It probably depends what happens with the Thunder, if the Thunder have nothing to show for over the next two years then Durant might have to leave. If they win the title this year or next he probably would stay. As it stands now, Nick does not believe they will win a title playing the basketball they do because they are careless and reckless and have no ball movement. So ill listen to him on that, the Thunder will not win a title unless someone goes (coach perhaps?)
That's the problem with OKC. They don't play organized basketball. When you have a guy like Westbrook who is looking for the ball every play, it's hard for a superstar like Durant to take control. I think they may need to lose Westbrook and sign someone else in free agency. As good as he is, he just seems like a cancer. He's trying to be more than he is.
You know what I want? What would be the perfect way all of this plays out? Miami loses the finals to San Antonio. Duncan and Parker go out on top while Miami fails to make history with a 3-peat. Spurs take revenge. Lebron realizes the window is closing in Miami and opts out of his contract. They play one more year together with an aging Wade and an overpaid Bosh. Miami again doesn't win a championship. Lebron meets with Carmelo and decides to bring his talent to the Big Apple. He teams up with Carmelo and Phil Jackson signs a couple other role players. Phil Jackson and Derek Fisher take control of the Knicks franchise and lead New York to a championship. Miami becomes completely irrelevant and falls into mediocrity like they were for years before LeBron showed up. Happy ending Oh, and cue the bullshit Miami fans to jump off the bandwagon and never attend another Heat game again. Classic
Yeah, but you have to do it manually by searching ESPN play by play and it will tell you who did the fouling in the play by play log. There is no data on which ref in the crew called what foul though, that has to be done manually. This http://www.nbastuffer.com/referee_stats and this http://www.basketball-reference.com/referees/ can give you ref stats, but for the crew only. Then if you look up some analytic twitter users or bloggers on twitter, you can find how a team fared against a certain ref crew when they announced the reffing crew tomorrow I think. It will usually be after the crew is released.
I think the NBA/NFL thing is similar. You have a crew and the leader, but then when you go to see call in the box score or play by play, you can't figure out what ref called what. You just know the crew leader and the foul/penalty called. It's frustrating but usually if you know a refs name, he's not very good.
That's a pretty weak pool of information, and pretty telling too. You want to point to refs as to why Lebron got 5 fouls (and I'll assume that's what you are getting at unless you bother to make an argument otherwise) while the Spurs get to the line with role players from the Heat getting most of the close calls instead of their stars. All night I watched Bosh, James and Wade fouling the Spurs, and the players that get credit for those traffic fouls are Jones, Cole and Allen. I was actually shocked when James started getting called late in the game, but he was making blatant frustration fouls, arguing with the refs, and playing lazy. LeBron could have easily been fouled out in each of these games, but he gets the Jordan rules, something that the Spurs haven't gotten this entire series. Your argument sucks unless you actually provide an argument.
Hmm crossed lines? I wasn't specifically picking at Lebron's 5 fouls, I was doing Spurs/Heat reffing in general. Fouls are fouls and lead to the penalty regardless if it's Lebron or Allen or somebody else. I thought the refs overall were bad last game. They were inconsistent in calling contact vs no contact and went on streaks within quarter where they ended up getting caught up in the momentum of a team. The Spurs got two of these quarters, the Heat got one. That's why I think the Spurs got the better end of the bad reffing. Lebron's reputation as a great defender generally lets him get away with a lot contact, I agree. But his size and speed also gives him fewer calls in the paint someone smaller or thinner (think KD) would get relative to the contact he takes. Kind of like how Hibbert gets verticality due to reputation but if Bosh does it, he gets called for a foul. Westbrook's recklessness works both ways. Some refs will see him sprawl and give him calls, others will think he's out of control and shouldn't get any calls.
That's a really nice way to jerk him off, but the reality is that he gets away with blatant fouls that no other player in the game does. Already I have seen him away from the ball driving forearms into Diaw's throat blatantly that would end up being flagrant fouls for any other player. The armbar he put on Leonard last night was a testament to what this asshole gets away with, but finally his charges and travels get called and all of a sudden the Spurs are getting the calls, right? You are an apologist for a lot of things that are wrong with this game, it's pathetic.
There are missed calls all game. Again, I'm saying the overall trend I thought was the Spurs ended up ahead with all the calls and non calls last game. Just because Lebron got away with a few doesn't mean we ignore all other players in the game. You are trying to say since Lebron got away with stuff it undoes everything else that happened during the game. That's not how I'm reviewing how the refs reffed all of the game. Yeah, again, I'm explaining to you some of my reasoning why certain fouls or no foul calls occur. I'm not arguing the reality, I'm just explaining how the NBA has been called for a long time now. Reputation helps. Reputation as a strong defensive team or player, you get away with more. It's not just a Lebron thing, it's a NBA problem and problem that's been around for a long time. The refs take into account off the court things. Reputation. Player size. Player speed. Player strength. Player reaction. Flow of game. Time in game. Fouls already given. These are all reasons why the refs might be bad besides the fact they are bad at their job. Those are reasons why the same exact contact on one end won't result a foul on the other end. Add up all these inequalities from play to play, the best you can hope is the refs pull even and have good flow and not decide the game. I don't think they pulled even last game. I don't think they kept the game at good flow. I don't think they decided the game though. My theory nobody really complained about the refs is because we are rooting for the Spurs/against the Heat. Maybe the reality is that nobody complained because it didn't decide the game and the Spurs were playing good? You see to think it's some Lebron thing, I'm just saying the refs were bad last game and trying to give some reasoning behind last game and bad reffing in general. I don't think I'm a very good apologist if I am one. I don't like the NBA refs, I don't like college refs, I don't like instant replay these playoffs, I don't like technical fouls, I don't like block/charge calls, I don't like the shooters kicking out their legs, I don't like a lot of NBA stuff. I don't like a lot of NFL stuff. I don't like a lot of stuff in different sports. I still enjoy watching them all.
In my opinion, the main problem with refs in sports, and particularly the NBA, is the lack of transparency. Sports, and I bet the referees union or league or something doesn't want this, won't go into detail on refs. The NBA has the new SportsVu system where they can track the movement of all players (and refs) on the court to see if they are in the right position, the refs part doesn't get released to the public. NBA has all new stats page, advanced stats page, on and off , and all of that stuff, nothing on refs. If there was a PER or something for the refs that was available, game changer. But the leagues don't do that for probably tons of reasons that fly over my head and simple reasons like not giving players/fans/coaches ammo of bad refs or bad reffed games or things like that.
Yup. That your response to what I wrote wasn't addressing what I wrote and I had to explain myself again, so I took my time to make it more thorough.
What's to respond to? You just spent 7 fucking paragraphs trying to justify why Lebron plays by different rules than every other player on the NBA. Pathetic.
Nope. 2009 was our shot, we missed. Not gonna happen this offseason. Best case, Melo opts in for another year.
