BGleas

Kobe had a game 7 against the Suns where he refused to shoot in the 4th quarter. Of course that was in the first round and not the Finals, but he's done it in the playoffs.

Houston will be interesting to watch. I'm never a big fan of a coach that solely focuses on just one end of the court, but get what Wayne is saying in that if you're hitching your wagon to Harden (who I would never want on my team) you might as well focus on his strengths. Im also intrigued by this from Daryl Morey's perspective. He was at the forefront of the analytics movement in basketball. He was putting analytics systems in place for the Celtics back in the early 2000's, and I know he never cared for Jim O'Brien because all O'Brien cared about was defense, and ignored the offensive analytics that we're being produced. I'm just surprised Morey went with a coach in the complete opposite direction.

And that's not going to happen for a long time. Celtics ownership and Ainge are very loyal to their coaches when they believe he's the right guy.

Maryland will be an interesting one. They lose 4 of 5 starters, but do have Nickens and Dodd back, and Wiley missed all last year with a knee injury so he'll be back. They also have 4 4* recruits coming in. They could be a big surprise, or it could be much like our 13-14 season.

I'd much rather see RoJo start and play big minutes, and use JBJ in a scorer/shooter specialist off the bench role.

Celtics have way more than just the #3 pick to trade. Though as a fan, I want nothing to do with Cousins.

Celtics will do everything they can to trade the pick, but if they don't Ainge will not pick for need, he'll take whoever he thinks is the BPA regardless of need.

I hope they get Darko.

Was really hoping the Celtics would get #1 or #2. Oh well, either way we have a ton of picks and leverage to make moves.

Harden is one of the elite scorers in this league, a lock All-Star, etc. With that said, for me he's in the Carmelo Anthony category, great scorer, but I wouldn't want him anywhere near my team. IMO, you can't win with guys that completely disregard defense and are so ball dominant/ISO guys.

In no way was my comment specific to Troy, I never even mentioned him. Clearly it's a difficult situation for all involved, though a lot times these settings favor guards who typically have the ball in their hands and control things.

That's such a difficult setting, playing with a bunch of guys you've never played with before who are all out to make a specific impression in front of GM's and scouts.

I think they need to decide between VO and Elfrid Payton. It's difficult enough to have one poor-shooting guard in today's NBA, but you can't have two.

My guess is he's talking about hiring a real, established coach like Dixon, and in turn I'm guessing Dixon wanted certain investments made in the program for him to come. Edit: By investments i don't mean paying recruits, I mean things like upgrading facilities, paying assistants, etc.

Yup. Harden is good enough offensively to keep them a borderline playoff team, but so horrible defensively that they'll never be a contender of any significance.

Seems like that would be a fit and make sense. Daryl Morey was the Cheif Information Officer for the Celtics when the current ownership group took over in 2002 and Vogel was an assistant there.

Agree, really hope my C's sneak up into the top 2!!

I don't see a ton of superstar free agents flocking to the Lakers this summer. Obviously, KD is the big fish, but he isn't going to the Lakers as currently constituted. L.A. will need to pull off some moves, ala Ainge getting Ray Allen prior to convincing KG to come to Boston, before KD will go there. He's in his prime, he's not going to rebuild with Russell, Clarkson, Randle, and potentially a rookie from this draft (if LA gets to keep their pick), and he's not going to sign-up until another star is in place. Unless OKC gets swept by S.A. or loses 4-1, which is certainly possible, I think the most likely scenario is KD signing a deal with OKC like LeBron did with Cleveland, which would result in KD lining up his contract with Westbrook's. It will be an interesting offseason though. You've got the Durant decision, and then based on how ping pong balls bounce the most interesting teams of the summer are probably the Lakers and Celtics.

They're D2.

I'm not saying I wouldn't take ours, especially when you add in a freshmen Davis. But, Happ (who I think is going to be a stud next year), Hayes, Brown, and some of their freshmen that came on towards the end of the year for depth is a pretty formidable group too.

I would argue that if Hayes comes back that Wisconsin is the most experienced, and very close, if not better in terms of depth. They're going to be tough next year

I think the problem with the HS coach and/or the player is that nobody wants to hear or believe that they won't/shouldn't get playing time. You always think you're better than a kid or two getting time ahead of you, so even though the conversation may have been honest and above board, to the kid and his HS Coach, he still getting screwed or never got a real shot.

I agree with you, Pap. People like to say it's "forcing out" but that's a very black/white way of looking at situations that are really much more gray. This even happened at my level (D2) all the time. We'd have end of season 1-on-1 meetings with our coach, and there'd always be a guy or two each season that the coach just had an honest discussion with about playing time and their role. It wasnt a straight forward "see ya later, you're off the team". It's more a discussion on the players playing time expectations vs. what the reality is. Most guys think they should be playing more and are expecting a bigger role the upcoming season, when the reality is that the coach is telling them they're unlikely to see the court much again. Then it's a discussion of what does the player want to do, does he want to work his tail off and make this much of a time commitment only to ride the pine again, or if he wants playing time the coach will help him find a program/school that would be a better fit. At the level I played guys would sometimes just choose to stay at the school but not play so they could focus on academics/or having more fun, and some guys would transfer to D3 schools. At the IU level guys typically transfer to a lower level D1 school. But, this happens at every level.

Giannis is definitely the most rounded player, but don't discount McCollumn. He put up slightly over 20ppg this season, shooting nearly 45 from the field and slightly over 40 from 3. Portland doesn't have all the pieces in place, but Lillard and McCollumn are going to be one of the better backcourts in the NBA over the next 4-5 years.

Wow, my view of him is the exact opposite. He went from a guy that was a 2nd round pick, waived twice in the NBA by the Cavs and the Spurs, to working his way into a key starter and excellent defender on a Championship team.