Taking it to the hole. Hoops 2K17 Thread.

[Leferd]

Unfortunately, the Election season is almost over --BOO!...taking away primetime entertainment. But the Great Rebounder in the Sky blesses us from the heavens above with the start of the NBA season!

 

Here are my Annual Leferd's Infallible Pre-Season Predictions:

 

EASTERN CONFERENCE

1. Cleveland

2. Boston

3. Toronto

4. Atlanta

5. Detroit

6. Indiana

7. Milwaukee

8. Chicago

9. Charlotte

10. Washington

11. New York

12. Philadelphia

13. Orlando

14. Miami

15. Brooklyn

 

WESTERN CONFERENCE

1. Golden State

2. San Antonio

3. LAC

4. Houston

5. Portland

6. Utah

7. Minnesota

8. Oklahoma City

9. Denver

10. Memphis

11. Dallas

12. New Orleans

13. Sacramento

14. LAL

15. Phoenix

• Cleveland over Boston in the ECF.
• Golden State over LAC in the WCF.
• Golden State sweeps Cleveland going 16-0 in the Playoffs.

 

MVP: LeBron James

ROY: Joel Embiid

DPOY: Kawhi Leonard

COY: Brad Stevens

 

ALL NBA FIRST TEAM

G: Stephen Curry

G: James Harden

F: LeBron James

F: Kevin Durant

C: Anthony Davis

 

ALL NBA SECOND TEAM

G: Chris Paul

G: Russell Westbrook

F: Kawhi Leonard

F: Paul George

C: Karl-Anthony Towns

 

ALL NBA THIRD TEAM

G: Damian Lilard

G: Klay Thompson

F: Blake Griffin

F: Draymond Green

C: Boogie Cousins

 

ALL NBA DEFENSE FIRST TEAM

G: Avery Bradley

G: Danny Green

F: Kawhi Leonard

F: Draymond Green

C: Rudy Gobert

 

ALL NBA DEFENSE SECOND TEAM

G: Patrick Beverley

G: Klay Thompson

F: Andre Iguodala

F: Paul George

C: DeAndre Jordan

 

[Volourn]

• ^{"Golden State sweeps Cleveland going 16-0 in the Playoffs.}

 

^{MVP: LeBron James"}

 

^No.

[ShadySands]

No to LBJ MVP?

[Leferd]

No to LBJ MVP?

 

How can HE not be the MVP?? Volo is just your typical LeBron hater.

 

[Volourn]

If there was right in the world LBJ would have 10 MVPs at least but that doesn't mean he'll get it.  It is 'too boring' for him to win it. L0L

[Leferd]

If there was right in the world LBJ would have 10 MVPs at least but that doesn't mean he'll get it.  It is 'too boring' for him to win it. L0L

 

Curry and Durant will cancel each other out. Westbrook and Harden are gonna put up impressive counting numbers but their team standings will be too low. Cleveland will win the East, and LeBron is unquestionably one of the best players in the league. He will win.

[Hurlshort]

I wouldn't be surprised if we get a new candidate for MVP.  Lebron is getting older and might have a bit of a championship hangover.  Not sure who it might be though, but there is some young talent waiting to step up.  

[Leferd]

Anthony Davis's shine has worn off the past couple years --mostly due to injury, but when healthy he's the best big in the game. If not this season, Karl-Anthony Towns will be even better than Davis. These guys will probably be the next players not named Kevin, Stephen, or LeBron to win MVP.

[Guard Dog]

The Grizz got Conley back. That was good news. Chandler Parsons is a decent free agent pick up. Gasol is already playing hurt and Z-Bo looks a little off his game. Not shaping up that well IMO but the paper predicts a winning season and a playoff appearance. If thos team were in the the East I'd be a lot more optimistic about their chances.

[Guard Dog]

Grizz 102 T-Wolves 98. And away we go.

[GhostofAnakin]

Are the Raptors actually going to be a contender?  I don't just mean be a decent East team, but not have a real shot against the big boys of the league.

[Leferd]

Are the Raptors actually going to be a contender?  I don't just mean be a decent East team, but not have a real shot against the big boys of the league.

 

Vegas is currently giving the following odds:

• Golden State Warriors 2/3
• Cleveland Cavaliers 13/4
• San Antonio Spurs 11/1
• Boston Celtics 25/1
• Los Angeles Clippers 35/1
• Oklahoma City Thunder 70/1
• Toronto Raptors 75/1

To me, Golden State is the clear favorite. Cleveland, and San Antonio are a notch below and are getting decent odds. Boston, Toronto, and the LA Clippers would be in the next tier over. This is where you can get awesome value, especially Toronto at 75/1! The markets are way too bullish on OKC at 70/1. They're dead money as far as I'm concerned.

