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NBA 2017 Playoffs |OT| WE DID IT

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L

Line_HTX

Member
TTG said:
We tried to tell you. What happened? Did the media hate train that lasted from preseason to now cloud your judgement about the Bulls?
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What are you talking about? What media hate train??

I hardly see what goes on in the Eastern Conference other than Boston is still kind of good and up there with Cleveland and Toronto.
 
T

TTG

Member
Line_HTX said:
What are you talking about? What media hate train??

I hardly see what goes on in the Eastern Conference other than Boston is still kind of good and up there with Cleveland and Toronto.
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All the ESPN nerds have been openly hating on the Bulls since they signed Wade and Rondo, it is known. And they have too big a hard on for the Celtics in general.
 
S

Slizeezyc

Member
Even if you didn't want to go all-in for Butler/George -- which regardless of result in this series I still think is defensible based on waiting to see with the draft, how things shake out with Hayward, being one year closer to knowing what you want to do with your own guys etc. -- HOW DO YOU NOT TRADE FOR NOEL!?

Like, it just wouldn't have cost that much. If you don't want to sign him, fine. He's an RFA anyway so you can let it play out. He's not an amazing rebounder (though definitely better on defense than offensive glass) and so I think the issue with the offensive glass would still be an issue to some extent, but he would help so much in this series. And he can switch on that end and still rim run on offense, which would help loosen things up for Boston.
 
P

pislit

Member
thMDwif.png
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Seriously? You force that shirt on the only Clipper fan in LA? WTF.
 
S

Slizeezyc

Member
TTG said:
All the ESPN nerds have been openly hating on the Bulls since they signed Wade and Rondo, it is known. And they have too big a hard on for the Celtics in general.
Click to expand...

To be fair, the Rondo and Wade signings were awful and stupid. Like, getting one or the other was sort of defensible, but the point was that Butler needed the ball and should have the ball a lot, so surrounding him with non-shooters who generally need the ball made no sense. Especially when shooting was their issue either way.

And how the season played out pretty much proved that out. How the Playoffs end up going shouldn't, like, change that the Bulls mismanaged the offseason.
 
T

TTG

Member
Slizeezyc said:
To be fair, the Rondo and Wade signings were awful and stupid. Like, getting one or the other was sort of defensible, but the point was that Butler needed the ball and should have the ball a lot, so surrounding him with non-shooters who generally need the ball made no sense. Especially when shooting was their issue either way.

And how the season played out pretty much proved that out. How the Playoffs end up going shouldn't, like, change that the Bulls mismanaged the offseason.
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I'm not for turning Bulls into OKC or Rockets East, not at all. The Bulls had their problems and trading away Taj and McBuckets hurt them, but they got int he post season and that's what matters in the East.
 
S

Slizeezyc

Member
Surfinn said:
I get that the West is superior but..

This is the best team in the east, wow
Click to expand...

I mean it's not. Just the seeding played out the way it did because Cavs gonna Cavs.

The East is in a weird spot in that it's better than it has been in a long time in terms of depth, but it's arguably even more top heavy than ever -- depending on how you feel the Raptors match up with the Cavs if they can get to them.
 
B

BlackNMild2k1

Member
friskykillface said:
Nah, he knew Bulls would be trouble
LeBron easily matches whatever George does

BFF Wade would make LeBron shook
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and if Atlanta was smart, they would have smelled that Lebron fear, and beat the Pacers for the last game of the season, elevating the Bulls to the 7th seed, and the Heat to the 8th seed.

Just having the Bulls eliminate the Cavs would have given everyone in the East a break.
 
C

Chase17

Member
Surfinn said:
I get that the West is superior but..

This is the best team in the east, wow
Click to expand...
Just to run through the teams that could have got the first seed.

Cavs are better, but didn't seem to care down the line. Raptors are better but they had key injuries cost them wins. Wizards are also a better team but are inconsistent lol

If you look at the Celtic's record against above 500 teams it is not great.
 
H

Hyperactivity

Banned
Slizeezyc said:
Even if you didn't want to go all-in for Butler/George -- which regardless of result in this series I still think is defensible based on waiting to see with the draft, how things shake out with Hayward, being one year closer to knowing what you want to do with your own guys etc. -- HOW DO YOU NOT TRADE FOR NOEL!?

Like, it just wouldn't have cost that much. If you don't want to sign him, fine. He's an RFA anyway so you can let it play out. He's not an amazing rebounder (though definitely better on defense than offensive glass) and so I think the issue with the offensive glass would still be an issue to some extent, but he would help so much in this series. And he can switch on that end and still rim run on offense, which would help loosen things up for Boston.
Click to expand...

How do you not get PJ Tucker? How do you not get Bogdonavich? How do you not get Noel? How do you not get Nurkic? How do you not get Taj Gibson? How do you not get Ibaka? How do you not get Ilyasova?

I mean, despite their wealth of assets, just about every other team in the East made moves.
 
S

Surfinn

Member
I meant statistically, by record.

Why would the Cavs "stop trying" in the regular season?

I agree that they're the best overall team in the east.
 
H

Hyperactivity

Banned
Slizeezyc said:
I mean it's not. Just the seeding played out the way it did because Cavs gonna Cavs.

The East is in a weird spot in that it's better than it has been in a long time in terms of depth, but it's arguably even more top heavy than ever -- depending on how you feel the Raptors match up with the Cavs if they can get to them.
Click to expand...

Reminds me of a post I was writing up, didn't finish it though.

