NBA 2016-2017 Season Thread

Originally Posted by foodguy

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if you get a chance tonight, pay attention when dallas runs that stagger screen. it's a thing of beauty. i'm convinced it is, like the triangle, one of those indefensible offenses when it's run right.
The stagger screen is a real b**** to get through. Thankfully, nobody really does it much in pick-up games, which is all I play anymore.

Originally Posted by Mark from Plano

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Not to pick on you at all, but I think this is a bit of a kneejerk. Fact is, the Heat beat some really good teams to get to the NBA finals. You've got to be pretty damned good to do that. This was their first year together. It's hard to build a championship team in one year. This team has a ton of talent. LaBron James, for all his weaknesses, is still a scary good player. He has weaknesses that Dallas exposed, but he can (and probably will) get better in the coming years. If anyone can figure out how to get this collection of players to play well together, I'd put my money on Pat Riley. He needs to add some bench depth and probably a true ball distributing point guard who can bring these pieces together as a team and get the ball to the scorers in the right position on t he court. If they had those things, they could become scary-good and for a long time. Keep in mind, that after 2006 people were saying the same things about Dirk that they're now saying about LaBron. It's funny how winning a title makes all that stuff seem silly. If LaBron wins a title, no one will remember this year.
This. The Mavs were a better TEAM this year. It's incredibly hard to build the chemistry you need to play at an elite level in just one year. The Heat had a tremendously successful year given that its the first year for D-Wade, LeBron, and Bosh to play together. LeBron will get his championships, just not this year. Most of you are probably too young to remember that MJ failed in the playoffs several times before he started winning, and winning, and winning....So I'm not ready to write off the Heat. I predict they will win the championship next year and they'll win several more after that. They've just experienced the sting of defeat as a favored team, and after being disrespectful to the Mavs and to the game. You can believe they'll be all business next year, they'll be on a mission, and they'll be scary-good. FWIW, I've never been a Bosh fan and I would rather have Haslem in the game for his rebounding, defense, and toughness. The Heat need to make some changes to get tougher and defend better. Maybe they can get Tyson Chandler ;-). It would also help to hire an elite coach. I've also never been a fan of Caron Butler and think Jason Terry is the second-best player on the Mavs. Even this late in his career, I prefer Shawn Marion over Butler. He gives the same 12-16 points a night, but is also a better defender and rebounder than Caron. Edit: Congrats to the Mavs. It was a great series and I thoroughly enjoyed it!! The best team won.

What I think is awesome about this series was that the deeper the Mavs got into their rotation, the better they seemed to get. In the last few games they were getting real contributions out of guys like Brian Cardinal and the Ian Manhimi. At one point last night you had an entire team of Mavericks bench guys holding a lead against Wade. I don't know if the whole team was possessed or if Carlisle just had Miami's number but it was heartening.

BTW, it's pretty cool for Brian Cardinal to not only get a ring, but get to make some genuine contributions to a finals run. The guy has been playing forever and for a dozen teams and was never going to be a star, but was a dependable, hard working role player.

old guys rock!

Spoelstra got outcoached pretty badly too. Carlisle made quite a number of adjustments in the 4th quarter of each game, and most of them were effective. Switching to zone, running that staggered pick and roll, lineup changes, etc. Granted Spoelstra didn't have that much depth on his bench, but his adjustments rarely caught the Mavs off-guard and the Heat frequently had trouble adapting to Maverick changes.


And Lebron, yeesh. His offensive woes aside, does anyone remember talk after Game 3 about how he had "shut down Terry," and Terry saying "let's see if he can keep it up for seven games?" Guess not. That failure on the defensive end is as damning as anything else. I'm willing to believe that Lebron just got worn out, physically, he had played a lot of minutes. It's not really an excuse though, he needed to find ways to be productive regardless. Dirk played just well enough even when actually sick.

