NBA 2016-2017 Season

[Meacon Keaton]

So any regular season where the best team wins more than the worst team is pointless?

[Pooker]

I wish a pro sports league in America would adopt a English football style with promotions and demotion. The NBA would be so perfect for it.

[gunnar hendershow]

The NHL conference finals have been miles better than this stuff the NBA is putting out.

[Mofoticon]

If LeBron isn't on the list of finalists for MVP then don't even have a list. That's disgraceful (and don't give me he took the regular season off, he still averaged 26/8/8 and is unquestionably the league's best player).

[JasonM]

5 hours ago, Pooker said:

I wish a pro sports league in America would adopt a English football style with promotions and demotion. The NBA would be so perfect for it.

It would be nice, but the massive elephant in the room is how you deal with the main source of talent into the sport, which is the vast college athletic system.

The reason sporting pyramids are able to exist in the rest of the world is because the entirety is largely grass roots from the ground up. Young players arrive at their local teams, and those teams nurture them into capable professionals, with other teams sometimes throwing money around to transfer the training to their own youth systems.

Americans sports do not have these systems, and they've never had it either at any point in history, other than amateur/rec levels who simply play whoever shows up. It would require a complete rework of the entire athletic setup the USA uses for it to be feasible, and it would effectively cause most colleges to not be allowed to have athletic divisions, due to it making talent exclusive.

Another issue is that these systems developed organically in the rest of the world, since everyone and their dog is able to start a sports club and possibly make it all the way to the top if they can find the talent capable enough to tackle every rung on that ladder. You could somewhat realistically have the NASL be the second division, then have a split US and Canadian third division (ala Vanarama North/South), and further splitting everything up from there on. But it would arguably take decades before the NASL becomes economically stable and strong enough to really get a team that makes it into the MLS to stay for longer than a year.

And it would also need to fix that pesky college/High school sports mentality that's unique to the USA. And every single MLS team would also have to build their own youth systems from scratch, and find a way to scout the entirety of North America. Since drafts would be a near impossibility in a league that switches around 1-2 teams every year.

If it were to be done, arguably the best 'example' is the way the Brazilian pyramid system works. With very specific local (state?) competitions and then a national competition for the big clubs to play each other. But the Brazilian system has one major flaw, and that is the sheer amount of games played in a season, which gets close to 80 or so games across local and national competition, not accounting for inter-continental play like the Libertadores.

 

[gunnar hendershow]

It's their fault for narrowing it down to 3. While definitely the best player he has 2 big things voters always strike goes off for. He has All-Star talent on his team and his conference is weak. Voters see those things and weigh them more than other things. It's why you need a Player of the Year award and an MVP in every sport.

Oh and Isaiah is done, so let's just cancel the rest of the conference finals.

[JasonM]

Well, technically you have player of the year, multiple in fact. That's what All-League, All-Defense, and All-Rookie are for.

[Pooker]

I guess it all depends on how you define Most Valuable Player. To some, it's the best player in the league. In which case, it's Lebron every year. And if you think that, why even have an MVP award? It's usually not that hard to figure out the best player. Or would that just be the most popular? Should we do it base off jersey sales?

Or is the MVP the player that means the most to their team. Would Cleveland still have made the playoffs without Lebron? Probably, with Irving and Love. Would OKC make the playoffs without Westbrook? Nah, they would just be mentioned as a team with no future at all. Would Houston make the playoffs without Harden? Nope. Be at the bottom with OKC. To me, those two are the MVPs. They busted their asses all season long to take their teams to the playoffs. Did LeBron? Not really. He was rested, took other games off, Pretty sure that at one point, he even admitted that he didn't about the regular season, it was just about the playoffs to him. That's the main difference I see between him, Jordan, and Kobe. They never took a game off, they always wanted to win, no matter if it was the playoffs or regular season. I don't see that with LeBron.

 

[Meacon Keaton]

Would Cleveland be winning the NBA Championship without LeBron though? Because that's a hard no.

[Pooker]

Defiantly not. But the MVP is about the regular season, not the playoffs. LeBron has always been a player that goes up to 200% in the playoffs. But that doesn't make him MVP during the regular season this year.

[Your Mom]

Shouldn't the MVP easily be Russ then? That team is just awful without him

[Benjamin]

OKC without Russ would basically be Philly. Houston could honestly still contend for the number 8 spot without Harden, IMO, but his contribution is still crazy significant to that team. I just don't think Cleveland would be impacted in the same way that OKC and the Rockets would be. I would say the same about Kawhi and the Spurs, because it's the fucking Spurs, but based on this current series, I'm not so sure anymore 

[gunnar hendershow]

That Spurs team honestly had no business being higher than an 8-seed. It's a lot of old guys, role players, and LaMarcus without Kawhi. He transforms the team into one that can make the conf finals.

[Meacon Keaton]

Yeah, I'm not sure if we're still a few years away from Leonard getting the incredible recognition he deserves, or if he's just going to always be a ridiculously underappreciated talent. The guy is amazing.

[Pooker]

2 hours ago, damshow said:

That Spurs team honestly had no business being higher than an 8-seed. It's a lot of old guys, role players, and LaMarcus without Kawhi. He transforms the team into one that can make the conf finals.

I don't care who is on his team, but I'll never count out a team coached by Gregg Popovich. Kawhi was obviously the heart and soul of that team and they wouldn't be where they're at without him, but Popovich can pull more out of roleplayers and old guys than anybody in the history of basketball.

[Benjamin]

Maybe in the regular season, but no way in the playoffs. Especially when some of your old guys are like Pau, who has played with an entirely different system just about his entire career and now has to try and fit into this one. He's sticks out like mad, and it's so frustrating that he's on the team. Every time I see him fucking complain about not getting a foul called in his favor, I want to throw a brick through my TV. 

I think I just wanted to rant on Pau for a bit  

[Pooker]

I honestly never could figure out why then even signed Pau. Why not just let that young center (Dedmon?) develop alongside Kawhi and LMA? Probably would be in the same spot.

[gunnar hendershow]

Lol what the hell?

[Benjamin]

15 hours ago, damshow said:

Lol what the hell?

?

[gunnar hendershow]

Just now, Benjamin said:

?

I was commenting on waking up to seeing the Celtics came back and won