It all depends on how Bosh, Wade, Lebron, rework their contracts. Clearly the team needs to upgrade at certain positions. But you won't know how much flexibility they have until that issue is resolved. If they simply just let the current contracts roll that's 20 million a piece from all three.

The reality is that Wade and Bosh are not 20 million dollars players. So that's going to hamper any upgrade attempts from the jump.

[Stoney Mason]

This game is effectively over so might as well gets all the housekeeping stuff out of the way.

Congrats to the Spurs. They knocked off the best two players in the world in back to back series. They put together a team that played basketball the right way and a very beautiful way. They are not a team cobbled together around a great player or two like the modern championship paradigm has been established. Duncan with 5 titles assumes the mantle of biggest winner of his generation. Popovich adds to his legend and does it without a Michael Jordan, Lebron, Kobe type player like his old rival Phil Jackson. Spurs have an amazing dynasty and they disprove all the notions that it takes a big market team, with the best players in the league to do it.

As for the Heat, they have a lot of work in front of them. Wade isn't Wade anymore. I've never thought Bosh was anything overly special. Which is not to insult him and say he is a crap player. He is a good player. But I think a lot of "good" players could have filled the 3rd slot in Miami and some arguably would have been better. Not sure what Lebron does here as staying is the easy thing to do but I actually don't think it may be the smart decision with Wade declining like he is.

And I'll take my final shots at Spoelstra like I always do. I thought the Thunder played the Spurs much better than the Heat. And people want to toss Brooks into a fire. The Heat just got humiliated by the Spurs. So yeah....Spoelstra.

Yes basketball is matchups. And some matchups are worse than others. But take a look at Rick Carlisle. His mavs took the Spurs to 7 games. Does anybody doubt that if he was coaching a team with the talent of the Heat, that they wouldn't get so easily rolled like this. Or that the brand of basketball Miami plays would be more fundamentally sound. To me that's the difference between an average coach and a great coach. A great coach when given the pieces creates a dynasty. Spolestra has done what I think a lot of average nba coaches would have done with this talent level.

Also Miami completely and utterly whiffed in the free-agent market this year in an embarrassing way. Their big moves were letting Mike Miller walk (amnesty). And signing Beasley, and Oden. 

 


end rant.

Congrats Spurs.
 

[Great Rumbler]

Even the Mavericks played the Spurs better than the Heat have.

[benjipwns]

LeBron just isn't a winner and doesn't even try in important games, Skip Bayless called it years ago.

[Phoenix Dark]

This is what happens when you play lazy defense. The Heat are missing so many transitions.

[El Babua]

GG San Antonio

Heat were straight  all series

[Your Stalker]

this is a monumental day in american history

[benjipwns]

The Spurs liberated us from an evil regime in 2003, now they do it again in 2014.

[etiolate]

Spurs

I expect to hear a lot of "we should build like San Antonio" talk in spite of the fact you cant' do that without Tim Duncan. And Tim Duncan is really, really rare. Not a lot of supserstar players are 1. Two Way players, 2. Willing to stay in a small market, 3. Willing to take less in a smaller market to build a team, and 4. Willing to test out a reload/rebuild as the Spurs have done when Robinson retired and other important pieces aged.

I will delight in people talking about how Miami should copy SA's design as though the entire team is anything but get rich quick ring chasers.

[benjipwns]

[CajoleJuice]

(Image removed from quote.)

 

[Phoenix Dark]

Miami would be stupid to waste offseason money signing Melo, even if it's a "bargain" deal. They need players, not one guy who plays the same position as LeBron. Mike Miller may have helped a bit this year but at the end of the day he's still old and slow. They need to get some young shooters around LeBron. And a fucking point guard.

I've never hated Bosh but good lord, seeing him camp on the three point line was pathetic.

Wade isn't the player he used to be but that doesn't excuse his horrible defense. He gives up on plays, doesn't get back on transition, doesn't stick to his man through screens, etc.

[Joe Molotov]

Kawaii Leonard

[benjipwns]

[Stoney Mason]

(Image removed from quote.)

lol

[TakingBackSunday]

The best team of the year won.  Can't be mad at that.  Hopefully Miami makes some changes this offseason to clear their bench and get some decent role players other than Allen.

[jakefromstatefarm]

Hopefully this can begin the healing process for the league.

Doesn't the League want LeBron to win these chips though? The aughts were one of the worst decades commercially for the NBA, due in no small part to the Spurs' success. Not to mention if this Heat team can't compete at a high level, who the fuck is coming out of the East?

