More Entertaining So Far? 2017 Stanley Cup Final? Or The 2017 NBA Finals?

[IU Hawks fan]

Nhl Fans complain about parity and not knowing the outcome yet how many teams have won the cup in decade? A lot less than the NBA.

You said it was a lot. That was nonsense.

And don't focus on champs - look at conference champs. Everyone knew in October it would be Cavs/Warriors. Who the hell had the Preds in the Final? And the Pens went all the way down to Game 7 2OT! Sure, they were a "safe" pick to get back to the Final, but you couldn't pencil them in.

 

[Paperbagofglory]

You said it was a lot. That was nonsense.

And don't focus on champs - look at conference champs. Everyone knew in October it would be Cavs/Warriors. Who the hell had the Preds in the Final? And the Pens went all the way down to Game 7 2OT! Sure, they were a "safe" pick to get back to the Final, but you couldn't pencil them in.

Preds had a bad regular seasons but look back at odds and expert predictions when they acquired Subban. The consensus was them being one of the favorites in the West.

 

[IU Hawks fan]

Preds had a bad regular seasons but look back at odds and expert predictions when they acquired Subban. The consensus was them being one of the favorites in the West.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...every-nhl-team-at-start-of-2016-17-nhl-season

Working in their favour: The addition of electrifying defenseman Subban will certainly energize the group, and he could have a positively polarizing presence for the Nashville Predators. The team's strength continues to be that deep defensive core—even without former captain Weber. Mattias Ekholm, Roman Josi, Subban and Ryan Ellis is a nice top four for any team.

The young offense is growing into a deep group with plenty of scoring potential, led by Filip Forsberg and Ryan Johansen, who should be more settled in his first full year in Music City.

Working against them: Pekka Rinne used to be a sure thing as a top-level goaltender. But he has struggled with injury in recent years and had no excuses for his decline last season. He finished with a .908 save percentage and 2.48 goals-against average while starting 66 contests in 2015-16. He will turn 34 early in November and has posted a save percentage higher than .920 just once in the past four seasons. He was also up-and-down in last season's playoffs.

Odds: 40-1 - 7th best in the West. They weren't even in the top 3rd

Keep making **** up, it's very entertaining.

Meanwhile:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2667518-nba-preseason-2016-early-title-odds-for-all-30-teams

1 - Golden State: 2-1
2 - Cleveland: 5-1
3-30: Who cares?

 

[Paperbagofglory]

You said it was a lot. That was nonsense.

And don't focus on champs - look at conference champs. Everyone knew in October it would be Cavs/Warriors. Who the hell had the Preds in the Final? And the Pens went all the way down to Game 7 2OT! Sure, they were a "safe" pick to get back to the Final, but you couldn't pencil them in.

I will grant you that its a difference of one Champion. So this huge discrepency in parity is overrated. These last 3 seasons in the NBA had one of the greatest teams of all time even before Durant. Its going to be predictable for a few years. Even The Miami Heat were beaten in the finals and won in 7 against thr spurs in a classic series which was in no way easy to pick a winner. While the NBA can be predictable its rare for it to be this predictable this many years in a row. Golden state is a homegrown team. Blame Lebron for his usual tactics of jumping on the bandwagon of a super team. He started the arms race and the warriors finished it.

 

[Terrier]

I'll just say that the Celtics could have been playing in the NBA Finals last night and I still would have watched the hockey game. Any interest I have in any basketball game is limited to the final minute or two, and that's been a moot point in this year's NBA postseason.

 

[Paperbagofglory]

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...every-nhl-team-at-start-of-2016-17-nhl-season



Odds: 40-1 - 7th best in the West. They weren't even in the top 3rd

Keep making **** up, it's very entertaining.

Meanwhile:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2667518-nba-preseason-2016-early-title-odds-for-all-30-teams

1 - Golden State: 2-1
2 - Cleveland: 5-1
3-30: Who cares?

Nobody can look at the preds roster especially their defense and conclude they should finish that low or with those odds. Their top 4 is stacked. So its surprising that they had such low exectations when hockey fans generally knew better that they had a scary team.

 

[Fugazy]

When Charles Barkley was asked about his job he flat out said "they gotta pay me to fire me. I got a long term contract." I laughed pretty hard. Guy gives zero ****s.

