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

(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

if the suns win they'll go down as the worst title winner in like 30 40 years but their fans shouldn't care about that

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

― J0rdan S., Friday, July 2, 2021 12:02 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

you're right, but all those guys are getting older and cant push their bodies to perform at that level without raising their injury risks. kawhi is the youngest of that group but also has a degenerative condition. bron is 36 and missed nearly as many games in 2 of his last 3 seasons (54) as he did in his previous 15 seasons combined (70). and his running mate is often hurt. kyrie's whole career has been besotted by injuries and KD has famously had some big deal injuries.

its not to say that phoenix, milwaukee, and atlanta havent benefitted from some timely injuries to their opponents, but all those teams/players you mentioned are built in 2021 with brief contention windows and on shaky legs to begin with.

the nets are gonna wring the last meaningful years out of KD's legs and probably win a title or two, bron+AD might be enough for one more title, and then the nba will be pretty wide open for the taking by a bunch of teams with young talent.

if the suns have a "model" it's to have one of your Big 3 guys still be on their rookie contract.

well giannis is the next man up in that discussion imo and i think the rest of the east is looking at pretty long odds over the next 3-4 years w/ the bucks and nets sitting up there. the "have a good balanced team" method works like once a decade but you still need to have a top 5 player in the league in pretty much every other case

i don't think the suns have a big 3 -- they have 2 great players (booker and paul) and then a bunch of really good guys

If Ayton keeps playing like this, in combination with his much higher profile after this playoff run, he's got some all star berths in his future

he's also 22 btw

There’s belief Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo (knee) would be given the green light for a potential Game 7 if Hawks avoid elimination in Game 6 on Saturday, league sources tell @YahooSports.

— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) July 2, 2021

As best I understand that, league sources say there is a belief.

Ok I said giannis most likely didn’t tear his ACL and will play game 1 of the finals #yoda #talksoon

well done Matt Armstrong

at the risk of sounding corny, Ayton is one of those things that makes sports great, a young guy becoming himself right before your eyes

that’s way otm, he’s been inspiring to watch throughout

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

I don't really get this, by what metrics could you prove this claim ?

The 04 pistons have fewer big names, the 11 mavs have comparable levels of star power.

The injuries made the suns' path much easier than it would have been of course, but they're still the only team to ever beat Lebron in the first round (and the first team to beat him before the finals since...2010), they swept this year's MVP's team, they beat a clippers team that was good enough to beat the league's top seed. I'm sure there have been championship teams in the last 30-40 years who had easier paths to the finals

the 2011 mavs beat the young thunder (coming off a 55-win regular season) and a kobe and pau lakers team before beating the heat.

the ‘04 pistons were one of the best defenses ever.

suns are worse than that mavs team but not by that much

kind of want to say the suns have more talent than the mavs champ team except that no one could do anything with dirk that year and the suns dont have anyone balling at nearly that high of a level

the 2011 mavs beat the young thunder (coming off a 55-win regular season) and a kobe and pau lakers team before beating the heat.

― call all destroyer, Saturday, July 3, 2021 9:58 AM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

as evidenced by the quality of the teams they beat

that pistons team was just dominant on defense in a way they wont let you be anymore and then on offense they were deep with quality guys

the game scores from this series are amazing, has anyone else ever clinched a series scoring 69 points: https://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/2004-nba-eastern-conference-finals-pistons-vs-pacers.html

suns are better than the 06 heat with old shaq lol

DET shooting 37% from the field in that series, ffs

xp

no I just think it's impossible to meaningfully compare team quality or who had the hardest/easiest path across eras