On June 19 2015 05:13 andrewlt wrote: I am just so glad that the Warriors won. Their championship is pretty much a middle finger to NBA traditionalists.
Let us list the ways: No. 1 in the NBA in pace in the regular season running offense three point shooting team jump shooting team switches a lot on defense went ultra small in the Finals not just with a stretch 4, but with a stretch 5 as well best player is a point guard a short, skinny point guard at that as well as a scoring point guard who shoots a lot of threes very into analytics
Trust a team from near Silicon Valley to be the disruptor.
In terms of championships, it is now jump shooting teams - 1, Charles Barkley - 0.
So, like, I'm kind a of with you until the end there. Charles can't be blamed for doubting a style that took a historically great amalgamation of players playing against depleted teams to win a title. In addition, that style was legislated into the game after he left the game, plus in just the playoffs the Celtics, Hawks, Rockets, etc all also tried to use that tactic to lesser effect.
And the middle finger to traditionalists was given by the NBA rules committee.
but if you think about it it's not like the Heat or the Spurs were old school ISO heavy, pound the post teams either. They both featured lots of ball movement, role players who were great at shooting 3s, and whenever they went to postups it was more to draw double teams and looking for open shooters than to score directly
No they weren't. The Warriors "revolution" has certainly been overplayed because they were actually a lot like the 2012-2013 Heat teams. The thing is, advanced stats guys should kind of be disappointed that Golden State was not able to dominate Cleveland's "caveman" basketball thouroughly like San Antonio did to the Heat last year.
the finals was not really a disappointment for advocates of the d'antoni style of offense when you break the games down. it's actually a lot like the memphis series where the warriors were stopped for a couple of games then figured it out and began to dominate.
On June 19 2015 05:13 andrewlt wrote: I am just so glad that the Warriors won. Their championship is pretty much a middle finger to NBA traditionalists.
Let us list the ways: No. 1 in the NBA in pace in the regular season running offense three point shooting team jump shooting team switches a lot on defense went ultra small in the Finals not just with a stretch 4, but with a stretch 5 as well best player is a point guard a short, skinny point guard at that as well as a scoring point guard who shoots a lot of threes very into analytics
Trust a team from near Silicon Valley to be the disruptor.
In terms of championships, it is now jump shooting teams - 1, Charles Barkley - 0.
So, like, I'm kind a of with you until the end there. Charles can't be blamed for doubting a style that took a historically great amalgamation of players playing against depleted teams to win a title. In addition, that style was legislated into the game after he left the game, plus in just the playoffs the Celtics, Hawks, Rockets, etc all also tried to use that tactic to lesser effect.
And the middle finger to traditionalists was given by the NBA rules committee.
but if you think about it it's not like the Heat or the Spurs were old school ISO heavy, pound the post teams either. They both featured lots of ball movement, role players who were great at shooting 3s, and whenever they went to postups it was more to draw double teams and looking for open shooters than to score directly
No they weren't. The Warriors "revolution" has certainly been overplayed because they were actually a lot like the 2012-2013 Heat teams. The thing is, advanced stats guys should kind of be disappointed that Golden State was not able to dominate Cleveland's "caveman" basketball thouroughly like San Antonio did to the Heat last year.
I think you don't look at Cleveland's style and think "oh, jump-shooting/advanced stats/pace and space isn't as strong as we thought", you think "Lebron James is so damn good compared to the rest of the league that he qualifies as a statistical anomoly"- almost every team in the league can or can easily put themselves in a position to play a pace and space style, only a Lebron team can play "caveman basketball" like that and make it look good.
On June 18 2015 10:56 zev318 wrote: cavs favourite to win next year, did i miss something here. are they just counting on love to resign and irving to not get injured and JR smith can shoot higher than 30%?
No other team in the league has over a 50% chance of making it to the Finals, which is why they are obviously the favorite.
Even the Warriors? 538 had them as such an overwhelming favorite to win the title this year that I wouldn't be shocked.
Its quite obvious that no other team is above 50% to make the finals as the Thunder and GSW are both 5-1, which means all other Western Conference teams would have to be 0% for either to have a 50/50 shot.
You also have to realize that these playoffs Golden State was spared a matchup against both the Clippers and Spurs, which were the teams most likely to defeat them ,whereas next year they might have to go through both those teams in the playoffs, plus the East Champ.
Golden State had 48% of the total pie, and the West had 75% of the total, which means that they had Golden State at 64% to come out of the West. I don't think it's outlandish to think that the Thunder only take 14% of the West's cumulative pie and the rest stays the same. Sure, some of it will move around from team to team, but it's not out of the question.
I would further posit that having both Golden State and OKC at 5-1 is crazy talk but for different reasons.
On June 18 2015 11:01 icystorage wrote: love has a player option, varejao's gonna be back
TT, shump, delly, perk, marion(retiring), jones last year of their contracts.
When has history ever shown that "Varejao's gonna be back" is true? He's much more likely to NOT be playing in the playoffs next year than he is to be playing... A lot of people also seem to have a mistaken assumption that if the Cavs were healthy they would have won. That definitely isn't true. They lost Game 1 with Kyrie playing (and he played great). There's no telling that if Kyrie had continued playing that he would have been a game changer.
