Board 8 > NBA playoffs - where Devin Booker happens

(+) Yeah! (+)

I like good news

The Sixers are now the betting favorite to win the title

Booker banks in a half court heave after the buzzer because apparently the man cannot miss

it's a shame this is a second round match because these are the two most fun teams left

well that escalated quickly

https://twitter.com/chrisoIIey/status/1656117292776804352?t=QmQwJyOzpdPAwCss7zOHNg&s=19

Forceful_Dragon posted...

Not to be that guy, but the 4th quarter officiating tonight was complete bullshit. Lakers got handed the game.

The refs have been handing the Lakers games for decades.

JJ Redick has interviewed for the raptors job. Wonder if he's getting tired of telling everyone how stupid they are whenever the latest controversy comes up

how many point guards with no coaching experience have to flame out before teams realize it's a bad idea

wasn't redick a shooting guard

I think Atkinson seems to be the front runner for a head coaching job

Makes sense given he cant be blamed for the clown car that is Kyrie

Emeraldegg posted...

wasn't redick a shooting guard

Oh right, my bad

Carry on, Toronto

dang, knicks about to blow this

Knicks have no idea how to close out a game, shit is messy.

We're closing in on 60 FT attempts for the game

Oh no my Heat in 5 prediction

AD out late in the 4th. TNT saying he was in a wheelchair after they got him off the court. Might be a concussion?

Thorn posted...

AD out late in the 4th. TNT saying he was in a wheelchair after they got him off the court. Might be a concussion?

Can't wait for the "should the Lakers have rested their starters" takes

already seeing them

Well, more, "should have pulled them in the 3rd when they were down 16" ignoring the fact that they immediately went on a run to end the quarter down 11 which made it feel like they still had an outside chance.

well he isn't concussed

Sounds like AD is going to play in Game 6

Unlike perhaps Ayton for Phoenix and Murray for Denver

Suns might be better off though

Ayton is the most frustrating player I've had the uhh, pleasure of watching. Should be a good game regardless with him in or not.

The thing with Ayton, whether it's effort or not, he gets so many soft calls from the refs it's probably fucking his mentality up. Jock and Biz don't get the same calls as he does. Very infuriating.

my heart died two nights ago just like it did against milwaukee in game 5 last year

glad i get more celtics basketball this year

fucking tatum shooting like 1-17 and just makes three 3s in a row to end the game

time to lose in the comfort of their own home!

Balls of steel from Tatum in the 4th quarter

Suns have no defense and KD is back in brick city. This series is over.

The narrative since 2021 was that the Suns can't beat a healthy team, so surely everyone will cut them some slack due to injuries!

Also just want to say this shows how important Ayton is needed for the Suns paint/interior defense.

So, THIS is how the careers of KD and CP3 end. Tragic

Devin Booger happened yeah that's right I said it

i think in the future this KD trade is going to be looked at as a gigantic mistake from Phoenix. Id estimate theres maybe only one more year where KD is better than Mikal Bridges straight up, and if you consider that Mikal never misses any games his value is even higher. And thats not even mentioning that the trade crippled their bench and ruined any financial flexibility they had moving forward. they basically have to win next year or completely start over (although that wont even be possible for much longer because theyre stuck with these gigantic contracts)

In the future... nah. As a Suns fan I thought it was a mistake the day it was announced. This was one of the biggest, stupidest gambles possible. Some dumbass traded the team's future for at best, AT BEST, two shots at a championship and they bought a lemon. KD was very injury prone and actually out on injury when they picked him up.

If the fans had any real input, that trade would never have happened. Not only that, the person who proposed it would have been fired. They still should be. And as a fan I think the ownership should be forced out as well. They clearly have no idea what they are doing.

You mention Mikal Bridges, who I would have maybe given up for KD in a one for one or perhaps even two for one trade... and nothing else our team's dumbass owner gave up. There is no f'ing way I give up three players and four first round draft picks for KD in any situation where there isn't a literal gun to my head.

It's no wonder to me that the British government is stepping in on the Premier league and suggesting that in the future it may be, by law, that fans themselves may have some degree control over the teams.

Also anyone talking about Ayton being out as a hinderance... that man has what amounts to zero confidence in himself when it is playoff time. I do not, at all, believe he would have made a difference in that game if he was healthy. If Chris Paul had come back, that's another, but totally hypothetical, conversation. Ayton was not going to contribute to that game in any significant way. Even if Landale had put in a literal 0/0/0 it doesn't matter. Changing it to Ayton's typical output we still get cooked.

imo the suns were never winning with that core anyway. cp3 is mostly cooked. at least they did something cool. maybe they can get slightly better depth next year, maybe not - either way they tried and it was cool.

