nba playoffs aka the 'offs (which includes the 'ins) 2021

Jfc Milwaukee gotta stop making dumb mistakes like that

Look I refuse to believe they could blow a 20 point lead at home but they’re still doing all the shit that allows that to happen

unnerved when you get confident tbh

Yeah watching these games in a state of constant panic has worked well so far

Btw they’ve shot under 25% from 3 in the first half yet again

They’re finally getting a game where Jrue and Khris are playing well at the same time

the stars have finally aligned my friend

I know it’s one home game vs. a Hawks team without Trae but it really feels like this team + an MVP should never have a first half like they did in Game 4

Ok is it just me or are the Hawks like 5 of the same player right now

nah that's ilx

it really feels like this team + an MVP should never have a first half like they did in Game 4

I mean tbf I cannot remember seeing them play a half that bad

I wanna believe this is the night Brook Lopez has the game of his life

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, July 1, 2021 7:31 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

just wanna remind everybody I made this happen

106 of the bucks 123 points were scored by 4 guys

Brook has a 0.1% chance of making the HOF according to BB Ref, feel like his chances doubled tonight

lol

goddamn these playoffs have been a rollercoaster

I mean two days ago it looked like it was all over and not only did we get a Bucks win but also a new episode of The Cube

lmao SKIP

Is it possible the Milwaukee Bucks are a little better without Giannis? Now on @undisputed

— Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) July 2, 2021

good work if you can get it i guess

Step one: Assume a black swan pandemic event https://t.co/qD54irEpDD

— joemo (@joetothemo) July 1, 2021

i love how bitter laker fans are about this

it's the best

the NBA is more fun when the Suns are good full stop, Lakers bitterness is just the icing on the cake

to me the breakdown is this: you get two superstars to pair up (or if you're the nets) you are betting on their health, full stop. obv injuries can affect any team as we're seeing now , but chris paul was out for a bit and it didnt murder the suns because they constructed a more balanced team with a backup with stepped up and provided great production.

dubs tried to toy with fate with 4 all-stars, and hoops god was like "sry but you're due, cant win a threepeat by doing the magical move of adding KD to a 73 win team", thats just some icarus shit, so now we have the 2019 nba champion toronto raptors who bet on kawhi leonard being healthy for one season and won

(or 3 if you're the nets)*

but chris paul was out for a bit and it didnt murder the suns

― class project pat (m bison), Friday, July 2, 2021 11:15 AM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

paul has been mostly injured/bad this run, kind of interesting...

old players tend to be injured/bad

yeah just as far as analyzing team make up and whatnot basically the suns had two superstars in the denver series but not two superstars in the other two series

luckily for the them the other teams also had injuries

CP3 also had two incredible closeout games & seems to save his strength for the 4th when everyone else is tired. idk how well the "add an aging superstar to an already good team" thing has worked in the past but he's showing how it could be done, basically this Suns team works b/c CP doesn't have to do everything

cp3 is gonna get all the credit if they win but really the whole team has just been playing great, which is an ironic inversion of cp3s playoff career up til now

if the suns win they'll go down as the worst title winner in like 30 years but their fans shouldn't care about that

this was already clear during the regular season imo, but for all the talk of the bubble being some sort of unreliable indicator of success, this playoffs ended up being flukier than last year

yeah the injuries this year obvs are just out of control

the suns model is draft an all star, blow your next three top 10 picks (bender, chriss, josh jackson), be so bad that you get 3 more top 10 picks including the number 1 overall pick, hit on those pick, make a trade for an all star PG from a small market team holding a fire sale, and have the best or second best player on each of your playoff opponents be injured

i forgot that the suns ever had josh jackson. i also forgot they had the 6 overall pick that became jarett culver, but traded it in order to get dario saric and the 11th pick, where they ended up getting cam johnson, which worked out, except dropping 5 picks in order to get saric is insane.

pretty much nothing they did made sense from a process perspective, from picking ayton over doncic to trading an extra first round pick for mikael bridges but they ended up, but they hit an insane luck streak of some moves going in their favor and the injury luck. the cp3 trade was fantastic and that seemed clear the day it happened so hats off to them for that one

if the suns win they'll go down as the worst title winner in like 30 years

Unless this is Year 1 of something resembling a dynasty, in which case it'll just get mushed in with the upcoming years when they could legit be a juggernaut. obv if that happens CP3 is unlikely to be a central piece of it, if he's there at all, but he'll still get and deserve credit for establishing the tone. Honestly feels like if Ayton continues improving + Booker stays at this level, remaining a high end contender for the next several years is very reasonable, replacing CP3 with a trade/FA is like the only thing they'll have to do aside from retaining dudes

suns put themselves in a good position to take advantage of the way this year's played out, it's not all luck

i will qualify that by saying that they are likely to still be a cut below teams with multiple true dominant superstars like the healthy Lakers assuming Lebron is immortal. But as per the discussion slightly upthread, those kind of teams are much higher risk/higher reward because of injuries, and the Suns' model may just be more sustainable. In as far as luck plays a factor in their getting this far, could see them lucking into more of these down the line

and yes it's not all luck, they're good!

i just love that to varying degrees Bridges, Crowder, Craig (and probably Johnson not too far away, needs to improve his D) are all that player "that every team would love to have" - they can just keep swapping them in for each other so they always have one or two of that type of guy on the floor

it's insane they could've easily had halliburton too

yeah wow

him or vassell or saddiq bey or quickley or maxey or anyone better than jalen smith right now

imo i think injuries aside, the cap rules make it where building an unstoppable playoff juggernaut is just harder to do, and if bron is in the less explosive, managing injuries phase of his career, it opens the door for teams like phoenix with younger, healthier talent

the cap rules were designed to keep the pot well-stirred and give small market teams a better chance of breaking through to the Finals, so I guess they are sort of doing their job. tbh, there's so much turbulence in rosters these days that it has elevated pure dumb luck as the most obvious path to success.

that plus the variability of 3 point shooting

what was the most obvious path to success previously

that all sounds wonderful but the fact of the matter is that 8 of the 9 finals MVP awards were won by lebron, KD, or kawhi and we just went thru a playoffs where 2 of those guys were hurt and the third had the other two best players on his team severely injured or else he would prob be in the finals again. congrats to the suns if they win it but the salary cap didn't injure the best or second best player on basically every team in the field this year

8 of the last 9*

xp sorry Aimless if my question comes off aggressive, not meant that way. I guess my point is that a) you're overstating it - luck plays a bigger role than it did but cmon, the NBA still has way less random variance than other sports, and b) I think that's still an improvement over the best path to success = be the Lakers

I will say that the team-building model of 'invest all our $ in 2-3 superstars and then fill in the rest with whatever fits under the cap' deprives us of the opportunity to watch those truly amazing juggernaut teams that have both the best stars and amazing depth. but how many of those have there really been; the Jordan Bulls were more like the current model I'd say