No LeBron? No problem.
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Remember when people thought the East was going to get smoked in the NBA Finals without LeBron? lol
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The east would be smoked if Durant, Klay, Looney weren’t out and if iguadoala (however it’s spelled) was better than 75% healthy.
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Similarly, maybe LeBron wouldn’t have gotten smoked if he and his bosses hadn’t assembled inflexible teams around him that were long in the tooth and short on talent with yes men coaches. Good enough to get to the Finals but not to win them?
Curry did about as well as LeBron in those losing efforts right? Kawhi looks like he has picked up where he left off as Finals MVP in 2014. Siakam, Van Fleet and co show you what a team with balance and upside can do with an opportunity against a former MVP + scrubs.
The tables have turned.
Here’s a blast from the past box score. Game 5 2014 where San Antonio clinches with a balanced effort against Miami with LeBron, Wade, Bosh, and co. Spoelstra changing the starting lineup for game 4 and game 5. Good thing Mario was demoted so Allen could start and shoot 1 for 8 from the field.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201406150SAS.html
Last night’s box score:
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bmensch1 said:
The east would be smoked if Durant, Klay, Looney weren’t out and if iguadoala (however it’s spelled) was better than 75% healthy.
This is correct. And I hate the Warriors.
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Funny thing is no one wants to watch without LeBron. The ratings are horrid.
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dylans said:
Funny thing is no one wants to watch without LeBron. The ratings are horrid.
That’s in my mind a failure of the media. They have no imagination and have spent zero effort nationally marketing anyone out of the East other than LeBron.
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Woodrow said:
bmensch1 said:
The east would be smoked if Durant, Klay, Looney weren’t out and if iguadoala (however it’s spelled) was better than 75% healthy.
This is correct. And I hate the Warriors.
It’s not that I hate the warriors…I just hate how basketball has transcended into a 3 point contest.
Interesting take on the 3 point line can be found on the following:
I can’t confirm nor deny this information is correct. I just took it for truth. Seems legit on the surface. It’s just part of a rabbit hole I wandered into one day.
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One other factor hurting the ratings is that Toronto, at least as I understand it, does not count in the ratings. Typically you have two U.S. markets locked into the Finals. This year you only have one. If the Finals were Golden State against Philly or Boston (or even Milwaukee) the U.S. ratings would go up because people in those cities would tune in at a higher rate.
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And speaking of bigger issues, when’s the last time anybody here went to a regular nba season game?
I went to a celts - rockets game this year ( my daughter’s vocal group sang the national anthem)… I do know attendance is down, and is down across most pro leagues, but when you play 82 regular season games, the first thing to let slide is defense… wow. I am almost shocked that anybody would want to pay $$$$ for good seats to watch a typical nba game. A lot of One on five, little to no defense, bad shots, often due to quick shot clock, yes some good moves (made easier by half assed D), traveling all over the place, unequal calls by refs. It felt like they were going thru the motions, Another day another game, another paycheck. I couldn’t wait to go home. Stultifying. I would rather watch KU play an exhibition game, hell, a scrimmage. In my humble opinion, college basketball is sooooooo much better to watch than the Nation Boring Association.
Yes, the NBA finals do display actual defense, and intense play, which makes the regular season stand out all the more. Still would rather go to a KU regular season game vs an NBA finals game.
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@Bosthawk I go to 8-10 Rockets games per season. One reason why attendance could be down for NBA games along with other sports is pricing. I have a pretty good connection for tickets so I rarely pay full price for tickets. I usually do for 1 or 2 games a year for high profile games such as LeBron or Golden State.
Those games are very difficult to get tickets for under $150 on the secondary market. Even cheap seats for regular season games for the Rockets start at $35 and parking is $20-25 for anywhere within several blocks of the arena. Even with the free or heavily discounted tickets I get, I’m still paying about $100 for everything else and usually double that at minimum if I have to buy tickets for games. I think the least I spent this last season was including a ticket was about $110 and that was for a nosebleed seat, parking, and concessions that did not include alcohol.
I’m also willing to bet most people here have never gone or very rarely go to NBA games because a lot of posters don’t live in close proximity to an NBA franchise.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 not a fan of the Pepsi center. Horrid basketball environment.
