Depends. They would have to pick up some pretty old pieces. When you grab Durant and Beal, you have a limited window to win. The Celtics who are much younger are limited in window due to salary.
2024 Playoffs Western Conference First Round: (3) Minnesota Timberwolves vs (6) Phoenix Suns
- Thread starter InstaFace
- Start date
The path that you laid out for the Magic or Pacers is similar to what the Cavs and T-Wolves did: going all-in as a small market team and mortgaging much of the future to do so. I don't think anyone mocks them for doing so. (For the Wolves: yes, a bit last year when Gobert sucked and the players were getting into fights with each other during playoff games... but not now that it's gelled.)
Personally, I have a bit of scorn for the Suns, but it's not for going all-in and failing but rather doing it in a very mechanical, artless way via the Beale trade. It felt like they were brain-deadedly trying to replicate the Heatles of a decade ago and not looking around at how the league has changed. It's the brute-forcing of it all that inspires the heavy criticism, I think.
If the Cavs, and especially the T-Wolves, are considered small markets how would that be much different than Phoenix who is pretty much in that same group....they may even be a smaller market than Minnesota. When I think "small markets" I think Memphis and New Orleans, Milwaukee and OKC....they there are significant gaps in the groups up to Cleveland and Minnesota.
Phoenix is not smaller than Minnesota. Phoenix is one of the largest markets in the US. It is 2 to 3 times the size of the rest of the teams you are comparing them to.
IDK - maybe? Maybe not? I think you're calling out something different. People are more likely to call out the Suns or the Sixers because they're kind of unlikeable franchises. They've both, at times, played a part in a star basically extorting their way off another team. I'm not saying that players shouldn't do that or even that it's bad - these big star trades lead to disappointment more often than titles - but it's a way to make a general population of NBA fans gleeful when you fail.
That's a "branding" issue that probably won't apply to the Magic or Pacers because it's hard to see a star agitating to those markets. The closest we have is Lillard to Milwaukee, and by all accounts he preferred Miami as a destination.
I personally think all of these conversations are relative. People love OKC because they weren't expecting them to compete at this level this year. If they do this over and over for 5 years and can't break through to a championship, that'll lead to questions about them, same as the Celtics. Basically, if the expectations are that you're a playoff team and you can't make the playoffs, that's a fair point of criticism; if it's title team and you can't make the finals, that's a fair point of criticism.
Now you made me search. First list I pulled was Phoenix 12, Minnesota 13 and Cleveland 18.
I have them as
Mid-Market: Phoenix, Minny
Small market: Cleveland
Very Small/tiny market: OKC, Memphis, NO, Milwaukee. San Antonio
This may all be wrong through but what I have them based on a priori thoughts
Mid-Market: Phoenix, Minny
Small market: Cleveland
Very Small/tiny market: OKC, Memphis, NO, Milwaukee. San Antonio
This may all be wrong through but what I have them based on a priori thoughts
Not sure where Hoop-Social got its numbers (I think the 2020 census) but in terms of Metropolitan Statistical Areas, Greater Phoenix is above 5 million people now where Minnesota is about 3.6 and Cleveland is about 2.1
i agree and i’ve been feeling it strongly on this board lately as the playoffs roll in. amazing talents who are fun to watch are blithely called frauds, failures, psychologically deficient in some key way. there’s this weird joy in seeing these players fail, which i understand but it gets to be a bit much at times.
Historically speaking, the Curry/Durant Warriors teams are extremely unusual in that its hard to distinguish who the best player on that team really was. If you look at title teams, it is usually pretty obvious who the "best" player was on each teams. The notable champions that don't have an obvious best player, like the 2004 Pistons, typically are that way because they lacked an obvious, transcendent star. The Warriors definitely a transcendent star, they had two of them, both in their primes, and it's very hard to pick which one was the more important player to the title teams. It complicates Durant's standing in terms of All-Time rankings because those are his two title teams--Curry is relatively uncompromised given his success outside of those Durant years, but a lot of Durant's legacy hinges on the view that he was the best player on those teams.
I have much the same sentiment and I don't know why, but it really depresses. Even last night watching Kyrie, who I hate as much as the next guy, I mean that was some damn amazing basketball. Even if Kyrie is a special case, the hate watching of LeBron, KD, Embiid....I mean, true greats, not just really good players says something about our twitter/X culture that is based on the dopamine rush of spewing hate.
