The LeBron James- 23-24 NBA Playoffs & Off-Season Thread -(NO PERSONAL ATTACKS & BAITING)

[rk2023]

I think it's delightful that Lebron is 39 and people still think he's good enough that he should be able to beat a team like the defending-champ Nuggets. He isn't 29, he can't just go HAM anymore and even back in his heyday, that didn't work unless his teammates also came through. They have not in this series, although AD has played reasonably well. LA is poorly coached, doesn't have a lot from the bench with the injuries and just hasn't been getting enough. And DLo was atrocious in Game 3, among others. And, of course, there is the fact that Denver is just very good.

It's cool to see Lebron in the playoffs, individually playing pretty well and that people still have expectations of him. They're unrealistic and he's still playing quite well, but yeah. It's neat to see him so effective at this stage of his career.

Was that bolder snippet an intended pun

[tsherkin]

I think it's delightful that Lebron is 39 and people still think he's good enough that he should be able to beat a team like the defending-champ Nuggets. He isn't 29, he can't just go HAM anymore and even back in his heyday, that didn't work unless his teammates also came through. They have not in this series, although AD has played reasonably well. LA is poorly coached, doesn't have a lot from the bench with the injuries and just hasn't been getting enough. And DLo was atrocious in Game 3, among others. And, of course, there is the fact that Denver is just very good.

It's cool to see Lebron in the playoffs, individually playing pretty well and that people still have expectations of him. They're unrealistic and he's still playing quite well, but yeah. It's neat to see him so effective at this stage of his career.

Was that bolder snippet an intended pun

Absolutely.

[Heej]

Jamal Murray is not an all-NBA player. He has played like one in some playoff series, but that’s not what he is overall IMO and that’s *definitely* not what he has played like in this series. Murray is a borderline all-star player (who probably isn’t even playing at that level in this series). Gordon, MPJ, and KCP are of course role players, but they are all genuinely good starting NBA players. Meanwhile, the Nuggets bench is okay at best.

The overall picture in terms of talent for the Nuggets is not overwhelmingly high. If we are just evaluating rosters, their advantage on other teams (including the Lakers) comes obviously at #1, as well as at #3-5 (with #4 and #5 being particular strengths, IMO, regardless of which Nuggets starters you define as their #4 and #5 guys). Their #2 spot and the bench are relative weaknesses. The overall talent picture is good but not overwhelming.

But, as we know, stacking talent isn’t everything. Some teams just play better together and are better than the sum of their parts. There’s a ton of factors that go into that. There’s coaching, natural style-of-play chemistry between players, familiarity with each other, group confidence and mental game, etc. I think the Nuggets excel in this in general. Most obviously, Gordon and Murray both have fantastic chemistry with Jokic, in a way that really makes those guys substantially more valuable on this team than they’d be somewhere else. Of course, it also helps that a lot of the team has a good bit of experience playing together. Moreover, I think that mentally the team as a whole has a quiet confidence that isn’t over-emotional, which likely stems from the mental makeup of Jokic, Murray, and Malone and filters down to everyone—not to mention the obvious confidence a team gets from having won a title together. This sort of calm confidence is really helpful in key moments. Another chemistry thing that is also in part a mental thing is that I think Jokic’s style of play naturally filters down to the rest of the team and helps the team’s on-court chemistry a lot—with guys making the extra effort to make cuts and extra effort plays, having confidence that the rest of the team (and in particular Jokic) will reward them for it. It’s a lot more likely for guys to play stagnant basketball if they don’t think expending some of their limited energy to do something will actually be rewarded. Another thing about having success as a team and having an MVP-level guy like Jokic is that it makes players more likely to accept their role and to build on it more optimally. For instance, MPJ has IMO improved a good bit on defense, and I think part of that is that he’s accepted what his role is on the team and that he needs to contribute positively on defense—on a different team, I could see MPJ feeling like he needs to be a key offensive option and conserve his energy on defense.

Anyways, there’s a lot of other things as well. The bottom line is that I think there’s not a huge talent gap between the two teams (and to the extent there is, it’s largely just because of Jokic), but the Nuggets are better than the sum of their parts. Meanwhile, the Lakers are probably less good than the sum of their parts—at least they certainly were in the regular season IMO, though I think some of that was just trying out weird rotations, which doesn’t necessarily reflect on how good their actual playoff rotation is. That and some luck has resulted in the Nuggets having a huge win streak against the Lakers. It’s not like the Nuggets are just blowing out the Lakers left and right though—the talent is enough to keep the Lakers in it, but just perpetually slightly below.

