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Cavs look great
CuntWaffle
Member Posts: 22,499
What a homecoming so far.
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Their reputation is on the line. Lebron has rings. If Love can't win with him then Love is the problem. He blamed everyone else at Minnesota.
I'm feeling slightly vindicated in my opinion that LBJ was as great as he was more from winning the genetic lottery than having the intangibles that make up the great players
Season defining type game tonight with a home game against Golden State - a game OKC desperately needs to win. Won't be easy given the opposition and coming off of the front end of a back to back.
Regarding OKC, it's January. There are no must win games in January. It's looking like you might be right and it could take until March or even the end of the season to lock up a spot, but there is still plenty of time. Brook Lopez for Perkins would be a big move too, but sometimes moves like that take time.
For most of his career, he's competed in a dreckfest known as the Eastern Conference which has helped pad his playoff numbers and trips to the Finals. It's easy to downgrade playing with Wade now and say he was old, but he was 29 the first year that LBJ played with him and Bosh was 26. Bosh had to transform himself playing with LBJ much like Love will have to - if anything, I think what is going on with Love right now is further showing how good of a player Bosh is versus validating that Love is some terrible player.
OKC is approaching the halfway mark of the season (38 games in - in comparison the Suns have played 41 games). OKC is already at 20 losses. There's 3 months left in the season (approximately 90 days) and OKC has 44 games left. That's basically on pace for a game every other day the rest of the season (and we know that there's a lengthy all-star break coming up). My point being that there are going to be some scheduling losses coming up. Tonight may be a good example of one in playing the best team in the league on the 2nd night of a back to back.
I've said all along that 50 wins are going to be needed to get into the playoffs in the West. Phoenix is on a 46 win pace at the moment taking their season long winning percentage over 82 games. That COULD give OKC a little extra breathing room. But for them to get to 46 wins to match Phoenix's pace, OKC needs to play .636 ball the rest of the way - which is probably doable. 50 wins gets you to a 73% winning percentage the rest of the way ... which only Golden State and Portland are playing at so far in the Western Conference. Point being that the margin for error is almost gone and the odds are that OKC is going to have to get themselves in at the last week or two of the season.
He's an offensive player and has been known as a bit of a defensive liability at times during his career.
I don't see their offense changing significantly if he was to be added to their roster because KD and Westbrook will continue to take 40-50% of their shots per game.
What they need is a big that can protect the rim defensively while doing a lot of garbage work on the boards and getting easy buckets - basically a better version of Steven Adams. I'd like Robin Lopez on their team more than Brook Lopez.
Not saying that they aren't a relatively strong defensive team because they are definitely an upper half of the West defensive team, but last year 9 of the 15 teams in the West gave up between 99 and 103 points per game. In the grand scheme of things, there's not THAT big of a difference between the two.
If you think that OKC needs more scoring on their roster when they have arguably 2 of the top 5 scorers in the game on your roster, then you are in more denial about OKC than I have given you credit for. They need better role players that fit the roles that they need filled. Ibaka is the right kind of role player for them as their 3rd option (strong defender, doesn't demand the ball, able to hit mid-range shots). They need more spot up shooters that can space the court (obviously they aren't going to get Kyle Korver, but players like that) and strong players on the wing and the guard position that can let KD and Westbrook not have to always play strong defensive minutes that can come at the expense of their offensive game.
When I watch OKC play, way too often they remind me of some of Dr. J's early teams in Philadelphia where whoever had the ball was going to take the shot. Same thing with the Cavs right now. There's a lot of "the disease of me" on both of those teams at the moment.
Now, you can put some blame on Scott Brooks for that because he doesn't do a good job of demanding ball movement and holding KD and Westbrook accountable for when they just start jacking up shots (more of a Westbrook issue IMO).
But if you can't see that Durant and in particular Westbrook play a lot of 1 on 1 ball, then I don't know what to tell you. Westbrook is averaging 31 minutes per game so far on the season and he's shooting the ball on average 20 times per game.
Durant's the best pure scorer in the game, but until he cleans up some major weaknesses in his offensive game, he'll never reach the high levels that he COULD reach as being the most influential offensive player in the game.
They don't win when Westbrook is out or plays shitty. The narrative has become stupid. Most analysts even seem to realize that. Memphis made quick work out of the Thunder when Westbrook got hurt in the playoffs. He's a legitimate star. Who is the last star pure PG to win anything? The game has changed.
You'd have a hard time convincing me that LBJ is better than Jordan, Russell, Kareem, Magic, and Bird. Wilt's in a category that is really all his own. And it's almost impossible to say that LBJ is above Duncan or Kobe.
So you're really looking at slotting LBJ somewhere in the Jerry West, Big O, Shaq, Hakeem (who I think is a bit underrated), and Moses range.