Durant signing with OKC has literally destroyed the NBA >playoffs

>Oh man it sucks the NBA is just two teams that will compete instead of the great product it could be: 3 or MAYBE 4 teams!
top fucking jejjington at this ""sport""

>>76027835
>Durant signing with OKC has literally destroyed the NBA
I bet you wish you didn't make that typo

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>>76027883
4 teams would be much better. But yes, it's not even a real league at this point.

At least in football you get a different NFC team in the Owl every year, and the Patriots only make an appearance every other year.

>still watching nba

I switched over to Hockey after the 2015 playoffs and completely stopped following it

>>76027835
>It is Durant's fault that LeGM abuses free agency to create a super team that sweeps through their trash conference
LeGM started all this bullshit when he moved to Miami.Blame him.Durant is just the victim

>>76028047
boston started it with their big 3. fuck off to divegrass yuropoor

>>76028133
>flagposting

The only one who needs to fuck off is you.

>>76027835
players have too much power now, you can't really take it back

only thing that might help is taking away max contracts

>>76028133
>boston started it with their big 3
Bawstan's big 3 was overhyped as fuck.It would be the equivalent of Klay Thompson,Isaiah Thomas and LaMArcus Aldridge joining forces.On the other hand LeGM's big 3 was pulled out a fantasy campaign

>>76027835
>only two teams are competitive for the title
yikes, it's like we're la liga fans

>>76028258

Pierce/Garnett/Allen was something new. It was an overpowered grouping that people hadn't really considered with the cap.

Miami was just the logical next step to one up them on that account, players started realizing the negligible differences in salary could easily be offset by championship endorsements.

KD going to the team that just set the regular season wins record is a form of perversion that proved the salary cap no longer works as intended.

>>76028195
don't fucking talk to me micro baller

The NBA is awful when it comes to parity, this has always been the case, the problem is that series' are way too long and the game is designed so that the it's very unlikely for real upsets to occur especially during the playoffs when teams are less likely to make mistakes. Injuries are the only things that can br wildcards in playoff basketball.

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dont worry OP, Curry is coming to us

>>76028293
>It was an overpowered grouping
They were 3 old players at the twightlight of their careers
>Miami was just the logical next step
The Heat was joining 3 of the 7 players in the team + very decent role players in the same team. It was on a whole new level

>>76028378

all you're doing in this post is deliberately understating the quality of the Boston move while being hyperbolic about the Miami one

it isn't a valid argument

the Boston 3 weren't in their prime but they were still good and productive and it was a conscious decision on their part to join forces for ultimate ring potential

and the younger guys took note and tried the same

>>76027835
>These two teams will be meeting in the finals for AT LEAST the next five years.

In this offseason the Warriors will max out Curry and Iguodala, in the next offseason they will make a decision on how they will resign Durant with 3-4 max money makers on the team. Klay signed a max extension before the new salary cap was introduced, in three seasons he will make the same money Curry will have this offseason.

Lebron will be 35 in 3 years, even if he rests for half a season just to be on his peak for the postseason he will never beat father time and Wall/Beal/Ginny will start dominating once they hit their primes. That's not even counting the Celtics' incoming rookies.

Don't blame Durant for jumping ship to the Warriors, blame the NBA for rigging the draft in Cleveland's favor while Lebron is in Miami.

I'm not following basketball. I don't know anything. Is there really not enough top players in the world to have more competitive teams? Or is it because the very best players have just too much influence on a game?

>>76028258
>tf
>tp

Stick to divegrass you dumb spic

>>76028313
a good point

test

>>76028447

the last part

imagine a soccer game pared down to 5 players a side and how much more influential Messi becomes in that context

>>76028378
KG was coming off a 22/13 season, PP had 25/6/4 the season before.

>>76028434
>it was a conscious decision on their part to join forces for ultimate ring potential
Allen and KG were traded to the Celtics you moron.

>>76028447

it's because the warriors used a cap loophole to have more star players than should be allowed, and the cavs have Lebron which is basically a cheat code at this point in his career.

People act like superstars can just join forces whenever they want, but it's more complicated than that. The right stars had to align for the warriors to become as good as they are.

>>76028518

>players don't have input in trades

>>76028447
Star players have their own little group and keep going to the same teams so they can play together

>>76027835
Wasnt this also back in the 70s and 80s between the Lakers and Celtics and no one complained about that.

