Sure but there are natural leaders. Dame didn't want to step on LMA's toes when he joined the team either. He was just naturally the kind of guy that people follow. He's a true type A kind of guy. He doesn't need to demand that people follow him. They just do it naturally and that's what drove LMA crazy. He could never understand true leadership. Ant is more of a wall flower. Super quiet.
I won't bow down to your colon butt I do think those are great questions that lead any logical thinking person to the conclusion that this has a better chance of working than I've been giving it.
technically...I think it is a travel because he takes 3 steps after picking the dribble. I think it's also a violation of the 'spirit' of the rule because those steps create an advantage. The reality is the NBA often awards successful and pretty plays because they are pretty but it is a close call and I've seen when players have taken 7 or 8 steps and not be called
Spelling Police LOL!!! Hard to imagine how a more feeble response. Did you roll on your back, wimper and take a leak after that post? Good grief man... STOMP
An All-Star would be nice, but I'll take a star scoring guard (like Dame or Ant) surrounded by solid team players with size/length who D up. "A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group — that's teamwork. The star of the team is the team." John Wooden STOMP
If you Ok with that, I have no problem. But.... How many teams have won NBA championships in the last 15 years with only 1 all star? That's my concern.
Having had some formative years in Winston-Salem, I was a huge Chris Paul fan and was crushed to see Portland pass on the opportunity to draft him. The board was in love with John Nash's incredible wisdom (he'd answer your email!) and his pick from the year prior, Sebastian Telfair. I kept pointing out during Telfair's rookie year that he couldn't shoot, but the board was sure would turn into a huge star and they didn't want two sub 6 footers paired in the backcourt. STOMP
You need 2 All Stars and at least one player who is an All Star and All Defensive Team member. If you have two All Stars and neither is a notable defender, you're not winning a championship. The second all star may arise after the team starts winning a lot of games. What Lillard or Ant needs is an NBA All defensive team member, or someone who could be that in the future.
Basketball doesn't really work like that. Nobody on Phoenix was an all-defensive team AND all-star guy last year and they got to Game 6 of the Finals in a very competitive series. The all-star selection process for individual players is a terrible way to guage whats possible for a TEAM. If you have two stars and a role player, why is having the star be the elite defender better than the role player? Does that really make the team better simply because the guy who's good on offense is the good defender over the guy that's just a role guy offensively? There's so many arbitrary evaluation systems thrown around that doesn't really get to the point. The teams combination of offense and defense has to be good enough to compete and then the breaks have to go your way. There's no arbitrary cutoff line that determines whether you absolutely can compete or absolutely can't. Ant and Dame do need good defenders around them so I don't disagree with that. But 3 really good defenders that are non-defensive team guys is better than one all-defense elite defender and two average guys. Also, average defenders can put together an above average defense by playing hard, playing on a string, communicating, and executing whatever the gameplan is. A teams defense is never exactly the sum of its individual parts.
We are talking about winning the finals ( I believe). Phoenix didn't win. They lost 4 games in a row. That is not a competitive series. I'm looking at the history of the champions, not the teams who lost in the finals. Because of the way the NBA is set up (like most leagues) the two best teams don't necessarily make it to the finals. I do agree that All Star and All Defense selections are arbitrary. It may come later or earlier. Chris Paul is a 12 time All Star and a 7 time All Defensive first team member. Edit: Only by looking at history, it looks very very unlikely to win a championship with a team that has no All Defense Team members (whose selection may not be the year they win the championship). Edit 2: To win a championship. really what you want is your best player to be one of the best players in the league. The only team I can think of where the best player wasn't an All Defensive Team member is Golden State, if you consider Steph Curry to be their best player. Golden State may be the template for such a team. But they have Draymond Green, who is a 4 time All Defensive first team member, and the defensive player of the year in 2017. And Klay Thompson, he's made the All Defensive 2nd team once.
He is also above 50% this year on from 3-16 ft out. That’s compared to Dame’s 38% and CJ 45% career. If he can just figure out how to play D and how to get to the line... super star...
Just remember- Simons had 37 and 9 in his first start of his career, last night of the season. Maybe he was always this good? But had to wait his turn behind Dame?
Behind CJ it seems. I remember that game well its when I first caught a glimpse of what we are seeing now. I thought for sure he’d take ofd the next season but Stotts was gonna Stotts. So grateful he finally got his chance. He’s gonna be special.
Stop trolling me man. The team is better than I thought it would be. I'm not alone in that. You go extremely positive every time. You are wrong a helluva lot. Most people have just decided to tune out your nonsense. So when you go positive every time it's just like when Aldo goes negative every time, sometimes you will be right and most people that take an approach that is more nuanced than worshiping everything this team does will be wrong but if I took the time to find all of your Stotts loving bullshit, your Olshey is always right nonsense, your takes about what success for our team is, your terrible predictions about series that we would win... I would be spending all of my time showing you all of the times you're wrong. I have no interest in doing that. Again, I was wrong. I get things wrong a lot but seriously your perspective on this team is fundamentally wrong, we can fuck up, we do fuck up, we're never as good as you say we are... if we were we would have won a shit ton more playoff series than we have over the past decade. I don't usually mind your reckless optimism but get the the fuck off of my back.
