coolhandluke121

ALL OF THEM

Hill Brogdon Snell Giannis Ersan Bledsoe Connaughton Middleton Mirotic Lopez Two squads that would comfortably make the playoffs in the East with serviceable minimum contract bench players.

4-dimensional chess. Lose to the Pirates on purpose so they mortgage their future, leaving one less threat in the Central to contend with for years to come. Great minds and what not.... viewtopic.php?p=1139097#p1139097 Word. My post right above that aged just fine too. I'm sure one could find similar stuff from the "sustainable success" crowd in the Darvish free agent thread. Unfortunately, the Cubs have a much bigger margin of error.

I like to use the 2004 Lakers-Pistons and 2014 Spurs-Heat finals as examples of when it's time to stop making a team a favorite just because of what they did in previous seasons, but I don't think the Warriors are there yet. What they have in common with the decisive losers of those finals is lack of depth, but they're just not old yet. Wade was a shell of himself in 2014. I believe Haslem, Ray Allen, Mike Miller, Rashard Lewis, and Shane Battier were all playing for them and were big liabilities. Karl Malone was hurt in 2004 and Gary Payton was washed up. But Curry, Green, and Klay are still in their primes, and Iguodala can still perform if you manage his minutes. They started winning at a very young age by NBA standards, so it's pretty early to start looking for signs of decline. It's more about being hard to keep your depth as a potential dynasty, which the Bucks will soon learn firsthand. And if Durant is back for that series, they're still an all-time great team near their peak and they're built for the playoffs. They're not a dynasty on the wane until Durant leaves, and even then, it probably won't be age that sinks them - it will just be an exacerbated lack of depth.

4-dimensional chess. Lose to the Pirates on purpose so they mortgage their future, leaving one less threat in the Central to contend with for years to come.

I made my first GIF! Let's see if I can upload it... http:// Ugh, what am I doing wrong? Tried all sorts of URL/IMG combos but it won't even hyperlink, let alone show the gif in this thread.

Yeah, they were exhausted. And this is the only game this series where they will be playing on more than 1 day of rest. Not a good sign for them.

Some good 3-point runs by opponents are inevitable. Fortunately, regressing to the mean is also inevitable, and it has favored the Bucks dramatically all year. I've lost count of the number of bad games or bad halves where lots of people rightly pointed out that the opponent can't shoot this well consistently and the Bucks just have to weather it, which they do. You're going to have games like that once in a while, and it's a testament to Milwaukee's incredible talent that they keep them close and ultimately win so many of them.

Just looked it up out of curiosity. This was the 5th game all year where their top 8 guys were all available. Juggernaut. Putting forth an all-time great regular season and then playing even better in the post season.

The fact that the Bucks came out so rusty and cold while the Raptors shot the lights out and still couldn't pull too far ahead probably tells you everything you need to know about this series. The Bucks have an embarrassment of riches, and even on those rare nights when nothing else works, Lopez can still just take over in the paint. That said, it may be more a case of Gasol being washed up than Lopez being good at this point. Gasol is just a statue out there most of the time, even compared to the plodding Lopez. Not loving Bledsoe though. He's a physically gifted defender but I think Lowry schooled him. And a big difference with Bledsoe, compared to Hill and Brogdon, is how much teams sag off him. He's just not getting the same lanes and it has a big indirect effect on the offense. Lowry might choke in the playoffs a lot, but he won't make Bledsoe's life easier by being a bonehead like Kyrie. Brogdon and Khris both defended Kawhi well. Brogdon does surprisingly well against bigger wings - it's the quick guys who give him fits. And you won't hear me complain much about Khris, because he does his job just by virtue of the fact that the Raptors feel they have to put Kawhi on him and tell him not to leave Khris alone. Khris could have been better but I'm not concerned about it. He's still a part of a team formula that's nearly unbeatable in a 7-game series. Lopez matches up much better with Toronto. I think small lineups will generally work better, but it really doesn't matter. No matter who's playing when, as long as they have spacing and their shooting averages out, they'll just overwhelm the Raptors. Don't expect a lot of blowouts, but the Bucks look clearly better.

I once floated the idea of giving bad teams a little extra cap space or something like that, but then teams would have to bid for top picks. It would probably require lots of other changes to the CBA because of domino effects though.

The potential for a Bledsoe-Lowry yips-fest is an underrated story line here. Whoever yips less might be the x-factor in taking his team to the finals. Bledsoe has been better this year, but Lowry was basically a smarter Bledsoe with a 3-point shot for the previous 4-5 years.

