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2015 NBA Thread: I felt a great disturbance in the trolls, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. (2 Viewers)

OKC moved the ball really well in the first half.  The problem seemed to be that they would do a tremendous job moving the ball, finding an open shot... then Roberson would air ball a three.  Durant ripped Roberson a new one late in the 4th quarter when Roberson passed up a wide open 3 (Waiters did score on the extra pass), but it really looked like Roberson had zero confidence in himself at that point.

At some point in the game, KD/RWB have to start playing "hero ball" because their supporting role players simply aren't hitting their open shots.

 
Warriors played much better D over the last 3 games, particularly the last two.  They cut off the penetration for the most part, forcing lots of outside shots.  GS basically turned the series into "Whoever hits the outside shot better will move on" and the math favored them heavily in that scenario.

 
mr. furley said:
while i agree that OKC looked stagnant at times with Westbrook (particularly) monopolizing the ball and taking a bad shot, Curry does plenty of that.  he just happens to have an insane amount of skill and luck so those shots go down.

there were at least 3 or 4 times last night when he went (gb Johnny Mac #BANGO) tricky dribble unnecessarily and chucked up a wild shot that went down. 

Klay also had his fair share of catching one pass and chucking a 3. 

Durant and Westbrook are the only 2 scoring options the Thunder have. there are going to be times where they come down, don't pass and take a shot. i think they've both earned that right. just can't happen 50% of the game.

the two teams both wound up with 20 assists last night. Westbrook had 13 :shrug:
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I wasn't taking notes, but based on memory each of those was probably after a switch on a P&R.  In that case, with the ball in Curry's hand and a big defending him, GS's best offense at that point is Curry ISO.  It's such a mismatch.

 
It has been kind of amazing to watch OKC's front office #### up nearly every move they've made since drafting Harden.

Just a list of bad moves they've made since the start of the 10-11 season:

Traded Jeff Green (in itself, not a bad idea), Krstic and a 1st rounder for Perkins, then playing Perkins way more and longer than he rightfully should have. The Thunder may have traded the best two players AND a first rounder (ended up being Fab Melo. Retrospectively, could have been Miles Plumlee, Ezeli, Jae Crowder, Draymond Green, Khris Middleton, Will Barton) for a guy with "Championship Experience" who had a bum leg.

Not resigning Thabo Sefolosha on the cheap, after he was pretty productive and was the 3-D wing they needed. I think this move prompted some of the other bad moves.

Obviously the whole Harden thing.

Gave Kanter a ####load of money, but he can't play defense so they can hardly play him in the playoffs. The trade in itself probably wasn't a good idea either. Again they traded the best player in the trade (Reggie Jackson, who they didn't want to pay) and a first round pick. Jackson wasn't a great fit next to Westbrook, and he blossomed a bit in Detroit this year, but Detroit thought enough of him to really pay him last offseason.

Trading a first round pick for Dion Waiters and overpaying him this offseason.

Then there has been a ####load of smaller errors (signing a washed of Derek Fisher to play awful basketball...twice), signing Singler who was awful for them last year to a 5 year contract, trading productive players and future picks for guys like Randy Foye/Ronnie Brewer/Lazar Hayward, paying to dump Kevin Martin while he was still productive, a bunch of worthless draft picks, not resigning Thabo Sefolosha on the cheap after he was pretty productive and was the 3-D wing they needed, cutting Hollis Thompson a few years ago after they signed him as an undrafted-FA (he would be a better version of Roberson for them right now).

They had an unbelievable run of draft picks for a few years in the late 00s, even Green wasn't a bad pick considering the other players they could have considered. But since picking Harden in 2009, they have been in search of a 4th/5th wheel and have thrown away nearly all their assets to get there other than their pick of Steven Adams, who really has been more acceptable than extraordinary.  The only thing their front office has done well is dumping underachieving players, outside of Fisher and Perkins, for 2nd round draft picks. Unfortunately, those picks just turn into trade chips in the search for a decent wing player.

 
bananafish said:
LeBron's Finals stats:

Iguodala on Bench: 44% FG, 82% FT, 47% eFG, +30 +/-, 107.4 offrtg, 88.6 defrtg, +18.8 netrtg

Iguodala on Court: 38% FG, 66% FT, 41% eFG, -55 +/-, 94.1 offrtg, 109.7 defrtg, -15.5 netrtg

Iggy's stats:

Iguodala Finals: 37.1 min, 16.3 ppg, 5.8 rpg, 4.0 apg, 53% FG, 40% 3P, +10.3 +/-

If it wasn't his matchup with James then I don't know what it was either. He won them the series.

