[SlickBouncePassParticipant]

 I know bad joke…

If there is one thing I never liked about the NBA, its the preferential treatment stars get when they COMMIT fouls.

I understand a star getting a call when some lesser player commits it because you have to protect your assets, but I HATE when "stars", especailly when they are getting destroyed, feel they can throw hard fouls and get away with it.

The OKC Thunder stink.  Carmelo is my least favorite player in the NBA.  I’m glad the TNT guys today said great players increase their production in the playoffs, meanwhile Carmelo, on a team with a horrible bench, is still putting up average numbers with a horrible shot percentage.  These OKC guys are hopeless, Billy Donovan should get fired due to his failure to do anything different than Scott Brooks or implement a system of team basketball.  

Utah is a much better coached team.  Their teammates like playing with each other.  OKC can’t figure out how to play, and I think Carmelo is the biggest cancer because, how do you get an iso ball scorer touches and expect to play like a team, especially when the guy never looks to make a pass or create for others, refuses to accept a bench role (terrible leadership), and oh btw, his shot selection sucks!  

Shooting is at a premium in this league and its embarassing how many playoff teams have guys that can’t shoot.  I think Carmelo takes up a roster spot that another player (I’d take Ryan Anderson over Carmelo every day of the year).  You have Russell Westbrook one of the best slashers in the game, and you have Steven Adams a very good big man/ rebounder.  They compliment each other.  You don’t need Kevin Durant for this to wokr.  You damn sure don’t need Carmelo Anthony.  You don’t need Paul George or Victor Oladipo.  Maybe if they want to come off the bench when Westbrook sits sure…Oladipo would be nice.

But we’ve seen this before with Westbrook.  OKC needs shooters and good defenders.  NOT RAYMOND FELTON!!!!  Raymond Felton and Carmelo Anthony smdh.  Add JR Smith and Iman Shumpert to Felton and Carmelo…and you get basketball cancer.  Oh yeah that existed on the Knicks.

So treat Westbrook like Iverson.  Getting Chris Webber, Keith Van Horn, the Villanova guy, anyone that needs the ball besides Iverson/Westrbook is unproductive.  OKC needs to get smart and just surround Westbrook like Houston has done with Harden, get shooters!  Westbrook and Adams, go overpay Korver, go overpay Danny Green, DO NOT pay FELTON, DO NOT pay GRANT.  

 

Go get yourself a Tryone Hill, a Marreese Speights, an Eric Snow, unsung guys, a George Lynch, solid defenders, guys that can’t create a shot but can knock down a shot.  You don’t need to be a "star"…. esepcially not someone with an ego like Carmelo Anthony, to be a guy happy to get easy buckets from Westbrook and prolong his career while he plays good defense.  

 

Its Westbrook, Adams, and 3 3-and-D guys.  How good would Robert Covington look playing with OKC instead of Carmelo.  I like Masai Ujuri but going for names like Carmelo was a big mistake.  

Is Carmelo even a hall of famer, I sure hope not.  Since he’s come to the Knicks and now OKC, he hasn’t done anything or won anything.  His glory days were his first few years with Denver.  Its been a really long time since he’s been a good player and I just don’t get the star treatment.

I hate that he has been an extremely dirty player against lesser teams, a bully, and the referees allow him to get away with it even thoguh he is NOT a star.  Lebron does NOT bully other players.  

If I was Paul George I’d get as far away from Carmelo as I could, and I’d realize that "me and Russ" can’t work, because Russ needs to channel his inner Iverson and live and die by the way he plays basketball because, Russ is not John Stockton.

Russ, is also not Iverson.  Iverson was playing 45 minutes a night int eh playoffs in 2001, and Westbrook plays around 34.  

But anyway Russ will never win a championship in the NBA.  Russ can’t be going around hard fouling guys that are beating his behind by 20 plus points.  Carmelo is an old sack of crap.  Paul George needs to get out of Dodge.  

I’ll leave Carmelo alone bcause I think he’s a really good player, but he’s also not a killer and doesn’t raise his and his team’s game when it matters.  He plays great, but he does’t have that presence where everyone is better.  OKC, tehy just take turns watching each other.  Man its frustrating!

