NBA Regular Season 2016-17

D2D

Pre-season games are officially done & there's 3 days to Tip-Off so welcome to the NBA Regular Season 2016-17 thread!

Can the Cavs repeat? Can Golden State, now with KD, go and make up for last years Finals? Just how good are the Celtics? Will Philly keep on trusting that progress?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvtKucdT-ok

Paully D

Honestly may as well fast forward to the Cavs v Warriors finals and save us all the time.

Warriors will have a much trickier path to the dance but Cleveland have absolutely no serious competition in the East so that will be another massacre.

sportsbook_12

Probably another Cavs vs Warriors in the finals but I still have hopes for OKC

GoldFour4

Can genuinely see the Warriors not making the finals in the West and being somehow upset by the Spurs.

D2D

Opening night is tonight! There's 3 games on the schedule. The banner raising/ring ceremony at The Q starts at around 11:30/12ish, followed by the Knicks@Cavs game, which tips at 12:30. Spurs/Warriors tips at 3:30 tonight. Both of these games are on BT Sport. Jazz@Blazers is also on tonight with a 3am tip off

GoldFour4

D2D wrote: »

Opening night is tonight! There's 3 games on the schedule. The banner raising/ring ceremony at The Q starts at around 11:30/12ish, followed by the Knicks@Cavs game, which tips at 12:30. Spurs/Warriors tips at 3:30 tonight. Both of these games are on BT Sport. Jazz@Blazers is also on tonight with a 3am tip off

Great stuff. For some reason I thought the season didn't begin until the 28th.

ButtersSuki

malistheman wrote: »

Can genuinely see the Warriors not making the finals in the West and being somehow upset by the Spurs.

Barring injury I can't see it. It's all ifs, buts and maybes until we see them play a large number of games, but on paper and what I've seen so far it will take an injury to stop them.

I can however see Boston beating the Cavs. They're strong in all 5 starting positions, have a deep bench, play both ends of the floor really well, have a better coach. Maybe it's my Boston bias but I have a strange feeling the Cavs will not have it so easy in the East this year. I think they'll be managing minutes with LeBron and Kyrie in particular with a view to having them rested come play offs time and that may impact their ability to have the 1 seed and home court in the East*.

An injury to anyone of the contender's starters changes everything. You don't even need to miss a game, be less than 100% and it impacts - look at Curry in the Finals.


MVP:
*It's also the reason I think LeBron won't be MVP this year as I think he won't play enough games or minutes to influence the voting enough.
Equally I think Curry's touches will be down this year as he seeks to facilitate Durant. KD could be MVP however as he'll have some big outbursts and a likely crazily efficient year (50/40/90** is on the cards again for him, as for Curry and Klay); however no-one (bar SA) manages minutes like GS so it will be interesting to see how that affects his voting. Curry in preseason was looking to pass more than shoot which says a lot about the ego and team-first mentality of the guy. I can't imagine any other superstar in the league willing to sacrifice like he appears to be doing to accommodate a new arrival.
Harden (if he plays like 2 seasons ago more than last) could win it by default with the dilution of the minutes of the others. He's likely a shoe-in for the scoring title as Houston will play like it's first to 150 wins.
I don't think Westbrook will win it as though his stats will likely be insane, OKC will be bad.

**Curry and Durant have done this. Klay almost did it last year and did it post All Star Break to season's end. With the additional spacing they will create with Durant's arrival it's on the cards for all 3, which would be insane if even 2 of them manage to do it.



Wanted to post my full predictions but haven't time, the weekend maybe.

Gregk961

ButtersSuki wrote: »

MVP:
*It's also the reason I think LeBron won't be MVP this year as I think he won't play enough games or minutes to influence the voting enough.
Equally I think Curry's touches will be down this year as he seeks to facilitate Durant. KD could be MVP however as he'll have some big outbursts and a likely crazily efficient year (50/40/90** is on the cards again for him, as for Curry and Klay); however no-one (bar SA) manages minutes like GS so it will be interesting to see how that affects his voting. Curry in preseason was looking to pass more than shoot which says a lot about the ego and team-first mentality of the guy. I can't imagine any other superstar in the league willing to sacrifice like he appears to be doing to accommodate a new arrival.
Harden (if he plays like 2 seasons ago more than last) could win it by default with the dilution of the minutes of the others. He's likely a shoe-in for the scoring title as Houston will play like it's first to 150 wins.
I don't think Westbrook will win it as though his stats will likely be insane, OKC will be be bad.

