So… you know that isn’t what I said, but you still want to point out that it’s delusional of me to have said it?
I don’t know what you think you’ve said, but what you wrote clearly implies that you expect “5 seasons of Yao-level production” out of Embiid.
Being a spurs fan, that’d be nice, but I expect we will see a motivated Warriors team. We will see!
It sounded to me that he meant 5 years of Yao-level production were produced by Yao after his injury. Whether that will happen with Embiid is yet to be seen.
Nope
Curry was just dribbling circles around the SA defense the last couple minutes.
I think I understood Jimmy Chitwood. My point regarding Embiid was if you think he’ll be a contributor for the Sixers, you will probably be disappointed.
I drew the injury comparison to Yao, who did have some productive seasons after his initial foot injury, but he missed chunks of each of those final 5 seasons with some kind of foot injury. He was finally forced to retire at age 30 due to the injuries.
Whether Yao belongs in the HoF is another discussion completely.
Ok, so its almost the playoffs and there’s a few things I’ve been wondering since I don’t follow the other teams very closely.
What the heck happened to the Rockets? They did poorly coming out of the gate, fired McHale, and still they suck. Did they get ravaged by injuries? They still have a healthy Harden and Howard right? Ariza’s fine I think. Did Beverly make a recovery from last year? They got rid of Josh Smith. I don’t get how they are the 9th seed
Wasn’t the Wizards supposed to have a young backcourt that will be dominant for years to come? I don’t remember either of them being injured much this year. They lost Pierce and I think Ariza right? But other than that, aren’t they similar to last year?
Do the Thunder have a shot at coming out of the West? Sure, never count out Durant and Westbrook, but this year just doesn’t seem like their year with SA and GSW head and shoulders above the rest of the league. I feel that nothing can stop the GSW, they’re as sure of a bet as any team since probably one of the mid-2000 Spurs teams or one of Lebron’s Miami teams.
I listen to a lot of Los Angeles sports radio and sometimes I can’t seem to understand the disconnect between opinions on Byron Scott. Here’s the thing, if they suspect that Byron is tanking the season and basically letter Kobe play whatever and however he wants, then he’s doing his job (probably on orders from management). If they believe he’s tanking to try to preserve their draft pick, then he’s doing his job. If they believe he was brought in to bridge these last couple of years with Kobe, then he’s doing his damn job. Why then, do these people say, in the same breath, that Byron should be fired if they believe all that? Why do they blame him for bad decisions or not controlling the team better or not playing the young guys enough? He’s doing it on purpose!
To me, Byron has been unfairly criticized for heading a team that’s been bad and filled with developing talent. I have 100% confidence that he can coach, he’s been to the finals twice and has coached good players to winning records. To both blame him for tanking the season and accuse him of doing it is wrong and completely contradictory. Sometimes, I wish the Lakers would shut these idiots down by announcing they’re signing Byron to a long term 10 year deal, and that he’ll be the coach of the Lakers for the foreseeable future.
I think he’s got his orders from above to tank and I think he’s letting Kobe play how he wants. And I’m fine with that. Once its just him and the young players, he’ll go back to being a good coach trying to win. Other that Popovich, I wouldn’t fire Byron for any other coach in the league or out of it, including Thibedeau or Phil (because Phil’s never been one to develop young guys, he famously hates playing rookies).
I’m also annoyed by the same criticism of Lakers management. People paint them as this cadre of bumbling fools, when in fact some of the biggest deals in the last few years have been accomplished by Mitch and Jim. We had Chris Paul in our hands, it was a trade any GM would have made 10 times out of 10. And when David Stern, may he rot in hell, vetoed the deal, we got both Howard and Nash without giving up Pau. That was a fleecing of those teams that we haven’t seen since Mitch Kupchack first got Pau from the Grizzlies. These two are GREAT dealmakers, I trust the Lakers management with this team completely.