 

[SlickBouncePassParticipant]

 that last line i meant to say Paul George I’ll leave alone, not Carmelo.  Carmelo is a goon that sucks at basketball and thinks he is Jordan.  

[r377Participant]

 They have the ultimate cancer in Melo and his contract, also have the ultimate stat padder in Westbrook..

 

I hope utah can put them away

 

 

[weballin.netParticipant]

what the Thunder needs is a rising four who defends, doesn’t need the ball much and can shoot from outside.

 Melo has to be one of the most overrated ever. Of course, he was an incredible offensive weapon but has never been a solid defender and cared more about his stats than winning. He has been in the second round or more only twice in his career and has not played the playoffs the last five years.

weballin.net

 

 

[halfdecayedParticipant]

 I’ve said it and Melo has been washed for the last 3-4 years IMO while analysts like Stephen A Smith still raved about him.. Not sure where PG13 will land now

[LOFTYParticipant]

 I’d say he should go play with Utah but I think Joe Ingles ruin that one haha

[Miko4rm206Participant]

 When I heard okc had a chance to get Carmelo I was all for it. Cracking Jokes like Presti for President and really thought they had a chance to get to the western conference finals…. 

Now…

 

I wish we would have signed Rudy gay or better yet kept Kanter and McDermott. Steven Adams is the only solid big man on the roster. And although Kanter sucked on D like melo  he was a bigger body, more efficient on offense and younger. Theres no doubt in my mind he would have helped offensively against rudy 

 

 

 

[RUDEBOY-Participant]

 To make matters Worse for OKC the nba is reviewing to see if Westbrook should be Suspended for Game 5 !!

[Miko4rm206Participant]

 Im not sure which 4th seed is doing a worst job of game planning, rotations and lineups. It’s like Ty Lue and Billy D are scared to coah and win b/c they are playing favortism or scared of the backlash of their star players.

With okc it’s just like this. Since roberson went down you experiment with the lineup. Not with Abrines, Ferguson and Corey.

You tell PG13 your moving back to the 2 like Danny Granger days. You insert Patrick Patterson and you move melo back to the 3.  You Tell him to try on D and don’t give up the 3. Or you are coming off the bench like wade or Ginobili. Your not the same player. It’s not everyday you go up Against KD or Derozen where they can kill you midrang. This is Joe Ingles for Christ sakes.

Your only other bigs are collinson and Johnson not exactly ideal. But you should have been trying to bring Jared Sullinger Back from across  Seas. Hell I would have been blowing up Mitch Mcgarys or Perry Jones phone. 

 

 

 

[Memphis MadnessParticipant]

 Is this the most fun/cool team in Utah Jazz history?

I would LOVE a New Orleans-Jazz WCF!

 

 

[whiteflashParticipant]

 As bad as OKC has looked, think we need to focus more on how well Utah has played. EVERYONE expected them to stumble badly after Hayward left, and NO ONE saw Mitchell coming, but they’ve played out of their minds, and Mitchell has looked like the best player on the floor and is making a strong case for co-ROY  at the least. Also, Snyder and his staff are completely outcoaching Donovan and his. Even if OKC somehow comes back and wins this thing, the Jazz need to be applauded for what they’ve done this year. 

[SlickBouncePassParticipant]

and I’m a philly fan…

but its really impressive the way Mitchell has kept up.  

Ben’s team is up 3-1, so is Utah.  Utah was vying for 3rd seed in the West, so was Philly.

They both do it different ways, and Ben has a glaring weakness that you can’t discredit Mitchell for having.

I, as a Philly fan and watching Ben Simmons night in and out, would not be disappointed if they were co-MVPs.  Their playoff runs have justified it.  

 

 

 

 

  

[mowestenParticipant]

 

 

This OKC team is trash. They have three guys who just want to play one-on-one, a Paul Bunyan wanna-be, a fat Felton, a collection of basketball hacks, and somehow Nick Collison, who has stole more NBA paychecks than any player in the league since Jack Haley was hired to be Dennis Rodman’s baby sitter.