Cant see LeBron winning it, unless he actually goes out of his way to win it which would compromise his playoff hopes. Curry probably wont win 3 in a row and Durant is something of a hate figure at the moment.

I would say Its between Harden and Kwahi Leonard but id imagine San Antonio will be a far better team than the rockets so I really think Leonard had a great chance.

ButtersSuki

Gregk961 wrote: »

Cant see LeBron winning it, unless he actually goes out of his way to win it which would compromise his playoff hopes. Curry probably wont win 3 in a row and Durant is something of a hate figure at the moment.

I would say Its between Harden and Kwahi Leonard but id imagine San Antonio will be a far better team than the rockets so I really think Leonard had a great chance.

I don't see Kwahi as being enough of a "star" (in publicity terms) for the NBA MVP. As much as purists love him (and I'd include myself in that) for his play on both ends of the court, it's usually offense that wins that award. Harden could easily be a 30 and 8 guy this year. He plays no defense, but voters don't really care too much about that.

If I was starting my own team tomorrow I'd take Kwahi over Harden, but that's not the question.

The reality is LeBron, KD and Curry are better MVP candidates than either Kwahi or Harden, but I think for the reasons I gave earlier (primarily minutes based) they may not win it this year.

More often than not it goes to the best player on the best team (Harden is the best player but the Rockets will not be the best team), but neither will Kwahi. So you could argue it therefore will be LeBron or KD (I'm removing Curry as I think he'll morph into a facilitator and option 2 or 3 as required from a scoring perspective on offense). Bizarrely KD could have a much better season statistically and efficiently than his MVP season and not win it.

NufcNavan

Due to work commitments I haven't followed much of the preseason nor have caught up with the buzz of its return. I know the Pacers have looked ok going into the season but that's about it.

GoldFour4

Predictions time! If people want to use the same categories as here or add to them! Then I'll put them all into an excel sheet and we can keep track of the results at the end of the year.

See post below

GoldFour4

NBA CHAMPIONS SPURS
EASTERN CHAMPIONS CAVS
WESTERN CHAMPIONS SPURS
MOST VALUABLE PLAYER LBJ
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR KRIS DUNN
DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR LBJ
MOST IMPROVED PLAYER DEVIN BOOKER
6TH MAN OF THE YEAR BRANDON KNIGHT
COACH OF THE YEAR BRAD STEVENS
LEAGUE LEADER IN SCORING RUSSELL WESTBROOK
FIRST COACH FIRED DWAYNE CASEY
WORST OVERALL RECORD NETS
PLAYER TO SCORE THE MOST POINTS IN A GAME JAMES HARDEN

buyer95

NBA CHAMPIONS Warriors

EASTERN CHAMPIONS Cavs

WESTERN CHAMPIONS Warriors

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER LeBron James

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR Joel Embiid

DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR: : DeAndre Jordan

MOST IMPROVED PLAYER Jabari Parker

6TH MAN OF THE YEAR Brandon Jennings

COACH OF THE YEAR Tom Thibodeau

LEAGUE LEADER IN SCORING Russell Westbrook

FIRST COACH FIRED Kenny Atkinson

Comeback Player of the Year Dante Exum

WORST OVERALL RECORD Nets

PLAYER TO SCORE THE MOST POINTS IN A GAME Russell Westbrook

LuckyLloyd

NBA CHAMPIONS WARRIORS
EASTERN CHAMPIONS CAVS
WESTERN CHAMPIONS WARRIORS
MOST VALUABLE PLAYER HARDEN
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR BUDDY
DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR LEONARD
MOST IMPROVED PLAYER PORZINGIS
6TH MAN OF THE YEAR DWAYNE WADE
COACH OF THE YEAR BRAD STEVENS
LEAGUE LEADER IN SCORING RUSSELL WESTBROOK
FIRST COACH FIRED NO CLUE!
WORST OVERALL RECORD STILL THINK PHILLY SUCK
PLAYER TO SCORE THE MOST POINTS IN A GAME JAMES HARDEN