You could argue that his acceptance of a bench role during the regular season and then excelling against James as a starter in the Finals was part of it as well and I'd agree. Beyond that I don't know what's left.
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It was his defense that justified the pick.  If ever there was a year that a player from the losing team deserved the MVP, it was last year.

I also remember how stellar his FT% defense was on LeBron.  Amazing how he forced him into such a low FT% while standing in his spot on the edge of the lane.

 
Jayrod said:
It was his defense that justified the pick.  If ever there was a year that a player from the losing team deserved the MVP, it was last year.

I also remember how stellar his FT% defense was on LeBron.  Amazing how he forced him into such a low FT% while standing in his spot on the edge of the lane.
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The mental game to achieve that sort of free throw defense is huge.

 
There could be an alternate universe out there where in the summer of 2012 OKC kept Harden, dumped Perkins, drafted Draymond Green, and have 4 of the best 15-20 players in the NBA plus Serge Ibaka.

 
Kev4029 said:
There could be an alternate universe out there where in the summer of 2012 OKC kept Harden, dumped Perkins, drafted Draymond Green, and have 4 of the best 15-20 players in the NBA plus Serge Ibaka.
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All while playing rightfully in Seattle. 

 
Kev4029 said:
There could be an alternate universe out there where in the summer of 2012 OKC kept Harden, dumped Perkins, drafted Draymond Green, and have 4 of the best 15-20 players in the NBA plus Serge Ibaka.
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One of Harden, Durant or Westbrook would have had to go eventually. I don't think there's any scenario in which there's enough shots to go around for those 3. The problem with the Harden trade was the return. 

 
A little help: the conventional wisdom is that durant signs a 2 year deal with a player option so he can get a huge payday next offseason. Why does he have to do that with okc?  Can't he sign the same sort of arrangement with another team and not leave much $ on the table?

 
thecatch said:
One of Harden, Durant or Westbrook would have had to go eventually. I don't think there's any scenario in which there's enough shots to go around for those 3. The problem with the Harden trade was the return. 
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Well, they turned one of the picks into Steven Adams.

 
Cliff Clavin said:
More dirty plays in the finals: Delly or **** Kicker
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**** kicker. Mostly because if Delly tries some s***, he doesn't have the physical presence to scare guys off a fist fight. GS would hand skinny white boy his a**.

 
Abraham said:
A little help: the conventional wisdom is that durant signs a 2 year deal with a player option so he can get a huge payday next offseason. Why does he have to do that with okc?  Can't he sign the same sort of arrangement with another team and not leave much $ on the table?
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No bird rights?

I think his best play (read: most money) is to sign a 4 year deal (1 player option) with the team he intends to stay with, opt out after 3, then sign the supermax 5 year deal with bird rights.

 
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thecatch said:
One of Harden, Durant or Westbrook would have had to go eventually. I don't think there's any scenario in which there's enough shots to go around for those 3. The problem with the Harden trade was the return. 
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That was the excuse at the time, but really it was one of Perkins, Durant, Harden or Westbrook that had to go. I don't think that Harden would have ever turned into quite the offensive force he became in Houston if he had stayed, but he was the most efficient wing in the NBA his last year in OKC.

For comparison's sake, the last year OKC had Harden, Westbrook took 28.0 shots per 100 possessions, Durant took 26.3, Harden took 16.7. The next year, Westbrook was at 27.6, Durant was at 23.6, and Harden was at 22.4. Hardens shots weren't coming out of Durant and Westbrook's share, he was taking shots from other less effective players.

If Harden was happy playing 32 mpg off the bench, they could have played together indefinitely.

 
Abraham said:
A little help: the conventional wisdom is that durant signs a 2 year deal with a player option so he can get a huge payday next offseason. Why does he have to do that with okc?  Can't he sign the same sort of arrangement with another team and not leave much $ on the table?
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He doesn't have to, but he would be sacrificing a little bit of money to go elsewhere while likely playing in a less attractive situation.

 
Kev4029 said:
That was the excuse at the time, but really it was one of Perkins, Durant, Harden or Westbrook that had to go. I don't think that Harden would have ever turned into quite the offensive force he became in Houston if he had stayed, but he was the most efficient wing in the NBA his last year in OKC.

For comparison's sake, the last year OKC had Harden, Westbrook took 28.0 shots per 100 possessions, Durant took 26.3, Harden took 16.7. The next year, Westbrook was at 27.6, Durant was at 23.6, and Harden was at 22.4. Hardens shots weren't coming out of Durant and Westbrook's share, he was taking shots from other less effective players.

