The Official 2016-17 NBA Regular Season Thread

[Groundhog]

Does it count as redemption when you add a top 3 player in the offseason?

[wustin]

Did they lose the finals the previous year?

[RainMaker]

It's a different team. Not really redemption.

[wustin]

UNC's championship team was different than last year's too

[Neon_Chaos]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

Nice job JaVale and Matt. You two are finally champions

Edit: I forgot about Matt Barnes

Don't forget about Zaza and David West!

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Neon_Chaos

Don't forget about Zaza and David West!

You could have convinced most that Zaza and West would be on a championship team. JaVale and Matt? Not so much.

[nol]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

We arent talking plus/minus rating. We were talking value above replacement level. Replacement level is pretty much a call up D-league player so Jefferson is at least replacement level.

I mean common sense would tell me that the largest spread a NBA team faced all season was 21 points(Brooklyn vs Golden State) and Id still imagine Cleveland without Lebron would be better than Brooklyn so to say a spread could be 40 points in the finals without Lebron seems outrageous to me so I am just bowing out of this debate of hypothetical situations.

In one game against Brooklyn the Warriors didn't have Draymond and in another they didn't have Durant, and in the regular season the Warriors are obviously not trying that hard or giving heavy minutes to their best players. You can certainly find plenty of games the Warriors were on pace to win by 40+ before sitting their starters for the entire 4th quarter. If you feel like Cleveland without LeBron would have a 1% chance of winning outright at Golden State, that would put the spread at a point where you're essentially saying the talent difference between the two teams is such that the final margin would be largely determined by how much the Warriors would feel like running up the score.

This season there was a bigger gap between the Cavs' defensive rating when LeBron wasn't in the game (117) and the 30th-ranked Lakers' than there was between the Lakers' and that of an average team, so they'd be a lot closer to Brooklyn than most people would think. The worst defensive team of all time losing by upwards of 40 points to the best offensive team of all time (that is also extremely good defensively) doesn't seem outrageous to me.

[Scarecrow]

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by nol

In one game against Brooklyn the Warriors didn't have Draymond and in another they didn't have Durant, and in the regular season the Warriors are obviously not trying that hard or giving heavy minutes to their best players. You can certainly find plenty of games the Warriors were on pace to win by 40+ before sitting their starters for the entire 4th quarter. If you feel like Cleveland without LeBron would have a 1% chance of winning outright at Golden State, that would put the spread at a point where you're essentially saying the talent difference between the two teams is such that the final margin would be largely determined by how much the Warriors would feel like running up the score.

This season there was a bigger gap between the Cavs' defensive rating when LeBron wasn't in the game (117) and the 30th-ranked Lakers' than there was between the Lakers' and that of an average team, so they'd be a lot closer to Brooklyn than most people would think. The worst defensive team of all time losing by upwards of 40 points to the best offensive team of all time (that is also extremely good defensively) doesn't seem outrageous to me.

You basically just said that if you put Lebron on Brooklyn they are as good as the Cavs were this year. In any case, never in NBA history has a point spread been set at 40 and rarely leaks over 20 so a point spread of 40 would be outrageous. And yes Golden State has the potential to beat anyone by 40 if they get super hot. That doesnt mean they would consistently(50 percent) beat the Cavs(without Lebron) by 40 or even 20.

[bhlloy]

The spread is designed to make casinos money, not accurately evaluate basketball teams or talent.

Given that the team plus minus without him was in that range and the guy averaged 33 points and 10 assists it's absolutely plausible that the Warriors would beat a LeBron-less Cavs team by 40 IMO. Not even taking into account how awful Jefferson was on defense. Could be more than that to be honest. What was it, plus seven in the minute and a half he was off the court in one game?

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

The spread is designed to make casinos money, not accurately evaluate basketball teams or talent.

Given that the team plus minus without him was in that range and the guy averaged 33 points and 10 assists it's absolutely plausible that the Warriors would beat a LeBron-less Cavs team by 40 IMO. Not even taking into account how awful Jefferson was on defense. Could be more than that to be honest. What was it, plus seven in the minute and a half he was off the court in one game?

Eddie Rosario hit 3 home runs tonight. He should average 3 home runs a game the rest of the season and end with 311 home runs.

You both are not using a large enough sample size for one and for two you arent taking into consideration that Jefferson would never play the same role on the team as Lebron. Irving and Love would take over the offensive responsibilities and they would all adjust accordingly.

I mean you guys are trying to argue that the Cavs without Lebron are 15 points worse than the worst team in NBA history essentially. It is kind of funny to me considering Irving is an All-Star player.

And yes the spread is designed to get even money but the books will get smoked if they miss the target by 15 points.

[nol]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

You basically just said that if you put Lebron on Brooklyn they are as good as the Cavs were this year. In any case, never in NBA history has a point spread been set at 40 and rarely leaks over 20 so a point spread of 40 would be outrageous. And yes Golden State has the potential to beat anyone by 40 if they get super hot. That doesnt mean they would consistently(50 percent) beat the Cavs(without Lebron) by 40 or even 20.

Yep, I did basically just say that. The Cavs were dealing with quite a few injuries during the regular season (if Love and JR Smith had been healthy the entire year, they'd have won about 60 games, which would be more than the Nets with LeBron could do, but 51 is certainly reasonable), and even during the stretch in March/April where they were 'struggling' there were quite a few games like game 3 of the Finals where the Cavs got outscored by a staggering amount in the minutes when LeBron wasn't in the game. You keep dismissing what I say with nothing more than 'it seems extreme' but it is extreme when a player's team wins by 14 points in the 38 minutes he's in the game and loses by 22 points in the 10 minutes he's not.

