NBA 2019-20 season

[usagre]

The season is not even 2 weeks old and the title picture is crystal clear. It’s about only two teams and they both play in the same city and arena. The Lakers and Clippers will have their ups and downs during this marathon regular season, but barring any major injuries the championship will be decided when they meet in the West playoffs. There are no other legitimate contenders in my opinion. They have what no other team has. A combination of two elite players and excellent role players. Utah has many good players and a couple of very good players but nothing elite. Houston’s windows has closed. Denver is the best of the rest and the third best team in the NBA. They have a deep team led by one elite player but that won’t be enough against the LA teams. The East is a just a bunch of pretenders that will earn the right to lose easily to the LA team in the Finals. Milwaukee might be the best of the bunch but that’s not saying much since they are weaker than last year and they couldn’t even get out of the East then. Philadelphia is a good team but with serious flaws and is not a title contender.

[Shawshank]

That Doncic kid is just fun to watch.The best natural europe player since young Dirk/Pau years.

He is 20 but playing so smart,slowly on his speed like true euroleague veteran

Watching mavs lineup Doncic + 2m21 Porzingis+ 2m22 Marjanovic at same time was funny in this small ball era

Can anyone remembers who used 2 2m20+ guys at same time on the floor like Carlysle does?

Very fun team to watch Mavs this year

[usagre]

The Kawhi Leonard load management stuff has become comical. It was understandable and smart last year in Toronto coming off missing an entire year. But early on this year I don’t get it. He’s 28 years old and not injured. Is he that fragile ?
Does he not want to play ? It seems like being able to sit out games for rest purposes was his key deciding factor during free agency in his decision making process. I don’t get it. If he has to be treated like this at 28 and not injured what will he be like when he’s older like Lebron’s age ? Will he be playing in a wheel chair ? I am no Popovich fan but I starting to realize why he got fed up with the guy. He missed the entire year and never had a surgical procedure.

[usagre]

Fantastic job by ESPN announcer Doris Burke for not being a fan girl and actually calling out Kawhi Leonard and calling his move to sit against Milwaukee as ridiculous. Basically the Clippers and Kawhi have back to back games against Milwaukee and Portland and Kawhi was gonna sit out one of the two. His choice of Milwaukee says a lot about him.

[Buckalis]

That Doncic kid is just fun to watch.The best natural europe player since young Dirk/Pau years.

He is 20 but playing so smart,slowly on his speed like true euroleague veteran

Watching mavs lineup Doncic + 2m21 Porzingis+ 2m22 Marjanovic at same time was funny in this small ball era

Can anyone remembers who used 2 2m20+ guys at same time on the floor like Carlysle does?

Very fun team to watch Mavs this year

Unless if you mean only in the NBA, I believe it was the last dreadful Soviet Union team with Arvydas Sabonis and Vladimir Tkachenko back in 1988... They won the world cup.

[usagre]

It’s great to see the NBA is being proactive and discussing changes to the NBA regular season format moving forward.
Tv Ratings are down except for Laker games and the era of load management invented by Popovich about 5 years ago and currently taken to ridiculous heights by Kawhi Leonard is in full swing and is hurting the league. LeBron and the eyeballs he brings to TV sets won’t last forever despite his incredible play still in his 17th season. The NBA definitely has to shorten the regular season schedule and I think all indications are that they will.

[Straight forward]

Don't wanna sound too eurocentric, but it's pretty fun that 2 Europeans lead MVP ladder at the moment. First time time in the history of NBA.

[usagre]

Don't wanna sound too eurocentric, but it's pretty fun that 2 Europeans lead MVP ladder at the moment. First time time in the history of NBA.

If the season ended today they would finish one-two in the vote. There’s an excellent chance that it can continue and play out like this in the end as well. I think there’s a clear 5 candidates that will hold for the entire year. Giannis and Luka followed by the Laker duo that will split their vote and finally James Harden. Of course their teams must continue winning as that historically has been a key ingredient for the award. Kawhi will not be a contender with all his load management nonsense just like last year when he didn’t even finish in the top 5. And although Denver is winning it’s not like last year when it was all about Jokic this year thus far.

[usagre]

Despite the Bucks being on a 14 game winning streak, having the reigning MVP and coming off a humiliating destruction of the highly touted Clippers I still have my doubts and are not buying them as a serious championship contender. They remind me more of Budenholzers Hawks in ‘15, the Celtics in ‘17 and the Raptors in ‘18. Number one seeds that LeBron destroyed in the playoffs. Now there is no LeBron in the East to do it to them so they have an excellent shot to get to the Finals, but they won’t be much of a threat once there.

