I don't understand what's to admire and respect when one player is allowed to flout the rules at will. If you take any decent basketball player in the NBA and allow them to travel, run into people, fall down and get a foul called in their favor, where you can't play any defense against them, they too would average 40. I bet if you took prime Jamal Crawford and allowed him to do everything Soften gets away with, he could probably average 40 points a game. People don't hate Soften because he's good, they hate him because he cheats and he's allowed to do it.
Any side of the argument can use the data below as they may #StirringThePot haha... (So when Kob goes into ball hog mode, he’s killing the team game, which I happen to agree with...yet when Harden blatantly ball hogs and chucks, it’s MVP caliber basketball...da f***?!?) Lillard talked about the hazards of trying to defend Harden when he’s getting the calls he often gets. “It’s hard to defend,” Lillard said, “When he’s driving to the basket, you don’t want to touch him. When he’s rising up for a three, you don’t want to get too close to him because he’s kicking his legs out and throwing his arms up on his follow-through, through your arms.If you get that type of whistle, it’s tough to defend.” – via Dwight Jaynes @ NBC Sports First things first — 3-pointers barely produce any more points than 2-pointers, on average. The league hits 35.2 percent of its 3s and 52.0 percent of its 2s last season, meaning both shots produced nearly identical expected returns – 1.04 points for 2s, 1.06 points for 3s. From that perspective, giving an additional shot for a shooting foul on a 3-pointer compared to a 2-pointer makes no sense — the shooter wasn’t likely to score more points on the initial shot. – via John Hollinger @ The Athletic I agree with abeer on this one in that the joint forces of MDA and Harden have killed the game of basketball. There’s way more to the sport than scoring efficiency via 3ball attempts. Harden is clearly skilled with the handle and the ability to know down jumpers from the perimeter. Instead of relying on the refs to stat pad during the regular season, knowing those whistles are harder to come by in the postseason, how about refocusing your attention to becoming a better over bball player on both sides of the ball so that your reliance on the whistle isn’t one of the main contributors to your game. He’s eating off what the league made him into...Harden has fault in it too, but imo it’s up to the league to contain the monster they created.
If a part of your game is flopping, hooking opposing players arm, flailing, etc, you are a CHEATER. period. you’re relying on ref incompetence for 1/3 of your game shameful
Warriors looking to start winning streak. Feeling good about themselves after snapping a seven-game losing streak Tuesday night in Memphis, the Warriors landed in Dallas early Wednesday morning to face the Mavericks in the second night of a back-to-back road set. HA HA HA They losing like by 50 points
Watching this Bos-Clips game. There are more C Bags fans at the game than Clipper fans. Hilarious, but not surprised.
that was a hard game to watch. luka basically buried them in the first quarter by himself, and it just snowballed after that.
Another article for the "You hate to see it" department. https://www.yahoo.com/sports/popovich-spurs-7-game-losing-071339248.html You shoulda retired Pop.
Spurs have lost 7 straight....its like music in my ears to finally see their reign come to a definitive end for good. What was the last time they have lost 7 straight? Must have been the 90s.
When you prospect, you set an expected value. You do this (typically) by setting a value range and determining how likely within that range the option is to come to be. If LA thought LeBron and AD gives a 70% chance of a championship, for instance, and LA doesn't win one, their most likely expected outcome doesn't happen. Why wouldn't that affect whether it's a good decision or not?
If this calculation was done independently of the influence of Klutch, I'd be a lot less cynical about the assessment process. Are good outcomes for Klutch and the Lakers mutually exclusive? Of course not, and so far things look pretty good. However, there is a big difference between the Dodgers analytics based front office coming up with 70% and LBJ and AD just deciding they want to work together. I have a feeling it was the latter making that decision. What did encourage me were the decisions after the AD signing and whiffing on Kawhi. Unlike last season, the short term agents made sense. Also, they had the bravery not only to sign Boogie, but then to go for Dwight as well. You could say they had no choice, but then again they picked those two while passing on Melo so it felt like some careful consideration might be happening. So if they can sign AD, if they can avoid signing LBJ to a charity contract just so he can play with his son after he's no longer effective, pair AD with a dynamic young creator... then yes this can end up well. My main problem that I had last year is that I saw so many potential permutations we could have pursued with KD/Kawhi/Klay/Khris/Kyrie/Kemba/Butler/Harris/Brogdon, etc... while keeping some youngsters and I could see we only had eyes for Klutch. If there was an objective assessment that 70% was the most optimal outcome, then I wouldn't have complained so much. But I feel it was very emotion based, so that frustrated me. Two elites plus the young core was supposed to be the plan. I get how you give up everything for a 24 year old LBJ... I wasn't quite as hopeful giving them up for a 34 year old LBJ. So far, he's proving doubters wrong, and if he keeps it up for three years... adapts to his aging and we win a chip or two you can say it was a resounding success. But there are so many moving parts, I find it impossible to deem this so just yet. I am enjoying myself so far and hoping for the best, but sure... part of me wishes we could have come up with two of the other agents and had BI and Ball right now.
so, if most of the other free agents you named prove to be less than what was expected, the trade was good again? because kd tore an achilles, kyrie seems to be really good at helping teams lose. kemba was almost universally considered to be a very risky signing. middleton and harris are 3rd stars(at best, in harris's case), not top tier players. brogdon was restricted and cost assets, and also is only a star in hindsight. we were blessed that AD ended up with klutch, else we'd have been groveling at jimmy butler's doorstep whilst he signed with miami. then we'd have watched us limp to a .500 record thus far with BI and lonzo in street clothes for half of the duration. i'm shocked that people have already forgotten how poorly FA has gone for us save for lebron's really odd choice to join us without anyone else. without klutch, we're the f***ing knicks.
I agree that it would be a crap shoot, but right now we are on the winning end of our own crapshoot. If AD gets hurt, if LBJ gets old quickly, if AD doesn't sign, if we don't sign Dwight... there's all sorts of moving pieces. Miami is doing unexpectedly well with Jimmy Boston is doing unexpectedly well with Kemba Kyrie isn't doing well but he's meant to be paired with KD... Philly should have kept Jimmy and let Tobias go KD's injury is a fluke Klay's injury is a fluke Bottom line we don't know what will happen but the reason I liked the two elites plus the core and picks is more flexibility. We can still succeed with AD... but a lot of things need to go right. AD or LBJ can't get hurt for any significant time. AD must sign. LBJ cannot insist on playing past his expiration date. We must find an elite alpha scorer to pair with AD when LBJ fades. If all these things happen, then we can say we won the trade.
So everything is a fluke and there’s no point worrying about winning/losing a trade because everything is a crap shoot dependent on flukes that may or may not happen. “We can still succeed with AD?” We’re off to a pretty good start on the path to success at 12-2. Please spare the coulda, woulda, shoulda about close games and not blowing teams out by 30 every night. Your definition of winning a trade is not reasonable by any means.
If LBJ tore his Achilles and AD decided to go back to New Orleans, would that make the trade bad? Yes If LBJ stays healthy for three years and we win the title, would that make the trade good? Yes All I've said is that we don't yet know the long term effects. I don't know why that offends so many people. I suppose some people when going to an oncologist don't want to hear anything but positive outcomes. That is their right, and of course it's more enjoyable and relaxing not to think anything bad can happen but that doesn't mean it's reality.