Cool thing to do. Let us NBA!!

brady23

Gonna pick some semi long shots

EASTERN CHAMPIONS Cavs

WESTERN CHAMPIONS Warriors

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER Anthony Davis

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR Dario Saric

DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR: : Michael Kidd Gilchrist

MOST IMPROVED PLAYER jEREMY Lin

6TH MAN OF THE YEAR Kenneth Faried

COACH OF THE YEAR Tom Thibodeau

LEAGUE LEADER IN SCORING Russell Westbrook

FIRST COACH FIRED Fred Hoiberg

Comeback Player of the Year Michael Beasley

WORST OVERALL RECORD 76ERS

PLAYER TO SCORE THE MOST POINTS IN A GAME Russell Westbrook

ButtersSuki

NBA CHAMPIONS GSW
EASTERN CHAMPIONS BOSTON (prob Cavs but f*ck it, to be different!)
WESTERN CHAMPIONS GSW
MOST VALUABLE PLAYER DURANT
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR JOEL EMBIID (for the craic)
DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR KWAHI
MOST IMPROVED PLAYER D'ANGELO RUSSELL
6TH MAN OF THE YEAR IGUADOLA
COACH OF THE YEAR BRAD STEVENS
LEAGUE LEADER IN SCORING HARDEN
FIRST COACH FIRED BRETT BROWN
WORST OVERALL RECORD NETS
PLAYER TO SCORE THE MOST POINTS IN A GAME HARDEN


Another interesting(ish) stat I found out via a podcast today......

Memphis (driven by an insane injury list) played an all time league record 28 different players last year. Considering they still made the playoffs that's some achievement.

brady23

Lebron flirting with a triple double only 16 minutes played so far. Outside of a few turnovers Rose looks pretty decent but I think the fear of Porzingis being the one to suffer looks very possible

Finished off watching this game and Porzingis just looked like the third option, pick and pop stuff, give it to him with 6 seconds left if Melo or D.Rose can't get theirs.
Rose, like I said looked decent first half, a few nice baskets with a semi blow by for a floater or tough lay up, seemed to struggle in second half though. Trying the same shots but 2 bricks, an airball and just not getting to his spots. Jumper doesn't look any better. I always thought it looked semi awkward no real flow.
Noah's defensive positioning was great, a couole of charges and forced TO but that was about it

Carcharodon

Warriors blown out and Iam actually happy about it, I think they need to struggle a little, find their groove and hopefully click for playoffs rather than setting records and stumbling through playoffs and choking in finals.

Long term concerns are lack of rebounding, it's going to be a problem on both sides of the floor, bogut not being there is evident but Iam sure they will adapt. Durant looked pretty good, the team played pretty poorly though, Spurs are the Spurs, best coached team in NBA.

LuckyLloyd

brady23 wrote: »

Lebron flirting with a triple double only 16 minutes played so far. Outside of a few turnovers Rose looks pretty decent but I think the fear of Porzingis being the one to suffer looks very possible

The King with 14 assists as part of a triple double to start the season.

The Knicks managed a 15 - 2 run at one point in the second quarter and it was tight at half time. They just had no answer for the Cavs in the second half. Porzingis still got his last night a little bit but not having Rose for preseason showed - they have kinks to work through.

Golden State getting walloped was fun. Great to be back!

LuckyLloyd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRkjQupb9UE

GoldFour4

Watched the highlights of Spurs @ GSW on the way to work this morning. Kawhi was sensational - he'll be well in the running for MVP if he can keep up that sort of performance.

