Linball

Can those type of teams win in the NBA? Or will superior athletes and basketball talent beat team play? I don't know the answer.

 

That's just it.
The papers, Fat-ass Fran, everybody would be wanting your head on a platter the second you lose 3 or 4 in a row.
You would be better off trading Amare, Chandler, and a contract for Howard.
The caveat to that being you have the extension for Dwight already in place.
Don't pull this Deron Williams horseshit.

 

Honestly, I've always felt that a team with superior athletes who also played a well designed/coached game would win big.

It's one of the things that frustrates me about basketball/NBA. If Pete Carril can (could) coach his teams to play even with the best teams in college basketball, what could he do with superior athletes?

Too often, the offense is what Boom described: someone heaving up a shot as the clock expires.

Even teams with a dominating big man can get boring, as they try to force the ball in to him.

The Ewing led Knicks were so boring to watch. Would much rather watch a team that can run and move the ball.

 

Walton's Blazers
Bird's Celtics
Magic's Lakers

 

Larry Bird /Magic era Celtics and Lakers played that way also.

My first introduction to NBA basketball was the 69/70 Knicks so I've been spoiled ever since.

 

And I will even throw in Thomas' Pistons because he was far and away the best player they had, but he knew when to share the ball.

 

The Riley era Knicks played a well designed/coached offensive game. They maximized their talents by focusing on a post up to Ewing and if that wasn't there, going pick and pop game with an excellent shooting center. The coach just valued defense more than offense and it worked pretty well during their peak 4-5 years.

The Kidd Nets teams was certainly really fun to watch -- much like the 7 Seconds or Less Suns, they took the initiative before the defense was settled. But if the early advantage wasn't there, the offense wasn't that sophisiticated. It was still pick and roll with Kidd.

Princeton was interesting to watch for a hoops junkie and when they were playing the David role, but they were pretty boring to watch frequently. In the NBA, it would be hard to set up the offense properly in 24 seconds.

The level of team defense in the NBA is miles above where it was 25-30 years ago. All of the passing and cutting still has to lead to a player with the space and ability to make a shot.

 

When you look at the Bulls dynasty, the Lakers when they were functional, the Spurs, the Rockets ... these were all highly-functional teams. They were far more than Jordan, Duncan, Kobe and Hakeem going 1v1.

I think you have to have the combination. You have to have buy-in and execution and you have to have a star to carry you through tough moments. We've seen highly-functional, competitive teams fall short for lack of the "stud." The current Jazz fall into that category. Denver has probably slipped into this territory. But we've also seen many a star-studden, dysfunctional team. Like the Knicks circa December, 2011.

 

I know a guy... Harvard grad... who was touting this guy years ago.

Right now he looks like a friggin prophet.

 

Denver has probably slipped into this territory.

I got news for you... Denver has never had that guy.

 

People have been talking about Jeremy Lin for about four years now. There was even a minor bout of Linsanity when he was a Harvard junior and lit up BC and UConn; lots of USA Today and other outlets posting "Who is Jeremy Lin?" stories. He is not as unknown as it is being sold.

But neither your friend nor anybody else could have predicted this. A large part of the reason is that aside from the NBA's scouting deficiencies and the question of whether he got a fair look as an Asian-American without comparables, there is this: HE HAS GOTTEN TONS BETTER. He could never shoot like this, not ever, and he's a hell of a lot stronger than he was in college.

If the Jeremy Lin of Harvard had been on track to be this good, Harvard would have won the Ivy League and probably even gone undefeated in it two years running. Yet Harvard never made the tournament, and when Lin was a senior they finished three games behind Ryan Wittman and Cornell. Granted, that was a very good Cornell team and a lot better than what typically exists in the Ivy, but a Jeremy Lin bound for NBA dominance would have run through, past and over them.