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@Bosthawk it really is awful television. It’s bad when I’m interested in the outcome of the game and repeatedly try to watch the game, but just can’t stomach it. I felt like I was forcing myself to flip back to the Warriors - Raptors even though it was literally painful. Amazing how bad a product they’ve made considering how good a game it is and how much talent the players have.
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I’ve never been to an NBA game and haven’t watched a complete game on TV since Jordan retired the first time.
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@DanR You’re not missing much.
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The NBA set an attendance record every year from 2015 to last season. This season, the percentage of attendance held steady, but a couple of teams moved into new or reconfigured arenas, resulting in about 140,000 fewer available seats for the season. Even with that, NBA attendance this season was the fourth highest EVER.
The league also set a record for sellouts (760), merchandise sales, global digital subscriptions, and total video views (over 11.5 billion).
While the NBA may not be popular here because there isn’t a local team, the NBA has never been more popular as a league and the numbers bear that out.
Also, the NBA isn’t just popular here in the U.S. It is becoming more popular in Asia, Europe, and Africa. Even if the U.S. market is saturated for the NBA, global growth potential could help the NBA double its profits over the next 25 years.
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Also, the TV ratings, as I mentioned before, do not include Canada. Game 1 of the finals was the most watched NBA game in history for Canada. So was Game 2 (broke the Game 1 record).
More than one fifth of the Canadian population tuned into each of the first two games of the series. Expanding to markets outside the U.S. is ultimately good for the NBA, so they are probably thrilled with these numbers despite the ratings in the U.S. being down.
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Your numbers confirm my suspicion that the human race and I are on different roads…
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@approxinfinity I always thought you were a lil different
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So… I get that basketball has a long tradition of rule bending. Dunking, palming the ball, running people over (Shaq)…
One man’s cheating is another man’s improvisation.
I guess the constant taking 2 steps without dribbling has finally broken me. There. I’m old now. Thanks, NBA.
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@approxinfinity drake ruins the nba for me! Yelling racist crap at the players, owners pushing players, yep all that.
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Crimsonorblue22 said:
@approxinfinity drake ruins the nba for me! Yelling racist crap at the players, owners pushing players, yep all that.
The yelling racist crap happens at the college level, too. There’s just less of a forum for the players to speak out about it.
And if you substitute booster for owner, well, that happens at the college level, too.
There is no Drake equivalent, but that’s probably for the best.
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I usually watch the playoffs and I like following Jayhawks. I don’t get all the games.
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@approxinfinity The travel rules are not the same in the NBA and college.
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I’d rather have Kawhi than Lebron anyways, I’ve been saying for years he is one of the most underrated players in the league. Everyone talked about Duncan, Parker, etc besides him in SA but he was a huge part of their success. All that being said, I still think it’s a 5 game series for warriors if healthy but I still say Warriors in 6. The Raptors are having too many guys play well above average for me to think they can sustain this lead.
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I was thinking of jaybate just now. Remember when Fred (WSU) smacked the crap out of Perry and he had to leave to court? Jaybate was really mad about that, me too. Karma just caught up w/him.
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@Crimsonorblue22 Lost a tooth
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@BShark I saw it laying there.
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Raptors hardest series was against the Sixers apparently. The top of the East was just brutal this season.
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@KirkIsMyHinrich Raptors are very lucky this series. No KD, less than 100% Klay, less than 100% Iguadala, less than 100% Boogie.
Raptors are absolutely taking advantage of the situation and should be applauded for it because they are a very good team (probably would’ve beaten Lebron’s Cavs), but they’re also not getting anywhere bear the Warriors best shot.
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Texas Hawk 10 said:
@KirkIsMyHinrich Raptors are very lucky this series. No KD, less than 100% Klay, less than 100% Iguadala, less than 100% Boogie.
Raptors are absolutely taking advantage of the situation and should be applauded for it because they are a very good team (probably would’ve beaten Lebron’s Cavs), but they’re also not getting anywhere bear the Warriors best shot.
Sort of the way the Warriors haven’t been getting other teams’ best shot in previous finals because the other team has had injuries? Or the way the Warriors didn’t get the Spurs best shot in the 2017 Western Conference Finals because Zaza Pachulia stepped under Kawhi Leonard and he missed the series with an ankle injury? I’m familiar with the Warriors roster and of course it would be a different finals series if Durant was healthy, but I’m not feeling bad for Golden State at all because they’ve definitely been on the other side of that coin many times.
