2015-16 NBA Thread (feat. the Wives)

Watched a decent amount of the second half of Spurs-Dubs last night. Even with Curry doing squat from long range, Golden State was still in that thing until the end on the road. Great atmosphere for a regular-season game.

Clippers have to be happy to just sit in that four spot so they can get a bye into the GS series. The Grizzlies are so broken physically that I'm not sure they can win more than one game in that first-round series.

 

Earlier in the thread I suggested bringing it back to thwart Hack-a-Shaq. Once a player has attempted, say, 20 free throws*, every time thereafter that player is fouled he gets 3 to make 2. This removes the incentive to foul a poor-shooting player and speeds up the game.

* Or let's say 10 or more free throws off of non-shooting fouls.

 

Only two regular season meetings left between Warriors and Spurs and I wonder how they will play out if anything is on the line. No Duncan for Spurs in first meeting in Oakland, and Warriors forced into small lineup Saturday with Bogut injury.

 

Back in the early '80s when the Sixers and Celtics were playing for Eastern Conference finals home court advantage every year, which is the closest analogy I can come to this, but teams busted major gut down the stretch come what may. Times change. That was a glory to cover, but maybe the lesson is what the Lakers did to the eventual winners of those blood feuds.

 

Curry was 4-18, 1-10 from 3, and they were right there, without Bogut or most importantly Igoudala, on the road, on the back end of a back to back (and 6 in 9 days); so long as they didn't get blown out, I was fine with low expectations of a win.

What I liked more than anything was the Ws were competing hard (really liked Thompson with 5 boards).

Aldridge got his 20, but he had to shoot it 24 times and he shot less than 50%.

Spurs had everybody, Ws didn't. Not too concerning IMHO.

 

Does Curry get better or is he at his peak? If this is a good as gets, can he maintainthis level for 4-5 years, as he's just 28. Not necessarily 30 ppg but near this level of production?

 

I think this is as good as it gets for him, since he's so damn successful, you figure teams are going to gear up even more to stop him. Plus, as we go into the future, the Warriors' roster is going to get thinner, unless they can really hit gold via second round or undrafted free agents.

 

Curry has been on the ascent each of the last 4 years and I certainly thought an MVP season would have been a peak; yet here we are and he's basically a shoo-in repeat MVP with an unprecedented increase in production from the MVP season; based on that, I believe there's a better than 50% chance his peak is even higher. Curry remade himself the last couple of years and I'm thinking with his physical peak coming, there's more coming as well.

 

He's the first MVP with a chance to win Most Improved Player.

 

Good luck double- or triple-teaming Curry with Thompson and potentially Durant on the floor.

 

Bob Ryan has a column in the Globe today in which the Warriors play the '86 Celtics. I don't suppose I have to tell you who wins. Maybe next week the Celtics will move on to play the '87 Lakers.

 

To prove how special, elite, tough and important LeBron James is, he monster dunked on and stared down an undrafted, college educated, bench warming, white guy.

You da man, Bron