The point spread is because in the regular season, it makes infinitely more sense to ease up on the gas and take a 15-20 point win because you may have to get on a flight and play another game the following day. When there are at most 3 games left in the season and those games are spread out to an almost-comical degree, that obviously changes; I don't know how anyone could watch the NBA playoffs and not think that the best players are playing qualitatively harder than they do in the regular season. You don't see point spreads like that because a team like Cleveland without LeBron would never make it to the playoffs, where teams are trying their hardest, in the first place.

[nol]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

Eddie Rosario hit 3 home runs tonight. He should average 3 home runs a game the rest of the season and end with 311 home runs.

You both are not using a large enough sample size for one and for two you arent taking into consideration that Jefferson would never play the same role on the team as Lebron. Irving and Love would take over the offensive responsibilities and they would all adjust accordingly.

I mean you guys are trying to argue that the Cavs without Lebron are 15 points worse than the worst team in NBA history essentially. It is kind of funny to me considering Irving is an All-Star player.

And yes the spread is designed to get even money but the books will get smoked if they miss the target by 15 points.

If Kyrie and Love took on more offensive responsibilities they'd have even less in the tank left for defense, where as I mentioned, they would have been an outlier as the worst defensive team in NBA history if their defensive rating without LeBron in the game kept up for an entire season.

And if you want to talk about sample size, the Cavs when LeBron wasn't in the game got outscored at the same rate as the Thunder when Westbrook wasn't in the game over the entire 2016-17 regular season. You think Victor Oladipo and Enes Kanter would pick up the offensive responsibilities for Westbrook too then?

Once again, going back to the spread is quite disingenuous since once it gets past a certain amount, it's basically like the United States versus China in the Olympics where the win is guaranteed and the only question is whether the better team wants to win by 50-60 points or just screw around and win by 20.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by nol

You think Victor Oladipo and Enes Kanter would pick up the offensive responsibilities for Westbrook too then?

Umm yeah. Every team has to adjust to their hand.

Kevin Love averaged over 25 per game a couple of seasons with Minnesota because he was the best they had. Now he is the 3rd option.

Teams at every level(High School, College, NBA) adjust and change their roles according to the talent around them.

[nol]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

Umm yeah. Every team has to adjust to their hand.

Kevin Love averaged over 25 per game a couple of seasons with Minnesota because he was the best they had. Now he is the 3rd option.

Teams at every level(High School, College, NBA) adjust and change their roles according to the talent around them.

OK, we've got someone saying the Thunder would been a playoff team if Russell Westbrook had torn his ACL in game 1 of the regular season. I think that's a good cue to shut down this thread. Also, the Cavs scored at a league-average rate when LeBron wasn't in the game; the vast majority of the time LeBron is just in a pick-and-roll and making the right read for the situation. There's nothing stopping Kyrie from doing that against the other team's bench players aside from Kyrie's lack of size, court vision, and passing ability.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by nol

LOL, and when LeBron isn't in the game the Cavs scored at a league-average level. What was stopping Love or Kyrie from scoring then?

Its kind of like Space Jam and a bunch of morons isnt it? Lebron is just that much better than everyone else. Im out. Peace.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by nol

OK, we've got someone saying the Thunder would been a playoff team if Russell Westbrook had torn his ACL in game 1 of the regular season. I think that's a good cue to shut down this thread. Also, the Cavs scored at a league-average rate when LeBron wasn't in the game; the vast majority of the time LeBron is just in a pick-and-roll and making the right read for the situation. There's nothing stopping Kyrie from doing that against the other team's bench players aside from Kyrie's lack of size, court vision, and passing ability.

Where do you come up with Thunder statement? I said they would adjust. Never said a word about being a playoff team. On that note with you starting your typical make up and spin stuff completely off topic and untrue I have better things to do.

[nol]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

Its kind of like Space Jam and a bunch of morons isnt it? Lebron is just that much better than everyone else. Im out. Peace.

I mean, we just had a game less than a week ago in which the Cavs got outscored by 12 points in the 2 minutes LeBron wasn't in the game. We just had a regular season in which LeBron led the league in the most reputable plus-minus stats despite it being readily apparent he was sandbagging for the playoffs. I really don't know how much more obvious it could get, but I guess this is par for the course for someone who thinks Ricky Rubio (who had a higher real plus-minus than Kyrie Irving this year) is an awful player.

Originally Posted by jbergey22

Where do you come up with Thunder statement? I said they would adjust. Never said a word about being a playoff team. On that note with you starting your typical make up and spin stuff completely off topic and untrue I have better things to do.

If you're saying they would adjust by having Oladipo and Kanter score more points per game without Westbrook, that's pretty obvious as someone has to score points. If you're saying they would have been efficient enough in doing so to keep the Thunder from being anything more than a bottom-feeder team, that's laughable.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

Umm yeah. Every team has to adjust to their hand.

Originally Posted by nol

If you're saying they would adjust by having Oladipo and Kanter score more points per game without Westbrook, that's pretty obvious as someone has to score points. If you're saying they would have been efficient enough in doing so to keep the Thunder from being anything more than a bottom-feeder team, that's laughable.

If it was "pretty obvious" why ask the question other than to start up a stupid off topic rant.

At no point did I say anything about how good the Thunder would be without Westbrook. Since Ive been pretty vocal about Westbrook being MVP this year it would be logical that I would think they would be a hurt unit without him.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by nol

Ricky Rubio (who had a higher real plus-minus than Kyrie Irving this year) is an awful player.

Yeah he sure has led his teams to a lot of playoff wins. I think even Spain benched him in the Olympics last year.

[nol]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

Yeah he sure has led his teams to a lot of playoff wins. I think even Spain benched him in the Olympics last year.

