Collin Sexton | The Young Bull

[JMoneyYourHoney]

2017 we were pretty much a juggernaut too.

'17 Cavs vs. '18 Rockets, who ya got?

I've seen both teams thrown in the hat for "GOAT team to never win a title". This exact question was asked over at the realgm board and the consensus was the Rockets.

I know they went 7 with the Warriors while we only managed 5, but I don't know; Iggy being out most of that series was huge for the Rockets. Plus I feel that they didn't play with any urgency this year because of the confidence they had in their abilities. In '17 they went full throttle because they wanted to avenge the stench of the previous year.

I just don't see the Rockets having an answer for LeBron and with both him and Kyrie going God-mode vs. a choking Harden and injured Paul, I think we'd take that series.

We got so complacent after winning. I foolishly thought we just needed to stay the course and improve internally, but we really should have revamped and doubled down once KD was acquired.

 

[cavsfever]

I just don't see the Rockets having an answer for LeBron and with both him and Kyrie going God-mode vs. a choking Harden and injured Paul, I think we'd take that series.

We got so complacent after winning. I foolishly thought we just needed to stay the course and improve internally, but we really should have revamped and doubled down once KD was acquired.

We blew one of the greatest opportunities in Cavs history by not taking aggressive action to improve our team after we won the championship in '16. First we did nothing and sat on our hands, then we slid downward into a catastrophic series of errors. Now we're in for a long period in the wilderness. I am just hoping it doesn't take too many years of tanking to advance to the next stage of somehow getting a truly exciting Luka Doncic-type rookie with a couple of competent young guys around him.

 

[RuanuLaw]

He isn't scoring as much, but his assists and rebounds are better. Shai is more epolished and is clearly a better playmaker right now. He also is long and is smart defensively.

Shai looks like he is at least a very solid guy who can be a starting point. He just isn't very fancy or explosive .

So he is a higher floor, lower ceiling??!!

 

[Cavatt]

So he is a higher floor, lower ceiling??!!

Personally, I don't necessarily but that type of argument, but that is what people were arguing before the draft. Collin is way more raw, but has a better scoring instinct.

Not always true, but suddenly becoming a major scoring threat is actually pretty rare. Jimmy Butler and Kawhi come to mind as the rare exceptions

 

[benchplayer]

We blew one of the greatest opportunities in Cavs history by not taking aggressive action to improve our team after we won the championship in '16. First we did nothing and sat on our hands, then we slid downward into a catastrophic series of errors. Now we're in for a long period in the wilderness. I am just hoping it doesn't take too many years of tanking to advance to the next stage of somehow getting a truly exciting Luka Doncic-type rookie with a couple of competent young guys around him.

This is gonna boil down to three things:

A. Scouting and our ability to find talent
B. Finding the right coaches to develop that talent
C: Altman's ability to accumulate assets ie picks

 

[BigZ94]

This is gonna boil down to three things:

A. Scouting and our ability to find talent
B. Finding the right coaches to develop that talent
C: Altman's ability to accumulate assets ie picks

So we’re screwed.

 

[chuck0609]

This is gonna boil down to three things:

A. Scouting and our ability to find talent
B. Finding the right coaches to develop that talent
C: Altman's ability to accumulate assets ie picks

Or luck. Getting a top two pick in the upcoming draft is key. Burnett or Zion please.

 

[avs2000]

Or luck. Getting a top two pick in the upcoming draft is key. Burnett or Zion please.

Agreed. You get a top 3 pick to pair with Sexton cedi nance zizic and nwaba. Get some young talent and picks back for Korver hill jr and move tt and love, Clarkson next year for more youth and assets and the go into year 3 with $$$ to spend

 

[InBoobieWeTrust]

'17 Cavs vs. '18 Rockets, who ya got?

I've seen both teams thrown in the hat for "GOAT team to never win a title". This exact question was asked over at the realgm board and the consensus was the Rockets.

I know they went 7 with the Warriors while we only managed 5, but I don't know; Iggy being out most of that series was huge for the Rockets. Plus I feel that they didn't play with any urgency this year because of the confidence they had in their abilities. In '17 they went full throttle because they wanted to avenge the stench of the previous year.

I just don't see the Rockets having an answer for LeBron and with both him and Kyrie going God-mode vs. a choking Harden and injured Paul, I think we'd take that series.

We got so complacent after winning. I foolishly thought we just needed to stay the course and improve internally, but we really should have revamped and doubled down once KD was acquired.

I take the 2017 Cavs as well. LeBron would annihilate Tucker/Ariza. And with those guys being offensively limited, it would allow LeBron to fully unleash himself as the "free safety" on defense. It's so hard for him to do that against the Warriors once they added Durant, that was the biggest game changer for me. But we match up much better against that Rockets team.

They can switch all they want, but we still had two of the best isolation scorers in the game and we were designed to beat switching by seeking out mis-matches.


And Kevin Love also becomes a much bigger weapon than he was against Golden State because he always struggled against Draymond at the 5 because of Draymonds ball handling and play-making but Capela/Anderson/etc don't provide nearly the challenges for Kevin defensively that GS does.

I just feel like we were such an offensive juggernaut....and that Rockets team was designed to beat GS...but we were amazing at hunting mismatches and letting our iso guys do their thing while surrounding them with shooters.