This is stupid. The nuggets clearly have a supreme coaching advantage and 2-way talent advantage on the wings (KCP, MPJ, AG are an all time role player wing corp imo) which has been the core identity of their defense. Notice the plays where Aaron Gordon was down low vs 4 Lakers perimeter players and embarrassed all of them on the boards (and dominated LeBron on the glass) or the plays where MPJ just shot over Austin Reaves.

You can also see how well Nuggets are able to pack the paint on LeBron and AD because they're big and fast enough to play straight up help and recover to the smaller slower Lakers' shooters instead of having to play exotic coverages like the Lakers are doing with high strong side doubles with bump overs and X-outs on the weakside that forces the defense into rotations. And not only that, you can clearly see how poorly coached they are on navigating those help the helper actions on both a larger schematic level; and how poor their attention to detail is on having active hands in slowing down passes and moving into position early on rotations.

All you said about talent is well and good if basketball was played on paper, after all who can forget the legendary statement you made earlier in this thread that the Lakers aren't low on talent because they have LeBron and AD. But that's not how basketball actually works if you understand what goes on at a schematic level while understanding synergy and feedback loops on offense and defense.

[TroubleS0me]

Russell trying to say something

Read on Twitter

[Heej]

Russell trying to say something

Read on Twitter

He's emotionally fragile. Same guy bleating for LeBron in the locker room during regular season interviews and looking for reassurance in a personal discord.

[nzahir]

Off topic, but Westbrook really killing the Clippers

Glad another team can feel this

Cant believe he was getting over 40m here

[lessthanjake]

Jamal Murray is not an all-NBA player. He has played like one in some playoff series, but that’s not what he is overall IMO and that’s *definitely* not what he has played like in this series. Murray is a borderline all-star player (who probably isn’t even playing at that level in this series). Gordon, MPJ, and KCP are of course role players, but they are all genuinely good starting NBA players. Meanwhile, the Nuggets bench is okay at best.

The overall picture in terms of talent for the Nuggets is not overwhelmingly high. If we are just evaluating rosters, their advantage on other teams (including the Lakers) comes obviously at #1, as well as at #3-5 (with #4 and #5 being particular strengths, IMO, regardless of which Nuggets starters you define as their #4 and #5 guys). Their #2 spot and the bench are relative weaknesses. The overall talent picture is good but not overwhelming.

But, as we know, stacking talent isn’t everything. Some teams just play better together and are better than the sum of their parts. There’s a ton of factors that go into that. There’s coaching, natural style-of-play chemistry between players, familiarity with each other, group confidence and mental game, etc. I think the Nuggets excel in this in general. Most obviously, Gordon and Murray both have fantastic chemistry with Jokic, in a way that really makes those guys substantially more valuable on this team than they’d be somewhere else. Of course, it also helps that a lot of the team has a good bit of experience playing together. Moreover, I think that mentally the team as a whole has a quiet confidence that isn’t over-emotional, which likely stems from the mental makeup of Jokic, Murray, and Malone and filters down to everyone—not to mention the obvious confidence a team gets from having won a title together. This sort of calm confidence is really helpful in key moments. Another chemistry thing that is also in part a mental thing is that I think Jokic’s style of play naturally filters down to the rest of the team and helps the team’s on-court chemistry a lot—with guys making the extra effort to make cuts and extra effort plays, having confidence that the rest of the team (and in particular Jokic) will reward them for it. It’s a lot more likely for guys to play stagnant basketball if they don’t think expending some of their limited energy to do something will actually be rewarded. Another thing about having success as a team and having an MVP-level guy like Jokic is that it makes players more likely to accept their role and to build on it more optimally. For instance, MPJ has IMO improved a good bit on defense, and I think part of that is that he’s accepted what his role is on the team and that he needs to contribute positively on defense—on a different team, I could see MPJ feeling like he needs to be a key offensive option and conserve his energy on defense.

Anyways, there’s a lot of other things as well. The bottom line is that I think there’s not a huge talent gap between the two teams (and to the extent there is, it’s largely just because of Jokic), but the Nuggets are better than the sum of their parts. Meanwhile, the Lakers are probably less good than the sum of their parts—at least they certainly were in the regular season IMO, though I think some of that was just trying out weird rotations, which doesn’t necessarily reflect on how good their actual playoff rotation is. That and some luck has resulted in the Nuggets having a huge win streak against the Lakers. It’s not like the Nuggets are just blowing out the Lakers left and right though—the talent is enough to keep the Lakers in it, but just perpetually slightly below.