The NBA is full of big talk, but Terry took it to a whole new level and then delivered. Every game since his infamous "let's see if he can do it for 7 games" line has been good, and last night he basically put the team on his shoulders for the first 3 quarters. I guess it's only arrogance if you can't back it up.

That tattoo is something else. You do that and don't win, you're a laughingstock. Dude's got balls of steel.

Originally Posted by thekunk07

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biggest issue is that while an elite athlete, lebron is not great at anything. he can't play with his back to the basket, is not a great shooter, is not the passer he thinks he is. he is good at a lot of things but like teacher's last pupil in 5 deadly venoms, he isn;t great at anything. he would have been better served going to chicago. he is a child and wade is doing him no favors since he is just absorbing wade's personality. would have been better served with a class act like rose being his 1 or 1a.
he would have been better served in Chicago. part of this issue is that LeBron doesn't play smart or dynamic basketball unless he has the ball; he became complacent in Cleveland. That and he & Dwyane Wade share a similar style of play. In retrospect, Jason Terry's smack talk was more or less prophecy. Even if he team would have lost, he would have not had to retract his statements. Some 4chan.org/sp/ content....

I could seriously do this all day.

Originally Posted by thekunk07

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like shaq to kobe, rashard can ask lebron how his ass taste and get a reasonable answer. and yes, his comments were pretty low class even for him.

Lebron really should just shut the hell up. I saw that press conference and dude is still full of himself, his ego was sipping out of his receding hairline and there is just no way to humble him. He keeps saying all this **** talk doesn't bother him but he keeps portraying himself as a victim. Now Wade can be a jackass too but you can clearly see in that press conference w/ both Lebon and Wade that Wade was all "we this, we that, etc..." while Lebron was all "me this, me that, myself, I will, etc..."

I'm wondering, are we going to see Dirk hawking shoes now? Is he enough of a household name now that the marketing machine is finally going to recognize him? These finals were the biggest in years and he put on a performance that even the most casual fans have to recognize.

Originally Posted by munchausen

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I'm wondering, are we going to see Dirk hawking shoes now? Is he enough of a household name now that the marketing machine is finally going to recognize him? These finals were the biggest in years and he put on a performance that even the most casual fans have to recognize.

Nope! Big men doesn't usually sell shoes well, even Shaq didn't sell too well when he was with Reebok and eventually moved to Payless shoes in which his shoes still flopped at $15 retail. Most basketball shoe fans prefer players that are more athletic like Jordan, Kobe, Lebron, Wade, Rose, Tmac, etc... The idea that it might make them run faster, jump higher, etc...

But mostly, big men just doesn't attract buyers that well. Look at Dwight Howards shoes, he is very athletic and won the slam dunk competition but being a big man, his shoes just doesn't appeal to many people, definitely doesn't help that his shoes are butt ugly.

I really, really dislike the NBA, but I admit to watching — and relishing — last night's game.

Originally Posted by RFX45

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Nope! Big men doesn't usually sell shoes well, even Shaq didn't sell too well when he was with Reebok and eventually moved to Payless shoes in which his shoes still flopped at $15 retail. Most basketball shoe fans prefer players that are more athletic like Jordan, Kobe, Lebron, Wade, Rose, Tmac, etc... The idea that it might make them run faster, jump higher, etc...

But mostly, big men just doesn't attract buyers that well. Look at Dwight Howards shoes, he is very athletic and won the slam dunk competition but being a big man, his shoes just doesn't appeal to many people, definitely doesn't help that his shoes are butt ugly.

Yeah I guess that makes sense. There's a fantasy that with the right training we could all be a Wade or Rose, but nothing in the world is going to make us a 7 footer.

Originally Posted by munchausen

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What is the story behind this photo? When was it taken? Last night? Very odd. Don't recall Dirk getting that upset at any point last night.

No idea, actually. Probably out of context, though. I imagine he was talking to someone else and Lebron just happened to be in the shot. Dirk always kind of looks like that.