Every team beats somebody with injuries in the playoffs. You have to be lucky AND good to win the championship.
Yeah you're looking at this wrong. People bringing up Portland beating a lot of injured teams during their late season run are simply saying not to read too much into it in terms of expecting playoff success. Also, you have a lot of people still on the result=good coaching train with no context, so they need context added for them. The context being: The Blazers could play a poor style of basketball and still win off talent because other teams were missing their talent. They could beat Denver playing a poor style of ball too, Denver isnt built to exploit it. The ENTIRE point when it comes to coaching and beating injured teams: The Blwzers havent consistently shown that they can play a good style of basketball that'll give them a chance against true contenders, and that is what Stotts should be evaluated on. Has nothing to do with asterisks.
Bones, not sure if you caught my other post but im not talking aBout coaching. So im not sure how i could be looking at this wrong? This is irrelevant of coaching. im just asking if teams get an asterisk or not when winning against a team with top players out due to injury. What the opinions are, regardless of who is the coach of said teams. Plenty of coaches threads. This is not one. Im just asking if injuries deserve an asterisk or not.
Oh, I read this... "So lots of talk about teams not being legit if they beat others without thier best players or key players" ...as you making a point against the people that have been mentioning how the Blazers have gotten away with playing team after team with a star or two injured during their hot stretch that others are reading a lot into, so my response was based on that interpretation. My bad for misinterpreting.
Asterisks don't matter, if they even exist. Health is something that winners almost always rely on, and very few really good losing teams are ever at full strength.
I don't believe there's much value in putting asterisks on things, except this thread.... http://www.sportstwo.com/threads/this-is-the-worst-blazer-team-i-have-seen-in-my-lifetime.360756/
all good. Dont read into it. Its just that. Ive heard alot of talk not just on this forum about teams beating teams with star players out. Im kinda on the fence as to whether champs should have an asterisk or not. So I'm just looking for other takes is all. For example. If the blazers beat denver without murray, Lakers without ad and utah without mitchell snd we win it all, would that be an asterisk considering how many injuries we had this season, or would it be legit?
If we advance it’s not an asterisk, but in regards to saving Stotts job it should be a consideration, depending on how that series goes. Struggle with a Murray-less Nuggets and then get swept in the next round... vs Sweep the Nuggets and competitive / win in the next round. Sweep then struggle also isn’t very promising. Same answer as above with Murray for Mitchell. You’re not talking about low end rotation players. You’re talking about arguably the #1 guy on both teams. (I’d need to look at Murray usage vs Jokic but that’s why I said arguably, no question Jokic is the better player though.) and not sure about Conley. No, the Lakers still had to make it out of the West. No, Raptors still made it out of the East. No No No the difference is, we face teams in the first round who are severely injured. We win, then we get dominated. other teams face injured teams in the finals ... after beating multiple healthy teams to get there. So if we beat a weakened Nuggets, a weakened jazz, then get dog walked (per usual) by the first healthy team we face... I’ll say yup, probably benefited from injuries. If we smash all the teams we play and then the Nets lose Durant and Irving, nah, no asterisk. Even if *I think they’d win* healthy, we proved we belonged by beating all the teams we did to get to the dance in the first place. Clippers series isn’t comparable to the rest at all. We won after **all their good players got hurt** then got dog walked in the next round. You bet that’s an asterisk. You know what isn’t an asterisk? Getting bombed by a New Orleans Pelicans team. and what the hell does us missing players during the regular season have to do with the post season? yea we were probably better than a 6 seed but what gives why would us missing players in January matter to who we are playing right now odd question And Zach doesn’t even compare to the players listed so that’s laughable
it seems like you really want this to be black and white and not contextual at all if every team we play is missing their best player, how is that not an asterisk? conversely if we run into one team missing their best player and still win a chip — no, not an asterisk. It also appears you’ve changed your point from playoff series to “champs” in the last couple posts.
By then we will have Sharks with Lazer beams attached to their heads to take out those asteroids before they can hit us. Will the Earth then need an asterisk?
Its not changed, its simply clarified. Answer it or don't. No i don't want context. I don't want another thread about coaching. When a team beats teams with their main players out is it an asterisk? In the regular season and in the playoffs? In the finals? is it an asterisk in the playoffs but not in the regular season? im just looking for other peoples’ takes because I'm unsure myself. consider it an odd question if you want. I wont slam you for it though...or call you a liar or anything else...
in the playoffs, Portland is: * 6-10 with Robin Lopez * 5-6 with Mason Plumlee * 8-8 with Enes Kanter 1-8 with Jusuf Nurkic he'll need to turn that number around, a lot, before he should get credited with significant playoff impact personally, in this modern NBA, unless a C is as offensively talented as Embiid or as defensively talented as Gobert, I don't think they can have that big of impact. Maybe if it's a big with SF skills like AD or diverse skills like Pau Gasol
Maybe an asterisk-shaped asteroid will hit us and drill an asterisk-shaped hole all the way through the earth. Sharks with laser beams? Ha! They can kiss my asteroid.
kinda where i lean overall too. In the end its who won and who didnt and after five years or so will anyone remember who was injured when? for the record i don't consider zach a factor. He may have been a starter but hadn't proved his impact on the court to justify an asterisk for him being out.
