OT: NBA SemiFinals

[tzznandrew]

Right on. Course, I expect the GSW short shorts, who are already, it seems, placing them in the pantheon of great NBA teams, would find excuses as to why neither was true.

Who is placing them in the pantheon of great teams? They haven't won a title yet! And even if they do, the greatest teams sustain it. What makes the 72-10 Bulls particularly amazing is what they did with Jordan before, and then after. Hell, that team won 72 games, and then came back and won 69! And the 92 Bulls team won 67.

The team most people consider next best is the 86 Celtics, who were in the midst of 4 straight Finals, and had a decade of sustained success.

The Warriors aren't close to the pantheon yet. If they win a title, and then have more titles or appearances, then they can enter the pantheon.

 

[Dogdeacon]

What's the point of being better if you don't win? The West isn't playing the East for the title; a Western team (probably the Warriors) will play the Cavs. Being the best conference doesn't bring bragging rights. But it is a fact that the West if far superior to the East, and that won't change with the outcome of the Finals.

As to your conclusions, of course you'd say that. Especially if the Cavs win without Irving and a gimpy Love. And, sadly, it's possible that the Cavs had the best team already, and the injuries have likely ruined that. With Love and and a healthy Irving, I may have picked the Cavs over the Warriors. Even given that, I'd bet LeBron gets a win or two in the Finals.

I do think there is truth to the best conference creating the best team. Not the only proof but the ultimate goal and thus measure is always winning the championship. It's akin to UConn winning in 99. Part of what made the team great was being forged in a very competitive BEast (R.I.P.) conference. That made us justifiably confident that they would beat a Dook team with more future pros.

 

[tzznandrew]

I do think there is truth to the best conference creating the best team. Not the only proof but the ultimate goal and thus measure is always winning the championship. It's akin to UConn winning in 99. Part of what made the team great was being forged in a very competitive BEast (R.I.P.) conference. That made us justifiably confident that they would beat a Dook team with more future pros.

It can contribute, for sure. And a weak conference can help because you have greater odds of making the Finals.

But I certainly don't think the Cavs beating whoever comes out of the West has any bearing on which conference was better. Nor would the Warriors beating the Cavs. The West is better, period. I think the Warriors, healthy and spry, will are better than the Cavs, injured and slowed. But we'll see. I've been wrong many, many times.

 

[Dogdeacon]

It can contribute, for sure. And a weak conference can help because you have greater odds of making the Finals.

But I certainly don't think the Cavs beating whoever comes out of the West has any bearing on which conference was better. Nor would the Warriors beating the Cavs. The West is better, period. I think the Warriors, healthy and spry, will are better than the Cavs, injured and slowed. But we'll see. I've been wrong many, many times.

You are right of course. No sane person would argue the east was better than the West this NBA season. But the Cavs winning the championship would enable the strong counterpoint; 'so what, the East won'.

Of course a team from an inferior conference can have a good chance of advancing and winning, illustrated by LeBron staying in east and Cavs still having 2nd best odds to be champs after GSW.

 

[Scoe]

I say the Cavs will most likely win it next year, they were/are very unlikely to win it in Lebron's first year in Cleveland with a rookie coach, much like Lebron's first year in Miami, the difference this year is if the Cavs do go down it won't be because Lebron goes into a shell like he did in the 2011 finals. Next year all those players will have a year of playoff experience with Lebron under their belt with a healthy Kevin Love(assuming he returns) everything is all a preview for next year. GSW have the best team this year but I give Cleveland an outside shot because of Lebron.

 

[TasteofUConn]

But it is a fact that the West if far superior to the East,

If the West does not win the Finals, then it is arguable that they are not superior - they are just better on average. Would you rather be better on average (Syracuse), or better when it matters (UConn)?

 

[TasteofUConn]

But I certainly don't think the Cavs beating whoever comes out of the West has any bearing on which conference was better.