The only real criticism is that they gave Kobe this giant $50 million deal, but I have no problems with that. People criticize it because they have this dream of somehow making Kobe play for pennies while getting guys like Lebron and Durant to play here. Given that neither of those free agents were available, that wasn’t happening. So I believe the realistic choices were to either make Kobe happy and pay him a lot, or force Kobe to take a pay cut, piss him off, then get some minor free agents like Luol Deng and watch your team struggle to make the 8th seed and accomplish nothing. That’s it. We either suck with Kobe, or struggle with relevance while pissing off your once-in-a-generation-Hall-of-Famer. Most franchises would do the latter, but I respect the Lakers for treating Kobe so well. These last 2 seasons were going to be lost anyways, why not go the 76er route and tank? Now we might get someone like Simmons or Ingrahm to build for the future. I’m fine with how things turned out. Sorry this became a longer rant than I intended
Josh Smith is still in Houston. Their problem is they have Dwight Howard. That guy brings everyone down. Patrick Beverly was never anything more than a decent defender at PG.
Bradley Beal spent some time injured for the Wizards. Other than John Wall, they kinda suck. Gortat is a decent center. They picked Markief Morris to firm up the front court, but too little too late.
The surprisingly bad team for me this year was the Bulls. Rose, Butler, Gasol healthy for most of the year and they can’t make the playoffs in weak-ass East?
GSW/SA will be a great Western Conf Finals. A lot of people seem to assume the Cavs will breeze through the East, but I’m not so sure.
The Nash trade was horrible for the Lakers and it probably doomed any chance of them putting together a decent team. The guy had absolutely nothing left at that point and he got signed for three years, i don’t think he even played the last two. And for the privilege of having a former MVP on your injured list you gave up 2 first round picks and 2 second round picks. That trade alone should have cost most GM’s their job. The Howard deal is only bad in retrospect, but he still was injured and on a one year contract.
I disagree, the problem in Houston is Harden not Howard.
Yeah that could be true. I’ve heard some stuff about Harden not being a “team player” and doesn’t play defense. But he’s still one of the best scorers in the league.
Nash is bad in retrospect, but I will always defend the trade because the year before, he was a productive member of the Suns (played 62 games, over 10 assists, shot over 50%). Sure, we gave away a few draft picks, but this was the Lakers coming off championships and playoffs, those picks would have been very difficult to turn into decent players. And we got Nash, who most thought still had some gas in the tank, certainly enough to outweigh some late round draft picks. If you’re a GM, you take that chance.
Plus, we got Howard in the same year. The knock on Howard was that he had limited offensive moves and needed shooters. Well, we had Pau who had range, Kobe, and Nash. I remember that people were saying the perfect pick and roll combo for PG/C in the league would have been Nash, since he’s such a great passer and shooter, and Howard, who was so athletic that he could have gotten to the hoop and jump over anyone else.
What we didn’t count on was nerve damage in Nash’s leg and him breaking it in the 2nd game, and Howard being a shell of his former self due to the back injury (and not staying a second year with Kobe riding on him. There are some things you can’t plan for and we got hit with all of them that year.
Well, my Pacers are back in the playoffs. As a reward, we get either Cleveland or Toronto in the first round. (I, of course, am hoping we can take the seventh seed and play the Raptors. Nobody sweats the Raptors.)
Both are the problem, but I agree that the bigger problem is Harden. He has been an offensive machine at times but he hasn’t been integrated into any sort of overall scheme very well. A larger problem could be that upper management (or perhaps McHale, now gone) didn’t really settle on what kind of approach they wanted to take with the team.
How could Houston have gone down this much in a year with little changes? I took a look at Harden and Howard’s stats for the past 2 years. Harden’s comparable, the difference can’t be him. Howard though was limited last year to only 41 games while this year he’s played 70. Could that be it? How is adding an all-star to your team bad? He still does defense right?
Harden did just set a single season record for turnovers with his 370th. The previous record had stood for 38 years, so that’s something.
Briefly, they don’t play defense this year at all, and they did last year. This is a, IMHO, decent blog post that tries to go into some more detail about where their defense went, and why they don’t play well together anymore. I think it’ll answer a few of your questions, Yog.