Considering that LeBron took the Cavs to the Finals one year when Kevin Love got injured midway through the first round and beat a 73-win Warriors team last year when Love scored 8.5 points per game in the Finals (while winning the one game Love missed), there aren't going to be too many players who could lead their team to playoff wins with Kevin Love as their best teammate. You can look back at threads past and see what I think of how international teams coach their young players; I got a lot of crap from whomario telling me the Serbian team was right to keep Jokic on the bench splitting time with some scrub who played in the Euroleague, and then Jokic ended up being 6th in the NBA in RPM and 5th in BPM this season.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by nol

Considering that LeBron took the Cavs to the Finals one year when Kevin Love got injured midway through the first round and beat a 73-win Warriors team last year when Love scored 8.5 points per game in the Finals, there aren't going to be too many players who could lead their team to playoff wins with Kevin Love as their best teammate. You can look back at threads past and see what I think of how international teams' coaching; I got a lot of crap from whomario telling me the Serbian team was right to keep Jokic on the bench in favor of some scrub who played in the Euroleague, and then Jokic ended up being 6th in the NBA in RPM and 5th in BPM this season.

We both agree Lebron is great. I guess we just dont agree on how poor his past and present teammates have been. Rubio does things well but the things he is poor at really limit a team. Rubio was playing really well at the end of the season and it he can continue that into this season I will retract on some of the negative things I have said about him. Rubio would probably be a more valuable asset on a team with a gifted shooting guard scorer.

[nol]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

If it was "pretty obvious" why ask the question other than to start up a stupid off topic rant.

At no point did I say anything about how good the Thunder would be without Westbrook. Since Ive been pretty vocal about Westbrook being MVP this year it would be logical that I would think they would be a hurt unit without him.

And it would be equally logical that the Cavs would be a "hurt unit" without LeBron, but you ignore that for whatever reason. The fact that you're vocal about Westbrook being MVP when both the Thunder and the Cavs were equally bad without their respective #1 player on the court and the Cavs won 4 more games than the Thunder did would be, at very least, a gross misevaluation of both players' defensive impact.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by nol

And it would be equally logical that the Cavs would be a "hurt unit" without LeBron, but you ignore that for whatever reason.

Nah Ive never ignored that at all. Because I dont think a single player in the NBA is worth 40 points doesnt mean I am ignoring the impact Lebron has to any team he is on. Cavs wouldnt be a playoff team without Lebron but they would still be better than Brooklyn. If that is ignoring the impact of Lebron I am guilty as charged.

[nol]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

Nah Ive never ignored that at all. Because I dont think a single player in the NBA is worth 40 points doesnt mean I am ignoring the impact Lebron has to any team he is on. Cavs wouldnt be a playoff team without Lebron but they would still be better than Brooklyn. If that is ignoring the impact of Lebron I am guilty as charged.

I would think that someone who is ostensibly a Timberwolves fan would understand the defensive impact of a superior athlete who is dialed in, knows all of the other team's plays, and is talking his entire team through their rotations as KG once did, but I guess not. I'm not saying the Cavs would lose by 40 to some random team like the Blazers; I'm saying they'd lose by 40+ to the Warriors, who can pile on the points like no other team in history.

The extent to which you'd say Cleveland without LeBron would be better than Brooklyn is negligible in that both teams would be bad enough to the point they'd be tanking if they each had their own draft pick. Maybe it would be the difference between 23 and 25 wins if both teams stayed fully healthy (the Nets missed a large chunk of the season from their 2nd-best player in Lin).

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by nol

I would think that someone who is ostensibly a Timberwolves fan would understand the defensive impact of a superior athlete who is dialed in, knows all of the other team's plays, and is talking his entire team through their rotations as KG once did, but I guess not. I'm not saying the Cavs would lose by 40 to some random team like the Blazers; I'm saying they'd lose by 40+ to the Warriors, who can pile on the points like no other team in history.

The extent to which you'd say Cleveland without LeBron would be better than Brooklyn is negligible in that both teams would be bad enough to the point they'd be tanking if they each had their own draft pick. Maybe it would be the difference between 23 and 25 wins if both teams stayed fully healthy (the Nets missed a large chunk of the season from their 2nd-best player in Lin).

WTF does KG's defensive impact with The Timberwolves have to do with if the Warriors could consistently beat the Lebron-less Cavs by 40?



If you have any love of Michael Jordan at all. His team won 55 games in a full season without him. His former teammates(at the time) picked up different roles and made it work together without him for that season. Jordan was never anywhere close to 40 points per game above replacement level and either is Lebron period. And its not even as if we are just talking wins and losses. We are talking about 40+ points wins. How many 40+ wins are there over the course of a season?

Spin it and change it however you want but Vegas and analytical people are smarter than you and would never set a players value that high. You are basically taking the historical data for numerous years and just spitting on it with your crazy logic.

[Vince, Pt. II]

There is legitimate data that the Cavs went from 61 wins to 19 wins when LeBron left. The presence of Love and Irving now means his leaving wouldn't have that much of an effect, but it's not as if the team around LeBron in 2009-2010 lost a ton of other talent.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by Vince, Pt. II

There is legitimate data that the Cavs went from 61 wins to 19 wins when LeBron left. The presence of Love and Irving now means his leaving wouldn't have that much of an effect, but it's not as if the team around LeBron in 2009-2010 lost a ton of other talent.

The 61 win Spurs were +7.2 in scoring margin this year while the 20 win Nets were -6.7 so about 13.9 ppg difference. That sounds about what Lebron would add to a team which is a FAR cry from nearly 40 that has been argued.

[nol]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

WTF does KG's defensive impact with The Timberwolves have to do with if the Warriors could consistently beat the Lebron-less Cavs by 40?



If you have any love of Michael Jordan at all. His team won 55 games in a full season without him. His former teammates(at the time) picked up different roles and made it work together without him for that season. Jordan was never anywhere close to 40 points per game above replacement level and either is Lebron period. And its not even as if we are just talking wins and losses. We are talking about 40+ points wins. How many 40+ wins are there over the course of a season?

Spin it and change it however you want but Vegas and analytical people are smarter than you and would never set a players value that high. You are basically taking the historical data for numerous years and just spitting on it with your crazy logic.

