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We'd be in the finals too if we faced the Heat with no Jimmy, Cavs with no Mitchell/Allen, and Pacers with no Haliburton
The Official NBA Season Thread: SFA Prevails
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by pmatic,
- Start date
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Was the Nuggets winning last year some great finals?
Way more entertaining than this year’s finals. That’s undoubtedly true.
Think the Nuggets this year against the Cs would’ve been more competitive/entertaining too. But they sadly tricked it off.
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The First Annual Shackleford Off-Season, my Team Loss, Cookout is taking place Galveston this weekend
All losers from this pass season are invited. To come eat, weep, and have a good time.
However
This is only for Africans and allies
The brisket is only for Africans
The BBQ chicken is only for Africans
The burgers are only for Africans
All the sides are only for Africans
addict4sneakers you may not bring your white son
@dacomeup if you bring a chubby Slovenian, you and the chubby Slovenian will be escorted out of my cookout
@dacomeup if you bring a chubby Slovenian, you and the chubby Slovenian will be escorted out of my cookout
I'm not bring it to Dallas, it is in Galveston
Rich coming from the pan Africanist with a white man for an avatar and screen name. And we know you were knocking down tomi Loren
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Nuggets-Celtics would've went 7 for sure. Without a healthy KP it would have been tough to beat Denver.
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admittedly im not a math guy but 17 Warriors lost by 21
and 96 bulls lost by 21.
neither of these margins are "30+"
Boston lost by 38 which IS 30+
again im not a math guy.
if you want to be legalistic about what I said, at least make the numbers work.
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also
let's forget about the legalism, did I say boston wasn't good? did i say Boston is 100% not a great team?
my point was this playoff run, there just wasn't enough information to say with confidence that they are a great team. and no one will remember them like the 17 warriors and the 96 Bulls.
this is obviously correct.
now if they steamroll the league next year, maybe we will look back and say they were great, but RIGHT NOW, we don't have enough information to look at them that way.
let's forget about the legalism, did I say boston wasn't good? did i say Boston is 100% not a great team?
my point was this playoff run, there just wasn't enough information to say with confidence that they are a great team. and no one will remember them like the 17 warriors and the 96 Bulls.
this is obviously correct.
now if they steamroll the league next year, maybe we will look back and say they were great, but RIGHT NOW, we don't have enough information to look at them that way.
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I'm sitting here tryna uplift my community and you tryna slander my name to protect Luka.
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imagine pulling up to your local court and the 3 time MVP gettin busy against randos
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You're making the margin of victory 30+ to fit your agenda though. A blowout is a blowout.
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getting roasted by 20 and getting roasted by 40 is pretty different.
20 happens all the time, losing by 38 is rare.
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Peep the vid. I wonder if thats the pick up rules in his country. They continue playing after a make. No check ball.
bonafide101
Supporter
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Nailed the form.
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2008 Celtics beat the Lakers by 39 to close it out. If you told me they won by 25 I wouldn't have argued. They blew them out. That's all I remember personally. 25, 30, 40, 50...it's semantics at the end of the day. Both games were over by halftime.
Tatum and Brown only played 27 mins a piece.
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if you think that personally that's fine, if you want to live in your own private world where getting blow out by 20 and 40 means the same thing then go ahead.
wehn Suns lost game 7 by almost 40 everyone got fired and they dismantled the team. not all blow outs are equal.
plus its just a fact that 38 points are much rarer than 21 point blowouts
and I think it's reasonable to view those two things as being different.
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Thank you. I do. Winning is winning. I don't care if it's by an inch or by a mile.
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Celtics are built to thrive in NBA’s new cap era … at least for a little while
If there’s one lesson I hope we all learned from these NBA playoffs, it’s this: Can we hold our horses and wait a little before immediately anointing anyone who has a successful playoff round as The Next Thing?
In the first round, we thought the Denver Nuggets were inevitable because they beat the Los Angeles Lakers.
In the second round, we thought Anthony Edwards was taking over because the Minnesota Timberwolves knocked out the Nuggets.
In the conference finals, we thought Luka Dončić was an unsolvable riddle because the Dallas Mavericks outflanked Minnesota.
And in the NBA Finals, we learned the Boston Celtics, the team that had by far the best record, was — surprise! — actually the best team the whole time. Even as everyone thought they couldn’t be trusted due to past playoff failures, an unproven coach and the lack of an MVP-caliber centerpiece, Boston won 16 of 19 playoff games despite missing one of its best players for 11 of them.