Also, the Warriors were the favorites to win before the series began. The Raptors were 2-0 against the Warriors in the regular season. The regular season game at Oracle the Raptors won 113-93, and that was with Durant going for 30/7/5. I don’t want to hear about the Raptors getting lucky.
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@KirkIsMyHinrich 1000% agree. We’ve heard excuses about who wins more than half the time in the NBA for as long as I can remember. Life happens.
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@approxinfinity That doesn’t change that teams catch lucky breaks because of those situations. Toronto is catching a huge break by not having to deal with KD or a 100% Thompson and Iguadala. Not every team takes advantage of those situations. Houston couldn’t take advantage of winning at home in Game 6 without KD and Portland couldn’t take advantage either.
Toronto is catching a lucky break in this series. They are also taking full advantage of that lucky break to this point in the series.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 this is true. But those are the dice you roll when you pay big money to your top guys and your bench is weak. Iguodala has been injury prone for a long time. Cousins is a big man coming off an achilles injury. High risk. In terms of those two guys I would say Golden State would be lucky if they are healthy and injured is what you would expect. Nobody is going to be shocked if Doke goes down this year. I’d feel lucky if he stays healthy.
So really Golden State has bet almost everything on 3 stars staying healthy. It’s a calculated risk. At what point do you stop calling it bad luck and call it a gamble that backfired?
It’s one strategy vs another. You have a Toronto team that’s deep and well constructed vs a top heavy team of aging stars. In this case, the first strategy is winning (so far).
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The lesson is that true champions are determined by tournaments. You have to persevere and overcome. Good fortune and bad fortune are all part of it.
And the true champion may not be the absolute best team. Two different things.
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Toronto had their own injury issues to deal with this season as well. Kawhi missed basically all of last season and missed 21 games this year, Kyle Lowry missed 16 games due to injury. The Raptors had their own significant injury issues. The difference between them and GS right now is the timing of those injuries.
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I’d say we are getting robbed by injuries, but this series is so boring I haven’t watched a game. First finals I’ve completely skipped since before Jordan.
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One of the things that makes dynasties hard to sustain is the luck factor.
This Warriors roster has been in place for about 5 years now, as far as the main guys. Through that time, the team stayed relatively healthy, while it was their opponents often felled by injury.
In the first Finals matchup, they drew a Cleveland team that was missing Kevin Love, and Kyrie Irving got hurt in Game 1.
Kawhi missed most of the 2017 series against the Spurs. OKC didn’t get them at 100%. Houston had them on the ropes last year before Chris Paul went out with an injury.
Eventually, that injury luck runs out. It just so happens that it has all run out at once for Golden State.
And remember, Kawhi isn’t 100%. He looked like he was playing on one leg in Game 1. Kyle Lowry can barely catch with his left hand because of a thumb ligament injury that will probably require surgery.
It’s just that for the first time during this run, Golden State is more banged up than their opponent.
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It’s pretty enjoyable watching Jordan Bell get abused by the Raptors.
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Anyone watching this? Good game.
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Leonard has made some bad plays this last quarter . How was that not a travel?
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… and some great things.
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Wow.
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This is stupid. Show the above the rim angle, it’s the only one that matters.
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Ayesha Curry was right. The NBA is rigged.
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Toronto pissed this one away. Alright. Still unwatchable.
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Sad to see KD go down!
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@Crimsonorblue22 oh man. Its a torn Achilles. Sucks.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26944533/warriors-believe-kd-torn-achilles
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I wonder if Durant’s leg was ever going to heal with rest or if this was inevitable? It looked like an Achilles’ injury from the outset.
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It is possible that it was inevitable. It’s also possible that the additional strain from the calf injury put too much stress on the Achilles. Or perhaps the Achilles was the problem the entire time, but it was causing the calf to flare.
Either way, there’s almost no chance Durant plays during the regular season next year. The quickest he returns would be February of 2020, but I doubt whichever team signs him would want to take that risk and push him to play that quickly, particularly since Durant will turn 31 this fall. More likely he misses all of next season, and returns in the 2020-21 season.
This changes a lot about how next year in the NBA plays out, regardless of who wins the title this season.
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@justanotherfan I was trying to think how long cousins was out, do you remember? I thought he had a pretty quick recovery.
