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***2021-2022 NBA Season Thread***

RonArtest15

By RonArtest15
in The Tailgate

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Fergasun

Fergasun

Posted
Posted

LA sports talk in total meltdown.  "What, the man didn't want to play for the most prestegious franchise in the NBA?!"  Really... did you not see what was going on in LA?  

 

Stephen A came on and pretty much explained it to them:

1) Dwight Howard wasn't happy in LA from the beginning.

2) Dwight Howard wanted Phil Jackson to be the coach.

3) Mike D'Antoni is who he is and runs his team that way.

4) Pau Gasol was benched 2 games in... Dwight Howard can read the writing on the wall... its not a big man offense.

5) Mike D'Antoni wasn't fired during the offseason for Phil Jackson.

 

SAS pretty much said this wasn't going to work from the beginning, the Lakers didn't change the situation to make Howard any happy and he advocated trading Dwight at the trade deadeline (since it was clear Howard was going to leave).

 

Lakers are going to tank next year...

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DM72

DM72

Posted
Posted

I know, I just heard that ~ 1 hour ago (taking kids to In-N-Out).... heard he was flying to LA right now... .

Yeah, to pack the rest of his cloths.

LOL. I think he's probably the most overrated bigtime free agent ever, but I'm glad be stuck it to LA.

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Destino

Destino

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It's being reported that Houston wants Josh Smith as well. Their front court defense is going to be good is they get him. It's going to burn Thunder fans if Houston comes back to haunt OKC in the post season being that OKC made Houston's current team possible.

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Destino

Destino

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Posted (edited)

I'd say that the Lakers are gonna tank for Wiggins, but I know Kobe wouldn't be able to take that. They're not gonna be good though, and will have zero defense with this current roster and coach.

Lakers would have to get rid of Kobe, Pau, and Nash if they want to tank.

I hope Kobe gets amnestied and then signs with the Pacers, Bulls, or Thunder for the league min. :)

Edited by Destino
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RichmondRedskin88

RichmondRedskin88

Posted
Posted

The day Shaka Smart leaves for the NBA will be a sad day. 

 

I know Shaka loves VCU and all that but this Stevens thing just shows you that everyone has a price. Rare is the guy who says no to the big NBA bucks. Remember the Lakers offered Coach K the job and he said no? 

 

Just a quick note:  They come from completely different situations.  Brad made his runs on one amazing class.  That class is completely gone now and he knew they would be terrible next year.  The writing was on the wall this year when SLU and VCU destroyed them in conference.  Butler will be down for awhile and honestly might fall into the slums of the Big East.  This is major blow for them.  Suddenly it leaves the Big East wondering if they made the right decision because even Butler fan are questioning the move in light of what happened.  Shaka on the other hand is putting out 3-4 stars every year now.  His best class is coming in now.  Top 50 & 100 players coming in. If VCU does get a invite(Like most of the Big East wants except Georgetown) Shaka won't be moving.  He could get 5 stars in the new Big East. 

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Destino

Destino

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I'm having fun reading Lakers fan posts around the web in which they declare that they didnt want him blah blah blah. The team just put up billboards for the guy and essentially begged him to stay. He hated LA so much he left 30 million on the table to leave. 30 million is a lot of unhappy.

So do the Lakers sign Bynum? :)

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Dr. Do Itch Big

Dr. Do Itch Big

Posted
Posted

I'm having fun reading Lakers fan posts around the web in which they declare that they didnt want him blah blah blah. The team just put up billboards for the guy and essentially begged him to stay. He hated LA so much he left 30 million on the table to leave. 30 million is a lot of unhappy.

So do the Lakers sign Bynum? :)

A lot of laker fans I know in person didn't want him to come back either. I was kinda surprised they didn't want him back, but a lot of them think Dwight is overrated as hell.
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Going Commando

Going Commando

Posted
Posted (edited)

It's being reported that Houston wants Josh Smith as well. Their front court defense is going to be good is they get him. It's going to burn Thunder fans if Houston comes back to haunt OKC in the post season being that OKC made Houston's current team possible.

And a Houston scrub injured Westbrook's knee on a dirty play no less.

I think Houston ascends to the #3 spot in the conference for now behind OKC and SA, and they have a chance to climb higher if they get a third piece.

Their gamble paid off in incredible fashion with Dwight walking away from 30 million dollars. First time it's ever been done. He's a unique player, I'll say that much. If he wins a ring in Houston, he paid 30 million dollars for it. I'd imagine that's as big a price as any player has ever paid.

