AboveLegit

But they're not in that stage anymore.

Great write up BFT. Many have followed the same logic in regards to this trade, but I find myself right in the middle. The Nene trade was a tough one for me to swallow because of his contract, but it turned out absolutely great for us ( I think I underestimated how vital it was to get rid of McGee and Young). So bringing in two vets, on paper, seems like a solid move. Basically, the trade is two-fold, how much better will they make the Wizards, and is that improvement worth their salaries? I think as a whole, we underestimate the impact established veterans have on young players. OKC is such an aberration among the basketball community, so I don't think they're worth bringing up. But teams such as Chicago with Derrick Rose, or Boston with Rajon Rondo, have proven this theory. As for the salary implications, it doesn't really strike me as a major problem. I sure as hell would take these two over the prospects of overpaying for a player like Nic Batum, or OJ Mayo. At the very worst, they're tradeable assets in a year, and if there's one thing we can praise Grunfeld for, it's the ability to move players regardless of the price. I'm more concerned with the perimeter shooting. The trade did absolutely nothing to ameliorate this need, if anything it made things a lot worse (barring another trade of course). Factoring in the likelihood of drafting Bradley Beal, we essentially have 2 floor spacers in the starting lineup (Beal and Nene). That's not exactly ideal. I don't love the size of their deals, but they're movable in the way Rashard's has proven itself to be. Bottom line is we get incrementally better and develop a winning brand of basketball. If we were to win 50% of next year's games (which is totally possible), that's a huge step. From then on, the front office just needs to keep pushing. To put it bluntly, John Wall won't become an actual basketball player without actual basketball talent around him. Subtracting a worthless player from the roster while bringing in two legitimate players makes perfect sense basketball wise.

I don't understand how Yugo has posting privelages. Nothing he says is funny or insightful.

"I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER 'KING' WINS ONE" You can take it to the bank. Dan Gilbert Majority Owner Cleveland Cavaliers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfWmwu079NE

OKC just can't let Mario penetrate the lanes so easily. They sag off him so much that he's able to do whatever he pleases. Nothing he's doing right now is overly impressive.

Imagine if Jason Kidd takes a pay cut to play for OKC this offseason (he's gone on record saying he would). That would make such a huge difference in games like this.

All valid points, tough to argue with those. I'll say this though, OKC's offense has never exactly been complex a la San Antonio. You take away the first option, and you limit their production greatly because of the lack of ball movement. It doesn't help that Harden stands around the 3pt line so much, their off ball movement is lacking severely, and that's all on the coaching staff.

No doubt, it's a team effort, and a lot of players for the Thunder made bone headed plays. Fisher with that runner in the lane (seriously, what the hell was that?), Harden's poor shooting, Thabo's corner three that hit the side of the backboard, Ibaka's all around incompetency, but if we're going to continue to praise KD, we have to stay consistent. It was just a really bad game for him by his standards. What happened to the playmaking he showcased against the Spurs? We can credit the Heat defense for rotating and switching on defense, but it seems like Durant isn't even trying to emulate his style of play in the WCF. Scott Brooks needs to make some huge adjustments. We've seen Spoelstra make some key adjustments after game 1, and it's paying off.

Make it Naaashty is trying way too hard to be funny.

In no way am I using Harden guarding Bron as an excuse for his poor play, because well, he's been terrible basically the entire series. But what I'm trying to point out is the decision to put Harden on Bron essentially 90% of the game.. it just boggles my mind. And it did take a toll on him, there were a few times where I saw him jogging up the court and not getting back on defense quick enough. Westbrook had it going sure, but there's no reason for Durant to be taking so many contested jumpers. He needs to get in the lane and post up more often. I can't even count the number of plays Battier denied Durant the ball, and KD did absolutely nothing to counter it. If his rebounding numbers don't convince you, I don't know what to tell you. Fact is, Durant has to be on LeBron in game 5, because they have no answer for him on the block. You can't put Harden on him because he's too small, and you can't put Thabo on him because he's too skinny. Durant's length is the only thing OKC can use against him.

Scott Brooks was completely aloof all game. Didn't even bother telling his players not to foul after the jump ball. What a horrid game from Durant. Despite not guarding LeBron (which is beyond me), he was still passive as hell, didn't bother crashing the boards, and somehow managed to play terrible defense. This game felt oddly similar to the past 2 years for OKC, too much iso basketball, and not enough player movement. Can't understand why Brooks didn't run KD off more screens to free him up. Harden had an off game offensively because he wasted so much energy guarding LeBron. Again, this goes back to Durant..

Maybe in the NBA, but not in FIBA.

While the Dream Team was probably the most talented group ever assembled in basketball, they weren't playing against the stiffest of competition, and were never really challenged during their Gold Medal run. If the games were even remotely close, four of those members of the dream team wouldn't have received major minutes. Bird and Magic weren't in very good condition, Stockton was hurt at the time, and Laettner hadn't even played an NBA game yet. I'd venture to guess that there were about 3 or 4 NBA caliber players outside the US at the time (Petrovic, Kukoc - who again, hadn't even played an NBA game at the time, and Sabonis). Let's not forget, they had one legitimate floor spacer at the time in Chris Mullin, and no real active point guard.

Completely agree. Well done RD, as always.

This year in particular, he was forced to be more of an "instant offense threat" off the bench, which led to his poor efficiency ratings across the board. He's become a better defender, and actually created well for others off the dribble, but he still takes a lot of jumpers and doesn't get to the FT line much.

I never win, but I'm in as always

Yeah, this has a 0% chance of happening.

Durant was caught on a lot of switches with LeBron and Wade too. As soon as he picked up his 3rd, the Heat targeted him with LeBron a lot. But in the fourth, Miami basically stopped running an offense, much like the fourth quarter of game 1.

Durant is averaging 25PPG in the second half of the finals. Incredible.

OKC deserved to lose this game anyway. Dug themselves in a hole once again early on and missed key free throws. I don't understand how people can still blame the refs for this loss, they've been bad all playoffs, for both teams, we just have to live with it at this point. Scott Brooks made some terrible coaching decisions tonight. Left Perkins in way too long in the third and took Collison out early. I don't understand it. Nick should be playing more than Perk in this series because he's better off switches, especially when LeBron is playing the pick and roll game with Bosh. And Spo finally coached a great game. The play set up for Bosh at the end was picture perfect.

Agreed with everything except the last part. I don't think Spo drew up plays for Bosh to shoot three's, I think one three came when he was a trailer, for the most part, you have to blame Bosh for not even attempting to establish position down low. Flash is right though, Spo deserves a lot of the blame if he gets out coached by Scott Brooks. Scott made some key adjustments in the second half of game 1, and him playing Thabo more than Harden was important.

When it comes to the second round, I'm a fan of prospects with high bball IQ's, have winning mentalities, and bring either defense or scoring to the team. This draft is loaded with good talent, it's not top heavy, and I think there's a good chance teams find productive rookies in the second round.

Just finished watching it, that was a great documentary. Learned a lot from it, and the footage of the practices were awesome. Barkley dunking on Malone was great.

Listen to the entire interview. Epic.