NBA 2014/15 Season Thread

[HC]

It's nice watching another team have to deal with the Warriors. Not Memphis' problem anymore.

[HC]

Harden cannot miss

[Plubby]

I want to know how Kevin Love is feeling. Forced his way off the team which has made us a million times better and has found himself fairly maligned.

"Made us a million times better" = going from 40-42 to 16-66

"Found himself fairly maligned" = Minnesota fans are unhappy with him for wanting out and therefore creating the above dip in record (despite that it's "a million times better") so rag him for it, but no one else does and still enjoy watching him play basketball.

Holy crap this is Stockholm Syndrome >_<

I forgot everything stays exactly as it is at this moment in time, forever. Future is never.

Their team is not a million times better - it's likely going to be, but the phrasing of "has made us" as opposed to "will make us" made me think that this was an typical response i've seen to Kevin Love from Wolves fans which was to whitewash his time there, look at his production now and note how terrible at basketball he is when compared to LeBron James, and pretend he was always that bad in Minnesota.

You might say this is nitpicking on grammar, but when he makes a statement indicating current times, then clarifies that what he meant the team will be better in the future (which I would lean towards being likely true) well...I can only operate based on the post I had at the time :\

The Knicks need to keep the pick, because they've needed a pick in the Top 5 for a decade now.

Or just a first rounder in the last 5 years

[Maxx]

You're being needlessly pedantic.

[Quom]

What are you even talking about? 'Will make us' would imply that there would be future benefits of the trade. There won't be.

Trading Love resulted in the roster we have (including the number one pick) which includes all future development of these players.

[gunnar hendershow]

The Wolves are in a much better situation now than they were this time a year ago. Instead of losing Love for nothing like I thought they would they wound up with the rookie of the year.

[Plubby]

What are you even talking about? 'Will make us' would imply that there would be future benefits of the trade. There won't be.

Trading Love resulted in the roster we have (including the number one pick) which includes all future development of these players.

You snake oil salesman. Trying to sell us development that hasn't happened yet...

You said it yourself, the team hasn't had a chance to all play together yet. So you have no current information to base it on, and only speculation to say how good they could be. Kwame Brown looked can't-miss enough to select over Tyson Chandler and Pau Gasol, briefly. I'm not trying to suggest that I think these players will actually be Kwame levels of underachievement...but we literally do not know yet how good this team will be. Again, you said that yourself earlier... It is hard to think that this collection of young talent could all collectively miss that hard - but we just do not yet know. Right now, the Wolves have a bunch of good tickets in the development lottery - now it's time to see how many of them pay off.

[Quom]

Would I trade Wiggins today for Love? No. Since we've ended up with Wiggins plus a number one pick I think it's safe to say we're better now than we were with Love.

For what you're saying to be true you'd need to be willing to trade our current roster (again including the pick) for the one we had last season. You wouldn't find a GM in the league willing to do that. Therefore we're better now. It really isn't hard to understand.

Edited May 20, 2015 by Quom

[Plubby]

I am happy to go through this with you in greater detail if you genuinely do not get it, but the assertion that the team is better now because GM's won't trade two blue-chip prospects for a proven veteran is patently absurd. No general manager in the history of any sport ever has operated like that and they never will. There's a difference between being better now, and planning to be better later. The Kevin Love trade is a perfect case study of this, and it is not Minnesota which is the better team now compared to Cleveland.

Damshow said it best - they're in a better situation now because this squad is more likely to win a title in the next five years than last year's squad would have been - but if the only thing you change to the opening-day roster is the Kevin Love trade, the Wolves win more games. That's not a better team now. That's a worse team now in exchange for the probability that they will be better later where Zach LaVine, Shabazz Muhammed and Dieng (as examples from who was on the roster prior to the trade), should they develop as projected, will be developed to the point when they're able to win or compete for a championship.

[HC]

Both teams got what they wanted and needed. Wiggins, as promising as he is, wasn't going to come in and contribute as much as Love (even with Love having some rough patches) and Cleveland is in win now mode. He put up some good numbers being the number 1 on a jobber team but it's very doubtful any rookie could do that with Lebron and Kyrie being the focus. Plus, it's the move Lebron wanted and you give the best player in the world whatever the hell he wants.