Anyway, I feel like next year is going to change dramatically. There are so many unknown's:
If Memphis loses Gasol, I think they're going to be lottery-team bad. I think they're completely fucked if Gasol leaves. And I think he's going to leave - that team reached its ceiling and Gasol should recognize that and move to a better situation for him while he's still young (he's ~30 but he started at 24 so he still has a lot more left in the tank imo).
I think the Suns are going to be really bad next year. Just a gut feeling
I think the Mavs (unless they make huge additions in free agency) won't be a playoff team next year
Pelicans & Lakers rising in the West
OKC is going to be back at full strength and probably win the west (KD + Westbrook revenge year!)
Spurs & Warriors will still be amazing
Clippers are a total wild card. They got Lance, but they didn't solve their depth problem. They have NO good way to solve that problem, especially if they lose DJ. I think the best thing for them to do would be sign/trade DJ for 2-3 rotation players. Regardless of how good their starting 5 is (or even if they run Lance off the bench, which they indicated), they're still only 6 deep and that's a huge problem
in the east...
Really interesting stuff because the Bucks (already a playoff team this year) and Magic have some sick young core players who are going to have big years next year, expect them to be quite decent. Wizards will probably get better (hopefully Pierce stays 1 more year). Heat will be better, Cavs will be the same or better. Bulls will probably be worse. Pacers will probably be better (Paul George!)....
Yeah what about LeBron and Blatt? If the article's to be believed, it does seem like LeBron was pretty shitty to him, but I'm not well-versed enough in bball to understand what constitutes good/bad coaching, and I don't really know how good Blatt is. Should he be rehired? He took the team to the NBA Finals, but how much of that was a result of his coaching etc etc? I'm curious.
Definitely seems like there's a lot up in the air for next year though yeah
My question about that Stein piece is: How did it take this long for someone at ESPN to write this???its been obvious all season, and he also disrespected Spo all year until AFTER the Mavs series. Also, why is it legit criticism for him to point out one of Lebron's most minor character flaws, but everyone else is a hater?
Hmm...We really need a Bill Simmons 6 hour ESPN documentary.
On June 19 2015 05:13 andrewlt wrote: I am just so glad that the Warriors won. Their championship is pretty much a middle finger to NBA traditionalists.
Let us list the ways: No. 1 in the NBA in pace in the regular season running offense three point shooting team jump shooting team switches a lot on defense went ultra small in the Finals not just with a stretch 4, but with a stretch 5 as well best player is a point guard a short, skinny point guard at that as well as a scoring point guard who shoots a lot of threes very into analytics
Trust a team from near Silicon Valley to be the disruptor.
In terms of championships, it is now jump shooting teams - 1, Charles Barkley - 0.
So, like, I'm kind a of with you until the end there. Charles can't be blamed for doubting a style that took a historically great amalgamation of players playing against depleted teams to win a title. In addition, that style was legislated into the game after he left the game, plus in just the playoffs the Celtics, Hawks, Rockets, etc all also tried to use that tactic to lesser effect.
And the middle finger to traditionalists was given by the NBA rules committee.
but if you think about it it's not like the Heat or the Spurs were old school ISO heavy, pound the post teams either. They both featured lots of ball movement, role players who were great at shooting 3s, and whenever they went to postups it was more to draw double teams and looking for open shooters than to score directly
No they weren't. The Warriors "revolution" has certainly been overplayed because they were actually a lot like the 2012-2013 Heat teams. The thing is, advanced stats guys should kind of be disappointed that Golden State was not able to dominate Cleveland's "caveman" basketball thouroughly like San Antonio did to the Heat last year.
I think you don't look at Cleveland's style and think "oh, jump-shooting/advanced stats/pace and space isn't as strong as we thought", you think "Lebron James is so damn good compared to the rest of the league that he qualifies as a statistical anomoly"- almost every team in the league can or can easily put themselves in a position to play a pace and space style, only a Lebron team can play "caveman basketball" like that and make it look good.
No, I think you say, "advanced stats still has blind spots, particularly when it comes to defense and transition offense." I don't think what the Cavs did broke any advanced stats models, it just highlighted areas they haven't covered yet. In general, they're too focused on isolated half court sets right now, where they do a fantastic job that applies to most NBA teams. But what they need to better show is how offense on one end impacts defense on the other, and vice versa.
You could absolutely model what the Cavs did. It just hasn't been done yet.
On June 19 2015 05:37 ticklishmusic wrote: Also, the Spurs pretty much revolutionized how the game was played in last year's finals with their passing. IIRC passes increased by like 4% this season.
On June 19 2015 06:02 Jerubaal wrote: I wouldn't say they revolutionized it, but there was a monkey-see, monkey-do affect. All of these ideas have been around for a while. It just takes some time to perfect them. I think the real winner this year was a team full of 2-way players.
The real winner is Mike D'Antoni. That's about...4 years running now his offensive principles have lead to a championship.
The Stein piece highlighted what I said in this thread during the Finals: I'm not sure leBron wins another one. No one in Cleveland has the ability to tell him no like Riley and Wade did. He well and truly is The King. He's shown to be prone to cronyism by taking on players that he's close with but aren't very good. Add in that the Cavs cap situation is hell and they have too many bigs so he has to play the 3 and it's trouble.
If Irving and Love are back they'll go very far next year.
Who's going to challenge them in the East? And please don't anyone say the Bulls. Atlanta isn't close; Milkwaukee is still a few years away from being serious; Indiana requires a significant re-tool.
They're basically a lock next year to win the East if Lebron's playing and then they just have to get over the West hump.
EPT