Houston has built up a lot of bad karma on the way though. The Beverly play, the two poison pills, stealing away another team's disgruntled star player. When Harden and/or Dwight go down for the year, don't say you weren't warned here. Clearly years of bad Karma and unsustainable building practices is responsible for the current toxic mess in Lakerland.

Though the Karma hammer hasn't come down on Miami yet, and if any team has built up a hill of bad Karma recently, it's them.

Edited by stevemcqueen1
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Going Commando

Going Commando

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Posted

Dwight Howard is a mental midget that can't be counted on the last two minutes of a close game. I wouldn't want him on my team at this point in his career.

I would. When healthy, he's still the best C in the league by a good margin. But I wouldn't necessarily want to build around just him. I'd want a really really good guard with the right kind of personality leading the show. Which I think Houston has in Harden.

I love Dwight's fit for Houston. I love the pairing with Harden because he's comfortable being a beta type personality and a facilitator. I think Houston's biggest weakness was they are a lousy defensive team and Dwight can go a long way to fixing that. Now Houston can go and get a versatile 3 & D wing and move Parsons up to PF if they want and that's a potent group.

I thought Houston or Dallas were the two best places for Dwight, aside from Chicago or Washington, which were never options. But I was afraid he wouldn't end up there because of non basketball reasons. LA had gigantic advantages in keeping him and they totally and unequivocally ****ed it up. D'Antoni hire - disaster; Nash - bad contract; Kobe - terrible fit with Dwight, very difficult teammate, brings a whole lot of non-basketball crap into the equation that was a big driver in creating a toxic situation, condescended to Dwight from day one, alienating him, "this is my team.'

The Lakers were just an awful fit for Dwight and this catastrophe was predictable from day one. I can say that, because I'm pretty sure I predicted this at day one, it's somewhere in the old thread. And the ugly truth for LA is that they're a dysfunctional organization now and they're an awful fit for most players now. They've got some hard choices to make.

First and foremost is Kobe. They're done building a contender around Kobe. At his age and salary and with an extremely serious foot injury, it's just not possible any more. Doesn't seem like LA has figured this out yet. The Carmelo and/or LeBron in 2014 pipe dream is laughable and will never happen. LA's only good option is to go full on tank mode immediately. Nix Kobe for the year and trade Pau for draft picks and young players. Go into the tank for a couple of seasons and build up some young talent. Their fortunes could change rapidly if they got Wiggins or Randle or Gordon.

Yet LA won't do this because their FO is now incompetent and they've deluded themselves into thinking they're above this. Unfortunately for them, the new CBA changed the landscape of the league and their old way of doing business isn't going to work any more, 5 billion dollar TV deal or no.

I'm curious to see what Kobe does. I don't see him aging gracefully and accepting a diminished role for the good of the team like Dirk, Duncan, and KG. The Lakers could be irrelevant for a while.

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Going Commando

Going Commando

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The thing I like best about Dwight in Houston is the fit with McHale and having Hakeem there as a mentor. I think Dwight is going to end up getting a lot better offensively and I think he'll be playing at a high level for a lot longer than people expect. I think he'll become a legitimate top five player now, no caveats.

If he had stayed in LA, his best years would have been wasted, he probably wouldn't have gotten much better, and we'd be calling him washed up and overrated and that would be his career legacy. I'm shocked that he walked away from that money, but I'm glad he did it.

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Going Commando

Going Commando

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Also, while Houston is still probably a poor match up with SA, they've got five years to make it work. SA doesn't. Harden and Dwight are on the exact same time frame contract wise. At the end of that window, there is no way SA will still have Duncan and Parker competing at a high level.

Houston's peers are OKC and the Clippers. And I don't see the Clippers becoming a legit threat unless Blake Griffin becomes a legit superstar. I definitely wouldn't rule that out, but Blake is going into his fifth NBA season and the next few years will define him as a player.

I also wouldn't mind seeing New Orleans, Sacramento, Minnesota, or Portland climb up from the dregs of the conference to join the three or four team fray at the top. Doubt it'll be Sacramento or Portland though.

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Parlett316

Parlett316

Posted
Posted

Bad karma are you kidding?  The Westbrook play was unfortunate and a play Westbrook attempted during the year.  So if you want to talk karma look at it that way.

 

Poison pills?  Bulls and New York could have matched but they have massive inflated contracts elsewhere so they chose not to match.  Thier loss, not mine.

 

And how did they steal a disgruntled player?  Harden?  Harden was shopped.  Dwight?  Dwight never wanted to go to LA in the first place.

 

It's funny how you say Miami and the Lakers have bad karma, yet have won multiple championships.  Maybe all this bad karma you speak of will help the Rockets win their third.

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