[benjipwns]

ESPN wrote all these before the playoffs and then updated them as they went along, but here's their Heat "fixes" they just posted:

IV. An "Ideal" Roster
Ideal 2014-15 roster
Pos   Player   Age   2015 Salary   2015 WARP
C   Chris Bosh   31   $13.8m   7.6
PG   Mario Chalmers   29   $2.7m   2.7
SG   Vince Carter   38   $0.9m   3.9
SF   Carmelo Anthony   31   $13.8m   11.1
PF   LeBron James   30   $13.8m   21.1
bC   Chris Andersen   37   $0.9m   4.4
bPG   Norris Cole   27   $2.0m   -3.4
bSG   Dwyane Wade   33   $13.8m   6.5
bSF   James Jones   35   $0.9m   1.2
bPF   Rashard Lewis   36   $0.9m   0.3
RES1   Udonis Haslem   35   $0.9m   -1.0
RES2   Shabazz Napier   24   $1.0m   -0.7
Est. Payroll: $65.2 million; Updated Win Range: 61 to 65
Notes: Est. Payroll includes built-in minimum salary slots beyond top 12 on roster; Updated Win Baseline includes a coaching adjustment.

Doolittle: Right now, the "what-if" on everybody's mind is the Melo-to-the-Heat scenario. Amin already crunched the numbers financially, so I decided to go with that as the starting point for a new Big Four era. We'll go with Amin's "Even Steven" option, which divvies up Miami's possible cap space evenly among the four stars. Obviously, this would take more than a little collusion on the part of the players involved, but we're more interested in how it translates on the court right now, roughly speaking.

With the Big Four in place, they'd join returnee Cole, who is under contract for next season. I've also assumed Miami keeps its first-round pick, and I have them taking Chad Ford's anticipated target, Connecticut's Shabazz Napier. Basically everything else on the season-ending Miami roster gets renounced. I can see James Jones, Rashard Lewis and Udonis Haslem -- who as Amin pointed out would have to agree to decline his player option for 2014-15 -- coming back for the veteran's minimum. I have Andersen coming back again for the minimum, but that could be a stretch. He's worth more. I don't see the same happening for Chalmers or Allen.

The final three rotation spots would have be filled with the room exception -- which I've given to Chalmers because he'll probably be the best free-agent option to fill the point guard slot -- and one more minimum salaried free agent. The latter player could be a starter, as it would not surprise me to see Wade shifted into a Manu Ginobili-like super-sub role. If Vince Carter wants to ring chase, tag-teaming with Wade might be a great option for him.

All in all, the baseline looks great, though the real world results would be less, and offer a lot of downside when you consider defensive shortcomings and the age of the foundation players. The final payroll is well under the tax line, which is an inevitable by-product of putting the new roster together with cap space. However going forward, beginning in 2015, Miami would have the full mid-level exception available for further roster improvements. I have my concerns about how Anthony would fit as a supporting player, though my guess is he would probably lead Miami in scoring, while James' assist total skyrockets. Would that translate to wins? It'd be a fascinating experiment. On the other hand, defense would be a much bigger problem than what is represented here. In any event, with so many moving parts, Miami's reload is as much an exercise in fantasy as any team in the league.

[benjipwns]

[etiolate]

I have no issue with Bosh on the Heat. His sitting at the 3pt line is by design. He's a big man on a team that doesn't want any big men much at all, and certainly doesn't want  a big clogging the lane on offense for Bron/Wade, but at this point the Heat gotta realize that Wade needs to be their Jason Terry instead of their third star.

[TakingBackSunday]

The Heat have played their best when they play Bosh at 4 and a random large body at 5.  Birdman works, but a better center wouldn't be terrible.

Really, though the Heat need several things.  Not necessarily all of them at once, but a few good things would be:

a) A competent point guard.  Chalmers is hot fucking garbage, and Cole is only good on limited minutes.  I would NOT sign Melo or Love if I were Miami...I'd try and get Lowry if I were Miami.  Dump Chalmers and some picks.

b) Solid bench players.  Their bench other than Allen and Cole were awful in these playoffs.  The bench is just too old.  I'd look towards Meeks, Sefolosha, Jordan Hill, McBob...maybe even Mike Miller if they can swing that.

c) A true center.  Doesn't need to be a starter, but someone who scores efficiently and can swallow up offensive boards.  Monroe or Gortat would be great pickups.

Really, they SHOULD NOT sign another max SF/PF player.  They need a starting 1, a good 6th man, and a center to play for Bosh so Bosh can play 4.

My fantasy starting 5 would be:

Lowry, Wade, Lebron, Bosh, Gortat

[etiolate]

Oh, this also reminds me how Geoff Petrie and the Maloofs picked Jimmer Freddette over Kawhi Leonard.

[TakingBackSunday]

Jimmer was a college superstar.  Can you really blame them?

[etiolate]

Yes.

