JRGoldman

Fred Hoiberg said that he is very excited to have Brook Lopez on the team.

It's almost impressive that literally every change that they have made has been worse and more boring than the source material. You'd think they'd be able to change something for the better purely out of chance. Why make a show and give your protagonist less agency? Why is him wanting to stay where he is a better dramatic choice? I guess they want to build to something forcing Jesse out on the run, but that just makes it seem like Jesse is beholden to forces out of his control, which is the exact opposite of what made the character an interesting one in the comics. Also, is it just me, or does it seem like the way they are setting up Jesse and Tulip's backstory like they are going to cut out Grandma, TC and Jody?

I'm trying to imagine the Kubrickesque number of takes that took place before Saban found one that was acceptable.

I think you are over estimating the predictive power of analytics. Advanced metrics can do a lot of things, but infallibly telling you the future of sport isn't one of them. They can give a team better educated guesses, but even with the advancements in analytics that basketball has seen in recent years, we haven't really progressed past "having exceptional measurables in things like wingspan, quickness and leaping ability makes you much more likely to succeed than scoring 20 points a game in college does". Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding you, but it seems that aside from you thinking that one and dones are intentionally obfuscating their weaknesses, you're mad that the Bucks drafted Thon Maker over a more surefire bet, when in reality, taking a player with Maker's athleticism and upside works out much better historically than drafting a college player who "just knows how to play" but has physical limitations.

You're missing my point. It doesn't matter if every player is a freshman, or a 4 year college player. NBA front offices were no better at evaluating talent 20 years ago. Good teams whiffed, bad teams made good picks, teams made terrible trades, teams bet heavily on their scouting departments and lost, teams hit the bullseye blindfolded, as you so eloquently put it. No matter how much you can look at players, or how much they are attempting to hide their weaknesses, talent evaluation is essentially a die roll. Draft picks are lottery tickets and always have been. Teams have always drafted on upside, and teams have always searched for market inefficiencies. Drafting on upside is historically how teams have gotten better. You can be mad about the Maker pick. If I was a Bucks fan, I'd probably have a healthy amount of side eye directed toward the decision makers right now. That being said, it seems a bit odd to blame the AAU system or one and done collegiate players for the Bucks picking an unproven commodity, since 1) every draft pick is essentially an unproven commodity and 2) drafting the unproven commodities that are higher risk, higher reward is historically the way that teams have gotten better when drafting from the position that the Bucks were in.

I think picking a small sample hides the inherent problem with the NBA draft, which is not a change in talent evaluation. The "problem" is that being a good NBA player is really fucking hard, and being a top 5 NBA player is near impossible. To win a championship, you need a top 5 player. This is basically fact, with a handful of notable exceptions throughout the years. For small market teams, who have no real chance of signing a top 5 player in free agency or acquiring them in a fair trade deal, you almost have to swing for the fences, hope that you can have a talented player learn on the job his first two years, do enough right to show incremental improvement as a team, and have him sign a more lucrative max that carries him through his prime. As bizarre as it sounds, it doesn't make sense for teams in the lottery who don't have a player that will develop in to an all NBA caliber player to draft NBA ready, safe bet players. Even if you hit on all of them, which is more unlikely than hitting on a good player in the lottery, the sad fact is that players like Draymond Green, Isaiah Thomas and the like only really help you when you are already in the upper echelon of NBA teams. This has been true forever. It's not a recent trend, and it's not because of one and done culture among college players. It's true because basketball is a hard sport that very few people are good enough at to make a tangible difference to your team. I think the Maker pick was bad, because I think Maker is a joke player, a youtube highlight reel gone viral. That being said, if I were the Bucks, I would pick him 100 times out of 100 over Denzel Valentine or Caris LeVert or someone that may be a more "NBA ready" prospect. The Bucks looked okay two years ago and a million miles away last year. No matter which version is closer to the truth, having a player who can contribute immediately doesn't actually matter for them all that much. At least the Maker pick showed a commitment to a plan or a way of thinking about talent. That alone means the Bucks are miles ahead of your average NBA front office.

I guess to play devil's advocate, you can see the other side as well: The Bucks are a team that hit on Giannis, so it stands to reason they would be confident in evaluating raw talent from overseas in the late lottery.

Oh man, I'm so in.

Also, not for nothing, but I actually sort of like the Pacers lineup now? Teague, Ellis, George, Young, Turner? That can beat some teams. It actually fits pretty well on paper as well.

It's a moot point now, but Noel is leaps and bounds more valuable than Okafor. Also, why does Wilbon keep saying that the Celtics are the team closest to overtaking the Cavs in the East? This is hilariously wrong. You gotta actually turn all those draft picks in to something.

I can't wait for the SI cover with Melo, Rose and Dwight labeling them "The New Big 3!"

One of my favorite non news headlines is "Team interested in signing good basketball player". No shit your team wants to sign Kevin Durant. I want to be an F1 driver, but that's not happening either.