Of course you don't - it cuts strongly against your point.
What do you mean by better?
You seem to be adopting the Syracuse definition of better. I'm going to go with the UConn version.
If you look at total wins, NCAA tournis, recruit #s, and so on - the aggregate - Syracuse is "better."
If you look at who won when it mattered, UConn is "better."
But the word "better" is not the right word, really.
Because if you don't win it all, how can you be better? You were better except when it mattered?
By your definition, if the East had the top 2 teams, and then the West filled in spots 3 through 15, you'd use your Syracuse definition and claim the West was "better." When would that logic fail? Top 3 and 4 through 16? Top 4 and 5 through 16?
Better is the wrong word.
Try, "had more good teams."
Or maybe, "the average West team was better than the average East team."
But applying your Syracuse philosophy really misses the point of the word "better." To lose, but still claim you are better? Well, that's just not the UConn way.

 

[tzznandrew]

If the West does not win the Finals, then it is arguable that they are not superior - they are just better on average. Would you rather be better on average (Syracuse), or better when it matters (UConn)?

That comparison literally makes no sense. Not only are we talking about collections of teams, not individuals, but we're talking about a single year and you're talking about history. Not relevant. Talk about the B1G vs. the ACC or OBE. But even that doesn't work because the West has won 11 of the last 16 Finals. It was the better conference all those years, regardless of who won the Finals. Look, you're conflating the results of individual teams with the results of conferences.

I'm not sure why this is a debate; the West is demonstrably superior. It is a fact, and one series doesn't change that. If Gonzaga won the NCAA, would you say that the WCC was the best conference? No. Because conferences don't play games, teams do. The same goes for the Finals. It's only bearing is on who is the better team: Cavs or Rockets/Warriors. The results say nothing about which conference was better.

By comparison, in the 1980s, the East was way better than the West, but some years the Lakers were better than the Sixers/Celtics/Pistons. The East was still better, but the best team was in the West.

 

[tzznandrew]

Of course you don't - it cuts strongly against your point.
What do you mean by better?
You seem to be adopting the Syracuse definition of better. I'm going to go with the UConn version.
If you look at total wins, NCAA tournis, recruit #s, and so on - the aggregate - Syracuse is "better."
If you look at who won when it mattered, UConn is "better."
But the word "better" is not the right word, really.
Because if you don't win it all, how can you be better? You were better except when it mattered?
By your definition, if the East had the top 2 teams, and then the West filled in spots 3 through 15, you'd use your Syracuse definition and claim the West was "better." When would that logic fail? Top 3 and 4 through 16? Top 4 and 5 through 16?
Better is the wrong word.
Try, "had more good teams."
Or maybe, "the average West team was better than the average East team."
But applying your Syracuse philosophy really misses the point of the word "better." To lose, but still claim you are better? Well, that's just not the UConn way.

????

Your post makes no sense. It has nothing to do with Syracuse-UConn; one year isn't history; conferences aren't teams. Your analogy is fundamentally flawed, especially because it looks across multiple years.

Even if I accepted your analogy, which means I look back at the past, the West has consistently dominated the East in the Finals: they are 11-5 in the Finals since Jordan retired.

My point is that trophies don't go to conferences, they go to teams: the West is the better conference; in 5 years people will only remember who the better team was. If it is the Cavs, so be it.

 

[Matrim55]

Over a small sample size (ie 5 games), there's a chance he might not. Great players are great for a reason. And even if he does cool off, he can get into the paint virtually at will and create cheap points via FTs and set-ups for dunks/layups for his teammates.

Harden's great, but this is unsustainable:

 

[Matrim55]

Agree 1,000% that if Cavs upset either West team it means both LeBron even greater than we think AND what we think we know about West superiority is suspect.

FWIW, I already think LeBron is the 3rd-best player ever. If the Cavs win this year, I'll bump him up to No. 2, and with a serious argument for No. 1 should they repeat in 2016.

 

[champs99and04]

Well, they did it to a team missing a key player from their second unit (Sefolosha) and with a key injury in their first (Carroll). The Hawks don't have a superstar, and so their team is all about balance...balance which they've lost. They've got no one healthy to defend LeBron, their second unit can't make much headway, and the Cavs' defense can key in the few healthy cogs. Now, the Cavs are missing Love and Irving is hurt, so the wins are impressive in their own way, but they're beating JV teams.

