I actually agree with this. Harden is a beastly player, the only thing I always disliked about him were his flops. Even if he didn’t do that so much he would still be very good. I agree though, harden deserved it and honestly it’s looking like that so far this season too. Carried the load without cp3, puts up insane numbers. I think Westbrook’s triple double average was overhyped last year. By far. He’s great just over rated and this season kinda shows that.
Indiana isn't surprising to me. People were focusing too much on what they lost instead of what they had.
OKC has the same problem we have. When one of their Big 3 struggles, they can lose to anyone. Problem is, their big 3 is less cohesive than ours.
Is it though? I mean the clear best teams in the West are the top 3 seeds already. One of which might be even more elite than the other two... As their best player has yet to suit up this year. Then you have 4-11 or 12th seed in the West able to beat one another on any given night. Not one of these teams is better or worse than the others. East the Cavs are figuring it out, Boston is showing to be just as good if not better than last year. Detroit, NYK and Indiana are shockingly decent. Wiz, Miami, Bucks are inconsistent but they're also not clearly better than the teams above them. I think this year is pretty predictable. The top 4 or 5 teams are clearly superior. While the rest battling for playoff seeding aren't clearly better than the others battling for those same spots
Ehh, San Antonio isn't better than those two teams. Aldridge will regress when he's asked to be the #2 option. Look at the few number of games seperating each team. It's so bunched.
I think it'll stay this way throughout the year. I don't think 4-12 anyone will really separate. It will aggravate fan bases because they think their team is 'so much better than this'. But it's not about the team they follow imo. It's about the teams being so evenly matched. As far as Aldridge regressing. It's possible. But it's also possible Pop has finally found the right button to push. Parker has yet to suit up as well. I think the Spurs are far better than they look right now.
The problem with OKC is their offense is literally just ISO ball. We may be last in assists but a lot of that has to do with guys just not hitting shots. OKCs offense doesn’t even encourage ball movement. Presti got too cute with the Melo trade. Can’t wait until Melo finally lands in Portland where he should’ve been to begin with.
For us I give to end of December that will a real clue where ever one is setting and you might see some seperation below the 8th seed.
It was you who said at least 8 below by playoffs. Then you backtracked. I never said Magic would make playoffs. I took your bet of 8 below and then you changed it. Stop rewriting history.
Westbrook 31st in PER. In other words, a perfect 2nd option. Which is what he was when he got to NBA Finals.
The Tony Parker we knew is never coming back. Spurs will always be good as long as Pop is coaching. That's a fact. But Tony was already falling off big time before he tore his quad tendon. There are a lot of miles on those legs.
Hold on, did you just call the MVP of the NBA a “2nd option”? You just can’t make this kinda shit up!
Russ is a mentally fragile stat padder, a rich man's Agent Zero. That he was MVP says way more about the league at the time than about him.
You thought they'd be over .500, correct? This is what you said at the time. So you obviously did think they'd be an above .500 team at the all-star break. I thought they'd be 8-games under. I said let's meet in the middle at 4-games under and you tried to say that I was back tracking. Lmao. I'm giving you more leverage because I'm giving you 4-games under .500, when you think they're above .500. But nooo, you don't back up another classic, asinine Kingspeed opinion and try and say I backed out. You tell me "Stop rewriting history" when you said "You really don't think the Magic aren't a playoff team?" then said "I never said they were a playoff team". Quit with this bullshit. Don't start this shit with me.
As a Rocket fan that witnessed the Harden/Lawson/Dwight trio... Yeah, I don't see it happening. They remind me so much of that team, it just doesn't look right and the offense isn't going to make it better. Donovan is on McHale coaching level when it comes to offense. I know they beat the Warriors...but I'm just going to go with the Warriors just being a bit more apathetic this season than usual. With Paul George and Melo both being FAs at the end of the season, the longer this team hovers around .500 the more likely they are to implode. I mean this is good for you guys, it means Melo and/or George could be traded.
2014 playoffs(last time TP was balling and the Spurs won it all) 31.3 mpg 17.4 ppg 48% shooting 4 assists, 2 rebounds 2017 playoffs(TP was balling) 26.4 mpg 15.9 ppg 52% shooting 3 assists, 2 rebounds But he was easily their second best player in the playoffs. Small sample size, blah blah blah. Playoffs are always small sample sizes. Now do I think a 35 year old Parker is going to fully recover from the injury he suffered? Idk.
Otto Porter is a fantastic player and he would be so perfect here. He has a huge contract though and we would have to send significant assets back to match it, and we cannot even offer CJ because they have Beal (not that I would offer CJ for him). If Harkless were playing better maybe we could sell them the idea of Harkless, Vonleh, Davis/Aminu and two first round picks which would vastly improve their bench but it's not going to happen so we have to look elsewhere. Taking Mirotic or Portis from Chicago could be an option. Or taking Randle from Lakers. Or Saric from 76ers, can play at small forward too. Problem is we don't really have any worthwhile assets to trade. Jonathon Simmons and Evan Fournier are another two great targets but again, do we have anything Magic would like?
