I think in a static world you have to like both LA teams. I still like the Bucks and the surprising Heat in the east, but Boston is diminished without Hayward. That said there are quite a few teams that are an incremental player away from challenging those guys. Dallas for example, could make some noise with an addition like Love for example. Not sure they could afford him, but there might be other similar trades that could move the needle enough. There may be other sellers once some teams figure out they aren't making it..I still think healthy Clippers are a WAY bigger favorite than what most people realize. No team has had elite two-way wings like this since the Chicago Bulls of the 90s (you could argue Miami but these guys are a different level defensively than Wade ever was). But beyond those wings, they also have incredible depth. I feel bad for any perimeter scorer that has to go up against them in a playoff series.
The Lakers are probably the only team that I can conceivably see knocking them out in a playoff series, but it would take many things going right for them this season (Kuzma becoming consistent from three, acquiring another player to check big wings, acquiring additional playmaking, health, AD being willing to play significant minutes at the rice, etc). They are about to embark on a brutal road trip soon. Should tell us a lot more about how good they really are.
This is kind of a hindsight take. I don't recall anybody saying this at the time.Bucks should have kept Brogdon instead of Middleton. If Brogdon was playing for the Bucks, Bucks would be in the finals this year. Brogdon and Giannis would have been an excellent duo.
I really like Brogdon - I thought Indiana picking him up would make them a contender when Oladipo is back healthy.This is kind of a hindsight take. I don't recall anybody saying this at the time.
If they had let Middleton walk, they would have been lambasted for doing such a thing during Giannis's prime.
I think this season has been pretty damn exciting so farThe most "exciting" part of the NBA is the off-season.
That doesn't exactly bode well for the league.
Middleton was an All-Star last year. If they let him walk, everybody destroys the Bucks and says that Giannis should walk. If they lock in both, they get killed for handcuffing themselves to a roster that wasn't good enough to get it done last year.I really like Brogdon - I thought Indiana picking him up would make them a contender when Oladipo is back healthy.
Absolutely love seeing GSW get reamed like this. The Mavs can score the basketball. The fact that we weren’t in a position to take Doncic makes me weep.
We should have traded to get him, given away as many firsts as possible or something. We probably could have pulled it off. Dallas had nothing over us in trading for him except that they had the fifth pick and we had the eighth pick, other than that we could have outbid them. Post-Lebron our firsts are very valuable trade commodities. Luka is the kind of player who comes along once per decade and he basically fell to fifth in the draft, which is very unusual for a player of that quality. Nothing is more important in the NBA than getting a player like that, nothing. Unlike Giannis he had a real track record and wasn't a development project who was hard to spot.
Not really blaming our front office on that one because every other team in the NBA had that opportunity too, it's hard to have the confidence to spot those opportunities and act on them. But it's the kind of moment that differentiates great organizations from ordinary ones.
Re the Warriors -- I'm pissed that Curry is injured, I was looking forward to seeing him exposed on a crap team. He dodged a bullet there.
LOL I'm not going to be mad at Spencer Dinwiddie and Lebron about the outcome of some meaningless game in December that no one could have known would have those implications.
The Lakers are good. I told ppl that Bron and AD was gonna be devastating. Imagine if they had the Klaw...