2020-21 NBA Season Discussion

[CKRT]

My god I cannot believe they called that foul on Rivers and then had the audacity to review it and still uphold a foul call. Just throw the replay system away if they’re going to ignore it.

[MisterHibachi]

Dame is insane. This shot making is like Kobe at his hottest

[toodles23]

That was the craziest shotmaking I've ever seen in a playoff game by Dame. 97 TS% with 55 points is nutty

[Dr Positivity]

That was literally one of the best playoff performances of all time and overall another classic game between Blazers and Nuggets

[CKRT]

Jokic’s performance is going to be overshadowed by Dame’s heroics but god damn he is so good.

[MartinToVaught]

Read on Twitter

How the hell was anyone other than Dame shooting 19 times? How have the Blazers not already traded CJ years ago?

[falcolombardi]

Read on Twitter

How the hell was anyone other than Dame shooting 19 times? How have the Blazers not already traded CJ years ago?

they probably dont trade him because they cannot get equal ish value for him in free agency/ trade

the danny ainge special, only trade when it looks like a slam dunk/steal

but McCollum overlap with lillard and lack of complementar impact (like defense) beyond being the second ballhandler/spacing gives hin diminishing returns

getting a slightly worse player but who is more defensively impactful or needs the ball less to impact offensively OR a bunch of good role players to increase depth/defense while riding lillard in offense may be better for blazers than him

in other news, this has been one of the best west first rounds i can remember, unfortunately also one of the worst east first rounds too

hopefully in semis both conferences can be interesting

[Clyde Frazier]

I generally root for jokic these days but i need this series to go 7. These games have been so much fun.

[Dupp]

Lilly just had one of the goat games

[MartinToVaught]

Read on Twitter

Wow. Moving Stevens to GM strikes me as a bizarre decision, guess we'll see how it turns out.

[Goudelock]

The last 24 hours has been rough as a Lakers fan, but there's nothing like Celtic dysfunction to make my day just a little bit better.

[MartinToVaught]

Yikes:

Read on Twitter

[Goudelock]

MartinToVaught's twitter updates are really helping my mental health today. Thanks bro.

[Clyde Frazier]

I can understand the burnout factor with Stevens, but I can't see him as anything other than a coach. This is such a strange development. Also a total slap in the face to Zarren who's been waiting on Ainge leaving for years.

[Doctor MJ]

How have the Blazers not already traded CJ years ago?

The interesting thing to me is how the Blazers decided on their 2-superstar-guard method of team building. How did they decide upon that? I remember bits from the time, but going back through the timeline:

1. Aldridge decides he's too insecure to play with Dame and bolts.
2. The next year with a young group the Blazers outperform expectations and get further in the playoffs than before and the Blazers clearly decide "We've got something good and many players will ditch us for no good reason, so we better lock them up."
3. That off-season is the notorious 2016 off-season where salaries spiked and so in keeping the team together, the Blazers committed themselves to a mediocre future rather than risk losing everything.
4. Of the supporting cast, McCollum is clearly the one who screams all-star potential so a commitment to the core means elevating McCollum to co-franchise player going forward.
5. The following year McCollum improves and has the year that remains the best year of his career, and we are now in 2017.

So then, if you weren't going to trade McCollum before he became expensive, 2017 represents the time to sell high, but also the moment when the Blazers probably felt most optimistic about his potential.

2017-18 happens with the sweep by NO, and if Dame had had a great series, I wonder if they trade McCollum that off-season even if its just for pennies on the dollar. But instead Dame has an awful series (Jrue how do you do?!) and McCollum looks like the better player. We can look back now and say "That gave you one more chance to get off this crazy train", but I think clearly the Blazers had a hard time looking at McCollum as anything but legit, and given how Aldridge treated them, they didn't want to give up an all-star level player that was still happy to play for them.

I think that if the Blazers had fallen apart in 2018-19 they trade McCollum, but of course instead arguably have their finest year in the 21st century, and once again McCollum comes up big. You can easily imagine the Blazers deciding they've got to run it all back.

Then we get the super-craziness of 2019-20 where the Blazers claim victory by getting in the playoffs - again making it seem like it makes sense to keep McCollum - and finally we're in 2020-21.