This is stupid. The nuggets clearly have a supreme coaching advantage and 2-way talent advantage on the wings (KCP, MPJ, AG are an all time role player wing corp imo) which has been the core identity of their defense. Notice the plays where Aaron Gordon was down low vs 4 Lakers perimeter players and embarrassed all of them on the boards (and dominated LeBron on the glass) or the plays where MPJ just shot over Austin Reaves.

You can also see how well Nuggets are able to pack the paint on LeBron and AD because they're big and fast enough to play straight up help and recover to the smaller slower Lakers' shooters instead of having to play exotic coverages like the Lakers are doing with high strong side doubles with bump overs and X-outs on the weakside that forces the defense into rotations. And not only that, you can clearly see how poorly coached they are on navigating those help the helper actions on both a larger schematic level; and how poor their attention to detail is on having active hands in slowing down passes and moving into position early on rotations.

All you said about talent is well and good if basketball was played on paper, after all who can forget the legendary statement you made earlier in this thread that the Lakers aren't low on talent because they have LeBron and AD. But that's not how basketball actually works if you understand what goes on at a schematic level while understanding synergy and feedback loops on offense and defense.

You simply cannot help but fall back on amorphous “coaching advantage” arguments. For you, everything is always about LeBron having a coaching disadvantage and other great players in history being compared to LeBron having a coaching advantage. It’s all almost entirely motivated reasoning, where you’ve started at your conclusion and are reasoning your way there, with a type of argument that is squishy enough that it’s unfalsifiable and can always be justified in some way. One can literally look at any game in the history of basketball and come up with a narrative about how/why the winning team was better coached.

Here, though, it’s a particularly weird point for you to be making, when the thrust of my post was to say that the Nuggets are better than the sum of their parts and the Lakers are not, and I explicitly included “coaching” in the “factors” I listed that can make a team better than the sum of its parts. And yet you respond to my post by saying “This is stupid” and proceed to talk about Denver having better coaching??? Not only that, but my post specifically says Denver has a talent advantage at the #3-5 roster spots, and you proceed to say my post is “stupid” because Denver has a “2-way talent advantage on the wings” with “KCP, MPJ, AG.” You also say “All you said about talent is well and good if basketball was played on paper” in response to a post where I specifically said “But, as we know, stacking talent isn’t everything” and where I then proceeded to talk about a ton of factors (including, as mentioned, the one you focused on here!). It’s just completely inexplicable arguing for the sake of arguing. Did you even read my post?

[Heej]

Jamal Murray is not an all-NBA player. He has played like one in some playoff series, but that’s not what he is overall IMO and that’s *definitely* not what he has played like in this series. Murray is a borderline all-star player (who probably isn’t even playing at that level in this series). Gordon, MPJ, and KCP are of course role players, but they are all genuinely good starting NBA players. Meanwhile, the Nuggets bench is okay at best.

The overall picture in terms of talent for the Nuggets is not overwhelmingly high. If we are just evaluating rosters, their advantage on other teams (including the Lakers) comes obviously at #1, as well as at #3-5 (with #4 and #5 being particular strengths, IMO, regardless of which Nuggets starters you define as their #4 and #5 guys). Their #2 spot and the bench are relative weaknesses. The overall talent picture is good but not overwhelming.

But, as we know, stacking talent isn’t everything. Some teams just play better together and are better than the sum of their parts. There’s a ton of factors that go into that. There’s coaching, natural style-of-play chemistry between players, familiarity with each other, group confidence and mental game, etc. I think the Nuggets excel in this in general. Most obviously, Gordon and Murray both have fantastic chemistry with Jokic, in a way that really makes those guys substantially more valuable on this team than they’d be somewhere else. Of course, it also helps that a lot of the team has a good bit of experience playing together. Moreover, I think that mentally the team as a whole has a quiet confidence that isn’t over-emotional, which likely stems from the mental makeup of Jokic, Murray, and Malone and filters down to everyone—not to mention the obvious confidence a team gets from having won a title together. This sort of calm confidence is really helpful in key moments. Another chemistry thing that is also in part a mental thing is that I think Jokic’s style of play naturally filters down to the rest of the team and helps the team’s on-court chemistry a lot—with guys making the extra effort to make cuts and extra effort plays, having confidence that the rest of the team (and in particular Jokic) will reward them for it. It’s a lot more likely for guys to play stagnant basketball if they don’t think expending some of their limited energy to do something will actually be rewarded. Another thing about having success as a team and having an MVP-level guy like Jokic is that it makes players more likely to accept their role and to build on it more optimally. For instance, MPJ has IMO improved a good bit on defense, and I think part of that is that he’s accepted what his role is on the team and that he needs to contribute positively on defense—on a different team, I could see MPJ feeling like he needs to be a key offensive option and conserve his energy on defense.