 

You can blame the coach all you want, but guys are who they are and a new coach is not going to change them. They are ball stoppers, and you can’t win in the NBA playing my turn, your turn basketball. That’s all these guys are really capable of .. PG is at least somewhat good at it and a little more efficient. But basketball is at its best when the ball moves quickly, crisply and players move without it.

 

Watch OKC play and tell me how many times Carmello, Westbook or PG move off the ballh other than to race to the ball to get it away from whoever else has it. Those guys don’t want to move off the ball. They are good, somewhat, if they have the ball in their hands, otherwise, they’re standing around waiting for someone to give it back to them. 

 

Westbrook plays exceptionally hard and he has some things to offer that I like, but he needs to be surrounded with shooters and guys who don’t need the ball. You can’t place him on a team with other guys who want to stop the ball. He is in some ways similar to Allen Iverson. It’s no accident that the best team Iverson ever played on surrounded him with role players, defenders and shooters, not other guys who needed, or even wanted, the ball. Until OKC figures that out, they’ll continue to flounder about.

 

[whiteflashParticipant]

 That’s part of coaching, my man. Ego management, getting players to buy into the system and having them trust each other are a huge part of a pro coaches job. That’s why someone like Phil Jackson was so successful. Several coaches had his personnel, but Jackson got ’em to play together. OKC is a considerably better team on paper, but Utah is playing as a team, and Snyder is outcoaching Donovan. 

Also want to point out that Mitchell has done things this series that only Jordan and Abdul-Jabbar have done as a rookie, and last night he had the most points without a turnover for a rookie in NBA history. For a dude who handles the ball as often as he does, and playing who he’s playing, that’s unbelievably impressive. 

 

 

[SlickBouncePassParticipant]

 I’m pretty sure bringing Carmelo to the Cavs was being discussed, maybe for Kevin Love at the time.  

And I remember Lebron saying "this isn’t fantasy basketball we are trying to build a team".

It didn’t get much lift, but I distinctly remember that as a shot towards the way Carmelo plays the game.

Lebron is one of the best basketball minds ever, and he’s been through press conferences laughing with D Wade (another of the smartest basketball palyers ever), when asked "how do you plan to stop the Spurs".  I remember their chuckle, and I was thinking what they were probably thinking, that there is no way to stop that no matter how great two individual basketball players are.  The way the Spurs played that year, the ball movement the draining of shots, there was nothing you could do.

Like we’ve said, Carmelo is the cancer to that, and Lebron is smart enoguh to realize it and also to realize the best way to play the game is to respect the pass.  Carmelo has no respect for the pass.

Now regarding Stephen A Smith talking him up…I think Stephen A knows the guy is a really good scorer, or WAS rather.  Now he is hot garbage.  I was really happy when Charles Barkley said "ask me who a star is I’ll tell you", because people have the Thunder trio listed as stars and none of them frankly are.

The best players take their games to another level in big spots, give that extra effort.  These Thunder don’t got it.  Besides Westbrook, and he obviously is a guy you live and die by, he fills the seats, but I’d consider trading him depending on what I got back.  

 

[r377Participant]

 I was never that high on Terrance Ferguson. They took him over Jarrett Allen and also Josh Hart.

I was quite high on Josh Hart, he was an upperclassman and would of made more of a difference for a contending OKC, rather than taking a raw Ferguson

http://www.nbadraft.net/forum/josh-hart-vill

 

 

[ChoppyParticipant]

 Ferguson has shown flashes of the 3 and D player he’ll become. Too early to say whether Hart will be/is better. 

[cominup7Participant]

Definitely agree with the Westbrook/Iverson comparisons…they’re both two of the most ball dominant (and talented) guards the league has ever seen. It’s entirely possible for a contender to be built around Westbrook, but you have to go all in on building around him. You can’t go the superteam route and think Westbrook is going to change his game at this point.

Shooters, 3-D’s and grinder big men are all you need. Avery Bradley, R. Hood, KCP, Montrezl Harrell and wilson chandler all come to mind as great fits

[r377Participant]

 Can we please all now agree that the Terrance Ferguson pick was horrible ?  Taking him over Jarrett Allen and Josh Hart.

[Author]

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