[NYTimes] N.B.A. Finals: Warriors and Cavs Star in Basketball’s Version of Groundhog Day (Wednesday, May 30, 2018 6:03:23 PM)
In an unprecedented fourth straight year of the same finals matchup, the Warriors are huge favorites over the Cleveland Cavaliers.
[NYTimes] Sixers to Investigate Bryan Colangelo’s Twitter Activity (Wednesday, May 30, 2018 3:23:03 PM)
The executive admitted to having one anonymous Twitter account, but a report accuses him of having others, and using them to criticize his players.
(Wednesday, May 30, 2018 10:21:17 AM)
?He nicked a Knick and hasn’t been able to stay out of trouble since. ?A US Army vet who ?got a slap on the wrist for stabbing ?ex-Knick?s player Chris Copeland? ?and then blew the sweetheart deal, landing himself behind bars for six months, ?has now violated his probation? ??and will have to serve another…
126 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.05.31)”
A dude stabbed Chris Copeland, and the Post’s take on it is that he “nicked a Knick”? Ooph.
Yeah, weird. Unless he actually sucked all along and it just to a while for the “he rebounds and scores efficiently and nothing else matters” crowd to figure out that he was good value on a rookie deal and never worth 4 years @ $50 mil. Small detail: he was benched way before he was injured.
http://www.nba.com/article/2017/12/28/denver-nuggets-kenneth-faried-out-rotation-michael-malone
But I concede that he has been better than the similarly overpaid Shumpert. Your pair of nines beat my sixes.
For fun I looked at Faried stats from his best year, 15-16′:
He was 17th of all PF’s with 12.5 ppg.
Sorting the same list on FG% he was first with 55.8%.
He was 6th in RPG with 8.7 in 25.3 minutes per game. Sorting this list by RB48 he was 4th.
Blocks: 12th, and 18th in BP48.
Steals: 39th.
Personal fouls: 13th (below average since fouls are bad) but tied for 45th in PF48, which is above average.
Double doubles: tied for 8th.
Turnovers: tied for 55th, and 48th in TO48.
So far these are box score stats, nothing fancy. Other than steals he’s actually very good.
Advanced:
WS .156
OBPM 1.0
DBPM -0.1
BPM 0.9
VORP 1.2
I dunno. Looks like a really good player to me, and I enjoyed watching him play. He was also on the US world cup team in 2014 so his peers liked his production too.
Kenneth Faried is a less detrimental, more dimunitive version of Enes Kanter. His gaudy individual statistics mask that he’s a garbage defender and his offensive skills don’t really benefit anybody else on a team wide scale because he doesn’t create for others nor does he space the floor for others to benefit from. I’d much rather have him than Kanter, but like Enes, Faried’s teams have largely performed better with him off the floor than with him on it. In his 7 year career the Nuggets have only performed better with him on the floor than off twice and one of those was a marginal +0.2 difference.
I’d quite obviously eat his contract if it meant acquiring the 14th pick, but we’d only be able to do that if Enes opted out. Denver’s motivation is to reduce salary as much as possible to avoid paying luxury tax.
Denver is over the cap, but not in the tax. How is not paying tax their motivation?
Because they might be about to sign Jokic to a huge contract as a restricted free agent. That will probably add about $23 million to their cap.
It sucks we have no cap space because a trade like that would be perfect.
That was also a foreseen downside of signing THJ. Not having their cap space available for trades like this.
Maybe we’ll really trade Courtney Lee this time!
I really hope Kanter opts out before the draft so we can swing a trade like that. Picks 9 and 14 in this specific draft would be a godsend. I have a lot of faith in our scouting department so the more chances we have the better.
They can’t. The team would fall apart without his leadership.
The veteran leadership thing is just what they tell the media. The Knicks spoke to Courtney Lee and he told them he wanted to stick around because he’s comfortable in New York. They didn’t trade him as a courtesy but really to build good faith with players/agents so they can win more 50/50 balls in free agency.
You can agree or disagree with that reasoning, but I believe that’s the real reason he’s still a Knick. We already have a guy in Lance Thomas who we can’t trade that provides more than enough vet leadership.
