Eh I think it's pretty hypocritical of AD Sr to say that when Lebron pretty much scapegoated an injured IT out of Cleveland, not to mention the Lakers own history of treating players unfairly (Odom comes to mind).

Any GM would've made that trade. I love IT, he was an amazing Celtic and I hope he rebounds his career in Denver but the Celtics were never going to give him the max.

Honestly it smells like Klutch sports conspiracy to me. Which is hilarious considering the leaked trade offers the Lakers made for AD. They didn't even throw in Ingram into a deal yet.

The funny thing is that while I know AD in Boston would make us title contenders, I love Jaylen and Jayson too much that I'd rather we not trade them and just grow with those two. I just don't like the Lakers and Lebron acting like they can control the NBA by using the media to paint a certain narrative of a situation. I don't think the Pelicans ever trade AD to LA unless they get all 4 young Lakers prospects and 3+ first round picks and even then it doesn't happen til the summer.

 

https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1091568224880201728

seems like a light offer

 

Lol I'm a Jazz fan and I love Gobert, but slapping a fine on someone for tweets is fucking weak. Players bantering is good.

Anyway, Gobert doesn't seem too chuffed up by it. See here

He also dropped 25/13 that night. And again, it's tweets. Why do you want the league to get involved in that?

 

I just hate draymond, maybe it’s harsh but they fined Gobert earlier in the season for the ref stuff, NBA is supposed to be open for fellings after k. Love and derozan pieces last year but they are making fun of this one. It just some players are privleged in this leauge look now AD got 50k and it’s okey he deserved it but why they didn’t fined Butler for all that minesota drama. Refs also have preferences and it’s bullshit. What I am getting at is that if they are making fun of Gobert they should also make fun of iverson for example, he cried too.

 

You know as a Hornets fan I can't help but think how ironic it is that a hub for college basketball like North Carolina can't do anything with its professional franchise.

 

that much is clear..

To answer your other question though, people get fined when they break the rules. AD broke the rules when he publicly requested a trade = fine. Butler never publicly requested a trade so he didn't get fined.

Draymond obviously shouldn't be fined, he should just get shit from people for being a dick and that's it, just like anyone else would if they did something like that.

 

AD's camp publicly demanded a trade. That's against the rules. Jimmy's desire to be traded was leaked. He privately requested a trade in the offseason and the TWolves didn't do shit about it.

That's it. Break the rules=fines; be a drama queen or a dick=no fines. NBA shouldn't get involved beyond enforcing their own rules. Like Jwik said.

Related: The Jazz's GM came out and made this statement:

Which I think is hilariously weak. Makes the Jazz look like some church league team. Judging all-stars by their character is dumb, and some sort of independent committee is just way complicated for something that's inherently meaningless and more of a fan-service even than anything.

 

So this was a glorious, all-timer of an NBA trade deadline. It'd be dope if it's the new normal going forward.

Also, the Mavs are going to have ~$35 million to spend in FA this offseason

Also, this is too perfect not to share:

https://twitter.com/YahooSportsNBA/status/1093600424739901440

 

So we're at the stretch run of the regular season. Any playoff predictions? Lotto guesses?

Dallas loses their 1st round pick if it's outside the top 5, so a nice bit of losing out to help lotto odds would be nice. The Luka, Porzingis, Zion dream shall never die!

Dallas are underdogs for most of the remaining games (push on the home and home vs Memphis)

On the Kristaps note, Y I K E S I hope this isn't true

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26401287/report-porzingis-accused-rape-new-york

 

Final 2019 Draft Lotto Odds re. Tankathon

 

What does that lock symbol next to clevland means?

 

It represents their final warning. If by means of some unholy ritual (or just pure, dumb luck) they manage to get their hands on the first pick again, they will get locked out of all future lotteries.

Easy.

