NBA 2015-2016 Season thread

Myers didn't trade Ellis and draft Klay - Larry Riley did. But yeah, as a whole you have to trust whatever their management does right now. Not trading the farm for Love was one of the most key moves they made, and it wasn't just Myers' decision it was a collective one between Myers, West, and Kerr.

I'm not saying I don't want Durant or that it wouldn't improve the team, I just hope it doesn't happen because that likely means we end up not finishing the year off. If the Warriors finish the year off with a title after having made a run at the Bulls record, I think it's hard to justify tampering with the team too much and it'd be hard for Durant to justify going there. Especially on Durant's side, I don't see how one of the top 5 players in the game can feel like he needs to go to a situation like that in order to win.

The debate about the pluses and minuses of losing a few key pieces for Durant could go on and on, but I don't think this is the right time to do it. I'm enjoying this season like none other, it simply cannot get any better as a basketball fan. Ideally looking forward, the Warriors win the title, don't mess with the team much, and Durant signs the 1+1 deal some have been speculating he may take so that he and Westbrook become FA's at the same time in 2017. At that point the Warriors have like $40M in expiring contracts (one of which is Curry), so they'd have flexibility to add a new piece and re-sign Steph.

My bad. I was just pointing out moves since he joined the Warriors. But you're right. The Thompson pick and Ellis trade were when Myers was Assistant GM.

Curry is shooting 60% from 28 feet or further this season. Thats a higher % than the rest of the league shoots from layup range.

This might be the most impressive shooting performance ever.

Jozu_sl said:

Curry is shooting 60% from 28 feet or further this season. Thats a higher % than the rest of the league shoots from layup range.

This might be the most impressive shooting performance ever.

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Which is why I think anything that takes shots away from Curry is a bad thing.

When the Warriors looked weakest in last year's playoffs it was when they were having to lean hard on Curry, which of course teams knew and game planned for. Sure, Iguanadollah stepped his game up and Thompson is a good player, Barnes shaping up to be a good role player, etc, but the Warriors looked beatable at several points in the playoffs last year, and playoffs are what matter, right? This year teams are still going to game-plan to smother Curry, so we'll have to see how it goes, but the argument for Durant is wouldn't you rather he was giving up shots because they had another historically great shooter to burden the load in Durant instead of hoping Thompson or Iguanadollah or other role players have to step up.

Again, I'm not saying it's the best move, but I'm definitely not so quick to dismiss it as foolish. I think it would depend completely on Durant and his intentions. If Durant comes to the Warriors and basically says he wants to play team ball, at times run the point, at times post up and focus more on an inside game, to me that's a scary proposition for other teams to have to game plan against both Curry and Durant who can both shoulder the load themselves hero balling, or can run the offense really well, or can defer to the other historically great shooter.

Not all players will do that, though. I personally think Kobe could have been one of the best point-guards ever, but playing for a system and efficiency wasn't really his thang. I think it's possible Durant would be interested in that sort of system/team, especially for the sake of legacy and longevity in light of his injury issues, but who knows.

Mavs just put up 26 pts in the first half.

Bob Book_sl said:

Mavs just put up 26 pts in the first half.

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Yeah they're getting wrecked pretty bad.

Neki_sl said:

Well they managed to collectively outscore Leonard so that's a small victory

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But he equaled their starting 5's scoring. Dirk was -31. Some wonky stats out of that half of basketball.

GS 41 straight home wins...outside of any injuries I don't see anyone beating GS in a best of series.

ESPN saying Knicks fired Derek Fisher.

Drakurii_sl said:

ESPN saying Knicks fired Derek Fisher.

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I never liked Fisher as a player or as a coach, but I really hope the Knicks go into freefall mode. Toronto gets whichever pick is worse between Denver and New York, so I need both teams to be horrible.

Damn, Phil has to be targeting Luke. He's trying to take some of the force away from us.

Warriors with a brutal 7-game road trip coming up after they play Rockets at home on Tues. Includes @Clippers, @Hawks, @Miami, @OKC.

Festus Ezeli undergoing surgery on his left knee. Out indefinitely. Sucks. Doesn't leave the Dubs with much big man depth at all. I don't particularly care to see Mo Speights getting a lot of minutes.

Mo Buckets just needs to get in shape, really hasn't been there all year. Maybe playing more often pushes him closer. But yeah, gonna suck if Ezeli is out for the year. It's supposedly just "exploratory" surgery at this point but not feeling too optimistic about seeing him back this year. A similar thing happened when he hurt his knee the first time - around preseason of his second season he got hurt and they didn't really say how serious it was. He was just out without much for details for a while ... and ended up staying out for a year and a half. One Bogut injury away from being way too small. The small ball is great in spurts and to end games but you can only run for so long with it every game before guys will wear out.

Harden's trying to trade shots with Curry.

Lets see how it works out for him

Considering that Harden put up a goose egg in q1, he didn't do too bad individually.

The Rockets are the very definition of mediocre this season. They are going to finish either 8th seed and get ran out of the playoffs quickly, or finish at the back end of the lottery and not have a shot at drafting an impact player to fill their needs.

For how hot Curry started he really went cold down the stretch. At least from three. He still made some sweet drives. It was one of those very few games where Harrison Barnes was the guy who closed it out.