I would much rather have Faried than Courtney Lee’s veteran presence.
If that is their actual reasoning, then mark me down as a “disagree.” 😉
Faried is also being squeezed stylistically by trends in the league. Guys who can’t protect the rim and can’t shoot 3s have been the biggest casualties of the recent trends. He needs to play with another big because he can’t protect the rim at all but he can only play around the rim on offense which means he’s going to clog your spacing as a PF. Teams just don’t want that player at the moment. I don’t think it means he was never good, but the weaknesses of his game are some of the blind spots of advanced analytics.
Curiously, as much as I’m not so much in Faried’s camp, the frontcourt partner that would maximize his skills is probably a guy like Porzingis, elite rim protector who can’t rebound and wants to float around the perimeter on offense. Jokic was far too bad as a rim protector to make it work even if on offense it should in theory be a good match.
Well Ron opts in and surprises exactly no one. I wish all cheerleaders were paid as well as Ron, I really do.
1) According to PAWS40, Faried projects to be a really good NBA player.
2) Faried has an awesome rookie year and then a few more years of good play on league-best value. He’s 4th in MP on a team that wins 57 games (despite not having Melo!). He earns $5M over four years, on one of the best value contracts in the NBA.
3) Faried gets an ill-advised $50M contract.
4) Faried gets old and less good at his core skills, as one could predict, at the same time that PFs are being asked to camp at the 3PT line and switch onto PGs.
5) Z-man nyah nyahs the board because the Nuggets are in tax hell and want to dump a bad-value contract.
Yup, checks out.
What’s the deadline on Kanter’s opt-out clause?
Kanter opting out and giving us the ability to absorb Faried and the #14s would be so awesome.
I wouldn’t do the trade without the 14, but I think Bruno is right and Faried might himself provide some value.
I have no expectation that Faried is going to turn back time and be the player he was as a rookie. But when you’re capped out AND have very few “foundational” pieces, you might as well take on everyone’s mistakes for draft picks and young, cheap players. Half-committing to rookies and half-committing to overpriced “veteran leadership” is a terrible strategy. But, of course: Knicks.
Faried in an “energy” player (meaning he’s the rarer player that might not be as productive per minute if given a full 36 minutes) that doesn’t defend, doesn’t space the floor, and doesn’t help the team as much as statistical models say. He’s a very overpaid rotation player. I’d take the #14 with him if it could be arranged because we aren’t going anywhere anyway, but even his prime was overrated.
Are you fucking illiterate or did you just miss the part where he made $5M in four years? According to VORP, he put up 18.9 wins against average for FIVE FUCKING MILLION DOLLARS.
For some perspective (and you’re going to hate this, because it’s based on fact and not your gut feeling), the Warriors in 2017 spent $1.52M per win and were league-best in that. The Knicks spent $3.51M per win, among the league’s worst. Faried cost the Nuggets about $250k per win, if you think VORP has any value (and you don’t, because it wasn’t created by Alan Dershowitz).
No one ever called him an MVP candidate. But if you can’t see the extreme value he brought, especially for a player selected #22, you are fucking delusional.
More perspective: Ron Baker is about to make in one season (in which he’ll probably play ~500 minutes) what Faried did in four. Again, how the fuck can you think that Faried brought bad value?
The easiest route to getting the 14th pick (and Faried’s expiring contract) may involve a 3-way trade where the Knicks give up Lee (to a contender like Philly) and possibly the 36th pick.
Lee can play the 1-3, works well as a 4th or 5th option as a starter, provides the kinds of intangibles that win playoff games, and provides plus value as a sixth man.
The Nuggets reduce cap.
The contender gets Lee and the 36th pick.
The Knicks get the 14th pick.
Not a hard deal to pull off.
Jowles –
I have no argument that Faried was a good value on his rookie deal. (was anyone saying that other than that straw-man looking guy in the corner that you keep bludgeoning?)
