Around the NBA - the 2020 Playoff Edition!

You are being negative as usual but also as happens often you have a point. I want to start off by saying to you again, making it to the WCF and getting swept out being grouped with other sweeps is ridiculous. That being said, you are right that this team isn't where it needs to be. If by blowing it up you mean hold onto Dame, Nurk and Gary but then do what you need to with the rest of the roster to get a team around Dame and Nurk of guys like Gary who really compliment them... then I'm all for it. Oh and I'm not saying Gary is a third best player, ideally we would keep him to be our fifth best player but three and D guys like him are very hard to come by and he is perfect in the back court with Dame. Everyone else can go. I think Dame and Nurk are really special and I think Gary (at his own level) is headed in that direction. We need defensive minded guys at the three and the four one of which is a real star. Then we need a bench.

 

Let’s bring Spo home.

 

ugh jesuit, but yup.

 

Wow Bam with a big shot. How the hell did Neil grade Collins over Bam? What a fuck up

 

Long list of those

 

I didn’t write it. But it doesn’t shock me, my opinion is pretty widely agreed on outside this forum

 

But yes that’s exactly what I’m saying. We gotta shake it up big time. Mind you Im a big cj fan but this isn’t working. Keep Dame Nurk and Trent and see what we can do blowing the rest up. We are played out and stale it’s getting boring same results every playoffs

 

This is not a comparison that's going to mean much to anyone here, but the Heat remind me of Leeds United under Marcelo Bielsa. He took a mid-table side with no star players and installed a system that relies on everybody being prepared to defend AND attack, and requires ridiculously insane fitness levels. (That, and the fact that he does notoriously ridiculous amounts of research on opponents and possible prospects, is why he's referred to as "El Loco".) And it resulted in a top 3 finish followed by winning the division by 10 points. The Heat just outwork everybody. It helped that they acquired a player in Jimmy Butler who was born for that and thrives under it.

Which leads me to wonder - who's the Next Jimmy Butler, by which I mean, lightly regarded coming out of college but made himself into a star by pure force of will? Kawhi is of course the luxury model, but he was drafted above Butler. Wes is the economy model, as is Trent, but neither is as versatile as Butler. Butler is one of those guys (like CP3 and LeBron) who just NEED to win so badly it even grates on their teammates.

 

Jimmy Butler throwing the ball away under his own hoop, up 4 with 10 seconds left.

Butlers or Spoelstra's fault? Or Both?

 

Everybody who acquires Butler gets immediately much better. And then he leaves a year later. (Admittedly, I think he may have found a home in Miami, but he's left the ruins of Chicago, Minnesota and Philly in his wake.)

 

Maybe the NBA MVP needs the Bubble MVP...

 

that was not a foul!

 

That was an awful call.

 

that's blatantly taking away a sure victory.

 

javie is outright lying.

 

Make up call.

 

Two mistakes don't make it right.

 

Horseshit officiating on both the last plays

 

well, that's not really a foul either, but it's the fair thing.