Kal El

NBA CHAMPIONS: GSW
EASTERN CHAMPIONS: Raptors
WESTERN CHAMPIONS: GSW
MOST VALUABLE PLAYER: Carmelo :pac: or Westbrook
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Brandon Ingram
DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Leonard
MOST IMPROVED PLAYER: KP can see the big man taking a massive step
6TH MAN OF THE YEAR: Kanter(Although I think they will trade him)
COACH OF THE YEAR: BRAD STEVENS
LEAGUE LEADER IN SCORING: Westbrook
FIRST COACH FIRED: Alvin Gentry
WORST OVERALL RECORD: NETS
PLAYER TO SCORE THE MOST POINTS IN A GAME: Westbrook

K.O.Kiki

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRkjQupb9UE

If he had taken out Steph Curry's foot in Game 1... fuuuuuuu

ButtersSuki

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

If he had taken out Steph Curry's foot in Game 1... fuuuuuuu

Thought the same thing when I saw it first.

brady23

I think I'm going to watch the Twolves and then the Lakers primiarly today but definitely switch across to the Bucks game too.
I really would like to see Ricky Rubio improve from an offensive point of view. I think he's an elite defender, one of the best defensive PG's in the league but doesn't get as much credit as he deserves because of his offensive shortcomings.
He ranked 2nd in DRPM among PGs and 5th in overall RPM that's better than Lillard, Wall, Irving, Conley etc and all the guys above him are All-Stars/MVP candidates. He ranks 15th in PER but his usage is way lower than all those above him except one.
I think finding a semi reliable jumper and finishing better at the rim would make a huge difference to his game but I just wonder will Thibs even be bothered to try and make him a better scorer or will he just continue on the same road and let Towns, Wiggins etc flourish offensively

mixery

NBA CHAMPIONS: Spurs
EASTERN CHAMPIONS: Cavaliers
WESTERN CHAMPIONS: Spurs
MOST VALUABLE PLAYER: Harden
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Buddy Hield
DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Kawhi (y'all need to learn how to spell his name correctly)
MOST IMPROVED PLAYER: Devin Booker
6TH MAN OF THE YEAR: Crawford
COACH OF THE YEAR: Stevens
LEAGUE LEADER IN SCORING: Harden
FIRST COACH FIRED: Brett Brown
WORST OVERALL RECORD: 76ers
PLAYER TO SCORE THE MOST POINTS IN A GAME: Lillard

buyer95

Few people have picked the 76ers to have the worst record, and Brown to be fired first. Honestly can see neither of those things hapenning. The league forced Philly's hand to get serious about putting together a credible team and hoisted Bryan Colangelo on them as GM. They will be a lot better than the last few years. Look for them to trade a guard at some stage, adding Saric and Embiid to an already packed front court makes that almost a cert.

This team has talent though, and Brett can coach. Obviously not playoff talent, but they are going to try and win this year. Wouldn't be surprised to see them sniff 30 wins.

ButtersSuki

buyer95 wrote: »

Few people have picked the 76ers to have the worst record, and Brown to be fired first. Honestly can see neither of those things hapenning. The league forced Philly's hand to get serious about putting together a credible team and hoisted Bryan Colangelo on them as GM. They will be a lot better than the last few years. Look for them to trade a guard at some stage, adding Saric and Embiid to an already packed front court makes that almost a cert.

This team has talent though, and Brett can coach. Obviously not playoff talent, but they are going to try and win this year. Wouldn't be surprised to see them sniff 30 wins.

I see your logic and if Simmons was fit I'd agree fully. However, now that he's out half the season at least the odds are they'll sit him for the year and tank again. As for Brett, he wasn't Colangelo's appointment so that I think makes him hugely vulnerable.

Kal El

buyer95 wrote: »

Few people have picked the 76ers to have the worst record, and Brown to be fired first. Honestly can see neither of those things hapenning. The league forced Philly's hand to get serious about putting together a credible team and hoisted Bryan Colangelo on them as GM. They will be a lot better than the last few years. Look for them to trade a guard at some stage, adding Saric and Embiid to an already packed front court makes that almost a cert.

This team has talent though, and Brett can coach. Obviously not playoff talent, but they are going to try and win this year. Wouldn't be surprised to see them sniff 30 wins.

I can see them going for Rubio, maybe trading Noel. Wolves pretty stacked at pg, I think KAT and Noel would suit old Tom.

ButtersSuki

Anthony Davis looks like he's recovered from his injury....

Carcharodon

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Anthony Davis looks like he's recovered from his injury....

Unbelievable, hopefully he stays injury free, he could be a future hall of famer. Saw him play two years ago, he is extremely talented and nearly unstoppable when on form