Lebron James has gone to six NBA Finals in a row, seven in his career, by the age of 32. And whenever that gets brought up, it's marveled at, but it's often accompanied by an exclamation of how he did this in a decidedly weaker Eastern conference. [There was an earlier reddit post about when the "weak East" narrative had become a thing.](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/661808/when_did_the_weak_east_narrative_become_a_thing/)

While we can get into other factors, one thing that I think isn't acknowledged or discussed much is that this is partially an indictment against the draft system itself. As it stands, it makes it easier for the West to stay good, and easier for the East to stay mediocre.

There are three ways this happens.

1) **The cut-off for the playoffs:**

[I'm going to be using the 2013-2014 NBA season as my example here](http://www.nba.com/standings/2013/team_record_comparison/conferenceNew_Std_Cnf.html). This year is semi-infamous for a 48 win team, led by an unlikely group of overachieving, scrappy players, including the seemingly cursed Goran Dragic, missing the playoffs. The west's 8th seed that year was a 49 wins Dallas team.

Meanwhile, 48 wins would've been enough to give Phoenix 3rd, 4th, or 5th seed in the East that year. The East's 8th seed that year? A 38 win Atlanta team.

But take a second and consider, did the Hawks benefit long-term from that playoff appearance? This sub discusses teams needing to blow it up and tank, or at least proceed with a clear direction for the future, so often, but here, a team that had far less talent is getting kicked out of the lottery and guaranteed a bottom 16 pick, while a talented Phoenix team enters the lottery with a guaranteed top 14 pick. As it stands, if you want to complain about how teams in the West get screwed over and how they would make the playoffs in the East, it only seems fair to complain about how the teams in the West get to keep adding talent to already talented teams. This issue gets worse when you consider the next point:

2) **The deception of the win-loss records**

Go back to that 48 win Suns team, and that 38 win Hawks team. That situation is even stupider than it looks at first, because the Suns are winning against opponents who, on average, or far tougher opponents, and the Hawks are winning against worse teams. So 48 vs 38 isn't really accurate; the disparity in talent is even worse than it first appears.

Take a look at the current standings. The New Yorks Knicks have a record of 31-51, and the Minnesota Timberwolves have a record of 31-51. As it stands, their draft lottery odds are split, and they will likely be within one spot of the other when it comes to drafting by standing.

But if the West is so much better, that means the Timberwolves are only playing 30 games against the weaker conference, and the Knicks 30 games against the stronger conference. If both teams were put into the same conference, the Timberwolves would probably have a better record than the Knicks. Hell, this isn't just because, given the same opponents, the the Wolves are likely to win more than the Knicks, but also because those two teams are now playing each other more.

Look at two playoff teams: the Bulls and the Blazers. Even with the Blazers' struggles early on, does anyone really think they wouldn't have a record better than 0.500 if they were in the East? Yet the same situation comes up.

To an extent, this issue can also be brought up with divisions. The Southbest rips itself into shreds every year, playing each other more than any other teams in the conference. But you don't really hear as much about divisions, especially because they don't impact playoff standings much (anymore, that is. I'm looking at you, Portland)

3) **Travel Fatigue**

This stupid situation gets even worse when you also consider [this map (map of location of NBA franchises and what divisions they are in)](https://buzzlesdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/carte-nba.jpg).

What's that? You're telling me the western conference covers 3 time zones to the East's 2? That both of the franchises with higher elevation that make playing there harder (Jazz and Nuggets) are in the West? That the Northwest division stretches the definition of "Northwest" to ridiculous lengths? That, going by geographic distance, the western conference teams, especially on the west coast, are going to spending far more time on the plane than teams in the east?
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Basically, it's easier to suck and lose and tank if you're in the west, and it's easier for the rich to get richer in the west
 
M

metalslimer

Member
I've been waiting for a Clippers-Warriors playoff these last 3 years. I love seeing the Warriors shit all over the Clippers. Knowing the Clippers though, they'd blow a 3-0 lead.
 
S

Slizeezyc

Member
Surfinn said:
I meant statistically, by record.

Why would the Cavs "stop trying" in the regular season?

I agree that they're the best overall team in the east.
Click to expand...

Because LeBron's done this before, and they're probably exhausted, and had injury issues, and don't give a fuck on defense.

Boston was arguably 4th in the East power rankings by Playoff standards as IT was amazing in regular season but hadn't proved it yet in Playoffs so Wiz and Cavs for sure were above them, and Raptors had a better matchup for Cavs than the Celtics by the end of the season -- though came in with the DeRozan/Lowry concerns similar to IT's (though with a much bigger sample of failing than IT).
 
B

BlackNMild2k1

Member
Surfinn said:
I meant statistically, by record.

Why would the Cavs "stop trying" in the regular season?

I agree that they're the best overall team in the east.
Click to expand...

They didn't really "stop trying" so much as they were getting shown up late in the season, Lenron was fed up and said "fuck it" especially since it looked like he would have to try way to hard just to keep the #1 seed. He was already playing way too many minutes, and besides, the Bulls were the likely 8 seed.

concession of #1 seed was just as much strategic as it was probably inevitable anyway.
Better to lose it purposely by taking the last 2 games off, than to actually lose it while trying.
 
B

BlackNMild2k1

Member
Fuuuck, Clippers ain't playing around today.

I guess we'll have to see what happens when Gobert comes back next game.
not that this game is anywhere near over yet.
 
M

mjp2417

Banned
Surfinn said:
I get that the West is superior but..

This is the best team in the east, wow
Click to expand...

The general consensus entering the Playoffs was Cavs > Wizards = Raptors > Celtics. Like, the Thunder won 12 fewer games than the Spurs last year (which is actually the same as the W-L gap between the Celtics and Bulls this year) and it wasn't really a surprise when the Thunder beat them in the Playoffs. Regular season record isn't a completely useless indicator, but it is a limited one.
 
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