As we get ready for whatever lies ahead next season, let’s allow 2023-24 to be a humbling lesson. The Celtics tried to tell us all year that they were great and, for whatever reason, everyone ignored the signals. The lack of a full-strength playoff foil in the Eastern Conference probably didn’t help either; rolling through defanged playoff opponents didn’t offer many chances for statement games.
Nonetheless, the Celtics went 80-21 over the course of 101 games, with a historic scoring margin, and were never seriously challenged in the playoffs. They’re our sixth new defending champion in six years but will almost certainly go into 2024-25 as the presumptive favorite to win again.
There’s a good underlying reason for that: Boston is in great shape to withstand the worst depredations of the most recent collective bargaining agreement, at least for one more season. While revisions in the 2023 agreement make it increasingly difficult to keep together championship-caliber rosters like this one, Boston has positioned itself for a multi-year run via smart contracts and timely trades, despite having two of the league’s most expensive players at its core.
Looking solely at 2024-25, the Celtics are in great shape. Unlike other recent champions that almost immediately lost key players — Bruce Brown in Denver, Gary Payton II and Otto Porter Jr. in Golden State, P.J. Tucker in Milwaukee, Danny Green and Rajon Rondo from the Lakers and, of course, Kawhi Leonard in Toronto — the Celtics are positioned to run it back.
All of Boston’s rotation players are signed for next season, with the only free agents being reserve centers Luke Kornet, Xavier Tillman Sr. and Neemias Queta and little-used guard Svi Mykhailiuk. Reserve forward Oshae Brissett has a player option on his minimum deal. Boston also will have a chance to add an inexpensive piece with the 30th pick in the NBA Draft.
I’m told the Celtics would like to bring the centers back if the money is reasonable; regardless, Boston can easily replenish the back end of the roster with other minimum deals this offseason. The Celtics are positioned to end up above the second apron and won’t have other tools at their disposal, but they won’t need them because every key player is signed. (Exception: If 38-year-old Al Horford walks off into the sunset after winning his first ring, they’ll need another big man … but dropping his $9.5 million salary would put Boston below the second apron.)
Where things get harder is if Boston has more dynastic ambitions. The Celtics won’t sweat salaries while trying to repeat in 2024-25, but after that, two elements of the CBA will punish them with increasing ferocity: the repeater tax and the second apron.
Boston would have two future draft picks frozen if it went over the second apron in both 2024-25 and 2025-26 and would see those picks moved to the end of the first rounds in 2032 and 2033, respectively, if it didn’t get back under the second apron each of the following three years.
Less discussed, but perhaps equally significant, is that Boston would be subject to a punishing repeater penalty in 2025-26. Beginning that year, a team that was $22.5 million over the luxury-tax line would owe an estimated $100 million in tax and repeater penalties, roughly double what the same salary structure would cost Boston in 2024-25 as a non-repeater. All at once now: Yikes.
Additionally, the repeater penalty bares its teeth just as the Celtics begin massive extensions for tentpole stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown; Brown starts a five-year deal next season worth a estimated $287 million, while Tatum will be eligible this summer for a five-year pact worth an estimated $315 million that would begin in 2025-26. The exact figures won’t be known until the 2024-25 cap number is established, but based on current league guidance, Tatum and Brown alone would combine to make nearly $108 million in 2025-26.
Fortunately for Boston, it will take a while for free agency to do much to its roster. The Celtics are Team Contract Extension and have prepared themselves well for the upcoming era by locking up most of their best players. Six Celtics are on extensions signed with Boston after they arrived; deals for Brown, Jrue Holiday and Payton Pritchard have each signed through 2028.
Expect that trend to continue. In addition to Tatum, I’m hearing it’s very likely that Sam Hauser and Derrick White will join them. Hauser has one year left for the minimum, on a team option, and will be extension-eligible this summer; he’s about to get more expensive, but Boston sees him as a keeper. One possible cap shenanigan would be to decline Hauser’s team option for 2024-25 and re-sign him for lower money and more years than in an extension that started in 2025-26. Doing so would increase the Celtics’ tax penalty in 2024-25 but lessen the impact of the repeater penalty and manage the second apron in the out years.
Meanwhile, White will be eligible for an extension for up to four years and $127 million this summer, including incentives; league sources say the Celtics are strongly interested in a deal with him and would likely need to offer every cent of that to get it done. (White’s extension amount has been reported as a different number in some places, because the incentives in his deal weren’t considered likely before this season. But based on his 2023-24 season, they’re all likely.)
