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2019-20 NBA: 2nd Half


Dolfan in NYC

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1 hour ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Finished The Last Dance. I don't know if I'd call it a great documentary, but it was enjoyable if you're a basketball fan. It was pretty smart of Jordan to propel his name back into the mainstream and frame his own narrative. 

Did his name ever leave the mainstream though? I’m not a sneaker head by any means, but every single time a pair of Jordan’s are released they sell out in minutes, and get hyped for weeks before and after release. So to me he’s still viewed by the public frequently.

Plus anywhere that discusses basketball still talks about him a fair amount (especially the endless Lebron debates). Heck next year (assuming it releases then) he’ll be brought up a fair amount again when Space Jam comes out as people will want to compare it to the one he was in. And my last point I don’t think even right now there’s a more recognizable face in the world than MJ. If we could do public gatherings again I’m sure he’d be mobbed by as many fans as he was in the 90’s.

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I could be wrong, but I don't think there's been this level of interest in Jordan in a while. I suppose the timing of the documentary helped since there's very little live sport being broadcast right now. And to be fair to Jordan, it took years for him to sign off on a documentary because he wasn't prepared to accept the role of the older guy looking back on his career. But I still think this was a pretty savvy move from Jordan. He told his own story instead of somebody telling it for him. 

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Jordan agreeing to do the doc the day LeBron beat The Warriors is the most hilarious part. "Shit, people might really start believing he's better than me"

I know Rick almost went to Italy after the expansion draft if Minnesota hadn't traded him to Philly. Maybe he just felt it was a good way to wind down his career after a couple years with the Sixers. Of course, then he came back and played for New Jersey, Detroit and Philly, so who knows.

I've seen a lot of athletes get emotional over leaving a team, but I don't know I've ever seen anyone else who still gets too choked up to talk about it in an interview almost twenty years later the way Rick does about Detroit.

Edited by Brian Fowler
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17 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Exactly my point. What good is an enforcer if he can't do his job the one time you definitely need him?

Same problem: Enforcers are an arms race., and using 80s hockey for the same point, there's a difference between "Wayne Gretzky with the Oilers" and "the Norris Division being ECW on Ice."  If a superstar is the franchise, they need an enforcer to make sure they can do their job...so other teams need an enforcer who can take on your enforcer and won't be scared of him, and so now you need two enforcers so you can counter their guy, and then they get two, and so on and so on until you get those 1990s Heat/Knicks series that were closer to rugby than basketball. 

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EDIT: there’s outdoor courts right outside Toyota Center, too. Then again, in the Houston heat and humidity we might have an in game death.
 

Re: The Last Dance

The disrespect shown to the 93-94 and 94-95 Rockets is as disgusting as awarding David Robinson MVP in front of Hakeem and I hope it motivates Harden and Russ to an equal murder-death-kill when the playoffs ever happen.

Also: 

Can the NBA force broke-ass Tillman Fertitta to sell the damn team already? 

But then again, Trump recognizes Harden and Russ are good players.

 

Edited by Lawful Metal
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ESPN has a cinematic version of the Bulls/Jazz game 6 from 1998 up on their app, and holy fuck the lineup the Bulls brought out to start the second quarter.

Kerr/Bucheler/Burrell/Kukoc/Wennington. Yikes. A team using that group for serious minutes in their most important game actually won an NBA title. I'm coming around to the "the NBA was severely watered down in the late 90's after they added the Canadian teams" argument.

Edited by Brian Fowler
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Seeing more and more that the plan is to play out the season with the league all playing without fans at Disney World.  (John Oliver is going to have so much material for idiot sports anchors super-cut all saying "LeBron passes to Mickey to Giannis to Pluto..." etc.  Ugh.)

Vegas is also under consideration, but Disney is supposedly the leading contender.  

Someone actually had a good idea of making conferences disappear (since everyone's in the same place) and just moving the top 12 records to the playoffs, with the next 8 teams having play-in games for seeds 13-16.