>>76027835
>Durant signing with OKC
lol pinche huevon

>>76028558
>players can choose to be traded to wherever they want whenever they want

>>76028623
melo did

>>76027835
>If Durant had signed with Boston there would be some legit competition for LeBron every year
It doesn't matter. No one gives LeBron credit for making it to the finals. He's going to 7 straight and no one is impressed.

>>76028593
Kareem was traded to LA, he did not know that Magic and Worthy will be studs.

Same thing with the Celtics back then, they were no different from the old Thunder or the Warriors.

Magic did not call Erving, Barkley, Thomas or Jordan to come play for the Lakers.

>>76028645
Ask Melo how that's working out for him now.

>>76027835
>These two teams will be meeting in the finals for AT LEAST the next five years.
LeBron is 32 years old. You're delusional.

>>76028671
not relevant to the point

>steal team
>get cucked by your two best players
Is it time the Thunder go back to Seattle?

>>76028689
>Carmelo wants to be traded
>can't
>not relevant to the point

>>76028593

none of us were alive then. Completely different generation/sports culture

>>76028750
he can be traded now but he doesn't want to

>>76028770
I was alive then, speak for yourself

>>76028447
The NBA needs to do this:

1) Push the 3pt line further back
2) Allow teams to play rougher/tougher defense
3) Make the game 60 minutes so as to make team depth more important

>>76029203
The warriors would smash harder then
>Only team that can hit far beyond the arc
>Draymond and zaza just molly whopping dudes
>Already has the greatest depth in the league.
This would fuck LeBron tho as his deep three game doesn't exist, he doesn't do well when people defend him physically, and he is constantly forced to carry teams on his lonely back.

>>76027835
OKC were legit contenders

thats why it was a joke

durant going to GS killed the 2nd best team

>>76028047
>>76028133
i blame the NBA "salary cap"

>>76028593
Or the Lakers and Spurs in the late 90s and 00s basketball has never been a league about random single season greatness it's about dynasties. Hell even Michael Jordans bulls went and got Dennis rodman

>>76028593
supposedly the league talent and coaching are better than ever now.........

>>76028656
Because the east is a rotating door of teams outside of whichever superteam lebron has assembled.

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>>76027835
>People mad that a few teams dominate the NBA
like it hasn't been like that always, fucking newfags

>>76028001
Or based hockey where any team can make a cup run

>>76028539
what is the cap loophole?

>>76029203
no all they need to do is return to the best out of 5 scenario 7 games a round is boring desu

>>76028539
KD would have joined whatever team was good at the time

>>76028539
All I want right now is someone who can make LeBron have to go full power. Maybe GSW will be able to do that this time around. I want to see what he's really capable of now, but that hinges on Curry not having flashbacks to last year and breaking down.

Friendly reminder Giannis' Bucks are the future of the East and the team to dethrone LeBum, maybe even as soon as next year. Too bad Porzingis is rotting in Jew York City.

>>76029942
How does that help competitiveness

Reminder if the NBA just removed the soft-cap and had cap rules like the NFL that isn't able to go over the salary cap under any circumstances, the NBA would be saved. Of course, the kikes would never allow such parity.

>>76029203
>Push the 3pt line further back
All that does is punish every team that isn't the Warriors

>>76030449
But parity gets more people interested which means more money. Why would jews not want that?

>>76030312
makes it "easier" for sucky teams to catch "good" teams off guard and win a series.

>>76030534
i dont know if thats true. having the entire utah jazz fanbase buy a gordon hayward jersey wouldnt come close to the amount of jerseys in golden state fan's closets.

The fundamental issue with pro basketball is that it's too easy to score, every other game it requires a lot more effort to put points up on the board, no league has had such a massive change in ppg over the years than the NBA. Players have already mastered the sport because the "luck" aspect is practically non existent.

>>76030534
Because at the end of the day TV money and hype from casuals towards superteams leads to more income than parity would. From a business standpoint what they're doing now is very smart and makes them tons of money but for people that actually follow basketball pretty heavily it damages their interest toward the league. If people from all 50 states buy Curry or Lebron jerseys and watch the Finals even if they don't watch any other basketball games, they'd make more money than for instance more Suns fans buying merchandise because they're not complete shit anymore.

