NBA Playoffs Thread - 2nd round edition

For anyone like me, can you tell me what it says? It won’t display for me as I have both ad-blockers and don’t allow location tracking.

Thanks.

 

Or they hired Doc Rivers and they sold the farm to get Harden. Rivers hasn’t won shit since he had KG, Allen and Pierce. Harden is a loser. Period.

 

I won't be the guy to defend Doc, though I will say "The Process" has had more than one coach.

I think the point is, that even after 10 years, and A LOT of losing, the hit rate to building an NBA Finals team still isn't very good through tanking for a long long time.

 

The video is queued up to where Embiid says his bit.
"Me and James we just can't win alone."

 

And in those 10 years they have been a much much much bigger threat to win a ring than we have in that time. Their best chance was when they had Butler. I haven’t felt that we were a legit contender in the past 20 years.

 

The problem with this sentiment is the David Robinson and then Tim Duncan Spurs who tanked and then won a championship only to go on to win a few more championships with Duncan. We're hardly the process that tanked for five or more seasons to build the team. We are far more like what the Spurs did.

 

2016-17 & back 12 years, they never finished above 500 once.

 

Well, the Spurs tanked for 1 year. The Blazers are already 2 years in.

Your point, that tanking another 3 years (like some have implied we should do by trading Dame) would put us more in the 76ers "Trust the Process" category. I agree.

 

If your goal is a championship or bust, being more of a "threat" than Portland has been doesn't really matter. My comment was in regards to the group of people who want to trade Dame but say trying to build around him won't be enough to put the team over the top and just being more of a "threat" isn't good enough.

I'm trying to think of a championship core of players in the last 20 years who were all lottery picks of a team who actively tanked for 3+ years. It doesn't seem like a true championship strategy.

 

I don't want Dame traded, but if it happens that is exactly what Blazers should do. The only way Portland could add another elite talent, actually two, is thru the draft. And the best way to do that is with high draft picks which require a crappy team

it sure the fuck isn't by trading Dame for Ben Simmons, Nic Claxton and 3 or 4 1st round picks 4-7 years from now; or Tyrese Maxey, Tobias Harris, and a 2030 1st

 

Being a threat at least gives you a punchers chance. If injuries or good matchups break the right way, you might stumble into a ring. We almost did it in 2019 but we didn't have enough talent to get past Golden State and most likely Toronto. Or maybe we did but we weren't healthy enough.

To your point about tanking, unfortunately the rules are different for us. We aren't a big city so we aren't going to attract big name free agents. Our best chance at getting a superstar player is through the draft.... like Dame.

But if you look at the teams in the last 20+ years, most of those teams had stars that they drafted.... or they just went out and got LeBron. There's going to be a massive void when that dude finally retires. So maybe we should just go get LeBron hahaha

I started going down year by year but that doesn't make sense. Over the past 20 years we have seen the same teams over and over and over.

Warriors - 4 championships
Steph - drafted
Klay - drafted
Draymond - drafted

Cavs - 1 championship (5 trips to the finals)
LeBron (drafted/free agent)
Kyrie (drafted)
Love (traded the #1 pick for him)

Spurs - 4 championships (5 trips)
Duncan - drafted
Parker - drafted
Ginobili - drafted

Lakers - 2 rings (4 trips)
Kobe - drafted
Shaq - free agent (on one of those teams)
Gasol - trade

Heat - 3 rings (6 trips)
Wade - drafted
Shaq - trade (1 trip)
LeBron - free agent
Bosh - free agent
Butler - free agent
Bam - drafted

Celtics - 1 ring (3 trips)
Pierce - drafted
KG - trade
Allen - trade
Tatum - draft
Brown - draft

It's depressing how many times the same teams have gone to the Finals, and how many times LeBron has been in the Finals in the past 20 years.

 

Agreed on Rivers, so many playoff chokes.

Harden was great in a few series that nearly beat some all time great Warriors teams including game 7s. I wouldn't say hes a loser, he's won more in the playoffs than Dame.

But yeah Embiid tweat is bad.

 

The 6ers also made a lot of stupid moves, gave up assets for Jimmy Butler only to let him walk, overpaid Horford on a max deal to be a backup center. They legit have talent to be a contender which is something 25 franchises don't have. So even though it hasn't resulted in a title with their sample size of 1, I don't think that proves the process was entirely a poor strategy.

Of course you need some good execution to build a contender. But you also need a long term commitment to one direction. Philly did the process, then changed to Colangeo win now, then flipped to Elton Brand as GM, then pivoted to Morey. All had totally different directions.

 

Too bad the Warriors didn’t show up for Game 7.

 

is this a surprise? there are 40M people in California. The series had Lebron and Curry

 

I hear your point, but I think it's flawed logic.

1. It's hard to obtain one elite talent. So giving up one, thinking there's a decent probability of later obtaining two seems better in theory than practicality.
2. If the Blazers were to be lucky enough to draft two elite talents, they would then have to figure out a way to keep both of those players in Portland. I think Dame has made Blazers greatly over-value how hard it will be for Portland to keep two elite talents with the franchise into their prime.

Where we do agree is the need for more elite talent and that it's difficult to see a trade being out there that gives Portland a legit shot to obtain TWO elite talents in a recent draft.