That said, the argument so far has been that Faried put up nice advanced stats but that his game is a game whose holes are missed by the commonly available advanced stats. Then your counterargument is “look at all the great VORPs he put up I can’t believe you’re illiterate” when it was JUST said that:
Lee to Philly makes sense as they get a starting 2 (or lead 6th man) for half what they paid Redick, allowing them to pursue possibly 2 max contracts. Hello… LeBron.
That Ron Baker is grossly overpaid does not prove anything about Farid. That is a totally absurd argument.
Farid is making $12,921,348, while Draymond Green makes $16,400,000. Which one is not bringing any value to the table? Absurd argument, right?
I know Farid is clearly a fringe player, not very useful for good teams. Not a terrible player like Baker, but not very good either.
Hah, it does, since cap space in the NBA is a zero-sum game. But okay, whatever you say.
You must have missed all the shit talked on Faried back in 2012-2015 when he stood to make crumbs while he put up outstanding numbers. I just fucking mentioned in this very thread that he has become (1) an objectively bad player (as of this year) and (2) a terrible overpay that requires a sweetener to get out of the contract a year early.
He is no longer a viable NBA player. He was a very good role player making almost nothing to put up great numbers.
http://knickerblogger.net/knicks-morning-news-2018-05-31/#comment-621257
But there’s Z-man talking shit on his entire career when he should be talking about his bad contract and bad production. You’re coming off as functionally illiterate here.
Baker is not a terrible player.
How’s his Twitter game, tho? Colangelo has a lot of accounts to come at him with.
An argument predicated on the faith that your eyetest is so much better than all of the advanced stats that we have access to, all of which (WS, WP, VORP, BPM) said that he was an excellent value.
As always, you continue to stroke your own dick in the service of anti-analytics arguments. It’s tiresome and, per usual, you are dead fucking wrong.
I mean, do we need to go back through the archive to find you telling us that Derrick Rose’s shitty stats weren’t indicative of his actual ability, because of the shortcomings of those stats? We can go down that road, since you want to dig your heels in on your supposed superiority to advanced stats.
Argh.
Please tell me where my eyes were mentioned in my post. I’ll wait.
Please tell me where I said he wasn’t an excellent value on his rookie deal. I’ll wait.
Remember that part where I said that he had good advanced stats?
Here’s a reminder:
But by all means please continue beating the straw man.
Absurd argument. All you can infer from comparing Baker and Farid is that one is grossly overpaid (Baker) and the other was underpaid for a certain period (Farid). There is absolutely nothing else to infer.
It does not prove how valuable Farid is, because you are are very conveniently selecting a grossly overpaid player (Baker) to compare Farid to. What about comparing Farid’s contract to Draymond Green’s?
You know better than that.
I’m not interested in whatever was discussed 2 years ago. I just wanted to point out that your argument (proving something about Farid by comparing his underpaid years to Baker’s ridiculous contract) is totally absurd.
Once again, replace Baker with Draymond Green and your argument collapses.
So are you co-signing or not? Because it sure as hell looks like you’re co-signing.
Draymond Green being an exceptional value does not make Faried’s rookie contract less so. Faried is not worth $12.5M AAV, especially at this stage of his career.
Again, the NBA requires that its teams get surplus value on their players’ contracts because cash spending is limited and wins are zero-sum. When there are players like Courtney Lee, Tim Hardaway, Joakim Noah and Ron Baker making tens of millions for almost no wins against average, deals like Faried’s rookie contract look that much better. Value does not exist in a vacuum — every contract in the league establishes or informs value.
Also, Z-man loves Ron Baker, so it’s especially relevant.
Going back to my comment from yesterday bc I had to leave the thread…
Did Jowles really compare peak Clint Capela with peak Scottie Pippen? LMAOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! LOLOLOLOLOL.
Anyway. 90’s Bulls, 80’s Lakers, 80’s Celtics, ’00 Lakers and one team I forgot (so we can bring this into a slightly more modern era) is the recent Heatles ALL beat this GSW team at full strength 10x out of ten in a 7 game series on nothing more than pure basketball concentration of talent.
E.g. peak LBJ, peak Wade, peak Bosh are each better than their counterparts on GSW (Curry, Durant, Green). What’s actually amazing is that LBJ at 33 is better than all of them NOW.