My "crazy logic" tends to be right a hell of a lot more often than yours or anyone else's on this board as far as the NBA is concerned. As numerous people besides me pointed out to you, he doesn't have to be worth the full 40 points because you don't have to get too deep into the Cavs' rotation to find players who are below replacement level.

As I have posted elsewhere on this board, Horace Grant and Scottie Pippen had shown themselves to be top-5 and top 10-15 players in the league based on what they had done both when playing with Jordan and in games/minutes he wasn't playing, so that team winning a lot of games without him wasn't all that surprising. By contrast, Cleveland is 4-23 in games LeBron hasn't played over the past three seasons. They had a net rating of -10 when he wasn't on the court this season. Teams with a net rating of -10 or worse this season included nobody; the worst was the Lakers at -7.

Also, "Vegas and analytical people" actually do realize that the best of the best players have an extra gear for the playoffs and more heavily weigh stats accumulated in those games, so they can correctly understand that Cleveland is not going to be in that much trouble against a team like the Raptors even though their regular season records were similar and someone like DeMar Derozan scored lots of points per game. This should be fairly elementary: if everyone is giving 20% more effort in the playoffs, the existing difference from the regular season would be amplified.

This season, there were 9 wins by 40 or more points. The Warriors were responsible for 3 of them. I can find an additional 4 Warriors wins of between 30 and 40 points where Kevin Durant played fewer than 30 minutes and the Warriors won the 4th quarter by 2 points or fewer (aka the entire 4th was garbage time). So stop right there and realize that the Warriors were taking a much more casual approach to the regular season after winning 73 and losing the title the year before, and still almost 10 percent of their games were either 40-point wins or easily could have been.

It would be a literally unprecedented situation for a team as bad as the Cavaliers without LeBron (who I am already giving quite a bit of credit by saying they'd "adjust" to the point of being a ~25 win team rather than taking their record and point differential without him, which would put them on par with last year's Sixers if extrapolated out to a full season) to be playing a team as good as the Warriors in such a high-stakes game, so I'd expect an unprecedented point spread.

So as I said from the very beginning, maybe the spread wouldn't be 48 points because there's a pretty good chance the Warriors' star players would be on the bench in the 3rd quarter celebrating their championship already, but LeBron is certainly "worth" that many points because the Warriors were playing quite well and giving maximum effort to win games that were close down the stretch. That kind of effort over a full game would have been enough to deliver a 50-point beatdown to the Cavs without LeBron.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by nol

My "crazy logic" tends to be right a hell of a lot more often than yours or anyone else's on this board as far as the NBA is concerned. As numerous people besides me pointed out to you, he doesn't have to be worth the full 40 points because you don't have to get too deep into the Cavs' rotation to find players who are below replacement level.

Any proof of this? I just read your rants that go completely off topic. Maybe you think you are right but does anyone else? The only thing Ive gotten from most of your rants is that you agree with how one of the worst organizations in sports is ran(76ers).

I mean if you you argue both ways of a debate you have to be correct at some point right?

Originally Posted by nol

Any efficiency-related numbers are going to take a nosedive when you're the only offensive option on a bad team, and I think he can be a top defensive point guard.

However, I was saying that more in terms of the uncertainty of the particular draft pick than thinking Carter-Williams will turn out to be an all-star caliber player. When you look at the 5-12 range in any given draft, you're almost certain to see more than one player who can't crack an NBA rotation, and the 2016 draft will be just about as weak as 2013's pool of players was thought to be.

Originally Posted by nol

Michael Carter-Williams is a rotation player. If you trade a rotation player for a lottery pick that's a really good deal. I don't even have to look to know that Klay Thompson is likely to end up as the best #11 pick in NBA history, and he and Turner are the only players who'd have even close to the trade value MCW had 1 1/2 years in. JJ Redick got traded for the #19 pick because the Bucks were desperate to make the playoffs, and even at the time that was considered a massive overpay for Redick. So again, very good outcome for the 11th pick in what will end up being the weakest or 2nd-weakest draft of the 10 previous seasons.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Vince, Pt. II

There is legitimate data that the Cavs went from 61 wins to 19 wins when LeBron left. The presence of Love and Irving now means his leaving wouldn't have that much of an effect, but it's not as if the team around LeBron in 2009-2010 lost a ton of other talent.

That Cavs team made a bunch of other moves and were purposely trying to lose games. No doubt Lebron leaving turned them into a terrible team but their motives also changed.

Cavs have a talented supporting cast. This revisionist nonsense each time Lebron loses is silly. Name a star who has a better supporting cast outside of Steph/KD. Golden State just had a more talented team than the Cavs. Lebron was great in the Finals but the Warriors are a superteam the likes we've never seen before.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by nol

Also, "Vegas and analytical people" actually do realize that the best of the best players have an extra gear for the playoffs and more heavily weigh stats accumulated in those games, so they can correctly understand that Cleveland is not going to be in that much trouble against a team like the Raptors even though their regular season records were similar and someone like DeMar Derozan scored lots of points per game. This should be fairly elementary: if everyone is giving 20% more effort in the playoffs, the existing difference from the regular season would be amplified.

And Golden State wouldnt put that extra 20 percent into playing the Cavs without Lebron so your assumption is invalid. They would just cruise to a bunch of 15-20 point wins against them. The same way Lebron couldnt sustain his playoff level for more than a few weeks or he would burnout or get hurt.

[nol]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

Any proof of this? I just read your rants that go completely off topic. Maybe you think you are right but does anyone else? The only thing Ive gotten from most of your rants is that you agree with how one of the worst organizations in sports is ran(76ers).

I mean if you you argue both ways of a debate you have to be correct at some point right?

