ATL Playoff Edition - Non Bucks

[MickeyDavis]

All non Bucks playoff discussion. The first round match up that I'm most interested in watching is probably Houston/OKC

[freewhitemoon]

Utah vs Clippers could be very close

[Prez]

Spoiler:

Hard for Adams to be more than he is when he has 16% usage, I mean he is decently efficient, concedes rebounds to his PG, and unless he regressed a lot defensively, the disappointment around him is hard to understand.

Usage has absolutely nothing to do with touches or ball dominance, it's a measure of who ends plays in terms of shot attempts, assists, turnovers, etc. Why you would want to funnel more offense towards Adams is beyond me. And yes, he's regressed defensively and that's one of the main points of disappointment for Thunder fans.

Spoiler:

I was "talking up" those guys with regards to their ability to shoot the three and open things up for other guys. I think we all agree there is value in that in this day and age.

Except that's still a terrible cast of shooters. None of Grant, Sabonis, Lauvergne makes more than 0.6 3's a game..Lauvergne isn't even on the team anymore. Talking up those guys is like talking up Michael Beasley and his blistering 42% 3PT shooting...on 0.3 makes a game. Anthony Morrow has played less than half the season and is atrocious everywhere else, much like Doug McDermott. Abrines is literally the only one at even somewhat decent volume. This is one of the saddest, most pathetic group of "shooters" you could put around a slash-heavy guard.

Spoiler:

And for a team that made as many moves as they did, simply bringing in a Rondo to run to the second unit would have taken tons of the pressure off that second unit and he was probably available for peanuts as they looked to improve their roster.

Right. But they didn't. Which is another reason why that OKC roster sucks ass.

Spoiler:

At the end of the day, "putting bad basketball players around Westbrook" is a absolute stretch. But it doesn't matter because if I am right and they get ousted from the playoffs, people will ignore that too much Westbrook was a problem and that he was all by himself and I totally disagree with that.

It's really not a stretch at all. They're not good players just because you want to believe they are. Even Thunder fans will tell you how much of a joke that supporting cast is offensively. You can twist this any way you want to but the fact that they've gotten destroyed with Westbrook off the floor all season speaks to nothing but them being a terrible team without him.

[blazza18]

Celtics in 5
Cavs in 4
Wizards in 7

Warriors in 4
Spurs in 4
Rockets in 6
Clippers in 6

[trwi7]

Tech vs Hipsters
Mormons vs Scientologists
Alamo vs Graceland
Fracking vs NASA

Tea Party vs Fire
Peaches vs Cherry Blossoms
Jones vs Grover

[emunney]

On the Russ stat hound thing, I think the part of the discussion that people are leaving out is that for somebody to do, statistically, what Russ did, a ton of things have to come into alignment. One of those obviously is that you have to have a great player. Another is that he has to do the stat hound thing, and with no other great player on the team to provoke any obvious culpability. But the other thing, that nobody talks about, is that everybody around him also has to be on board. Russ doesn't average a triple double if Donovan doesn't tell them to block out and let Russ grab and go, or if they don't fully comply. It's such an outlier of an event, all these things have to happen at once -- and they DID. So while yeah, I don't love the craven aspect of this pursuit, people who are thinking this could happen without that are kidding themselves. Not with the pace of today's game.

To me, then, I'm not at all on board with the talk about him not being a team player or whatever -- that can and may play out in other ways, but the fact is that OKC this year was just pushing, as a team, to make this happen for Russ. Everybody was moving in the same direction on this. They were just calibrated a little differently than the teams purists like me most like to watch.

[Baddy Chuck]

Going to enjoy Patty Mills' run towards Finals MVP.

[stellation]

Going to enjoy Patty Mills' run towards Finals MVP.

When people hit up a bar and they're looking for fun what do they go for? Shots! Patty gives you that.

[M-C-G]

Spoiler:

Hard for Adams to be more than he is when he has 16% usage, I mean he is decently efficient, concedes rebounds to his PG, and unless he regressed a lot defensively, the disappointment around him is hard to understand.

Usage has absolutely nothing to do with touches or ball dominance, it's a measure of who ends plays in terms of shot attempts, assists, turnovers, etc. Why you would want to funnel more offense towards Adams is beyond me. And yes, he's regressed defensively and that's one of the main points of disappointment for Thunder fans.

Spoiler:

I was "talking up" those guys with regards to their ability to shoot the three and open things up for other guys. I think we all agree there is value in that in this day and age.