>>76028133

You missed the part where both KG and Allen were brought in on trades. All 3 of them were on the wrong side of 30.

>>76030449
until they have a hard cap I won't take this league seriously, it's so stupid

>>76030033
Could current God-mode LeBron beat the Warriors if Curry and Durant play as well as the should?

It might come down to what 3rd and 4th most important players on each team do. If Kevin Love, Klay or Draymond get in a serious groove it could decide the series.

>>76028258
That's some of the dumbest shit I've ever read

>>76030449

can u explain the cap? whats the diff between soft and hard.

>>76030088
>Bucks
>future
(lol

You mean the Wizards and the Celtics.

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The 2 team meme has made the rest of the season unbearable, but the Finals is actually going to be pretty great this year. We get the standard Warriors/Cavs narrative, the "Can Kevin Love stay consistent?" narrative, the "Is Klay Thompson actually good or just a meme?" narrative, the "Is Kevin Durant just Lebron's little bitch boy?" narrative.

>>76031077
Soft cap is the standard salary cap limit. Teams can go over this cap to resign their players if they use bird rights or get them in a sign and trade with another team so the bird right's transfer with the trade. If they go over the salary cap, they have to pay a 50% tax to the league, meaning for every $1 they go over the cap, they have to pay $1.50 where $.50 goes toward the league. Hard Cap is the absolute limit that teams can resign players.

The NBA soft cap is $94.14 million. The Cav's payroll is $127.25 million. It's simply unfair because there are multiple teams, contenders even, ie. the Celtics who are at the 90 million mark.

>>76029729
This, whether it was the Lakers, Bulls, Celtics before.. this has always been the case.

Basketball is just a game where A+ talent can have such a huge impact and if you get two or even three A+ on a team you're going to go to the championship.

>>76031455
when it was the lakers vs celtics every year in the finals those teams were still taken to game 7s on their way there and they were losing series and coming back. these faggots are sweeping their way there it's very different

>>76029851

They basically got all of their superstars on super cheap contracts.

curry got injured the same season he got a new contract, allowing them to sign him for cheap. (at the time nobody knew curry would be as good as he is now, so he was just seen as another injury prone high-risk high reward project).

in the same season curry broke out, draymond green happened to have a break out as well. Before 2014-15 green was a bench player also on a cheap contract.

Klay thompson was one of their draft picks and I believe is still on his rookie contract, so add him to the pile of talent they got for super cheap.

At the same time all of this is happening, the players association managed to negotiate a huge cap spike which happened to coincide with Kevin Durant's free agency, who happened to also take a big paycut to stuff his salary into the mix.

They basically have 4 superstars for the price of one right now. Now add in the fact that ALL of the ring-chasing veterans want to sign with GSW right now and are willing to take massive paycuts and you have a stacked as fuck team. And it's all due to a timely cap spike and curry getting injured 5 years ago.

Good thing the next GOAT lonzo ball is about to make the Lakers great again.

Spurs prove you can still win even without big signings. Oh whooops he got injured and isn't playing anymore and GSW aren't being punished.

>>76027835
>>playoffs now consist entirely of who will get BTFO by the Warriors in the West, and who will get BTFO by the Cavs in the East
>now
what, unlike the past two years?

>>76027835
Maybe LeBron doesn't stay in the east bc he's too pussy to play in the west

Maybe everyone stays in the west bc they are too pussy to play lebron

lebron joining the heat

>>76027835
History of NBA last 40 yrs
>80s it was Celtics and/or Lakers every single year
>90s was Jordan 6 straight yrs he played full time, their was only parity when the greatest player of that era didn't play
>2000s-now has been Lakers, Spurs, and/or LeBron in finals every year except 2006 I think

You have a deluded vision of a competitive NBA that never was

>>76029819
Nah I love hockey but despise playing 82 games in a brutally long season only to let a little more than half in the playoffs so a 41-41 team can play a 43-39 team for the Cup.

>>76030534
The parity/underdog sells meme isn't true. Winners sell.

>>76031960

The truth is half and half.

The east being easy for Lebron is a self fulfilling prophecy because players dodge him to move to the East.

Because of the warriors now though we'll start seeing teams dodge the West and move East.

As we've seen with all these guys including Lebron. It's not about the challenge, they all just want to win rings so they'll go to where they think is the easiest path.

KD thought the warriors was the easiest path.

