Let’s call it what it is: Buddy Ball. LeBron and Wade did it in Miami, Durant did it in Golden State and is now doing it in Brooklyn, and now Leonard and George are doing it in LA. NBA stars now apparently feel entitled to not just win multiple championships, but to do it the easy way by rigging the system so they can team up with their superstar buddies at the same time. And which destinations do they choose for their championship parties? Almost always big market teams like LA, New York or Miami. The small market teams don’t get to play this game. Poor Kawhi Leonard. I guess winning titles in San Antonio and Toronto just wasn’t satisfying enough for him. What he really needs to make him happy is to win a title in his home town, even if it means he has to decimate the Thunder team in order to play with his buddy George.
Players are more conscious about there importance ... instead of just being toys for overrated GMs (aka Colangelo, Whittsit, ...etc). There was an option for George to join Leonard in Toronto. Ujiri refused, because OKC insisted to add Westbrook and take Siakam back to OKC.
This buddy ball is a bit annoying, but I suspect the ratings next year will be up and the owners will like that. Owners tried to fix the movement with the super max contracts, but they seem to have little effect. Unless there is a prolonged lockout and franchise tags are added to the NBA, this seems like the new normal.
Can we now officially scrap the seeding of the Playoffs and go to a 1-16 format? The East is going to suck.....again. Clippers (West) Bucks Jazz (West) Nuggets (West) Blazers (West) 76'ers Warriors (West) Lakers (West) Rockets (West) Celtics Pacers Spurs Mavericks Nets Heat Magic 7 of the top 9? Who knows but it is definitely tilted to the West.
There should be a franchise option like the NFL has. A team could annoint one player, for which they have bird rights, the franchise player, meaning they could only become a rfa.
All teams should play the same opponents. having to face the toughest teams more often ... skews the whole #wins
Right now the west both has to play much harder teams in the season and much harder playoff seeding. Just fixing seeding is fine by me, the strength of schedule isn't as glaring an issue. Hell maybe this is the season to finally force a change. I could see the Lakers being a borderline playoff team but a record similar to the 3rd seed Indiana Pacers.
WOW even Dame gave up <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Lol sound good <a href="https://t.co/ZyzVae2pMl">https://t.co/ZyzVae2pMl</a></p>— Damian Lillard (@Dame_Lillard) <a href="">July 6, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Well think of it this way, the employer is actually the NBA, not the team. The employer is just saying you can't transfer to the Denver branch. It happens. I'm not for that rule for the record.
I don't see anything wrong with this version of the NBA. I love it actually. Players get to get screwed by other players (PG13, Russell Westbrick or Durant Westbrook). Players are the biggest assets to the sport. Not owners. If I inherited money from my dad, I could own an NBA Franchise too. I hate how the NFL is run. To me, the NFL is a slave plantation.
What I hate is that between the Clippers and the Lakers, it feels like an LA team will be the broadcast game on TNT, ABC or ESPN about ~80% of the time.
...this 1000%!! Not sure it would get much better than Grandpa LeBron and Glass Davis letting a bunch of purple and piss fans down
Eh. I see this as a lot different than Durant going to the Warriors or had the Lakers gotten Kawhi and surrounded their big three with a bunch of ring-chasers. Yeah, it does seem a bit like tampering that Kawhi apparently asked PG to request that trade, but oh well, they are people. But it's a lot different having two superstars on one team than three. The salary cap makes it hard to fill out a quality roster from top to bottom. In this case, your two best players are coming in together and orchestrated the move together, and, as good as the Clippers did last year, that might mess with their chemistry. Plus, I think PG's shaky as a leader type. There is not a team in the NBA right now to whom the Blazers should be seen as a prohibitive underdog. Not a one. I could see about six different teams winning the West next year. None would surprise me, and Portland's one of them. I could see about nine teams winning the NBA next year. None would surprise me, and Portland's one of them.
Those type of owns have become fewer and fewer. Inheriting money from dad is not enough anymore. You now need Billions! But if you could become a billionaire Tech owner then I would say your chances are much better.
