Virtanen18
SAMCRO
They were up 3-1 on the Warriors. That team did not need major retooling to compete for a chip.
Would have loved to have seen him go at least one more year in OKC, cause that series last year was freaking fantastic.
The 2017 NBA Finals Thread: Golden State vs Cleveland
- Thread starter ClassLessCoyote
- Start date
Would have loved to have seen him go at least one more year in OKC, cause that series last year was freaking fantastic.
SB164
Registered User
I like Ty Lue as a person. He seems like a good dude. But holy ****, his coaching in this series was just baffling. Lue's rotations were just god-awful.
JR was in the zone tonight. He had 25 points and yet for some reason they just stopped feeding him the ball. Deron Williams on the other hand is straight trash.
Meanwhile, Kevin Love had as many points as Patrick McCaw tonight (6). Just pathetic.
JR was in the zone tonight. He had 25 points and yet for some reason they just stopped feeding him the ball. Deron Williams on the other hand is straight trash.
Meanwhile, Kevin Love had as many points as Patrick McCaw tonight (6). Just pathetic.
Love's 6 points were downright shocking considering how well he had been playing the first 4 games.
Virtanen18
SAMCRO
Coaches are weird, man. For how great Steve Kerr is, he makes mind boggling decisions all the time. Why Zaza even played in this series is beyond me.
Addison Rae
Registered User
Yes, Lebron James like every other player in the history of the sport needs a good supporting cast to win basketball games and championships.
Let's not pretend that Cleveland was some ridiculous favourite to win the title after the Love trade, it's not even remotely comparable to Durant joining the best regular season team of all time.
What Kevin Durant did is equal to Steph Curry leaving the Warriors last summer to join the Cavs.
The fact that you think it's comparable to Lebron James leaving a Miami team with aging players who didn't even make the playoffs when he left to go to a building team that hadn't sniffed the playoffs since his departure is ridiculous.
This notion that Cleveland is a super team is just non sensical, do they even make the playoffs without Lebron? Debatable
Miami goes from going to 4 straight finals to missing the playoffs without Lebron. Cleveland goes from being annually a bottom 3 team without Lebron to going to 3 straight finals with him. These aren't super team these are teams being carried by a once in a generation talent.
There's no player in the history of any team sport that has this type of value on a team. Micheal Jordan is better than Lebron James, yes but the Bulls won what 3 fewer games without him?
Lebron James has shown is all he needs is a decent supporting cast and he can take you to the promise land. Dwayne Wade averaged 18 and 20 points in the playoffs the two years they won the chip in Miami, this notion that Lebron wouldn't win a ring without him is so ridiculous the fact that he gets hold to this ridiculous standard where he can't receive any help. Dwayne Wade was not a top 5 player in the world when he played with Lebron James, not even close. Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh were solid complimentary pieces, but there was no question who the driving force on that team was. Again they went to 4 straight finals with Lebron James and then missed the playoffs the year after he left, that's ****ing unbelievable and unprecedented in sports.
hatterson
Registered User
Literally the numbers show that Cleveland without Lebron, even with Irving and Love, are barely a playoff team.
Other players need a great supporting cast to turn them into champions. Lebron needs a mediocre team around him.
That's why the criticisms of him losing in the finals are stupid. Those teams had no business being anywhere near the finals without him, they barely deserved to be in the playoffs.
Other players need a great supporting cast to turn them into champions. Lebron needs a mediocre team around him.
That's why the criticisms of him losing in the finals are stupid. Those teams had no business being anywhere near the finals without him, they barely deserved to be in the playoffs.
bluesfan94
Registered User
These numbers are stupid for multiple reasons:
1) You'd assume they'd use LeBron's cap space somewhere else and therefore be better.
2) The system is built around LeBron. You'd assume they'd play differently and emphasize Irving and Love.
3) Related to both, you've shoving a backup in and making him play starter's minutes. Players are in different roles.
4) They've never really played multiple games in a row without LeBron so they don't have any sense of chemistry. That would change.
5) Small sample size.
Hadoop
Registered User
Closing thoughts:
Nowhere close to being as compelling as last year's finals, but I believe that years from now we will look back at the 2017 Golden State Warriors as one of the all-time great teams in this league. The Dubs may well repeat next year, but this year's team was highly motivated, had insane depth and saw KD/Curry/Thompson/Green at the peak of their powers. We are all witnesses to a legend in LBJ, but this year we were also witnesses to a legendary team as well.
Nowhere close to being as compelling as last year's finals, but I believe that years from now we will look back at the 2017 Golden State Warriors as one of the all-time great teams in this league. The Dubs may well repeat next year, but this year's team was highly motivated, had insane depth and saw KD/Curry/Thompson/Green at the peak of their powers. We are all witnesses to a legend in LBJ, but this year we were also witnesses to a legendary team as well.
KallioWeHardlyKnewYe
Hey! We won!
- May 30, 2003
- 15,536
- 3,389
I love Lebron James and will defend him on a lot of fronts but he 100% was building a superteam/Big 3 (whatever we want to call them) in Cleveland.
And you're flat wrong about the odds. The Cavs were THE favorite heading into that season:
http://www.ibtimes.com/nba-predicti...cavs-bulls-lakers-knicks-spurs-finish-1715069
Golden State was a predicted 3 seed and 16-1 for the finals that year.
Not only that but the Cavs were also the favorite the following year after Golden State already beat them.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakeo...-title-odds-despite-finals-loss/#5716a950ea50
That article doesn't cite it but I'm pretty sure the Spurs started the season with the 2nd best odds after the Aldridge signing and dropped the Warriors to #3.