LOL you really don't read much about the NBA if you think people still believe the Sixers are one of the worst organizations in sports, but I guess it makes sense that if you consider writing 5-6 sentences a 'rant' you're not too big into reading things in general. Aside from people complaining that there were only 2-3 teams with a shot at a title or marveling at the big statlines Harden or Westbrook were putting up,
this was one of the more common types of pieces this season from national basketball writers:

That Hinkie. I’ve done a 180-degree turn on Hinkie. For years I joined the chorus hammering the former general manager and president of basketball operations of the 76ers for showing no interest in winning. [...] Nearly four years after Hinkie was hired and you wonder: Does anyone in Philadelphia regret the era? Three straight sub-20 win seasons were painful, and watching Hinkie trade away established talent (Evan Turner, Michael Carter-Williams, etc.) for draft picks was worse. But here are the Sixers, exactly where Hinkie hoped they would be, loaded with elite young talent and primed to be the heir to a post-LeBron James conference throne.

In particular one of the best moves was trading MCW (whom in the first post you quoted I gave the ringing endorsement of saying he could be a rotation player thanks to his defense, which is certainly much more in line with how his career is shaping up at this point than whatever people were thinking he'd amount to after he'd been named Rookie of the Year) for a Lakers pick that people thought would be worthless because they had Kobe and the Lakers always sign stars. Fast forward to now and the last 4 Lakers seasons are the 4 worst they've had since moving to Los Angeles in 1960, they have one more year of crappiness ahead since the they'll be looking to preserve cap room for Paul George and another star next summer, and the 76ers own their unprotected first-rounder next year.

It's not "taking both sides" to say that getting the ROY wasn't the worst outcome for the 11th pick that year when the draft was such a crapshoot (the #1 pick just got cut from a team in Turkey and the two best players were drafted 15th and 27th) and that getting a future lottery pick for a rotation player was a good trade.

As for the Warriors, let's agree to disagree. Sure, casinos wouldn't set the spread to 40 points, but that's totally different from how much they actually think the Warriors would win by. They would be able to adjust it down by quite a few points because most of the betting populace is composed of people as informed as you. I would assume LeBron played even better in the Finals than most people thought he would going in, yet the Warriors comfortably covered the first 3 games and would have covered Game 5 if not for the Cavs running off 5 straight garbage time points in the last 30-something seconds, so it seems like Vegas had assessed things reasonably well. Teams like the Warriors and Cavs have their minutes load, practices, workouts, and everything else specifically calibrated to be able to give it their best into June, and I frankly have no idea how anybody could have watched the Warriors in Game 5 and thought they were close to breaking down or anything like that when there were at most 2 games remaining in the season.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by nol

As for the Warriors, let's agree to disagree. Sure, casinos wouldn't set the spread to 40 points, but that's totally different from how much they actually think the Warriors would win by. They would be able to adjust it down by quite a few points because most of the betting populace is composed of people as informed as you. I would assume LeBron played even better in the Finals than most people thought he would going in, yet the Warriors comfortably covered the first 3 games and would have covered Game 5 if not for the Cavs running off 5 straight garbage time points in the last 30-something seconds, so it seems like Vegas had assessed things reasonably well.

Apparently you have no idea how the betting industry works either. The smart money(sharps) would pound the line right where it should be. The squares(you) would bet the line up and the big money sharps would move that line exactly where it should be. The lines stay pretty accurate because if they dont sharps crush them. So once again, you are clueless sir.

I dont think that Vegas is going to get scared and move a line 15 points because Nol and his buddies see an opportunity to take the Warriors at an historically high number when they have Billy Walters with his multi millions just waiting to pound the Cavs +40. Not to mention they would be leaving themselves at risk to get middled which is an entire other risk they have if they dont set an accurate line. You crack me up.

I lol at the fact that you mentioned trading MCW was a bad idea because of the very reasons you said it was a great trade in the 2nd paragraph. Keep up the great work!

[nol]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Cavs have a talented supporting cast. This revisionist nonsense each time Lebron loses is silly. Name a star who has a better supporting cast outside of Steph/KD. Golden State just had a more talented team than the Cavs. Lebron was great in the Finals but the Warriors are a superteam the likes we've never seen before.

Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, Isaiah Thomas, Kyle Lowry, Chris Paul, and Rudy Gobert easily do, as long as you consider a "supporting cast" to include more than 2 players and use things other than points per game or Pepsi commercials starred in to evaluate how good a player is at basketball. In terms of the regular season, where less downtime between games exacerbates some major issues Love and Irving have, namely being injury-prone and poor at transition defense, that list would be bumped up to include at least half the teams in the league.

My position on this is the exact opposite of revisionist considering this is what I said in the 2014 offseason thread:

Originally Posted by nol

It's also incredibly dumb if Cleveland gets Kevin Love. How could you watch the Finals and then decide to surround LeBron with two other max players (essentially locking in your roster aside from washed up ring chasing guys and 28th-30th overall picks) who aren't good defenders.

[nol]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

I lol at the fact that you mentioned trading MCW was a bad idea because of the very reasons you said it was a great trade in the 2nd paragraph. Keep up the great work!

No, I mentioned that DRAFTING him 11th wasn't that bad, and then trading him was even better; at the time I remember being ridiculed for saying that the only downside to the pick was that the Lakers would be so bad that the pick ma not convey as soon as anticipated. Without a minimal amount of reading comprehension on your part, this is going absolutely nowhere.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by nol

No, I mentioned that DRAFTING him 11th wasn't that bad, and then trading him was even better; at the time I remember being ridiculed for saying that the only downside to the pick was that the Lakers would be so bad that the pick ma not convey as soon as anticipated. Without a minimal amount of reading comprehension on your part, this is going absolutely nowhere.

It never was going anywhere. You are banging your head on a brick wall stubborn. If you study analytics like you claim you should know exactly what Lebron's James per game value in points per game is. You shouldnt even need to argue this. FYI dig deep and you can find that answer.

