The IT situation is sad, though. If it was last year, he's a max guy. Now, he probably won't be ready for the start of next season and this year was discouraging at best. What does that garner? A 1-year rental at like half the max for a middling team like Orlando? And then he's 30, 31 after that. If his performance is even mediocre next year, suddenly he is in Deron Williams/Derrick Rose territory. His window is nearly closed. It's pretty sad.

Yeah, IT is going to have to hustle and have things break extremely well for himself in order to earn even 50m in the remainder of his playing days. One would have thought he'd have easily made around 100m for 4 years on his next contract.

Yep, or the Cleveland experience might have been an eye opening one for him personally.

It does suck about his injury though. Never like to see any guy miss large chunks of their prime years.

KAT with a 56 pt yawner

Celtics are better without Kyrie.

Okay, maybe not, but Scary Terry is putting up like 20/7/6 with 43% shooting from 3 & more steals than turnovers since starting and just outplayed Kyle Lowry again. :) Celtics at Toronto Wednesday night and somehow the 1 seed might be back in play (plus there was some bad blood at the end tonight for some reason - Raptors kept fouling down 10 with 10 seconds left, our Morris twin was getting into it, etc). 6 game winning streak including wins at Portland & Utah, and vs OKC/Toronto at home... even showing a 2-3 zone look late in games that's flummoxing everyone except Anthony Davis!

Typical

Playoffs? Check please out in first round:-(

Well, he threatened to have the surgery pre-season and miss the entire year if the Cavs didn't trade him, so at least you guys got some regular season games out of him I guess.

Can't believe the Cavs traded us an injured PG who needed surgery due to a pre-existing condition... we should definitely demand an extra 2nd round pick or something!

Shoulda moved him before the trade deadline, like we did. ;)

Looks like the Brooklyn Pick might end up being 9th overall. Brooklyn has 2 straight with chicago and nothing to lose, while Chicago has everything to lose by winning.

It's going to be kind of weird to eventually have offseasons where Brooklyn has its own pick. Some form of "The Brooklyn Pick" has factored into every trade rumor for what feels like a solid decade now.

The draft looks completely uninteresting right now. Unless there's a big mover in the lottery the first six picks are all going to teams that nobody follows.

Well, remember, half of that was because there were two Brooklyn picks. It's how Boston had the #1 overall last year.

Don't forget that Sacramento plays Memphis and Phoenix plays Dallas as well. Someone has to win each game, right? :D The Kings play Memphis, a reeling Spurs team and finish with Houston's D League team. I could easily see them going 2-1 and screwing their fans once more out of a top 5 pick.

The Nets GM who gave all those picks away should never work in basketball again.

2? There were 4 including the pick swaps! :) (that effectively turned into James Young, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Kyrie & the 2019 Kings pick unless the 3% chance this years Lakers pick moving up to 2/3 occurs)

But as bad as Billy King looks, there were a lot of people who thought the Nets won the deal. Remember SI had them on the cover as the Eastern Conference favorite?Trading a lottery pick that turned into Damian Lillard for Gerald Wallace was worse, especially since the Nets were on tape saying they thought there were only 3 good players in the draft (Anthony Davis, MKG & Thomas Robinson...)

Fultz's shot still isn't back to where it was, but it looks much better and he's showing glimpses of why he went #1 overall. If he can get the form on his shot back to what it looked like at UW over the offseason Philly becomes a monster in the East.

Agreed. It's not for this year, but my selfish wish is to get at least one full season of healthy Kawhi and healthy Murray for the Spurs. That would be a scary defensive team on the perimeter.

Otherwhise it's just looking to me like the playoffs will be largely determined by who is healthy.

- Health permitting Boston/Philly will be back to 1960's levels of awesome soon. Especially as each should add another top 10 pick the next two drafts!

- If Minnesota misses the playoffs (and I can't wait for Wednesday's play-in game vs the Nuggets!), who gets the blame? Thibs? KAT (unfairly)? Is management content giving everyone a pass & blaming the Butler injury? Wiggins?

- Btw the current odds to win the conferences/NBA title are kind of crazy - http://www.vegasinsider.com/nba/odds/futures/ - 3 seed in the West is 30/1 to win the conference? 2 seed in the East is 18/1 to win theirs? (And that might be high!) If I was going value play I'd probably bet on Utah 75/1 to win the West. Either way, for a season that was written off as another Warriors championship before the season it's been pretty awesome to follow!

My very casually follows the league self says that ain't a horrible idea.

Not one to bet the house on but ...

My big problem with Utah is that Mitchell is a rookie. Might not matter given how he has played this year for the most part, but once the pressure gets dialed up and top teams start keying on him, do Utah have the firepower to win in the West? Maybe, but I think they are a year or two away from being serious threats.

I haven't enjoyed a Pacer team this much since probably the 94/95 team. Just a lot of fun to watch. They are probably a true interior presence from contending, but they could surprise in the playoffs. Cleveland is all over the place. I could see them imploding or beating Indiana in 5. Just can't figure them out.

I've only caught a handful of Pacers games, but they are a fun team to watch, definitely. I kinda expected Myles Turner to blow up this year after last season though, but he's taken a step backwards.

Thibs(defensive rating 27 out of 30, despite being this defensive guru) and Wiggins. Although I think they all get a pass this season from management not because of the Butler injury but because they are so used to losing at Minnesota that this is still a huge improvement. Wiggins was a huge disappointment this season. He hasnt found a way to fit in with Butler on the court.

