2020-21 NBA Season Discussion

[Jaivl]

The ideal outcome, as in every sport, is that everyone plays great but my favourites play better

[Fadeaway_J]

Hot take alert but I’m not sure giannis is a top 10 player come playoffs. I think there’s close to 10 guys you’d take over him come playoffs.

He needs to be the AD to someone's Lebron.

Middleton/Jrue Holiday aren't good enough to be the #2 option on a title team.

I was really surprised the Bucks were getting so much hype, because Giannis wasn't that great against the Heat yet again(from an offensive point of view). Their offense just lulls in the playoffs too much.

This has been my thinking, but it's worth noting that AD was far more playoff resilient even with Holiday as his only teammate of note.

It's wild how Giannis has seemingly shown no progress in addressing the weaknesses we saw from him in 2019.

[Odinn21]

Giannis Antetokounmpo is the modern day David Robinson confirmed. Slightly worse though.

[HeartBreakKid]

The ideal outcome, as in every sport, is that everyone plays great but my favourites play better

Ricky Rubio would be unbeatable in that scenario!

[Basileus777]

I'm not disappointed in Milwaukee nor am I impressed by Brooklyn.

The Center matchup is their weakness and Giannis is a PF matching up against Kevin Durant's years of playoff experience. AD and Embiid are injured. Jokic has no guards. Gobert, defensively anyway, is the league's only hope to play Blake Griffin/Claxton off the floor and force traditional lineups.

How in the world would Gobert of all people force the Nets to play traditional lineups? They'd keep Griffin in and the only thing to worry about would be their rebounding, but that'd be a worry no matter who they play.

The teams that can punish the Nets for playing Griffin are those that have guards that can ISO Griffin after switches. Like Tatum. The Nets can switch the Bucks at will because they don't have any offensive players that can punish mismatches.

[Peregrine01]

I'm reluctant to say that this series is over but the Bucks look like the same team from past playoffs. Their offense gets stagnant in the half court and everyone's standing around and hoping that Giannis can get to the rim from the high post. It's all too predictable.

[Doctor MJ]

The Nets might be more stacked than the Warriors in terms of talent lmao

Just goes to show once again that Durant is the most cowardly, anti-competitive "superstar" in sports history. It's sad how little confidence he has in his abilities that he has to hide on mega-stacked teams like these his whole career.

Tbf, I think the Harden thing was completely unplanned.

It was unplanned in the sense that Harden was still going hard for the Rockets when KD/Kyrie made their move, but my understanding is that is that Harden/KD socialize together and specifically talked about playing together before Harden began his "trade me" campaign.

[Doctor MJ]

Talent is not enough to explain what the Nets are doing. They're playing with an incredible amount of cohesion and confidence in each other, something that many doubted after signing three of the biggest divas and egos in the NBA. What Nash did here is already a huge accomplishment that not many coaches could have done.

If the Nets finish out the playoffs like this I think the entire basketball world is going to have to study what all happened in Brooklyn to make the team work this well.

I agree with you completely, the Harden-less roster should not be considered anything like a GOAT talent squad by any means, yet look at what they are doing. Pretty amazing. Was not expecting this.

[Doctor MJ]

The Nets might be more stacked than the Warriors in terms of talent lmao

When Joe Harris is your fourth option everyone’s ****. He’s basically the same as having Klay Thompson’s day to day he’s just not gonna give you those nuclear explosions Klay has every now and then.


Then you got Kyrie, kd and harden. It’s just insane. And despite maybe being a worse fit on paper their personalities mesh way better than kds did in golden state. So the fit is seemingly better.

I'm glad you defend Harris. Harris is the perfect guy for the role. I mean sure Klay's better, but Klay's expected to be your 2nd scorer. Harris as your 4th scorer is a HUGE plus.

Re: personalities mesh, so fit seemingly better. Indeed. I do think that with this trio it wouldn't necessarily take much for it to have all fallen apart relationship-wise, but I think KD & Harden came in with great attitudes (and Kyrie came in with the closest thing possible for him to be a positive presence other human beings can count on), and with the momentum they have now, man, look out.

[Doctor MJ]

As talented as the Nets are, Milwaukee's performance through two games has been dismal.

It's absolutely stunning. Short of a miracle in this series, this is going to be so demoralizing.

It goes without saying that if Bud can't figure this out he needs to be fired...but it's far from obvious that any coach will be able to make the Giannis-led team playoff-proof.

[Doctor MJ]

I think it's time to acknowledge that for a singular year, it's hard to call Sean Marks EOY, but if we review the last 5 years as a whole, he's easily been the best executive in the league, not even close.

Took the absolute worst situation in the league and turned it into this. No cap space, weak draft capital, laughingstock of the league, little brother franchise, not a free agent destination at all, and one of the worst teams in the league...turned it into an unlikely playoff team on the back of extremely shrewd moves (picking up Dinwiddie and Harris off the scrap heap, turning Lopez into D-Lo who ended up being a 1st time All-Star with them, drafting Levert and Allen, and unloading the D-Will and Joe Johnson contracts), to the point that it impressed big time free agents like Durant and Irving and got them to sign, and also hit on a 2nd round gem in Nic Claxton. Also traded for Bruce Brown and Landry Shamet.

Everything else is picking up ring-chasing vets (DJ, Griffin, Green) after you signed or traded for the big names, but it all started with turning around the cesspool of a franchise he was given. Really easy to just say, oh the Nets are in Brooklyn, of course they were able to get free agents, but why hasn't that worked out for the Knicks for the last 20-something years?