You throw out analytics at people to prove your points but completely ignore it when it doesnt fit your argument. I find it quite funny.

https://www.sportsinsights.com/blog/...spread-values/

“[Curry] is not worth the most points in the league as that designation still belongs to the King. We’d put LeBron’s value at 5-6 points, depending on the opponent,” stated Scott Cooley, an Odds Consultant for the market-setting Bookmaker.eu. “James brings a broader asset range than Curry given his rebounding and defensive acumen. You also have to assess the complimentary players and depth of the bench. Obviously, the Cavs are a completely different team without James while the Warriors can still compete at a high level without Curry.”

It’s important to understand that these valuations are malleable, and can be impacted by a variety of factors. “Player’s worth varies from game to game and situation to situation. There are times in the last three years that LeBron has moved a line as much as 9.5 to 10 points. There are also times when he moves the number as little as 1-2 points,” according to Matthew Holt, Vice President of Business Development for CG Technology.

So Cleveland was 9-10 point dogs at Golden State with Lebron. If we give Lebron the max 10 points he has changed the line the past few years that gets us to 20 points. My question is how do we get the extra 20 points? That is why the sharps would be jumping all over The Cavs at any line above 20 and it wouldnt even be remotely close to a 40 point spread.

Go ahead and run with the term "malleable" and continue on.... Its pointless because that term you will say could mean 20 points despite a NBA player never having that much effect on a game.

[nol]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

So Cleveland was 9-10 point dogs at Golden State with Lebron. If we give Lebron the max 10 points he has changed the line the past few years that gets us to 20 points. My question is how do we get the extra 20 points? That is why the sharps would be jumping all over The Cavs at any line above 20 and it wouldnt even be remotely close to a 40 point spread.

I feel I've explained myself rather clearly. We would get the extra points from the fact that any good player valuation-based model that also factors in the increased intensity of the playoffs would consider LeBron to be worth more than the 10 points he's worth during the regular season and would consider Golden State to be a far more formidable opponent than any team LeBron has missed a game against, and that difference in team strength would be multiplied even further by it being the Finals, where the Warriors are trying harder and have devoted much more time to scouting their opponent than they would in some random regular season game in February. So again, that kind of situation would literally break most models (I remember reading in SI before the season that KD's addition caused one team's model to predict the Warriors would win 83 games in the regular season) and as a result I would not be surprised to see a 40+ point difference between the two teams.

I'd also sincerely question your baseless assumption that Golden State wouldn't be trying; I'd defer to people who follow the Warriors more closely than I do, but based on the way they played during the postseason (especially towards the end) it sure seemed like they wanted to put an exclamation point on the season as they were competing with the '96 Bulls and all the other great teams in history as much as they were against any team that took the floor against them.

Originally Posted by jbergey22

Go ahead and run with the term "malleable" and continue on.... Its pointless because that term you will say could mean 20 points despite a NBA player never having that much effect on a game.

So we're about a week removed from Cleveland winning by 7 in the 46 minutes LeBron was in the game and losing by 12 in the 2 minutes he wasn't, and you're saying an impact of 20 points or more never happens

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by nol

I feel I've explained myself rather clearly. We would get the extra points from the fact that any good player valuation-based model that also factors in the increased intensity of the playoffs would consider LeBron to be worth more than the 10 points he's worth during the regular season and would consider Golden State to be a far more formidable opponent than any team LeBron has missed a game against, and that difference in team strength would be multiplied even further by it being the Finals, where the Warriors are trying harder and have devoted much more time to scouting their opponent than they would in some random regular season game in February. So again, that kind of situation would literally break most models (I remember reading in SI before the season that KD's addition caused one team's model to predict the Warriors would win 83 games in the regular season) and as a result I would not be surprised to see a 40+ point difference between the two teams.

I'd also sincerely question your baseless assumption that Golden State wouldn't be trying; I'd defer to people who follow the Warriors more closely than I do, but based on the way they played during the postseason (especially towards the end) it sure seemed like they wanted to put an exclamation point on the season as they were competing with the '96 Bulls and all the other great teams in history as much as they were against any team that took the floor against them.



So we're about a week removed from Cleveland winning by 7 in the 46 minutes LeBron was in the game and losing by 12 in the 2 minutes he wasn't, and you're saying an impact of 20 points or more never happens

Yeah, Golden State was so determined in the playoffs to make a statement they went 4-5 ATS at home during the postseason. And actually this kind of makes my point. As well as Golden State played in the playoffs they still werent able to cover these large 10+ point spreads at a 50 percent clip. And now you want to add another 30 on top of that.

In comparison the Warriors were favored by 14 and 16 at home against Portland in the regular season while only being favored by 15 and 11.5 at home in the postseason. Lets dig further into the Utah series they were favored by 12.5 and 10(Golden State had clinched home court already) against them at home in the regular season while being favored by 13 and 13.5 during the post season.

Not seeing this huge 20 point addition to the Warriors because of playoff intensity from them lines either.

And once again, any analytical mind(like you claim you are) would know better than to spout off statistics based on one game or even 5 games. Data is accumulated over time and in order to separate the noise you need enough data to not have a bunch of outliers.

After San Antonio beat Golden State by 29 the first game of the season did you also feel Golden State may be the worst team in basketball this year? Or was it just noise from a small sample size?

[BishopMVP]

The reports making it sound close to a done deal appear to be false, but I'm not a fan of the Celtics potentially trading down from #1 and taking Josh Jackson + getting future picks. I like Josh Jackson, but I thought the way the Cavs then Dubs won indicate the smarter plan is to just take Fultz & build around him/Jaylen/Zizic/Smart?/Rozier?/Hayward if we're luck enough to convince him to come here over Utah & Miami. Especially with IT's hip injury injecting a little bit of uncertainty into whether he can be this good next season.

[Logan]

The only place I don't see worth trading down from is #1. Shake up and place players 2-8 in pretty much any combination and I could see really all of them ending up great depending on the situation.