Thanks
TS% 6th
eFG% 1st
ORB% 5th
DRB% 6th
BLK% 3rd
ORtg 1st
DRtg 4th
WS48 4th
DWS 6th
WP48 1st
LOLOLOLOLOL U COMPARE HIM 2 PIPPEN HOW U DO THAT????
Are our hopes that the Knicks deal Lee and/or take on a bad contract in exchange for a pick or two just wishful thinking? Are there any legit rumors that the FO is actually contemplating such deals?
Or are we bracing for an extension for Kanter and Beasley being resigned?
I will agree that Capela is freaking awesome.
I will not agree that he is as good as Scottie Pippen.
But that mostly is related to the fact that he’s not as versatile as Scottie was. He is freaking amazing though.
4-year seniors playing on rookie contracts typically provide surplus value, especially when they are picked in the #20-#30 range with a $1,000,000 or so mandated yearly salary. This includes guys like Faried, DeMarre Carroll, Trevor Booker, George Hill, Josh Howard, Mason Plumlee, etc…
Since NBA contracts are by nature back-loaded, effectively over-paying most players in the final year in exchange for higher value in their earlier career years, it probably makes more sense to include Faried’s entire tenure per dollar than just his first four years. Faried played his way into a big extension, like Plumlee, Carroll, Howard, Booker, etc, but all of those guys rapidly became albatrosses that ended up with little long-term net return to the initial investment.
Yes, Faried was a good pick at #22, but the reasons for him not going higher were probably sound, as his upside proved not to be too high.
Versatility matters even MORE in today’s NBA than it did in the 90’s when Pippen was guarding 4 positions. He’d be even better now.
Clint Capela is probably more productive than Scottie Pippen ever was but it’s a different game. If Capela had to play in an NBA where the center was the focal point of a post up offense, he probably washes out of the league in 3 seasons. If Scottie Pippen had to play in today’s NBA, he’d probably still be a two-way terror like Kawhi Leonard.
Capela is a very productive player possibly on his way to being more, but right now a team can make adjustments that will lower his impact and possibly even get him out of the game.
Pippen was a great player that could take a game over on either side and have a huge impact but there wasn’t much you could do about it.
I don’t have a model that measures basketball productivity and value correctly, but it’s not hard to see that the publicly available ones are all flawed. The game is WAY more complex than assigning values to each boxscore stat and adding them all up.
Most of the models don’t even have the values right.
If it’s so easy to contain a player like Capela, how the fuck did he play ~2700 minutes this year at that level of production?
I thought you morons figured this shit out when Chandler left and the team went back to the lottery. Guess not.
You’re seriously sitting here telling people they’re morons for not knowing that Clint Capela is better than Scottie Pippen? You used to be insightful. When did you become such an insufferable fool?
The irony of this post, by the way:
is that you think it proves to cgreene that clint capela is better than scottie pippen. The reality of that post is that it proves to everyone else reading it that your slavish to devotion to questionable dogma leads you to make conclusions that are hilariously stupid.
This.
Eye test? You mean actually watch guys play the game?
That’s so old school. Just read the box scores – everything is right there.
Do you even know what Capela looks like. Ah, doesn’t really matter.
Just to clarify, I’m about 99% sure Kanter opting out helps us not at all for this draft. The impact of that hits on 1 July, irrespective of when he tells us. Cap space doesn’t exist until 1 July.
Best we could do would be a handshake to trade whoever they pick at 14 for Kanter on 1 July. A bit like the Love-Wiggins deal. Either team could back out between the draft and 1 july and technically Kanter could probably still change his mind too.
The Lee trade described above is a more plausible path…
No, you’re right. No player can ever be as good as Scottie Pippen because he won a bunch of championships next to some scrubs in the 90s.
I would totally ignore all those fake stats so I can continue to be a senile old man who doesn’t know his ass from his elbow on all matters NBA.
If you look at Capela’s stats and think, “Fake news!” you are a fucking imbecile. Full stop: you’re a fucking moron.
