People even forget that without KD, it was looking like the warriors would beat the raptors until klay blew his ACL and that was a team with a depleted bench.
Omo I love and respect KD , but make we park this debate.


The warriors current problems are largely three reasons
1 You can't be on top forever especially without refreshing the team adequately

2. Klay is washed and draymond is borderline washed, it's not their fault especially with klay Injuries, age and the several wars he' has fought has drained the dude. ( An Acl and an Achilles) back to back in his 30s oh, Omo you can't be the same ever

3. The warriors needed to be brave and make.some trades during the season, the team.was sub 500 for so long and away record was putrid. It was clear something had to change. Lakers refreshed their squad but Joe lacob allowed this team to go stale.
I don't know what the warriors are doing with a shit town of draft picks and promising players when Steph is still this good. I guess it's their way and it has brought them much success.

4. Steve kerr handling of kuminga and moody is a head scratcher. Erik spoelstra has less talented guys playing big mins and contributing meaningful.
But kerr has been too restrictive with the way he handle those guys and it's stifling their development.

A40:
Anyway I hope Warriors fans that downplayed the importance of KD can see the difference now between Durant and Andrew Wiggins. Obviously the Warriors have shown they can win without him, hell they beat him but do you really think you would have a dynasty without Kevin Durant? Your guess is as good as mine.

Baba you dy cap, Wiggins is no KD but he has shown he's good enough for the warriors to win a title.

On this Durant issue ehn, I don't know why we still over flog it.
Durant was an important ingredient for the warriors to win the two titles but the point OGs like Barkley often make is that hypothetically , any forward slightly better than Harrison Barnes or even continued improvement of Barnes would have still made the warriors favourites.
Durant was essentially an over kill.

Let's not forget that without Durant, the warriors have been to 3 finals, won two and lost one by pissing a 3-1 lead. In fact, it took probably the best Basketball performances in history from arguably the GOAT and his side kick to come back from 3-1 + warriors choking and Injuries.


So it was not a given that , the Cavs would have won those titles during the Durant era if he wasn't there. It would still have been a hard dough bloody war and any good forward or center would have tilted the odds heavily in the warriors favour.

So in summary the warriors needed durant, but if we are honest , he needed the warrior far more than they needed him.

Warriors without KD: maybe 3 titles instead of 4

Kd without warriors : 0 titles.

steady986:
For those complaining about the FT disparity. The stats don't lie. Stats and eye test shows GS are notorious for committing fouls. That's what playing small does. You can't compare Draymond trying to defend AD at the rim to AD trying to defend Draymond at the rim. There's a 5 inch difference between the two of them and an even greater wing span difference. And one is an elite rim protector. Now add LeBron to the equation. LeBron himself is bigger and stronger than every single player on the GS roster. And you'd have to foul him most times to stop him.

Stats say that during the regular season, the Lakers were the team that committed the least fouls while GS ranked 28. Stats also say that GS shot the fewest amount of FT per game while lakers shot the most. Combine those two things together and the fact that GS is a 3pt shooting team, what you should have is a massive FT disparity between the two teams. It should be a shock for both teams to shoot 15 FTs like they did in game 5.

On this free throw issue. I have a simple take:

Its the playoffs, let' the players man up.

We are here to watch hardcore physical defence and sublime skill based offense in the playoffs.

Off course I don't support borderline murdering or injuring your opponent but we are not here to watch freethrow fest either. The refs should swallow the whistle and let these men play.

As much as I am a KD Critic especially for his dumb decision to leave the dubs to join Kyrie on a wild goose chase.
I will cut him some slack, this man just came back from a career threatening Achilles injury in his 30s and he's playing at near MVP levels.
He will never be LeBron, he will never get the love and respect of Steph but he's no slouch and he's a winner.
In my opinion, He's the 3rd best player of this era and that's not a bad achievement.

Omo series don over.
Draymond just dy burn calories, I still felt it was a mistake by lacob not to at least trade for a big man during the season. You can't solely depend on looney and draymond two undersized big men especially since you traded Wiseman away.

You need someone that can play just even 5 mins and commit hard fouls.

The Lakers are just too balanced. I think stever kerr needs to say Bleep it and play four wings with looney or draymond and hope for shooting to catch fire.
Another thing is AD is locked in today, tomorrow him fit dy behave like ode.