Looking at the books and the salary-cap implications, an overarching strategy becomes more clear: a spirited run at a repeat in 2024-25, possibly followed by some hard decisions a year later. In particular, if those extensions all come to fruition, the key to continuing Boston’s reign will be figuring out how to build the frontcourt on a budget.
Horford and Kristaps Porziņģis already signed two-year extensions shortly upon arrival, but those will be the first two important Celtics to come off the books. Horford is set to make $9.5 million in what might possibly be his final season. Porzingis’s deal expires in 2026, when he makes $30.7 million.
Coming off a dominant season in a shattered Eastern Conference, the Celtics could hardly be in a better position to defend their title. And yet, even as we acknowledge Boston as a clear favorite, I’ll urge some caution as we head into next season. As I noted at the top, things are never as inevitable as they seem. A Celtics cynic could point out a few things:
They’re great, basically. But they’re not inevitable. In a 30-team league, it takes tremendous fortune to survive the playoff meat-grinder even once. Boston is in a better position than anyone else to do it again, but recent history suggests betting on the field might still be the sharper play.
If there’s one lesson I hope we all learned from these NBA playoffs, it’s this: Can we hold our horses and wait a little before immediately anointing anyone who has a successful playoff round as The Next Thing?
In the first round, we thought the Denver Nuggets were inevitable because they beat the Los Angeles Lakers.
In the second round, we thought Anthony Edwards was taking over because the Minnesota Timberwolves knocked out the Nuggets.
In the conference finals, we thought Luka Dončić was an unsolvable riddle because the Dallas Mavericks outflanked Minnesota.
And in the NBA Finals, we learned the Boston Celtics, the team that had by far the best record, was — surprise! — actually the best team the whole time. Even as everyone thought they couldn’t be trusted due to past playoff failures, an unproven coach and the lack of an MVP-caliber centerpiece, Boston won 16 of 19 playoff games despite missing one of its best players for 11 of them.
As we get ready for whatever lies ahead next season, let’s allow 2023-24 to be a humbling lesson. The Celtics tried to tell us all year that they were great and, for whatever reason, everyone ignored the signals. The lack of a full-strength playoff foil in the Eastern Conference probably didn’t help either; rolling through defanged playoff opponents didn’t offer many chances for statement games.
Nonetheless, the Celtics went 80-21 over the course of 101 games, with a historic scoring margin, and were never seriously challenged in the playoffs. They’re our sixth new defending champion in six years but will almost certainly go into 2024-25 as the presumptive favorite to win again.
There’s a good underlying reason for that: Boston is in great shape to withstand the worst depredations of the most recent collective bargaining agreement, at least for one more season. While revisions in the 2023 agreement make it increasingly difficult to keep together championship-caliber rosters like this one, Boston has positioned itself for a multi-year run via smart contracts and timely trades, despite having two of the league’s most expensive players at its core.
Looking solely at 2024-25, the Celtics are in great shape. Unlike other recent champions that almost immediately lost key players — Bruce Brown in Denver, Gary Payton II and Otto Porter Jr. in Golden State, P.J. Tucker in Milwaukee, Danny Green and Rajon Rondo from the Lakers and, of course, Kawhi Leonard in Toronto — the Celtics are positioned to run it back.
All of Boston’s rotation players are signed for next season, with the only free agents being reserve centers Luke Kornet, Xavier Tillman Sr. and Neemias Queta and little-used guard Svi Mykhailiuk. Reserve forward Oshae Brissett has a player option on his minimum deal. Boston also will have a chance to add an inexpensive piece with the 30th pick in the NBA Draft.
I’m told the Celtics would like to bring the centers back if the money is reasonable; regardless, Boston can easily replenish the back end of the roster with other minimum deals this offseason. The Celtics are positioned to end up above the second apron and won’t have other tools at their disposal, but they won’t need them because every key player is signed. (Exception: If 38-year-old Al Horford walks off into the sunset after winning his first ring, they’ll need another big man … but dropping his $9.5 million salary would put Boston below the second apron.)
Where things get harder is if Boston has more dynastic ambitions. The Celtics won’t sweat salaries while trying to repeat in 2024-25, but after that, two elements of the CBA will punish them with increasing ferocity: the repeater tax and the second apron.