We should change the tagline for the site:
Knickerblogger
Statistical Analysis unless the Eyetest Says Otherwise. Humor. Knicks.
oh hells no – it took me almost a year just to figure out what the hell a TS% actually means…
there’s no going back now…
i’m figuring at this pace i should have vorp worked out by sometime this fall…
I actually think Clint Capela is a very, very good basketball player and don’t need you to explain that to me before you go berate another poster to make yourself feel big.
I know you think you’re some sort of genius surrounded by a confederacy of dunces, but your intellectual inadequacy and your vast insecurity is jumping off the screen. I mean, please, tell us again what magazines you read.
You’re the guy who can only see the cone from the top, so you think it’s a circle. And you’re so convinced that yours is the only possible vantage point that anyone looking at from the side and calling it a triangle is an idiot, and you’ll tell him so. Some of us actually have the intelligence and humility to understand there’s more than one angle to view things from.
Interesting back and forth today, no holds barred throwing down on each other. Entertaining
Any of those trades mentioned above where the Knicks offload some combo of Lee, and/or the 36th pick, (and/or Kanter) for the 14th pick and Faried (whether he’s one of the greatest player values ever or not) would be a huge win for NY. Most importantly it would show they finally have a competent front office for a change.
For whoever asked above, there is no press or any rumors suggesting a Lee trade. I suggested it here yesterday as an idea, with no source but me.
I actually think you’re functionally illiterate at this point, which is no surprise because you are, as I’ve indicated, a fucking moron. This is what I said about Capela, to which I was mocked in this very thread:
And the evidence-devoid mocking was so intelligent, so humble!
And I’m the one who’s lacking the nuance to appreciate multiple points of view. Seems to me that if you don’t have a 80s or 90s NBA player occupying the space at the back of your throat, your opinion is invalid. Fuck off with that nonsense, you smarmy hack.
Damn. Savage thread this morning.
Would jump at the Lee to Denver trade, just not sure why Denver would do it. It seems that if Lee is going to be moved, the FO (for better or worse) is probably going to try and “do the right thing” by Lee and get his input on what contender he goes to.
The only good Lee trade I can think of that makes sense for the other team is a trade with Minnesota. They are capped out and have no bench. Lee would help them a lot.
Lee +#36 for Aldrich +#20
That seems pretty fair.
The Knicks and Denver are over the cap, so any trade would have to involve a contender/pretender 3rd team with cap room for whom Lee fills needs and can absorb his contract. The 36th would just be sweetener.
Philly checks both boxes. Other teams might as well.
I don’t think Philly wants to spend its cap-space on Lee. In fact I don’t think any team with space would want him. The space is more valuable. It’s more likely a capped out team would want him as an upgrade and then we get a worse player + a sweetener.
Probably worth pointing out that Scottie Pippen sucked when he was 23.
Ron Baker is going to earn his money this year.
>If it’s so easy to contain a player like Capela, how the fuck did he play ~2700 minutes this year at that level of production?
I thought you morons figured this shit out when Chandler left and the team went back to the lottery. Guess not.<
Jowles,
You are obviously a fan of the models that like rebounds and dunks, but the game isn't won primarily with rebounds and dunks. Those models overstate his production. There are great rebounders and dunkers in the G league that can't break through.
The game at the highest level is won by great "all around" scorers and defenders that are accompanied by rebounders etc..
Capela is on his way to being great on one side of the ball (defense) and he's more than adequate on the other end because he has good guards getting him the ball in good spots a few times a night and he's skilled enough to finish. You want guys like that on your team, but you can't win a championship on the back of a guy that may go for 5 points or may go for 20 points depending on who is guarding him and what the opposing team's strategy is that night.
Pippen was great on both sides of the ball. He could shut down the best player on the other team, make his teammates better with his handle and passing, and score a ton of points consistently in a variety of ways behind Jordan or on his own if Jordan wasn't there.
