^^^ Can't believe the lack of respect and common sense about their roster headed by LeBron James and Anthony Davis and potentially DeMarcus Cousins & More .... that the Lakers are getting. Idiots. Paid for by Ballmer. Good Big men >>> Good smaller men.
i must be missing how the clippers are a juggernaut. they're definitely going to be good, but 80% of execs are picking them to win the west? i have houston and the lakers as nearly even with the clips in terms of title chances. must be the recency effect with kawhi carrying toronto to a title. but folks need to check the tape on that a little bit--the way it's being remembered isn't exactly how it unfolded, imo.
I have the Nuggets and Blazers up there too. The Jazz deserve more credit. I truly have the Clippers as the 5th or 6th in the West. I can't for the life of me imagine picking that Clipper team against this Laker team. For all this "well the Clippers made the playoffs and the Lakers didn't" nonsense, are we just forgetting that the Lakers were 0.5 a game ahead of them before LeBron got hurt? So even at their best, we were better than them last year. Not to mention, the two teams are nothing like what they were last year. The Clippers got rid of most of their roster to make this one and so did we. We were better than them with the kids, how are they going to be better than us with AD and LeBron? It's nonsense. Here's the lineups we're talking about: Likely starters: Bradley/Green/LeBron/Davis/Cousins vs. Beverley/George/Leonard/Harrell/Zubac Tell me which one of those is f***ing better. Really. Someone with a straight face tell me that just looking at that lineup, you'd pick the Clippers to win that game. Who the f*** is guarding Davis/Cousins? Are you really telling me Zubac is going to stay in front of Cousins, let alone Davis?? Are you kidding me?? Of course, the Clippers would say "well who is guarding George and Leonard?" Well for one, Danny f***ing Green who is one of the premiere perimeter defenders in the league and I'd argue we throw Bradley at one of them and let LeBron crush in the passing lanes. Have LeBron "guard" Beverley and dare that mother****er to shoot the shot while LeBron plays free safety on Kawhi/George trying to create from the perimeter. People out here are acting like Kawhi/George is some creative combo like Jordan/Pippen or more currently Curry/Klay or Curry/Durant. Neither Kawhi nor George are prolific enough scorers to be that combination. The first time Kawhi scored 30 points was 4 years into his career in the playoffs. Kawhi has only six games in his entire career scoring 40 points or more and has never scored 50 points or higher in a single game. Curry had seven 40 point games just last year alone. Likely high volume bench contributors: Rondo/Caldwell-Pope/Kuzma/McGee vs. Lou Williams/Shamet/Harkless/JaMychael Green Lou is the only name on that list worth a damn. Shamet was solid last year, but what can really be expected of him going forward? Is he even as good as Caldwell-Pope? He was heralded as a surprise because he had some success as a 2nd round pick. His numbers are very similar to Pope's with better shooting outside. In the playoffs Shamet was exposed as the Warriors forced him to take almost exclusively three pointers and he shot only 32% overall. Harkless is a career journeyman. He might win you two games a year, same with Green. Kuzma alone is better than most of that bench. I could see an argument that the two are equal, but I really don't think so. I think looking at that bench, the Lakers have more proven players (outside of Lou) and better contributors. Rest of the depth: Cook/Caruso/Dudley/Daniels/Horton-Tucker vs. Jerome Robinson/Rodney McGruder/Mfiondu Kabengele Who the f*** are those guys the Clippers have? Robinson I remember as a pre-draft standout but hasn't looked like an NBA player so far in his career. These guys are important in case somebody gets hurt from ^^ those two categories. If Shamet, Harkless, or Lou goes down the Clippers are a twisted ankle away from nobodies. At least we've got two guys in Cook and Dudley that have legitimate playoff experience and can actually contribute. All this talk about the Clippers being the favorites is utter drivel. They won't be better than us and I'm not sure we'll be better than the Jazz, Rockets, Nuggets, and maybe the Blazers. How in the world they'd be favorites is beyond me, but I like it. Give them those expectations. When they look like an average Western Conference team half-way through the season, the expectations will begin to weigh on them. Let's see how the Clippers deal with actual pressure while we "underdogs" take the league by "surprise".
Lol, I'm not as convinced as you, but yeah, them as prohibitive favorite has me scratching my head. As far as regular season goes, I expect the nuggets, jazz, and blazers to win as much or more than the star teams.
I think everyone is looking at the Lakers as having too many question marks. I do believe that having a proven coach moves you up a notch, having a guy who has a proven track record and knows how to get the most out of his line ups is a very valuable asset. That was my biggest knock on Walton, he did not really have a great ability to bring out the best of his guys abilities and did not seem to have a good bead on his rotations, routinely making the strangest substitutions at the worst possible moment. At the beginning it was like he was simply testing things out, and this was OK, but as time went on he never really came to any conclusions and just continued to test the waters. Doc Rivers is a good coach and plays a reasonable system, knows how to assess a players effectiveness and makes reasonable substitutions at the right time. That is important and it is the reason why people are giving the Clippers props. I really don't know what to expect from Vogel, hope he is good, hope he is smart and I hope he communicates well with the players. Hope they buy in. I expect things to go solid for the Lakers this year but the pressure is on Vogel because he is the unknown factor here. If he messes up, we gonna see Kidd take over sooner than later.
Do people forget when Doc was underachieving just two seasons ago with a stacked Clipper "Lob City" team? There was talk of firing him before Ballmer decided to just demote him instead. He left auspiciously from the C Bags too with a team that underperformed in a weak East. The Clippers overachieve for one season, and he's back to being a good coach again. I'm not saying Doc isn't a more proven entity than Vogel, but I wouldn't even say he's that good a coach. He overachieved with a squad people weren't paying attention to. That is no longer the case.
All I'm saying is they shouldn't be viewed as a favorite for anything. I could see them finishing third in the division, let alone a favorite in the conference.
Just stumbled across this funny news: FIBA suspended ex Ohio College basketball player DJ Cooper who was found cheating on drug test. He used his (female) friend's urine who was pregnant. He was seriously considering playing for Bosnian National basketball team but is now unable to due to his suspension until June 24th 2020. Source in Slovenian
1.Booker is such a little b****. 2. Noah looks like he retired 20 years ago and has been living on a hut on the beach ever since.
booker's got talent, but i hate his mentality. it's a little harden-ish, without the ref-baiting, but with the kind of lazy entitlement. i get how him, dlo, and KAT are pals. none of them seem to get it. all of them have serious talent.
Lol at Devin Booker. Imagine Bird, Jordan or Kobe saying something like that. For that matter, i don't think Lebron or Durant would either. Superstars have to be built for it. Lucky for Devin Booker, Bruce Lee Bowen, Ron Artest, and Shane Battier aren't in the NBA anymore.
i mean, you are talking about a guy who scored 70 as his team got blasted and the other team coasted on d.