Except that's still a terrible cast of shooters. None of Grant, Sabonis, Lauvergne makes more than 0.6 3's a game..Lauvergne isn't even on the team anymore. Talking up those guys is like talking up Michael Beasley and his blistering 42% 3PT shooting...on 0.3 makes a game. Anthony Morrow has played less than half the season and is atrocious everywhere else, much like Doug McDermott. Abrines is literally the only one at even somewhat decent volume. This is one of the saddest, most pathetic group of "shooters" you could put around a slash-heavy guard.

Spoiler:

And for a team that made as many moves as they did, simply bringing in a Rondo to run to the second unit would have taken tons of the pressure off that second unit and he was probably available for peanuts as they looked to improve their roster.

Right. But they didn't. Which is another reason why that OKC roster sucks ass.

Spoiler:

At the end of the day, "putting bad basketball players around Westbrook" is a absolute stretch. But it doesn't matter because if I am right and they get ousted from the playoffs, people will ignore that too much Westbrook was a problem and that he was all by himself and I totally disagree with that.

It's really not a stretch at all. They're not good players just because you want to believe they are. Even Thunder fans will tell you how much of a joke that supporting cast is offensively. You can twist this any way you want to but the fact that they've gotten destroyed with Westbrook off the floor all season speaks to nothing but them being a terrible team without him.

This is boring the **** out of me. Let's see what happens in the playoffs and let's see how many people move to the "maybe Westbrook isn't over rated " and see how many people move to the "Westbrook is probably over rated but I will blame other things"


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[FlagsFlyForever]

You can twist this any way you want to but the fact that they've gotten destroyed with Westbrook off the floor all season speaks to nothing but them being a terrible team without him.

It speaks to the rotations of Billy Donovan. Nobody has a more impressive highlight reel than Westbrook and I don't mean to be insulting but do you watch the Thunder games? You and I both agree that Westbrook's box score stats and on/off numbers are out of this world. But I have never been a fan of those stats. When you blindly cite such "advanced" stats, you're ignoring the context. When Westbrook isn't on the floor, the Thunder are playing with an all-scrub squad. Of course the team isn't going to be good when Westbrook isn't on the floor because it also means the Thunder's other good players aren't on the floor as well. Adams, Roberson, and Oladipo played with Westbrook for 1188 minutes this season and those three played together without Westbrook for 9 total minutes.

You can mention how all of the Thunder players regressed from last season but to me that is an argument against Westbrook as MVP (and against the flawed stats you use to base your opinion). I base a lot of my opinion on my eye test. I think Adams, Roberson, and Oladipo are good players and when I watch Westbrook, I see a great player who simply isn't at the level of (my MVP) LeBron. Westbrook missed one game this season and the Thunder won. That is a small sample size but it's something. The Cavs were 0-8 when LeBron didn't play this year.

[mlloyd10]

Bulls will beat Celtics

[Pachinko_]

Not sure how the Clippers will go through Jazz
I'm biased because I've only really watched those 2 teams against the Bucks, but the Jazz look superior, better coached, deeper, younger.

[MickeyDavis]

Bulls will beat Celtics

That wouldn't surprise me at all. Celtics are the weakest #1 in a long time

[blazza18]

Not sure how the Clippers will go through Jazz
I'm biased because I've only really watched those 2 teams against the Bucks, but the Jazz look superior, better coached, deeper, younger.

Clippers have owned Utah much like Toronto have owned us.

[humanrefutation]

With all due respect to the Charlie Murphy's Buc Nasty and Dave Chappelle's Silky Johnson, Russell Westbrook is the greatest hater of all time.

Read on Twitter

[FlagsFlyForever]

Bulls will beat Celtics

That wouldn't surprise me at all. Celtics are the weakest #1 in a long time

I don't see that happening. Celtics don't have any superstars but they are legit and I could easily see them coming out of the East.

[H2tObes]

Bulls will beat Celtics

That wouldn't surprise me at all. Celtics are the weakest #1 in a long time

I'm actually shocked how many people are overrating the Bulls, they will maybe win 1 game.

[freewhitemoon]

Are the awards really announced after the finals this year?

[ColeWorld23]

Bulls will beat Celtics

Jimmy is going to go off. I can definitely see the Bulls winning this series, I've been telling people in real life it's going to happen.

[ColeWorld23]

Are the awards really announced after the finals this year?

The NBA is really trying to milk everything haha, I think Drake is hosting something in late June.