Anyways, there’s a lot of other things as well. The bottom line is that I think there’s not a huge talent gap between the two teams (and to the extent there is, it’s largely just because of Jokic), but the Nuggets are better than the sum of their parts. Meanwhile, the Lakers are probably less good than the sum of their parts—at least they certainly were in the regular season IMO, though I think some of that was just trying out weird rotations, which doesn’t necessarily reflect on how good their actual playoff rotation is. That and some luck has resulted in the Nuggets having a huge win streak against the Lakers. It’s not like the Nuggets are just blowing out the Lakers left and right though—the talent is enough to keep the Lakers in it, but just perpetually slightly below.

This is stupid. The nuggets clearly have a supreme coaching advantage and 2-way talent advantage on the wings (KCP, MPJ, AG are an all time role player wing corp imo) which has been the core identity of their defense. Notice the plays where Aaron Gordon was down low vs 4 Lakers perimeter players and embarrassed all of them on the boards (and dominated LeBron on the glass) or the plays where MPJ just shot over Austin Reaves.

You can also see how well Nuggets are able to pack the paint on LeBron and AD because they're big and fast enough to play straight up help and recover to the smaller slower Lakers' shooters instead of having to play exotic coverages like the Lakers are doing with high strong side doubles with bump overs and X-outs on the weakside that forces the defense into rotations. And not only that, you can clearly see how poorly coached they are on navigating those help the helper actions on both a larger schematic level; and how poor their attention to detail is on having active hands in slowing down passes and moving into position early on rotations.

All you said about talent is well and good if basketball was played on paper, after all who can forget the legendary statement you made earlier in this thread that the Lakers aren't low on talent because they have LeBron and AD. But that's not how basketball actually works if you understand what goes on at a schematic level while understanding synergy and feedback loops on offense and defense.

You simply cannot help but fall back on amorphous “coaching advantage” arguments. For you, everything is always about LeBron having a coaching disadvantage and other great players in history being compared to LeBron having a coaching advantage. It’s all almost entirely motivated reasoning, where you’ve started at your conclusion and are reasoning your way there, with a type of argument that is squishy enough that it’s unfalsifiable and can always be justified in some way. One can literally look at any game in the history of basketball and come up with a narrative about how the winning team was better coached.

Here, though, it’s a particularly weird point for you to be making, when the thrust of my post was to say that the Nuggets are better than the sum of their parts and the Lakers are not, and I explicitly included “coaching” in the “factors” I listed that can make a team better than the sum of its parts. And yet you respond to my post by saying “This is stupid” and proceed to talk about coaching??? It’s just completely non-sensical arguing for the sake of arguing.

No it's not. LeBron has had coaching advantages in many series' in his career. The main reason he won his first ring is because Spo was an entire industrial revolution ahead of Scott Brooks spacing Serge Ibaka out of the paint with Battier and Brooks refusing to adjust by benching Perk.

It's just you're too stuck in the agenda you want to push and you can't handle someone telling you that you don't know what you're talking about when trying to analyze basketball beyond a spreadsheet. And these obviously biased ignorant talking points are pathetic to me.

And your stupidity with this statement is further enhanced by the fact that you couldn't even comprehend why the nuggets personnel allows the coaching staff to play a more mistake-free conservative scheme even though I clearly spelled out for you what they're doing on film. If you don't understand what's happening on the screen and prefer to stare at stat sheets to help make up narratives purely to make you feel good that's your fault, not mine .

[tsherkin]

Russell trying to say something

Read on Twitter

After dropping a goose egg from the field, he should really be looking into that STFU lifestyle more than anything else, given how he basically cost them that game.

[tone wone]

Think the most frustrating thing here is that he still has enough in the tank to be a #2 guy that’s borderline 1B but just can’t get a team around him that isn’t dog water these last few years.

Current Bron isnt a 1b i mean Ad is the 1a and Bron 1b and look at them........Bron has to be solid 2nd option at this point to win a ring unless he takes a massive paycut somewhere lol not happening. But theres only a couple players whod be clear number 1 option over him. Jokic, Embiid, Giannis, Luka, maybe Sga?

LeBron and AD are outscoring Jokic and Murray. It's not like they're getting straight up outclassed as a duo. The Nuggets have 2 other guys regularly putting up near 20pt games while the Lakers have guys struggling to score 10 consistently. It is what it is. You need depth more than ever now this league is f***ing loaded to the gills with talent now.

The talk of 1st or 2nd option completely misses the point. Despite having 2 highly efficient 25ppg scorers this Lakers team actually functioned more like an ensemble than a typical 2-stars surrounded by low usage role players outfit.

