2019-20 NBA Season Discussion

[eminence]

Man... this has been one of the most disappointing finals games I've watched. Hope the Heat somehow turn it around.

I mean, they just got absolutely wrecked by injuries (Dragic done, Bam out, Butler dinged up). I have a tough time seeing a team coming back from that.

Very '15 Warriors vibe.

[yoyoboy]

As much as it’s nice to see LeBron and the Lakers well on their way to a ring now, it’ll take away from my excitement if the entire series is going to look like tonight. This is the Finals, it shouldn’t be this easy. And now Dragic is out with Bam and Jimmy banged up. Even if fully healthy though, Miami is so small compared to LA.

[Doctor MJ]

Man... this has been one of the most disappointing finals games I've watched. Hope the Heat somehow turn it around.

LeBron is Dr. Frankenstein, and this team is his Creature.

Unless Spo & co figure something else quick the Lakers are about to paradigm shift the whole league.

What exactly is the Lakers "paradigm"? I don't think "hoping the top 2 players in the world, who happen to have perfect synergy skill-wise, decide to team up in our franchise" is going to be a paradigm in the league going forward...

They're bullying everybody with their front court. The league's been getting smaller in the years since Shaq stopped being a threat. They Lakers may be about to make bigger guys back in demand again. At the very least, every team that wants to be a contender is going to have to ask themselves how they can cope with the Lakers' power game.

[toodles23]

LeBron is Dr. Frankenstein, and this team is his Creature.

Unless Spo & co figure something else quick the Lakers are about to paradigm shift the whole league.

What exactly is the Lakers "paradigm"? I don't think "hoping the top 2 players in the world, who happen to have perfect synergy skill-wise, decide to team up in our franchise" is going to be a paradigm in the league going forward...

They're bullying everybody with their front court. The league's been getting smaller in the years since Shaq stopped being a threat. They Lakers may be about to make bigger guys back in demand again. At the very least, every team that wants to be a contender is going to have to ask themselves how they can cope with the Lakers' power game.

The one concern to me going forward is the age of some of their key role players. Dwight will be 35, Rondo is 33 and was terrible in the regular season before exploding in the playoffs, and Green is 33 and has looked borderline washed at times.

Lebron of course is also only a few months from 36 and is getting to the point of being a complete outlier in NBA history in terms of maintaining his impact.

[Heej]

I think it's time to reevaluate how good the Lakers role players are perceived to be vs the Heat ones. KCP would automatically be the 2nd best role player on the Heat. Dwight is having a mini Dennis Rodman-esque season with great rim protection. Seems like that archetype is just suited for the finals no matter what. Tristan Thompson always proved his worth in the playoffs with that, Dwight is a less switchable but more imposing version of that lol. Playoff Rondo is real and consistently scatting 3s the whole playoffs honestly. Maybe he's gonna have a JKidd career arc with that. If that's the case the Lakers lucked into possibly a top 5 6th man for however long they can keep him. Caruso is called GOAT for a reason.

I think the margins are much closer than people thought before the series. I don't quite think Lebron is the one making every move. We have to give credit to Rob Pelinka. The LeGM trope abuses the GMs as much as coaching LeBron damages a coach's rep. These guys gotta make the right moves along the margins while LeBron rumbles for bigger decisions here or there, but iirc Pelinka kinda just found Dwight and AD and LeBron were like, "ok we can work with this". Also the Lakers got it right and went with all 2-way players as much as they could. Lots of synergy with this construction. Gotta hand it to em.

Another point that I think is finally swinging around is that the big man is low key back to the most important position in the game because an entire team's series scheme is based fundamentally on what the big men can do. Bam continuing to roll into drop coverage cuz the Laker guards are funneling, it just goes to show how important a skillset like Jokic's is to punish the Lakers for playing conservative schemes that allow weakside players to stay more home on shooters and won't employ tag men as far or as deeply.

[Doctor MJ]

What exactly is the Lakers "paradigm"? I don't think "hoping the top 2 players in the world, who happen to have perfect synergy skill-wise, decide to team up in our franchise" is going to be a paradigm in the league going forward...