[nol]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

The reports making it sound close to a done deal appear to be false, but I'm not a fan of the Celtics potentially trading down from #1 and taking Josh Jackson + getting future picks. I like Josh Jackson, but I thought the way the Cavs then Dubs won indicate the smarter plan is to just take Fultz & build around him/Jaylen/Zizic/Smart?/Rozier?/Hayward if we're luck enough to convince him to come here over Utah & Miami. Especially with IT's hip injury injecting a little bit of uncertainty into whether he can be this good next season.

Main thing is to that trading down from #1 to #3 opens up more cap space for another star in addition to Hayward. Considering that the Jazz would have beaten the Celtics quite handily in a playoff series this season (Hayward was the 2nd- or 3rd-best player on the Jazz and would have easily been the best all-around player for the Celtics), Hayward most likely isn't leaving if there isn't a significant upgrade elsewhere. As much as I like Fultz, he isn't going to be unseating Thomas at age 19 and is pretty much irrelevant to Gordon Hayward if Hayward is trying to win a championship within the next two seasons before he, Thomas, and Horford start to decline and the Thomas/Crowder/Bradley/Smart cheap deals have expired.

The best thing one could say about Jaylen Brown at this point is that the other players in the 2016 draft have been bad enough for him to not have been a huge reach at #3. I liked Zizic a lot before the draft last year, but at the same time when you put him next to players like AD, Towns, Porzingis, Embiid, Turner, and Jokic he's not exactly looking like a 2nd star to put next to Fultz. In other words, if they take Fultz and go on the "wait out LeBron" plan, by the time 2021 or whenever rolls around Fultz isn't going to have a whole lot of help (it's putting a lot on next year's Brooklyn pick when the Nets may just be a run-of-the mill bad team next year if Jeremy Lin stays healthy), and on top of that there's a pretty good chance that by then Giannis and/or Embiid will be LeBron- or at least Durant-level players themselves capable of beating a more well-rounded Celtics team.

[nol]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

Yeah, Golden State was so determined in the playoffs to make a statement they went 4-5 ATS at home during the postseason. And actually this kind of makes my point. As well as Golden State played in the playoffs they still werent able to cover these large 10+ point spreads at a 50 percent clip. And now you want to add another 30 on top of that.

In comparison the Warriors were favored by 14 and 16 at home against Portland in the regular season while only being favored by 15 and 11.5 at home in the postseason. Lets dig further into the Utah series they were favored by 12.5 and 10(Golden State had clinched home court already) against them at home in the regular season while being favored by 13 and 13.5 during the post season.

Not seeing this huge 20 point addition to the Warriors because of playoff intensity from them lines either.

And once again, any analytical mind(like you claim you are) would know better than to spout off statistics based on one game or even 5 games. Data is accumulated over time and in order to separate the noise you need enough data to not have a bunch of outliers.

After San Antonio beat Golden State by 29 the first game of the season did you also feel Golden State may be the worst team in basketball this year? Or was it just noise from a small sample size?

Yeah, that's why I posted statistics from the past 3 seasons showing that the Cavs without LeBron on the court perform like a bottom-dweller team in a way that goes far beyond "well, when LeBron rests games Love and Irving usually do too." All those teams the Warriors were beating by 'only' 15-20 points were pretty good - even the Spurs with Kawhi injured would be significantly better than the Cavs without LeBron (think about it: even though you only know enough about statistics to throw out the terms "outlier" and "small sample size" indiscriminately, you could at least see with your own eyes that the Spurs tend do do quite well for themselves against the Cavs even though LeBron is better than Kawhi), and the one game that team played at Oracle was an absolute bloodbath. If you want to talk about small sample sizes, they don't get much smaller than the number of playoff games Love and Irving have played without LeBron on their team, and the teammates those two had previously are much, much better than their non-LeBron teammates in Cleveland now.

As far as Golden State losing the first game to San Antonio, the fact that those particular players on the Warriors had never played together in a game that counted certainly didn't help them in that case, did it? Had it been the playoffs, the Warriors' stars could have reduced that deficit by playing their star players for 10-15 more minutes than they did in game 1 of the regular season (for whatever reason, the fact that having Kevin Durant and Steph Curry play an extra quarter's worth of minutes might make a team significantly better continues to evade you). On top of that, the way the Spurs played in past seasons, this entire regular season, and in the 1st game of the conference finals certainly indicated that them getting a big win over the Warriors in a random regular season game wasn't exactly an "outlier" result.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by nol

Yeah, that's why I posted statistics from the past 3 seasons showing that the Cavs without LeBron on the court perform like a bottom-dweller team in a way that goes far beyond "well, when LeBron rests games Love and Irving usually do too." All those teams the Warriors were beating by 'only' 15-20 points were pretty good - even the Spurs with Kawhi injured would be significantly better than the Cavs without LeBron (think about it: even though you only know enough about statistics to throw out the terms "outlier" and "small sample size" indiscriminately, you could at least see with your own eyes that the Spurs tend do do quite well for themselves against the Cavs even though LeBron is better than Kawhi), and the one game that team played at Oracle was an absolute bloodbath. If you want to talk about small sample sizes, they don't get much smaller than the number of playoff games Love and Irving have played without LeBron on their team, and the teammates those two had previously are much, much better than their non-LeBron teammates in Cleveland now.

As far as Golden State losing the first game to San Antonio, the fact that those particular players on the Warriors had never played together in a game that counted certainly didn't help them in that case, did it? Had it been the playoffs, the Warriors' stars could have reduced that deficit by playing their star players for 10-15 more minutes than they did in game 1 of the regular season (for whatever reason, the fact that having Kevin Durant and Steph Curry play an extra quarter's worth of minutes might make a team significantly better continues to evade you). On top of that, the way the Spurs played in past seasons, this entire regular season, and in the 1st game of the conference finals certainly indicated that them getting a big win over the Warriors in a random regular season game wasn't exactly an "outlier" result.