Their offensive resurgence after Rui insertion into the starting 5 was about all 5 guys being threats to go for 20+ not AD/Lebron putting them on their back. The story of this series is the collapse of D'lo-Reaves-Rui offensively in the face of championship level defense. Those 3 dont provide enough of the "low-usage role player" stuff to make AD and Lebron carrying the offense to this degree a winning strategy.

[Heej]

Current Bron isnt a 1b i mean Ad is the 1a and Bron 1b and look at them........Bron has to be solid 2nd option at this point to win a ring unless he takes a massive paycut somewhere lol not happening. But theres only a couple players whod be clear number 1 option over him. Jokic, Embiid, Giannis, Luka, maybe Sga?

LeBron and AD are outscoring Jokic and Murray. It's not like they're getting straight up outclassed as a duo. The Nuggets have 2 other guys regularly putting up near 20pt games while the Lakers have guys struggling to score 10 consistently. It is what it is. You need depth more than ever now this league is f***ing loaded to the gills with talent now.

The talk of 1st or 2nd option completely misses the point. Despite having 2 highly efficient 25ppg scorers this Lakers team actually functioned more like an ensemble than a typical 2-stars surrounded by low usage role players outfit.

Their offensive resurgence after Rui insertion into the starting 5 was about all 5 guys being threats to go for 20+ not AD/Lebron putting them on their back. The story of this series is the collapse of D'lo-Reaves-Rui offensively in the face of championship level defense. Those 3 dont provide enough of the "low-usage role player" stuff to make AD and Lebron carrying the offense to this degree a winning strategy.

I think you need to re-read my post again if you think anything you posted was disagreeing with my stance on this series

But yeah you nailed the issue here. I've been saying since the bubble that the meta has shifted away from top heavy lineups to 2-way lineups loaded with quality role players because the modern NBA is about picking on weaknesses. It's also why I was saying back then during the finals that KCP was a better 3rd option than Tyler Herro despite massive pushback.

Players and coaching staffs are too talented and afforded too much flexibility schematically with zone rules to really just let 2 guys beat them single-handedly anymore. I'd take 2 solid 2-way elite role players now over a 3rd option one-way star. Don't know if I would've said that 10 years ago.

[lessthanjake]

This is stupid. The nuggets clearly have a supreme coaching advantage and 2-way talent advantage on the wings (KCP, MPJ, AG are an all time role player wing corp imo) which has been the core identity of their defense. Notice the plays where Aaron Gordon was down low vs 4 Lakers perimeter players and embarrassed all of them on the boards (and dominated LeBron on the glass) or the plays where MPJ just shot over Austin Reaves.

You can also see how well Nuggets are able to pack the paint on LeBron and AD because they're big and fast enough to play straight up help and recover to the smaller slower Lakers' shooters instead of having to play exotic coverages like the Lakers are doing with high strong side doubles with bump overs and X-outs on the weakside that forces the defense into rotations. And not only that, you can clearly see how poorly coached they are on navigating those help the helper actions on both a larger schematic level; and how poor their attention to detail is on having active hands in slowing down passes and moving into position early on rotations.

All you said about talent is well and good if basketball was played on paper, after all who can forget the legendary statement you made earlier in this thread that the Lakers aren't low on talent because they have LeBron and AD. But that's not how basketball actually works if you understand what goes on at a schematic level while understanding synergy and feedback loops on offense and defense.

You simply cannot help but fall back on amorphous “coaching advantage” arguments. For you, everything is always about LeBron having a coaching disadvantage and other great players in history being compared to LeBron having a coaching advantage. It’s all almost entirely motivated reasoning, where you’ve started at your conclusion and are reasoning your way there, with a type of argument that is squishy enough that it’s unfalsifiable and can always be justified in some way. One can literally look at any game in the history of basketball and come up with a narrative about how the winning team was better coached.

Here, though, it’s a particularly weird point for you to be making, when the thrust of my post was to say that the Nuggets are better than the sum of their parts and the Lakers are not, and I explicitly included “coaching” in the “factors” I listed that can make a team better than the sum of its parts. And yet you respond to my post by saying “This is stupid” and proceed to talk about coaching??? It’s just completely non-sensical arguing for the sake of arguing.

No it's not. LeBron has had coaching advantages in many series' in his career. The main reason he won his first ring is because Spo was an entire industrial revolution ahead of Scott Brooks spacing Serge Ibaka out of the paint with Battier and Brooks refusing to adjust by benching Perk.

It's just you're too stuck in the agenda you want to push and you can't handle someone telling you that you don't know what you're talking about when trying to analyze basketball beyond a spreadsheet, and these obviously biased ignorant talking points are pathetic to me.

