The basketball thread

[Ganymede]

@arkandel

Yeah, I liked this ending better than the Canadiens not even fucking showing up to play.

[buttercup]

I was sore last night. This was a magical season for a few reasons.

I'm from Phoenix. My father and I bonded over the Suns. We were poor and once he became disabled elementary school ticket specials were given to us every once in a while. We watched the Suns on a small black and white rabbit ears TV on channel 45, He had his first heart attack that led to his quadruple bypass in a triple overtime game when I was 11. I drove him to the hospital. We watched two days later in the bed on that same TV against doctors orders the next Suns game.

I carry the whatever it is that makes me passionate about basketball and the Suns are my heart. My wife coaches. You guys know. I've blabbed about it before.

Saw the last two games of the season the Suns played in San Antonio.

We saw Mavs/Clippers 3, 6 and 7 (live near Dallas and flew to LA). (Whole family vacation had great timing to allow this. My son (On the Spectrum) and I groove to the Suns. It's one of his foci in life. We flew to game 4 of Denver vs. Phx.

In downtown Denver we were waiting on a bus to go to game 4 and four dudes from their expensive loft balcony in a high-rise started shouting things about my weight and my team. We couldn't do anything and were in the open. I yelled up 'Suns in 4!' after about five minutes of being publicly humiliated. He pulled a gun out and started firing. I thought I was dead when I felt the pain in my shoulder. I grabbed my son and ran him towards them to the only cover. Got shot once more, and got over him and prayed that my fat fuck life would be worth something and the bullets wouldn't go through me and spare my boy.

After a moment of smothering and telling him to run I was going to stand and draw fire so he could have full cover. Told him I love him but then felt a sting in my foot. It was a fucking bb gun.

Felony menacing and felony assault charges and in court now on the shooter.

I can't tell you how fucked up I am on that. Massively. Anyway.

We got to the game late in the back of a police car. Ayton saw our sign and fist to chest saluted me (Domin-Ayton with his poster dunk the game prior).

My wife for my birthday took me to game 3 and 4 Suns and Clippers in LA. I had a rough time game 3. Got through it and game 4 was amazing. Ayton saw me (new poster) and my wife and pointed us out in the crowd and did the same fist to chest thing -- . His mom a few rows below us looked up and then we started talking.

We hung out after and talked a lot with her and his baby mamma. Great pictures with them. His mom asked to keep our poster she loved it so much and wanted to take it home.

In advanced scouting I took my son (he wasn't ready for LA being honest I wasn't either) to see Bucks and Hawks Game 6. Got to see the Bucks take the Eastern Conference.

We were going to go to Game 4 if the Suns were in position to sweep. That kept getting pushed back had they won last night my son and I were going to get in the truck and drive to Phoenix.

So bittersweet. Hopefully less bitter with time long-term.

That said I get to take my step-son to see Green Day (also on the spectrum but he has it for music) and then we're going 5 days Lolla later this month. Where Tyler the Creator and many more will be. We bond on hip hop, 90s music, and rap. These are his two favorite bands and artist. His first concerts ever.

It's great to be a dad sometimes. I'll be back on the Suns next year after we size up and go up against Nash and the Nets for more bittersweet heartbreak.

[Waller]

@testament said in The basketball thread:

@arkandel In the post-game news conference, Giannis had some words regarding the need to sign that 5 year deal.

"I couldn't just leave. Coming back, I was like, 'This is my city. They trust me. They believe in me. They believe in us.' ... Obviously I wanted to get the job done. But that's my stubborn side. It's easy to go somewhere and go win a championship with somebody else. It's easy. ... I could go to a super team and just do my part and win a championship.

"But this is the hard way to do it," he continued, pounding the dais for emphasis, "and this is the way to do it, and we did it. We f---ing did it."

Not for nothing, but I feel like he just low-key threw shade at Lebron and Durant for doing it the 'easy way'.

Based on a statement from James Harden that was supposedly aimed at Giannis:

"I wish I could be 7-feet, run and just dunk, that takes no skill at all,"Harden said in video interview with ESPN's Rachel Nichols. "I gotta actually learn how to play basketball and how to have skill. I’ll take that any day."

I think that Giannis' comments were aimed squarely at The Bearded One, and Lebron and Durant were just catching strays.

(Also, I admit that, as a Clevelander, I'll defend Lebron coming home and getting a title as a Cav, but I can understand the criticism.)

[Testament]

@waller Harden is also a huge drama llama so I'm not surprised the dude would be salty.

[Ganymede]

@waller said in The basketball thread:

I think that Giannis' comments were aimed squarely at The Bearded One, and Lebron and Durant were just catching strays.

I'm not sure if Giannis meant any shade at all, in that everything he said is true.

But if it was targeting someone, that would definitely be anyone who left the team that raised them in order to be part of a super-team.

And Milwaukee is a smaller market that definitely deserves its recognition, like how LeBron brought a championship to Cleveland.