This feels like last year all over again. LeBron's team fights its way through a terrible conference, and people think the Spurs-Heat is a toss-up...instead, Spurs murdered them. With a gimpy Irving and without Love, this Cavs team gets beat by either Houston or Golden State. Golden State, in particular, will rip them a new one if they meet and Irving is still hurt: Draymond Green can at least bother LeBron, there's no one to hide Irving on, and who do you put LeBron on?

I'm very impressed with LeBron willing this team to the finals. Five Finals in a row is impressive, even out of the East. But it will likely hurt his legacy (in the weird ways in which people talk about this) because he's going to be 2-4 in the Finals after this year.

I can definitely see some parallels between a potential Cavs-Warriors match-up this season - in which you're pairing a historically dominant team from a historically dominant conference with an injury-riddled team in a mostly hapless, injury-riddled conference - but I think you might be under-selling the Hawks a bit. Yeah, their win totals were front-loaded, but they still won 60 games, and it's always a little bit dangerous to highlight one part of the schedule and assign more meaning to it than others; much of this stuff is simply random, and the rate at which the Hawks were winning at the beginning of the season was unsustainable.

Even with the injuries, Atlanta's dynamite starting five - which sent four players to the all-star game and included another potential rising star on the wing - was intact. Yes, Carroll went down in game one, but the Cavs were in control of the game at that point, and he still played in game two, albeit at less than 100%.

As you stated yourself, the Cavs finished the season 34-12 with Smith, Shumpert, and a re-energized LeBron. I think many of us - myself included - under-estimated just how transformative that trade was. In Shumpert and Smith, James is now flanked by a pair of mobile, two-way wings of the like he has never played with in his career. Thompson and Mozgov have been lunch pail guys on the inside, and against a team like Golden State, Cleveland will undoubtedly have the luxury of playing James the bulk of his minutes at the four without forcing him to guard a low-post grunt on the other end.

By no stretch am I saying a potential Warriors-Cavs final is a draw. Hell, I picked the Cavs to lose to Chicago (and they may have had Gasol not gone down). Cleveland just doesn't have the look right now of a team that's going to play the Washington Generals role to anybody.

 

[superjohn]

Cavs are playing lights out but Atlanta looks very ordinary in the playoffs, Korver after a great shooting season has reverted back to the playoff Korver we have seen for so many years, he can't get a shot off and is liability outside of his shooting. Teague is a very good point guard and Horford and Millsap are very good players but the team has no star power and a very lackluster bench. The Hawks simply aren't built for the playoffs.

 

[Kitaman]

Harden's great, but this is unsustainable:

When the hell did they start tracking that stat?

I wouldn't mind that job!

 

[TasteofUConn]

My point is . . . so be it.

I'd expect this argument from a Syracuse fan like you.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

No more Korver. Hawks are done.

 

[tzznandrew]

I'd expect this argument from a Syracuse fan like you.

Great response. Ignore the logic, call me a Syracuse fan. More or less a Reductio ad Hitlerum around here from the guy who just showed up.

Good job.

 

[Matrim55]

When the hell did they start tracking that stat?

I wouldn't mind that job!

Teams track everything these days, thanks to the SportVu system. We're also translating a lot of it to soccer, though that's a tougher ask because of more variables and fewer discrete data points.

Zach Lowe weaves a ton of this stuff into his NBA coverage, and makes similar points about Harden: http://grantland.com/the-triangle/e...or-this-weekend-in-the-nba-conference-finals/

One of the "if only..." aspects of the analytics movement is that Ray would be even more valuable in this day and age than he was 10-15 years ago. Teams understand spacing better than ever before, and a sniper of a SG who can also handle & penetrate is worth his weight in gold (i.e., Harden). Ray was snakebitten in his career from playing on s***tily constructed teams until the 2008 Celtics, but he was also born 15 years too soon.

The fact that he's a top 5 SG of all time despite all of that just underlines his greatness.

 

[Matrim55]

I'd expect this argument from a Syracuse fan like you.

You're going to end up on a lot of ignore lists.

 

[TasteofUConn]

Great response. Ignore the logic, call me a Syracuse fan. More or less a Reductio ad Hitlerum . . .