The refereeing in both games today also get k leg. The warriors had 6 free throws and Lakers like 40+ , how is that possible? In a playoff games na so Lakers defense perfect reach?

Scott foster came to do a hit job against the heat this guy na Baba weyrey

Scott foster is capping mehn. How do you make wrong calls after watching a replay. Mehn these guys want to dash the Knicks a win

Skrrrrrrr:
One Bronsexual claimed Lillard was better than this James Harden. I always maintain Harden adjusted his play style to mesh with Embiid. Cos he desperately needs a ring. Doesn't mean he can't turn it up when necessary....

As the resident lillard hater, I will say even trae young has a bigger playoff legacy than lame lillard.

The only so called superstar that gets no scrutiny.
Harden was MVP contender for several years, won one and took several teams weaker than what lillard had to conference finals. Na PR and forming cane loyalty harden no get. If harden gets one ring he's only behind Jordan, Kobe, Wade as a shooting guard for me.

A40:
Lol. Una don start this bookmaker nonsense again. How many times do we tell you that Vegas sets these odds so gullible marks like you can l'arimo

Some of us actually saw both teams face off during the season and we know the bookies are as fugazi as they come.

The size advantage of the Lakers will be crucial here. Unless Steph can replicate that Game 7 4x in this series I don't see a realistic path to victory for the Warriors. The Lakers are so deep now that Lebron can be the second or 3rd best player and the Lakers still win these games.

I don't mind being wrong but I'm just a realist. Lakers in 6

I agree Davis, LeBron and hachimura will eat. The Lakers are also a better defensive team than sacremento. The only thing is Davis has to be dominant, he can't have those off and on performances.

bro. I think the Lakers are more complete and balanced sha.
LeBron and warriors be like Madrid of NBA, they may not be the most talented team left in the playoffs but their experience and mental edge is too much, I don't see the Nuggets or Celtics beating them. The best bet to stop them na if Durant go god mode

steady986:


It's Austin Reaves vs Steph. LeBron is old

NBA ratings about to go through the roof.
Lakers Vs warriors. LeBron Vs Steph.. must see tv

larride:
So Fox is out of game 5 and probably game 6 through injury. It’s goodbye to Kings.

Kobe played with a similar Injury , I am sure fox is going to play through it. Analgesia or a digital block and he's ready to go.

It's not pleasant to some people like Damian lillard but regular season basketball is just appetizer. The real men show up in the playoffs.

Jimmy butler didn't even make the NBA 75 rankings but frauds like Lillard did .

Regular season na for stat padders, for playoffs we know the real stars.

Hmm. This sudden explosion of Mikal bridges is going to put extra pressure on Durant/Suns.
They have to win the chip in the next 2 years or the scrutiny will increase.

Khanben:


Agree with a lot of what you said, but this situations are like the classical 9ja song about a father, his son and their donkey, whichever way a person goes people will talk.
IMHO, everybody should act in a way that gives them peace of mind. make decisions you can live with and let the chips fall as they may.

PS: Putting pressure doesn't always work, some owners just don't know how to hire the right basketball people to make the right decisions at the right time.

I am with birdman on this one. Lillard is afraid of the pressure that comes with winning.
A good example of a player that is serious was Giannis. With one year left in his contract, he supported his team but made it openly clear that they needed to improve the rooster. What happened next ? Jrue holiday and gbam one title.

You don't have to request for a trade but you have to apply the right amount of pressure. Lillard gives the vibes of a player who just want to stat pad, make millions without the pressure that comes with it while hiding under the loyalty banner.

Sometimes let your contract run down small and put fear into the front office.
Lillard jumps at every opportunity for long extensions upon extensions take the maximum amount with consideration of how it affects the ability of the team to put players around him.

Play has been heating up since January I am one his critics but he's proving me wrong.
To see the level Klay and Durant are both playing at makes you respect the wonders of medical science.
Achilles injury is no more career threatening

Kyrie na dunce. I hope Kevin Durant is happy now, see the friend he's always fighting for?
The nets look pretty good to be contenders this season but this weyrey wan torpedo everything to nothing.

How can a professional world class basketball player play 42 mins against a poor defence and score only 5 points.
You don't have to be a scorer but your job all your life is to hop and put the ball in the net.
Some of the pass draymond green gets for this is crazy.