I love that tweet, but it's wrong. Their one win had Kemba starting, not Romeo, at least according to Basketball Reference.
I don't really have an issue with this, and I don't think it's simply a product of social media. Sure, social media and messageboards give people a bigger microphone to speak through, but this is basically no different than the guy at the sports bar calling the athletes on the screen bums. This is just the way it's always been.
Further complicating this is the absolute disdain that many contemporary basketball players have for their fans. Hell, the stars in the NBA had to be forced to play regular season games because otherwise they'd fake injuries to sit out large chunks of the season. They often treat whatever team they're on as a pitstop to their next destination. They think that the all-star game, one of the biggest exhibitions of talent that the NBA has, is basically a globetrotters game. You know why Kevin Durant is disliked? Because he doesn't stay on teams long enough to build relationships with the fans. You know why we cheer when Kyrie fails? Because he views fans as incidental to what he does for a career. Same for James Harden, Anthony "That's All Folks" Davis, and others.
And you might note - hey, in your first paragraph, you say that fans can be shitty, so it makes sense that players would be antagonistic toward them. But no! These guys are literally getting paid $50 million a year in some cases... they can afford to tune out the subset of fans who make fun of them on the fucking internet because a vast majority of fans make it possible for them to be rich beyond 99.9999% of the world's wildest dreams. I have no sympathy for many of these guys because they expect their actions to have absolutely no repercussions which is a fucking stupid way to go through life. And look, I'll defend Durant's ability to move from team to team how he wants, I'll even defend him moving from OKC to GS because the OKC owners were cheap... but being the guy who's possibly about to be on his fourth team in six years, that comes with a cost, and it's that basically no one has any attachment to your success.
Call me old man yelling at cloud blah blah blah. Don't care. The best thing the next generation of players could do for the game is rebuild the relationship with casual sports fans because this current generation has taken it for granted.
I don't think the Suns move Booker. There's a playbook in these situations: you get rid of the aging star (Durant) for a haul, figure out something to make the remaining years of Beal palatable, and start rebuilding. There's probably a version of Beal that can be decent, if the roleplayers around him and Booker are better.
If Phoenix gets stuff for Durant, they're not in that much worse a situation than Dallas was with Luka, and the Mavs have recovered somewhat from a lot of very poor decisions and luck.
If Phoenix gets stuff for Durant, they're not in that much worse a situation than Dallas was with Luka, and the Mavs have recovered somewhat from a lot of very poor decisions and luck.
Some really interesting similarities between the Wolves and the 22 Celtics:
-Led by an up and coming young superstar that wasn't top 10 early in the season, but definitely is by the end of the year.
-2nd best player is extremely gifted but with some real weaknesses in the playoffs, and is a questionable fit alongside the best player.
-Dominating defense best in the league by far, led by a DPOY with major offensive deficiencies.
-Popular aging vet as a still useful role player, even into his mid 30s.
-Swept a KD super team in round 1.
If they face and beat the Nuggets, one more big one:
-Knocked off the consensus best player in the league and defending champ in round 2
*edit - one more big one: Both teams had major clutch issues, with Boston finishing 26th in clutch time net rating in 2022 and Minnesota finishing 27th in clutch time net rating this year.
-Led by an up and coming young superstar that wasn't top 10 early in the season, but definitely is by the end of the year.
-2nd best player is extremely gifted but with some real weaknesses in the playoffs, and is a questionable fit alongside the best player.
-Dominating defense best in the league by far, led by a DPOY with major offensive deficiencies.
-Popular aging vet as a still useful role player, even into his mid 30s.
-Swept a KD super team in round 1.
If they face and beat the Nuggets, one more big one:
-Knocked off the consensus best player in the league and defending champ in round 2
*edit - one more big one: Both teams had major clutch issues, with Boston finishing 26th in clutch time net rating in 2022 and Minnesota finishing 27th in clutch time net rating this year.
Last edited:
Given that the 2022 Celtics win a title if a lot of things don't break GSW's way, this is promising for Minny. I'm going to pick them over Denver, regardless of Murray's health.
Who knows if this happens but you have to think OKC and PHX explore something here. The former has picks + bodies and presumably motivation. There's a nice marketing hook and Phoenix can get out of Stepien jail for a cost.
Again that's a WAG on how something might go down but the Suns do have a new owner in Ishbia so who knows what that means for the roster.
