2021 NBA Offseason Thread

[Rich]

So the Heat are just going to stay in a zone to get their ass whooped? They won't at least try to have a little faith in their defenders? Lakers shot and bricked an insane amount of threes, yet they still dominated the inside anyway.

What is the point of having Butler, Crowder, and Iggy for defense if you are just going to run zone? Unless the answer is that they are all extremely overrated defenders. Nobody is going to "stop" a great player. In fact, nobody can match up with AD specifically. But at least try to make LeBron a scorer and trust these defenders.

I guess it doesn't matter at this point. I'm just surprised they are just sticking with this. LeBron and AD are destroying the zone, even with all the missed threes from the rest.

I mean they've ran zone to get to the Finals when no one expected them to, right? It's helped cover for the fact that their roster isn't THAT talented.

 

[Wulfgar1224]

I mean they've ran zone to get to the Finals when no one expected them to, right? It's helped cover for the fact that their roster isn't THAT talented.

Agreed. I know the beat Boston fair and square. But, I feel the Celtics would have put up a better fight.

 

[Pioneer10]

That whole thing alarms me a ton.

This, I have to believe, is going to blow up.

KD is always in his feelings. He can't ignore the noise and takes everything personal. Kyrie is weird, has an overinflated sense of his own skills, and seems to always be malcontent. He reminds me of Jimmy Butler only w/o half the leadership skills or pure will to win. And Nash is a rookie coach.

Oh, and KD is coming off of the worst injury a basketball player can have.

This is going to fail.

Jimmy Butler though plays the game completely differently the KI. So impressed with him: everything comes within the team concept: rotates the ball, sets mean screens, can iso. It's the opposite of Irving who is ball stopped and on even a title team played more of a release favor role on offense

 

[Nathan S]

Not sure if it's been mentioned already, but after struggling at times with turnovers earlier in the playoffs, LeBron is averaging just 1 turnover per game in the Lakers' current 4-game winning streak. In that time, he's scored or assisted on over 20 Lakers' baskets for every 1 turnover. Totally ridiculous.

 

[Sir'Dom Pointer]

Lol at all the people that thought the Lakers weren't going to win this shit. It was written in the stars from the beginning.

 

[cavsfever]

Not sure if it's been mentioned already, but after struggling at times with turnovers earlier in the playoffs, LeBron is averaging just 1 turnover per game in the Lakers' current 4-game winning streak. In that time, he's scored or assisted on over 20 Lakers' baskets for every 1 turnover. Totally ridiculous.

I actually just was coming here to say that. Lebron has 18 assists and 2 turnovers through two Finals games. If you watch, his passing is INCREDIBLE. Just totally accurate and on point every time, he is feasting on the zone. If anything his assist numbers understate things because he is getting a lot of hockey assists too, passing to people perfectly positioned to make the next pass. He is in full video game controller mode out there.

AD is more photogenic in his dominance of these games and is getting more attention, but I hope Lebron gets the Finals MVP. He really deserved the overall MVP this season and this would make up for it. AD has been amazing in the playoffs but Lebron is at least as valuable to the team.

 

[cavsfever]

Just before the finals began, FiveThirtyEight had Miami with 73% chance of winning the finals.
Even this morning it was Heat with 52% chance of winning.

Finally, the dude woke up, read some newspapers, realized that LeBron no longer plays for the Heat, and has put Lakers as favorites (66%)

Not only that, FiveThirtyEight actually doubled down by doing a podcast before the series started to explain why their almighty model favored the Heat by so much (something to do with LA "statistically underperforming" in the playoffs compared to their regular season stats, while the Heat "overperformed"). Models are dumb and you need to just throw them out when they do shit that makes no sense.

But a lot of people were overestimating the Heat in this series. I was reading commentators and scratching my head about how people could think it was at all possible for the Heat to win four out of seven. Literally the only suspense now is whether the Heat can manage to win even one single game (looks highly unlikely). They would have maybe lost in five with Bam and Dragic, now they'll lose in four.