 

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5 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Was that the Bulls regular second unit or was Jackson doing something weird?

Some of both. Pippen was hurting and back in the locker room, and he was desperately trying to get Jordan a little rest. I think mostly Pip's injuries threw off the substitution patterns, and he just had try to steal a couple minutes. Got Jordan and Rodman back in pretty quick. But it was still eye opening how thin they had gotten.

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22 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

The “when to start next season” for many sports will be a fight I think. 
 

will leagues argue players had 2-4 months off, so don’t need an off-season to rest up? 

Supposedly, there's a lot of sentiment to push the start of the 2020-2021 season back to Christmas even if they don't resume the 2019-20 season.  Or at least there was.  We'll see if that holds up.

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2 hours ago, odessasteps said:

The “when to start next season” for many sports will be a fight I think. 
 

will leagues argue players had 2-4 months off, so don’t need an off-season to rest up? 

Honestly, if they pulled a "you had 2-4 months off, you don't need an offseason" move, then that is guaranteed to not end well for the players.

Shit, even just restarting the season in July alone could potentialy be a big problem, since technically on July 1, every outgoing free agent's contract will be null and void (and a "I know your contract has been paid off and you're technically a free agent right now, but we're making you play for free for the duration of the season/playoffs" alone is the type of thing the players would be right to strike over...and no offseason (and thus, no chance to negotiate with a new team) would potentially bring the reserve clause back for one year and definitely be worthy of striking over.

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Starting on Christmas was the best thing the NBA did in the entire decade of the 2010's. It should be when they start, always.

At any rate, I think it's real hard to ask players on eliminated teams to come back for 5ish games to get everyone to 70. I know there are financial reasons they want to get everyone there, and a chance for guys to get back into game shape before the playoffs, but fuck, man, do the Golden State Warriors really need to go through all that bullshit to come in for two weeks to figure out where they finish between 15-55 and 20-50?

Edit: And there's not much chance of who gets in changing if they only go to 70 games. Washington is 9th in the East, 5.5 games behind Orlando. They would have 6 games to play and the Magic five, so best case scenario they could end up tied. In the West, Portland is 3.5 back of Memphis, and the Blazers would get four and Grizz five more games, so Portland could potentially wind up ahead, but they would have to win out and have Memphis lose out, so not a real good chance of that. It would be hard for either current 9th place team to really argue that they were screwed if the NBA just takes the top 8 from each conference. Seeding matters less, since there is no home court advantage in a bubble finish, so I don't think jostling for seeds is worth being an extra 14 teams worth of people (estimates the NBA has right now is that each team would need 28 people total.)

Edited by Brian Fowler
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2 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

Edit: And there's not much chance of who gets in changing if they only go to 70 games. Washington is 9th in the East, 5.5 games behind Orlando. They would have 6 games to play and the Magic five, so best case scenario they could end up tied. In the West, Portland is 3.5 back of Memphis, and the Blazers would get four and Grizz five more games, so Portland could potentially wind up ahead, but they would have to win out and have Memphis lose out, so not a real good chance of that. It would be hard for either current 9th place team to really argue that they were screwed if the NBA just takes the top 8 from each conference. Seeding matters less, since there is no home court advantage in a bubble finish, so I don't think jostling for seeds is worth being an extra 14 teams worth of people (estimates the NBA has right now is that each team would need 28 people total.)

Even with that example, that would also be even worse when you consider the "technically, every free agent's contract expires in July 1" on the other side of "prevent the reserve clause from coming back or offseason problems."

With the July 1 start of the season- using Portland for example, if the Blazers or Grizzlies clinch Memphis's playoff spot, what would be stopping someone like, say, Carmelo Anthony saying "wait a second. My contract expired July 1. Why am I going back to Portland? I'm signing with the Lakers now and going from playing out the string for four games to having a chance at getting a ring." Technically given the contracts, there would be nothing stopping him (or another upcoming free agent for a non-playoff team) from just abandoning their current team for the last few games and jumping to a playoff team.

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