Thanks. That's a little disappointing. Between 'greatest pic I've ever taken' and then deleting it, I was expecting something funny/controversial :/
I'm sure they were great. Still doesn't change the fact that this move is unprecedented. The pre-Wilt Lakers were a good 52-win team that then traded 2 bench players and their third star for a clearly superior player in Wilt. That qualifies as a superteam in the same way that Lebron's Heat was a superteam. The Warriors won 73 games last season. 73. The greatest regular season of all time. And are now adding a MVP to the roster without even moving any of their 4 best players. It is unlike anything that has ever happened before, therefore it is unprecedented. Not sure how there's even an argument here.
Well, I was going by what he actually said after "this was the hardest road:" "This was the hardest road. I don't know anyone here, never been in this community. Steph said trust what we're saying. It's hard to trust someone I just met but went with my gut. Not an easy decision, being out of my comfort zone. I'm excited & pumped to get started." All of it sounded like life stuff, not on-court difficulty.
The pre Wilt Lakers lost in the Finals, just like GS did. Wilt's Sixers team lost in the conf finals, just like OKC did. And the Warriors lost Bogut, Barnes, Barbosa and Ezeli to get Durant. You're really, really reaching.
Ha. I agree that someone in this discussion is reaching. I am saying that the Warriors have amassed such an overwhelming level of talent that will allow them to win titles with ease until one or more of those 4 players leaves, gets hurt, or declines significantly in production. I don't believe any team as currently constructed has even a chance against them in a 7 game series. We will see if that indeed comes to fruition. The Lakers superteam that we have for some reason been discussing the past couple of pages clearly did not have that level of overwhelming talent, as three teams won a title before they did.
I disagree. For one, I think there was plenty of intrigue during Jordan's first threepeat. He wasn't the infallible MJ that we see him as now, and those first three titles were by no means sure things. Those titles were also during the original Dream Team era, during which Michael Jordan reached a level of global celebrity/adoration that only a handful of athletes have ever achieved. The second threepeat wasn't seen as competitive, but by then the Jordan lore was enough to make the league interesting. I disagree wholeheartedly on the 1980s. The Lakers/Celtics rivalry is what put the NBA on the map. Even if you want to say that noone else outside of those 2 teams had a chance (I don't agree with that either), fans at least had an absolute monster of a finals series to look forward to every season. The NBA was awful when we had teams like the Jason Kidd Nets making the finals and getting clobbered. At least the Lakers had the Spurs and Kings to deal with in conference - I don't see anyone in the league that can compete with the Warriors currently. And that sucks.
i'm not saying dirk can't be put above barkley, but i think you're overrating dirk a little and underrating barkley a little. barkley didn't have a 2011 moment where he just turned into an unstoppable 4th quarter scorer like dirk did for 2 months, but dirk never had that moment before or since either. and dirk didn't have to do a lot of rebounding or defending on that team either. on the whole, he and barkley have almost shockingly similar playoff stats. if you don't count dirk's last 2 playoffs since he was older than when barkley retired, then their playoff stats are: PER barkley - 24.2 dirk - 24.2 TS% barkley - 58.4% dirk - 57.9% WS/48 barkley - 0.193 dirk - 0.196 for the first half of dirk's career, he was not considered a closer, with the 2006 sas series being his shining moment. although, as usual, the criticism was overdone, he let guys like haslem and posey frustrate him in the finals in 2006. he let a small-ball gs team completely swarm and frustrate him in 2007. and he let tmac utterly destroy him in 2005. which brings up an interesting aside relating to the "rings culture." tmac had an otherworldly playoff series against dallas. he averaged 30/7/7 and didn't just guard dirk nowitzki, he shut him down and held him to 35% shooting. it was about as dominant of a 2-way performance as you can have. but no one cares about that when they can just say he never made it out of the first round. anyway, before 2011, no one thought of dirk as an unstoppable playoff monster, at least no more so than any all-time great. and he hasn't won a playoff series since. it was a brief, shining moment. should it put him over barkley? perhaps. after all, having that one mega peak should get credit versus not having it. but i don't view it as part of a trend. or barkley not winning as part of a trend. could a better game here or there have won him a ring? maybe, but still not likely. i don't think many would blame him for falling to mj in 93. and even in 94 and 95, he still had 2 more playoff series to win even if he comes up bigger against the rockets. and that's part of the thing. when your teams aren't great and you only get 3 realistic chances at a title, and even those aren't "prohibitive favorite" type of chances, it doesn't take much to not have a ring. you probably can't just be great. you probably need to have an all-time series mixed with 3 other series of being great. there can't be a stretch or 2 or 3 straight off games. if you just happen to have a bad week you are probably going home. meanwhile, lots of people have won titles without having a legendary series, or even with a couple of off games. should we ignore it for barkley? no. i mean, hakeem probably had a similarly small number of chances to win, and not only did he win, he somehow won twice. and that is a good reason to put hakeem over barkley. but hakeem also did similar things in the playoffs in other years, just without the supporting cast. i don't know if dirk doing it once, and in an "unstoppable 4th quarter scorer" way that he never really replicated was just dirk's fortunate moment in history or indicative of having a level barkley couldn't match.
