Toronto Raptors win 2019 NBA Championship.

[The_Hater]

and the 60s Celtics did back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back (8 straight if you're counting).

I still refuse to acknowledge their team success as it all happened in an 8 team league. When you have half of the top players in the league most seasons, you should win a lot of titles.

Still a great team accomplishment but it shouldn’t be compared to the modern era (post ABA).

The other argument is that with the 90s expansions the league became watered down. All the teams the Celtic's were facing were arguably stacked.

Either way you count something or you don't. In 50 years from our time with gene editing and bionics people may look at the players of our era and see them as more primitive than we do players from the 50s. Should we throw out the record books every half century?y/

NBA fans seem to be the only ones to discredit the achievements of players in past decades. You see this much less in MLB where guys like Babe Ruth are still venerated.

Except the teams the Celtics were playing weren’t all stacked, the Celtics had about half of the top players in the league most seasons. However it may have seemed like every team was stacked because they decided to vote just about every player from that era who could dribble with their left hand into the HOF.

Regardless, let’s not try and argue that winning the title is just as difficult in an 8 team league as a 23 or 30 team league, that’s not really logical.

[The_Hater]

and the 60s Celtics did back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back (8 straight if you're counting).

I still refuse to acknowledge their team success as it all happened in an 8 team league. When you have half of the top players in the league most seasons, you should win a lot of titles.

Still a great team accomplishment but it shouldn’t be compared to the modern era (post ABA).

Glad you are living up to your name.

Well done. Never heard that before. So clever.

[RapZilla]

Watch on YouTube

[Cobra Kawhi]

Read on Twitter

Stay Salty bro

What a pathetic piece of journalism

Sounds like an angry 10 year old

[B-Ball Freak]

We cant even hear the haters right now lmfao

[Childs]

Read on Twitter

Stay Salty bro

What a pathetic piece of journalism

Sounds like an angry 10 year old

It was a good read

[giannis and 1]

Up there wih 2011 mavs , 04' pistons

Do not compare what Dirk did against a fully STACKED Miami Heat team to the hobbled Warriors the Raptors beat.

They beat the 3 best teams in the playoffs IMO in Philly, Milwaukee and GS. They did it with a mix of slow pace, gritty defence, as well as fast paced O, three point bombs, crisp passing.

And a **** ton of luck.

[mtcan]

Do not compare what Dirk did against a fully STACKED Miami Heat team to the hobbled Warriors the Raptors beat.

They beat the 3 best teams in the playoffs IMO in Philly, Milwaukee and GS. They did it with a mix of slow pace, gritty defence, as well as fast paced O, three point bombs, crisp passing.

And a **** ton of luck.

Winning 4 straight games is luck?

[KrazyP]

As for the injuries, it sucks but it's hardly that unfair. Warriors beat the Cavs without Kyrie and Love. They still got to take that trophy home and keep it forever. Same for the Raps. They earned it

76ers would have won with a healthy Embiid. Warriors were still winning without KD, and if Klay doesn't go down they take this.

A win is a win, but this was very unimpressive. Raps backed into a title

Some people will just believe what they want to believe regardless of what evidence lays before them.

In the regular season, the Raps beat the Warriors 2-0 including a game in which they smoked a fully healthy Warriors lineup without Kawhi.

Klay/Curry were perfectly fine in playoff games 1/4 and the Raps still cruised to victory. How did that happen? Was it unimpressive?

Do you have any factual evidence of any game this year where the Raps actually struggled against the Warriors?

[PD28]

Do not compare what Dirk did against a fully STACKED Miami Heat team to the hobbled Warriors the Raptors beat.

They beat the 3 best teams in the playoffs IMO in Philly, Milwaukee and GS. They did it with a mix of slow pace, gritty defence, as well as fast paced O, three point bombs, crisp passing.

And a **** ton of luck.

We didn't need any luck to beat you guys tho?

[bakafool]

Do not compare what Dirk did against a fully STACKED Miami Heat team to the hobbled Warriors the Raptors beat.

They beat the 3 best teams in the playoffs IMO in Philly, Milwaukee and GS. They did it with a mix of slow pace, gritty defence, as well as fast paced O, three point bombs, crisp passing.

And a **** ton of luck.

Dayum. Does salted dear taste like beef jerky?

[The Warrior]

Do not compare what Dirk did against a fully STACKED Miami Heat team to the hobbled Warriors the Raptors beat.

They beat the 3 best teams in the playoffs IMO in Philly, Milwaukee and GS. They did it with a mix of slow pace, gritty defence, as well as fast paced O, three point bombs, crisp passing.

And a **** ton of luck.

Let's just say it was a ton of luck involved... We're still the champions and your team got reverse swept.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[Semanticist]

I completely understand the injury narrative and why that qualifies the Raptors' win in the minds of some, but it's irritating that many are being so disingenuous about the particulars of the situation. Things to consider:

1. Klay played the majority of the series (4.5/6 games), and played arguably unsustainably well throughout. And yet TOR won two out of the four games he played the entirety of, and did so by substantial margins (+9 in Game 1 at home and +13 Game 4 in Oracle). TOR was pretty clearly the better team when facing GSW with everyone but KD (a team, incidentally, that pundits projected would demolish TOR coming into the series; if you'll recall, the narrative was 31-1 without Durant blah blah blah).

