NBA Finals 2024 Discussion: One Is The Lonliest Number

tatum and brown have basically been the same for three years. they couldn't win before jrue, and they won't win after him, imo. and there's not another jrue to fall into their laps--that was a super weird set of circumstances that allowed that to happen.

derrick white is going to command 35-40 million unless he gets injured next year.

the cap can't increase by more than 10% annually. so the cap for next year can't be higher than about 155 million. tatum, brown, and white will eat nearly all of that. then you start running into the problem we had with russ: all your cash tied up in three players makes trades like the holiday and zinger trade more difficult. they got those because they had multiple players on mid-sized deals that could be moved around with picks. no longer. i suppose they can break up zinger's deal into smaller parts like dallas did, but to get from that to serviceable replacements is an 18 month to 2 year process in most cases.

anyway, i'm not a believer in tatum/brown, and the ring this year hasn't changed it for me. white and holiday and horford have been nearly flawless, and those two stars NEED that to succeed. man, if we had just one guy play as well as any of those three, we'd have a ring. one guy. if you just added horford to our team this year, ring.

and now i'm mad at reaves/rui/dlo all over again.

 

i can't envision tatum/brown core winning another title unless stevens makes some big moves. holiday and horford are old, porzingis is always hurt, and who knows if they'll even pay up to keep white. not to mention tatum/brown have gotten incredibly lucky staying healthy and that's bound to change. they're also not going to get as lucky as they did these playoffs only playing teams with injured stars

they are a very good team, but they were dealt an incredibly favorable hand this postseason

 

yeah, and every title team has to have some luck. it's ok to admit it. but it's why all the breathless "how's anyone going to beat them" stuff after every team wins a ring is silly to me. someone's going to beat boston next year, in all likelihood. and they're almost certainly not going to be in the mix in two years, imo.

 

there's luck as in getting most bounces and calls to go your way, but boston's luck has been on another level in regards to playing shorthanded teams on their way to the finals. they likely still would've made it there, but it would've been a lot harder if they'd had to deal with butler in round 1, a healthy mitchell in round 2, and a healthy haliburton in the ECF. or better, the bucks or knicks at full strength instead of indy who only got as far as they did because they also played shorthanded opponents

 

well, yeah, and everyone's ignoring that luka's playing on one leg while blaming him for all of society's ills. i'd trade both brown and tatum for luka.

 

You know, all the C Bags fans are looking in here and laughing at us for discounting them. 18-17 is what they are saying ....... and they are right. Just like we don't care when someone says the bubble don't count. Screw them, it was #17 and that is a fact. Everything else is just BS and pure jealousy.

Same as when we turn it around on them.

The ONLY thing I will say is that we blew a golden opportunity to extend this year. This was an easy year all we had to do was play to our ability and make good decisions.

 

Nah ! Honestly most of them don’t care about Boston / Lakers rivalry. To them it’s an old rivalry that had been dead since the 80s . Most of them actually respect LAKERS and have no animosity towards us . They didn’t even care when we won 2020 they never said anything ( artificial about the 2020 title ) they actually respected it and they actually see the rivalry as pretty old. They still hate the Knicks& Heat more than us. Have I been to their site to lurk and see what they say about this title? No i haven’t ! It is what it is ! I’ll give em credit ! They have been knocking on the door since 2009’was it ? And took em this long to finally win a title , now had they beaten GS that would’ve been a different story but they lost . Most of them understand Lakers had been putting out better products than them recently .

Honestly Lakers Boston rivalry don’t mean much to them since it’s so old and recently just has been so lopsided. I know media drools all over lakers C Bags rivalry but fans don’t care as much.

 

dallas just isn't very good. none of their role players have shown up this series and kyrie only decided to show up last night. they're a terrible matchup against boston

even minny, as flawed as they were offensively, would've been a far better matchup. denver even better, but they were coasting the entire playoffs and didn't really care about repeating

 

Thanks a lot MILWAUKEE you worthless sack of sods of a franchise you bunch of hillbillies lol

 

blame portland and washington for gifting boston holiday and porzingis

 

as i mentioned in a different thread, the zinger trade was meh to bad, imo (though they did pick up a first in the process, i think?).

the holiday trade was the killer. i don't know if i blame portland for selling immediately, though i think they could have gotten more if they waited (in december, we would have at least upped the bidding, imo). milwaukee not having the foresight that holiday could find himself playing for a rival was...yikes...

when they made that move, my assumption was they knew something about holiday's health that led them to believe he wasn't going to hold up. they apparently did not.

anyway, that looks like the end of their contention to me. lillard is only going to get worse, lopez is about to age out, middleton may be very close to his end, too.

 

KP had absolutely NO INVOLVEMENT On winning this title ! Lol that dude rode the free bus To a ring it was all Jrue

 

About 3/4 of the way through Game 2 I said to myself, Damn if MIN wouldn't have given BOS a harder time. I think MIN - and yea, DEN - would've been a better series. I'm not sure either of them would've won more than 2 games, though.

Game 3: of course you HAVE to win at home, down 0-2. 19-9 lead, tied at half. BOS kills you in the 3rd. You come back from 21 down to within 2, and of course: the Bags just execute - esp on D - and hey, Dallas? Smile for the camera! You're about to be swept! Horrible Finals showing by DAL.

For me, I watch the Bags's D and feel nothing but envy...which is green, amirite?

 

I am f***in salty ! I hope world ends before they win 18

 

he helped them win a bunch in the regular season and not have to play horford 30+mpg so that he could in the finals. he also basically got them game 1 of this series. and that's all great. it's not 30 million per year great, but it's something.

again, nice to be able to pay 36 million for a guy to help you win like, 6 games. those first max deals off the rookie contracts are sweet for the pay structure!

 

dallas's role players wilted under the pressure. boston's have shined.

boston's defense would have had trouble with a team that had more size inside, imo. but really, it's been the mavs' inability to hit a three that's doomed them. the lob game is shut down because the C Bags have yet to pay for leaving guys open. we know what that feels like!

 

Meh, 2 years ago nobody would believe they would get Jrue and KP. Hell, they got White for nothing. They can go after Caruso for example, fits perfectly. There's a lot of moving pieces in the NBA. Jrue and KP will become big expirings that some team may want. They deserve a lot of credit for assembling this team that fits so well and credit to Joe to for establishing a system that serves so well this group of guys. Sure, they got lucky in their path to glory, but you have to be there and they deserve to win it.

I think a baseline of Tatum, Brown and White will always get you on the top 4 of the East, so they may have a couple more shots. I'm not seeing any big rising team in the East like in the West, so I think they'll contend every year during their stars' prime. Who's beating them? Embiid never made the Conference Finals. Butler is getting old. Giannis and Dame may get one shot but their window is quite narrow. Maybe the Knicks make the right moves and Indiana/Orlando strike and can get in the mix. Cleveland looks to be in a tough spot and will have to max Mobley, which ain't great. But in the next 5 years, my bet is Boston will be the team with more Conference Finals.

I do agree this is probably the best team they can assemble around those 3. But they can still put together strong teams moving forward.
Tatum and Brown (and White) are always available too which is a huge plus nowadays

 

ROFL apparently everyone is saying the samething! Lol you didn’t beat anyone https://x.com/bossportsgordo/status/1801351084004479430?s=46&t=h4W8vnfu6NAaVyPu_QB9Ww

 

Prepare for disappointment because they world is not going to end before Boston win a championship so you need to accept that

 

So what? Boston are about to have MORE championships than the Lakers

 

So what? Boston are about to have MORE championships than the Lakers