On the flip side, the Wolves flipped an expiring contract of a guy who was obviously leaving into a free number one pick centerpiece for their much needed rebuild. Plus they get Bennett, who is technically another number one pick but really just a throw in prospect who could pay dividends.

The trade made both teams better for what they wanted (Minny to rebuild, Cleveland to be good now), and it's not that hard a concept to grasp except for maybe some Wolves or Cavs fans desperately in search of revenge porn or something. Cavs get an all-star caliber player to round out the big 3 for the price of a number one pick they shouldn't have even had in the first place statisically and a guy who looks like a bust. Minny gets the perfect centerpiece for their rebuild and a throw-in prospect who really has nowhere else to go but up for the price of a dude who was leaving anyway.

Edited May 20, 2015 by HeadChuck McGill

[HC]

double post mobile is turrible

Edited May 20, 2015 by HeadChuck McGill

[Quom]

I am happy to go through this with you in greater detail if you genuinely do not get it, but the assertion that the team is better now because GM's won't trade two blue-chip prospects for a proven veteran is patently absurd. No general manager in the history of any sport ever has operated like that and they never will. There's a difference between being better now, and planning to be better later. The Kevin Love trade is a perfect case study of this, and it is not Minnesota which is the better team now compared to Cleveland.

Damshow said it best - they're in a better situation now because this squad is more likely to win a title in the next five years than last year's squad would have been - but if the only thing you change to the opening-day roster is the Kevin Love trade, the Wolves win more games. That's not a better team now. That's a worse team now in exchange for the probability that they will be better later where Zach LaVine, Shabazz Muhammed and Dieng (as examples from who was on the roster prior to the trade), should they develop as projected, will be developed to the point when they're able to win or compete for a championship.

Please do, because what you're saying makes no sense.

Of course GMs take into account potential or else you'd never see people trading good players with NBA experience for draft picks. People would be talking about how the Nets are a solid team because they made the playoffs rather than fearing for their future because of their bloated roster filled with ageing guys on unfriendly contracts and lack of picks. Philly would be considered a team that is never going anywhere ever. GSW should have blown everything up a few years ago because their roster wasn't contending for the championship rather than letting them develop and adding some small pieces.

I'd imagine if we offered Wiggins and the number 1 pick we'd get much better than Love in return. Tell me it wouldn't. Bam instantly we're a better team than we were with Love. But fuck it, the whole point is we already were. The reason the teams would make that trade is because it would be worth it for two young hot prospects on rookie deals one of which is already ROTY and starter level on any team in the league and only going to get better.

I never said Minnesota were better than Cleveland. I said our team now is a million times better than it was when we had Kevin Love. It is, he isn't a player you can easily build around as the number one guy and that's what we'd been doing.

Which is the whole point. Love did some really shitty things when he was here, he pouted because he only got a 4 year deal instead of 5, smacked a wall and missed pretty much an entire season because of it, was fueling trade rumours the entire time, was fighting and bitching about team-mates, was doing stupid shit on court like arguing with refs for an entire defensive possession making our team play 4-5, and generally acted like he was on the level of LeBron/Durant/Harden/Curry etc. He then finally gets his wish and goes to Cleveland where he gets smacked down by LeBron, gets to feel the pressure of media where he isn't 'the guy' and they will pull apart his faults, and gets relegated to third cog with plenty of talk of him not meeting expectations. If Love was fitting in so well there wouldn't be talk of him going elsewhere this off-season.

This was my whole point: I'd imagine it's a bit of a come-down from being super hyped top 5 PF who thought and acted like he was it and a bit to being the third cog and talk that Cleveland might replace him with a cheaper stretch 4 since that's all they need. Whereas the team he hated and couldn't wait to leave suddenly puts together a fucking amazing team that should easily eclipse anything he managed to do in a Wolves uniform.

[HC]

Quom, did Love poison your dog or something?