You can’t start with a broken model and point to it’s measured level of production as evidence of production. The problem is not us. It’s the model you are using,
I must have missed Game 7 the other night, when Clint Capela made the 65-win Rockets miss 85% of their 3PA. Nevermind that without him, the Rockets would have been blown the fuck out. And make no mistake, with a Chris Paul in games 6 and 7, there’s a good chance you never write the comment you just did, because the Rockets probably win the Finals in 5 or 6. If your argument hinges on a team losing, not winning, a Conference Finals series in seven games against one of the great teams in league history, your argument is fucking stupid.
The Warriors have like four players who only do what Capela tries to do (Looney, Zaza, Bell, McGee). Obviously they should trade those players for the players that you described so they can become champions.
Pippen was a great player, one of the greatest wings in league history. If I were a Knickerblogger-grade mouth breather, I might point to the fact that he couldn’t win a chip without MJ.
@61
I was the first one here to say that pressure probably impacted the 3 point shooters in both game 7s and also pointed out that guys like Capela are less impacted because pressure doesn’t impact dunks.
My recommendation to Capela would be to work on his post up game all summer so he can become a higher usage player and more consistent scoring threat. Then he should try to get good enough a little further out just so he keeps the defense honest.
I’m honest enough to admit I don’t have the perfect model for measuring player value and production, but I think it’s pretty clear it’s the great all around scorers and defenders that win championships. Capela is only great on one side of the ball right now. He can be better, but he’s not as good as your favorite model says.
Why does he need to keep defenses “honest” when he still dunks 8 out of 9 FGA even though his defenders know he can’t do anything else?
Listen – as someone who’s Knick fandom was borne out of the early 90’s and learned to HATE, HATE Scottie Pippen, I don’t think it’s fair to say he couldn’t win w/out arguably the greatest player of all time. Heck, that ’94 Bulls team was a phantom Hubert Davis shooting foul away from maybe taking that series in 6 (A. That “act of shooting” explanation was kinda BS but I felt karma owed us a call like that; B. I had no faith in the Knicks beating Chicago on the road in Game 6 even sans-Jordan).
I appreciate all the work and revolution advanced stats has brought to the NBA. And there’s still NO WAY you can convince me Clint Capela is a better player than Scottie was. Because he isn’t.
Knickerblogger is on blast tonight . . . Are we at threat level “drink bleach and die” yet?
I believe at the margin, if you are a threat to make a mid range shot if left wide open, opposing defenses can’t leave you wide open when you are away from the paint. That makes it easier for your teammates. That was the whole point behind the stretch PF and the now the growing move towards Cs having 3 point range also.
“Space generation” is not in the boxscore as a stand alone stat, but a guy like Porzingis is creating some value when the opposing defense knows they have to cover him even beyond the 3 point line. I’m sure someone has measured that value. I personally don’t know what it is. But when I see the opposing C come out to guard him I know getting that guy away from the boards and rim protecting is going to help us. It also adds usage. If Porzings was dependent on dunks, he could never score as much at a high efficiency as his potential is now given he’s actually very good at 3s. In his case, he has to reduce the volume of mid range and increase the dunks.
Remember when people said Chandler needed a 15-foot jumper to keep defenses honest? Yeah, they said that after he won a chip with Dallas hahahahah
Chandler was an excellent player. Dirk needed him to win that championship, but at that stage, Dirk was the best player on that championship team. If Chandler could have expanded his game, it would have made it that much easier.
JR always getting caught slippin.
Seriously, the boos on that were ridiculous. The warriors employ zaza, these fans see far worse on the reg.
Yeah, and if Dirk could have been a lockdown defender and rebounder… and if Jason Terry were four inches taller… and if Shawn Marion could play point…
I’ve never been a big Jordan Clarkson fan but he’s been worse than ever could have imagined this postseason.
Imagine how much better at dunking Nance would be if he learned to shoot a hesi stepback jimbo
Wow, I normally like Jowles and historically agree with him on many things, but this is a horrible display of posting by him today. Nothing of substance. Just a bunch of foul language and put downs of the collective intelligence of this community over nothing. He should be embarrassed.
Jo Noah used to shoot mid-range jumpers and he was terrible at making them. Maybe there was some benefit to team spacing from that, but at the same time Noah shooting jumpers was terrible for the Bulls offense because he couldn’t shoot. Porzingis creates space, sure, but he also is a very good 3 point shooter.