In my own, less educated opinion, the reasons include:
[ul]
[li]They overachieved hugely against the Clippers last year: the Rockets aren’t as good as a “Western Conference Finals” team should be.[/li][li]Harden showed up out of shape, the team suffered, and their chemistry never jelled. [/li][li]Continuing on that point, Harden seems like he’d be horrible to play with half the time. His MO looks like dribbling the air out of the ball, driving into a bad offensive position, and making a shitty pass to an often-guarded teammate with little time on the shot clock. They then miss, or turn the ball over, and get irritated with Harden either way.[/li][li]Ty Lawson who was supposed to take over a lot of the ballhandling from Harden, and he never panned out at all.[/li][li]Harden looked like he wasn’t interested in determining how Howard wanted the ball on the low block. It didn’t help that Howard is largely worthless offensively unless he’s called upon to: dunk, put back, or alley oop. Anything more complicated and he either misses his shot—because he has little touch, gets stripped, or gets fouled and goes to the line to likely miss. Josh Smith, as he famously did against Dallas last year, was more interested in getting the ball to Howard where he could succeed, but he wasn’t on the team for most of the season.[/li][li]Howard is a player who has relied on legendary athleticism for his whole career and has never developed other facets of basketball that might make up for losing athleticism. Like that due to age.[/li][li]Bickerstaff is one of the worst coaches in the league as far as matchups and defensive rotations and strategy. [/li][li]Corey Brewer regressed, hard. This wouldn’t be a problem, as it hasn’t for Terrance Jones, etc…except that Bickerstaff plays him 25 minutes a game.[/li][/ul]
I’m sure there are other reasons, but these are the ones that immediately came to mind. Were I king, I would give Morey one more year. I’d like for him to actually find players that can shoot the 3, if he’s committed to having a team that sets NBA records for attempted 3s. I would back a Brinks truck full of money up to induce a good, defensive coach (or whoever Durant says he wants) to come to Houston. I’ve liked Thibs since he was a Rockets assistant. He may not want to come. I would try to keep the first round pick that they are idiotically going to end up shipping to Denver in exchange for getting two home dates and slaughtered by the Warriors in the first round. I would try to find a playmaker, someone who I could give some of the offensive workload to so that I can get the ball out of Harden’s 1.6 A/TO hands, and also keep Harden’s minutes to a manageable 36 or so, instead of the 42+ he’s been playing lately.
There’s talent in Houston. Harden is still one of the top 6 (twelve?) players in the game. Ariza is still a decent defender and a mediocre third or fourth scoring option. While he’s here, and if his back is healthy, Motiejunas is a creative offensive threat both inside and outside. Capela is a very efficient rebounder (and an even worse free throw shooter than Howard) Michael Beasley has rejuvenated his career these last few games, and is probably the Rockets’s second best scoring threat now. I’d like to see more of McDaniels, Harrell, and Goudelock.
They need a coach and a system, and another star or two. And at that, they probably still aren’t beating the Warriors.
That’s a good analysis, thank you. Not being a close follower of the Rockets, I was perplexed by their performance. It seems just talent-wise, they should be way ahead of the likes of Utah or Portland that lost 4 starters. Even thought he Clippers took Josh Smith, the knock around the league at the time of his trade to the Rockets last year was that Detroit improved without him, and that he’s not a good player. He did kill the Clippers in the playoffs, so I thought that was overblown. As much as I was happy when he went to the Clippers, I was equally happy when he left because he never seemed to find his groove.
Harden can still light it up, but if he’s that lazy on passes and defense and doesn’t have a coach that runs a good system for him, I see him becoming like a Carmelo Anthony: great scorer, but nothing else and can’t win.
What’s the deal with Patrick Beverley? When he was missing due to injuries last year, I kept hearing how he’s their shut-down wing defender that can be used on opposing guards. Is he not as good as I thought?
Motherfucking shit, that was a historic night. Warriors set a record and HOLY MOTHER OF GOD KOBE DROPS 60 AND LAKERS WIN HIS LAST GAME!