 

The Cavs traded their first round pick previously but it only activates if it's outside the top 10. Similar to how the Mavs lose their pick if the lotto makes them outside of the top 5. It's called draft pick protection

 

Yeah I know about draft protection didn't remember about cavs having one Everyone gunning for number 1 and zion so draft lottery could be more interesting than draft itself
What do you guys think about PO ? I think there could be surprises in first round especially Spurs and OKC(First is spurs and Greg Popovich vs not experienced post season Denver team, second is OKC vs injured Blazers - if Paul George is more healthy and shows plays like he showed in first/middle part of the season who knows), also magic can win few games as Toronto is known for choking in Playoffs and magic play very nice lately with good defense, but Raptors should take it in the end.

 

So I've been following the Raptors all year, and while they continue to frustrate me in new and excruciating ways, I think the "playoff choking" may be out of their system. Go back the past three years of getting curbstomped by LeBron and you note how much that came down to Casey's abrupt stagnation in offenses and the complete inability of DeRozan to deliver where he needed to. What I'm seeing for the Raptors now is a more consistently deep bench (forget Kawhi for a second, I'm still more happy Danny Green is delivering), and the remarkable surge for Pascal Siakam. And while a Raptors game tends to live or die based on Lowry performing (and I have a worry that Nick Nurse's offensive experimentation might not have stabilized as it should before the playoffs), I'm thinking against a better-than-many-give-them-credit Magic team, the Raptors probably still have this in five.

What I find more interesting than this Raptors series, though, is what the hell is happening with the Celtics - that Marcus Smart injury is bad, and even with Brad Stevens as coach, I'm not seeing the team coalesce around Kyrie or the depth that seems to be evaporating, and the chemistry has been off all damn year.

The rest of the East... eh, I'm hoping for the 76ers to have a long, excruciating series against Brooklyn (they probably won't, although I don't see them getting past Toronto either) and same with the Bucks, if only to slow the Greek Freak down before the Celtics or the Raptors.

The West is not all that interesting, at least to me: I'm not seeing who is taking down the Warriors, especially as I find the Nuggets crazy overhyped (same to some extent with Portland) and Houston just needs all the pieces to show up... which probably won't happen.

 

Well in my opinion it’s West that is so much more interesting nit only about 1 round which I wrote in previous post (Okc have 4:0 sweep in regular season vs portland), but about warriors they will probably play rockets in second round, the rockets which last year took them to 7 game series and could have won if not for cp3 injury. This year houston won 3-1 in regular season and they should meet earlier. Many experts says that last year injury was somehow connected with how many min rockets played players like cp3 or harden, this year they will be fresher beacuse only after 1 series. We will see but in my opinion West is so much interesting look at standings and see how much closers teams are vs the East standings.
About raptors I just said they could have droped few games but I think they should have win in the end in 6. About my predictions for 1 rd:
West:
Gsw 4:0 lac
Den 4:3 sas
Por 2:4 okc
Hou 4:2 uth
East:
Mil 4:0 det
Tor 4:2 orl
Phi 4:2 bro
Bos 4:2 ind

 

The East was rocking with upsets today! The 76ers looked like trash! The raptors/magic game was well fought to the end. Though Lowry with 0 points was pathetic.

Man! Curry continues to amaze. 38 points with 15 rebounds wasn't it? The man can do anything.

 

You poor poor soul.

 

Great game tonight by Kanter, some suprise by him but it’s only 1 game we will see if he can fill the nurkic shoes. Pacers looked like trash and Myles Turner especially. It looked good at the begining only beacuse celtics also couldn’t hit anything but in second half it was the other way around So bigs tonight:
Kanter +
Turner -
Yesterday only one favorite won(just curry and gsw things) and I loved it, the „underdogs” wining some games on the road should make all the series more interesting. Tonight game in portland was also nice the boston one was pretty boring and we will see about houston and utah and bucks vs pistons later tonight.

 

And the Raptors close it out in five.

Looks like the 76ers are about to do the same, so that should be an interesting series. With Embiid underperforming, I still predict Raptors in 5 or 6, but this could be a messy series. Frankly, I'm more interested in the Celtics/Bucks and Rockets/Warriors match-ups, because those look to be riotous.