And your stupidity with this statement is further enhanced by the fact that you couldn't even comprehend why the nuggets personnel allows the coaching staff to play a more mistake-free conservative scheme even though I clearly spelled out for you what they're doing on film. If you don't understand what's happening on the screen and stare at stat sheets to make up narratives purely to make you feel good that's your fault, not mine .

Buddy, the bottom line is that I made a post, and you responded to it by saying my post was “stupid” and then proceeded to makes points that were part of my post. I edited in more examples of this after you quoted this, so take a look at that again. You appear to be arguing for the sake of arguing, and doing so in an unfriendly manner (calling my post “stupid” at the outset, not to mention the attacks in this response here) despite the fact that the post you were responding to was entirely consistent with what your response to it was. Take a step back here, and realize how silly you’re being.

[tone wone]

I think you need to re-read my post again if you think anything you posted was disagreeing with my stance on this series

I was agreeing and adding to your point

[Heej]

You simply cannot help but fall back on amorphous “coaching advantage” arguments. For you, everything is always about LeBron having a coaching disadvantage and other great players in history being compared to LeBron having a coaching advantage. It’s all almost entirely motivated reasoning, where you’ve started at your conclusion and are reasoning your way there, with a type of argument that is squishy enough that it’s unfalsifiable and can always be justified in some way. One can literally look at any game in the history of basketball and come up with a narrative about how the winning team was better coached.

Here, though, it’s a particularly weird point for you to be making, when the thrust of my post was to say that the Nuggets are better than the sum of their parts and the Lakers are not, and I explicitly included “coaching” in the “factors” I listed that can make a team better than the sum of its parts. And yet you respond to my post by saying “This is stupid” and proceed to talk about coaching??? It’s just completely non-sensical arguing for the sake of arguing.

No it's not. LeBron has had coaching advantages in many series' in his career. The main reason he won his first ring is because Spo was an entire industrial revolution ahead of Scott Brooks spacing Serge Ibaka out of the paint with Battier and Brooks refusing to adjust by benching Perk.

It's just you're too stuck in the agenda you want to push and you can't handle someone telling you that you don't know what you're talking about when trying to analyze basketball beyond a spreadsheet, and these obviously biased ignorant talking points are pathetic to me.

And your stupidity with this statement is further enhanced by the fact that you couldn't even comprehend why the nuggets personnel allows the coaching staff to play a more mistake-free conservative scheme even though I clearly spelled out for you what they're doing on film. If you don't understand what's happening on the screen and stare at stat sheets to make up narratives purely to make you feel good that's your fault, not mine .

Buddy, the bottom line is that I made a post, and you responded to it by saying my post was “stupid” and then proceeded to makes points that were part of my post. I edited in more examples of this after you quoted this, so take a look at that again. You appear to be arguing for the sake of arguing, and doing so in an unfriendly manner (calling my post “stupid” at the outset, not to mention the attacks in this response here) despite the fact that the post you were responding to was entirely consistent with what your response to it was. Take a step back here, and realize how silly you’re being.

Buddy, I'm telling you the entire point of your post with regard to talent disparity is at best ignorant, and at worst ignorant AND made in bad faith. If you don't understand where and specifically why I'm disagreeing with you, then you need to hit the film room.

The Nuggets haven't even had to play an aggressive dialed up scheme yet in this series (aka part of the mysterious "adjustments" Malone was talking about that haven't even been dusted off) the way the Lakers have had to. Why do you think that is?

[Heej]

I think you need to re-read my post again if you think anything you posted was disagreeing with my stance on this series

I was agreeing and adding to your point

Yeah I realized that after and added on to your point haha. My bad

[AEnigma]

So not anything that actually applies to what I asked, but damn, very strange of me to have posted that randomly. I see how that could create a very confusing implication, what with there being no possible prior context as to why I may be posting that type of measure.

What in the world are you talking about? The context was that, while people were discussing Murray’s TS%, someone suggested that Jokic makes things a lot easier for Murray, and then you immediately made a post that stated what I quoted and nothing more. Obviously, with that context, it is highly relevant to respond with data and arguments relating to the fact that you were relying on tiny-sample data and that larger-sample data and the eye test tells us that, yes Jokic does actually make things a lot easier for Murray in terms of scoring efficiency (and that vice versa isn’t supported to the same degree by larger-sample data or the eye test).

It does, just not under an eye test with predetermined results. Is this where I am supposed to waste your time with an affected “Oh, no one is saying Jokic is not a great player!” schtick?