 

...

 

This is pretty spot on.

 

[Hurlshort]

Anthony Davis is putting up monster numbers.  If his team can win some games and make the playoffs I'll peg him as MVP.

[ShadySands]

[Leferd]

He definitely kept that one in play.

[ShadySands]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsHHDyon7js

[Leferd]

This is the year of the blown 3-1 leads. The Warriors. The Indians. HRC.

 

Will be watching Stephen Curry 3 point videos on loop now.

[Leferd]

My 1/8th season hot take:

 

Westbrook is putting up 32.0/9.9/9.7

Harden is averaging 30.3/7.9/12.6

DeRozan is scoring 33.9 per game

 

None of them are gonna to be First Team All-NBA.

 

PS

 

_{Word up to SVG, Pop, and Kerr for being woke with their post election comments.}  Does Val read this thread? I need my safe space.

[Guard Dog]

The Grizz are exactly who I figured they would be. They beat the teams they are better than and lose to the rest. But that game against LA tonight was great effort. The are in Dallas tomorrow and have the T-Wolves at home on Saturday, They shouldn't have trouble with either so they should have a nice four game win streak going into a big road match with the Hornets next week.

[Leferd]

Pop for President. I'm serious.

 

"I've spoken on this before and I probably will again. Right now I'm just trying to formulate thoughts. It's still early and I'm still sick to my stomach. Not basically because the Republicans won or anything, but the disgusting tenor and tone and all the comments that have been xenophobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, and I live in that country where half the country ignored all that to elect someone. That's the scariest part of the whole thing to me."It's got nothing to do with the environment and Obamacare and all that other stuff. We live in a country that ignored all those values that we would hold our kids accountable for. They'd be grounded for years if they acted and said the things that have been said in that campaign by Donald Trump. I look at the evangelicals and I wonder, 'Those values don't mean anything to them?'

"All those values to me are more important than anybody's skill in business or anything else because it tells who we are and how we want to live and what kind of people we are. That's why I have great respect for people like Lindsey Graham and John McCain, John Kasich, who I disagree with on a lot of political things, but they had enough fiber and respect for humanity and tolerance for all groups to say what they said about the man."I get it, of course we want him to be successful. We're all gonna say that. Everybody wants him to be successful. It's our country. We don't want it to go down the drain. Any reasonable person would come to that conclusion, but that does not take away the fact that he used that fear-mongering and all the comments from day one. The race baiting with trying to make Barack Obama, our first black president, illegitimate. It leaves me wondering where I've been living and with whom I'm living.

"The fact that people can just gloss that over and start talking about the transition team, and we're all gonna be Kumbaya now and try to make the country good without talking about about any of those things. Now we see that he's already backing off on immigration and Obamacare and other things, so was it a big fake? Which makes you feel even more disgusting and cynical that somebody would use that to get the base that fired up to get elected.

"What gets lost in the process are African-Americans and hispanics and women and the gay population, not to mention the eighth grade developmental stage exhibited by him when he made fun of the handicapped person. I mean, come on. That's what a seventh-grade, eighth-grade bully does, and he was elected president of the United States. We would've scolded our kids, we would've have discussions and talked until we were blue in the face trying to get them to understand these things, and he is in charge of our country. That's disgusting."

(Reporter tries to ask another question/add a comment.)

"I'm not done.

"One could go on and on. We didn't make this stuff up. He's angry at the media because they reported what he said and how he acted. It's ironic to me. It just makes no sense. So that's my real fear and that's what gives me so much pause and makes me feel so badly that the country is willing to be that intolerant and not understand the empathy that's necessary to understand other group situations.

"I'm a rich white guy, and I'm sick to my stomach thinking about it. I can't imagine being a Muslim right now, or a woman, or an African-American, a hispanic, a handicapped person, how disenfranchised they might feel. And for anyone in those groups that voted for him, it's just beyond my comprehension how they ignore all that.

"And so, my final conclusion is - my big fear is - we are Rome."

 

 

The Grizz are exactly who I figured they would be. They beat the teams they are better than and lose to the rest. But that game against LA tonight was great effort. The are in Dallas tomorrow and have the T-Wolves at home on Saturday, They shouldn't have trouble with either so they should have a nice four game win streak going into a big road match with the Hornets next week.

 

I wouldn't count out the Timberwolves quite just yet. Thibs has their offense clicking and you know he'll eventually get them to D up. And then, there's Karl-Anthony Towns. He's a beast. There's documented evidence that he actually survived a deathmatch against Dhalsim. I mean, c'mon --have you seen Dhalsim recently??