If Lebron can keep never missing maybe the Cavs can win a game or two.
I made arguments of substance, which were responded to with blanket anti-stats rhetoric. If that’s what this board is the place for, ban me and get back to the normal line of argument: “Well, I agree with 9 of the 10 top players in VORP, but that one ‘outlier’ must be evidence that the statistic is incorrect. It has nothing to do with my deficiencies as an agent of evaluation.”
That’s what this board is about now: eyetest apologism.
Both teams going pretty deep on the benches early. Interesting to see after it seemed both sides really tightened up the rotations in the conference finals.
My plan is to only watch the first half of these games so the series seems like a contest.
I started the thread by explaining to Z-man that Faried was no longer a good value in the NBA, since he conflates 2012 Faried and 2018 Faried as if they’re the same player on the same contract, as if the Nuggets are being forced to unload Faried’s 4-year, $5M rookie contract by packaging the #14 pick to relieve themselves of his contract. Not the case, but of course, Z-man has his axe to grind re: Faried, still unwilling to believe that that “tweener” PF could have been worth a 20-something pick in the draft.
Then I defended my statement that Pippen was the right player for the 90s playstyle just as Capela is a near-perfect PnR center in 2018. But that was just too far for some of the board’s brightest.
So vulgar? Sure. Unsubstantive in the entire thread? Nah.
At some point you need to credit the consistently impressive third quarter performance to Kerr. It really is kind of amazing.
I love you THCJ. Thank you for making me feel like it’s 2008 here again. We aren’t going to kick arguing about box score stats to the curb.
Capela v. Pippen is one of those cases no lawyer wants. But I hear ya.
Meanwhile, it would be hilarious if the Cavs won this game.
I’m sorry that anyone was offended by my language
/lauraingraham’ed
man how bad must Rodney Hood be that Clarkson is allowed to vomit up possessions like this
@83
As usual I’m with Owen on this one.
If I wanted to read 80 posts about how “there’s just no way Capela is that valuable!” because he can’t iso or isn’t a volume shooter I’d be on Reddit or anywhere else that’s available. I’m here because of out of the box thinking, not because of instantly dismissing arguments when they go against common sense narratives.
Just in awe of Lebron. Don’t fuck with the King.
Holy shit Lebron got these bums a last minute lead
LeBron with two huge plays at both ends. What else can we say about him that hasn’t already been said?
that’s a garbage reversal
It was a clear blocking foul if you are a dubs fan but that reversal was complete horseshit
It’s crazy JR Smith, playoff closer, is a thing
What the fuck was JR doing!?
lol JR smh
Lol
JR is truly an imbecile…
#BlameBeno
Hahaha! Oh man, he’s the gift that keeps giving
Oh JR
“I just wanted Lebron to break his finals single game scoring record, so we needed overtime.” -JR Smith
And by the way, Mark Jackson really is bad at his current job. He adds so little to the broadcast. I’m really happy he didn’t get our coaching gig…
GS will take advantage of the OT and win this thing.
Aaaaannnnndd here come the warriors. Regardless of Hill missing the FT, that was the worst time for JR to have one of his famous brain fades.
so do the warriors play by the rule where they can stand in the lane on defense for 5 seconds?
Unreal. LeBron delivers yet another game’s worth of evidence that he’s the GOAT and JR fumbles away a ~35% chance at a dirty Game 1 win on the road against the defending champs.
“I thought we were ahead.”
Although if Mark Jackson can announce Finals games why shouldn’t JR be playing.
These refs have sucked
Edit: I hate when someone gets there first
I guess the Dubs just needed a 2nd 3rd quarter
I would like to note, for the historical records, that I actually wrote that about JR before the second ft.
Is that a suspension for Thompson?
man that is a brutal loss for the cavs
that said – if Iguodala can’t come back, this series might be closer than most thought. GS got a ridiculously friendly whistle tonight (again), and only had 7 turnovers, way less than usual. Cleveland shot 10/37 from 3, and most of those seemed pretty wide open.