Not sure he's even been a top-5 3B in the league at any point. Still good, but I don't think he's so good that he's somehow assured of a prominent role on the team for years to come. Countless players have been this good or better in their prime before and then faded around 30. And though he's certainly brought a lot of value at 3B, the idea that he's the long-term answer at 1B doesn't seem supported by his long-term track record. Again, he has to earn it and shouldn't get some huge leash. He's had more than enough leash already. They can't claim his stats from his age 27/28 seasons to help them now. A slump is one thing, especially if you have more than a 2-year track record of success. But a slump this long, with absolutely no promising signs of breaking out, and with just 2 years of being a legit MLB player to your name as a 29-year-old, does not make you a core piece.

Shaw is 29 and has never really been great. He doesn't have great pedigree and statistically speaking he's probably already a little past his peak. He could be the quintessential example of a McGehee/Bill Hall type who has 2-3 good years at his peak. I'm glad he has options but I'm not just gonna assume we'll see 2017-18 Shaw again. I get the same feeling from Aguilar. All I'm saying is they should both have to earn every start they get from here on out, regardless of what they did the last two years. Team first. I consider it likely that every single season Hiura has from here on out will be better than every season Shaw has. And I don't believe for a second that Shaw's bat will consistently serve at 1B, though his defense there would be intriguing.

Shaw can't even hit like a good pitcher right now, Aguilar is a RHB below .650, and you want them to be the 1B's instead of Thames? That doesn't make any sense at all. Let Shaw play in AAA all summer unless he turns it around. They did it with Santana and they can do it with him. The team comes first.

First off, it already is and will continue to be. The odds of the worst team picking #1 are lower, but it's still worth the gamble. The lottery has never stopped tanking or even mitigated it. It creates more problems than it solves. They used to have a lottery system like the current one and everyone realized how dumb it was when the Magic drafted Shaq, won 41 games, lost a tiebreaker for the 8th seed, and promptly won the lottery from the 13 hole. Everyone realized how dumb and unfair that was to the bad teams, so they scrapped that system. Now they're going back to a similar one. What makes them think that will work this time? How is that fair to the fans of bad teams? They're not the ones tanking. Just have a hard salary cap and get rid of the artificial limits on rookie salaries and superstar salaries. If you can't keep super teams together and have to pay superstars what they're worth relative to garden variety all-stars, then there's more parity. Wouldn't hurt to cut back on superstar calls from the refs, too. Until they make some of those changes, the value of superstars under team control is far too great to stop tanking in any kind of draft system that's even remotely fair to the fans of the worst teams.

You can reverse engineer any explanation you want, but nobody has ever come up with a conspiracy theory that actually makes predictions any better than the odds. If the Knicks or Lakers had won, people would be crying foul because big markets. The lottery is random. Officiating has not always been, so if you want conspiracies, look there. The lottery is still really dumb though. It's the NBA's own fault that teams have to tank. The number of games, the soft salary cap and max salaries, the ridiculously low rookie salaries, the superstar calls... it would be stupid not to tank. So let's punish the worst teams and their fan base even more? Stupid. Should just be in reverse order of record.

One of my favorite things about this team is they way they give players a reasonable amount of time to get things right before doing things like this. I think a lot of fans are quick to call for a hook after a few bad weeks, whereas a lot of "player's managers" give guys way too long. This group is pretty level-headed about all of that IMO. That said, I think they gave Shaw a few weeks too many and I hope it doesn't cost them. They could have used Hiura against the Cubs and their LHP's, but the real issue is that Shaw has shown absolutely NO signs of being a competent MLB hitter all year. By contrast, Braun and Aguilar (for example) at least showed some, even at their worst. And with Moose available at 3B and Thames playing more than Aguilar, they needed a RHB middle infielder with a better bat than Hernan. Could be my imagination but does Shaw's body look a little worse this year? He's obviously never been Thames, but this year he looks like a rec league softball player. His arms are like noodles. I'm not sure he had a good off season of training. He looks a bit like Aguilar without the natural god-given size and strength.

It's a combination of game plan and personnel. In other words, they're using the best possible game plan for their personnel. Other than Bledsoe, they don't have great closing speed to contest 3's, so there's no point running around like a chicken with your head off trying to do something you can't. That was the Kidd defense, lol. Plus you gotta leave Lopez in the paint, even against opposing bigs who can shoot. They're doing the right thing by limiting points in the paint without fouling. It's a trade off that they're winning. And I saw somewhere that they give up a lot of 3's, but not to the opponents' best shooters. So they're adjusting as needed, instead of being dogmatically attached to a philosophy. That's the real greatness of the Bucks. They can play any style and would be great in any era. Worth noting that it's been very rare that everyone has been this healthy. Niko only played 14 regular season games and Hill only played 47. Brogdon was out for a long time. Giannis had his rest days too. It's actually kind of scary how good they could be.