 

[Pioneer10]

Not only that, FiveThirtyEight actually doubled down by doing a podcast before the series started to explain why their almighty model favored the Heat by so much (something to do with LA "statistically underperforming" in the playoffs compared to their regular season stats, while the Heat "overperformed"). Models are dumb and you need to just throw them out when they do shit that makes no sense.

But a lot of people were overestimating the Heat in this series. I was reading commentators and scratching my head about how people could think it was at all possible for the Heat to win four out of seven. Literally the only suspense now is whether the Heat can manage to win even one single game (looks highly unlikely). They would have maybe lost in five with Bam and Dragic, now they'll lose in four.

The problem with the model is I think the Bucks. it's really baffling that the Bucks just couldn't figure out Miami but this seems in line with Coach Bud never figuring out Lebron. Looking at how the Lakers even before the injury quickly turned it around putting AD at the 5, the Bucks should have been ready to go with Giannis at the 5. Otherwise though Bam was beating the shit out of teams which didn't have Sabonis and then a Boston team that was throwing Daniel Theis at him.

I mean anyone who watched him against AD would realize that is a completely different ballgame against the Lakers. The Lakers are like an old school 80's team who can play the new pace and space league because of AD

 

[cavsfever]

Here BTW is a great analysis of the Lakers' defense from Zach Lowe, who has got to be the best sportswriter working in any sport:

Lowe: How LeBron, AD and the Lakers are smothering opponents

Here's the blueprint for how the "locked in" Lakers are overwhelming opponents with defense.

www.espn.com

The discussion of Lebron's buy-in on defense will be interesting for us poor beleaguered Cavs fans...of course Lebron did provide all-world defense here when he felt it was called for (in the playoffs), but what he didn't do was buy in to was the effort to construct a team defense over the course of a season.

 

[cavsfever]

The problem with the model is I think the Bucks. it's really baffling that the Bucks just couldn't figure out Miami but this seems in line with Coach Bud never figuring out Lebron. Looking at how the Lakers even before the injury quickly turned it around putting AD at the 5, the Bucks should have been ready to go with Giannis at the 5.

It's interesting to think about whether a good coach could dissect AD's game and bring elements of it to Giannis' game, try to evolve him into a new school center. He doesn't have quite AD's otherworldly wingspan (he has 7'3 vs 7'6 for AD) and he is somewhat lighter I think, but he has already done a ton to improve his post game.

 

[Cavatt]

The problem with the model is I think the Bucks. it's really baffling that the Bucks just couldn't figure out Miami but this seems in line with Coach Bud never figuring out Lebron. Looking at how the Lakers even before the injury quickly turned it around putting AD at the 5, the Bucks should have been ready to go with Giannis at the 5. Otherwise though Bam was beating the shit out of teams which didn't have Sabonis and then a Boston team that was throwing Daniel Theis at him.

I mean anyone who watched him against AD would realize that is a completely different ballgame against the Lakers. The Lakers are like an old school 80's team who can play the new pace and space league because of AD

Yeah great post. It is tough to reconcile how they just ran roughshod over the Bucks like that.

 

[Pioneer10]

It's interesting to think about whether a good coach could dissect AD's game and bring elements of it to Giannis' game, try to evolve him into a new school center. He doesn't have quite AD's otherworldly wingspan (he has 7'3 vs 7'6 for AD) and he is somewhat lighter I think, but he has already done a ton to improve his post game.

Giannis is more explosive, stronger, and a better ballhandler.

AD's great and he's one of the greatest defensive bigs I've seen but he's to a lot of faults on offense that Lebron covers up. He doesn't handle double teams well overall and he can be bullied both on offense and defense in the paint.

I would tell Giannis not to hang out at the 3 point line so much and get a nice mid range game going. That will help him in the playoffs

 

[Los216]

Miami might pull this one off but I don’t wanna jinx them

 

[Tlyons]

I think Lebron just wants more games for stats.

 

[Los216]