But anyway, I give the edge to the NHL purely because of the Nashville crowd and it's a 2-2 series.

I love Barkley

 

[IU Hawks fan]

Nobody can look at the preds roster especially their defense and conclude they should finish that low or with those odds. Their top 4 is stacked. So its surprising that they had such low exectations when hockey fans generally knew better that they had a scary team.

But you can't look at them in a vacuum. The West looked loaded coming into the season.

They were picked as the 7th best team in the West and ended up 8th, so the prediction was pretty accurate. - unlike other West teams: Dallas, LA, Minnesota, & Edmonton, which were much less accurate

 

[Rorschach]

The NHL has a hard salary cap and the rosters are almost two dozen in size. NBA has a soft cap for just a dozen players.

Is it any wonder there is NO parity?

NHL has a small degree of parity due to the hard cap even though the cap is not 100% designed to maintain parity (it's designed to keep a lid on player personnel costs).

 

[HisIceness]

Stanley Cup. Watching Nashville and their fans doing their thing is awesome and is something I doubt we will ever see in the NBA again. Best comparison I can think of would be the OKC Thunder 5 years ago (small market, relatively new team) and even then, it doesn't touch what Nashville is experiencing and doing right now.

 

[MikeRahl]

7 different Champs in 10 years. To the NHLs 6 in 10 years. I thought the NHL is way less predictable?

I would argue that champions isn't a big indicator of predictability.

At the start of the playoffs, I would think that a Preds-Pens final would be very unlikely. Preds low seed combined with the Pens infirmary of a defense corps made it seem very unlikely.

Just taking a quick look, it looks like the last time a division champion (also the last conference champion) made it to the finals was 2013 (Chicago).

Taking a quick look back at the NBA playoffs, it's very rare that the conference champion isn't a division champion. And it's been a long time since the conference champion didn't have home court in the first round.

The past 2 seasons in the NBA has been a slow burn towards the inevitable Warriors-Cavs finals.

There are strong indications that it will happen AGAIN next year. For Cleveland to get knocked off, they are probably going to need an injury, and some combination of Toronto not getting blown up (looking unlikely), Boston integrating their lottery pick and Thomas balling out of his mind again, the Greek Freak making the leap or Washington finally being able to figure it out.

On the West side, the only thing that will keep the Warriors out of the finals would be a SERIES of injuries, or CP3 ending up on the Spurs, and in that case those Spurs would rank as an all-time great team.

 

[Cassano]

NBA Finals by far. Hockey is the more entertaining sport, but the NHL is a significantly inferior league entertainment wise with all the game management and obstruction being let go.

 

[Diamond Joe Quimby]

Kind of weird how people seem to be penalizing the NBA because its best players and best teams are able to execute and **** the bed....ala the Washington Capitals.

I'll never truly understand the fascination with upsets and the identification with the underdog.

 

[CBJWerenski8]

Last year and in recent years past it hasn't been very close, NBA winning for sure. This year its not close, and the NHL is winning.

 

[CupofOil]

The NBA had always had super teams. The Lakers with Kobe and Shaq were unstoppable. It prevented a great Phoenix Suns team with Steve Nash from winning multiple titles. Also Shaq going to Miami basically guaranteed the Heat a title. Lebron to Miami, Garnett to the Celtics. Because the rosters are so much smaller and the 5 guys on the court play a majority of the minutes, its hard to have parity in that sport to begin with. One guy controls the flow of the game way more than possibly the quarterback in thr NFL. The only team i could say with certainty that won based off a balanced team effort were the Detroit Pistons in 2004 and the Mavericks in 2011 though thats debateable with Nowitzki's amazing performance.

The Spurs teams up until they brought in Aldridge weren't super teams. They were all homegrown guys with random role players shuffled in and out around them.

I'd say that the super team originated with Rodman joining the late 90s Bulls then Payton and Malone (although on their last legs) joining the Lakers for one last run (kind of like the '02 Wings in a sense) before being 5 game swept by the Pistons.

