OT: Golden State Warriors Sputtering Toward the End

KontradictioN said:

I'd love to see Raptors vs. Thunder. Both teams are built very similarly.

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What would like the celtics to do with that 3rd pick? Draft or trade it for someone?

PatriotsPimp136 said:

What would like the celtics to do with that 3rd pick? Draft or trade it for someone?

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I'm a Heat fan so I hope they draft a bust. However, if I were a C's fan, I'd hope they draft Buddy Hield. Best pure scorer in the draft.

PatriotsPimp136 said:

They looked awful against the cavs in the regular season. We will see. I still don't believe it until i actually see it. The thunder have had a nice run here. I would like to see raptors vs thunder lol. Just somethint different.

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....and I don't think Irving played in either game.

KontradictioN said:

I'm a Heat fan so I hope they draft a bust. However, if I were a C's fan, I'd hope they draft Buddy Hield. Best pure scorer in the draft.

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Who invited you? Go away.

PatriotsPimp136 said:

What would like the celtics to do with that 3rd pick? Draft or trade it for someone?

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Ugh....

I'm still doing my NBA draft homework so I don't have a solid answer but IMO at #3 they will not get a Day 1 rock star. It'll take 3 years for this player to be an All-Star-playoff tough player...

robertweathers said:

Ugh....

I'm still doing my NBA draft homework so I don't have a solid answer but IMO at #3 they will not get a Day 1 rock star. It'll take 3 years for this player to be an All-Star-playoff tough player...

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Look up Buddy Hield. I think you'll like what you see...

GSW is not out of this yet. They need to just win game 5 and put all the pressure on OKC.

KontradictioN said:

Look up Buddy Hield. I think you'll like what you see...

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Yes. I see a lotta D Wade in him.

robertweathers said:

Yes. I see a lotta D Wade in him.

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He doesn't hit the deck as much as Wade, and that may preserve his career.

SVN said:

GSW is not out of this yet. They need to just win game 5 and put all the pressure on OKC.

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Hi Kevin Millar.

KontradictioN said:

I'm a Heat fan so I hope they draft a bust. However, if I were a C's fan, I'd hope they draft Buddy Hield. Best pure scorer in the draft.

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Buddy would be my pick as well. Too much risk with the Dragan Bender from what I've read.

Warriors lose, the doubters love it

Anyone who's not a part of a dynasty loves watching it crumble. So it goes in sports. That's why it still warms baseball fans' hearts to watch the Yankees fail, even though their last World Series title was back in 2009. And why Deflategate was fun to follow before it turned into the saga that never ends.

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KontradictioN said:

I'm a Heat fan so I hope they draft a bust. However, if I were a C's fan, I'd hope they draft Buddy Hield. Best pure scorer in the draft.

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Yeah, I love Hield, would be psyched if the Pats got him. Pretty much the whole reason why I wasn't too worried about the pick potentially dropping to 5 was knowing that Hield would still probably be available there anyway.

IMO, at 3 it's gotta be Hield or Dragan Bender. A 7'1 18 year old who's a plus athlete, can shoot the 3, and passes as well as he does (at 18 years old) is a pretty rare thing. Once he grows into his frame, there's a decent chance he'll be a franchise-type player. He and Hield are the only two guys in the draft outside the top two who I think could conceivably become franchise guys (disregarding Jaylen Brown's 1% 'if everything conceivable goes right' chance).

There's also talk of the Lakers taking Bender at 2. I'll believe it when I see it, and I'd be shocked if it happens, but if it does the Celtics would pretty much have to take whoever's still available between Simmons and Ingram. And I say that as someone who doesn't really like Simmons and thinks his bust potential is alarmingly high.

Froob said:

Buddy would be my pick as well. Too much risk with the Dragan Bender from what I've read.

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There's definitely risk anytime you're drafting an 18 year old from Europe. But FWIW, he probably has the highest floor of any of these European bigs that come over, except maybe Porzingis. He already has NBA-caliber vision and 3 point shooting, he's a pretty good athlete and his frame can easily support another 15 pounds without affecting his mobility at all. Without major injury, I think his floor is a much, much better version of Kelly Olynyk. He won't be the next Jan Vesely or anything.

I'd be a-okay with taking either him or Hield, I think they're both rotation players on a title contender at worst, and potential franchise guys at best. If it was up to me, I'd probably take Bender though, mostly because we need a power forward a whole lot more than we need another guard.

BradyFTW! said:

Yeah, I love Hield, would be psyched if the Pats got him. Pretty much the whole reason why I wasn't too worried about the pick potentially dropping to 5 was knowing that Hield would still probably be available there anyway.

IMO, at 3 it's gotta be Hield or Dragan Bender. A 7'1 18 year old who's a plus athlete, can shoot the 3, and passes as well as he does (at 18 years old) is a pretty rare thing. Once he grows into his frame, there's a decent chance he'll be a franchise-type player. He and Hield are the only two guys in the draft outside the top two who I think could conceivably become franchise guys (disregarding Jaylen Brown's 1% 'if everything conceivable goes right' chance).