Oladipo turned into a very nice player. That was an awesome get.

Well, no one(hyperbole) followed Golden State until they cashed in on some of them type of picks after years of being crap. Now top prize free agents sign with them.

Love Oladipo. Great guy, fun to watch. I wish the Pacers were on TV more often.

Westbrook needs 16 boards tonight to average a triple double again.

Anyone who goes for a rebound instead of blocking out gets fined how much?

I find it fascinating(and also disturbing) that Westbrook averaging a triple-double last year meant he was clearly the MVP, but him nearly doing so again this year results in him obviously not being close.

A lot of it has to do with the fact that they added Paul George (and Melo..whatever) and they have the exact same amount of wins as last year.

I also think that the other guys (Harden, Bron, AD and Giannis) have been better this year. Last year was kind of a down year for alternatives. I also think his cold start, lower efficiency and usage and better supporting cast hurt his case as well. Offensively this season is a fair bit behind last season even if he averages a triple double again. Totally agree that the shouty people who trumpeted him last year have jumped ship but I like to think that the majority of voters put a bit more thought into things than that.

Just another year where LBJ won't be MVP while still being the best overall player in the league.

LBJ's better days were decades ago...

Sixers may be putting a scare into the East tonight, and without Embiid.

Uh oh, as I typed that the Bucks go on n 8-0 run... to get to within 70-37... :)

Fultz with a triple double off the bench.

Wolves cant shake this pesky Nugget team.

You know what this game could use? More replay reviews!
It's not like James Harden is an elite defender, but it has to matter that LeBron didn't try on defense and is literally the worst defender in the league by some metrics. Yes, we all know he's a much better defender when he tries, but that almost makes it worse from an MVP point of view - that lackadaisical effort from the franchise player was cancerous to the rest of the team. And unlike some years where he/they could coast to the 1 seed, they've fallen to 4th in a more competitive Eastern Conference.

I don't call the ref card too often but holy shit that late game refereeing was fucking ridiculous. Good to know nothing in the modern NBA has changed.

Out of interest, which ones? The ones I can easily access suggest he's the best defender on the Cavs by a wide margin, and better than Harden.

ESPN'S dRPM has hated him this year. I could swear I saw something saying he was worst, at least at his position among qualifying players, but the closest I could find was this

From #TheJump: After three straight NBA Finals (one of which ended with a ring), the Cavaliers are suddenly an elite team in name only. The numbers say it's worse for Cleveland than you may even realize. pic.twitter.com/lcLJnWzgfS

— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) February 5, 2018

and in the end of year numbers - NBA Real Plus-Minus - National Basketball Association - ESPN LeBron is still in the negative numbers and below Harden, but well above the SF's you'd expect like Andrew Wiggins, Will Barton, and TJ Warren. So I guess he was just far, far below the effectiveness he had on that end even the last few seasons in Cleveland.

(And I'm also willing to admit that RPM is pretty suspect at times - Robert Covington, Tyus Jones and Fred VanVleet probably aren't top 20 players, etc ;) )

The Cavs are an atrociously bad defensive team. Every night they seemingly allow a fringe guy to look like an all-star. LeBron takes some blame and does reserve a gear for the post season (not uncommon these days, unfortunately), but I'd hardly lump it on him. The Cavs are most certainly not elite right now though, I'd agree. They will go exactly as far as LeBron can carry them this post season, which is probably not to the NBA finals unless he puts in one of his best post-season's yet.

The Suns did it. First team in a 30-team league to finish last in both offensive & defensive efficiency in an 82-game season. Congrats to them.https://t.co/aammD72Ozr

— John Schuhmann (@johnschuhmann) April 12, 2018

BTW, some of you may be getting your first look at Hassan Whiteside in a while. Yes, we know, we Heat fans have a love/hate relationship with him too.

That's because the media narrative is Lebron and a bunch of bums from the YMCA should get 60 wins. And, if that doesn't happen, they pick him apart for faults they never look at in other MVPs (a la Nash, Harden, Westbrook, Curry and defense) and explain why he shouldn't be the MVP.

Here are your top 5 Cavs by games played: Lebron, JR Smith, Jeff Green. Kyle Korver and Cedi Osman. Kevin Love had 59 total games and would be next with Jose Calderon. Somehow, 50 wins with that poo-poo platter supporting cast is "underachieving". Heck, Lebron took the Cavs to a 19-9 run by just adding a few Lakers castoffs. At the end of the day, Lebron should be the MVP this year - but that's not a fun narrative for the media so they are going to choose Harden because they feel bad about last season. The reality is Harden should have won last year and Lebron this year. But, the Westbrook triple double lovefest ended up screwing Lebron.

Postseason odds to win it all
-------------------------------------
Warriors EVEN
Rockets +180
Cavs +700
Raptors +900
76ers +2500
Thunder +4000
Celtics +5000
Jazz +5000
Blazers +5000
Spurs +7500
Wizards +10000
Bucks +15000
TWolves +15000
Pacers +20000
Heat +20000
Pelicans +25000

The Cavs appear to hold little if no value despite the king. Im not sure the Pelicans should be a bigger longshot than the Heat. Thinking of value plays maybe the Spurs? (Has anyone heard anything on Kawhi?)

Blazers and Jazz. If I have to pick a longshot to make the Finals or win, I am picking from those two.