2024 NBA Playoffs

[N7RobBob]

He joined the Cavs in 2014 that had All-Star, budding perceived superstar in Irving, and on the condition that they also acquire 2nd Team All-NBA (yes, that's correct) Kevin Love. That's a superteam.

In 2018, he left the Cavs who had no other player at even an all-star level, and joined the Lakers on the condition they mortgage their future to acquire superstar level talent, which they did as soon as he was available.

He also has a habit of making whiny power-plays, complete with on-court sulking, if ownership doesn't make particular player moves he believes are necessary. Which is kind of being a bitch.

I personally believe he is nevertheless the GOAT in terms of on-court performance/talent. But he's pulled some bitch moves in his career, especially if we define that to include running only to elite teams.

Cleveland was the plucky underdog with only LeBron coming back as a proven playoff commodity. KI and Klove were best players on non playoff clubs.

Lakers were mired in the chaos before LeBron got there. 4 prior years with 11th in the west as their best finish.

Sure the ingredients were there for success, but the him joining was not the frosting on the already made cake.

Miami was the closest as Wade had a ring 4 years prior. Which is still different from Durant's bitch move to a team he should have beat that year, with the best single season record ever, and 1 year removed from winning a championship with the same 3 all-stars already established.

 

[bushwick_bill]

Or how about DVo wasn't choosing Cleveland regardless because his longtime friends weren't apart of the roster to recruit him?

Maybe he turned more dollars down elsewhere to join up with NY. Nobody knows for certain. He's playing the most minutes he's ever played, also the most successful he's ever been, most likely all due to familiarity with Brunson, Hart and great coaching.

I'm sure he was circled, hell, we're lucky to have Strus choose us. Free agency is tough, there's suitors competing so you identify your guy and court him. Personally I wanted Strus and Oubre, really wanted Oubre because our 6'7 wings lack like fuck. But Koby is his own idiot. Better to be left with Strus than nobody at all because courting DVo would be a dangerous game when he ultimately chooses his boys and we come a close 2nd and left with plan C or D all while B already chose his destination too.

The Heat and Strus agreed to a sign and trade deal with Cleveland along with the Spurs being the third team as we had to move Stevens and Cedi, we had no money to sign a free agent. DVo turned down his player option and became an outright free agent and left Golden State to play with the Knicks and at the advice of Steph Curry. Cleveland could not get DVo unless it was a sign a trade deal . Cleveland caught a break with even being able to perform the sign and trade deal, it was a nice move by Koby...

The New York Knicks agreed Saturday to a four-year, $50 million contract with free agent guard Donte DiVincenzo, his agent, Jason Glushon, told ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, reuniting him with former Villanova teammates Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart. DiVincenzo turned down a $4.7 million player option for next season earlier this week; the expectation was he would get a significant raise from that number on the open market, and he ultimately did so with the Knicks

 

[bushwick_bill]

 

[cavsfever]

He joined the Cavs in 2014 that had All-Star, budding perceived superstar in Irving, and on the condition that they also acquire 2nd Team All-NBA (yes, that's correct) Kevin Love. That's a superteam.

In 2018, he left the Cavs who had no other player at even an all-star level, and joined the Lakers on the condition they mortgage their future to acquire superstar level talent, which they did as soon as he was available.

He also has a habit of making whiny power-plays, complete with on-court sulking, if ownership doesn't make particular player moves he believes are necessary. Which is kind of being a bitch.

I personally believe he is nevertheless the GOAT in terms of on-court performance/talent. But he's pulled some bitch moves in his career, especially if we define that to include running only to elite teams.

Were you a Cavs fan in 2014-15 when he returned? Cavs were absolutely not a superteam or anything close to it. Neither Kyrie nor KLove had in any way proved themselves in the playoffs. Love made a total of one all NBA team in his career. As for the lakers, they had no proven players at the time. Yeah Lebron wanted talent around him when he moved teams but he set himself up for very tough challenges with every move he made (perhaps tougher than he anticipated with the Heat given that DWade started to go downhill due to injury as soon as he got here and Bosh was really never a superstar). Durant in contrast basically hitched a ride to the Finals with the Warriors. That’s the fundamental difference not being recognized.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Cleveland was the plucky underdog with only LeBron coming back as a proven playoff commodity. KI and Klove were best players on non playoff clubs.

Love was literally second-team All-NBA. Everyone in the NBA recognized that putting those three together created a superteam, and they were preseason favorites to win it all:

2014-15 NBA Preseason Odds | Basketball-Reference.com

Checkout the Preseason Odds for the 2014-15 NBA season and more on Basketball-Reference.com

www.basketball-reference.com

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Were you a Cavs fan in 2014-15 when he returned?

I have been a Cavs fan since the 75-76 season, and been so every year since.

Cavs were absolutely not a superteam or anything close to it.

As I posted above in response to another poster, the Cavs were literally the preseason favorite to win the NBA Championship after that Big 3 was put together in 2014. At least according to Vegas.

As for being "absolutely not a superteam", there were bunches of articles calling them exactly that. You can start by looking at the footnotes in wiki:

July 2014, LeBron James signed with the Cavaliers and Kevin Love was acquired through a 3-team trade in August. With these acquisitions, this formed a new superteam of LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love in the East.[7][8][9][10][11]

2014–15 Cleveland Cavaliers season - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[bushwick_bill]

I have been a Cavs fan since the 75-76 season, and been so every year since.



As I posted above in response to another poster, the Cavs were literally the preseason favorite to win the NBA Championship after that Big 3 was put together in 2014. At least according to Vegas.