Dude - I was just kidding with the Syracuse thing - sorry! Maybe that should be on the short list of things that should not be said here, when calling somebody an Orange fan is tantamount to calling him Hilter! Sorry!
But really, Hitler's armies were better than the Russian army - he just couldn't win the big one. Kinda what you're sayin'. I'm just sayin'.

 

[tzznandrew]

I can definitely see some parallels between a potential Cavs-Warriors match-up this season - in which you're pairing a historically dominant team from a historically dominant conference with an injury-riddled team in a mostly hapless, injury-riddled conference - but I think you might be under-selling the Hawks a bit. Yeah, their win totals were front-loaded, but they still won 60 games, and it's always a little bit dangerous to highlight one part of the schedule and assign more meaning to it than others; much of this stuff is simply random, and the rate at which the Hawks were winning at the beginning of the season was unsustainable.

Even with the injuries, Atlanta's dynamite starting five - which sent four players to the all-star game and included another potential rising star on the wing - was intact. Yes, Carroll went down in game one, but the Cavs were in control of the game at that point, and he still played in game two, albeit at less than 100%.

As you stated yourself, the Cavs finished the season 34-12 with Smith, Shumpert, and a re-energized LeBron. I think many of us - myself included - under-estimated just how transformative that trade was. In Shumpert and Smith, James is now flanked by a pair of mobile, two-way wings of the like he has never played with in his career. Thompson and Mozgov have been lunch pail guys on the inside, and against a team like Golden State, Cleveland will undoubtedly have the luxury of playing James the bulk of his minutes at the four without forcing him to guard a low-post grunt on the other end.

By no stretch am I saying a potential Warriors-Cavs final is a draw. Hell, I picked the Cavs to lose to Chicago (and they may have had Gasol not gone down). Cleveland just doesn't have the look right now of a team that's going to play the Washington Generals role to anybody.

What's more impressive: what the Warriors are doing to the Rockets, or what the Cavs are doing to the Hawks?

Given how all the teams have played leading up to it and who is playing, the Warriors are far more impressive. The Rockets would have smothered these Hawks in their cradle. Maybe not January Hawks, but those guys have been gone for a while. I love your posts, but I think you're the one highlighting one part of the season over another: these Hawks weren't impressive for 2/3 of the season, and in the playoffs they are 8-6...likely to be 8-8. That January run was a fluke.

Yet, to be clear, LeBron getting to the Finals without Love, and with a gimpy Irving, is amazing, and it shows how good he is on the one hand; but on the other hand, no one can seriously believe he could do this out of the West. Put him in the Rocket's slot (which is the same position the Cavs got in the East) and he would have had to lead them past the Mavs (possible, but they were better than an injured Bulls team), Clippers (wouldn't happen, IMO), and then Warriors (even less likely). Give his team the same record in the West (a gift), and they're on the road the whole playoffs.

They'll get to the Finals this year and get beat. Maybe in 6, but they'll be beat. Next year may be a different story, but until Durant is playing for the Wizards, Rose is healthy (maybe never), the Heat are healthy, and the Celtics have their #1 star (maybe not for a while), the East will but the JV (with 1-2 capable teams) to the West's Varsity.

 

[Matrim55]

The performances we've seen from LeBron, Harden (not tonight) and Curry are just remarkable. I love the Hawks, but we're seeing the ultimate argument/need for a superstar if you're going to compete at the highest level.

BTW, Harden has regressed to the mean. And below.

 

[Matrim55]

 

[HuskiesAllDay]

What's more impressive: what the Warriors are doing to the Rockets, or what the Cavs are doing to the Hawks?

Given how all the teams have played leading up to it and who is playing, the Warriors are far more impressive. The Rockets would have smothered these Hawks in their cradle. Maybe not January Hawks, but those guys have been gone for a while. I love your posts, but I think you're the one highlighting one part of the season over another: these Hawks weren't impressive for 2/3 of the season, and in the playoffs they are 8-6...likely to be 8-8. That January run was a fluke.