I think there are quite a few lessons to draw from all of this, but the overarching one is tough:

If you're a small market who feels grateful that the players you have want to play for you, there's a good chance you're going to get stuck the guys you draft who turn out well as individuals even if those individuals aren't a great fit. To avoid this you have to risk alienating players who may well have a foot out the door before you even realize it.

I was just in the GB shouting down those who want some kind of ultimate fairness making it just as easy for small markets as big markets to win because I think that's an impossible goal, but it's rough to be a small market.

[Bergmaniac]

Wow. Moving Stevens to GM strikes me as a bizarre decision, guess we'll see how it turns out.

The owner probably doesn't want to fire him because he has a contract until 2026.

[Texas Chuck]

I can understand the burnout factor with Stevens, but I can't see him as anything other than a coach. This is such a strange development. Also a total slap in the face to Zarren who's been waiting on Ainge leaving for years.

My take on this is that Boston wants Stevens to be the head coach and this is how they keep him in the organization, give him a year or two off and then he returns to the bench. This is based on nothing other than straight speculation on my part, but it wouldn't surprise me.

I also wonder if Ainge's I don't see racism comments were a final straw for him? That was so incredibly tone-deaf and its just the latest in a series of comments that show him pretty out of touch.

[Clyde Frazier]

I can understand the burnout factor with Stevens, but I can't see him as anything other than a coach. This is such a strange development. Also a total slap in the face to Zarren who's been waiting on Ainge leaving for years.

My take on this is that Boston wants Stevens to be the head coach and this is how they keep him in the organization, give him a year or two off and then he returns to the bench. This is based on nothing other than straight speculation on my part, but it wouldn't surprise me.

I also wonder if Ainge's I don't see racism comments were a final straw for him? That was so incredibly tone-deaf and its just the latest in a series of comments that show him pretty out of touch.

I mean if that's the case with Stevens I still don't really like the move. I do think Ainge's departure after his comments isn't a coincidence tho. Not saying he was forced out, but maybe he realized his relationships with current and future players would be strained.

[Max123]

Read on Twitter

Wow. Moving Stevens to GM strikes me as a bizarre decision, guess we'll see how it turns out.

Can someone more informed perhaps try to explain a little why Ainge would step down? Is it just him growing ”bored” with the job or was there something more concrete that led to this decision?


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[Doctor MJ]

I can understand the burnout factor with Stevens, but I can't see him as anything other than a coach. This is such a strange development. Also a total slap in the face to Zarren who's been waiting on Ainge leaving for years.

It's very interesting. To me this has got to be a case of "Who do the Celtics feel most confident in? and What role does he want to play going forward?".

I would not expect this shift to occur if Ainge's GM tenure ended on a high note. Transitions in such situations typically end up with everybody underneath the retiring leader getting promotions and raises. To me what we're seeing here seems to indicate that the Celtics ownership was dissatisfied with how things look right now and want to have someone in the GM role who seems to have a vision going forward that makes use of the existing core but plausibly can build in a way that makes the team great again.

We'll see what happens, but I think it's tricky to really claim Ainge made clear cut mistakes. I think that the Celtics have really learned that despite the fact they're the best-run franchise in NBA history, and have two young stars, a smart GM, and a smart coach, to modern NBA players, they still aren't on the list of places superstars are looking to go. That's rough.

Some of that is on Boston being cold and not as big as NY, but I think the perceived lack of loyalty plays in also. Both the perception of modern guys, and the fact that there's a general "whiteness" to how the organization is perceived that would be a hell of a lot better if Russell and other Black stars from Celtics' past were actively involved in the organization.

On Ainge's work and the state of the actual team:

While I do think that Ainge's cut throat approach has encouraged players to leave Boston if they are at all uncertain about their future, I also think the reality is that if you're not a franchise who is able to successfully woo A-listers, getting a Tatum/Brown-led core is actually a pretty good place to be. "Championship or bust" is a nice tagline, but it's an impractical way to run a team.

Were I the Celtics, unless Brad Stevens really wanted either Tatum or Brown gone, I'd expect to be building around them with patience. I'd make it a point to not let the heady days of hype from the past few years push me to throw away something good in the name of a pipe dream.