The po excuse was and always will be bs. Fans never liked it and we heard les was crying for linsanity in houston. 7 games vs an entire season. Hmmm. Throw sample sizes out of the equation and we have a winner. But even a stat noob knows the right answer to lin vs gogi that off season
Big shout out to underrated Ellis putting up 19/6 this year and showing unexpected leadership getting mavs into playoffs... sometimes it's good to fly under the radar
He's good. But in a talented West, he is not good enough to single-handedly take his team to the postseason. They need more talents.
Yep. Though the late collapse also kinda worked in Rockets favor in that it lowered Dragic's market rate. If that team made the playoffs and actually made some noise, Dragic probably coulda gotten another $4-7 mil over life of his deal. Rockets mighta stalled on that anyway On the '12 season collapse, actual evidence without conspiracy indicates that Kyle Lowry was a big distraction to the locker room and team chemistry. And partly on McHale for not managing things better. Whats that say about Kyrie Irving then in the Easy East
They didn't really want to, or they would have completed the trade for Pau Gasol. Sometimes there are more important things to do than make the playoffs.
Regular season doesn't mean much in the playoffs, but FWIW, Phoenix DID beat OKC twice, out of the three games they played this season.
IIRC, the news reports were that the Lakers wanted too much for Gasol-- PHX has 3 or 4 1st round draft picks this year and the Lakers wanted one of the higher picks rather than a low 1st rounder (like the IND pick PHX got for Scola). To me, it just seems too much. Gasol has too many miles on his body and his contract is ending, so he could be a 1/2 season rental. As it turns out, no other team really met whatever the Lakers' asking price was, either. I don't know what the Lakers are thinking. Do they want Gasol back next year? Do they even expect Gasol to want to be back? If not, holding onto him in a lost season seems silly. I suppose a sign and trade is possible, but they have to take back salaries and I don't see them getting better value than PHX offered.
The Rox game I attended in Phx, which we rallied and won at the end, the one thing I remember most from that game was Dragic's inability to guard Pat Beverley in crunch time... I thought that was the difference in the game.
Whether arrogance or just plain stupidity, it was inexcusable for the Lakers not to trade Gasol for at least something.
Hmm, just looked at the standings. Phoenix would have to win its final two games, and Memphis would have to lose the final two. Phoenix has lost its last two, Memphis has won its last three. Not looking good for Goran. That said, it'd probably be good for us if the Suns won. While it's unlikely either the Grizzlies or the Suns would beat the Spurs in the first round, the Suns have actually beaten the Spurs once this year (twice if you count preseason), and their losses to the Spurs have all been within 10 points. It's bizarre how these teams match up against each other. So, assuming we beat Portland, and we look to the second round, we somehow match up favorably against the Spurs, the best team in the league. But if the Spurs do NOT win in the first round somehow, we stack up much better against the Suns. Even though they're pesky to us, they are not poison to us like the Grizzlies. Yeah, we've split the season series with the Grizzlies, but they are prone to embarrassing us when they control the game. Only the Clippers make us look worse. No Grizzlies, please. Of course, the Spurs would likely take out the Grizzlies if they're healthy. So, here's hoping Goran gets his 8th seed somehow, plays remarkably in the first round, and then we crush them in the second round.
