Despite the obvious, maybe all time offensive firepower they’ve assembled, I can’t seem to shake the feeling that there is no chance in hell we see them making noise past the first or second round. Curious to hear the counter arguments, if that’s how you really feel.
Top 4 teams in the NBA in no order are Nuggets, Celtics, Bucks and Suns. So yes they are serious contenders. But not the favorites.
Id throw the lakers in there…ironically u could easily argue next 4 or 5 best teams come from the west it feels like. Gonna be another dog fight
they are good, but not the favorites lol, toss up between Nuggets and Bucks IMO
No.
Your starters just got blown out by our third string guys lmfao
in a pre season lo. and we’re leading til we took out AD/ Lebron/ reaves. how dumb are you. again Pre-season lol
Starters will be starters in the regular season. Rui got posterized by Eubanks. You let Saben Lee drop 15 points on you. An actual two way player. Hilarious.
again pre-season. you are delusional. you were down the whole game lol. like how dumb are you rofl
Down the whole game and we still blew you guys out by 20
leading by what, 4?? 🤣🤣
Contenders, yes. Good chance to win the West. But I’m not exactly taking them over the defending champs either, and I’m not sure how they’ll look like vs Milwaukee and Boston who look like the favorites to win the East.
i can accept them being behind the other 3 contenders.
They are one of the top 4 teams alongside celtics, bucks, and nuggets. After that, there is a next tier of teams.
The top tier is the nuggets, bucks, and Celtics. Subs are a level below that.
Id out the lakers in that tier considering their off season moves and having a year together with their core. The nuggets won by like a total of 23 points in 4 games, hard for me not to add them but have denver in it.
they didn’t win a single time that series. looking at “almost wins” is too hilarious
They were swept. Don’t sugar coat it. 23 points smh
The Fakers starters got blown out by KD and a bunch of bench guys last night 🤣 Lebron & AD both played 22 minutes 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Lmaoooooooo
Point differential is pretty meaningless in high level playoff games. It’s all about who commands the games, and the nuggets clearly did. The was a full on sweep, no need to sugar coat it.
Competitive games that came down to the fourth…I dont see them a tier above the lakers even last years team. Not sure how people r so butt hurt about that. The Moral victory saga lol. I was just saying the games were competitive lakers got better the nuggets stayed the same. How can you put the nuggets, suns, bucks all a tier over the lakers? Dosent make sense to me
AD is amazing but unfortunately fragile, Lebron is only top tier in short spurts at this stage, and the rest of the team is made up of wolves rejects and average players. They’re a good team, but a step down from the top tier.
They are better than they were last year with this new team? Considering the nuggets loss players…how r they that much better? That makes zero sense really. To consider the celtics, bucks, nuggets and suns in championship contender level but the lakers taking a back seat makes no sense. Even if the teams were the same last year the nuggets and lakers. Neither were significantly better than the other to garner one a tier above the other.
Are they really that much better than they were? They added cam reddish and christian wood, who are both best known for their negative contribution to winning, and gave vincent, who is likable but if we’re being honest has only been relevant for a few weeks of his career
lmao so the team that got swept is equal to the team that swept them? The Nuggets won by an average of 6 points a game, which was pretty much the exact Vegas spread for the Nuggets home games. Had the Lakers won game 4 and then Denver blew them out by 30 in game 5, that’s still a worse outcome for Denver than the sweep even if the average margin would’ve been way up.
Oh no denver is better, but considering how close the games were and the additions they made. Its hard to put denver in a tier above them? Not entirely sure how we can do that after watching those games. The lakers are def better than they were last year. I would put the bucks, celtics, Nuggets, suns and lakers in the same tier.
Margin of victory is still a better estimator of how closely matched the two teams were on the court than game result.
If Team A sweeps Team B but every game is won by 1 point, then they beat Team C in 7 games but all 4 of their wins were by 40+ and their 3 losses were by 1, realistically which of Team B or C actually needs to improve the most to beat Team A in a series next year ?
If you want a practical example of this : the 66-win Celtics in ‘08 got taken to 7 by the 37-win Hawks, but they had a +84 point differential over the series (+12.0 ppg). Do you think if both teams had matched up again with minimal roster changes the next year that the Hawks would have that good of a chance of beating the Celtics just because it went to 7 the year before ?