They're bullying everybody with their front court. The league's been getting smaller in the years since Shaq stopped being a threat. They Lakers may be about to make bigger guys back in demand again. At the very least, every team that wants to be a contender is going to have to ask themselves how they can cope with the Lakers' power game.

The one concern to me going forward is the age of some of their key role players. Dwight will be 35, Rondo is 33 and was terrible in the regular season before exploding in the playoffs, and Green is 33 and has looked borderline washed at times.

Lebron of course is also only a few months from 36 and is getting to the point of being a complete outlier in NBA history in terms of maintaining his impact.

Oh age is huge here definitely. Lakers are going to have to make moves if they want to stay relevant for an extended run.

[kayess]

They're bullying everybody with their front court. The league's been getting smaller in the years since Shaq stopped being a threat. They Lakers may be about to make bigger guys back in demand again. At the very least, every team that wants to be a contender is going to have to ask themselves how they can cope with the Lakers' power game.

The one concern to me going forward is the age of some of their key role players. Dwight will be 35, Rondo is 33 and was terrible in the regular season before exploding in the playoffs, and Green is 33 and has looked borderline washed at times.

Lebron of course is also only a few months from 36 and is getting to the point of being a complete outlier in NBA history in terms of maintaining his impact.

Oh age is huge here definitely. Lakers are going to have to make moves if they want to stay relevant for an extended run.

Yeah can Dwight play like this for another year? Even if you assume he'll be slightly worse next year, how are the Lakers gonna deal with Jokic, he's not gonna foul stupidly forever

What possible moves can they even do though? I guess they get AB back, which is a huge deal, but they still need to add playmaking and shooting to make up for regular season Rondo, and maybe another big in the rotation as Dwight ages/McGee becomes even less effective

Edit: This sounds very tone deaf as the Lakers seem to be cruising to a win, but obviously, their role players being slightly worse may not even matter if LBJ continues this level of play and/or has his jumper going, and/or AD continuing to improve. This is more of a "what else can they do better to make a run for x years" hypothetical

[Doctor MJ]

I think it's time to reevaluate how good the Lakers role players are perceived to be vs the Heat ones. KCP would automatically be the 2nd best role player on the Heat. Dwight is having a mini Dennis Rodman-esque season with great rim protection. Seems like that archetype is just suited for the finals no matter what. Tristan Thompson always proved his worth in the playoffs with that, Dwight is a less switchable but more imposing version of that lol. Playoff Rondo is real and consistently scatting 3s the whole playoffs honestly. Maybe he's gonna have a JKidd career arc with that. If that's the case the Lakers lucked into possibly a top 5 6th man for however long they can keep him. Caruso is called GOAT for a reason.

I think the margins are much closer than people thought before the series. I don't quite think Lebron is the one making every move. We have to give credit to Rob Pelinka. The LeGM trope abuses the GMs as much as coaching LeBron damages a coach's rep. These guys gotta make the right moves along the margins while LeBron rumbles for bigger decisions here or there, but iirc Pelinka kinda just found Dwight and AD and LeBron were like, "ok we can work with this". Also the Lakers got it right and went with all 2-way players as much as they could. Lots of synergy with this construction. Gotta hand it to em.

Another point that I think is finally swinging around is that the big man is low key back to the most important position in the game because an entire team's series scheme is based fundamentally on what the big men can do. Bam continuing to roll into drop coverage cuz the Laker guards are funneling, it just goes to show how important a skillset like Jokic's is to punish the Lakers for playing conservative schemes that allow weakside players to stay more home on shooters and won't employ tag men as far or as deeply.

KCP as the 2nd best role player on the Heat? So, the 5th best guy on the Heat? Dragic has been playing like an all-star.

