2016 NBA Playoffs Thread [ARCHIVED] Basketball • Page 118

Can't wait to see another back and forth like last game

 

It's really hard to put Lillard as a top three player in the league. It'll be interesting to see how he does on the all NBA teams, I wouldn't be surprised to see him second or left off.

 

Too inconsistent...I think he'll be up there next year though. I'm hopeful Portland can land a big time player this offseason and they should be able to contend again next year, but be taken more seriously.

 

Yeah I'd agree with this. I think the system he's in will keep him from being a guy that will just completely takeover games like others do. His athleticism is probably the most underrated part of his game though.

As far as tiers go, I'd put Steph, Lebron, KD as the top tier and no one else can be next to them right now. After that is where it gets jumbled. Leonard, Westbrook, Paul, Griffin, Dame etc all have arguments.

 

I think this series has at least 1 more OT game...

 

I don't follow daily, but I feel like it says something about a guy who carried a team to a 48 win season, where absolutely no one picked them to even finish .500. I'm focusing on the value aspect more I guess. Without Lillard we're talking lottery pick kinda team no?

 

Part of Leonard's problem that isn't really a problem is that a lot of casual fans see him the way they saw Rondo during his emergence: he slid into a lineup with an existing "Big Three" and now, despite his steady rise, he's still a supporting actor.

Is it right? Of course not, but there are a lot of parallels there.

Also, re: the Heat thing, the way I saw LeBron fans talking about Wade during their run together was so incredibly stupid. I don't know where the collective mindset of people veered so far off the tracks that criticizing and minimizing Wade became the preferred way to build up LeBron, but hot damn was it idiotic.

 

10,000%

 

Definitely...McColum and Lilliard were the 3rd highest scoring Duo (not sure if backcourt only) this year, so he had help. I've never seen another player go shot for shot with Curry though (which has to count for something), and he does it vs. the Warriors fairly often. I took my family to the Warriors blowout loss to Portland after the All Star break (hence the Profile Pic) and walked away a HUGE Lilliard fan. I hear he's even a better person/teammate as well...

 

Can the knicks hire rambis already?

 

Agree. Too bad Dame and the Blazers are rarely taken seriously. Too small of a market I guess and no one on the east coast cares. "Well your guys' games are on too late..." But they still always watch Golden State... pfft. Dame was a huge all-star snub this year and in the playoffs the other duo/all-stars in Lowery/Derozan have been playing like garbage. But I said earlier Blazers were supposed to be a bottom 3 team so they've had a great season.

/diehardblazersfanrant

 

i mean i don't think people were expecting mccollum to make the strides he has made this year either, but what stotts has done with this team and getting the best out of each his players, with them basically neck and neck this series is great.

 

Yet the coach who missed half the season gets Coach of the Year.

 

Wade also spent an entire year saying he was saving himself for the playoffs and so he took a lot of heat when he took off games off, played really bad defense, took a lot of bad shots, and didn't play any back-to-backs, and then didn't show up in the finals. I think that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way given how many miles everyone else was putting on their bodies.

 

I don't know, for me Leonard is an easy top-5 player in the league. His leap this year in three point shooting and taking over main scoring duties for his team with Aldridge tells me a lot. We already knew what he could do on the defensive end and now he is blossoming well beyond a complimentary scorer. Not sure what that has to do with MVP votes, but it's something I had to get off my chest.

 

Best 2-way player in the league right now, Lebron is of course up there, and Klay Thompson's defense has to get him up there as well due to his play in these playoffs...

 

A legit joke that Rc Buford gets executive of the year for the fact that one star player publically wanted to go there to be with his family and win a ring. Other years maybe, not this year.

Executive of the Year: How does Neil Olshey finish second?

 

No doubt, Klay is a great two-way player. Wouldn't be in my overall top 5 NBA players. Although that is not a very big stretch at all.

 

Executive of the year is a really weird thing too, and hard to properly award on a yearly basis, because some teams can revamp their whole teams in a single offseason, but others can take years through draft/free agency but are just as impressive. Every GM working in a different way and taking different amounts of time makes it almost impossible to judge everyone at face value like you would a player in a single season.

 

Paul George has to be in the convo also for best 2 way player.

 

We'll have to see if Klay sustains it going into next year...he's too bad at creating his own shot that I can't put him up there but as far as a pure shooter, stepping up while Curry was out, and his defensive improvements I have to admit I have a lot more confidence in him in these playoffs than at times during the season.

 

Agreed, would love to see him on a contender. He's a monster at times.

 

Took a lot of ... heat.

 

That article is pretty reactionary. Setting up for LaMarcus was a multi-year long process. He also deserves some credit for what made the Spurs a place West would want to come to in the first place. It's not like GS and Cleveland didn't want him. He also found 3-4 guys who were doing basically nothing and brought them in and they became contributors.

It's also a really hard thing to judge simply based on one year's results of your team. Things like re-signing players to affordable contracts or re-structuring assets you already have or trades/picks that you made 3 years ago blossoming muddy it a lot. If I was going to give a Drew response in the vein of that article: Olshey had 25+M of cap space to work with and his most notable move was failing to grab Greg Monroe.

 

"Failing to get Greg Monroe" no one has any idea if any of that small talk ever really happened, 12 other teams also tried to get Greg Monroe and failed. I'm sure if the Spurs got him instead of Lma they'd still get the same award, he'd be balling out.

I don't understand the logic "they spent more money on players therefore those players have to be good contributors", definitely not always the case. Especially when half of them can't even shoot in the modern small ball moving nba.

Furthermore, I believe pop could turn most players into solid contributing players. He's the best coach in the nba, I have a hard time remembering a complete bust that was coached by him. Comparing the Spurs elite abilities at pretty much everything to a lowely Portland organization (that's been okay for the last few years) that found magic in a team filled with mostly "meh" players is a large difference.