>>76032291

Players dodge him to move to the West*

>>76032155
sucks man. never watched a hockey game before these playoffs, always watched the nba. i like hovkey much more than the nba already, but i have a feeling i wont be able to follow during the regular season since i have have no prior knoweldge/attachment to the sport

>>76031594
stop

hitting

enter

faggot

nobody

is

reading

that

>>76032464
I read it, speak for yourself idiot.

>>76032448
coloreds aren't welcome in hockey anyway, don't worry about missing out

>>76032493
how can you call me an idiot if you're this fucking stupid? your mouth breathing retardness made me read the rest of the post and I see everything that he said was wrong

>Klay thompson was one of their draft picks and I believe is still on his rookie contract, so add him to the pile of talent they got for super cheap.
why didn't you correct this? how am I the idiot for seeing a stupid faggot make a stupid post and ignore it? why would you read a faggot post and take it for fact? how can you call me an idiot afterwards? why don't you fuck off forever and never post again nigger

>>76032537
How are you this assblasted about reading.

>>76032537
Yeah? I didn't say there was anything right about his post, I'm telling you I read it because an anon took the time to type out an argument and participate in basketball discussion and I'm here for basketball.

Not for faggots who think like 3 paragraphs is TLDR LOLOLOLO

>>76032723
hitting enter after every sentence doesn't make that sentence a paragraph

you're a completely retarded faggot

don't ever reply to me again small baller

this isn't a paragraph you don't read this like a paragraph

you can't afford my shoes

holy fuck anyone that types like this

is fucking retarded I'm glad I ignore them

6 years ago if i told you the warriors and cavs would be the best teams in the league how crazy would you have thought i was

>>76033022
Not really. Cavs would be easy enough to imagine. Lebron came back and the only way he'd come back is if they had at least two other great players. And Monta Ellis was a great player so I figured he'd be leading the team.

>>76028334
You must mean Seth

>>76029463
Rodman was 5 years removed from the Pistons and was increasingly becoming too big a cancer for any one team until joining the Bulls. But you're right about dynasty teams running the league for decades.

>>76029819
While it's true that there is much more parity than the NBA and that a lot of different teams can make a deep run, it doesn't change the fact that the same teams have been winning recently in the NHL

>2009 - Pittsburgh
>2010 - Chicago
>2011 - Boston
>2012 - Los Angeles
>2013 - Chicago
>2014 - Los Angeles
>2015 - Chicago
>2016 - Pittsburgh

This year is likely to be Pittsburgh again

>Why are people being so selfless by giving up more money to form a good team that has a better chance of winning? Why don't they be selfish asshole that demands their own team and big money instead?

>>76033775
who are you quoting

>>76033795
OP. Paraphrasing of course

>>76033812
nobody cares. fuck off yuropoor

>>76032773
i just got back from work. how did this guy end up so booty blasted?

>basketball reasons

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>>76031455
And you know what? That's why the NBA is NEVER going to overtake the NFL. They've come pretty far on the backs of bandwagoners and people who prefer stars to teams, but that won't take you all the way to the top of American sports. The NFL manages to cater to bandwagoners AND diehard fans of teams, and that's why it's the king. And unless something fundamental changes about the NBA to increase parity, even if the NFL declines the NBA won't be the league that takes its place. Fuck, it might actually be MLS that takes the NFL's place now that more Americans are into soccer. MLS has a hard salary cap and a non-rigged draft too, after all.

>>76028258
shut the fuck up retard

>>76033775
this is basically the core problem with the NBA, and basketball as a professional sport. you can get a couple of guys here and there to shave off a few million in the NFL or NHL (ignoring MLB here because its salary structure is too different), but they won't make that much of an impact because of how big the teams are. But in the NBA, where a guy can conceivably play 90% of the game every night, LeBron making 10 mil less than he could so he can play in Cleveland with a good team is league-breaking. Same goes with Durant, but unless Curry takes a huge pay cut next year, the Warriors will be fucked because he plays zero defense, so even if he chucks up 40 every night they will get pooped on.

The solution to this problem is letting people actually play defense, or potentially removing the 3 point line. Neither of these will ever happen because the NBA knows that the chinese and retarded millenials (their growing demographic) doesn't give a shit about parity and just wants to see 300 point games every night.

