BGleas

Can he? Yes. Am I optimistic he'll get it done at this point? No.

Feel bad for Embiid of course. As a Celtics fan, I'd love for him drop to us at #6. For the top 2-3 picks you can't gamble on his health, but at #6 it's worth the gamble. Hope he's still there.

By the way, Bronk, not that it's probably even on the table. But, I reserve the right to completely jump ship and reverse my stance on this issue should the Celtics somehow be able to land Kevin Love, dump enough salary, and convince LeBron James to come to Boston to join Rondo and Love.  :biggrin:  

Agree with your premise. But, the bottom line is, for this team to overachieve we're going to need Hanner and Davis to surprise/step-up.    We need Davis to be the next Oladipo. Not to that level necessarily, but you get what I mean. In terms of guys with more his style/position, we need him to be the next Draymond Green or Kenneth Faried, etc.    There are a lot of guys out there that were somewhat underanked or under-recruited because they were PF's in a SF's body, or tweeners so to speak, but became great college players because size/length isn't as important as it is in the NBA. We NEED Davis to be one of those guys.    It's almost crucial to IU being a team that overachieves and really surprises people, or the other way to IU being an 18-19 win team on the bubble or in the NIT.   

I don't know that the balance of power is much of an issue though, because if you've noticed I haven't discussed the 80's Lakers too much, part of that is I followed the Eastern Conference more as a kid, but the other reason is the West wasn't nearly as deep as the East in the 80's. Those things are just cyclical. Agree, regardless of the era and how they're constructed, there will always be "super" teams. Luckily there's options for everybody. In the 80's you could pick between the Showtime Lakers and the more Blue Collar Celtics. Now you can pick between the "built from scratch" Spurs and the Heat. I could talk the history of basketball all day, definitely enjoy this topic and discussion as well!

Love the thread topic, just not sure how to respond, since I think how you play defense can/should really vary somewhat based on the opponent.    In general, given our speed, quickness and athleticism, I think we should be trying to pressure and force as many turnovers as possible. Also, being a perimeter oriented team and with some really good free throw shooters, we should be trying to force as many turnovers as possible, in order to get in transition, get easy buckets and really put pressure on the opponents defense.    The only issue with really forcing the tempo with our defense and playing a real pressure defense, is that you need a rim protector because you'll give up drives doing that, and we don't know if Perea can do that consistently yet. 

You don't see a difference between Jerry Krause scouting a little known forward out of Central Arkansas (Pippen) and engineering a draft trade for him and then the organization developing him alongside Jordan, as opposed to LeBron, Wade and Bosh spending an entire season figuring out how they can all end up in Miami together? Pat Riley figured out how to make the numbers work, but those guys ending up together was all them.    You don't see a difference between Red Auerbach surrounding Larry Bird with Kevin McHale, Robert Parish and Danny Ainge through trades and smart drafting, and LeBron, Bosh and Wade spending the Olympics the year before figuring out how they can all end up on the same team?   You can dismiss what Jordan actually said and what actually transpired in real life for what you think he might have been thinking, but Jordan didn't spend the 86 offseason trying to get Isiah, him and Barkley together because they couldn't beat the Celtics by themselves, he spent the offseason figuring out how to beat them.   It's not like when Pippen and Grant were drafted everyone said "Now the Bulls are legit, they got a future HOF'er in Scottie Pippen". The Bulls targeted Pippen in the draft and worked a trade for him and then developed him. If we're going to be accurate with history, Jordan was very frustrated with Pippen during their losses to the Pistons in the playoffs, but Jordan didn't bail and go join Ewing in NYC and orchestrate getting Barkley there too, he got in the gym and worked his butt off to beat the Pistons.    There's just a different mentality in basketball these days. Part of it is the AAU scene, these guys grow up buddies instead of competitors, part off it is the media scrutiny when losing and part of it is instant gratification instead of working to defeat your competitors.   I prefer the older days instead of all these players figuring out how to get together because building and developing their own teams is too hard.    

