Went to the game in Portland OR on Sunday with my boys. The only 2 guys not out there warming up for the first half hour?
Kyrie & Hayward.
Hayward shows up, but doesn't mingle much. He did work out hard, & was one of the last to stay.
Kyrie? Never showed. Never warmed up . . .
NOW..... Kyrie talks AFTER the game, & it's getting big headlines. "Kyrie is keeping it real! Telling it like it is.... Calling out 'the team' for underperforming. For not meshing well...." yadda yadda yadda.
REALLY? Ya think there's a problem with 'the team' not meshing?
Carmelo Anthony waived for the second time in a few months. He's now been given away by the Knicks, Thunder, Hawks and Rockets over the last year+. I think the end is very near for Melo. Man did he fall off and he really can't adjust to a different role. Despite the fact that he is old and declining, he insists on ISO ball and isn't willing to take a bench/lesser role.
The Celts are a hot mess.
All that talent and they have lost the chemistry from last year.
Lousy team defense leads to shitty offense.
Poor rebounding does not help.
"Hating the Yankees like it's a religion since 94'" RIP Mike.
"It's also a simple and indisputable fact that WAR isn't the be-all end-all in valuations, especially in real life. Wanna know why? Because an ace in run-prevention for 120 innings means more often than not, a sub-standard pitcher covering for the rest of the IP that pitcher fails to provide. You can't see value in a vacuum when a player does not provide full-time production."
Watched last night's loss. a lot of stupid turnovers. They're usually a fun team and have depth and potential (but I'm mostly going by last year). They have a lot of work to do this season though. I've only had time to watch 3 or 4 games this season, but they've lost everyone I've happened to catch. I need to watch more to truly evaluate what exactly in god's fuck is wrong with this team right now. Only good thing is that it's pretty early in the season to get too worked-up about it.
Jusuf Nurkic's injury tonight was absolutely horrible. Jesus.
Celtics to-do list after their shitshow of a season came to a merciful end:
1) Let Kyrie Irving walk. Addition by subtraction. Kyrie is poison and he has to go. He's the guard version of Carmelo Anthony, yet more aggressively selfish and unpleasant to deal with. Rozier and Morris can go too (and probably will), but being rid of Kyrie is my main concern.
2) Stay the hell away from Anthony Davis. What have the Pelicans accomplished with Anthony Davis? Nothing. He's a guy who needs the ball and needs shots to be effective. Our entire problem this season was too many guys caring too much about their numbers and sulking if they didn't get enough scoring opportunities. And you want throw Anthony Davis on top of that (in place of Horford, a defensive leader who doesn't need the ball to be effective)? Get the fuck out of here. And before someone tries to make the argument, no he is not Kevin Garnett. Not even close.
3) Stop handling Gordon Hayward with kid gloves. Yes, I know he's coming off a career-altering injury. Boo-hoo. Tons of games got fucked up this season by Stevens forcing him into the starting lineup and playing heavy minutes, and hijacking the offense to get him more touches and opportunities than he was due. Hayward was horrible this season. Start him off as a bench player next season and proceed with the assumption that he is finished as an all-star caliber player in this league, until proven otherwise. You can't trade him, no other team will accept that contract.
4) Jayson Tatum. The ability is there, we saw it last spring. He helped lead the Celtics to within a game of the finals. But it didn't seem like any effort was put into continuing Tatum's development this year, as if the team decided that he was a finished product. If anything it seemed like the Celtics were fighting his development, by putting a bunch of trigger-happy vets in front of him in the team pecking order for no discernible reason. He clearly developed some bad habits sometime between last year and this year (way way way way too many fallaways from close range, finish at the rim!), and they were never rooted out like they should have been. All things considered, I think it's an encouraging sign that he still managed to increase his scoring average from last year with everything going on, from Kyrie coming back and being Kyrie, to Morris being completely out of control, and Hayward being Brad's first priority.
The NBA is one big fix.
I swore I'd never watch it again after last year's GS-Houston fiasco.
My Bucks have the best record, so I broke my promise.
Refs currently handing the game to the Warriors...again.
When you say it's gonna happen now
When exactly do you mean?
NBA refs suck in general, and I wanted the Rockets to win, but I don’t think the refs had much impact either way. It’s pathetic on the Rockets part that warriors had no KD/Cousins, and Curry scored 0 points in first half, and they couldn’t build a lead and let Warriors hang around and ultimately win. Capela was pathetic this series.
It is just absurd that Warriors lost arguably best player in NBA, and another all star and still beat Rockets on road. This team has to be in consideration for best ever.
Certainly, the Rockets did not take advantage of the situation, and I'm not a Rockets fan, but I thought tehre were about 12 really bad calls against the Rockets with about half in the final quarter, and maybe 2 bad ones against GS. I still think the fix is in. People want to watch the Warriors, so the league makes sure they win. This happens too often for it to just be luck.
When you say it's gonna happen now
When exactly do you mean?
I mean the Warriors did win a championship and had a 73 win season before Durant was even on their roster, so them winning a game without him isn't some underdog tale.
If you're Houston, last season could be blamed on the refs. Game 7 (maybe 6 as well, can't remember) was a pretty blatant fix job, the refs just refused to call fouls when anyone on the Rockets got hit near the basket. This season they choked. No excuse for letting game 5 get away and letting the Warriors hang around last night.
I wasn't saying it was an underdog tale, more just talking about how damn good they are, even without KD/Cousins.
Last year was awful, the Rockets should've won that series if not for awful refs, with or without CP3. This year, I just didn't really see it. Refs missed calls both ways and Rockets choked. There is no way the game should've been tied at halftime, when KD was out, Cousins was out and Steph had 0 points. Rockets failed to take advantage, and let the Warriors hang around. It was pretty predictable that eventually Curry would get hot.
When you say it's gonna happen now
When exactly do you mean?