NBA.

corrections · **Joined:** Thu Oct 07, 2010 8:11 pm **Posts:** 14776

pave wrote:

Miami during the regular season was awesome at defending in transition. obviously they aren't gonna stop the Thunder in transition. but i think they are gonna do better at slowing the Thunder down than the Thunder will against them. in fact, Miami is excellent at defending basically eveything the Thunder do well (isolation especially given that Miami's two strongest defenders match up well with the Thunder's best iso options, and stopping the pick and roll up top), except spot-up shooting. basically, the Thunder's best chance comes down to whether or not the shots are falling, cause they are gonna get the looks.

the Thunder defend everything well except transition. but the question is, will Miami try to take advantage of this and speed up the game and trust their transition D against an insanely talented Thunder team, or will they slow it down and try to out shoot them? personally, i think they will try and slow it down, but the stats suggest they should turn it up cause i just don't think the Thunder's transition D is nearly as strong. but if they think they can take out Westbrook (which is actually possible), they probably will slow it down and dare the Thunder to out-shoot them (which they can lol).

my breakdown...
depth: Thunder
home crowd: Thunder
free throws: Thunder
transition: Heat (Thunder have the better offense slightly, Heat have a much better defense)
shooting: Thunder
at the rim: Heat
turnovers: Heat
rebounding: Heat

both teams get to the line a ton obviously, but the Thunder are better at the line. so this could honestly be a ref-based series. if there are a lot of fouls, the Thunder get the advantage imo. also the Thunder give up a ton of turnovers and Miami are a turnover forcing machine. advantage Heat without question.

strangely, the Heat are excellent at keeping teams away from the rim, despite not having a traditional shotblocker. and for whatever reason, teams seem to go at the Perk/Ibaka combo more than their reputation should allow (but even if Perk/Ibaka are great, they aren't stopping LeBron at all).

my opinion: i know all the sportscasters are gonna argue that the Thunder have the matchup advantage. but i don't know. they aren't gonna stop LeBron from getting to the rim, their best offensive options are Heat defensive strengths, they turn the ball over a lot, etc. the things they do well- shooting, free throws- are things Miami does nearly as well. and their second best player hasn't done well against Miami the last two years. with that said, yes they have more depth, a great home crowd, and they could get hot from outside and absolutely demolish the Heat.

prediction: OKC in 7, because Miami's bench is just awful lately and i have faith in Harden to get hot and i think that this is a series where home court is huge (because Miami's home court sucks and OKC's is awesome). also i think the Heat will choose to slow the tempo and dare OKC to out-shoot them and i think OKC will do it. but if this series is high-scoring, i think the Heat take it running away much to the surprise of everyone who sees OKC as the best transition team.

See this was the case for most of the year but Oklahoma City in the San Antonio series started swinging the ball around which made them effectively unguardable. They're really going to struggle containing Westbrook in this series I think. Really don't see the Heat having that much advantage at the rim. Also I definitely don't see them with a rebounding advantage.

OKC will win this one in 6. I don't think Miami demonstrated these strengths particularly strongly against the Thunder in the regular season. And there's almost no way Bosh is at 100%. Brooks is excellent at defensive game planning. Miami is not a hard team to game plan against. The only way the Heat win the series is if Lebron and Wade knock down all of their jumpers.

corrections · **Joined:** Thu Oct 07, 2010 8:11 pm **Posts:** 14776

corrections wrote:

ahawk wrote:

So Heat and Thunder. Thoughts?

Thunder in 5.

I revise this to Thunder in 6. Forgot about how home sets up.

batman · **Posted:** Sun Jun 10, 2012 10:33 pm

George wrote:

lebron is a basketball genius who works his bum off and is a great ambassador for the sport.... leading your crappy team to the nba finals for the third time while earning millions is certainly no worse than earning millions while being lazy, out of shape, not being able to shoot free throws, not knowing your team's playbook, and otherwise being a dolt...

I'm not saying Lebron deserves to be more heavily criticized than any other NBA player. I'm just bothered when people say fans are "unfair" to Lebron. As an individual, there is nothing I can do that is unfair to a professional athlete. It's all fair game, it comes with the territory

monga18 · **Joined:** Sun Oct 24, 2010 4:05 am **Posts:** 5746

Good vs. Evil: Yeah, but it's not who you think.

john17 · **Posted:** Mon Jun 11, 2012 4:44 pm

monga18 wrote:

Good vs. Evil: Yeah, but it's not who you think.

*slow clap*

pgm · **Posted:** Mon Jun 11, 2012 6:27 pm

While I am rooting for Oklahoma City, I really hope the NBA brings back the Supersonics and it gets run by competent people. I'm not optimistic, though.

john17 · **Posted:** Mon Jun 11, 2012 8:30 pm

I hope the NBA never comes back to Seattle, it starts failing all over the country, and that David Stern chokes to death

batman · **Posted:** Mon Jun 11, 2012 10:36 pm

monga18 wrote:

Good vs. Evil: Yeah, but it's not who you think.