There's also talk of the Lakers taking Bender at 2. I'll believe it when I see it, and I'd be shocked if it happens, but if it does the Celtics would pretty much have to take whoever's still available between Simmons and Ingram. And I say that as someone who doesn't really like Simmons and thinks his bust potential is alarmingly high.

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Yeah, I like Bender. Certainly there's risk, but it's the kind of risk you take if you want to snatch a potential franchise player at 3. Heild seems great, but the fact that he's a 6'4 SG, and that his defensive deficiencies would have him struggling for minutes behind first team all-defensive player Bradley make me leery of him.

drewskie said:

Its not just Lebron though. Cleveland's role players are getting superstar respect on defense. Sure their huge fan base may complain a lot but they have a legit bone to pick imo. They probably hold the NBA record for most apologies by the league for shafting them in the ref reviews. Cleveland didn't commit a foul until well into the second quarter of game 4 and they are an average defensive team at best. Unless you're telling me they're some historically great defensive team...I'm not buying it.

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As a very casual basketball fan I can see some of the Raptors fans complaints. It doesn't help the cause having Lebron going down like he was shot...but it due to his teammates contact which caused it. Even as a Canadian, I hope the Raptors can pull this out. It will be fascinating to see how they respond tonight after getting ***** slapped the first two games in Cleveland.

rochrist said:

Yeah, I like Bender. Certainly there's risk, but it's the kind of risk you take if you want to snatch a potential franchise player at 3. Heild seems great, but the fact that he's a 6'4 SG, and that his defensive deficiencies would have him struggling for minutes behind first team all-defensive player Bradley make me leery of him.

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Mostly agreed, although I think you're selling Hield a little short in general. He's a tall 6'4, and has a 6'8 wingspan; he actually has pretty good size for a SG, and defensively I think he'll be fine in the NBA. As far as skills go, he's a solid tier below Dwyane Wade in terms of athleticism, but his midrange game reminds me a lot of Wade's, and he's already a better shooter than Wade has ever been. Obviously that's a lofty comp: a less-athletic, better-shooting Wade is pretty much the best case scenario you could ever hope for, but I mention it only to highlight the kind of potential that you could at least reasonably hope he might come close to reaching. His size and athleticism won't keep him from being a 5+ time all star if things break his way and works his ass off and keeps improving as he did for 4 years at Oklahoma.

Having said all of that, I'd still probably take Bender.

102 Pat said:

As a very casual basketball fan I can see some of the Raptors fans complaints. It doesn't help the cause having Lebron going down like he was shot...but it due to his teammates contact which caused it. Even as a Canadian, I hope the Raptors can pull this out. It will be fascinating to see how they respond tonight after getting ***** slapped the first two games in Cleveland.

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This is just what the NBA does. As much as I want to love basketball, I just can't get past how overtly the refs swing playoff games, and I can't shake the suspicion that it's being done to help push marquee matchups in the playoffs.

Let's be abundantly clear here: the NBA does not want Toronto to win the ECF. LeBron is one of the most popular and recognizable players in American sports history, and meanwhile casual NBA fans probably couldn't name a single player on the Raptors roster. Kyle Lowry's been great this year, and the few things that DeRozan does he does really well, but I'd bet the average super-casual fan who only tunes in for the last two rounds has never heard of either of them.

On the other side, I think the league clearly wants the Warriors to win, and I expect the calls over the next couple games to reflect that. Steph Curry is the face of the league right now, and they play a style that's really fun to watch. But the 'worse' outcome for the NBA out west is still a pretty damn good one, since the Thunder have two of the 7 or so best and most well-known players in the league.

So based on that, I don't think the NBA's going to be willing to tilt things supper aggressively in the Warriors' favor (harder than they already have by not suspending Green and giving the Warriors too many calls, anyway). Back east, though, I expect to see the games be practically fixed if that's what it takes. The NBA will do whatever it thinks it can get away with to keep Toronto out of the finals.

BradyFTW! said:

Mostly agreed, although I think you're selling Hield a little short in general. He's a tall 6'4, and has a 6'8 wingspan; he actually has pretty good size for a SG, and defensively I think he'll be fine in the NBA. As far as skills go, he's a solid tier below Dwyane Wade in terms of athleticism, but his midrange game reminds me a lot of Wade's, and he's already a better shooter than Wade has ever been. Obviously that's a lofty comp: a less-athletic, better-shooting Wade is pretty much the best case scenario you could ever hope for, but I mention it only to highlight the kind of potential that you could at least reasonably hope he might come close to reaching. His size and athleticism won't keep him from being a 5+ time all star if things break his way and works his ass off and keeps improving as he did for 4 years at Oklahoma.

Having said all of that, I'd still probably take Bender.

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Bender is trouble waiting to happen. Hes a sketchy dude.

Definitely an interesting final four we have going on.

I think the most impressive thing so far, the Warriors and Spurs combined to only lose three home games all regular season (in 82 games), and yet have lost three home games to the Thunder in the playoffs. That's some incredible accomplishment by the Thunder.

As for Lebron, it's crazy to think that he could make it to six straight NBA Finals (and with two different teams).