Through The Storm: A St. Louis Story

[SkyFlyer]

Re: Through The Storm: A St. Louis Story

I mean if we're being honest you should be good if Delly just dives at the feet and injuries the entire league like we know he can.

[trekfan]

Re: Through The Storm: A St. Louis Story



Ch. 6

… if you imagined a pig being sent to a slaughterhouse — one specifically in Ohio — where they were going to raise a banner and hand out rings, you imagined right. We were the sacrifice for their celebration and everyone knew it.

It was interesting, though, to see Delly grab his ring … he had played with these guys for years and now he was leading his own team. The man showed no fear during this game but he came out as cold as Ohio in January. He was frigid and I was livid.

I only went to about 20 or 30 games every year — there was more to my life than just following the team like some stalker. So don’t ask me about every game, don’t expect me to remember every play, and you sure as hell shouldn’t believe everything I say; I was there, yeah, but *uck all it was a long time ago and I’m an old man now. The only reason I’m alive is because of luck, God’s sense of humor, and medical advancements.

All that said — you better *ucking believe I remember that first game. It was our first ever game and we came out … and we quickly went down 6-0. A layup and-one by LeBron and a Kyrie layup triple less than two minutes into the game and it looked like we were going to get our doors blown off, then melted down into stakes to use when they crucified us in the second-half.

I remember distinctly thinking that we had the best shot in the league at next year’s top pick.

And then Thon Maker made the play that gave us life. Thompson grabbed a pass from Irving, had a lane, and took it up, but Thon made him meet his Maker — he blocked the ball, shocked the Cavs I think, and we took it back to get our first points on a layup.



6-2. And then we got another stop and Thon launched a triple from the corner, to the astonishment of everyone in the building I think. I certainly shouted “Oh, *uck!” at the top of my lungs from my courtside seats. I didn’t think he was ready for that.



But Thon was ready for that game. He and Lauvergne made the Cavs bigs look slow and old, despite the fact that they were neither. We ate their souls in the paint during that first half, we slowed it down and made the Cavs play a game they weren’t ready to play. They wanted to jack up triples, they wanted to win from deep, they wanted to play faster like Lue had always told everyone.

At halftime, we led. I was ecstatic, so hyped I bought a couple of *hitty beers and drank them, even if I was a wine and hard liquor guy at heart. I was expecting us to come out in the second half and crap the bed … I wasn’t far off. We came out and tried to get Eric Gordon going. He had gone 0-fer in the first half and in the second he missed two more shots. The Cavs assumed a brief lead.

Then, out of nowhere, we get a triple from Delly. He gave us back our lead, quieted the crowd, and we began to work the Cavs again. We wore them down and, by the fourth, we were starting to pull away. Thon was hitting more triples, Gordon came alive, and the two squashed any comeback attempts by the Cavs.

We walked into Cleveland and slaughtered them in the biggest FU to the schedulers we could muster. I was the proudest I had ever been about anything that day.

I just hoped we could keep it going in the next game, back at home, against the Hawks. But for that night, I celebrated pretty hard.

Thank God I had a pilot who could fly me back, because I got hammered.






*AUTHOR'S NOTE: I forgot to set "Real shot %" to on for this game and that's why I hit everything under the sun. Shot stick timing is too damned easy, next game should be more difficult*

[djp73]

Re: Through The Storm: A St. Louis Story

if you only win one game this year that's a good one to win

[trekfan]

Re: Through The Storm: A St. Louis Story

if you only win one game this year that's a good one to win

I thought the same, too. Damn it felt good to be knocking down shots with Makers and my players.

Also, was thinking about a redesign of the red home unis. They seem ... poorer? At least in comparison with the away black, which I like SO much better than the red home. Decided to take another crack at them before my home game, wanted to do something that mirrored the '93 Suns with Barkley.



What do you think? I feel like there are either

A) too many stripes

or

B) the word "Flight" needs to be bigger/moved/removed or maybe in vertical along the left side of the jersey.

As always, any and all comments are welcome.

[studbucket]

Re: Through The Storm: A St. Louis Story

I like them, but from the two screenshots (page 1 and here) I can't tell a huge different in quality. I don't think the font size is a problem or the # of stripes.

[trekfan]

Re: Through The Storm: A St. Louis Story

I like them, but from the two screenshots (page 1 and here) I can't tell a huge different in quality. I don't think the font size is a problem or the # of stripes.

I'm going to take your word as gospel pretty soon. When I was looking at them last night I wasn't so thrilled with the word or the stripes, they were close but not close enough ... looking at it now, though, they look much better.

I was tired last night when I made them, which might have skewed my perception. They look a lot better now then they did this morning, I'll tell you that much.