I will be on r/nba for lip reading in about 20 minutes
I’m pretty literate. I quoted the part of your tripe I was responding to. It had nothing to do with Capela v Pippen. It was the part where your devotion to useful-but-not-comprehensive statistics led you to think you were in a position to call people who disagree with you morons. Seems like you’re practicing some of that functionally illiteracy yourself pretty well tonight.
Anyway, isn’t this warriors team the one you went on record telling us was run by morons in 2014 bc they didn’t worship at the altar of your chosen stats? You got that page bookmarked? Jog on, sunshine.
That was a bullshit flagrant.
You mean when they refused to trade Klay Thompson for a player good (and lucky) enough to compete against them in the Finals in four consecutive seasons?
Haha, is that really your argument? I’m pretty sure I just saw Kevin Love put up a decent 21 and 13 against them. Did you see that, too?
All is know is Tristan Thompson sucks
I hate all of Draymond’s antics, but how’s this for a box score:
13 points
11 rebounds
9 assists
5 steals
3 blocks
I mean, you can’t have a more complete game than that. He might be their most valuable (and irreplaceable) player.
Yeah, I mean when you said you were smarter than Golden State mgmt bc they couldn’t see what was clear to you.
That pretty much sums you up. You have a dimestore degree on stats and you think it makes you so much smarter than everyone else but the reality is all you know is just the foundation of what intelligent people know. The stats are there to inform your vision, not to replace it.
You probably don’t do anything meaningful in real life, which is why you’re always on here picking a fight with whoever seems weak to you, but for those of us who understand this shit on a real level, we know that stats are the beginning of the story, not the end.
I’ve actually enjoyed your contribtions here over the last decade. You know part of the story. But you don’t know what you don’t know. And you’ve gone off the rails talking to people the way you do. You have no fucking class coming on here insulting people’s intelligence bc they don’t think imperfect stats are the end of the story.
Now practice your functional literacy and figure out what I said instead of beating up a straw men like you been doing and you normally do when you bump into someone isn’t 17 years old and afraid to speak up to an internet bully.
I kinda wish Draymond Green played in the ’80s so someone would just take his head off. Terrific player but his behavior on the court is completely unprofessional. He should have been called for a taunting foul when James on the line late in overtime- that’s what really started the whole mess at the end. And how do you taunt a guy who just completely lit you up?
The fucking irony of this sentence.
I don’t know why you all have to be so adversarial towards each other. Jowles generally is short now because of his arrogance but he gets a lot right.
On the other hand everyone else who is deep into stats make good points as well.
Good reads for me though. 🙂
Nicos in the 90s Draymond would have been plastered to the floor for his antics.
LeBron has played probably the best playoffs in NBA history this year. It took one of the dumbest plays in NBA history and some favorable calls for a home team with two prime former MVPs and a prime 2x DPOY to beat Lebron and a team with one or two good NBA players. I still think the Cavs are getting swept but that was an incredible performance.
Best comment I have read so far post game 1:
“It took 4 all-stars, 3 refs and JR Smith to beat LeBron #GOAT”.
Pretty spot on IMO
Great game tonight, Cleveland got flat hosed on a lot of calls including Tristan Thompson getting ejected on a phantom flagrant at the end. LeBron was unbelievable but he could not overcome JR Smith’s stupidity.
James just might average 40 points, 9 rebounds, 8 assists this series in a losing effort. Incredible.
I always hate saying these things, but if that offensive foul on James doesn’t get reversed that’s pretty much game over. Not that it makes any difference, but would like to see the assessment on that one in the final 2 minute report.
I don’t even like the Cavs and I’m frankly pissed for them. I can’t imagine how bad LeBron feels. There’s a big chance this went from competitive series to a sweep after this stupid ending.
Anybody who feels sorry for LeBron needs to remember he made Cleveland give JR $55M, Tristan Thompson $80M, and Iman Shumpert $40M. He also tried to make Mark Jackson his head coach but settled for Ty freaking Lue.
The man is the greatest basketball player of this era by far, and he’s still by far the best player in the NBA, but his team is trash because he built it. Kudos to him for dragging his late lottery team to the Finals, though.