I was just coming in here to post that. I agree that we shouldn't be so quick to jump to the "good vs evil" narrative, but not necessarily because Miami is good and OKC is evil, as the author suggests. I am more of the opinion that if you really dig down, more owners err on the side of evil than good. Yes, an OKC win would be a victory for theft and blackmailing as he says. But a Miami win isn't just a win for "players taking control of their careers." It's also a win for collusion and a loss for any fan living in a state that isn't sunny and income tax-free. And there are so few sports owners who are interested in doing it "The Right Way." Even when my beloved Giants won the world series, it was just kind of a lucky thing for Magowan et al, because the Giants ownership's whole strategy has been "let's just get them decent enough to fill the park every night. As long as this is the go-to yuppie outing in San Francisco we should be fine." To take it back to the NBA, if you root for my beloved Blazers, you are rooting against good medical options for athletes (for real though). And after the whole lockout debacle, rooting for any team is rooting for greed. In the end, you just gotta root for whatever players you like better. I like James Harden better. Than everyone.

pave · **Posted:** Mon Jun 11, 2012 11:21 pm

i really dislike the "players shouldn't leave their original teams" shit though. there is literally no other profession in our entire society that operates under that assumption. its made worse by the fact that its one of the only professions in our society where you don't get to choose where you work to begin with. i can't imagine any other professional enjoying the idea of putting their name in a draft after graduation and then letting companies decide "well, you have to come here. you can't work anywhere else for the next several years because we own your rights". i understand that's the agreement that the players and owners made. and it is probably better for the sport (which is why they did it). but if you are gonna have a draft and give these professionals no choice over their career for several years, you can't bitch when they leave. you know how pissed i would be if after graduation, instead of going to Chicago, i was forced to go to fucking Cleveland? or if, when i left Chicago, i got hated by everyone in the country as if i did something wrong? that shit is so annoying.

when i hear a player's logic: "the weather is nice. there is no state tax. my friends are there. the nightlife is good. it will be fun." i say to myself, that's a great fucking reason to go there. wouldn't I do the same damn thing? why are we pissed when athletes act like normal people? why do we treat them differently than literally every single other professional in our society? i think its bullshit.

corrections · **Joined:** Thu Oct 07, 2010 8:11 pm **Posts:** 14776

pave wrote:

i really dislike the "players shouldn't leave their original teams" shit though. there is literally no other profession in our entire society that operates under that assumption. its made worse by the fact that its one of the only professions in our society where you don't get to choose where you work to begin with. i can't imagine any other professional enjoying the idea of putting their name in a draft after graduation and then letting companies decide "well, you have to come here. you can't work anywhere else for the next several years because we own your rights". i understand that's the agreement that the players and owners made. and it is probably better for the sport (which is why they did it). but if you are gonna have a draft and give these professionals no choice over their career for several years, you can't bitch when they leave. you know how pissed i would be if after graduation, instead of going to Chicago, i was forced to go to fucking Cleveland? or if, when i left Chicago, i got hated by everyone in the country as if i did something wrong? that shit is so annoying.

when i hear a player's logic: "the weather is nice. there is no state tax. my friends are there. the nightlife is good. it will be fun." i say to myself, that's a great fucking reason to go there. wouldn't I do the same damn thing? why are we pissed when athletes act like normal people? why do we treat them differently than literally every single other professional in our society? i think its bullshit.

If they were getting comped like NBA players were I'm pretty sure most people in most professions would accept a draft. The only reason a draft is legal at all is because it's part of the collective bargaining agreement. The existence of a draft (leading to competitive balance) is part of why the league is popular in the first place and why players make so much. So that's a pretty bad argument.

pave · **Posted:** Tue Jun 12, 2012 12:03 am

corrections wrote:

pave wrote:

i really dislike the "players shouldn't leave their original teams" shit though. there is literally no other profession in our entire society that operates under that assumption. its made worse by the fact that its one of the only professions in our society where you don't get to choose where you work to begin with. i can't imagine any other professional enjoying the idea of putting their name in a draft after graduation and then letting companies decide "well, you have to come here. you can't work anywhere else for the next several years because we own your rights". i understand that's the agreement that the players and owners made. and it is probably better for the sport (which is why they did it). but if you are gonna have a draft and give these professionals no choice over their career for several years, you can't bitch when they leave. you know how pissed i would be if after graduation, instead of going to Chicago, i was forced to go to fucking Cleveland? or if, when i left Chicago, i got hated by everyone in the country as if i did something wrong? that shit is so annoying.

when i hear a player's logic: "the weather is nice. there is no state tax. my friends are there. the nightlife is good. it will be fun." i say to myself, that's a great fucking reason to go there. wouldn't I do the same damn thing? why are we pissed when athletes act like normal people? why do we treat them differently than literally every single other professional in our society? i think its bullshit.

