2015-2016 NBA SEASON: THE FAREWELL TOUR

[Moss]

fall off a cliff? he's one of the smartest players in the game, if not the smartest, and he was robbed of his athleticism years ago. if he was gonna tank, it should have already happened. meanwhile kyrie, though not at his prime, isn't even remotely in the same category as cp3. paul is better at almost literally everything. the only things going against cp3 is a very subtle loss of lateral quickness on defense from year to year (helped greatly by his impeccable footwork) and that he seems to get injured all the time.

anyway, it will be a long time before kyrie surpasses cp3 in play, and when that happens cp3 will be at retirement age.

I have a hard time believing he has already been robbed of his athleticism at 31. He's going to continue to decline and eventually be too slow to find much space for his J's off the dribble. I would expect the injury issues to worsen as he ages as well.

He is incredibly skilled and smart and will still be a useful player for many years, but how many high-level years does he have left?

i agree that the team isn't exactly super close to a ring. but if they weren't smited by the hand of god against the blazers, they could have gone to the finals, imo. the team was top 6 in both off/def efficiency while giving probably the worst player in the league some very big minutes as a replacement for blake griffin. and while blake looked really out of sorts for the few games he was back, even 50% blake would have been a million times better than paul pierce's dead corpse.

personally i was expecting them to take advantage of curry's absence and lose to the spurs in a close one, but nobody will ever really know.

all of that in mind, i do disagree they have to shake anything up. blake was godlike before his injury and the team's core was never healthy all at the same time. given the tumultuous year, the generally good results in spite of the issues, and the continued leaps blake/jordan are making, i think they've definitely got more than a foot in the door.

note that I said "shake things up eventually." the status quo might be good enough to win the championship if enough breaks go their way, a la Steph injury, but how many more years does this core have? how many more internal leaps are you expecting?

I wouldn't want to trade CP3 for Kyrie either because I don't get the sense he's going to suddenly start caring on defense. It all comes down to how bullish the current FO is on this core having a chance against the current versions of the Warriors/Thunder/Spurs.

[kisada]

Well, if we go take a look at him pre-injury you can see he had ridiculous quickness and speed. He was once a very, very good athlete and now virtually everything he does is a function of fakes, tricks, handles, and smarts. I do agree that as he declines it'll be harder for him to make the space he usually makes but again, he's doing all that stuff without relying too much on his athleticism anyway.

As far as high level years, for a while i kept thinking the cliff was coming until it wasn't. Honestly i don't see him turning into a shell of himself for at least 5+ years. All the stuff on offense will mostly be there like with nash, but his defense will for sure suffer. If anything, though, i think any major declines will be the result of injury because he's old, rather than just being old.

I know you did say eventually, but i don't think there really is a need for a shakeup at all provided blake/dj keep getting better and cp3 more or less is the same player. I hate to relegate their chances to just being in the right place at the right time to take advantage of GS, but i thought the team played GS fairly well this past season despite missing some key players pretty much in every game. And as the team figured some things out (mostly playing cole aldrich and mbah a moute), they got pretty strong in spite of giving pierce major minutes. So to me, adding blake on top of that when i saw him abusing draymond earlier in the season is reason enough to think the team should stay the course and go for more minor adjustments, not shakeups.

Like, i hate to sound like a homer but again, blake was a top 3 MVP candidate (obviously not on curry level) before his injury and as much as i shit on deandre jordan, he really started picking up his smarts toward the end of the season and then really showed himself as a truly elite player by the postseason. And trust me, he's a guy i've near-despised for years because i thought he was so dumb on defense. So as far as internal leaps, honestly i think just having blake re-continue his mvp-type play and jordan continue where he left off is a very strong foundation to keep standing upon. Not all that often am i hoping for dudes to get better, especially with blake and jordan who have more than once, seemingly plateaued over the years. But I have faith they will continue to evolve. So when it comes to how many years does the core have left, to me it boils down to whenever jordan and blake go past their primes, with cp3's decline being not nearly as relevant.

[kisada]

that said, since doc rivers is the biggest fucking con artist in the NBA i'm pretty sure he'll trade cp3 for kyrie and call it a gigantic win for the clippers

[Gredival]

As far as high level years, for a while i kept thinking the cliff was coming until it wasn't. Honestly i don't see him turning into a shell of himself for at least 5+ years. All the stuff on offense will mostly be there like with nash, but his defense will for sure suffer. If anything, though, i think any major declines will be the result of injury because he's old, rather than just being old.

I mean people thought Nash would be eternally useful as well, especially with his style, but then he fell off the cliff hard as soon as he hit Los Angeles. Granted that it happened like you describe - age causing injury rather than just age - but it should still be a major concern.

That being said, even a crippled CP3 can't be worse on defense than Kyrie...

[notorious bum]

This is Payne's time to shine, baby.

[Krandor]

Warriors starting off ice cold tonight

Need Livingston in asap

[kisada]

cavs look like a completely different team

irving looks like a much different player as well. saw him playing almost perfect defense on one possession.

[kisada]

klay's knee dead

[tyven]

All it takes is shump throwing away possession after possession to make things right in the world lol

[Krandor]

Left thigh contusion for Klay, expected to return

[Krandor]

There must a fucking wind tunnel installed over the Warriors basket, so many shots just going horrendously off target.

[notorious bum]

Did Kerr just bench the league MVP? He really is going to be the next Pop.

[notorious bum]

nm he back, he's not that savage.

[Krandor]

So is Kevin Love the weak link of the Cavs?

[tyven]

i think its more that the Cavs shots are falling and Livingston hasnt scored 20 in place of Curry disappearing.

[Iono]

So is Kevin Love the weak link of the Cavs?

Dunno about that, but every Cav, especially James, seems to be playing like they actually care. So that has something to do with it.

[tyven]

CHEF HEATING UP

[kisada]

Klay Thompson on the Mozgov play that bruised Thompson's thigh: "It seemed kind of dirty to me."

little BITCH confirmed

[Iono]

ya, thats pretty lame

[Vaspinne]

SCurry with more personal fouls in the first half than points