I'll fiddle with them a little more when I get home, but I think these are my unis for this first season.

[trekfan]

Re: Through The Storm: A St. Louis Story



Ch. 7

It was the first game at The Dome, the first game in the place that once hosted the Rams, and it was HUGE. Let there be no mistake -- the schedulers had deliberately screwed us over by scheduling a back-to-back for us. They further decided to spit on our proverbial grave by sticking us against the Hawks.

Hawks fans had accused us of stealing the team's color scheme from the late 90s and to that accusation, I wish to state, unequivocally, how few *hits I give about the Atlanta Hawks. If there was ever an NBA team that deserved to win "Most Underwhelming Franchise" it would be them. What the hell have the Hawks ever done except never live up to expectations? They literally have one great season every 50-60 years and then fade back into the noise that is Atlanta sports.

The Hawks came into our place after losing a close one to the Grizzlies and they were, as you'd expect, still a confident bunch of SOBs. They had retained Horford, they had bolstered their bench with Mario Chalmers and Lance Stephenson, and they looked the part of a dark horse pick.

Tip-off I will remember for a long time, just because of the view ... the crowd full of red and gold, our colors proudly displayed, our new uniforms shining brightly.



The Hawks are the ones that made us change our original home unis, they *itched and moaned at the NBA after our initial design was approved. So, we took a different approach -- the streaking approach.

No, we didn't play naked (though that would have certainly been interesting), we went towards a '90s Suns look. I always liked that look, it was an all time classic the Suns have never given enough love to.

The game was a pretty tightly contested one for the first three quarters -- but I remember three things the most about that first home game. There was a play midway through the first that just spoke volumes about our team and how we played, one where Delly stole the ball then lobbed a pass to Thon, who layed it up and in beautifully.



Then there was the injury to Mario Chalmers. Chalmers was lighting us up from beyond the arc, taking advantage of our weak bench, and he was keeping the Hawks in it while Horford and company struggled. But Chalmers landed awkwardly coming down off a miss and he had to be helped off the court. The look on the Hawks players faces -- who were down at the time by two points -- told me all I needed to know. They were going to fold.



And fold they did. They were down by one-point entering the final frame, they could have won that game, but they got frustrated. We kept playing tight, tough defense on them -- Delly especially, God he loved making the other players' lives hell on defense -- and the Hawks lost their composure. They started fouling and Al Horford was the main guy, he picked up his fifth and sixth foul early in the fourth. He fouled out.

We proceeded to blow the Hawks out of the *ucking water. We sent them back to Atlanta to lick their wounds and we killed them on the court. It wasn't a pretty game, we could barely hit any triples to save our life, but we won.

[djp73]

Re: Through The Storm: A St. Louis Story

wow starting off hot with back to back wins

[trekfan]

Re: Through The Storm: A St. Louis Story

wow starting off hot with back to back wins

Surprising so. I'm going to adjust the sliders yet again for my next game (against the Knights in the first inter-state battle). I'm thinking Superstar default with user-timing ... I set everything to 47 for both CPU and user this game and it was really tightly contested.

Until Chalmers went down and Horford fouled out. Despite how close it was, I was missing some bunnies out there that I had been nailing in the previous game and I didn't like that at all. There's a middle ground here and I need to find it, but this first season is a total wash anyway -- we're an expansion team, there are no playoffs in our future, especially out West. I'll use this season to experiment some.

But alley-oops are still worth the price of admission.

[SkyFlyer]

Re: Through The Storm: A St. Louis Story

This game hurts me I mean Hawks in a video game got to keep Horford and get a underrated player in Super Mario.

[jonnycakes12]

Re: Through The Storm: A St. Louis Story

As a Sonics fan, found this forum from your previous dynasties. Looking forward to seeing how this shakes out!

[trekfan]

Re: Through The Storm: A St. Louis Story

As a Sonics fan, found this forum from your previous dynasties. Looking forward to seeing how this shakes out!

Welcome! Glad to see a fellow Sonics guy. 2K's inclusions of the team in the game with custom audio is pretty sweet and should show the NBA how much the fans want to see Seattle back in the league.

Now, onto the next chapter ... our first game against the Knights.
__________________________________________________ ________

Ch. 8

After that Hawks game, I was flying high. Why wouldn’t I be? Why wouldn’t any one of us? We were sitting at 2-0 and blowing all predictions out of the water. We had one against quality, superior competition and the rest of the league was about to take notice. I was already preparing my acceptance speech for Executive of the Year in my head.

And the league did take notice. Of how we got destroyed by the Spurs 116-69 the next game.

That loss was expected, but we won the next two against the Mavericks and Grizzlies. We then proceeded to drop four straight by an average of 17 points to the Jazz, Suns, Hornets, and Rockets.