LOL! Give it up You may be the densest NBA mind in this forum. Of course it was an outler because the Warriors lost 3 other regular season home games all season(two of them in OT). Are you even being serious anymore or are you trolling? This is pretty elementary knowledge.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

There has to be a Phi/Bos trade that could benefit both teams. Phi desperately needs a PG and Bos decidedly does not need a PG. Would Saric and the #3 be enough?

I have a terrible record on predictions, but maybe I got this one right!

[nol]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

LOL! Give it up You may be the densest NBA mind in this forum. Of course it was an outler because the Warriors lost 3 other regular season home games all season(two of them in OT). Are you even being serious anymore or are you trolling? This is pretty elementary knowledge.

See, this is what I mean. You can hardly even spell outlier correctly on a consistent basis. The Spurs were the 2nd-best team in the NBA by a significant margin during the regular season and got 2 chances to beat the Warriors at Oracle, so if the Warriors were to lose at all the Spurs would have been the #1 candidate.

[nol]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

I have a terrible record on predictions, but maybe I got this one right!

Nah, I like Saric but he is nowhere near close in value to two future unprotected picks from bad franchises who have no clear routes to becoming good by the time the pick conveys. Dario was solid this season and clearly has potential to get even better, but to put things in perspective he's 8 months older than Giannis.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by nol

See, this is what I mean. You can hardly even spell outlier correctly on a consistent basis. The Spurs were the 2nd-best team in the NBA by a significant margin during the regular season and got 2 chances to beat the Warriors at Oracle, so if the Warriors were to lose at all the Spurs would have been the #1 candidate.

Do you know what a statistical outlier even is? I mean if you did this really wouldnt be that difficult. Any time the Warriors lose at home would be an outlier because they are that dominant at home and an even bigger outlier if they lose at home by 29.

A value that "lies outside" (is much smaller or larger than) most of the other values in a set of data.

[nol]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

Do you know what a statistical outlier even is? I mean if you did this really wouldnt be that difficult. Any time the Warriors lose at home would be an outlier because they are that dominant at home and an even bigger outlier if they lose at home by 29.

The thing with the NBA is that almost everything can be construed as an "outlier" if you want because even the most-played lineups don't play all that many possessions together, and obviously if you try to pull multiple seasons together, player aging and development provides much more variance than bumping a sample size from 500 to 100 possessions, which does not add all that much power.

Again, you are grossly missing the key point that the Cavs without LeBron are so much less talented than the Warriors that they'd have a percentage chance of beating them that rounds to 0. Love and Irving are worse than the Warriors' best 4 players (and if you cut down Kyrie's 1-on-1 opportunities, Iguodala is easily better than him as well), and then once you get past Thompson and JR Smith, everyone else is bad enough to be unplayable against a team like the Warriors. It's like saying that the best college team wouldn't be a 30-40 point underdog against the worst pro team, even though a team like UNC has at most 2 players who will be first-round picks in the draft and everyone worse than that would certainly be much worse than replacement level and unable to compete against NBA players for the time being.

For what seems like the 5th time, once you get to a spread of 20 points or so, you're at the point where no NBA team has ever won a game as that big of an underdog. So the talent difference (again, when it's the playoffs and the good teams can play their stud players for almost the entire game, that talent difference multiplies) would have certainly resulted in a record-setting spread, and as someone who predominantly watches the Clippers, I can tell you that if the Warriors are pissed at you for whatever reason, they will try to beat you down without mercy. I understand what outliers and regression to the mean implies, which is why when the small sample size indicates to me that the Cavaliers could easily lose by 60-70 points if the Warriors wanted to embarrass them like that, I say that a 30-40 point difference would be more likely. Honestly, a last-minute LeBron injury would make it more likely that the odds are taken off the board entirely than it would be for the odds to go below 20 points.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by Logan

The only place I don't see worth trading down from is #1. Shake up and place players 2-8 in pretty much any combination and I could see really all of them ending up great depending on the situation.

Yep. And I might even go lower & toss Markannen in that mix, who seems to be slipping even below 10 in some mocks, which seems crazy to me.

Hate this trade by the Celtics, and I say that as someone who likes Josh Jackson & would've been happy to get the #3 pick & him before the lottery happened. Still waiting to see what protections are on the picks, but we're not going to have a chance to pick as good a prospect unless the Nets pick turns into Michael Porter. We've watched what happens when teams without a top 5 NBA player run into well built teams with one. And we watched & saw how much that one offensive player who can break down defenses off the dribble is necessary for very good all-around players who don't have that 1v1 ability to maximize their potential. And one of the top 3 most obvious future all-NBA PG prospects of the past 10, maybe even 20 years (along with John Wall & Derrick Rose) falls into our lap & we trade him for another very good all around wing who does not have a ceiling as a 1A creator + a couple more picks that might even be top 3 protected? Yeah I'd prefer if the next Anthony Davis or KAT was available, but Fultz has a decent potential at being that type of transformative star who carries a franchise.

I also don't understand the timeline. If we really do want Jackson, why not make this trade Thursday since the Lakers can still pick Jackson? (And *shockingly* rumors have them considering him and saying the Lakers aren't 100% sold on Lonzo, though I would still bet they take Ball). If this is in preparation for a splash trade for Butler or PG13 & then going after Blake Griffin or Hayward I think that's too many chips to push in to give us only a couple year window while IT/Horford are still good and the Warriors are still that menacing. If the plan is to go the other way & build a future core, you draft the #1A guy on the board with a good chance at being a franchise cornerstone over 3 picks that will probably be top 10 but almost certainly not #1 (even if they are completely unprotected, what are the odds one turns into a #1 pick, 12%?)

TL;dr he's not perfect, but you accumulate all these assets to have a shot at a guy like Fultz.

(PS I won't even be shocked if Danny Ainge isn't even that in love with Jackson & picked Fox or Dennis Smith or Jayson Tatum at this point. The man is a complete wild card.)