All of the things Love went through are similar to what Bosh did in Miami and it took winning a title to end it. Did his numbers go down? Well yeah, it's his first time playing with the best player in the world and a top 5 point guard and not having to carry the team so I imagine there were growing pains. The media magnifies things because it gets clicks. And the "Love is leaving" rumors were inevitable anyway, hardly indicative of some type of perceived failure. He may be injured, but he's on a squad that will probably be going to the finals this year and many years to come in that awful Eastern conference. He's not missing or regretting anything with Minny I'm sure. And even if Cleveland did dump him, which they won't, he'd get a max contract from a team of his choice. I mean this is a league where Chandler Parsons just got a fat deal.

I don't think you're separating the fact that this "amazing" Minny team is never assembled without Love leaving because he'd still carry you to 35-40 wins and you'd be trapped in mediocrity. The separation was desperately needed for both sides.

[Quom]

I don't think you're separating the fact that this "amazing" Minny team is never assembled without Love leaving because he'd still carry you to 35-40 wins and you'd be trapped in mediocrity. The separation was desperately needed for both sides.

Love has been treated pretty badly by the media and LeBron this year and it has been far more than just a few articles. I didn't revel in it. Absolutely, the Wolves weren't the right team for him and he wasn't the right team for us. Also like I said I never said we were better than the Cavs, that's crazy talk. It's more that we've gone from being a 35-40 team to a team that might be winning 50 in another season or two.

It's more that to some degree it felt like just desserts; he said he was better and deserved to contend and we'd never build a good enough team (despite him missing a season from punching a wall and then having all sorts of issues actually getting along with other guys on the team). He has then had a really rocky time in Cleveland whereas our future looks super bright because he left. It's like quitting your job because it's a shit hole and going to work somewhere much nicer with much higher demands and then suddenly the market opening right up for your old company (primarily because you left) and them suddenly looking promising. Both parties win in the situation; Love might get a ring which makes him happy, we might build a contending team somewhat organically which makes us happy. Both get what they want and both get to gloat about it. Plus the break up wasn't pretty, Love was a turd for a couple of years and the Wolves brass said some stupid shit after he left.

I never said he wouldn't get a fat contract, I said you can't build a team around him if you want to contend. I was saying that when he was with us so it isn't sour grapes. He has some super great skills, but he also has massive deficiencies. It would take an amazingly godly GM/coach to build a contending team with Love as the main focus. I also think Rick Adelman was a fucking genius in how much he managed to get out of Love.

Edit. I was probably too harsh earlier because Plubby was doing my head in with his bollocks of 'potential doesn't count' when discussing current rosters.

Edited May 20, 2015 by Quom

[Meacon Keaton]

Apparently Twitter were creamin' their digital jorts last night over Steph Curry's mom?

You'd think they'd be getting off all season considering she and Steph look almost identical...

[Plubby]

I feel like this thing is coming full-circle because it started from me taking what may have been a too-literal interpretation of something Quom wrote, but i'm really starting to wonder:

Quom do you understand what the word potential even means? And/or when you say that "X is a better team right now" - in any sport, that the phrase "better team right now" has a specific meaning? You keep using potential as a way to justify that the August 22 roster is a better team for right now than the August 24 roster. And potential absolutely cannot enter that discussion. It has absolutely no place in the discussion of what the "better team right now" is. That's not what that phrase means.

If the August 22 roster played the August 24 roster 10000 times (with the overlapping players cloned), the August 22 roster would win no fewer than 9000 of them. That's what that phrase means. And that's why I responded. Like I said earlier, I think that the roster after the trade is more likely to win a title than the one before it. But that's not a better team right now. That's a better team in 2017 or 2018 when all this young talent has a chance to develop.

[Pizza]

This is the dumbest argument. Everyone agrees that the Wolves made out like bandits in that trade. Everybody knows 16 is a smaller number than 40. I dont get why you're fighting over semantics.

[Quom]

fuck it, I really don't care, we have the number 1 pick. Stop trying to ruin my happy.

Edited May 20, 2015 by Quom

[Meacon Keaton]

This is the dumbest argument.

This is EWB. This isn't even the dumbest argument this week!

[gunnar hendershow]

Apparently Twitter were creamin' their digital jorts last night over Steph Curry's mom?

You'd think they'd be getting off all season considering she and Steph look almost identical...

Well Twitter didn't have any trophy wives or owner's daughters at the draft lottery this year because of the new no family members rule. So they had to go back to that discussion.