KCP meanwhile has been the #3 guy on the Lakers. Oh Rondo and Dwight have been incredible in spots, and I don't want to belittle them at all, but KCP has been the guy the Lakers have been relying upon more than anyone other than LeBron and AD, and I think that says a lot. KCP's been a pretty blah guy his whole career. He only signed with the Lakers in the first place because no one in the entire league was all that interested in signing him long-term and prior to this year he's really not excited people in LA...and he's the main role player the Lakers are relying upon.

Re: Pelinka found Dwight. He's a former superstar that teams have been giving contracts to in hopes of him playing the game the right way for forever. The impressive thing is not that a GM thought he had potential, the impressive thing is that something has made him buy in. Pelinka is not that thing.

To your last paragraph, if things continue as they are, people are going to owe Jokic an apology for struggling against the Laker bigs. I think all of us are quick to think "Is this it? Have we found Jokic's achilles heel?" and the answer is perhaps "Yes, Jokic's achilles heel the same thing that chewed up and spit out everyone else in the league even more easily."

Hopefully Jokic learns and adapts even better going forward. Gets rid of those fouls he should be too smart to make, learn to be aggressive proactively rather than reactively.

[freethedevil]

LeBron is Dr. Frankenstein, and this team is his Creature.

Unless Spo & co figure something else quick the Lakers are about to paradigm shift the whole league.

What exactly is the Lakers "paradigm"? I don't think "hoping the top 2 players in the world, who happen to have perfect synergy skill-wise, decide to team up in our franchise" is going to be a paradigm in the league going forward...

They're bullying everybody with their front court. The league's been getting smaller in the years since Shaq stopped being a threat. They Lakers may be about to make bigger guys back in demand again. At the very least, every team that wants to be a contender is going to have to ask themselves how they can cope with the Lakers' power game.

Think some credit should go to the 2019 bucks who were basically only vulnerable to atg defenses prompting the sixers to go all in on rim protection and then getting largely neutralized by a posterboy for versatile big men in bam.

The lakers can be seen as a hybridized monster version of the bucks. Their defense and offense is less balanced(on paper), but their doubling up on big men combined with their bigs(and i'm classifying lebron as a big due to his rim prtoection) ability to also nuetralize perimiter players rendered their supposed weakness defensively irrelevant.

On the other end their bigs offensive versaitlity(lebron's passing, ad's jumpshooting), has essentially rendered their supposedly weak perimiter game moot.

Lakers are basically a more versatile version of the bucks team who was only really counterable by the raptors in 2019. And that versatility prevents the heat from focusing in on s single offensive centerpiece's interior scoring and playmaking like they did with the bucks.

Coindientally enough, the one team these playoffs I could have seen potentially beating them were the raptors. Maayyybee the bucks if they figured things out in time.


It's really a shame toronto got their worst possible matchup, because they really would have been the best test for the lakers, much like they were for the bucks imo. But off course in that sentence undercuts an advantage the lakers have over the bucks or the raptors. They can beat their worst matchup, because the collective versatility of their 2 stars covers up their weaknesses. The heat aren't a good matchup for the lakers given they have someone like bam, but it doesn't seem like it matters. The key to the playoffs are versaility. The most versatile teams are the best. Superstars happen to be the quickest shortcut to maximizing versatility.

[Heej]

I think it's time to reevaluate how good the Lakers role players are perceived to be vs the Heat ones. KCP would automatically be the 2nd best role player on the Heat. Dwight is having a mini Dennis Rodman-esque season with great rim protection. Seems like that archetype is just suited for the finals no matter what. Tristan Thompson always proved his worth in the playoffs with that, Dwight is a less switchable but more imposing version of that lol. Playoff Rondo is real and consistently scatting 3s the whole playoffs honestly. Maybe he's gonna have a JKidd career arc with that. If that's the case the Lakers lucked into possibly a top 5 6th man for however long they can keep him. Caruso is called GOAT for a reason.

I think the margins are much closer than people thought before the series. I don't quite think Lebron is the one making every move. We have to give credit to Rob Pelinka. The LeGM trope abuses the GMs as much as coaching LeBron damages a coach's rep. These guys gotta make the right moves along the margins while LeBron rumbles for bigger decisions here or there, but iirc Pelinka kinda just found Dwight and AD and LeBron were like, "ok we can work with this". Also the Lakers got it right and went with all 2-way players as much as they could. Lots of synergy with this construction. Gotta hand it to em.