*uck.That’s the only way to describe those throttlings we got at the hands of teams we should have beat. We should have beat the Jazz, we sure as hell should have beat the Suns. But we didn’t. We got destroyed. Eric Gordon got hurt, he was out for at least two weeks with a bum shoulder, and Dudley asked to go to the bench — the veteran was getting winded and couldn’t keep up with the young guns he was guarding on the wing.

McHale benched him, thankfully, but that meant we were heading into our first match against the Knights with Delon Weight at the two and Hollis Thompson at the three. It wasn’t ideal, but both kids could shoot the lights out … when they got open.

That afternoon we were happy the announce the contract extension of Lauvergne. He wanted some money — we have him a little over 10M a year — but he also liked the team. He was having the best season of his career at that point and he was playing well with Thon. McHale was an ideal coach for both Lauvergne and Maker, that helped too. We locked him down and were confident we had gotten a good deal. Based on some of the other insane signings, we were fine … plus, by the time Lauvergne’s contract ran out, Thon would be up for his next contract, so it all worked out money-wise.

The game against the Knight was being played in KC, of course — the schedulers again screwing us over. The Knights entered the game 0-9 and I tell you what, I couldn’t have been happier with their record. Sure, theoretically, we both should have been tanking our *sses off. After all, the 2017 draft class was (rightly) heralded as better than 2016 and there was talent everywhere in that class, particularly in the area we needed it most — the one, two, and three. We could have used anyone in those ranges and grabbing someone to be Thon’s partner in crime was my highest priority.

But losing like little *hits on purpose was why everyone hated Philly, why the basketball gods rewarded them with no first overall picks despite them trying their best to be their worst, and why they had to trade Okafor to the Celtics to get Ben Simmons. Philly was not who I wanted to model my franchise after.

The Youngs didn’t give two *hits, though. Running their team in the background was Marshall Young, a little prick about 5’4” (in shoes) that believed he was the next incarnation of Jon Hamm in Mad Men. He dressed slicked back, always stylish, like Pat Riley in the '80s, and he spoke like he knew everything.

He was a know-it-all *ss who did nothing but annoy the hell out of me. I hated him, I’ll admit it. I wished bad things on him and his basketball team time and time again. That first game, though … oh, oh boy, did I rub my team’s competence in his face.

Because we killed them. Straight up murdered them on their home floor. Lauvergne played like a man who had just made bank, Thon was making the Knights meet their Maker, and Delly was serving up defense with a side of grit. We trashed their basketball team.

All the while, Marshall Young was stewing in the suite with me.

“You drafted this team?” I chided him, particularly aware that he was boiling under his fancy suit.

“I drafted them to do one thing: get me the first pick.” Marshall didn’t even look at me — his eyes were watching the game and I could see the sweat on the back of his neck.

Then Lauvergne dunked all over Ezeli with a wicked spin move and Marshall left the suite, fuming.



The game was over by the third quarter. We were dominating them so thoroughly the team was fouling left, right, up, and down. Ten team fouls by the time the third was over, four from Mitch “The *itch” McGary, who got played with by every one of our bigs. They toyed with him like a cat with yarn.

The play of the game was a sequence in the fourth. Lauvergne got the ball at the top of the key and nailed a triple, then Thon came up with a steal and took it all the way back for a tough layup. Man, that kid was like a giraffe, sometimes looked uncoordinated, but he could finish.



That first game was a beatdown win and a sweet one at that. The game ended as a blowout and the KC fans booed their team while leaving the arena.

[BookWork123]

Re: Through The Storm: A St. Louis Story

Nice to beat a rival, and by double digits no less!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[trekfan]

Re: Through The Storm: A St. Louis Story


Ch. 9

Beating the Knights was, in my opinion, a good omen.

Thank God I never went into fortunetelling. The next game Thon went down with a knee injury. We feared the worst — torn ACL, done for the year, possible damage to his career — but it turned out his knee was just weak. The team doctors told us we needed to bench him for the next 4-6 weeks and strengthen that knee before he went back to playing games again.

It was a major deflater for our squad. The air went out of our balloon and we dropped 6 of the next 8 (one to the Knights) before we met up with the Warriors, at home. It was our first national TV game, a huge one — TNT rolled the crew onto the road, we came into the game 7-11 and not looking horrible. It was great exposure for our city, our fans, and our fledgling organization.

But God almighty, the Warriors were absolutely the cockiest bunch of SOBs I ever saw. They came into the game 13-5 and were raining triples over everyone. They were ranked first in the league in just about every category that mattered and they were a superpower. We were just the lowly expansion squad — what the *uck could we do to them?