>>76032773
>>76035170
He

Is

A

Small

Baller

>>76028447
It basically turned into La LIga recently

The NBA cannot be saved

They tried to be like the other pro leagues in North America and kept expanding, but you can't water down the talent pool like that in basketball because the same top flight guys will just carry their teams every year

Only solution is to wait for a crash and downsize the league to 10-20 teams, maybe that could work

>>76037813
Removing the 3pt line would help a bit but look at Cleveland vs Boston. There were 3's hit but Cleveland was just so dominant that even without the 3 they would have won by 30 or so anyway.

>>76037977
Yep. Expansion always means the teams get watered down. Some cities or teams should get out.

>>76037977
the nba can easily be saved, just get rid of max contracts. its really that simple.
if lebron and KD made their actual market value then superteams couldnt exist unless those players wanted to take paycuts of 20m+
the max salary only exists to protect owners and GMs from their own stupidity because they wouldnt stop playing role players superstar money.
the NBA more than any league cannot possibly have competitive balance when superstars cant be paid their market value. because in the NBA the top echelon of talent decides the balance of the league. the top 10-15 players in the league should be so expensive to retain that its not even possible to have more than 1.

>>76036078
The nbas popularity is barely above nhl-tier without blacks. It is completely dependent(like half of viewers) on them and the ceiling is capped on it ever getting bigger with them.

NBA will never be anything than America's 3rd(sometimes 2nd) sport. That's how it's been it's entire history.

>If we messed with salary caps the NBA would be fixed
How did this commie shit get into American sports? Stacked super teams (like we have right fucking now) should be expensive, and the limit to how stacked they can get should be money. All the caps are doing (along with the draft) is giving the owners the ability to collect shekels without competing as much.

>>76038192
That won't fix it. There will always be some betas who fuck shit up for the rest of the league.

>>76038192
Good point

The max contracts are retarded

>>76038226
This. All it would take is one Jack Sparrow to vote Elizabeth Swan and the league is back to where it was, just with a different pay scale.

>>76038117
>nba teams in 1980: 23
>us population 1980: 226 million
>nba teams now: 30
>us population now: 317 million
>has become mildly popular globally I'm the time in that time
>more money involved acctracts better trained talent

I've never understood the expansion waters down the product meme. The only time that argument is legitimate in the immediate when you add a bunch of teams once.

Like when they added 6 teams from the late 80s-mid 90s. Ironically a lot of people making this expansion argument will wax poetic about how great the 90s and Jordan were. The 90s were the most watered down time in modern NBA history, not now.

>>76038219
They are expensive. The owner of the cavs is paying $200 million a year on players. The warriors just got lucky that Curry stopped rolling his ankle after he signed a low contract because of injuries.

>>76035170
why did you work on a saturday lmao

>>76036078
>Fuck, it might actually be MLS that takes the NFL's place now that more Americans are into soccer.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH

>>76040724
He hasn't won yet
Also the Cavs team is much better today than it was the first time LeBron was there

>>76027883
Dude, neither of these teams have lost a game in the playoffs. This pretty much makes the entire regular season and the first 3 rounds of the playoffs not even worth anyone's time.

>>76040724
No Lebron ran to the heat to form a super team and then ran back to the Cavs after the Spurs spanked him. Lebron is the bitch that re-popularized stars playing for super teams

>>76040724
Lebron left his childhood team to chase rings, than once his childhood team was stacked with picks he went back. Now all these nu male faggot edgelords try to compare him with Jordan when this league is such a fucking joke controlled by Jews that want money and don't care about competition. The Referees are given a script, they don't give a fuck about entertainment. They want to see 2 teams in the finals and even then are trying to fulfill a script. This year is to give Lebron another ring so the dumbfuck shills at ESPN can put him above Jordan with 4 losses in the finals while ring chasing.

>>76030604
This. Either raise the hoop 5 feet or lower it 5 feet. That will fix everything.

>>76032114
If you're basing the NBA's quality on the quantity of teams who win it all, you have a point, but it's less interesting now because there's an even bigger discrepancy in quality among playoff teams.

I used to love watching the NBA from April to June because most series felt competitive. Even if it concluded in another SPURSWINLOL or LAKERSWINLOL, most things leading up to that were entertaining. You might even have a team like the Pistons, Magic or Mavs make some noise.

It's just not satisfying to follow anymore.