Suns have been doomed since they shit all over Ayton and then refused to trade him when he wanted out. Maybe he still won't perform on a different team but keeping him hostage there was a huge mistake

i mean tbf suns f'd themselves by drafting ayton to begin with when luka was available lol

ayton has always been like this though, not like he's played notably worse since wanting out

I just don't understand why teams keep trying to assemble these stars/scrubs teams. When is the last time it worked? AD/Lebron in the bubble which arguably gets an asterisk?

Emeraldegg posted...

I just don't understand why teams keep trying to assemble these stars/scrubs teams. When is the last time it worked? AD/Lebron in the bubble which arguably gets an asterisk?

The Warriors teams with KD? The Heat? The Cavs? The Raptors and Bucks kinda?

Granted a majority of those teams traded for a number 3 guy and had the fortune of signing KD or LeBron so they didnt completely empty the bucket

Emeraldegg posted...

I just don't understand why teams keep trying to assemble these stars/scrubs teams. When is the last time it worked? AD/Lebron in the bubble which arguably gets an asterisk?

Every time the Suns have made the finals it has been directly after trading for a star.

LiquidOshawott posted...

The Warriors teams with KD? The Heat? The Cavs? The Raptors and Bucks kinda?

Granted a majority of those teams traded for a number 3 guy and had the fortune of signing KD or LeBron so they didnt completely empty the bucket

The warriors had an all-star starting lineup which is a bit different what I'm referring to. The suns I guess are a little deeper than the typical team I'm thinking of but they aren't on that level.

The raps didn't trade the farm. The bucks did and it worked (though they had more depth), the lakers did and it worked (asterisk imo). You'll have to refresh my memory on the cavs and heat, but most of those teams had either multiple top 10 players or 1 of those guys and sufficient depth around the starting lineup. You have to REALLY get the toppest superstars to make that format work, the lakers are really the only ones who did that in its purest form I think.

Meanwhile, the clips have failed with kawhi/george. The nets failed with harden/kyrie/durant. The mavs failed with luka/kyrie and earlier, luka/porzingis. The suns just failed. The wolves just failed. It just seems like emptying yourself of assets doesn't work as often as it seems based on how often teams are trading for these stars recently.

the lakers are proof that it does work. you have to get lucky still, mostly because of health, but it's doable. they threw away all their depth for westbrook and still managed to recover

the key thing here is that you can often find depth once your team has a lebron on it. kyrie/durant/harden failed not because the team-building philosophy was wrong but because kyrie is a psycho.

like yes you can look at the celtics and nuggets as teams that are good every year using home grown talent and steady growth, but they also have yet to win a ring

the nets still had a pretty good shot of pulling it off in 2021 if it werent for injury

turns out you need a lot of things to go right to win it all

Yeah, some of those teams were undermined by injury, not necessarily performance.

The secret is that winning a title is very, very difficult, and philosophies to win one still fail 99 percent of the time.

However, 'trade for/sign outside great players' works more often than 'rely purely on home-grown talent'.

SeabassDebeste posted...

like yes you can look at the celtics and nuggets as teams that are good every year using home grown talent and steady growth, but they also have yet to win a ring

This is the crux of it for me. As it was said, it's really hard to win a ring and more likely to fail than not each year. Wouldn't it make more sense to give yourself a good chance to win for a decade than it would to put all your eggs in a basket and be the best on paper for 2-3 years?

Emeraldegg posted...

This is the crux of it for me. As it was said, it's really hard to win a ring and more likely to fail than not each year. Wouldn't it make more sense to give yourself a good chance to win for a decade than it would to put all your eggs in a basket and be the best on paper for 2-3 years?

Their best player prior to the Durant trade was only signed through the end of next season, and the best way to ensure he stays is to win a title.

Yes, everyone would love to be good for 20 years like the Spurs, but that's really hard to do because it requires you to be good drafters and wise spenders in free agency.

Leonhart4 posted...

Yes, everyone would love to be good for 20 years like the Spurs, but that's really hard to do because it requires you to be good drafters and wise spenders in free agency.

Also lucking into possibly one of the five best players in the history of the sport.

Well, yes, it requires a ton of luck, too. It also helps to have the rare Superstar who's willing to take less to build a team around him (which was part of New England's success with Brady).

The point is that there's so much out of your control that it's much easier to go all-in on the short term than try to play the long game.

The Thunder have been playing the long game for years and they might finally get there after years of being really bad.

I'm fine with the KD move. Ultimately we were going to be in a bad spot when CP3 retired anyway, so might as well go all in for a chip before it's too late. If it doesn't work out, oh well. At least we went for it. Better than years and years of Sarver being cheap and preventing the team from ever maximizing their potential.