Boston would have two future draft picks frozen if it went over the second apron in both 2024-25 and 2025-26 and would see those picks moved to the end of the first rounds in 2032 and 2033, respectively, if it didn’t get back under the second apron each of the following three years.
Less discussed, but perhaps equally significant, is that Boston would be subject to a punishing repeater penalty in 2025-26. Beginning that year, a team that was $22.5 million over the luxury-tax line would owe an estimated $100 million in tax and repeater penalties, roughly double what the same salary structure would cost Boston in 2024-25 as a non-repeater. All at once now: Yikes.
Additionally, the repeater penalty bares its teeth just as the Celtics begin massive extensions for tentpole stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown; Brown starts a five-year deal next season worth a estimated $287 million, while Tatum will be eligible this summer for a five-year pact worth an estimated $315 million that would begin in 2025-26. The exact figures won’t be known until the 2024-25 cap number is established, but based on current league guidance, Tatum and Brown alone would combine to make nearly $108 million in 2025-26.
Fortunately for Boston, it will take a while for free agency to do much to its roster. The Celtics are Team Contract Extension and have prepared themselves well for the upcoming era by locking up most of their best players. Six Celtics are on extensions signed with Boston after they arrived; deals for Brown, Jrue Holiday and Payton Pritchard have each signed through 2028.
Expect that trend to continue. In addition to Tatum, I’m hearing it’s very likely that Sam Hauser and Derrick White will join them. Hauser has one year left for the minimum, on a team option, and will be extension-eligible this summer; he’s about to get more expensive, but Boston sees him as a keeper. One possible cap shenanigan would be to decline Hauser’s team option for 2024-25 and re-sign him for lower money and more years than in an extension that started in 2025-26. Doing so would increase the Celtics’ tax penalty in 2024-25 but lessen the impact of the repeater penalty and manage the second apron in the out years.
Meanwhile, White will be eligible for an extension for up to four years and $127 million this summer, including incentives; league sources say the Celtics are strongly interested in a deal with him and would likely need to offer every cent of that to get it done. (White’s extension amount has been reported as a different number in some places, because the incentives in his deal weren’t considered likely before this season. But based on his 2023-24 season, they’re all likely.)
Looking at the books and the salary-cap implications, an overarching strategy becomes more clear: a spirited run at a repeat in 2024-25, possibly followed by some hard decisions a year later. In particular, if those extensions all come to fruition, the key to continuing Boston’s reign will be figuring out how to build the frontcourt on a budget.
Horford and Kristaps Porziņģis already signed two-year extensions shortly upon arrival, but those will be the first two important Celtics to come off the books. Horford is set to make $9.5 million in what might possibly be his final season. Porzingis’s deal expires in 2026, when he makes $30.7 million.
Coming off a dominant season in a shattered Eastern Conference, the Celtics could hardly be in a better position to defend their title. And yet, even as we acknowledge Boston as a clear favorite, I’ll urge some caution as we head into next season. As I noted at the top, things are never as inevitable as they seem. A Celtics cynic could point out a few things:
- Their system depends heavily on two rare centers, one of whom is very old and the other of whom is very injury-prone.
- While Tatum is great, the Celtics are unlikely to have the best player on the court in any important series.
- The East may not be such a cakewalk next time around: We never saw the Milwaukee Bucks at full strength, the Philadelphia 76ers and Indiana Pacers are positioned to heavily rearm themselves in the offseason and the New York Knicks are building the same kind of ensemble cast the Celtics dominated with. And surely the Miami Heat aren’t going to take all this lying down … right?
They’re great, basically. But they’re not inevitable. In a 30-team league, it takes tremendous fortune to survive the playoff meat-grinder even once. Boston is in a better position than anyone else to do it again, but recent history suggests betting on the field might still be the sharper play.
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Thank you. I do. Winning is winning. I don't care if it's by an inch or by a mile.
I agree.
again, never said boston fans should care, be happy. I don't believe in asterisk champions or anything like that.
a win is a win.
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If a finals loss doesn't motivate my second favorite fat boy to get his **** together nothing will. Boston winning the chip is so bad for basketball imo.
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Still not a fan of the new Larry OB, it didn't need detailing
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interesting,
prob from soccer playing culture? usually you just throw the ball in refs don't make you reset very often.
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Apparently the Celtics are going to be celebrating in Miami until the parade in Boston on Friday.
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361 deal in the USThought he had a deal with 361
He has Nikes on in the video
Nike deal in europe
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Dis dude
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