Another point that I think is finally swinging around is that the big man is low key back to the most important position in the game because an entire team's series scheme is based fundamentally on what the big men can do. Bam continuing to roll into drop coverage cuz the Laker guards are funneling, it just goes to show how important a skillset like Jokic's is to punish the Lakers for playing conservative schemes that allow weakside players to stay more home on shooters and won't employ tag men as far or as deeply.

KCP as the 2nd best role player on the Heat? So, the 5th best guy on the Heat? Dragic has been playing like an all-star.

KCP meanwhile has been the #3 guy on the Lakers. Oh Rondo and Dwight have been incredible in spots, and I don't want to belittle them at all, but KCP has been the guy the Lakers have been relying upon more than anyone other than LeBron and AD, and I think that says a lot. KCP's been a pretty blah guy his whole career. He only signed with the Lakers in the first place because no one in the entire league was all that interested in signing him long-term and prior to this year he's really not excited people in LA...and he's the main role player the Lakers are relying upon.

Re: Pelinka found Dwight. He's a former superstar that teams have been giving contracts to in hopes of him playing the game the right way for forever. The impressive thing is not that a GM thought he had potential, the impressive thing is that something has made him buy in. Pelinka is not that thing.

To your last paragraph, if things continue as they are, people are going to owe Jokic an apology for struggling against the Laker bigs. I think all of us are quick to think "Is this it? Have we found Jokic's achilles heel?" and the answer is perhaps "Yes, Jokic's achilles heel the same thing that chewed up and spit out everyone else in the league even more easily."

Hopefully Jokic learns and adapts even better going forward. Gets rid of those fouls he should be too smart to make, learn to be aggressive proactively rather than reactively.

This is what I'm talking about though. Him being the #5 guy on the Heat, he's not very far off from current Tyler Herro when you factor in defense. There's a reason why there was a vocal minority of people online and whatnot saying the Heat's depth advantage was being overblown cuz they have one-way guys. When you asked people before the series they were saying stuff like "the Lakers have the best 2 players but the Heat have the next best 3-8" which is completely not true lol. After the Heat's current Big 3 there's Herro, and after that it's easily KCP Rondo and Dwight that I'd take over Jae Crowder. Then after Jae Crowder I'm taking 2 way players like Caruso or DG over guys like Robinson and Olynyk lol. Maybe Nunn pops, but it doesn't change the fact that the role player contributions from both teams are highly comparable across the board. Just putting them in list order like that way doesn't really portray how even the role player impact is. Especially compared to how lopsided people thought the Heat would win 'the battle of the others' by.

Oh I completely agree about LeBron buying into bringing in the people there but the GMs gotta get credit in bringing in good role players not to mention coaching/training staffs. As much as Lebron does for you as a team shaper every team needs as many players capable of playing in the playoffs as they can get. It's the guys on the margins Chalmers, Cole, and Birdman or Mozgov, Delly, Frye, RJ etc. that can influence or swing playoff series'. I just wanna give these guys credit on at least having and executing a grander vision of rangy and sizable players that can get stops, run, and find ways to contribute on offense. I feel like the Lakers FO is good to keep finding young guys that contribute every year. They've shown real consistency finding late round league-ready players and the right bargain bin players. Even someone like Dudley matters, the 15th guy locker room vet archetype always makes a difference setting the culture.

It honestly feels like the Lakers Smashmouth Frontline is gonna be what the Heatles flying death machine was for guards, the ultimate litmus test. I remember when Linsanity happened and got clamped by the Heatles, people were saying their defense was the litmus test to prove whether you're a real baller in this league. And later that season Westbrook slammed 40 on them in the Finals and passed that test with flying colors. Seems to me like the Lakers big men will be a measuring stick. I can see Dwight being effective long as a defensive center a la Robert Parish. He has the freak genetics that allows his athleticism to deteriorate slowly, just like LeBron and other freaks such as VC. Him and AD are a problem. I'm curious to see if Boogie runs it back and AD, Boogie, Bron frontcourt becomes the next revolution. He's the one big that could approximate the role player version of Jokic or maybe even elite role player/3rd star level.