A couple things, in the 80's there were only 24 teams so you had to have 2-3 HOF'ers just to compete to get to the Finals. The Celtics had to contend with the Erving/Malone/Cheeks/Toney Sixers, who went to the Finals in 80, 82 and 83, an up and coming Detroit team, Jordan's Bulls and even Dominique and the Hawks. I didn't even mention Milwaukee, who was pretty good back then too. Also, the Celtics and Lakers were built through smart drafting and smart trades. Red Auerbach drafted Larry Bird a year before he actually came out,in order to secure his rights. He traded for Kevin McHale and Robert Parish, etc. he drafted Danny Ainge and convinced him to quit basketball. The list goes on. I don't know as much about the Lakers, but know they were built pretty similarly. Like Jordan said when LeBron went to Miami (paraphrasing) "I didn't want to play with Barkley, Magic and Larry, I wanted to kick their butts".

You missed an absolute masterpiece by the Spurs. I grew up on 80's basketball, with the Celtics, Lakers, Sixers, etc., those were great years in the NBA, but if someone asked me how to play basketball and I could show them one team, this Spurs team might be the video I show them.    They were so much fun to watch, I'm almost sorry the series is over just because I don't get to watch them anymore.   

Players care about both. The reality is, most coaches default to just throwing their starters in at the end of the game and players know that. Most players spend the offseason talking about how they want to crack the starting lineup, from my days playing it's actually talked about more than discussing the end of the game, because you know if you're a starter then you'll probably be in at the end. I didn't say anything about Troy.

Players absolutely care about starting.

Hoetzel is on a different level than Ethrington and Hartman as shooters. It's actually a misconception that Ethrington is a great shooter. I didn't, but I recall many that did see him play in high school saying he wasn't really a shooter.

The thing about the turnovers last year was that SO many of them were boneheaded and unforced by the players. I put a lot of that on the players, what I put on Crean is that it seemed to get no better as the season progressed. Towards the end of the year, especially as young players are more used to the speed of the game, the boneheaded turnovers should have gone way down.

No, it's been pretty commonly discussed that Phil Jackson's pitch to Carmelo is to not opt out this summer and then wait for the Knicks to clear space and make a run at another super star next summer, primarily James. This talk of Carmelo joining them in Miami is the new part.

My bad, just saw the ESPN article about Miami pursuing Melo.

Unless something changed today, what I was always hearing was that Melo would stick it out another year with New York and then LeBron and Bosh would opt out after next year and join him.

The issue with that is that I'm not sure I ever would have "bought" Hill as a viable NBA point guard. He's just not really a point guard, he's a combo guard.   

Long way to go. Spurs needed this one, now Miami needs the next. If it goes back to SA 2-2 it's anyone's series.

Huge win for the Spurs! They had to have that one.

I think the Spurs really need to win tonight. Miami rarely losses 2 in a row, so losing tonight and then winning both Games 4-5, which they'd almost have to do if they lose tonight, would be very tough for SA.

I'm one of the maybe rarer basketball fans that likes the NBA, just as much if not more, than college basketball. I even worked in the league for nearly 5 years my first job out of college.   But, David Stern could come to my house and knock on the door to personally tell me that Game 6 in 2002 of Kings vs. Lakers wasn't rigged, and I'd call him a liar to his face. There's no other explanation. Either the game was rigged or every ref involved, including the head of officiating for league, should have been fired for incompetence.     It was embarrassing.   

I would love to see Tim Duncan win one last ring. He's been a consummate pro his entire career and is IMO the greatest PF of all-time. A 5th ring would put him on par with Magic, Kobe and a few others. Also, I'd just hate to see guys like Duncan, Manu, Pop, etc. go out with two Finals losses, especially after how last year ended. I'm still stunned at how they blew Game 6 last year.

Now I'm curious, I don't think I saw your deleted posts. :)

I think we all, or at least the vast majority of us, comment that way. Was just letting you know that I made more comments to your point.   

Yes, please read the rest of the thread, I made several more comments to that affect.