You also have to account for variance in such a small sample. Per synergy the Nuggets overperformed their shot quality by +19 over the series while the Lakers underperformed theirs by -9. Keep in mind this accounts for what kind of shot is attempted and who is attempting it.
Meaning that if both teams had gotten the exact same shots they got in that series and had made them at the same %s as those players usually do, the point differential would flip by 28 points in favor of LA, which actually would result in a +4 for LA over the series.
Now these numbers aren’t perfect and there’s a rubberband effect to them so they’re usually overly flattering to the losing team, but there’s still some information there.
Lakers didn’t come close to winning the series against Denver. That doesn’t mean it’s not reasonable to expect them to have a pretty good chance of winning it should they meet again (especially since the Lakers got a bit better and the Nuggets got a bit worse).
Stop taking moral victories on a sweep lol. The Lakers are a good team. just take the L and move on
Nuggets >
My brother in Christ,
They were contenders as soon as KD got there, but they were never favorites.
But Jrue Holiday went to Boston.
They will win alot of regular season game might be 1st seed. Since the intensity is as high or consistent. Most just basketball league effort…they will get the shots they want pretty easily and out shoot most teams. Their issues will come in the playoffs i think their lack of size and depth will hurt them against the lakers or nuggets. I can see them winning them aswell but the west is a dogfight. The east will be top heavy but the west will be a battle. If things get tight they might get beat up.
I wouldn’t say they dont have depth anymore, their size and mobility in the paint still is absolutely worrying however
Their roster reminds me a lot of the Heatles rosters. Eric Gordon at this stage of his career is not going to be much better than Chalmers… Old and constantly injured Nurk is a good passer and rebounder but might be bad overall in the playoffs . They have 3 players and possibly nobody else who will be consistently solid
Really funny to act like Gordon and Nurk are our only rotation options when Yuta Watanabe and Nassir Little just dropped 23 combined on you guys. Drew Eubanks also posterized Rui Hachimura. On top of that we have Grayson Allen coming off the bench who’s a proven playoff contributor.
The only thing Grayson Allen proved in the playoffs is that he freezes up like an idiot and can’t even get a shot off with their season on the line.
that was one play dude, and we both know that wasnt on him. giannis and middleton wasted tons of clock on that play and then threw the grenade at a role player. not to mention Bud not calling a timeout.
and even with that, Allen avged 10ppg on 46/48/86 splits in the series. we would take that from our bench anyday.
Cmon , we know preseason performances really don’t mean anything for how players will play in the regular season. I’ve seen a lot of players who never became solid have great preseason games.
There’s preseason-good, then there’s regular season good, then playoff-good. I don’t trust any of your role players to have 4 good games in a playoff series.
Good thing Allen won’t be holding up the majority of the offensive load. And we don’t need guys to be on fire, we just need reliable spot up shooters and defense.
But we also know that Allen, Gordon, and Yuta are legit very good NBA players and excellent shooters.
I’m gonna love to witness the harsh realization that a whole bunch of career end of bench guys didn’t suddenly become great role players when the regular season starts. You’re talking up Yuta Watanabe, Drew Uewbanks and Nassir Little. Take a step back and think about that.
Bruce Brown won you a championship so the last thing I’d do is underestimate bench guys
That is certainly an odd understanding of both reality and what my comment said.
Yeah but none of that matters when the Jazz sweep you after THT wins his 3rd straight MVP…
Oh wait, that’s right, preseason doesn’t mean shit …
lol who the fuck is saying that any of our bench guys are gonna be perennial talents. the point is that “no depth” is a myth at this point, we have plenty of solid rotation options come the regular season/play offs. Stay butthurt your biggest signing this season was Christian Wood.
If Durant and Beal can stay healthy, they’re definitely contenders. They have the offensive firepower and experience too.
Defense win championship is a little bit outdated now
Its more about buckets as long you are not dogshit on D (lets say not bottom 8)
Outdated because of one title team ?
4/5 last champs were better defensively than offensively.
2022 Warriors, 2021 Bucks, 2020 Lakers and 2019 Raps were all defense first teams.
Even the Nuggets, who are a bit of a historical outlier, still had some elite or fringe elite defenders like Gordon and KCP, and got stops when it mattered.
Great teams wins championships, shocker.
Do you guys just intentonally miss the point or what ?