[Joey Wheeler]

LeBron is Dr. Frankenstein, and this team is his Creature.

Unless Spo & co figure something else quick the Lakers are about to paradigm shift the whole league.

What exactly is the Lakers "paradigm"? I don't think "hoping the top 2 players in the world, who happen to have perfect synergy skill-wise, decide to team up in our franchise" is going to be a paradigm in the league going forward...

They're bullying everybody with their front court. The league's been getting smaller in the years since Shaq stopped being a threat. They Lakers may be about to make bigger guys back in demand again. At the very least, every team that wants to be a contender is going to have to ask themselves how they can cope with the Lakers' power game.

So you think the way to counter the Lakers is to put big bodies on the floor like teams did to contain Shaq?

I completely disagree with this, going big will be futile unless teams can clone Anthony Davis. The Lakers can field a really big team because of what Lebron and AD bring, especially the latter. AD is a center and a wing at the same time: on offense, he's the best off ball player we've seen and can get his points without really stepping on the impact of perimeter players, but he can also do a Kevin Durant impersonation and just drill contested midrange shots all day. On defense, well he's the best and most versatile defender I've ever seen: we often talk about players "being able to guard 1 to 5", with AD this is actually true, he can actually guard both Jokic and James Harden; in fact in the Rockets series he was the only guy the Lakers trusted to guard Harden with no help. This versatility is what allows the Lakers to do everything they do on defense; you can either play Davis as your primary rim protector or have him guard on the perimeter and act as a secondary rim protector, this allows you of course to add extra size to your lineup. Someone like current Dwight Howard would be completely unplayable in any other strong playoff team: he can't be the main big for a team and 2-big lineups tend to sacrifice far too much athleticism/shooting/spacing/court coverage/etc... But with Davis on the floor you can actually field an extra big and not sacrifice any of that.

Then there's Lebron: he's a point guard in the body of a center, he can protect the rim... you pair with AD and the Lakers basically don't have a small ball lineup. There's no "small ball" with Lebron and AD: the Lakers have a big physical lineup and a bigger even more physical lineup. Usually teams have to choose between size and skill, but with Lebron and AD on the roster the Lakers can field huge lineups without sacrificing skill; they can field 2-big lineups and have no issues chasing guys like Harden or Murray around the perimeter.

In short, the Lakers can field 2-big lineups because they have Anthony Davis and they can put massive lineups on the floor because of Lebron and AD. Unless teams can clone AD, going big for the sake of it won't help, big stiffs will be abused by Lebron and AD. AD is not Shaq, if you put a big stiff on him, he will take him to the perimeter and abuse him and he'll make his free throws; Lebron will mercilessly hunt him on switches as well.

Now, if you're planning to challenge the Lakers, you're going to need size to do it, we agree on that. But I don't think that means bigs that weren't in demand previously will now suddenly be; the kind of size you need is size accompanied by excellent skill. If you can't find a way to go big without sacrificing skill like the Lakers, you're better off trying to win in a shootout rather than playing stiffs in a futile attempt to match the Lakers frontcourt.

[limbo]

Welp, that's the series, folks.

Hate to see injuries completely suck the life out of the biggest stage like this. I still think Lakers would win regardless, but to strip the Heat of a fair fighting chance is just sad. You hate to see it. Sadly this might be the last chance Goran and Jimmy get to win a title... at least as core players of a team.

This is now the 3rd Finals in 6 years that has been heavily influenced by injuries (the other two being last year and 2015)...

It makes me wonder if the Playoff format, in conjunction with the way modern basketball is played, has become just to gruelling on the bodies of these players... Playing high paced/intensity matches every other night is no joke.