That's basically what the Bucks did all year. Lost count of how many times they took over a game in the 3rd. Gotta keep in mind that it was a pretty good Philly team making Toronto look bad at times though. Ibaka tends to be really good against the Bucks, kind of like Horford. Too many bigs who can shoot can be a problem.

Right, thank you. I didn't say he was their 2nd-best player, although I did say he was the 2nd-most important. Pretty simple question of depth on the wings. However, I did say he has been their 2nd-best player often in the last few months, and it's really about being an impact defender who also seems to stabilize the offense every time he comes in the game. It doesn't always show up in the box score (although he does have an efficient 13 ppg in games he's played over 20 minutes since coming back from injury), but we often see Khris, Lopez, Giannis, and especially Bledsoe force things on offense and Hill gives them a more mature vibe hunting for a better shot when he's out there.

Surprised Toronto had so much trouble, but I guess Philly benefits more from shorter playoff rotations than any team in the league except the Warriors. Glad the Sixers are out, not because I thought they were a bigger threat but just because I felt they didn't deserve to be there. I'm pretty confident in the Bucks but they can't afford a mulligan like they got against Boston. Toronto is a completely different animal, whereas Boston was more hype than substance.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ratings.html Not gonna get very far using bbref ratings, which are based on estimates of the impact on box score stats and not even based on what actually happens to the team's fortunes when the player is on the court - to say nothing of the grand folly of net ratings, which is that they're not even adjusted for lineups. Hill carries bench squads on a regular basis and doesn't have the benefit of playing with the other starters all the time. There's a reason Brogdon and Iguodala have some of the best net ratings in the NBA and it's not because they're great; it's because their coaches love to play them as the 5th cog in great lineups, whereas the top 4 guys on each team have their net ratings brought down because their minutes are often staggered to carry weaker lineups. BBref is a joke compared to RPM, which is at least asking the right question and basing the rating on actual empirical team results, not projected results based on an individual's stats. It also at least makes an attempt to adjust for lineups, and does a really good job of it when there are a few years worth of data on a player in different situations. The empty box score stats mean even less. Hill stepped up and replaced Brogdon's scoring as soon as Brogdon got hurt. In the meantime, he just did whatever the team needed, which is far more valuable. He can be Brogdon when the team needs to him to be, or he can be the Tony Allen of pg's when they need that. He can be both at the same time. He has a Conley Jr. no-flash, all-substance sense of tempo and ball movement. When Brogdon is asked to be more than a complementary scorer and initiate the offense or carry a bench unit, he has to dribble with his head down and turn his back to his defender to protect the ball against pressure and he can't get his shot off quickly enough when he's not wide open. He struggles to stay in front of guys when he's not drawing the easiest defensive assignment on the team, and he can't get separation when he doesn't have the other team's worst defender guarding him. But hey, PPGZ and box scores, right? I'm not gonna worry about convincing anyone here anymore though. I'll continue to let the results speak for themselves, and I'm confident this coaching staff and front office knows how to look past the box scores and measure impact. That's how they got here in the first place, and they won't overrate Brogdon for his scoring anymore than they did Jabari. (Which is not say Brogdon is not worlds better than Jabari, but only to say that there are many ways to impact a team positively regardless of PPGZ and Hill does more of them than Brogdon.)

I think injuries were a factor in several regular season games, and of course several games were played before all 3 teams made some pretty significant trades. I distinctly recall a Philly win when the Bucks were missing Brogdon and Hill was still working his way back from injury and played about 10 minutes. Kawhi and Giannis both missed the same game once. Lowry was out for a game I believe. I'm not reading too much into the head-to-head regular season results. Both teams have looked bad at times this series, but that's not unusual when two very good teams are evenly matched. One thing to note is that both teams have very weak benches and benefit more from shorter rotations than the Bucks do. I still think the Bucks overwhelm either team with talent, strategy, and depth, but I actually give them a better chance against Philly because I think Embiid and Simmons are kind of immature and Philly is mostly just a bunch of very talented mismatched parts on a Frankenstein team. Kind of a rich man's Boston, if you will.