2016-17 NBA Season

[themiddle54]

I probably talked to 40 Bulls fans through the course of the night at the bar last night about the Bulls trade and on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being confident and understanding of the team's direction, and 10 being, like, foaming at the mouth and screaming for GarPax to burned at the stake, the floor was 4.3, the average was 6.5 and the ceiling was 9.1.

Lots of people going to miss Taj but the thing everyone, almost universally, brought up was: why on earth did they have to include the draft pick? That's the big head scratcher. Lots of comments like "they didn't need to make this deal, and it's almost like they made the deal just to do something."

Me, I wonder why Cameron Payne. Why a young PG? They have an old PG (Rondo) under contract for another year to sit on the bench since they fell out of love with him in under 3 months. They have a young PG they traded for in Carter-Williams whose playing time is wildly inconsistent and who has the energy of the Pistons' Reggie Jackson on a depressant (and Reggie is pretty low energy). They have another young PG in Jerian Grant through 2020 who was a first round pick 2 years ago, and he's gone from bench to D-League to starter to bench to starter to bench all year. Are GarPax just kind of trolling, like, hey, who has the biggest collection of PG That Are Hated by Coach, GM, President in NBA History? Let's try to beat that.

[Tim]

Portis time!

[themiddle54]

Yeah, tonight's a big night for the #FreePortis Twitter people.

[thrill]

[themiddle54]

What's with the guy in the green shirt and the sweatpants' right hand?

[thrill]

He's REALLY enjoying the rhymes.

[Tim]

[themiddle54]

Oh my god Avery Bradley is alive and back for the Celtics tonight. Between him coming back and the Raptors losing Lowry for the regular season I'd assume Boston is a bit more likely to finish 2nd.

[Farewell Friends]

Somewhere, Mr. Saigon is fist pumping:

The Golden State Warriors are bracing for the possibility that All-Star forward Kevin Durant could be lost for the rest of the regular season – or perhaps longer – with a left knee injury, league sources told The Vertical.

Durant underwent an MRI late Tuesday night to survey the knee damage, and team officials and members of Durant’s inner circle were expressing fear early Wednesday morning that the severity of Durant’s injury could preclude a return to the Warriors lineup before the start of the Western Conference playoffs in six weeks, league sources told The Vertical.

Some close to Durant feared the damage could sideline him even longer, league sources said.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/sources-wa ... 09477.html

[themiddle54]

I really don't get the Villainization Of Kevin Durant By Fans Who Demand Players Make Choices That Benefit The Fans More Than The Players.

There are 30 NBA teams.

The teams that utterly stink and/or are playoff teams but dysfunctional ones and/or are young and rebuilding, Durant was not going to to start the year: Phoneix, Lakers, Pels, Minnesota, Dallas, Portland, Kings, Nuggets, Nets, Magic, Sixers, Knicks, Hornets, Bucks, Heat, Pistons, Bulls, Pacers, Hawks--19 of the 30 teams in the league--were completely out of the running. For the folks who want to crucify Durant because he went to the best team, I would assume this is their ideal, that he goes to, say, the Twolves and turns them from a team that is now 24-35 into a team that is 30-29 and is going to get swept by the Dubs in the first round. But that's not going to happen because in the NBA, due to the cap, elite players when they leave their team go to good teams. They don't want to go lose even half the time when they have the choice not to, and elite players have that choice.

The teams that could have had a shot at KD--Boston, Toronto, Washington, Golden State, San Antonio, maybe Clippers--immediately become the favorite in their conference. 6 games separate the top 4 teams in the East and if KD had picked Boston he would have effectively decided the East. Or Washington or Toronto. If he had picked San Antonio they'd likely lead the West.

Wherever he lands it's going to have a big impact, and it was pretty evident that he had no desire to stay in OKC and play with that intolerable chucker and that only a few teams who were already REALLY good had a shot at him. If he went to Boston and Boston was like 46-14 right now and way out front in the East would people damn him for that? If he went to WAS and they were 42-16 right now and leading the East would people hate KD? Or is the expectation among over-entitled fans basically that the best player on the market in free agency is allowed to pick literally any team other than the best team, and should reject a chance to play on the best team with the best collection of other guys because boo hoo it's not fair to us fans. The projection of some pack of crazy peoples' definition of what a professional person should decide in their career onto that pro is such BS.