You talk about the ease of looks Jamal gets when Jamal lives on a diet of difficult looks and takes by far the toughest shots on the team. You talk about the “noise” in his postseason performance as if it is some accident that he increases his possessional shot rate by 8% percent over the regular season (although that may be over now with this regular season being the first time he shot at his postseason rate). And then you talk about an eye test that apparently has no capacity to recognise not only his shot quality and overall load but also how opponents have started focusing substantial defensive attention on him because of how devastating he can be running pnrs. We have people here talking about his relative drop-off against Miami as if he suddenly regressed rather than was aggressively trapped throughout the series, and we have you talking about how disappointing he has been against the Lakers this series as if this were an actual repeat of last year using the same coverages rather than ones specifically dedicated to shutting down or otherwise blitzing his pnr actions with Jokic.

No one finds this subtle, so why keep pretending.

[lessthanjake]

No it's not. LeBron has had coaching advantages in many series' in his career. The main reason he won his first ring is because Spo was an entire industrial revolution ahead of Scott Brooks spacing Serge Ibaka out of the paint with Battier and Brooks refusing to adjust by benching Perk.

It's just you're too stuck in the agenda you want to push and you can't handle someone telling you that you don't know what you're talking about when trying to analyze basketball beyond a spreadsheet, and these obviously biased ignorant talking points are pathetic to me.

And your stupidity with this statement is further enhanced by the fact that you couldn't even comprehend why the nuggets personnel allows the coaching staff to play a more mistake-free conservative scheme even though I clearly spelled out for you what they're doing on film. If you don't understand what's happening on the screen and stare at stat sheets to make up narratives purely to make you feel good that's your fault, not mine .

Buddy, the bottom line is that I made a post, and you responded to it by saying my post was “stupid” and then proceeded to makes points that were part of my post. I edited in more examples of this after you quoted this, so take a look at that again. You appear to be arguing for the sake of arguing, and doing so in an unfriendly manner (calling my post “stupid” at the outset, not to mention the attacks in this response here) despite the fact that the post you were responding to was entirely consistent with what your response to it was. Take a step back here, and realize how silly you’re being.

Buddy, I'm telling you the entire point of your post with regard to talent disparity is at best ignorant, and at worst ignorant AND made in bad faith. If you don't understand where and specifically why I'm disagreeing with you, then you need to hit the film room.

The Nuggets haven't even had to play an aggressive dialed up scheme yet in this series the way the Lakers have had to. Why do you think that is?

I think you might need to read my post again. It was mostly about important non-talent-related factors. Your reply to it then said my post was “stupid” for not talking about certain non-talent-related factors that my post actually had explicitly mentioned. To the extent I wrote about talent, my post was actually broadly consistent with your reply, since I specifically said the Nuggets have a talent advantage at the #3-5 roster spots (i.e. MPJ, Gordon, and KCP) and your post said that…the Nuggets had a talent advantage with MPJ, Gordon, and KCP. Like, this is just really bizarre stuff from you. I write a post where I basically say the Nuggets have a talent advantage with MPJ, Gordon, and KCP and also have an advantage in other areas including coaching. You then reply that my post is “stupid” because “The nuggets clearly have a supreme coaching advantage and 2-way talent advantage on the wings (KCP, MPJ, AG are an all time role player wing corp imo).” And when I point out that your reply had simply argued things that were actually consistent with my post, you then tell me that I’m “too stuck in the agenda,” am making “pathetic” and “obviously biased ignorant talking points,” and possess “stupidity” and cannot “even comprehend” the facts you have “clearly spelled out for [me]” and am instead “mak[ing] up narratives purely to make [myself] feel good.” When I once again pointed out that your response had made points that were not inconsistent with my post, you continue to tell me that my post was “at best ignorant, and at worst ignorant AND made in bad faith.” This is just bizarre behavior, and certainly feels like someone who simply wants to attack anything I post no matter what and who cannot help but litter around personal attacks in the process.

[TroubleS0me]

Russell trying to say something

Read on Twitter

After dropping a goose egg from the field, he should really be looking into that STFU lifestyle more than anything else, given how he basically cost them that game.

yea he 4real
He shouldnt be talking after game 3. He definetly done as a Laker.

[Heej]

Buddy, the bottom line is that I made a post, and you responded to it by saying my post was “stupid” and then proceeded to makes points that were part of my post. I edited in more examples of this after you quoted this, so take a look at that again. You appear to be arguing for the sake of arguing, and doing so in an unfriendly manner (calling my post “stupid” at the outset, not to mention the attacks in this response here) despite the fact that the post you were responding to was entirely consistent with what your response to it was. Take a step back here, and realize how silly you’re being.