Marks should win EOY imo. He's made so many smart moves to even put them in position for this. And he's continued to make smart moves, like drafting Claxton and trading for Brown and Shamet.

Oh I think Marks is the obvious EOY candidate based on the Harden trade alone. From there it's just a question of whether he should be seen more as "lucky" or whether this is the latest in an incredible run by an apparently remarkably shrewd GM.

It's the latter. Hard for me to imagine how I'll vote for anyone else as EOY.

[Doctor MJ]

Hot take alert but I’m not sure giannis is a top 10 player come playoffs. I think there’s close to 10 guys you’d take over him come playoffs.

He needs to be the AD to someone's Lebron.

Middleton/Jrue Holiday aren't good enough to be the #2 option on a title team.

I was really surprised the Bucks were getting so much hype, because Giannis wasn't that great against the Heat yet again(from an offensive point of view). Their offense just lulls in the playoffs too much.

I actually think Middleton/Holiday aren't the problem at all. Yeah, there are better #2 & #3 stars out there, but Middleton/Holiday are closer to the standard than Giannis is at the #1.

[Krodis]

Defensively, Lopez just isn't playable versus Brooklyn, but that should have been obvious going in.

Offensively I don't even know what's going wrong. They've been a disaster.

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[Doctor MJ]

Also, hate to admit that but KD has been outstanding so far.

Why would you hate to admit that?

Because KD deserves to fail.

Doesn't look like that's gonna happen though.

[Peregrine01]

Talent is not enough to explain what the Nets are doing. They're playing with an incredible amount of cohesion and confidence in each other, something that many doubted after signing three of the biggest divas and egos in the NBA. What Nash did here is already a huge accomplishment that not many coaches could have done.

If the Nets finish out the playoffs like this I think the entire basketball world is going to have to study what all happened in Brooklyn to make the team work this well.

I agree with you completely, the Harden-less roster should not be considered anything like a GOAT talent squad by any means, yet look at what they are doing. Pretty amazing. Was not expecting this.

I would not have expected a team with 3 isolation-heavy players, two of which are the NBA's premier ball pounders, to be moving the ball like this. Nash has got these guys to buy in to his vision and the results are staggering.

[Peregrine01]

Offensively I don't even know what's going wrong. They've been a disaster.

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Speaks to the limitations of Giannis as an offensive #1. He looks like the same player for 3 playoffs running. Supremely dangerous when he's in transition and getting downhill. In the half court, he's neutralized and might even be a liability given how he hurts team spacing.

[MisterHibachi]

Agreed, the Nets without Harden are not super stacked, just playing really really well, defense in particular has been very surprising. KD and Harden are great players and deserve to finally win a ring, just hard to root for them nonetheless.

[Fadeaway_J]

I think it's time to acknowledge that for a singular year, it's hard to call Sean Marks EOY, but if we review the last 5 years as a whole, he's easily been the best executive in the league, not even close.

Took the absolute worst situation in the league and turned it into this. No cap space, weak draft capital, laughingstock of the league, little brother franchise, not a free agent destination at all, and one of the worst teams in the league...turned it into an unlikely playoff team on the back of extremely shrewd moves (picking up Dinwiddie and Harris off the scrap heap, turning Lopez into D-Lo who ended up being a 1st time All-Star with them, drafting Levert and Allen, and unloading the D-Will and Joe Johnson contracts), to the point that it impressed big time free agents like Durant and Irving and got them to sign, and also hit on a 2nd round gem in Nic Claxton. Also traded for Bruce Brown and Landry Shamet.

Everything else is picking up ring-chasing vets (DJ, Griffin, Green) after you signed or traded for the big names, but it all started with turning around the cesspool of a franchise he was given. Really easy to just say, oh the Nets are in Brooklyn, of course they were able to get free agents, but why hasn't that worked out for the Knicks for the last 20-something years?

Marks should win EOY imo. He's made so many smart moves to even put them in position for this. And he's continued to make smart moves, like drafting Claxton and trading for Brown and Shamet.

Oh I think Marks is the obvious EOY candidate based on the Harden trade alone. From there it's just a question of whether he should be seen more as "lucky" or whether this is the latest in an incredible run by an apparently remarkably shrewd GM.

It's the latter. Hard for me to imagine how I'll vote for anyone else as EOY.

EOY is a weird award because most major moves can't and shouldn't be judged based on the ensuing 12 months.

The fruits of what Marks pulled off were already evident a couple of years ago, but he wasn't going to be recognised while the Nets were still a .500 team with no superstars as yet. As it happens, the Harden trade does provide a rationale to give it to him this year.

[Bergmaniac]

The Nets are playing really well, but they are also getting major help from Bud's baffling coaching choices and Middleton being completely mentally lost for some reason.

[MartinToVaught]

Giannis Antetokounmpo is the modern day David Robinson confirmed. Slightly worse though.

Couldn't disagree more. DRob was a complete, polished player for his era who the Spurs repeatedly failed to build a real team around until the stars aligned for them to get Duncan. It's not his fault that Hakeem got to have Drexler and Rudy T while he was stuck with VDN and Bob Hill.

Giannis has glaring flaws in his game that will hold him back from playoff success regardless of his supporting cast. The better comparison for him would be Ben Simmons.