Carmelo Anthony has announced his retirement from professional basketball. Shoulda been on our roster this season rather than PBJ or Rollins. It is what it is.
If you remove teams with players with multiple championships playing as the clear number one player on their team in at least one of those championships - Lebron, Steph, Kawhi, Duncan, Kobe, Wade, Jordan, Olajuwan - you remove 28 of 32 championship teams back to 1991 (Chauncy Billups' Detroit Pistons in 2004, Paul Pierce's Celtics in 2008, Dirk Nowitski's Dallas Mavericks in 2011 and Giannis' Bucks in 2021). I think this comes down fairly simply to the fact that the blueprint is that you almost always have to have one of those guys, and Tatum and AD (and Paul, Harden, Booker, Embiid, and KD for that matter) don't show any signs of having the intangible things it takes for those guys to be Him. Jury is now officially out at this very moment in time on Jokic. Or Jimmy Butler gets to be Chauncy.
Boston's cautionary tale is something for the GS front office, whoever they may turn out to be, to consider this summer as they ponder the last 3-5 years or so of Steph's career. Personally, I'm on, and have been on, the "get rid of whoever you have to to maximize those years" bandwagon, and I mean "whoever", because one day far too soon, Steph's not walking through that door. Unless you truly believe Jonathan Kuminga can be that guy, (and as much as I like him, and I do, I'm not convinced at all he'll ever approach being Tracy McGrady, much less Kobe) two timelines with moderate success just puts you in Indiana Pacers hell at that point. Win now. Lose later and draft high, and see if you can't get another one.
I hope the Celtics don’t break up the core but I heard a podcast midseason i believe Zach Lowe talking to one of the beat writers for the Celtics and said writer happened to mention that there was defn friction from Jaylen Browns part after he was included in trade talks for KD. Speculated that since KD and Tatum were friends, thT Tatum probably greenlit any potential move.
I'm going against the tide, picking the Lakers, only because I want to see the sporting press go crazy watching an NBA finals between a couple of play-in winners.
Ah yea, how can you not love how Butler is performing this post season (and I know some folks have long memories about his impetuous youth, but I rate the performance in front of me as impressive).
Grr, lost my comment. To wit, I’m cheering for Strus, Martin, Vincent and Robinson. Great underdog story and so much fun to see them step up under the brightest lights. Good for them!
May 22, 2023·edited May 22, 2023Liked by Eric Apricot
Looking at Twitter* it seems more clear every year that sports talk and culture has been twisted from celebrating greatness and great moments to the vast majority of people trying to sadistically kick any team who loses over and over and over again with the same generic "they're frauds" "they choked" and the usual hyperbolic claims that everything the losing players have ever accomplished needs to be completely reevaluated, the histories rewritten, or whatever words capture the imaginations of people this dishonest.
I'm not sure who these people are really rooting for underneath it all, hell I'm sure some of them are Warriors fans, but the way people act suggests they really think every time they open their mouth they have to take every opportunity to insult everything and everyone that's not their one true love, to hyperbolize and push everything else down like every single word that comes out of their mouth has to be a power grab in some great collective writing of history.
I'd love for incredible outcomes in sports to be more often about the simple fact of the winners accomplishing something unbelievable again, instead of whatever the weird sicko vibes people seem to have given themselves over to as inevitable ever since they started spending hours a day on social media.
We're not going to magically get a Bam clone out of nowhere, but we must get at least one decent inside presence (offensive or defensive, hopefully one of each) in the off-season. It's the only way to help smooth out the insane variance, both within a game and throughout the season.
New draft tourney round and open thread at https://dubnationhq.com/p/dnhq-draft-tourney-jalen-hood-schifino?sd=pf
I'm annoyed that we didn't get this version of DLo in our series. He's stinking it up even worse than Poole did.
Carmelo Anthony has announced his retirement from professional basketball. Shoulda been on our roster this season rather than PBJ or Rollins. It is what it is.