I hated when Durant joined the Warriors. There was great potential for a big time Thunder-Warriors rivalry with San Antonio in the mix but that was all ruined once Durant took the easy way out and decided to join them instead of beat them. The east has been a joke for years. As great as Lebron is, who has been their competition in the last decade in the east? A past their prime Celtics and Pistons team and the Pacers who in any other era don't get a sniff of the Eastern Conference Finals.

 

[Suntouchable13]

The Spurs teams up until they brought in Aldridge weren't super teams. They were all homegrown guys with random role players shuffled in and out around them.

I'd say that the super team originated with Rodman joining the late 90s Bulls then Payton and Malone (although on their last legs) joining the Lakers for one last run (kind of like the '02 Wings in a sense) before being 5 game swept by the Pistons.

I hated when Durant joined the Warriors. There was great potential for a big time Thunder-Warriors rivalry with San Antonio in the mix but that was all ruined once Durant took the easy way out and decided to join them instead of beat them. The east has been a joke for years. As great as Lebron is, who has been their competition in the last decade in the east? A past their prime Celtics and Pistons team and the Pacers who in any other era don't get a sniff of the Eastern Conference Finals.

You clearly have not followed the NBA recently. Raps and Celtics have been their primary competition. Doesn't make a difference to your overall point, but still. Pacers? Pistons? LOL, they have been pretty average teams at best. It's Raptors and Celtics, Wizards in that second tier.

 

[CupofOil]

You clearly have not followed the NBA recently. Raps and Celtics have been their primary competition. Doesn't make a difference to your overall point, but still. Pacers? Pistons? LOL, they have been pretty average teams at best. It's Raptors and Celtics, Wizards in that second tier.

I'm talking about early in Lebron's career when he faced a past their prime Pistons team and same with the Celtics super team. The Pacers team I was talking about was the one he faced when he was on Miami, not this current version.
Bottom line is that the east has been a joke since the late 90s really. Going back to those early 00s Nets teams that had no chance to beat the Lakers or Spurs and a one man Sixers team with A.I.

 

[Paperbagofglory]

I'm talking about early in Lebron's career when he faced a past their prime Pistons team and same with the Celtics super team. The Pacers team I was talking about was the one he faced when he was on Miami, not this current version.
Bottom line is that the east has been a joke since the late 90s really. Going back to those early 00s Nets teams that had no chance to beat the Lakers or Spurs and a one man Sixers team with A.I.

The NBA has a hard time attracting talent to play in the eastern conference. Even big market teams like the bulls and knicks. Nobody wants to come up to Canada and play for the raptors and the Celtics seem to be the only team capable of attracting free agents in that conference. It creates a huge problem with the competition.

 

[Reality Check]

I'm not sure if it's about attracting talent. The East was known as stronger league during the 80's. The 90's was slightly stronger in the West until the 00's where the West has dominated since.

These things tend to ebb and flow.

On a side note, people have forgotten that San Antonio nearly signed either Jason Kidd or Jermaine O'Neal(who was a budding young star at this point) after winning it all in 2003.

Orlando acquired both Grant Hill and Tracy McGrady in 2000. All the while missing out on Tim Duncan. Houston acquired Barkley and Pippen to pair them with Drexler and Olajuwon.

The "super team" isn't some new phenomenon. Nor has it always worked out.

People complain about parity in the NBA while the Knicks have won jack squat in nearly 50 years

 

[berlin]

Basketball blows.

 

[Sleepy]

Nobody can look at the preds roster especially their defense and conclude they should finish that low or with those odds. Their top 4 is stacked. So its surprising that they had such low exectations when hockey fans generally knew better that they had a scary team.

No one knew if Rinne would return to form. And while the D looked good, it didn't look that amazing until it beat Chicago and Anaheim and had Rinne posting a great sv%. I mean, ****, Irwin was a ****ing horrible defenseman for San Jose. I don't know anyone predicting that he'd be very good this year in the playoffs.

 

[syz]

Eh, I'm finding interest in the NBA finals this year more than past years just because this year might have the best team of all time in it.

 

[Mattb124]

Look at the sports fans who don't understand injuries happen.

 

[SkarEffect]

The NBA sucks these days.

 

[Gnashville]

NBA = 2 team league.
24-1 in the playoffs until the Finals and most of those were not close. Why would anyone follow any of these other also rans that have zero chance of winning.