At least Durant has a couple. Leonard brought a championship to the North.

Harden has no rings. He's a transcendent talent. He's also impossible to play with.

[Arkandel]

I'm'a just gonna put this here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiYGxlr74mw

@buttercup That's quite a story. I am really sorry you had to go through all that; your family's stories make it clear what sports are really about, and those idiots' actions about what they are not.

If it helps at all, Booker + Ayton are the real deal. I think Ayton can legitimately have a Duncan-kind of career. All the team needs is stability, fleshing out the bench and maaaaybe if you can replace CP3 (who had an amazing run, mind you, but he's not getting any younger) with a ball handler/passer who fits the timeline better you are looking to compete for years to come.

[Misadventure]

zomg sports nerds!

However, I wanted to point out that the conversation about reputation and contractual decisions helped me get a better idea of that part of the drama/strategies and why people can get into discussing it.

I feel like I get that a lot more.

[Arkandel]

@misadventure The NBA specifically is as much about resource management (fitting the right roster under one's budget, which is more or less what salary caps are) as it is about the sport itself.

General Managers strategize, trade players and look for hopefuls through the draft more or less like a trading card game with years as their horizon which - depending on how you view it - is either a very high stakes or a zero stakes one.

It can be high stakes for fans since if the GM makes the wrong trades and creates albatross (baaaad!) long-term contracts the team will stay shitty for years since their salary cap space is all taken up and they have no good way to free it before those contracts expire.

And it can be almost zero stakes for team owners especially in large markets because fans are gonna go buy tickets to their games and merchandise anyway. The New York Knicks for instance have been absolute shit for twenty five years and they're making money over fist, so...

[Warma Sheen]

@ganymede said in The basketball thread:

I'm not sure if Giannis meant any shade at all

I agree that this is true. The things people say are easily taken out of context. And Giannis being young and overtaken by emotion just had a moment where he wasn't filtering everything he says (and it honestly suuucks that anyone has to).

But given who Giannis has shown himself to be his entire career, I highly doubt he meant to throw shade at anyone. That just isn't him. It is far more likely to be a response to people who have been for several years now telling him that he'll never win a title as a Buck, that he has to go to a team to play with other superstars, specifically when his time as a free agent came up and he put his belief and career back into the Bucks. He's speaking to his own experiences, not to the detriment of anyone else's.

And while I'm happy that he's happy, cause personality-wise he's one of my favorite basketball players since Steph Curry, I don't necessarily disagree with those people he's talking to - under normal circumstances. I'm sure he would not be holding that trophy without a ton of injuries around the league. It takes just the right number of high profile injuries on the biggest teams in the league to put them there.

But... that's the nature of the game, and you can say that about most champions most years, especially recently. So I'm just happy he got his ring, however it happened.

[Arkandel]

@warma-sheen said in The basketball thread:

But... that's the nature of the game, and you can say that about most champions most years, especially recently. So I'm just happy he got his ring, however it happened.

Kawhi gets hurt, Golden State wins versus Spurs.

Westbrook gets hurt, OKT lose their best chance to win one.

Kevin Love gets his shoulder pulled out, Golden State wins versus prime LeBron.

KD, Klay get hurt, Toronto wins it all versus one of the most stacked teams ever in Golden State.

These narratives to me are just fun as conversation fodder (or click bait these days ) since it's just in the nature of the game for players to be injured. Just about any year we can point at least one hopeful team that lost at least one meaningful or even critical contributor in their playoffs run.

A chip is a chip.

[Testament]

@warma-sheen said in The basketball thread:

I'm sure he would not be holding that trophy without a ton of injuries around the league. It takes just the right number of high profile injuries on the biggest teams in the league to put them there.

I mean, I think this outlook is a slippery slope to allowing in people saying "Yeah, but without X happening, then Y wouldn't of won out, so this puts in the legitimacy of how good Y really is as a player/team/etc."

And this isn't just a comment on basketball, but pretty much any major sport.

[Ganymede]

@warma-sheen said in The basketball thread:

I'm sure he would not be holding that trophy without a ton of injuries around the league.

If your team is affected by the fall of a single player, then it wasn't a great team to begin with.

Toronto wasn't a team build around Leonard when they won; it was extraordinarily deep. No one could have predicted the seasons that both Siakam and Van Vleet had that year. But when people tell me they wouldn't have won but for Durant's and Thompson's injuries, I simply respond: maybe Golden State shouldn't have relied so heavily on them, to the point where they got worn out.

And that's why load management, a deep bench, and great scouting can allow a team to win without a super-team.

[Ominous]

@arkandel said in The basketball thread:

And it can be almost zero stakes for team owners especially in large markets because fans are gonna go buy tickets to their games and merchandise anyway. The New York Knicks for instance have been absolute shit for twenty five years and they're making money over fist, so...

Which is why I support nationalizing all sports franchises, including college teams; tying teams to municipalities; and allowing for the development of new teams.