2. TOR's point differential for the series was +5.67 without accounting for home court advantage (since the series went only 6, each team ended up playing the same number of home games). Adjusting for HCA, that translates to slightly over a +6 for the series. While adding players into a team context is obviously not quite this discrete, I think it's reasonable to suggest that KD is worth somewhere in the range of 5-6 points per game, meaning it's not ridiculous to suggest that the series would have been close to a pick 'em with both teams at full strength (and this coincides with most of the popular models, e.g. CARMELO).

3. Injuries that permitted the player to continue playing--e.g. to Iggy and Looney--are not compelling qualifications for GSW losing, and probably only hurt GSW's case given that TOR had worse injuries of this nature. To wit, Kawhi was hobbled and at about 75% since midway through the Bucks series, Lowry had a dislocated thumb that he couldn't feel during games, Siakam had a calf contusion that he'd been struggling with since the second round, FVV a hip pointer and a bevy of other issues etc.

Of course, I wouldn't begin to argue that Klay and Durant playing the entirety of the series wouldn't have had a substantial impact on the way the games played out, but to suggest that it was a foregone conclusion that GSW demolishes TOR if fully healthy simply doesn't jibe with the data we have available to us. Personally, I have GSW winning that hypothetical full strength series, given both the importance of finals experience and my feeling that GSW may not have been going full speed prior to the finals; but I don't think there's any compelling reason to believe that it would have been a runaway.

[Ari_Emanuel]

Your back to back what? This team won’t even be in the Finals next year.

Huh? Raps are the favorites lol. Now with AD being traded to the Lakers, there is no shifting in the balance of power that could create a threat to the Raptors greater than the 76ers and Milwaukee of 2019, and both of those teams are going to have a really hard time retaining all their free agents/starting 5s.

[will]

WE HERE, BABY!!!!!

[Ari_Emanuel]

I completely understand the injury narrative and why that qualifies the Raptors' win in the minds of some, but it's irritating that many are being so disingenuous about the particulars of the situation. Things to consider:

1. Klay played the majority of the series (4.5/6 games), and played arguably unsustainably well throughout. And yet TOR won two out of the four games he played the entirety of, and did so by substantial margins (+9 in Game 1 at home and +13 Game 4 in Oracle). TOR was pretty clearly the better team when facing GSW with everyone but KD (a team, incidentally, that pundits projected would demolish TOR coming into the series).

2. TOR's point differential for the series was +5.67 without accounting for home court advantage (since the series went only 6, each team ended up playing an even number of home games). Adjusting for HCA, that translates to slightly over a +6 for the series. While adding players into a team context is obviously not quite this discrete, I think it's reasonable to suggest that KD is worth somewhere in the range of 5-6 points per game, meaning it's not ridiculous to suggest that the series would have been close to a pick 'em with both teams at full strength (and this coincides with most of the popular models, e.g. CARMELO).

3. Injuries that permitted the player to continue playing--e.g. to Iggy and Looney--are not compelling qualifications for GSW losing, and probably only hurt GSW's case given that TOR had worse injuries of this nature. To wit, Kawhi was hobbled and at about 75% since midway through the Bucks series, Lowry had a dislocated thumb that he couldn't feel during games, Siakam had a calf contusion that he'd been struggling with since the second round, FVV a hip pointer and a bevy of other issues etc.

Of course, I wouldn't begin to argue that Klay and Durant playing the entirety of the series wouldn't have had a substantial impact on the way the games played out, but to suggest that it was a foregone conclusion that GSW demolishes TOR if fully healthy simply doesn't jibe with the data we have available to us. Personally, I have GSW winning that hypothetical full strength series given the importance of not only experience, but of finals experience in particular; but I don't think there's any compelling reason to believe that it would have been a runaway.

Not to mention our best athlete/ and 3rd best wing defender OG Anounoby (only Danny and Klaw are better) was missing the whole series. Oh yeah, OG can hit the corner three more reliably than Siakm too, plus he's one of our best young prospects.

Its entirely possible that next year's Toronto Raptors team is even better than this year's team even if we don't make any changes, simply from the continued growth of Spicy P, Norm, Fred and the potential for OG to break out.

[The Warrior]

Long live Kawhi Leonard of House Raptors, King of the North. Ruler of the 6 divisions. Conqueror of the East, West, and the South. Destroyer of dynasties, and true heir to the iron throne.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[Metallikid]

Long live Kawhi Leonard of House Raptors, King of the North. Ruler of the 6 divisions. Conqueror of the East, West, and the South. Destroyer of dynasties, and true heir to the iron throne.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

I would prefer just to call him, "The Kingslayer"

[Ari_Emanuel]

Hot take, Kawhi won the FMVP being consistently the 2nd best player on a game to game basis for the Raps. dont think ive ever seen that

Hope Kawhi thinks about this when making his decision. Can't think of another team right now that has a better team top to bottom and is ready to compete next year. Lakers can be a threat but Lebron's old af and could sustain another injury next year. AD is made of glass. Beyond that, Lakers will struggle to have any sort of depth.

Raptors are plug and play. They have the veterans to lead the team and a stable team of high end role players + youth that could become even better next year.

[AussieCeltic]

Congrats on the Raps win. I'm so sick of people wanting to put asterisks on championships. You can go back in history and say that about nearly any team that won. At the end of the day, health means something as well which is why I'm a little surprised the Lakers are favs for next year given Lebron's age, mileage and health issues along with AD's seemingly glass body. These guys won't be healthy the whole year and they will have a thinner supporting cast than what Golden State has had.