[Phoenix Dark]

ESPN wrote all these before the playoffs and then updated them as they went along, but here's their Heat "fixes" they just posted:

IV. An "Ideal" Roster
Ideal 2014-15 roster
Pos   Player   Age   2015 Salary   2015 WARP
C   Chris Bosh   31   $13.8m   7.6
PG   Mario Chalmers   29   $2.7m   2.7
SG   Vince Carter   38   $0.9m   3.9
SF   Carmelo Anthony   31   $13.8m   11.1
PF   LeBron James   30   $13.8m   21.1
bC   Chris Andersen   37   $0.9m   4.4
bPG   Norris Cole   27   $2.0m   -3.4
bSG   Dwyane Wade   33   $13.8m   6.5
bSF   James Jones   35   $0.9m   1.2
bPF   Rashard Lewis   36   $0.9m   0.3
RES1   Udonis Haslem   35   $0.9m   -1.0
RES2   Shabazz Napier   24   $1.0m   -0.7
Est. Payroll: $65.2 million; Updated Win Range: 61 to 65
Notes: Est. Payroll includes built-in minimum salary slots beyond top 12 on roster; Updated Win Baseline includes a coaching adjustment.

Doolittle: Right now, the "what-if" on everybody's mind is the Melo-to-the-Heat scenario. Amin already crunched the numbers financially, so I decided to go with that as the starting point for a new Big Four era. We'll go with Amin's "Even Steven" option, which divvies up Miami's possible cap space evenly among the four stars. Obviously, this would take more than a little collusion on the part of the players involved, but we're more interested in how it translates on the court right now, roughly speaking.

With the Big Four in place, they'd join returnee Cole, who is under contract for next season. I've also assumed Miami keeps its first-round pick, and I have them taking Chad Ford's anticipated target, Connecticut's Shabazz Napier. Basically everything else on the season-ending Miami roster gets renounced. I can see James Jones, Rashard Lewis and Udonis Haslem -- who as Amin pointed out would have to agree to decline his player option for 2014-15 -- coming back for the veteran's minimum. I have Andersen coming back again for the minimum, but that could be a stretch. He's worth more. I don't see the same happening for Chalmers or Allen.

The final three rotation spots would have be filled with the room exception -- which I've given to Chalmers because he'll probably be the best free-agent option to fill the point guard slot -- and one more minimum salaried free agent. The latter player could be a starter, as it would not surprise me to see Wade shifted into a Manu Ginobili-like super-sub role. If Vince Carter wants to ring chase, tag-teaming with Wade might be a great option for him.

All in all, the baseline looks great, though the real world results would be less, and offer a lot of downside when you consider defensive shortcomings and the age of the foundation players. The final payroll is well under the tax line, which is an inevitable by-product of putting the new roster together with cap space. However going forward, beginning in 2015, Miami would have the full mid-level exception available for further roster improvements. I have my concerns about how Anthony would fit as a supporting player, though my guess is he would probably lead Miami in scoring, while James' assist total skyrockets. Would that translate to wins? It'd be a fascinating experiment. On the other hand, defense would be a much bigger problem than what is represented here. In any event, with so many moving parts, Miami's reload is as much an exercise in fantasy as any team in the league.

Shabazz Napier will be off the board before 26.

I don't see how that roster fixes anything. Adding more old players to an already old roster isn't good, and who knows how Anthony will play with LeBron...

[Your Stalker]

[benjipwns]

I always have a good rant about the whole "who won a trade" thing ready. But to keep it short the teams swapped players and both benefited. Hill has been really good for the Pacers most of the time as they've racked up wins and playoff runs and Leonard has been a key piece for the Spurs doing the same. Pop loved Hill and hated to deal him but thought Leonard was a bit better piece, which turned out to probably be true. But it's not like Hill died after that.

And the problem with these hypotheticals are if the Pacers have Granger, George, Leonard, Stephenson, what's their lineup look like now? And who's the other guard? Obviously at the time the Pacers didn't know Granger was a bit done (though dealing him for Turner still was bad) or that Stephenson would get it together enough. You can see why they're willing to deal Leonard for a good defensive big point guard. (And keep him after Collison didn't fit at all.)

[Mandark]

Yeah, there were roster considerations, and you can't build a counterfactual just by swapping back the players that they've become three years later.  "What if the Pacers had Leonard instead of Hill?"  Well, it would have affected their subsequent roster moves, so more than one player would be different.

That said, I think there's a pretty good chance the Pacers of NBA Prime who drafted and kept Kawhi are in a better spot than the ones in our universe.  He's making like 5-6 million less a year, PG is one of the easier positions to fill, and good God could you imagine the wing defense with him and Paul George?