Turns out, a lot. We started Jordan Mickey in the place of Thon and the kid was performing well, he was giving us some of what Thon brought to the table and that was the best we could hope for with our franchise guy down. Delly could contain Curry, he’d done it before, and we could maybe wrangle Durant. But we had no answer for Thompson and Klay just killed us.

All. Game. Long. Nothing we did stopped him, but we played tough defense and after one, we were down 33-26. Our defense was carrying us, but the door went from being cracked open to being blown off when Curry took a triple, missed, and landed awkwardly.



He had to be carried off court and the Warriors looked mortified. Curry was in some serious pain, there was a hush all around the arena. That was our opportunity and we took it. We outscored the Warriors in the quarter and went into halftime up 53-52. We had the lead, the Warriors were shaken, we were pounding them in the paint.

Green was in foul trouble and Durant was cold. Thompson was the only one keeping their offense alive and when the third started, McHale subbed in Gbinije — our Durant stopper — and the kid stepped up big. He bottled Durant for the quarter as Hollis Thompson took on Klay Thompson … but Klay lit him up, too. Our defense was paper to Klay’s paper shredder and he got the Warriors a three point lead heading into the fourth.

We were within striking distance. We could have had it. We could have *ucking taken the game and upset a team no one thought could be beat by an expansion squad.

But word came down that Curry was going to be okay — team docs said he had strained his MCL, would be out a few days, a week at most, and that he was fine. The Warriors heard the news and proceeded to slaughter us.

We were taking behind the woodshed, fed to the woodchipper, then run through a blender for good measure. Our defense collapsed as we couldn’t contain them — the leaks sprung everywhere and it was like watching a train-wreck in slow motion. Our veterans tried to calm our young guys down, tried to run the offense, but everything was off and the Warriors feasted.

Golden State kept their entire starting lineup — minus Curry — in till the final buzzer and they didn’t need to, they were winning by 20. But they kept their guys in and rubbed our faces in. Triples, layups, around the horn passes capped off by dunks … they ran their offense to perfection and showed us exactly who was at the top of the food chain.

We weren’t just beaten that day, we were sent a message, one I received loud and clear.

We had a long *ss way to go. A long *ss way.

[trekfan]

Re: Through The Storm: A St. Louis Story


Ch. 10

By the time we arrive in December we’re 9-14, but some trends are starting to develop. First, we’re a solid to good defensive team. Even without Thon, we make guys work for it. Second, Eric Gordon is a waste of time and money. He’s getting points, but he’s as inefficient as they come … cold, then hot, then frigid, then cold. He’s a waste of space. Third, we have a tendency to get predictable in the fourth … our offense gets stagnant late in game because we don’t have someone to go to.

We have Delly, but he’s a two at best. We have Lauvergne, but he works better when he’s got someone else to distract the defense. We were missing our offensive hub and there was no other game that represented this than the game against the Hornets. We went down to Charlotte and took them on, they were sitting at 13-11. Kemba was playing on a sore ankle, but he looked fine from what I saw.

We got there and we started taking names. We came up with steals left and right, we really hammered the ball into the paint, we got our main guys — Delly, Lauvergne — involved in the first half and things were flowing.

And then the second half hit. It was like someone flipped a switch as we started being loose with the ball … really loose. I don’t have a *ucking clue what happened but I was screaming at the team to get their *hit together. Kemba left towards the end of the third with his ankle bothering him, so the Hornets sat him.

THEY SAT HIM AND WE STILL BLEW THE *UCKING LEAD.

We choked it away, plain and simple, and the reason why was equally simple: Eric “Waste of Space” Gordon. He was horrible and he kept jacking up shots, trying to heave us back into the game … nothing he did worked. The ball hit his hands and death was the future of our possession.

We simply couldn’t run with him. We lost the game, we lost it solidly, but we still lost it. It wasn’t embarrassing, but that was the straw that broke my back.

Up until that point I had told Graves — our yes-man GM — to stay out of McHale’s hair and let him work it. Let him do his job. But continuing to play Gordon as we continued to choke away leads was insanity.

“You tell him to sit Gordon in the fourth or play him off the bench all game, but I don’t want that *ock sucker anywhere NEAR the floor when the game’s on the line, do you *ucking understand?!”

Graves took it well enough. He talked to McHale, McHale didn’t have a problem with it — he knew we sunk nearly 10M into this guy and was under the impression we wanted him out there in the fourth.

We didn’t. We put Gordon on the bench in the fourth from that point on and it didn’t sit well with him, but he sucked it up. He was here only for the season, someone might inquire about him before the deadline, he just needed to keep his head down.

As for us, we choked away a very winnable game, and that was a theme all year long.