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It's kind of weird.

The Cavs are probably the only team that could contend with San Antonio and Golden State.
Golden State is playing UNREAL basketball.
San Antonio and Kawhi Leonard are also playing some great basketball.

Being a non-Cavs fan in the East is constant nail biting. 5-8 place is an enormous question mark. Any of the teams in like 5-12th place have a serious chance at making the playoffs. It feels like end of the summer baseball when the Tigers and Royals are battling for the division only it's basketball instead of baseball and they're not trying to be the sole winner, they're just trying to squeeze into place.

The next couple seasons could become really, really interesting. There are several win now teams that will have some longevity, several win now teams that will have a few years that aren't as good, and several teams that might be on the come up over the next few years.

The Boston vs. Detroit games have been tremendously fun to watch. Isaiah Thomas is wild. Been loving watching Reggie Jackson and Andre Drummond. Really happy to have Brand Jennings back and Stanley Johnson is a stud.

The rookies this year have been good. Porzingis is playing awesome basketball. Karl Anthony-Townes is playing awesome basketball. Jahlil Okafor is playing good basketball (even though Philly is a fucking wasteland). Thought we might see more out of Justise Winslow but he's not playing bad basketball. The Duke Hype Wagon was strong. Most of the lottery picks are playing decently. Hezonja being the glaring exception. Willey Cauley Stein not making much noise.

It's been a fun season so far. Wondering what will happen by trade deadline to see which teams really go into Win Now mode. Teams in the East need to know that whatever they do to adjust their squad they have to play great basketball against the Cavs/Warriors/Spurs to be a great team and I'm not sure anybody really has that. Will be really interesting for the 16-17 season when salary cap goes up and all these teams in the East were on the bubble of amazing seasons and what they can do.

If everyone has cap space no one has cap space.

^^^^ yeah cap space will still fill up sofast but with crazier-sounding contracts.

The East is much deeper than the West this year and it's crazy. Though the West is more top heavy since SA and GS are so, so good.

Kyrie has been good and fun as hell now that he's got his sea legs. They wouldn't be favored (rightfully so) but the Cavs would have a good shot in a 7 game series against the Spurs and Warriors as they continue to dial it in.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i4nZZ41Kas[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iGm4aTtyso[/youtube]

the contracts are going to be insane next year

I don't understand what happened to the pellicans

outside of The Brow their entire roster is role players who are asked to do too much and most of them are above average on O/shitty on D

pelliott wrote:outside of The Brow their entire roster is role players who are asked to do too much and most of them are above average on O/shitty on D

Did the roster change that much from last year?
They seemed to be on the rise......
The brow is a beast but they gotta build a team around the poor guy

Everyone is what they are, and their peaks at this stage just aren't good. Eric Gordon is a decent scorer but he's not a good defender due to his crappy knees. Tyreke and Jrue are redundant and have little to no elite skills (Jrue may be an elite defender?). Ryan Anderson is a great shooter but that's it. Omer Asik just sucks at this point.

Not sure why but the comments on Omer Asik make me laugh.

Poor Guy

Pellz is forgetting that they also swapped head coaches and Gentry's system is too up tempo for the players he has.

D.o.S. wrote:Pellz is forgetting that they also swapped head coaches and Gentry's system is too up tempo for the players he has.

Right,

Another discussion, does coaching even matter that much in the NBA?

D.o.S. wrote:Pellz is forgetting that they also swapped head coaches and Gentry's system is too up tempo for the players he has.

I was just reading up on this as well. Good call.

hbombgraphics wrote: Another discussion, does coaching even matter that much in the NBA?

I say yes. Varying degrees based on situation, but guys like Popovich and Kerr (jesus christ compared to Mark Jackson?) demonstrate there's a level of skill involved in incorporating so many players into a system, or adapting a system around your personnel that is in some ways as irreplaceable as certain players.

pelliott wrote:

hbombgraphics wrote: Another discussion, does coaching even matter that much in the NBA?

I say yes. Varying degrees based on situation, but guys like Popovich and Kerr (jesus christ compared to Mark Jackson?) demonstrate there's a level of skill involved in incorporating so many players into a system, or adapting a system around your personnel that is in some ways as irreplaceable as certain players.

I don't disagree, just find it interesting,

Read 2 articles about a month ago
One stating that Coaching didn't matter because Kerr wasn't even there and they were still winning
and one stating coaching did matter because kerr had created such a good culture that he didn't even have to be at the games

kinda interesting
I tend to agree with the 2nd article

Same. Kerr created a system that the players bought into, and he sold it to them. I'd imagine that if the same thing happened with the Spurs, where Pop couldn't be around the team and his assistants had to step in, they'd still have a similar level of success. Coaching staff matters a lot for culture.