If you remove teams with players with multiple championships playing as the clear number one player on their team in at least one of those championships - Lebron, Steph, Kawhi, Duncan, Kobe, Wade, Jordan, Olajuwan - you remove 28 of 32 championship teams back to 1991 (Chauncy Billups' Detroit Pistons in 2004, Paul Pierce's Celtics in 2008, Dirk Nowitski's Dallas Mavericks in 2011 and Giannis' Bucks in 2021). I think this comes down fairly simply to the fact that the blueprint is that you almost always have to have one of those guys, and Tatum and AD (and Paul, Harden, Booker, Embiid, and KD for that matter) don't show any signs of having the intangible things it takes for those guys to be Him. Jury is now officially out at this very moment in time on Jokic. Or Jimmy Butler gets to be Chauncy.
Boston's cautionary tale is something for the GS front office, whoever they may turn out to be, to consider this summer as they ponder the last 3-5 years or so of Steph's career. Personally, I'm on, and have been on, the "get rid of whoever you have to to maximize those years" bandwagon, and I mean "whoever", because one day far too soon, Steph's not walking through that door. Unless you truly believe Jonathan Kuminga can be that guy, (and as much as I like him, and I do, I'm not convinced at all he'll ever approach being Tracy McGrady, much less Kobe) two timelines with moderate success just puts you in Indiana Pacers hell at that point. Win now. Lose later and draft high, and see if you can't get another one.
I hope the Celtics don’t break up the core but I heard a podcast midseason i believe Zach Lowe talking to one of the beat writers for the Celtics and said writer happened to mention that there was defn friction from Jaylen Browns part after he was included in trade talks for KD. Speculated that since KD and Tatum were friends, thT Tatum probably greenlit any potential move.
I'm going against the tide, picking the Lakers, only because I want to see the sporting press go crazy watching an NBA finals between a couple of play-in winners.
Ah yea, how can you not love how Butler is performing this post season (and I know some folks have long memories about his impetuous youth, but I rate the performance in front of me as impressive).
Grr, lost my comment. To wit, I’m cheering for Strus, Martin, Vincent and Robinson. Great underdog story and so much fun to see them step up under the brightest lights. Good for them!
Looking at Twitter* it seems more clear every year that sports talk and culture has been twisted from celebrating greatness and great moments to the vast majority of people trying to sadistically kick any team who loses over and over and over again with the same generic "they're frauds" "they choked" and the usual hyperbolic claims that everything the losing players have ever accomplished needs to be completely reevaluated, the histories rewritten, or whatever words capture the imaginations of people this dishonest.
I'm not sure who these people are really rooting for underneath it all, hell I'm sure some of them are Warriors fans, but the way people act suggests they really think every time they open their mouth they have to take every opportunity to insult everything and everyone that's not their one true love, to hyperbolize and push everything else down like every single word that comes out of their mouth has to be a power grab in some great collective writing of history.
I'd love for incredible outcomes in sports to be more often about the simple fact of the winners accomplishing something unbelievable again, instead of whatever the weird sicko vibes people seem to have given themselves over to as inevitable ever since they started spending hours a day on social media.
*(famous last words, I know)
Enjoying listening to the Simmons podcast from May 19, where he says that he's not yet concerned about the Heat.
Boston had 21 offensive rebounds - Miami had 1
Butler only scored 16 on 13 shots.
Bam took 5 shots and had 3 rebounds.
And yet....
Crazy.
Celtics had a #1 defensive efficiency since the ASB, while Heat had a #24 defensive efficiency since the ASB.
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/top-team-defensive-rating-since-the-all-star-break
However, Heat have a #4 defensive efficiency this postseason, while Celtics have a #10 defensive efficiency this postseason.
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/top-team-defensive-efficiency-postseason-this-year
Watched the game tonight. Wtf what a shredding. Utter failure and humiliation for the Celtics. I enjoyed every minute.
We're not going to magically get a Bam clone out of nowhere, but we must get at least one decent inside presence (offensive or defensive, hopefully one of each) in the off-season. It's the only way to help smooth out the insane variance, both within a game and throughout the season.
Jaylen Brown has clearly been at a loss for words tonight. Lots of long pauses and "I don't know." He's in a tough spot, of course.
https://twitter.com/JaredWeissNBA/status/1660488305840988163
This undrafted player stuff is mad disrespectful to those guys. Them boys making a living just like everybody else.
https://twitter.com/Money23Green/status/1660456222674538497