As for being "absolutely not a superteam", there were bunches of articles calling them exactly that. You can start by looking at the footnotes in wiki:

30 second search I found this with Cleveland being ranked #1 and I have this SI Magazine framed in my basement... Link is not working:

Vegas says LeBron's return makes Cavaliers NBA title favorites

The Cleveland Cavaliers are your new NBA title favorites.

ftw.usatoday.com

LeBron James and "All the King's Men" featured on SI Cover

This week's issue of Sports Illustrated is an NBA Preview featuring LeBron James and the Cavaliers, San Antonio's Kawhi Leonard and more.

www.si.com

 

[TxBuckeye]

Good win. Y'all toughed that one out. Hope OG isn't hurt too bad.










Game ones call was still terrible.

(In Charles voice)

Terrible.

2-0. That's all I care about it. NBA officiating sucks, FOR BOTH TEAMS. Let's go Knicks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[TxBuckeye]

Yeah - I want a full Knicks squad for the ECF...

A full squad (meaning Randle too) is beating Boston. I believe that.

 

[TxBuckeye]

The Knicks have no bench at this point. It's 5 starters and a couple token minutes for a couple of guys.

 

[TxBuckeye]

Pacers sending like 75 grievances if non -calls to the league. And how the Knicks get major favoritism so far. Calls out league to say "small markets should get a chance too".

Instead of Carlisle crying like Nick Nurse he should ask the league why the officials made him take TJ McConnell out of the game last night.

 

[cavsfever]

I have been a Cavs fan since the 75-76 season, and been so every year since.



As I posted above in response to another poster, the Cavs were literally the preseason favorite to win the NBA Championship after that Big 3 was put together in 2014. At least according to Vegas.

As for being "absolutely not a superteam", there were bunches of articles calling them exactly that. You can start by looking at the footnotes in wiki:

July 2014, LeBron James signed with the Cavaliers and Kevin Love was acquired through a 3-team trade in August. With these acquisitions, this formed a new superteam of LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love in the East.[7][8][9][10][11]

2014–15 Cleveland Cavaliers season - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The difference here is that I am trying to talk about the actual on court reality of a team and you are talking about the flood of publicity and press puffery that happens when there is a highly publicized player move. New star-formed teams are always called "superteams", and there is always a flood of betting interest that pushes up the odds on them. The Cavs were preseason favorites, so were the Clippers after the Paul George/Kawhi trade, even the Kyrie-Durant-Harden Nets after Durant and Kyrie got healthy were preseason favorites. It doesn't matter, those teams ended up being bad.

What we need to focus is not ephemeral publicity at the beginning of a year but on being thinking basketball fans considering the actual situation. As thinking basketball fans we can see that there is a FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE between joining an existing Finals team and joining a new team with some random all-star buddies who are not current champions (or in the case of KLove and Kyrie and even AD also have actually never done shit in the playoffs or had any kind of impressive winning record whatsoever). That second case -- getting an all-star to tag along when you go to a new team that has no track record of success is totally different than joining a Finals team.

These situations have nothing to do with each other and have very different outcomes. No one calls Kevin Garnett a "bitch" because he joined Paul Pierece and Ray Allen and Rajan Rondo in Boston, and no one downgrades his 2008 championship. That's because we all know it's fucking hard to win a championship with a new team even if there happens to be an all-star on the team. Conversely, when Durant joins a team that is already a Finals team that is unprecedented and different.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

The difference here is that I am trying to talk about the actual on court reality of a team and you are talking about the flood of publicity and press puffery that happens when there is a highly publicized player move. New star-formed teams are always called "superteams", and there is always a flood of betting interest that pushes up the odds on them. The Cavs were preseason favorites, so were the Clippers after the Paul George/Kawhi trade, even the Kyrie-Durant-Harden Nets after Durant and Kyrie got healthy were preseason favorites. It doesn't matter, those teams ended up being bad.

The on-court reality of that 2014-15 team was that they almost certainly would have won the NBA title without the injuries to Love and Kyrie.

 

[Cassity14]

The on-court reality of that 2014-15 team was that they almost certainly would have won the NBA title without the injuries to Love and Kyrie.

Yes, after a pretty drastic roster makeover.

I believe the other poster is trying to claim that their results prior to that makeover (they were 20-21 IIRC) say they weren't a super team. I agree with you - they were a constructed super team that achieved unbelievably below expectations. Doesn't change the talent level.

 

[cavsfever]

What is a “super team”? It’s a meaningless publicity label. There is no reason to believe that Kyrie Irving or Kevin Love could lead you to a championship or get you anywhere close to one. In fact there’s no reason to believe (and was no reason to believe in 2014) that Kyrie or KLove or even both of them together could even get you out of the first round of the playoffs if they were the best players on your team. Same for AD actually. The situation was VERY DIFFERENT with the Warriors.

Yeah, Lebron wanted talent or the hope of getting talent on teams he went to. Everyone does. But asking for a mid level all star or two on your team doesn’t guarantee anything and doesn’t make a “super team” in the sense of a team that will easily waltz to the Finals - although certainly the press may label you as one.

The Cavs went to the Finals because Lebron. Outside of Lebron it just wasn’t that great a team, particularly in that first year. That’s all I’m saying.

Lebron wasn’t a weak whiny bitch (or fill in your dumb sexist insult terms as desired) who rigged things to give himself an easy road to the Finals, he was proactive in getting himself help but still had a tough road. His situation by going to teams which had other all stars gave the depth that teams always need to reach the contender level. In contrast Durant hitched a ride on an already fully operational championship level team. Again, why does no one think Kevin Garnett did anything that should get him called a “bitch” by losing patience in Minnesota and joining Pierce and Allen in Boston?