Nope, maybe starts with dynasty warriors
Thing is just because there’s ranking on paper for defense (for ex : DRTG), doesnt mean the defense is that good. There’s ofc nuance on it. If your team is well-oiled machine on offense like can get easy buckets, it means your players has more energy on D for example, or lets say the opp. will be pressured more to score buckets so prone to mistakes
22 celtics is playing dumb offense, which is expected with no real PG while warriors with their continuity motion offense can get buckets easier. On paper the defensive guys on celtics better or at least same with warriors, but on offense jeez night and day
21 bucks : when giannis can 1-2 steps dunk easily and showing the world he’s the best player on the planet that year while Book shoot 27℅ from 3,that’s a wrap
I forgot bubble
19 raps win also by talent on paper, just old steph + 1 leg Klay cant carry that offense while the next players with big minutes are Iggy, Dray, cousins, loon whom are abysmal shooting 3s
TLDR : dont say D is not important, but i think NBA nowadays are more 70/30 lean on offense. Rules that limiting defensive player, heavy 3s and spacing, scoring easy buckets more and more important if you want to go far. Like i take #5 on O + #15 on D than the reverse
That’s what kings did last year, bulls before that, and now suns knew it too. It’s offense league now
Those teams were still defensively focused.
Your point about offense helping defense doesn’t mean much because the opposite is also true. Good defense will lead to stops and liveball turnovers which lead to fastbreak offense. It also forces the opponent to expend more energy to score which leaves them vulnerable on the other end, or forces their coach to switch to more offensive slanted lineups to get some points up and the expense of their D.
The 2022 Warriors being a better offensive team than their Finals opponent isn’t relevant. They were the two best defensive teams in the league that year and surprise surprise, they ended up in the Finals.
2021 Bucks were notoriously sluggish on offense in the playoffs at times but got through because they were the best defensive team in the playoffs.
2020 Lakers’ had virtually no offense outside of Bron/AD and the resurrected corpse of Rondo come playoff time, but they were stacked defensively with Bron/AD/Green/Caruso/Dwight/KCP/McGee.
2019 Raptors had offensive series where nobody but Kawhi got get anything going and even he was going 15/39 and shit, but got by because they were stacked with defensive talent. Even if they weren’t in the primes, you had Kawhi/Ibaka/Gasol as former DPOY level defenders, Lowry and Green as All-D guards, pre-prime Siakam and FVV, and even a young OG even if he didn’t play in the playoffs.
Even the dynasty world ending Warriors teams, for all their offensive firepower, were roughly as good defensively as they were offensively.
Just because the league as a whole has gotten much more slanted towards offense doesn’t mean that you can afford to be a mediocre defense, relative to these standards, and expect to win a title.
I don’t see it. The defense just isn’t there. Who is their best defender ? Okogie ?
Name the last championship team who didn’t have at least one player who was significantly better defensive than Okogie. You can’t.
If you’re betting on the Suns to win the title you’re betting on a historical outlier.
after watching yesterday’s game, the only conclusion i have right now is that their defense is horrendous. and there’s no way nurkic could defend jovic.
Yes - and a lot of NBA fans are going to be shocked about it.
The biggest threat to them isn’t offense or defense…it’s health. If Booker, Beal, and Durant are healthy come playoffs - they are the favorites.
People just didn’t pay attention to their off season. This team is legitimately 11 deep - and all 11 are worthy of playoff minutes.
Their Achilles heel is center position defense; and yeah…I fully expect Jokic and AD to dominate in the middle, but I also expect Booker, Beal, and KD to dominate their matchups…and then we have a barrage of 3 point shooters.
We also have Frank Vogel. And as awful as Nurk looked on PnR defense, everyone in the world knows it…so I expect one of the best defensive coaches in the league to figure out a scheme to deal with it. Phoenix’s perimeter defense already looks great.
I do not think we will play Nurk much in the playoffs. He is unplayable againts smaller players, he is too slow and he gets eaten alive by the great bigs (Jokic, AD, etc). I hope we will find a small ball lineup which at least will be playing a good positional defense and the offense should be unstoppable.
They took 2 games off the champ and got significantly better. Of the top 5 teams, they’re one of the 3 that got significantly better via off season acquisitions.
The Lakers and Nuggets both are going to be better than last year but primarily due to having their core gel.