Jump to content

Mitch Cumsteen

Full Members
  • Posts

    6332
  • Joined

  • Days Won

    3

Everything posted by Mitch Cumsteen

  1. Criticism comes with the territory of being a great player and it gets amped up after a playoff loss. Is this really news to you? I'm not sure where you were, but people shit on Lebron for everything from passing up shots in the clutch to his outside shooting to him not being able to post up to him biting his fingernails, etc.. All that happened while he was generally considered to be the greatest player in the world by a fairly wide margin. Nobody criticized him for being big and slow though, because he was never big and slow. Like I said, all this comes with the territory.
  2. Welp. I’ve learned over the last couple of days that Luka is in peak physical condition, is one of the best defenders in the league, and doesn’t hunt fouls. Thanks for the education everyone. I think I’m a much more knowledgeable basketball fan now.
  3. No. That was an asinine comment. He's got nothing to do with the current state of the Pistons. He was an assistant GM in Detroit for all of 3 years (2014-2016) before moving to SA as an assistant GM. It was long before they drafted Cade Cunningham or anybody else on that roster. It was a fucking decade ago. He got promoted from assistant in SA to the big job after being with the Spurs for 3 years.
  4. You follow him and the Mavs much closer than I do, but just on the eye test.... his body looks like he's in maybe the bottom 10-15% of NBA players when it comes to conditioning. He's got a lot of miles on his legs already for a 25 year old. He plays a ton of minutes. His game puts a lot of stress on his body and especially on his lower body. Maybe his injuries this season were completely unrelated, but maybe not. Those knees don't really need to be carrying any extra weight. With regard to the refs, it's not just ignoring shit when things don't go his way. Too much of his offense is predicated on foul baiting. Harden fell into the same trap. They are so masterful at getting guys out of position and off balance, that they are at times more actively looking to draw fouls than make a basketball play. It's smart and crafty when it works. It can take you out of your game when it doesn't. It's also less effective in the playoffs when the refs let more physicality go.
  5. Are we really doing the Trae Young discussion again? Really? Really? Why? Just... why? I can't even bring myself to post for the 100th time what an epic disaster it would be. If they were to trade for him, you might as well write off the entire Wemby era, because it would cement this iteration of the Spurs front office as among the most incompetent in the league. Now, there's a larger discussion to be had about the best way to build this thing out. You have on one hand, those that want to push their chips into the table to win right fucking now. You have those that want to let the young guys grow into their roles. I think the right move is to shoot for something in the middle: add some vets for leadership, defense and shooting. Move some minimal assets (if you need to) in order to get them. Keep as many picks as possible and keep pushing them down the road. Maintain cap flexibility while this team learns how to win. Anybody thinking that Wemby is going to ask out if they don't make a splash now is horribly misreading the landscape and doesn't understand how rookie contracts work. And fortunately, he's not an idiot nor is he impatient. I would be stunned if he's not one of the best five players in the league by the end of next season (health permitting). They are going to start winning more regardless, just because he will be that good. Even putting replacement level players around him, they are probably close to a 500 team, even in this ridiculously deep conference. Everybody is overthinking this shit. The draft is in a week.. They have two picks in the top 8. Can't we talk about that instead of this Trae Young bullshit?
  6. I think you are bringing all of this on yourself. You just have to tell them that you are lost and need directions to the stadium and they couldn't be nicer.
  7. In the three games in Boston, Kyrie averaged 14.3 ppg on 34% FG and shot 18% from 3. He shot 4 total free throws. Say what you will about the Dallas role players not showing up, the Mavs had no hope in this series with their second star playing like that. Boston is a tough matchup on the perimeter, but that was a rough showing from one-half of what was for a few glorious days, the best backcourt in NBA history.
  8. What exactly is the Wemby window? He’s 20. So, what? A 15 year window? A failure by management would be to be short sighted and exhaust their future assets and cap flexibility for a roster that gives them a two year run instead of building a sustainable decade plus contender.
  9. I’ve never liked the Celtics but that’s a very likable team. No douchebags or jackasses, they play the right way and they seem to genuinely seem to play for each other. It’s difficult to dislike guys like Horford, White, Holiday and even Brown and Tatum. They get everybody back next year too. They are going to run into some cap stuff year after next, but even so, Tatum and Brown are still very young. They are going to be in the mix for a good while.
  10. Just imagine how bad Boston would have blown out the mavs in this series if Luka wasn’t top 7 in defensive rating among guards.