I won't speak to KD, as I'm a huge fan and love watching him work. I rooted against his Warriors teams, as I would against any superteam that wasn't wearing "Boston" on their jerseys, but he's long been one of my favorite players.
But Lebron... the man has 4 titles with 3 different teams as the best player on each, nobody could possibly call him a fraud. But what you'll see here is just regular ol' rooting-against-him. And I think that's 60% due to the jersey (how many of us rooted for him in the 2016 Finals?), 30% due to the on-court whiny conduct (which is something we'll excuse only for our own players - hypocrites we are, but only in the way that every sports fan is a hypocrite), and 10% because he was the obstacle in our way for much of the Big Three era and we ended up on the short end of that stick more often than not. Who could blame us, really?
And Embiid, I hope is obvious enough given the way he plays. He has a manifestly impressive array of skills, and a whiny, entitled and manipulative way of using them on the court. You'll find no bigger critic of James Harden than me around here, for how he tries to draw foul calls in an unsportsmanlike way (and then whines worse even than Tatum when he doesn't get them, which lately is often). And the rooting against Embiid is also charged with "he's often in our way". One can be a great player without happening to be on a team that's well built enough to get into the late rounds of the playoffs, but there's a degree of fairness to criticism in that vein, too. Arguing how fair or not, and how far you can take it, is our birthright as fans.
If you can enjoy sports fully without making opponents into villains, I commend you. But most of us aren't built like that, and frankly I'd argue we have more fun for being built to villainize. A little bit, y'know? In moderation. It doesn't prevent us from appreciating a great play by those villains, either, necessarily - but it does give us an emotional stake in the outcome of a game that doesn't involve our teams. If you want people to watch the games, you gotta be willing to tolerate some of that, or at least not be surprised-bordering-on-offended by it. Calling it a "dopamine rush of spewing hate" probably overstates the tone around here, while also, I think, misunderstanding it.
Why not? “Fraud” is perhaps a strong term, as he has a pretty clean record, but his inability to win where he is and his need to exploit resources elsewhere to do so might diminish his legacy for those of a certain generation.
This is, to be kind, ridiculous (I know you aren't necessarily the one making the argument). Did Tom Brady winning a 7th title in Tampa enhance or diminish his legacy? Any moron who says LeBron should've just stayed in Cleveland alongside the likes of Mo Williams and Antwan Jamison and the rest of the extremely mediocre crew that he somehow led to 60+ wins in back to back years isn't to be taken seriously.
Why? They made every move they could to try to accommodate Lebron during both of his stints in Cleveland. He just stripmined assets until the team was dry and looked for his next landing spot in pursuit of #6.
It's not that they didn't try to get good players, they couldn't. Lebron was failed badly by management during his first stint in Cleveland, and basically spent the rest of his career making sure that he wouldn't be at the mercy of incompetent GM'ing (unless it was his own). Strip-mined assets lol, you think any of the Cavs/Heat/Lakers regret giving up a ton of assets to help Lebron win titles? Lebron was certainly opportunistic (going to the Heat with Wade/Bosh, then going back to Cleveland when they had Kyrie and the 1st overall pick) but that's about it.
Jordan didn't do anything special for the Bulls to draft and develop Pippen, or hire Phil Jackson. If Lebron had been that lucky in Cleveland, who knows how his career would've turned out.
Do you think that those GM moves in his initial stint in Cleveland were made without his input?
Wow, I never knew this and it makes sense.
I guess I’m weird because I don’t do this but just another thing for the Dinnerette to point out.
Speaking to the first stint couldn’t you characterize the Danny Ferry Era as not making enough impactful moves that maybe led to LeBron being frustrated and leaving? One of the reasons could have been Ferry’s LACK of utilizing future assets to put better players around him. Who were the best players that he added during that 5-6 year window….Delonte and Mo Williams?
I don’t recall specifically each of the assets that were stripped the second go-around but fortunately for them their GM, whether it was LeBron’s voice or not, learned from Ferry’s mistakes and invested in what was needed to win a championship. Do you think anyone in Cleveland regrets giving up future draft picks in exchange for a Championship? If you remember back then that Title and ensuing parade was to Cleveland what 2004 was to the city of Boston. It was a real big deal.
Danny Ferry was trash, but that was also an era where draft picks weren’t worth a whole lot. Teams didn’t develop players internally for the most part, and the 2000-2010 span was one of the weakest runs in NBA draft history. Thats how you had stuff like the Rondo pick/sale, etc.