Also let's not forget the only team that Korver struggles against is pretty much GS. So you're talking about potentially unleashing Korver and Love and I just don't think people realize how good that 2017 team was because they lollygagged through the regular season. Shit, if Korver makes that wide open 3 in game 3, we probably would have gone into game 5 tied 2-2 instead of down 3-1 in the finals. And they had a fully healthy team and Iguodala was playing great. Iguodala is a huge X-fact that people underrate about GS. When he is in a groove their death line-up is devastating

 

[Nathan S]

'17 Cavs vs. '18 Rockets, who ya got?

I've seen both teams thrown in the hat for "GOAT team to never win a title". This exact question was asked over at the realgm board and the consensus was the Rockets.

I know they went 7 with the Warriors while we only managed 5, but I don't know; Iggy being out most of that series was huge for the Rockets. Plus I feel that they didn't play with any urgency this year because of the confidence they had in their abilities. In '17 they went full throttle because they wanted to avenge the stench of the previous year.

I just don't see the Rockets having an answer for LeBron and with both him and Kyrie going God-mode vs. a choking Harden and injured Paul, I think we'd take that series.

We got so complacent after winning. I foolishly thought we just needed to stay the course and improve internally, but we really should have revamped and doubled down once KD was acquired.

Are we guaranteed that CP3 will get injured and the Rockets will miss like 40 threes in a row towards the end of the series? Because if not, I don't know how the Cavs, the Warriors, or any other team would slow them down.

 

[JMoneyYourHoney]

I take the 2017 Cavs as well. LeBron would annihilate Tucker/Ariza. And with those guys being offensively limited, it would allow LeBron to fully unleash himself as the "free safety" on defense. It's so hard for him to do that against the Warriors once they added Durant, that was the biggest game changer for me. But we match up much better against that Rockets team.

They can switch all they want, but we still had two of the best isolation scorers in the game and we were designed to beat switching by seeking out mis-matches.


And Kevin Love also becomes a much bigger weapon than he was against Golden State because he always struggled against Draymond at the 5 because of Draymonds ball handling and play-making but Capela/Anderson/etc don't provide nearly the challenges for Kevin defensively that GS does.

I just feel like we were such an offensive juggernaut....and that Rockets team was designed to beat GS...but we were amazing at hunting mismatches and letting our iso guys do their thing while surrounding them with shooters.

Also let's not forget the only team that Korver struggles against is pretty much GS. So you're talking about potentially unleashing Korver and Love and I just don't think people realize how good that 2017 team was because they lollygagged through the regular season. Shit, if Korver makes that wide open 3 in game 3, we probably would have gone into game 5 tied 2-2 instead of down 3-1 in the finals. And they had a fully healthy team and Iguodala was playing great. Iguodala is a huge X-fact that people underrate about GS. When he is in a groove their death line-up is devastating

I still think the best iteration of this team was 2015. We were beastly following the trades; Mozgov, Shumpert and Delly were critical role players for us that year. Everything just "clicked" when we rattled off that 32-9 record.

Does anybody doubt we would have steamrolled the Finals in 5 games or less with our squad fully intact?

I wonder where the Cavs rank all-time among the "1 title cores".

 

[LeeBuckeye]

Are we guaranteed that CP3 will get injured and the Rockets will miss like 40 threes in a row towards the end of the series? Because if not, I don't know how the Cavs, the Warriors, or any other team would slow them down.

I'm taking '18 Houston Rockets over '17 Cavs because we actually witnessed them dismantle the Warrior until CP3 got hurt. We've seen how the Cavs looked trying to stop the Harden/Capela pnr and I don't see how we have a chance of stopping that with our personnel. If we keep Harden out of the paint and turn him into a jump shooter then maybe we have a chance but I highly doubt he will be deterred by likes of Love or TT near the basket.

Houston's role players are the difference between the 18' Warrior and the 17' Cavaliers. Warriors role players have been borderline scrubs the last few years but KD has been enough until they met the Rockets last season. The Cavs bench were legitimately filled with corpses throughout the year (DWill, Dunleavy, JJ, D. Jones, Bogut lol) and utter scrubs (Liggins, McRae, Felder, Sanders, Tavares, other DWill). Yeah that team isn't beating Houston unless Kyrie and LeBron go god mode for 4 games simultaneously or maybe 3 with Love pitching in for one of the games. I've never seen a team close their own window but the Rockets managed to do that by not re-signing Ariza and LMM.

 

[cavsfever]

I still think the best iteration of this team was 2015. We were beastly following the trades; Mozgov, Shumpert and Delly were critical role players for us that year. Everything just "clicked" when we rattled off that 32-9 record.

Does anybody doubt we would have steamrolled the Finals in 5 games or less with our squad fully intact?

I wonder where the Cavs rank all-time among the "1 title cores".

2015 drives me more insane than anything. The refs don't make that bad travel call on Mozgov, or Lebron gives it to Kyrie for the final shot, we don't go to overtime and Kyrie doesn't break his leg in OT. Brad Stevens doesn't have his team play fucking dirty Love's shoulder is intact. There is NO DOUBT in my mind we would have obliterated the Warriors with a healthy team.

The Warriors without Durant should never have won a title, they were a soft team.

 

[mrWalrus]

I don't want to start a new thread, but I'm starting to think we need Rajon Rondo as our next coach.

 

[Futuredome]

2015 drives me more insane than anything. The refs don't make that bad travel call on Mozgov, or Lebron gives it to Kyrie for the final shot, we don't go to overtime and Kyrie doesn't break his leg in OT. Brad Stevens doesn't have his team play fucking dirty Love's shoulder is intact. There is NO DOUBT in my mind we would have obliterated the Warriors with a healthy team.

The Warriors without Durant should never have won a title, they were a soft team.

2016, yes, they should of. Career years abound. That is the problem.