Wiggins is the number 2 guy on the warriors now. If he consistently drops 20-22 points with great defense e go hard to stop the dubs.

And Kuminga abeg the guy needs to up his IQ, he's overhyped

A40:

A team clearing cap space will definitely take expiring contracts of Klay and Dray.

I will be shocked if they both wind down their contracts. It makes no practical sense to extend both guys. One of both will surely experience slippage and will be pushing 35 by their next extension

Why should the warriors trade Klay and draymond for CAP fillers who would no any value instead of riding out 1-2 years left in their contract and maximizing it to win more now?

i dont see a trade

You can't trade them without taking back almost equal Salary, then you have to consider their value is not high in the market.
The warriors have two options
1. Let them run down their contract
2. Extend their contact

A40:
The interesting thing here is Green has a player option for next season. So he might just opt in for a 25m payday

I have a sneaky suspicion either or both of Klay and Dray will get traded eventually. This is a lot of luxury tax to pay regardless of the success

Poole and Wiggins getting paid.
*Draymond they don't like you like that"
I am sure dray can smell the coffee, he needs to ball out next to get leverage with the warriors or with another team

benji93:
Unfortunately, this is not the issue. Ofcourse they'll keep getting better until they climax, as in there's only so much you can do to better another person, i.e to @A40s comment.

What the female gender wants is to be at the same level as the men. . And it's clear once they start complaining the most powerful amongst us bulge and offer palliatives. The plan is to keep them from complaining.

I don't know but if you decide to venture into an activity someone else dominates, whether because they've been doing it for much longer, you better be hella creative and ready with the tools. Men are physically competitive, so any sports that involve you displaying your physical prowess, we love. As @A40 mentioned, depending on what the sport is about, I am not watching a stack inferiorly gifted on average. If you want us to watch you, go compete with the most gifted in that sport.

The issue with the female gender becoming relatively relevant in sports as far as viewership is they cannot even serve their immediate audience which is their fellow women, fundamentally cos, despite some of them continue dey make mouth , they are not interested in watching activities that require a display of physical strength, although they may be by association(partners, children e.t.c). The first market for men's sports is men. Women are more interested in activities centered around the display of certain features , for example as you mentioned, the Khardasians. Get your fellow women to watch first, or cater to their preferences. . Very simple.

In tennis, moneys are awarded based on the qualification of players to another level, relatively smaller in quantity and different from the individual contract structure of Football, Basketball e.t.c, it's easy to equalize earnings in the former. Unfortunately, cos physical strength is involved women continue to turn into men in these sports, and I'm not sure any man likes the sound of that. . All in all good luck to them.

In fact if you unpack female tennis from male tennis by taking away the grand slams that both gender partake in. Female tennis won't have the followership and money it enjoys today.

A40 birdman Roland17 Khaben all of you made valid points on this WNBA issue. I felt like giving all of you cold beer I was reading your post.
WNBA could and will eventually evolve to be a better product but there will always be limitations because watching and spending your money on sports in general is not a ladies thing. some women do it but they are small percentage.

Even the sports where the women are cashing out. Their tournaments are closely bundled with the men's game e.g the big tennis and athletics event go on in the same tournaments with the male section so it caters for similar audience (mostly men) so they share from the same port of TV revenue and sponsors.

Likewise there will never be a successful male version of keeping up with khardasians. We just have different preferences.

Hate or love Stephen A, what you can't deny is that he's big. He's is Him


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zri8mMsnFyA

As for the the Blake Griffin vs Draymond debate I won't be too quick to dismiss it.

Griffin may have been the better scorer by a wide margin but Draymond has had the career by far.

I am a Draymond critic, but We should not ignore his brilliance on the defense end. If you look at the totality of his work over the length of his career, He's not just any other good defender, he's amongst the all time greats.
He could easily have been 3 DPOY. Injury robbed him of one last season and he controversially lost one to Kawhi.
He's the first modern player who could defend 1-5 position effectively while also being an effective rebounder.

He's also the second best ever play maker in his position behind LeBron. That's no small feat.

Blake Griffin was a 6 time all star, Draymond has been selected four times, missing the last one due to injury add it to the team success draymond has had and its really not a walkover for Griffin.

