2019 NBA Finals: Golden State Warriors vs. Toronto Raptors

Durant is hurt. The warriors without Durant or Curry are a .500 team.

Harden has proven repeatedly in the playoffs he's not close to curry.

 

Lol who is actually watching this crap?

https://deadline.com/2019/06/barack...me-2-warriors-raptors-nba-abc-1202625785/amp/

These are atrocious ratings. The public is showing their lack of enthusiasm for a Warriors dynasty.

 

No they aren't. Part of what makes GS so good is their stars' movement and buy-in to the offensive scheme maximizes all the role players and makes everyone look better than they are. Put Harden in and you blow all of that up and all the role players will look as one-dimensional as they do in Houston. It's why players like Looney step up, while players like Capela don't. Durant is similar to Harden in that regard - you see how much better everyone else looks when they are playing without the Durant iso-ball style. GS are still better with Durant because they are adding him while keeping everyone else, but if they were swapping in Durant for Curry, Klay, or Draymond, they'd be worse as a team. Same thing with Harden.

GS is not just a collection of talent - it's a collection of talent that plays above that level thanks to a system built around Curry, Klay, and Green.

 

Canadians are watching. The higher previous ratings the article is comparing to still involved the Golden State dynasty in previous years.

 

Spoiler

 

The ratings are abysmal even with Canadian viewers.

You do realize that ratings for Warriors Finals have dropped steadily year by year, right?

 

Are those ratings just the US or do they include Canada?

 

Just Canada but even if you include Canadian viewers, ratings are still down.

NBA in its current form has a bleak future. The fact that Jordan era viewership eclipses today’s with population growth is not a great sign for the league.

 

Maybe, maybe not. Let's not overreact to a couple of ratings numbers - the NBA keeps posting record revenues and franchise values are way up. Lots more people are cutting the cable. These games have also been on Youtube - are those numbers included in the ratings?

There are a dozen possible reasons ratings might be down, and sure, one of them is people don't care about the NBA much. But there are plenty of others.

 

Cutting cable doesn’t affect ABC numbers.

Record revenue is largely due to overinflated ESPN and TNT deals which were made out of desperation by cable networks that are experiencing cord cutting. They will likely not be able to afford such deals in 2024 when they expire. Viewership both national and local are much more indicative of public interest as a whole and local ratings have gone down.

I see lockout on the horizon after this TV deal is over.

 

1) Golden State is objectively better when Durant is on the court, even though they have far less ball movement, as you point out. You’re admitting that any gain from running any type of system is less than adding talent by making that claim.

2) I never claimed that golden state would be better if you subbed 2 warriors out for Harden. Nobody thinks Harden is better than Curry and Durant together. You can’t randomly take Durant out of the picture just because it suits your interests. If you subbed Harden in for any ONE player on Golden State (Durant might have an argument, but that’s a huge if), they would be better.

3) You have no proof that the system makes them better, other than the fact that it looks pretty. The warriors make a higher % of covered shots than any other team in the league, and it’s not even close. If anything, they are underperforming with the talent they have, because they should be getting easier shots than any other team, yet they empirically aren’t.

4) if you traded Capela and Harden for anyone on GSW and looney, they become literally unbeatable, and it has nothing to do with the system. They could run iso’s all game every game and limit themselves to 2 passes per possession and they would still win.

5) The idea that adding Durant and subtracting Green would make them worse is actually hilarious, and if Golden State is forced to sign Green or Durant, they will sign Durant, 100/100 times, because they realize their edge is in talent, not in some mythic system that only works with specific players.

6) the triangle offense was the best offense, until people figured out Kobe and Jordan are why it was good. Teams aren’t running Golden State’s offense because they figured that out in the 90’s.

 

Look at the Warriors offensive production in the last Mark Jackson year vs ANY Steve Kerr year.

You demand proof that the Warriors system is effective, then make this completely absurd statement with nothing approaching "proof".