That said, the teams have had a 4-month layoff to recuperate this year before the postseason, and the Heat basically only lost 3 games up to the Finals, so it's not like they were battling back to back 7 game series like the Nuggets... in theory they should have been as best rested as possivble...and the injuries still happened. Maybe it's the notorious 'Pat Riley training regime' that made these guys go at each other 110% every practice. It surely made them better, but maybe this was the potential price to pay.

Anyway, i'm not too bummed out because LeBron gets his 4th and i'm happy for AD as well. I thought his career might go on the CP3 trajectory, but he saw the opportunity to change that and went for it.

[Dupp]

As much as it’s nice to see LeBron and the Lakers well on their way to a ring now, it’ll take away from my excitement if the entire series is going to look like tonight. This is the Finals, it shouldn’t be this easy. And now Dragic is out with Bam and Jimmy banged up. Even if fully healthy though, Miami is so small compared to LA.

Dragic getting injured is a real bummer to me. Beyond that I’d much rather this series play out the same way as game 1. I don’t care about the spectacle I’d just love to watch without this level of stress.

[Heej]

This series is over tho lakers got 9 outta the 12 best players in the series now that Dragic went down

[MyUniBroDavis]

I think it's time to reevaluate how good the Lakers role players are perceived to be vs the Heat ones. KCP would automatically be the 2nd best role player on the Heat. Dwight is having a mini Dennis Rodman-esque season with great rim protection. Seems like that archetype is just suited for the finals no matter what. Tristan Thompson always proved his worth in the playoffs with that, Dwight is a less switchable but more imposing version of that lol. Playoff Rondo is real and consistently scatting 3s the whole playoffs honestly. Maybe he's gonna have a JKidd career arc with that. If that's the case the Lakers lucked into possibly a top 5 6th man for however long they can keep him. Caruso is called GOAT for a reason.

I think the margins are much closer than people thought before the series. I don't quite think Lebron is the one making every move. We have to give credit to Rob Pelinka. The LeGM trope abuses the GMs as much as coaching LeBron damages a coach's rep. These guys gotta make the right moves along the margins while LeBron rumbles for bigger decisions here or there, but iirc Pelinka kinda just found Dwight and AD and LeBron were like, "ok we can work with this". Also the Lakers got it right and went with all 2-way players as much as they could. Lots of synergy with this construction. Gotta hand it to em.

Another point that I think is finally swinging around is that the big man is low key back to the most important position in the game because an entire team's series scheme is based fundamentally on what the big men can do. Bam continuing to roll into drop coverage cuz the Laker guards are funneling, it just goes to show how important a skillset like Jokic's is to punish the Lakers for playing conservative schemes that allow weakside players to stay more home on shooters and won't employ tag men as far or as deeply.

KCP as the 2nd best role player on the Heat? So, the 5th best guy on the Heat? Dragic has been playing like an all-star.

KCP meanwhile has been the #3 guy on the Lakers. Oh Rondo and Dwight have been incredible in spots, and I don't want to belittle them at all, but KCP has been the guy the Lakers have been relying upon more than anyone other than LeBron and AD, and I think that says a lot. KCP's been a pretty blah guy his whole career. He only signed with the Lakers in the first place because no one in the entire league was all that interested in signing him long-term and prior to this year he's really not excited people in LA...and he's the main role player the Lakers are relying upon.

Re: Pelinka found Dwight. He's a former superstar that teams have been giving contracts to in hopes of him playing the game the right way for forever. The impressive thing is not that a GM thought he had potential, the impressive thing is that something has made him buy in. Pelinka is not that thing.

To your last paragraph, if things continue as they are, people are going to owe Jokic an apology for struggling against the Laker bigs. I think all of us are quick to think "Is this it? Have we found Jokic's achilles heel?" and the answer is perhaps "Yes, Jokic's achilles heel the same thing that chewed up and spit out everyone else in the league even more easily."

Hopefully Jokic learns and adapts even better going forward. Gets rid of those fouls he should be too smart to make, learn to be aggressive proactively rather than reactively.

