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Yeah I’ll third or fourth co-sign the heat being really fun even though their best guys top out at like borderline all stars in a weak conference. They have lots of dudes who just get after it. Spo has known how to coach for a long time (I give him lots of credit for steering the bron big 3 era so well when plenty of other coaches would have crashed that ship) but he’s done a masterful job turning not great rosters into tough ass teams a couple times in the last few years

MIAMI -- LeBron James has someone in mind for the MVP award this season.

Himself.

This is a season in which prohibitive MVP favorite James Harden has done phenomenal things with NBA-leading Houston, reigning MVP Russell Westbrook has been fantastic again for Oklahoma City, and Anthony Davis has found a new stratosphere to take his game, especially after New Orleans lost DeMarcus Cousins.

James raves about them all. But ...

"I would vote for me," James told The Associated Press. "The body of work, how I'm doing it, what's been happening with our team all year long, how we've got so many injuries and things of that nature, guys in and out, to be able to still keep this thing afloat, I definitely would vote me."

Most Valuable Thing of That Nature

Sorry, Mr. James, but ILH has confirmed it will be prohibitive MVP favorite James Harden.

LMA getting an MRI? oh boy

ugh. i don't know how Pop has the Spurs where they are. I mean i *know* but it's still pretty impressive. Another winning season locked up. though the 50-win seasons streak is basically over, they'd have to win out to make it 19 in a row.

theyre in danger of missing out on the offs if LMA misses time. two games up on LAC but they play each other one more time and between now and that matchup they play OKC and Houston.

assuming they lose kawhi hard to imagine spurs being good again while pop is still coaching. he's 69 years old

nice

starting to lose faith in the Bucks. they've had this "Own the Future" thing for four years now and it looks like yet another 8-seed/first round exit. I'm not sure they're going to get much better next season. I have no clue how a team this stacked with big wingspan guys can give up so many points a game.

im not sure what pairs well with Giannis since he's such a unicorn. maybe an elite off ball guard like klay or beal?

well hes got a poor mans version of those guys with middleton. he needs way more shooting around him for sure, tho. mirza woulda helped them this year, but had those blood clots. the brogdon injury shows how important he is imo. re-instating jabari this late was always gonna be tough. Jabari and Bledsoe just dont seem like good fits there.

bucks are so young ppl always get impatient with young teams, also giannis still has a ton of holes he needs to fill in his game (he is young)

a good coach wld go a long way too

yeah coach and shooting needs to be priority #1. Starting Jason Terry in 2018 means they are very desperate for spacing.

they're going to have a hard time changing the roster much but yeah they could get a huge boost from decent coaching.

lol @ bron campaigning for MVP

Simmons podcast w/Durant worth a listen

gonna check that right now.

RIP little man

Lakers guard Isaiah Thomas will undergo arthroscopic surgery on his right hip Thursday, team says.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) March 28, 2018

both IT and kyrie tried to go w/o surgery over the offseason and both ended up having it

well hes got a poor mans version of those guys with middleton. he needs way more shooting around him for sure, tho. mirza woulda helped them this year, but had those blood clots. the brogdon injury shows how important he is imo. re-instating jabari this late was always gonna be tough. Jabari and Bledsoe just dont seem like good fits there.

agreed. the Bucks have a weird history of doing stuff like this. like signing three 30 year old shooting guards or playing both Brandon Jennings and Monte Ellis and seeing how bad jumpers they can brick every game. they desperately need someone who knows how to build a team.

it's weird that the bucks let john hammond walk. but right now they're being coached by a guy who would not get hired by any of the other 31 teams so i feel like that's a good place to start

they haven't got much of anything out of their last 3 first round picks

idk why i always think the nba has 32 teams

same

the nhl has 31 now which is extremely illegal

is it too early to make a case for the 2015 draft being even worse than the 2013

Thirty teams hath MLB and the NBA,
that last one's the league with Stephen Curry.
The NHL has thirty-one,
they even have a team in Edmonton.
Thirty-two call the NFL home.
Hey whatever happened to Jake Delhomme?

nice

feel like dirk is was too low on this:
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/page/nbarank22932314/nbarank-game-changers-25-most-influential-basketball-players-ever

unclear what that list is about

we are presenting the 100 NBA players who have done the most to change the way we play the game, how we talk about the game, and the culture of basketball.

For this special edition of #NBArank, we asked our panel to choose the players who have influenced the game most, both on and off the court: the real game-changers.

'influence' is a broad term. I was taking it as players who have changed the game the most.

a list of on court influence wld be cool but stuff like changed the way we talk about the game seems kinda meaningless, also like half of brons entry is all "he has good stats" which is just a normal good at basketball list

if it were just about changing the actual game steph wld be way ahead of bron

lot of media navel gazing in there

Yah and Kobe didn’t influence anything he’s a carbon copy of mj

otm

boom

kobe ahead of shaq is unconscionable, they had to change the rules bc of shaq ughhhhhhhhh people's infatuation with kobe mythology makes me so mad

yeah kobe has no real legacy on the game other than winning a bunch

and being a dickhead

in my lifetime, players who have changed how other teams play by copying or coming up with special schemes to stop them, or have infuenced other players in no particular order:
-- shaq (hack a shaq)
-- steph (30 footers are good now)
-- dirk (tall guys should shoot threes aka the stretch 4)
-- manu (eurostepping, really good flopping, old man game, americans are not unbeatable)
-- MJ (you dont need a big man to dominate the whole league)
-- magic (a 6'9" can play every position)
-- draymond (you should be able to defend everyone when you switch on screens)
-- nash (shoot 3s all the time and do sick passes a lot too)
-- AI (little guys can be dominant scorers)
-- lebron (players who are karl malone-sized can also be very fast and have a shooting touch and also crazy court vision)
-- tim duncan (you can be an elite defender into middle age even if u cant jump)
-- kevin garnett (anything is possible)

i'd add durant (7'0" do-it-all swingman, shooting weird shots from everywhere)

yeah for sure

durant's not really waht i'm thinking about w/ this category though because he's not possible to copy for all but 0.00001% of players. there's no actionable lessons learned

if it were just about changing the actual game steph wld be way ahead of bron

― lag∞n, Wednesday, March 28, 2018 8:43 PM (fifty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lot of media navel gazing in there

― lag∞n, Wednesday, March 28, 2018 8:44 PM (fifty-six minutes ago)

I feel like bron kind of ushered in this triple-double era tho

I love AI but Tiny Archibald showed little guys could be dominant scorers. Led the league in 72-73 in shots made, shots attempted, free throws made, free throws attempted, assists and scoring. What AI did was change the cultural resonance of the NBA and got them to eliminate carrying violations.

As one of the resident old farts, the players I'd add to m bison's list are Larry Bird, Kareem, and Hakeem. All were players you had to scheme for or they'd crush you, and while singular talents they all changed what people thought possible.

That ESPN didn't talk about the Lew Alcindor rule (no dunks in the NCAA) or the NBA widening the key to deal with Wilt's dominance was dumb.

these sorts of lists are always destined to just devolve into arguments for who was better lol just run all-time NBArank every year my basic ass would read it for sure

thank u ez snappin for making snapping easier and providing historical analysis

I'm an old man yelling at hoop clouds