GMs thought so too:
http://www.nba.com/news/features/john_schuhmann/nba-com-2015-16-gm-survey/
LeBron did (twice) the same thing everybody is *****ing about with Golden State. The Warriors just did it better. It's hypocritical to say otherwise.
LeBron didn't move to Cleveland because he has a big heart and wanted to help his home region and maybe, just maybe good basketball would happen. He moved there because he knew there were going to be two younger, talented pieces in place (Pretty open secret the Love deal was in the works) that put him in better position than staying in Miami. I applaud him for it. It was smart. It's also, at its heart, the same thing Kevin Durant did.
weastern bias
worst team in the league
Lebron is putting a quiet stain on his resume that doesn't bode well for his future, he appears to be a pretty bad GM
He's doing a poor job of picking and acquiring championship level supplementary pieces while he has his own incredible talent to build around, I can't imagine he'd do a better job once he's retired and he has to assemble a whole team from scratch
So many all time great athletes have proven to be poor evaluators of talent, like Jordan, like Gretzky, Lebron James is looking like another one of those players
He's doing a poor job of picking and acquiring championship level supplementary pieces while he has his own incredible talent to build around, I can't imagine he'd do a better job once he's retired and he has to assemble a whole team from scratch
So many all time great athletes have proven to be poor evaluators of talent, like Jordan, like Gretzky, Lebron James is looking like another one of those players
Hadoop
Registered User
A lot of critical comments on here. Can't we just sit back and marvel at the quality of basketball we just saw? This kind of team comes along once every 20 years.
EpochLink
Canucks and Jets fan
In terms of all time great team, this Golden State team of 16/17 can be put up there with then 95/96 Bulls, 85/86 Celtics, 00/01 Lakers, 12/13 Heat category.
Quid Pro Clowe
Registered User
Players who take the biggest pay day are criticized.
Players who go to an already great team with the goal to win the championship are criticized.
Make up your minds.
Players who go to an already great team with the goal to win the championship are criticized.
Make up your minds.
Hadoop
Registered User
No way the 12/13 Heat are one of the great teams. They were taken to the full 7 games in both the ECF and the finals, and they needed a healthy dose of luck to overcome the Spurs.
I'd also say this Warriors team is better than the 00/01 Lakers, who had two of the best ever in or near their primes, but did not have quite the stellar support cast to be considered one of the all-time great teams.
Vamos Rafa
Registered User
Addison Rae
Registered User
It is absolutely not the same thing Kevin Durant did, do people just forget about the aspect of leaving a team that was up 3-1 on the defending champions, the best regular season team of all time. Blowing the 3-1 lead and then joining that team a month later?
Kevin Durant left arguably the most talented roster in the league to join the team that beat him, the team that won a chip without him, the team that won the most games in NBA history without him.
Lebron James left two teams that missed the playoffs without him, the reason Lebron James teams are "superteams" are because he's on them. His Miami "superteam" went from going to 4 straight finals with him to not making the playoffs without him. His original Cleveland team went from winning 60 games with him to not even winning 20 without him.
How does this Cleveland "super team" do without Lebron? They probably go from 3 straight finals and beating the best regular season team ever for a chip to competing for a playoff spot.
Hadoop
Registered User
True true. But streaks of any kind are by its very definition statistically a misrepresentation of performance.
e.g.
WWLWWLWLWW
is just as good as
LLWWWWWWWL
SB164
Registered User
To no one's surprise, the Golden State Warriors have voted unanimously to skip their visit to the White House.
Hadoop
Registered User
b1e9a8r5s
Registered User
Chris Bosh's heart issues certainly played a part in the Heat missing the postseason, no?
NJDevs26
Once upon a time...
- Mar 21, 2007
- 67,441
- 31,781
Honestly his Finals record is exactly what it should be. The only series he lost he should have won was the Dallas series. And he won last year's series that he really shouldn't have won.
sjsharks92
Shark Tank Commander
Lebron James is just an absolute beast. He's the greatest of all time in my opinion.
What a year for the Warriors. KD and Steph put on a show the NBA hasn't seen since Shaq and Kobe.
You wanna argue this Warriors team isn't the greatest ever, that's fine. But there's not a team in the history of this sport that would beat them handily. Frankly I'd take this team over any other team in history based on what we've seen them do and talent alone. 4 future Hall of Famers all in the midst of their primes? Yea that's never happened before.
After a year of 3-1 jokes, hearing KD get called a snake, hearing about how Steph is somehow overrated, Draymond's a donkey, etc etc, this title is just so, so sweet.
What a year for the Warriors. KD and Steph put on a show the NBA hasn't seen since Shaq and Kobe.
You wanna argue this Warriors team isn't the greatest ever, that's fine. But there's not a team in the history of this sport that would beat them handily. Frankly I'd take this team over any other team in history based on what we've seen them do and talent alone. 4 future Hall of Famers all in the midst of their primes? Yea that's never happened before.
After a year of 3-1 jokes, hearing KD get called a snake, hearing about how Steph is somehow overrated, Draymond's a donkey, etc etc, this title is just so, so sweet.
sjsharks92
Shark Tank Commander
This past 3 years of basketball has been so underappreciated in the moment.
As with most great things in life, I think it will take a decade or two before people realize how truly incredible it has been to watch Lebron vs the Warriors 3 (possibly more?) consecutive times.
As I stated in my previous post, for my money Lebron is the greatest player of all time and this Warriors team is the greatest team of all time.
sjsharks92
Shark Tank Commander
I haven't been around here in a while but I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not
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