 

1. The difference between GS and Houston is less about players but more about system. Any system that plays the level of iso-ball that Houston does with Harden will diminish the contribution of role players, while systems with ball and player movement like GS will make the sum greater than its parts. This is why San Antonio always seems to find gems but then those player often dont do as well outside of the system.

How much of the difference in system is dependent on the players and/or manager is up for debate. I would profer that in both cases you have managers with players that suit them. MDA built the suns heavily around Nash while his rocket is built heavily around Harden. Kerr, with his Popovich link, seems to favor a more distributed system.

The effect of swapping Curry/Durant with Harden will depend on the effect of the swap on the system. If GS regresses to the Houston iso ball, then they will be worse off, but if they can keep their system, they would be almost as good (cos I think Curry+Durant compliment each other better than Harden+Curry/Durant).

2. You seem to underestimate the importance of Green. While Durant is obviously the better player, Green is the more essential player. Draymond is the turbocharger that anchors their defence and transitions it into a fast paced quality offence with him running point and pushing the pace. This allows the PG and great shooter in Curry to play off the ball, creating major issues for the defence. Without Green, there will be more load on Curry and his limitations more obvious - durant cannot make that up. Any great iso scorer could fill much of the void from a Durant loss, but Green is a very unique player that I cant think of anyone other than a prime lebron filling that role. They will be worse from losing Green than losing Durant cos filling the Green loss would be more difficult.

 

Kerr’s system is clearly better than Mark Jackson’s, but these guys were still very young in Jackson’s last year.

It is also a true statement that they do not create the most open looks in the league. They have the shooters and talent at this point to make any system look pretty damn good.

I laugh when people say the Warriors guys would struggle being in a system that would have them fed wide open catch and shoot opportunities from Harden all game every game. Not to mention the energy it would leave them to expend on the other end not having to run around constantly on offense to create their scoring opportunities.

I think you have to leave Green out of the equation. His importance on defense is off the charts, but you take Harden, Klay, Steph and Durant. Take ANY 3 and put them on the Warriors. Take the leftover guy and put him on the Rockets. Results do not change.

 

They are slightly better when you add durant to a lineup with Curry.

But any Durant lineup without Curry is worse than Curry without Durant.

The numbers have already been looked at. A Curry lineup is typically +14 whatever teammates you put around him. Durant with Klay and Draymond is +6. Durant or the others by themselves is like +1 or negative. Durant is second best as Klay/Green can't reach +6 without him, much less +14 they get with Curry.

Warriors are like 23-22 when Curry doesn't play and 32-2 when Durant doesn't but Curry does

It isn't about the system, it's about having the best player. Think of Curry like bird on the Celtics. The Celtics weren't good until Bird. And they sucked after bird left, even though they still had McHale and other good players.

That's usually how it works in the nba. One or two stars (Jordan, magic, Kareem, Shaq, bird, hakeem, LeBron, etc) elevates his team almost single handedly. That's why morey is so focused on getting stars.

There is no magic system they discovered, otherwise everyone would copy it. Only thing that everyone is copying is shooting more 3s

 

If systems dont matter then why do some squads perform better under coach and poorly under another? In fact why hire coaches at all?

It is about the system and the reason why other teams cant easily copy them is that they dont have the pieces that fit into the kind of system GS plays e.g. Klay fits cos he is not a ball dominant shooting guard as opposed to Harden who moves less of the ball and more effective in iso

 

We are talking about the same thing, e.g., the system was decided based on the star players initially, but all current role players were recruited because they fit the system. I don't call those role players "talented", it's the system made them look good.

 

You just confirmed my point, Curry is no better than Durant, but the Warriors is better with Curry than Durant, that's because their system was centered around Curry's style of play. If you put Harden & Paul in Curry & Thompson's places with the Warriors, can you image what their stats would look like?

Warriors system requires constant motion away from the ball, but most NBA "stars" cannot function effectively without dominating the ball.