 

 

 

 

[Volourn]

'Pop' should stick to basketball coaching. He's actually well informed and intelligent with. Understanding politics or people is not his thing. He clearly doesn't understand women, for example, who. Just another SJW Nazi fearmongering.

[Leferd]

More Pop. As a former Air Force Academy grad and Intelligence Officer fluent in Russian and specializing in the USSR, I'd say he's well informed.

 

Do you feel good about speaking up?

 

Somebody asked me, and I told the truth of what I felt, and I still feel the same way. It’s still a disorienting situation, when you thought you lived in a certain kind of country with certain values that were held in esteem and find out those values aren’t very important to half the country.

I thought that with all the divisiveness in the election and all the groups President-elect Trump disparaged, the best way to start out would not be to worry about Obamacare or to talk about Wall Street or Medicare or anything or make appointments, but to maybe say some things to assuage the feelings of all those groups he disparaged. But that didn’t happen.

That was my hope. I thought that would be a great way to start if he was really interested in unifying and bringing everybody into the tent, so to speak. But that just got totally blown away, and everything he said there is no responsibility or accountability for it. So that still bothers me very much.

 

Were you shocked at the way the election went?

 

Sure. I think most people were. I think he was shocked. I think he was preparing to lose. You could tell because he doesn’t seem to be really that interested in policy, or anything like that. I haven’t seen or heard from him any core values or principles. He’s got one big motivation, and that’s to win at whatever he does. But that’s not a core value, that’s not a principle, that’s not a vision.

I think it was pretty apparent that, at some point, when he thought he was going to lose, that’s when the system was rigged, just like in the primary. The reporter, the moderator asked more questions than him. ‘The media this and that, I’m getting a raw deal.’ But when he was winning, everything was fine. The same thing with the election. Now it’s not rigged, of course.

 

What do you think of Steve Bannon being one of Trump’s top advisers?

 

Well, I think that’s very troublesome to many of us. As I said, it would be great if he made some statements to all of the groups he disparaged, to bring us all together, and to allay fears, because there are a lot of fearful people, and for good reason. But rather than doing that, he inflamed it even more with that [bannon] appointment.

It’s kind of ironic. I wonder sometimes if he made all those statements, he certainly whipped up the fearmongering and emotion in that base, but it’s going to be ironic because now a lot of the things he told them he’s going to do he’s already started to walk back a little bit. It’s sort of like, did he use them all to get elected, and thus winning again? He’s pretty good at that. You can’t believe anything that comes out of his mouth. It changes day to day, depending on the situation and what he needs at the moment.

 

Would you potentially skip a future White House visit because he’s there (if the Spurs won an NBA title)?

 

I’m not going to speculate on the future. I’m just talking about how I feel at the moment, and mostly for all of those groups that we all know.

 

The Holt family (which owns the Spurs) contributed a good chunk of money to Trump. They’ve obviously given you the green light to speak your mind.

 

No, they haven’t given me that freedom. I live in America. That’s what has given me that freedom. There are no individual people that give me that freedom.

 

There are people who say to “stick to sports.” Why is it important for you to speak out?

 

I think everybody’s views are important. I think anybody who says that, it’s an easy argument. What we say might make them feel uncomfortable, so they have to come back with something. It’s basically sort of Trump-like.

 

Do we want to go back to eighth grade, and do the cut down artist thing, and go back and forth with someone if they disagree with me? But everybody can have an opinion. You can be the doctor, the plumber, the lawyer, the car mechanic, the gardener or a lowly basketball coach. You can have an opinion.

 

Bonus Pop. 

 

[Leferd]

Lots of revelations this year.

 

The Lakers are fun. Kerr smokes pot. And this is what happens when you let Westbrook be Westbrook.

[Volourn]

A guy who will pump up his stats but will not win a championship. The Oklahoma Westbrooks will likely have no chance to beat the Spurs or Warriors in a best of 7. Hope he enjoys either winning the MVp or being runner up to his former teammate in Houston b/c that's all those two are winning this season. btw, I like Westrbook and have defended him including from the yahoos on this forum who have cried about him in the past but what I posted is TRUTH.

Edited December 3, 2016 by Volourn

[Leferd]

The MVP balloting should be pretty interesting. Can you give it to Westbrook and his Triple Doubles despite his inefficiencies and team's non-contending status? Using baseball analogies, Barry Bonds and Mike Trout put up astounding counting numbers, but they were Sabremetrically sound and were/are clearly the best players in the league despite playing for mediocre teams. Can't really say the same about Westbrook. Same with Harden.