If they were getting comped like NBA players were I'm pretty sure most people in most professions would accept a draft. The only reason a draft is legal at all is because it's part of the collective bargaining agreement. The existence of a draft (leading to competitive balance) is part of why the league is popular in the first place and why players make so much. So that's a pretty bad argument.

well i pretty much agreed with this (i even said so in the sentence right after the part you bolded lol). but if you are gonna have the draft (which is a good thing), then the fans who get mad at player movement (selectively) just bother me. cause these players basically would have to spend their entire career in a place they never wanted to go in the first place. and nobody ever complains about a player moving to their home team, or moving to a small market team, nor do they care when its just an average player. but they get so pissed when a big star leaves for a big market, like its that player's job to stay in the same city his whole career.

on the flip side of the money argument: the popularity of the NBA also gets boosted when big markets have great teams. not that it has any impact on NBA fans like us, who root for OKC or San Antonio or whoever. but casual fans get interested when the Knicks are good, or the Bulls or Lakers. and the team that is getting the most slack for the player movement recently is Miami, who are also the biggest reason for the mainstream popularity of the NBA right now. so it works both ways. when i see people complain about LeBron leaving in free agency, it seems like hypocrisy. nobody else is held to that standard. why is LeBron?

two notes i'll add though:
1. complaining about LeBron teaming up with Wade from a competitive standpoint doesn't bother me. i actually agree with it. it bothers me that a competitor would team up with his closest competition. not often in my life have i been i a situation where i was the best player on the court (some times in gym class, a few YMCA games, some pick-up ball, etc), but in every single case that i was, the most important thing to me was that the next best player was on the other team. or if there was a guy better than me, i wanted to be against him. i just cannot understand how a competitor would want to do what LeBron and Wade did.
2. complaining about Melo is a different situation. because he didn't leave in free agency. he signed a contract to stay in Denver and then decided he didn't want to be there anymore. completely different situation.

batman · **Posted:** Tue Jun 12, 2012 12:25 am

pave wrote:

why are we pissed when athletes act like normal people? why do we treat them differently than literally every single other professional in our society? i think its

Because they aren't normal people, they're multi-millionaires. That's really what it comes down to. I don't treat NBA players differently than I treat any other multi-millionaires. Like Pete said, I would have no problem being "drafted" by a company if the company specialized in playing basketball and my salary was in the millions.

I don't really have a problem with player movement, it's like you said though, it bothers me from a competitive standpoint. And if a player does want to go the Lebron route, I mean, that has to be allowed. But I will punish that player by rooting against him. And it will be really unfair of me and that person will be all torn up inside.

Eric J · **Joined:** Sat Oct 16, 2010 9:07 am **Posts:** 4430

Guess I'll throw my two cents in.

I basically agree we shouldn't give players shit for leaving but two things: 1) That doesn't mean we can't like and appreciate Durant more for staying in a small-market, even if we give James a free pass for leaving one. Loyalty's a good thing in life, and multi-millionaires are different, so it's nice to see one stay loyal. 2) It's different with sports because people are loyal to these teams their entire lives and they expect that loyalty back (even if they shouldn't). I don't mind that James left Cleveland (I mind other things about that though, like what Pave said) but I'm never gonna tell a Cavs fan that he doesn't deserve to be pissed. I mean it's not like we wear Bill Gates or Steve Jobs jerseys, I know none of this is the fault of the player but it comes with the territory and always will, it's part of the draw of sports, if fans didn't feel like that it wouldn't be as fun or mesmerizing. Am I supposed to not dislike Aaron Rodgers because I recognize that he's a human being? Of course not, he's on the Packers so he can go fuck himself, end of story.

batman · **Posted:** Tue Jun 12, 2012 9:49 am

Those last few sentences are very true. It comes with the territory. And after reading numerous "guys, don't pick on Lebron," articles, I just want to tell these sportswriters, come on, all that's at stake is who I'm going to root for or against.

Jess · **Joined:** Wed Oct 13, 2010 10:22 pm **Posts:** 3816

i get the impression much of the fans' animosity for lebron is more personal than having to do with competitive attitudes of sports fans, which is totally different. for instance, when adrian peterson spurned texas after showing a ton of interest and jumped onto the oklahoma bandwagon (who, as a texas fan, i loathe the fuck out of), i was pissed and felt like a great talent misled the entire texas fanbase to go somewhere he thought he had a better chance of winning based off one game (red river shootout that season--and who ended up winning a NC? he could've played alongside vince young.). i know this is situationally different because it's a high school player, no money involved, it's football, etc, but the sentiments are comparable. my negative feelings originated from my competitive attitude and seething distaste for a mortal nemesis. i felt no personal animosity for AD as a person or hoped he would lose for any reason other than playing for oklahoma, but since playing for the vikings i've always rooted for him, and i even hoped he did well in college individually because he is so obviously an amazing talent. people vilify lebron for a totally different reason, which at first i think was justified by his hubris, but now is just silly and displays the immaturity of many basketball fans. they seem to dislike him on personal level basically, instead of a competitive level, which, after a while, is just wrong and dumb. as far as i can tell, by all accounts he's a nice guy. i see no reason to vilify him or his team anymore. people just get off on vilifying the best.

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