[usagre]

Like I was telling everyone here last summer Lebron/AD Lakers were going to be an absolute beast. Motivated rested LeBron, and Anthony Davis for the first time in his career surrounded with talent are too much for anyone to handle.
They are 20-3 without a true road loss yet this season. The Clipper games will always be Laker home games so that in essence on opening night was like a home loss. And all this despite Avery Bradley who is third in minutes missing half the games and Kyle Kuzma their third best player still not acclimated to his role due to missed training camp time.
They are only going to get better and health is the only obstacle for them. Other than that no team can match their ceiling.

[Buckalis]

Despite the Bucks being on a 14 game winning streak, having the reigning MVP and coming off a humiliating destruction of the highly touted Clippers I still have my doubts and are not buying them as a serious championship contender. They remind me more of Budenholzers Hawks in ‘15, the Celtics in ‘17 and the Raptors in ‘18. Number one seeds that LeBron destroyed in the playoffs. Now there is no LeBron in the East to do it to them so they have an excellent shot to get to the Finals, but they won’t be much of a threat once there.

If the Bucks will be in the finals, the title is theirs. I doubt any of the circuses of the West (namely the Lakers, the Clips, or the Rockets) will be in the finals representing the West though... Trade period is at its peak after Dec the 15th and teams like the Mavs and the Heat have lots of cap space to spare and the assets to pay for any trade...

Many contending teams (the Bucks included) can be significantly better after Feb's break... This doesn't apply to any of the circuses, which can only make insignificant trade moves after they've spend all they could during the off-season...

[usagre]

If the Bucks will be in the finals, the title is theirs. I doubt any of the circuses of the West (namely the Lakers, the Clips, or the Rockets) will be in the finals representing the West though... Trade period is at its peak after Dec the 15th and teams like the Mavs and the Heat have lots of cap space to spare and the assets to pay for any trade...

Many contending teams (the Bucks included) can be significantly better after Feb's break... This doesn't apply to any of the circuses, which can only make insignificant trade moves after they've spend all they could during the off-season...

If you think someone other than one of the LA teams is winning the West you don’t have a clue. Barring major injury it’s a sure thing. And it’s also a sure thing that one of them will win the Finals as well. The Bucks cannot get significantly better.
They made a dumb move by paying Bledsoe the money that they did. They had no choice but to overpay for Middleton as well. The have one clear superstar. In today’s NBA you need two to get to the promised land and raise the trophy.

[usagre]

Kawhi Leonard on the offensive end reminds me a lot of post 1993
Michael Jordan. He’s got the mid range game down and is almost unstoppable. And unlike Jordan he can shoot the long range one as well. His major problem will be health.
People forget that despite all that load management last year he still lumbered to get through that Philly series in the second round. He got his second wind and totally destroyed Giannis in the last 4 games of the conference finals. But he caught an enormous break with Golden States injuries in the finals. He was beginning to wear down again late in that series as evident by his invisible 4th quarter in the series clinching game 6. But his teammates picked up the slack in that game and couple that with the fact that the Warriors were out of bullets and it didn’t matter. This year already you can see the load management is in full swing but it remains to be seen if it will all work out for him in the end again. It sucks that such a great player in his peak has to be handled like that. I don’t think I have ever seen anything like it.

[Shawshank]

Clippers-Lakers both games was playoffs intensity no doubt.In both games Leonard was best player on the floor.

When Clippers puts their top 5 in Beverley,Williams,George,Leonard, Harrell to finish game that's tough and strong minded lineup.Not the warriors death lineup,but second best I have seen in this small ball era.

But saying that people are sleeping on Bucks, most talk is about la teams.

In one of the games they shown graphics bucks winning average is over +12 after 30 games.

That's was achieved only by legendary champions teams like best bulls version in 96, best warriors version in 2017, Lakers 72, bucks 71.

Last year raptors was lucky not go down 0-3 againts bucks and won basically lost serries.Bucks just didn't have playoofs deep run experience and that finish off mentality .But after painfull lose in last playoofs,they will be way better prepared mentally in this playoffs.

So far NBA finals 2020 looking to be rematch of last year's playoofs battle between Giannis vs Leonard.

[usagre]

But saying that people are sleeping on Bucks, most talk is about la teams.


Last year raptors was lucky not go down 0-3 againts bucks and won basically lost serries.Bucks just didn't have playoofs deep run experience and that finish off mentality .But after painfull lose in last playoofs,they will be way better prepared mentally in this playoffs.

So far NBA finals 2020 looking to be rematch of last year's playoofs battle between Giannis vs Leonard.

Yeah the Bucks gained some experience but the talent hasn’t increased and the flaws are still there.
Only one superstar and a flawed one at that. You were raving about them last year but they lost 4 straight games to get bounced. There’s nothing fluky about that. That is being soundly beat. Yeah once again I am perfectly awake on them. They have a good shot at getting to the Finals but either LA team would beat them soundly.