I drove to my dad's house for Father's Day and just got home after a 3 hour drive or so, which was a good amount of time to collect my thoughts. I don't know what the game was like for other people, but the last few minutes were excruciating for me. I hate the curse stuff, which I mercifully don't have to hear about anymore, and I've never believed in it. I've always been a nervous but optimistic fan, but tonight, I just assumed that things were going to go wrong. Kyrie hit that three and I was like "Oh, now Steph will hit two in a row and that's it." Nothing makes sense right now to me. I think it's a credit to the Warriors that it took a suspension and a Bogut injury and a superhuman Lebron James and they still went seven. That team is insane and it's a shame that they will be relegated to a trivia answer or part of Lebron's legacy or whatever. They were great. There is no other word for it. They deserve every bit of praise they got. I thought that the Warriors, for the first time ever, looked a bit over coached. To me, it seemed like Kerr had seen that the Cavs were crashing the glass early off the big men of the Warriors in the previous games, and so Curry, Draymond and Thompson all looked for Varajao and Ezili on interior passes constantly. It was not effective. I also think the game turned when Kerr put Festus back in, although that might have been a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Who knows. I thought Lue learned just enough of a lesson and found time in the fourth to rest Thompson and Irving and that made a huge difference. It must have been so hard to give Kyrie rest when he was heating up, but doing so gave him the legs to hit that three over Curry. This may come back to haunt me, but I don't see Lebron leaving. It's hard to leave a team that just won a title. They have another mid level trade exception, they can trade Love (who has a desirable contract with the cap going up and on the 5 year old max) and Thompson and Irving are both on tremendously friendly deals and are young, 24 and 25 respectively. I think he signs another 2 year deal with the player option. that being said, I think they run it back. They may listen to offers, but I think they eventually stand pat. Now that the Cavs have won, I want others to bask in this same glorious feeling. I want @Kuetsar and @Craig_H to feel this same feeling that I have right now. Go Bills. Go Cubs.

I'll probably have words tomorrow. I want to say sorry to Oyaji who has been a level headed and good fan throughout. I honestly don't know what to think right now. I'm shaking.

I felt like the whistle was consistent for the most part, but Curry did get hit with some fouls that are probably no calls on most nights. I feel like the refs thought with Draymond coming back, they wanted to nip things in the bud early by showing they weren't going to let anything get out of hand. For what it's worth, I thought the blocking foul was pretty clearly a block. Lebron beat him to the spot and didn't extend his arm at all. I thought the steal on Kyrie was clean, and the one he fouled out on wouldn't have been called if it had happened earlier in the game, but was an idiotic play by Curry.

"The crowd that had gathered around the incident was able to point out that Lawler had first hid the chain in his mouth, and then his boot, and then down his trunks, but the authorities remained befuddled."

It's hard to say a game was rigged when you were never within 8. I don't think Lue is a great coach by any means, but it's been nice to see the bench and energy guys respond to him. Last year, the Cavs couldn't trust anyone off the bench and you could tell it wore them down mentally and physically. This year, Dahntay Jones came in and scored 5 to answer a Warriors run late in a game.

In all the articles just referring to his girlfriend by her last name, I end up picturing Lawler having a domestic dispute with Kenny Fuckin' Powers, which is way less sad and way more hysterical than the actual situation, which is just the pits.

It's cool to know that Ayesha Curry was posting on DVDVR last year in the NBA playoffs as "Lawful Metal".

When I was growing up, there was a bridge in my hometown that was close to a bar and had a shockingly high rate of suicide from people getting drunk and jumping off it. Like, dozens of suicides a year. It was insane. When I was about 10, they put a fence on a bridge, so you'd have to climb it if you wanted to kill yourself. The rate dropped dramatically. There was another bridge less than a quarter mile away on the same road that would have been just as effective, but the immediacy was gone, and so was the problem. This is obviously anecdotal, but I think you are underestimating the effect that even the mildest deterrents have on people. Will gun control stop gun violence? No, only a fool would argue that. That being said, we have to do something to set the generations after us up for success. I would gladly live in a world with horrific gun violence and laws that make it theoretically harder to defend myself if it even had the most minor chance of making people's lives better 30 years from now.

I know you are joking, but a 50' tall Native American would in fact be the greatest draw ever.

Is he? He's scored more points because he's played on bad teams where he can take a ton of shots, but through his first two years, Butler had higher true shooting, better individual Ortg per 100 possessions, and better assist to turnover ratio. Of course some of that is skewed by Wiggins having an absurdly high usage rate for a second year player, but Butler already a plus offensive player in year two and Wiggins was not. This doesn't even mention Butler being a plus defender from year two on, while Wiggins is not close. The tread on the tires argument makes sense if you think Butler is going to break down, which is totally fair. I don't think this trade gets made, to be honest, and the Timberwolves would not be wrong to say no. It just seems closer than it might on initial inspection.

Aside from financial reasons because Wiggins is on a rookie contract, isn't Jimmy Butler already the best case scenario for what Wiggins could turn in to? Like, chances are Wiggins tops out as slightly worse than Butler, either never develops a consistent shot, or never really clicks on defense despite his natural talents. If Thibs thinks that the West is soft in the back end, I feel like that's a trade he has to heavily consider. Rubio/Butler/KAT probably gives you the best perimeter defense and the best rim protection in the NBA.

Again, it's not that Bogut/The Warriors are the only team to use illegal screens. It's that they have grown accustomed to having them called a certain way and can reasonably expect them to be called similarly in the Finals. Lebron James plays a certain way, and that way is designed to get calls based on the moves he does and the ways he tries to draw contact. Of course he travels and commits offensive fouls. Everyone does. Just like it would be insane for the NBA officials to decide that the Finals are the best time to put their foot down about the rampant travelling, it's an odd time to decide to call contact on Lebron James differently than they have his entire career. That's all I'm saying. Obviously I am annoyed simply because I'm a Cavs fan, but I'm not trying to argue that Lebron never fouls and gets fouled every play. I'm trying to argue that basketball is a game where the best players cater what they do and how they play in order to take advantage of the rules that are in place in specific ways (Kevin Durant, James Harden, Kobe, everyone) and that for the refs to decide to drastically change the way they view contact has been a detriment to James this series.

And Golden State sets moving screens every play. This isn't about what is or isn't legal depending on the rule book, it's about players continuing to have a game be called the way that they are accustomed to. There is always more contact in the playoffs, and players have to play. That being said, Lebron James has been fouled repeatedly and hard and it has not been called. Those get called at other times, they should be called now.