Yet, to be clear, LeBron getting to the Finals without Love, and with a gimpy Irving, is amazing, and it shows how good he is on the one hand; but on the other hand, no one can seriously believe he could do this out of the West. Put him in the Rocket's slot (which is the same position the Cavs got in the East) and he would have had to lead them past the Mavs (possible, but they were better than an injured Bulls team), Clippers (wouldn't happen, IMO), and then Warriors (even less likely). Give his team the same record in the West (a gift), and they're on the road the whole playoffs.

They'll get to the Finals this year and get beat. Maybe in 6, but they'll be beat. Next year may be a different story, but until Durant is playing for the Wizards, Rose is healthy (maybe never), the Heat are healthy, and the Celtics have their #1 star (maybe not for a while), the East will but the JV (with 1-2 capable teams) to the West's Varsity.

Lebron is obviously incredible. But the East is so bad. Like incredibly bad. The cavs played the celtics in the first round. A team that has basically been in tank mode for three years. They then played the Bulls who were just as beat up. Noah is done. Gasol missed a few games. Rose got hurt again this year. And in the east finals they play an Atlanta team that lost two games to the nets who are so old and just blew up their team this year. The top seed in the east lost two games to nets. The nets....

The east has been a joke for for years. Since the downfall (got old)/breakup of the Celtics there hasn't been a single legit team in the east. That's like six years. The pacers with Roy hibbert as their second best player were the biggest threat Lebron faced. Lance Stephenson was one of their best players. He goes to the Bobcats and can't even play. The Bulls had a few decent teams but then rose tore his knee three times. So the only two superstars (wall is getting close) in the east who played on even decent teams either tore an acl (rose) or broke their leg in half (George).

In summary. Lebron is incredible. But the east is equally incredibly bad.

 

[superjohn]

You can make a case Curry is playing the point guard position as well or better than anyone has ever played it, amazing player.

 

[champs99and04]

What's more impressive: what the Warriors are doing to the Rockets, or what the Cavs are doing to the Hawks?

Given how all the teams have played leading up to it and who is playing, the Warriors are far more impressive. The Rockets would have smothered these Hawks in their cradle. Maybe not January Hawks, but those guys have been gone for a while. I love your posts, but I think you're the one highlighting one part of the season over another: these Hawks weren't impressive for 2/3 of the season, and in the playoffs they are 8-6...likely to be 8-8. That January run was a fluke.

Yet, to be clear, LeBron getting to the Finals without Love, and with a gimpy Irving, is amazing, and it shows how good he is on the one hand; but on the other hand, no one can seriously believe he could do this out of the West. Put him in the Rocket's slot (which is the same position the Cavs got in the East) and he would have had to lead them past the Mavs (possible, but they were better than an injured Bulls team), Clippers (wouldn't happen, IMO), and then Warriors (even less likely). Give his team the same record in the West (a gift), and they're on the road the whole playoffs.

They'll get to the Finals this year and get beat. Maybe in 6, but they'll be beat. Next year may be a different story, but until Durant is playing for the Wizards, Rose is healthy (maybe never), the Heat are healthy, and the Celtics have their #1 star (maybe not for a while), the East will but the JV (with 1-2 capable teams) to the West's Varsity.

I don't think we really disagree on much here other than me being higher on the Hawks than you, and by extension me maybe being a little bit more than a believer in the Cavs.

I would argue that the way Atlanta played in January is every bit as close who they are as who they were in March and April, at least pre injuries. Everybody played 82 and Atlanta won 60 of them, but if you think they haven't played to that level in a while, I can't disagree.

 

[Matrim55]

I would argue that the way Atlanta played in January is every bit as close who they are as who they were in March and April, at least pre injuries. Everybody played 82 and Atlanta won 60 of them, but if you think they haven't played to that level in a while, I can't disagree.

I just think that Atlanta don't have an "easy" button. Even teams that are notable for their ball movement - the Spurs and Dubs come to mind - have steak-and-potatoes plays that (Curry & Dray pick and roll; Duncan in the high post) that they can go to the well for again and again.

The Hawks play beautiful, brilliant basketball, but they're a machine. And when one part breaks, the whole thing breaks.

 

[Scoe]

I hate to say it but Curry it definitely gonna break Ray's 3 point record assuming he has no major injuries.

 

[Matrim55]

The Dubs are obscenely smart and obscenely good.

 

[tzznandrew]