NBA 23/24:season

It will make for an interesting off-season for basketball fans to see how it will be dismantled. Shams already has a piece out about how unhappy Durant is with his role in the team so that may progress into a trade demand, Beal has either been injured or out of sorts and Booker is their only real massive trade piece to bring in a huge haul to reboot.

Enjoyed watching Kyrie last night, on form he's a pleasure. Luka looks very tired.

I don't think running it back with the Suns will change anything. Beal has the No Trade Clause and the remainder of the team outside Booker just isn't good enough. I mean Nurkic at centre was never going to work against the better teams. If he does push for a move then the real redemption arc is with OKC and leading the young core to a title. Now whether OKC want to gamble upsetting that project by inserting Durant into it, is another story (as good as he is, Shai's usage etc. would plummet).

The history books will show he his two titles and numerous other accolades but in a sport riddled with narrative, his isn't kind.

The reality of the new CBA probably means none of LeBron / Durant / Steph will be able to keep taking the super max values and win a title, as they all need more help than can be afforded around those numbers at this point.

That’s no LeBron, KD or Steph in the second round for the first time since 2005.

Porzingis had a very good year injury wise. But they did limit him and Horford. He was questionable last night, but played and got injured. Hopefully it's not too bad, and the Celtics wrap it up next game, and the cavs magic goes to 7 games. Give him some time to recover.

Well he did nothing offensively after the injury, but maybe that’s just AD disappearing late as he can be prone to doing…

As noted last week, Miami just had a lucky shooting night

I really can't stand Pat Bev, none of this "he plays hard" shít he's just extremely dirty and sly.

EDIT: That video doesn't even show the worst of it^ He throws the ball twice due to hitting the wrong person with the first throw!

Wow, that clip of him with the reporter was absolute cringe, Jesus.

Jimmy looks a bit done this year tbh

I’d strongly disagree there. Spent most of the year playing the wrong lineup; and his in game adjustments and decisions during the playoffs left a lot to be desired. Athletic article last week basically said everyone respected him, nice guy, but does little or no actual coaching.

Try me, I watched nearly all of the Laker’s games this year. Ham is woeful, and he won’t do anything anywhere else [like all LeBron’s coaches who have won precisely zero titles without him (I think Spo is decent, as the exception that proves the rule)].

I can say Ham’s lineups made no sense, his timeout management was poor and the players are leaking to the media he did zero coaching. What’s the counter argument here for him to he retained?

He had a 47 win team with a 47.5 game o/u that finished the season 19 - 6 when he leaned into the starting rotation that had been paid for.

In two successive series against Denver he was constantly found wanting on coaching adjustments and clock management. But the team were leading for 80% of the minutes in the series. It’s entirely reasonable to lay blame with the coach in this context.

Having watched Ham for two years I am very confident he will never coach a title winning team. So what is there to talk about? It’s the Lakers, expectations are high.

Lebron and AD are not stars?

Scraping into the playoffs seems a poor return for two guys that won a ring a few years ago

Have to agree that some of Ham’s lineups had me scratching my head at times

Like you're largely out on your own here really, there are no Lakers beat writers mourning Darvin Ham. You can't have watched those two series versus the Nuggets and think Harvin coached well