If Harden was happy playing 32 mpg off the bench, they could have played together indefinitely.
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Those guys were also just coming into their own (particularly Westbrook and Harden) at that time. Obviously there's no way to prove what would have happened, but given that there's already a little on court tension with Westbrook and Durant playing "hero" ball, and the fact that Harden seems uninterested in sharing the ball with anyone in Houston, I don't think it was destined to work out (Harden being happy with the described role long term seems like a pretty far fetched "if" to me, but who knows). 

 
thecatch said:
Those guys were also just coming into their own (particularly Westbrook and Harden) at that time. Obviously there's no way to prove what would have happened, but given that there's already a little on court tension with Westbrook and Durant playing "hero" ball, and the fact that Harden seems uninterested in sharing the ball with anyone in Houston, I don't think it was destined to work out (Harden being happy with the described role long term seems like a pretty far fetched "if" to me, but who knows). 
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Harden was offered 14mil/year.  Left to Houston for 17+.  OKC tried to keep him and then got what they could (Adams being part of the deal).  

When I watch Harden play about 1/3 of the game in Houston (never on D and not always engaged on O), I'm really happy he was the one traded.  The only other option at the time was to trade Ibaka, as Perkin's salary was way too high for his value.  

 
Poke_4_Life said:
Harden was offered 14mil/year.  Left to Houston for 17+.  OKC tried to keep him and then got what they could (Adams being part of the deal).  

When I watch Harden play about 1/3 of the game in Houston (never on D and not always engaged on O), I'm really happy he was the one traded.  The only other option at the time was to trade Ibaka, as Perkin's salary was way too high for his value.  
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I'm sure we've all discussed this plenty a couple years ago, but...

When Harden's new max contract would have hit, here is the situation the Thunder would have had:

Durant - 17.8, Ibaka 12.3, Westbrook 14.7, Harden - 13.7, Perkins - 8.5, Collison - 2.6, Thabo - 3.9, Jackson - 1.3, Jones - 1.1 = 75.9 for 9/13 required players

We can assume $80mil total. The tax threshold was about $72mil that year.

To completely avoid the tax, they could have kept their team completely intact for an entire extra season and then paid somebody like the Jazz, just like they ended up doing anyway, a first rounder or two to take Perkins. They would have been short a center, but they would have had a couple years to figure it out, not that the front office is competent enough to make it happen.

Alternatively, they could have paid the tax in 13-14 and probably dipped under in 14-15.

 
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I'm just glad I don't have to hear announcers say "Oh-Kay-See" another thousand times.  I realize Oklahoma City has four more syllables but they should have considered that when they moved the franchise.

 
Notorious T.R.E. said:
Excited for Kev0429's spinoff thread where he takes the OKC franchise in NBA2k12 and builds OKC the right way.
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It is only 1 cent used on Amazon...

First order of business would be to trade Perkins for a second round pick from the Cavs. If they don't accept, I'd throw in my 2013 2nd rounder to sweeten the deal. Problem solved, 2013-2016 NBA champs!

I'd also make sure to send Westbrook to shooting camps until his 3 point rating was acceptable.

 
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Bull Dozier said:
#TEMPTED

Can I do it with forced trades on?
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The 2k series is too easy to game without forced trades on. In one of the years around 2k12, might have been a year or two earlier, you could trade something like your 8th pick straight up for the 7th pick and that pick for the 6th pick and so on.

 
Cliff Clavin said:
David Blatt has reportedly taken a job with Turkish basketball club Darüşşafaka Doğuş, which has to be the steepest career drop ever for a coach who was in the NBA Finals one year ago.

http://deadspin.com/report-david-blatt-agrees-to-new-deal-with-obscurity-1779673730
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Honestly, for $2 million a year, it doesn't seem like that bad of a gig. It's like being a college coach at a mediocre big conference school minus the co-eds, plus a little  well-seasoned Luke Harangody.

 
Kev4029 said:
Honestly, for $2 million a year, it doesn't seem like that bad of a gig. It's like being a college coach at a mediocre big conference school minus the co-eds, plus a little  well-seasoned Luke Harangody.
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Not knocking him for it. $2M a year for substantially less pressure and not having to deal with the egos would be worth it. Just kind of funny that he was on the verge of coaching the all-star game, locking up a 1 seed and having a 99% chance of going to the NBA finals and now he's coaching Darüşşafaka.

 
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Cliff Clavin said:
Not knocking him for it. $2M a year for substantially less pressure and not having to deal with the egos would be worth it. Just kind of funny that he was on the verge of coaching the all-star game, locking up a 1 seed and having a 99% chance of going to the NBA finals and now he's coaching Darüşşafaka.
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He would have got another shot at some point in the near future in the NBA if he'd stuck around and taken a high profile assistant position or did the Thibs tour for a year. Kind of surprised to see him give up on the NBA even though I understand the burn out. 

 
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