2021 NBA playoffs thread

He is amazing. This series is honestly over right now if not for him and all of the standing Nuggets wins would have been blowouts. The funny thing is the Portland blowout in Game 4 he wasn't good at all, still he's obviously that whole team.

At the end of both regulation and the first OT, I was screaming my head off to foul. I'm not a big foul when up by three guy, but you just knew he'd make the shots. When the Nuggets went up 9 with 90 seconds to go in the first OT, I asked my wife, this has to be over, right? And she just said, I wouldn't count on it. Then, bam again. It was unbelievable to watch.

 

Excellent take by Dan Wetzel on the Stevens promotion.

Brad Stevens' promotion to run the Celtics will raise eyebrows around the NBA

In the modern NBA, attracting star free agents is as important as drafts and development. Narratives matter. Reputation matters. Stevens may prove to be the greatest general manager of all time, but the Celtics walked right into this punch. The way he got the job made doing the job more difficult.

After all, it was Brooklyn that Ainge fleeced in 2013, sending aging stars Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett to the Nets for a run of top draft picks. As recently as 2019, Brooklyn had little hope and few draft picks. Boston had a supposed title contender.

Yet now it's Boston reshuffling and Brooklyn plotting out a parade route because it could attract Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant and James Harden.

 

With all those 1st-round picks atop that young dynamic talent, Boston was set up to thrive for 15-20 years.

Even as a Lakers guy I thought, Shit the C's are going to have another dynasty soon.

LOL.

 

I think even in Gm 4, he had over 10 assists.

He was absolutely unbelievable last night. Even after the foul on the 3 at the end of regulation (?, 1st OT?) with 9 sec left was called a common foul, he then hits a 3 with 3 sec left. Unfortunately, once Nurkic fouls out, the Blazers have no one to guard Jokic.

Even so, I know he's been great, but reputations are not made in the early rounds, they are cast in the Finals and conf. finals. Just sayin'. Does anyone remember how great Moncrief or Price or Ro Blackman were in the playoffs? (He's still a HOF'er)

 

The Tatum and a 1 for Fultz was brilliant. Less so when Romeo Langford was the 1.

 

Eh, when it comes to Ainge, as we've discussed in the regular NBA season thread - shit happens. It's hard to "fault" him for the Kyrie trade - IT almost immediately became unplayable because of injuries - or the Heyward signing - he didn't know the guy was going to get injured in his very first game. The Walker deal isn't good now, but I don't remember much criticism when it happened. Ainge hasn't had a perfect draft record, but he did hit on Tatum and Brown when he could have gotten Fultz and Bender / Dunn / Hield / Jamal Murray / Chriss (the next five picks, two of which are practically out of the league). The Celtics made the playoffs in 14 of his 17 seasons as GM, if I'm remembering what I looked up the other day.

Moreover, his tenure kind of shows how vitally important it is to get a Top 5 player in the NBA to win a title, and how truly arbitrary and hard that can be sometimes. Like in the past 20 years, the best way to get to the Finals is to have LeBron on your team. Failing that, you should get a great player and then re-sign him to a below market contract because of injuries that'll allow you to supplement your roster in other ways (Warriors); or be pretty good for a decade and finally break through when your chief rival leaves the conference and the two best players on the other team get injured (Raptors); or be the Lakers, because players will always want to be in L.A.

 

Langford was the 14th pick in the draft though. Is any GM better than 50 percent at pickin' players once you get past 10 or so?

 

Good time for Ainge to leave, either by his choosing or otherwise. He gets huge kudos for Brown and Tatum but, although they've had very bad free agent luck with Hayward and Kemba, he has backed the team into a spot that leaves it with very few moves to make. Trading Brown or Tatum is muy caliente spicy take stuff. Kemba's health and contract are non-starters. Smart is going into the last year of his deal and is only valuable to a contender, but he'll amount to a rental because he's going to want to get paid [for taking over half his shots from three and making 32% of them]. The 5-9 in the rotation are desirable assets only in Ringer podcasts and to sports talk callers.

Horford and Hayward left for nothing (and Smart may as well). They mismanaged Theis's contract and had to trade him to avoid tax. All the ZOMG ASSETS amounted to nothing other than Almost Trades (thank you, @Webster ) and talk of how good Romeo Langford was in high school. They gave up very little for Evan Forunier and, on the whole, got the same in return.

@PCLoadLetter is spot-on with his assessment when it comes to Ainge and perception of the team, both with players and GMs. Players remember the IT giving his all and being discarded. Ironically, he was sent away for Kyrie who may have annihilated their reputation. Odd duck he may be, but he is well-liked by his peers (even those he played with on the Celtics) and his word carries a lot of weight. Ainge's most recent comments were just a killer, especially when Smart almost immediately contradicted them.

The Nets trade may have been the best and worst thing to happen to Ainge. It got the ball rolling on remaking the franchise but may have also set an expectation that fair or even premium value isn't enough and that it's not a trade unless you fleece the other side. Hell, his buddy in Minnesota gifted him KG a few years before. On the bright side, I guess it doesn't matter that you can't trade for anyone if players don't want to sign there anyway.

 

I defended him in my previous posts, but I do see your side of it, and think all of your criticisms are valid. I guess I'm just not really psyched if the move is firing / retiring Ainge to install Stevens as the GM, though. Stevens is going to be seen as an "Ainge guy," and if you're worried about optics, yet another white executive in Boston. I've got no friggin' clue who would be a good GM candidate, but I would have at least left the position vacant for a couple weeks and conducted a search, instead of just giving the job to Stevens.

 

No, especially in the 1 and done era. But they got the player they would have taken without the trade and that’s it. More of a comment on how excited we get as to no. 1 picks until you actually turn them into a human being.

 

Well, when has there been a significant non-white exec in Boston?

 

Kyrie leaving really screwed them. It was a great trade with the Cavs and despite his struggles in Boston, he’s still a top 30 player and could have been used as a springboard to sign others. Instead, he left for nothing. Horford was going to take that cash and it was a good miss. Gordon H leaving also hurt. Obviously, not trading for Kawhi looks bad in hindsight.