I think the lakers have been very smart with their gameplanning, but their defensive gameplans against the four teams they faced have all been radically different

Against portland it was blitzing and letting nurkic try to beat them in the short roll which he failed miserably at

Against houstan they started to run 2-3 zone or help aggressively and scram switch. Houstan has no excuse for not being able to counter a 2-3 zone and it looks really bad on the rockets staff, as a coaching failure its as bad as the clips after a very strong opening gameplan

Against the nuggets they tried a few things but mainly they switched and tried to allow jokic or murray to beat them through scoring more than playmaking, as long as the mismatch wasnt too big, obviously they dominated going big which makes sense if their running a switching centric scheme

Would have to see what theyre doing against the heat but the gameplan to contain adebayo was great. I think the coaching staff deserves alot of credit

I do think pelinka did a defent job at building the roster overall, if green was as good as he was last year wed be a bench pick and roll dual playmaker scorer away from being a near perfectly constructed team after one year. There are a few questionable signings here and there but thats rhe same with all teams

[MisterHibachi]

Read on Twitter

?s=19

This is going to be interesting.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Read on Twitter

?s=19

This is going to be interesting.

Pregame meditation around the nets logo

[yoyoboy]

Kyrie has become so unlikeable over the years. It's crazy considering he started off being one of the most well-liked guys in the league.

He's just tanked public perception of him (and perception by more hardcore fans too) ever since he hit that shot in 2016. It's been downhill ever since.

[E-Balla]

I think it's time to reevaluate how good the Lakers role players are perceived to be vs the Heat ones. KCP would automatically be the 2nd best role player on the Heat. Dwight is having a mini Dennis Rodman-esque season with great rim protection. Seems like that archetype is just suited for the finals no matter what. Tristan Thompson always proved his worth in the playoffs with that, Dwight is a less switchable but more imposing version of that lol. Playoff Rondo is real and consistently scatting 3s the whole playoffs honestly. Maybe he's gonna have a JKidd career arc with that. If that's the case the Lakers lucked into possibly a top 5 6th man for however long they can keep him. Caruso is called GOAT for a reason.

I think the margins are much closer than people thought before the series. I don't quite think Lebron is the one making every move. We have to give credit to Rob Pelinka. The LeGM trope abuses the GMs as much as coaching LeBron damages a coach's rep. These guys gotta make the right moves along the margins while LeBron rumbles for bigger decisions here or there, but iirc Pelinka kinda just found Dwight and AD and LeBron were like, "ok we can work with this". Also the Lakers got it right and went with all 2-way players as much as they could. Lots of synergy with this construction. Gotta hand it to em.

Another point that I think is finally swinging around is that the big man is low key back to the most important position in the game because an entire team's series scheme is based fundamentally on what the big men can do. Bam continuing to roll into drop coverage cuz the Laker guards are funneling, it just goes to show how important a skillset like Jokic's is to punish the Lakers for playing conservative schemes that allow weakside players to stay more home on shooters and won't employ tag men as far or as deeply.

I'm honestly shocked so many people thought the Miami role players were better. But I also don't think the Lakers' role players are bad like most apparently do. Like it's a lot of veteran guys/former all stars/former champions/playoff experienced guys and the 2 young guys that don't fit that description can play. Like Danny Green started on the last championship team and his defense has been consistently great in the playoffs but people act like he's the worst.

Miami's chances to me always came down to the shooting gap. Miami can hit shots (one of the 5 best 3 point shooting teams if you ask me) and the Lakers run hot and cold while being bad from deep overall. If LA is hitting 11/17 3s at half Miami has no chance to keep in it. Then you add in the injuries and it was pretty much the worst case scenario.

[E-Balla]

Read on Twitter

?s=19

This is going to be interesting.

LMAO the Nets are finished. People acted like I was crazy when I said the Knicks should run as far as they could from them. I could only imagine the **** there'd be if the 2 biggest moody divas in the league were playing for James Dolan in NYC.