[benjipwns]

I suppose if Stephenson developed at the same rate you could play him with Leonard and George and not be too poorly off in terms of offensively, and still be a terror defensively. The ball handling stats I have on the players say Lance isn't too far off from Hill. They run a lot of the half court "offense" through West anyway so you could have Stephenson and George take turns bringing it up.

Actually with Leonard you can probably get away with a "small" lineup with him, Granger, George and Stephenson at times. 

[Phoenix Dark]

Imagine LeBron as a Jimmy Graham TE/WR hybrid


pairing up alongside Megatron

[Stoney Mason]

[Brehvolution]

http://regressing.deadspin.com/the-spurs-were-the-most-dominant-nba-finals-team-ever-1591414322/+kylenw

[Stoney Mason]

At some point around the time Dwyane Wade was impaled, for the second time, on a doddering walkabout turnover in the paint, the wider basketball-viewing world realized that Dwyane Wade has been dead all this time, and was only now being told. But Wade was far from the only Heat carcass to wash up these Finals.

Here's how bad it was: Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh combined to post a game score of 18.5 (7.9 and 10.6, respectively). In 2007, when LeBron and the Cavs were swept by the Spurs, Drew Gooden and Boobie Gibson combined for 17.5. This is not flattering company, obviously. If you expand to the teams' top seven non-LeBron rotational players, the '07 Cavs actually pull ahead, with a combined Game Score of 42.2 to the '14 Heat's 36.2. (The average cumulative game score average for the numbers 2 through 8 players in a Finals is 47, because generally, teams in the Finals are good. The Spurs 2 through 8 combined for 66.) Which is to say, LeBron had more help in the Finals in 2007 than he did this year.

LeBron's series average of 22.5 was more than twice as good as it was in 2007 (10.6), and higher than the average for the best player on a winning Finals team (20.6). Anyone watching could tell that the Heat were a one-man team, in a way completely at odds with how this team was supposed to work. Game Score is not the be-all, obviously—it's a combination of box score stats and shooting efficiency invented by John Hollinger—but it serves just fine as a broad indicator of something that we all watched for ourselves.

All of this comes on top of the fact that in five games, the Spurs outscored the Heat by 70 points—more than in any NBA Finals matchup in history. The Heat were completely outgunned, and even leaning heavily on Ray Allen, or bringing out Shane Battier and Udonis Haslem, who were ostensibly in reserve for emergency use, didn't move the needle. Which brings us to another point: This year's Heat were never a superteam.

http://regressing.deadspin.com/the-2014-heat-were-worse-in-the-finals-than-lebrons-200-1591454897/+kylenw

[Stoney Mason]

lol. we posted those within seconds of each other.

[benjipwns]

[Phoenix Dark]

http://www.thecoli.com/threads/31-10-5-thank-you-lebron-james-for-another-brilliant-season-and-playoff-run.223383/
 

[TakingBackSunday]

lul no

[benjipwns]

Bono For Pope
This is very unsettling. The order of things has been upended, and I think this is why LeBron is getting a lot of grief. The star system has failed and people are upset and taking it out on him. A lot of this is valid criticism and a good deal is not. There are three reasons why LeBron is being overhated:
1) He is the best player in basketball and his team lost. It comes with the territory.
2) The NBA is a star league. The fans are geared to the great man theory and the Spurs have demolished that. None of the Spurs players act like a Star. I think this has many fans uncomfortable with this. The normal rules do not apply. Tim Duncan might be the greatest PF in the history of the game. He might be the greatest player in the history of the game, but he is not a star.
3) We expect one star to carry a team. Even though Michael, Larry, and Kobe had 50 point games, often these were during losses or regular season games. The truth is the leader carries his teams by scoring 30 plus and making everybody else on the floor better. Michael didn't win until he got Scotty and two NBA Championships were due to last second shots by John Paxson and Steve Kerr. Can I coin/trademark that phrase "overhated?"

[benjipwns]

[etiolate]

hey whats old nbagaf's new home site again? I lost it when I cleared up my cache and history.

nm found it

[benjipwns]

[jakefromstatefarm]

hey whats old nbagaf's new home site again? I lost it when I cleared up my cache and history.

nm found it

Actually I was just wondering this

[Your Stalker]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://temp.slaent.com/

[close]

[Phoenix Dark]

what a shitty offense...that's on Spoelstra...

[TakingBackSunday]

My poops are a little poopier, too

[Stoney Mason]

what a shitty offense...that's on Spoelstra...

There was a long stretch last season where the offense actually looked pretty good. A lot of good passing. People doing the right thing. But overall the offense on a consistent basis over the last 4 years never clicked the way it should have with as much talent as they had imo. This is a team that survived on big runs and clamping down in the 4th quarter. Not playing consistent basketball.

[etiolate]