  11. First off, defensive statistics are mostly bullshit, even the advanced stats. They just are. But beyond that, steals are not a good defensive metric AT ALL. You can get high steal numbers because you are taking unnecessary risks. You can get high steal numbers NOT guarding your man and playing the passing lanes. You can get high steal numbers while being a net negative to your team defense. I can't believe I'm even having to explain this. It's embarrassing. If you're looking for a reason that the defensive numbers look better with him on than off, you probably don't have to look much further than his insane offensive efficiency. It's a helluva lot easier playing defense when the offense is taking the ball out of bounds after a made basket and you can set up in the half court vs. getting a live ball rebound.
  12. He turned down 2 years $48 million from the warriors last year. I don’t know if he’s going to get that kind of money elsewhere. I mean he did shoot 39% from three this season. But that 0 for 10 stink bomb in the play in vs Sac and that disaster against the lakers in the playoffs last year are still on everyone’s mind. I think he’s in for a reality check when he tests the market this summer.
  13. Solid effort from Boston tonight. Like it’s Tuesday night game in January against the Wiz.
  14. Exactly. He played the most minutes of his career this season and shot it exceptionally well from 3 on higher volume. And I did qualify it with "appreciably". He's clearly a better player now than as a rookie, but you would expect a player as young as he was coming into the league to have more of an upward trajectory. It just shows what a savant and prodigy he is. It's like the guy had zero learning curve coming into the NBA at 19 years old. That just doesn't happen.
  15. The Kobe/Jordan comparisons aren't fair. He's still so young. By the same token, he's been a professional since he was 16 and I don't know that he's gotten appreciably better over the last couple of seasons. I don't think he's going to take the next step until he cuts his ref bullshit out, gets in great shape, and starts giving more effort on defense. I don't think any of those criticisms are unfair and the idea that he can still easily improve on those things should be scary for the rest of the league. He's that great offensively. Kevin Durant played for Brooklyn two years ago. In the bigger picture, I don't know how much stock to put into this year's playoffs vis a vis the hierarchy in west. The west is extremely deep with good teams, but nobody is great. Just about anybody could beat anybody else, depending on health and matchups. Minnesota was a bad matchup for Denver. Dallas was a bad matchup for Minnesota. Boston is certainly a bad matchup for Dallas. Who knows what happens if a game or two goes the other way during the regular season and the seedings get shuffled. Are we having a different conversation? Where do the Mavs rank in the west next year? Are they one of the best 3-4 teams, or did they just catch lightning in a bottle? They were certainly a different team post trade deadline. Lively was an amazing pick. They don't have much cap space or draft capital, but they aren't completely hamstrung like Phoenix or the Clips.
  16. Some of the Luka criticism is definitely hot take du jour and magnified by the finals spotlight, but there is a definitely a good portion of validity to it. The foul baiting and excessive whining while not getting back on defense is abhorrent. There is a clear lack of effort on defense in many cases. I don't see how that any of that is debatable. Some of it may be defensible. Much of it is not. And just because he's in better shape, doesn't mean he's in good shape. Round is a shape, too, as the saying goes.
  17. Look, I hear you about the rosters. Certainly Boston is much deeper and much better and more well rounded and it's not really close. But there's a bigger philosophical discussion to be had about the style that Luka plays that doesn't necessarily empower or elevate his teammates. You can't just look at it in a vacuum and say that Brown or Tatum are not as good as he is. They are just different and play in a different system. To paraphrase Luka's spirit animal James Harden, "I'm not a system player. I am the system." Meanwhile, everybody else sits around and waits for something to happen. Sure they get open looks and lobs because of him, and got damn he is a pick and roll savant, but that's really the only kind of actions that Dallas runs. And Boston choked that shit out by switching everything and daring Luka to beat them one on one. You want to go ask Derek Lively or PJ Washington to go create their own shot for the first time all season in Game 3 of the finals? Doesn't seem optimal to me. Even Kyrie, for all his basketball brilliance, doesn't play off Luka as much as they take turns running the show - which consists of setting a couple of picks to hunt the matchup you want, and then making some cool shit up and/or taking a bad step back three. Sure, you can look at the ends justifying the means, "Hey, this cat dragged this ragtag outfit of flawed role players to finals!" But then, he took them to the WCF in 2002. Is it fool's gold or are they just that close to getting over the hump? I really don't know. But I do that his team would have a better chance of winning if he stopped foul baiting and bitching to the refs instead of getting his ass back on defense.
  18. Trading 8 to move up three spots in this flat draft wound be monumentally stupid.
  19. Wow. Luka gone.
  20. Oh boy.
  21. Boston finally started hitting their threes. It’s the only thing that has kept these games remotely close. Those shots have been wide open. Figured it would happen eventually.
  22. Dallas only up one after that start. Not a great sign. They got killed when Luka went to the bench.
×
×
  • Create New...