“Y’all kept saying that me and Paul’s favorite team growing up was the Lakers. I wasn’t a fan of the Lakers growing up. Not saying that’s why I didn’t choose them, but that’s not what it is. I wasn’t a fan of them, and [George] just told you guys he was a Clippers fan.”
“Shit, I guess I need a front-office position if that’s what happened. I talked to the Clippers, they had certain players they thought they could pair with me before I signed. [George’s] name was on the board, and I said I would love to play with him. They made the opportunity happen in probably two to three days later.”
“We’re going to go in and obviously have a goal set of winning a championship, and if we can get one, then that’s going to start the changing process. But you can’t change one championship against 16 or a brand. … The fan base is going to change over if we win, and that’s the goal. We’ve got to win, and everything else is going to take care of itself."
“I just wanted to play at home,” Leonard told Yahoo. “Our families are able to come to games. But just from my own thinking, it’s like we’re in the NBA and I played eight years already. Eight years can fly by so fast, and we’re not able to do anything with [our families] eight or nine months of the season.”
“I want to thank the Toronto Raptor fans,” he said to start his press conference. “I don’t have social media so I’m not able to put out a paragraph or whatever. I also just wanna thank the city as far as the restaurants,” he said. “Giving up that Ka’wine & Dine throughout the playoffs. I took advantage of that.”
Yeah I expect some nice load management too for both stars. Clippers with just one of them at all times make the playoffs comfortably. Still not a perfect team by any means. Pretty weak passing team and no good rim protector.
On August 04 2019 11:06 JimmiC wrote: I thought he took a 4 year max?
he took a 4 year extension, which is less money per year and less years than if he hit free agency and then resigned.
Extension: $99,666,363 over four years ($24,916,591 annually) Max re-signing: $204 million over five years ($39 million annually) Max signing elsewhere: $151 million over four years ($38 million annually) Super-max re-signing: $238 million over five years ($46 million annually)
I love the Rich Paul controversy. NBA people are so narcissistic. I'm 99% sure there are 0 D1 coaches without a degree. The NCAA loves making these requirements, formal when they can, informal otherwise, whether or not some agent is involved. This was arguably a pro-player move, and they made a choice they always make, advantaging their own graduates.
On August 10 2019 15:55 Jerubaal wrote: Man, there are no stars on Team USA.
most of Canada's best are not going either. i guess the best players don't want to give up 2 summers in a row of vacation with the olympics happening next year.
On August 12 2019 06:24 Jerubaal wrote: Seems like that person liked the Warriors more than the Raptors.
The only starter left from the Raptors 2016 playoff run was Lowry. The only bench guy remaining was Powell. In the 2013 "Tank Attempt" before the 2018 shake up the Raptors unloaded the player people thought was their best player. He put up the biggest #s of any Raptors player in his previous years in the league. Rudy Gay. The team got better without Rudy Gay.
1 big team they left out of this article was the 1993 Toronto Blue Jays. After winning the World Series in 1992 the Blue Jays roster turned over more than half the roster with 13 out of 25 players leaving. I've never seen a General Manager constantly get rid of so many really good players while managing to improve teams year after year.
Boogie had a knee injury in Camp today, getting further evaluation. If this is major that sucks so bad for him, his body is betraying him. It makes shaq so much more impressive that at his size he lasted so long there are so many more bigmen that can't stay on the court. (Yao, Oden, Howard the last 5 seasons, Bowie, so on.)
For a while I have been thinking the Lakers are overrated as the favorite. They have to many fragile guys not enough depth and the west is too hard. I think there is a legit chance they miss the playoffs. There will be no load management AD gets injured often and LBJ as so many minutes on his body.
This post might end up aging really poorly if Lebron plays like he did 2 seasons ago and AD stays helathy for the full season. But I think it is just as likely that the Lakers are a disaster and AD leaves next offseason and the Lakers are truely fucked like the Nets were after they chased the Boston Oldtimers.
i think AD will be fine, honestly i think its just that the times have changed. nowadays teams are much more likely to sit a guy out for little injuries to try to prevent bigger issues later, so guys end up missing more game than they really should.
lebron is the real worry here, wouldnt surprise me tho if he took extra care of his body this summer now that he's got AD, but u can never predict injuries.
You are probably right on AD, though he seems to miss quite a few a year and on a team with no depth that might be an issue.
With LeBron part of his greatness has been his availability before last year with his 9 finals appearances and everything he hardly missed any time (and massive minutes). Either last year was a aberration or all those miles have caught up. Like you point out I'm sure he took awesome care, and he appears to be one of the guys who always has. Time will tell.
I think if either miss significant time the Lakers will miss the playoffs.
WCS![[image loading]](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/kJ_LjZGUidp2sPltD_wpJn0lfIs=/0x0:3000x2000/920x613/filters:focal(1290x422:1770x902):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/64826972/KawhiSayingThings_Getty_Ringer.0.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/0imejYm.jpg)