interesting to think about. kobe bryant has had big moments, and clutch moments, in the playoffs but have any of his 5 championships been the result of a superhuman series or even big game? in other words, he had a 48/16 game against sacramento one year, but they swept that series in the 2nd round. not only were the lakers the favorites all 5 years they won it, but i don't really remember a "the lakers were playing terribly but kobe lifted them on his shoulders and somehow won the series" moment for him. i'm not saying he doesn't, i just don't remember it off the top of my head. maybe the closest thing he has is the OT game against indiana after shaq fouled out, but that was a few shots over 5 minutes, and the lakers were still going to be huge favorites even with a 2-2 series. the shot he hit against detroit in game 2 might have been that for him, but then he shot about 10% for the rest of the series so it wasn't. and the lakers had teams in 2003, 2004, and 2008 that may have been a "superhuman series" away from winning, but i'm not going to blame someone for not having a superhuman series on demand.
My point about the '80s was there was no parity, not that there was one superteam. There were, as I said, a small number of "haves" and then a huge number of "have-nots." The title, throughout the '80s was mostly an affair of which of the Lakers or Celtics would win it. I agree that there were teams that had an outside shot like the Sixers, Pistons, our own Rockets--but because they were darkhorse teams, they only rarely broke through. And the rest of the league was SOL. If a couple of weeks for the Finals is all that matters, I'm pretty sure people will be looking forward to a Warriors/Cavs Finals.
I'm not asking for all 30 teams or even for 10 teams to be truly competitive - history has shown that the NBA can't reach that level of parity, likely because superstars have such an outsized impact in basketball vs. other team sports. Before the Durant move, I still only saw 4 teams as having a chance at the title, and I thought it was shaping up to be an incredible season - the most intriguing in recent memory. I'm really just asking for more than one team with a real shot. Injuries are all that can derail this team. I have already heard 2 NBA pundits say they think the Warriors, barring injury, will be favored in every single game this season, home or away. I don't find that intriguing. The Finals aren't all that matter, but a compelling finals series, besides being awesome in and of itself, adds intrigue to each preceding matchup. The Warriors and Cavs basically just played each other to a stalemate without Durant. With Durant, I no longer consider it a compelling matchup.
Right, but you're talking about one season. I was talking about an entire decade. That's a whole other level, where two teams can be so dominant for an entire decade and only maybe 2-3 other teams have a legitimate outside shot at winning it all. When almost the entire league has no hope for a solid decade, that's a pretty incredible lack of parity. And yet the league was incredibly popular. Also, I'm not really sure how reasonable it is for you to say the second Bulls threepeat doesn't count because people got "the Jordan mythos." These next few years should likewise get a pass because people will get to watch probably the greatest team ever (if they live up to their clippings--if they don't, problem solved anyway). That seems like an equally valuable thing, not that we can measure it.
I wonder why a young black millionaire would want to leave a place full of inbred billy's... WEIRD! http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/b...es-simulate-lynching-durant-article-1.2699588
I remember years when the Jordan Bulls and the Shaq-Kobe Lakers didn't look like they had any rivals. Hell, LeBron's Miami team was gonna dominate everyone and ended up losing to Dallas that first season and (like other great teams) didn't just sail through smoothly in the playoffs. What were the betting odds going into the season? I am pretty sure that there will be some interesting parts of next season, too. If nothing else, GSW is gonna value post-season health way more than regular season wins, so like some of the great teams of the past, may not go all out in the regular season. And during these times when they sit some guys out for injuries and lose some games, I'm sure there will be some "what's wrong with the Warriors" stories, and maybe some other team will go on a win streak and look to be possible rivals at some point in the season. The good teams are not just gonna give up.
Honestly, I'm not arguing that overall league interest will be down. I think you're right - if they meet expectations and win 65+ games again, the casual fan will love to cheer them on/hate on them, and the league will be as popular as ever. I personally won't find it as interesting, but that's besides the point. The only thing I am trying to say is that I think Durant's free agency move is unlike anything that's ever happened before.
who i just met. or who i talked to all season and probably threw the western conference finals against for cover to come here and not have to earn any titles, ever.
If you truly believe this, you're blinded by all the chit covering your eyes from having your head up so far LeBron's ass.