Buddy, I'm telling you the entire point of your post with regard to talent disparity is at best ignorant, and at worst ignorant AND made in bad faith. If you don't understand where and specifically why I'm disagreeing with you, then you need to hit the film room.

The Nuggets haven't even had to play an aggressive dialed up scheme yet in this series the way the Lakers have had to. Why do you think that is?

I think you might need to read my post again. It was mostly about important non-talent-related factors. Your reply to it then said my post was “stupid” for not talking about certain non-talent-related factors that my post actually had explicitly mentioned. To the extent I wrote about talent, my post was actually broadly consistent with your reply, since I specifically said the Nuggets have a talent advantage at the #3-5 roster spots (i.e. MPJ, Gordon, and KCP) and your post said that…the Nuggets had a talent advantage with MPJ, Gordon, and KCP. Like, this is just really bizarre stuff from you. I write a post where I basically say the Nuggets have a talent advantage with MPJ, Gordon, and KCP and also have an advantage in other areas including coaching. You then reply that my post is “stupid” because “The nuggets clearly have a supreme coaching advantage and 2-way talent advantage on the wings (KCP, MPJ, AG are an all time role player wing corp imo).” And when I point out that your reply had simply argued things that were actually consistent with my post, you then tell me that I’m “too stuck in the agenda,” am making “pathetic” and “obviously biased ignorant talking points,” and possess “stupidity” and cannot “even comprehend” the facts you have “clearly spelled out for [me]” and am instead “mak[ing] up narratives purely to make [myself] feel good.” When I once again pointed out that your response had made points that were not inconsistent with my post, you continue to tell me that my post was “at best ignorant, and at worst ignorant AND made in bad faith.” This is just bizarre behavior, and certainly feels like someone who simply wants to attack anything I post no matter what and who cannot help but litter around personal attacks in the process.

The entire point of your post is trying to make inane rambling conjectures on why the majority of the talent disparity between the two rosters is due to Jokic and I'm telling you that's the dumbest thing I've read today LMFAO. Stop trying to pretend you don't have the most transparent agenda in this thread. Which is rather incredible considering it's a LeBron thread filled with LeBron fans

The talent disparity is massive because top to bottom the Nuggets are better in every conceivable way. The only thing the Lakers have an advantage in with respect to this entire series is that LeBron is a better second option than Murray; and maybe that Phil Handy is probably better at his job than the nuggets' player development guy. Even that last point is debatable because Ham identified the other day in an interview that Phil Handy is in charge of the offense which would explain why when the going gets tough they resort to low IQ bucket-ball. And would also be indicative of the kind of low quality organization ran by shmucks the Lakers are. Such that they would let a guy whose been coaching for decades and couldn't display enough Xs and Os chops to escape his player development tag fail upwards into mediocrity.

That's literally it. Everything else from the owner down to the 15th man solidly swings in favor of the nuggets and it's pathetic that you're a grown ass man crying this much when someone calls you out on your bulls***. That take is trash, and you trying to pretend we're saying the same thing while sidestepping the entire agenda you were trying to promote with regard to giving Jokic the lion's share of the credit for the talent disparity is outright gutless and disingenuous.

I don't have anything against you personally (hell, I've had productive back and forths with you before on this very forum LOL), surprised as you may be to hear that. I dislike people passive aggressively pushing an agenda using flawed logic that contradicts what's actually displayed on film and then trying to gaslight people who call them out on it into believing that they're the ones arguing in bad faith. This kind of shtick is just tasteless to me and I'm the type to call that kind of stuff out while getting irritated doing so. If you're gonna agenda-maxx at least say it with your chest like everyone else on this board does.

Also fwiw I think Jokic is one of the 3-5 best players to ever step on a floor and will likely serve as the future gatekeeper into the top 5 much like how Kobe is the eternal bar to substantially clear to make the top 10. I just think his support structure is one of the best I've ever seen, and part of that is a consequence of him being a 2nd round legend. But hey, even stuff like that is part of why he's so lucky lmao. It's too bad LeBron couldn't float under the radar in some rando Serbian league and quietly develop off the bench while the competent organization that discovered him loads up on talent and assets during his crucial early discount years.

[Ian Scuffling]

Russell trying to say something

Read on Twitter

After dropping a goose egg from the field, he should really be looking into that STFU lifestyle more than anything else, given how he basically cost them that game.

LMAO. Kobe, in another imitation of his idol MJ, would have busted him in the **** mouth after the way this idiot has played in the last two series against the Nuggets. Russell is officially a clown. But, he's decent against the bottom dwellers in the league so there is that. He gone and I sure hope it's to a **** team, so he can show his "talent".