Last of you check their head to head during the clipper vs warriors days. Draymond almost always outplayed and locked up Blake Griffin head to head.

Overall Blake Griffin's offensive skill set wins out but it's not a walkover. There is a debate to be had

birdman:


Well lets here from the horse's mount how important Pau was:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM0DbbZnkKU


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOJeQAxo1T4

Without Pau, no ring. No way around it.

You could say the same about Duncan. No one wins without help. Not lebron, not even MJ

A40:
You are factually wrong.

It was definitely Kobe's doing. Shaq was a perennial underperformer vs Duncan and the Spurs. All their matchups the Lakers won was primarily because of Kobe's play. Kobe always outplayed Shaq wherever they were able to get the win. Duncan always outplayed Shaq as well in the series the Lakers lost to San Antone

1999. Shaq 23ppg Duncan 29 ppg

2001 Kobe 33-7-7 Duncan 23 ppg

2002 Kobe 26 ppg Shaq 21 ppg

2004. Kobe 26ppg Shaq. 22ppg

They were 3-2 and Kobe was the best player in all 3 series wins unquestionably. People always get caught up in Shaq's final numbers. Go and watch all their playoff series after 2000 season and see the work Kobe was doing

Lakers missing the playoffs is majorly due to Kobe missing 16 games while adding dross like Caron Butler etc.

Again another myth and urban legend. Paul Gasol in 08 averaged 13ppg in that 5 game series. He averaged fewer pts, fewer assists, fewer rebounds, fewer blocks so pray tell how did he offset Duncan? Duncan averaged 22ppg. It was Kobe's 29ppg that enabled them wipe the defending champion San Antonio Spurs with oraimo cord in 5.

Duncan played in a position that allowed him age with grace. He wasn't picking up guys 90 ft like Kobe could. Also anyone being honest will know that from 07 onwards Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili were arguably the best players on that Spurs team. At the very worst they were essentially a big 3. And in their battle with the Heatles claiming Timmy was still carrying the Spurs then is just flat out dishonest. They had like 4-5 guys averaging double digits every night

If you say Kobe can't carry a team to a ring then what did he do in 2009 and 2010? What do we call that? Kobe was the OG Spurs killa and the biggest reason Tim Duncan never repeated. Never forget it

You no see say I no bother replying the argument. When someone use him full chest talk say Duncan was better than Kobe by a far margin. That's blasphemy now .

I pick Duncan has being better but it's really a game of splitting hairs because both of them were awesome.

birdman:


You do have a point there. Kobe Lakers whopped Duncan Spurs the first 2 WC finals and had a 3-1 advantage in all their first 4 matchups.

But was that Kobe's doing? I think not. Remember Kobe had Shaq at his most dominant! In fact the year Shaq left to Miami, Lakers didnt even make the playoffs! So it wasnt so much Kobe's brilliance as much as having a superior supporting cast. In fact Shaq was responsible for dousing Duncan's fire, not Kobe.

After the Kobe/Shaq era, the next time Spurs would meet Lakers in the playoffs, Kobe again had a Pau Gasol to help offset Duncan. Finally, as both Duncan and Kobe's careers came to an end, Duncan's consistency helped them get to the finals versus the deadly Heat back-to-back, and they won another ring.

Duncan can carry a team to a ring. Kobe can will a team to win games. Big difference.

While I agree with some of your points especially with the fact that Duncan had consistent success for a longer period of time. I disagree a bit on the having help part.
It's not like Duncan was playing with some scrubs. Duncan had David Robinson earlier in in his career then ginobili, Tony Parker and lastly Kawhi.

Khanben:
Quick question Kobe vs Duncan who was better?

You wan cause world War 3

I Will say Duncan sha but it's so close.

Khanben:
A $15mil paycut for next season .Harden really wants that ring

Facts and I hope he wins one. He already has a regular season MVP, a Scoring title, A ring will take him to another stratosphere.
Even his approach to this off-season is different, he's focused and very fit. It is now or never


And you want me take players who already are 200-300 million + but can't forgive 10 million on a 200 million contract to join a contender or to get the necessary help they need as been serious about winning. I blame the useless franchises giving out these contracts sha.

Markswag101:
Gobert at C and KAT at PF, it could work

It could, but a Myles turner would have done the same for cheaper