David

weird...i am never this confident or doubtful in the moment...especially for extra inning games. just nervous as [expletive]. I think its more the mindset changes. When they were winning, they'd get 2 on and 0 outs and you're thinking 'ok how many runs can they score this inning..2? 3?. Now it seems like you are thinking 'which one of these [expletive] is going to strike out and which is going to hit into the DP?' yeah i'm not really like that at all. just optimistic if the situation is good and pessimistic if it's bad.

i didn't even remember that. wow.

yeah i honestly had no idea what the horsefeathers he was talking about at first either nor would i have made the reference since i don't think i've watched more than 5 minutes of south park in total in my life.

i figured he just didn't think it was deserved

weird...i am never this confident or doubtful in the moment...especially for extra inning games. just nervous as horsefeathers.

16-18 in their last 34. Even worse. This isn't a 15 game thing. 16-18 with a 4-11 stretch means they were 12-7 (a 102 win pace) prior to the 15 game stretch, in your larger sample. I honestly had the most involuntarily confused look on my face when I read that, wondering if someone could actually think that made sense or if it was sarcasm (except IIRC that poster is one of the rondon fan/ski school of chicken little).

Pretty glad I went to sleep when it was still 2-0 in the 7th or something.

Something I didn't notice last year...after coming back from his surgery, Niko shot 44.5% from 3 on 137 attempts...which is 6.3 (!!) per game. that many attempts would've been good for top 15 in the league in a full season for reference, curry shot 45.4% on 11 attempts per game (holy crap)

the whole notion of a "plan" outside of "let's make sure we have cap space when good guys are available" is silly anyway

it's crazy as hell to me that it's been almost as long since that 2010 offseason as it was between the 2003 draft class and 2010 free agency. time horsefeathering flies.

wade has a lot of pull around the league and can be a significant factor in giving us more than a puncher's chance at one of the big FA in 2017, along with having jimmy butler to play alongside. there's not much more you can do than that and hope you get one of the big dudes to sign on the dotted line.

but basketball isn't anything like baseball where hendry really failed was in not having any sort of organizational structure, throwing player development to the wayside, and he didn't look for the right attributes in good players...it's hard to even compare any of that to basketball. the stuff the cubs under hendry (and prior) were really bad at was producing talent from within and that doesn't even really exist in any sort of similar way in basketball. hendry didn't suck because he signed free agents. and "fit" (and this is more a point in your favor regarding this conversation) isn't any sort of issue in baseball. it's just too different to even try to compare how teams should be run and how they should be built and what the goals for a team should be. in baseball, to try to be a champion, you just have to be good enough to be in the top 30% or so that has a shot at the playoffs and so you can just try to be as good as possible and you can give yourself a shot fairly easily. in basketball, if you actually want to win championships, you have to try all sorts of crap to be one of the best 2-3 teams in the league (conversely, your odds of actually winning a title are much higher if you are one of those top 2-3 teams as compared to baseball)... or you can choose to just be competitive and entertaining until you get lucky...and really, in either case, whether you try or not, you have to be really really lucky to be one of those teams.

this is just let's see how good and entertaining we can be throwing some good players together while we wait for free agents and cap flexibility. it's as good an approach as any. That's the main thinking I disagree with; this feels more like just chucking [expletive] at the wall and see what sticks. You gotta at least make an effort to try and construct a team/coach situation that has a real chance of gelling or works as a reaction to how the game is played today. This seems to be flying completely in the face of both of that. i just don't see how they could have constructed a better team than this one for the short term given what the circumstances and opportunities are. get talent first then worry about fit. it's not like this is the team for the long haul, anyway.

this is just let's see how good and entertaining we can be throwing some good players together while we wait for free agents and cap flexibility. it's as good an approach as any.

we actually did get younger and more athletic too though

Your last sentence confuses me. Have you seen his walk rate this year? How many do you think he should be taking? That surprises me. I must miss his walks, he seems to walk at about the same rate as Baez, I hadn't looked at the numbers though so I believe you. Iv'e watched most games this year, although to be honest Iv'e been turning a lot off games of early lately.. I don't know how Iv'e missed it. How's his strikeout rate? 11% walk rate 25% strikeout rate

no mention of mike conley?

Philly is an extreme tanking example, but who knows they have a ton of young talent and assets because of it. Noel, Embiid, Okafor, Simmons, Saric, Kings pick swap in 2017, Lakers 2017 pick (top 3 protected or else unprotected in 2018), Kings 2019 pick (unprotected) All very nice assets to varying degrees and they are way under the cap still. A decent front office could have that team into a legit contender in 2 years IMO. That said was it worth almost destroying the franchise and turning into a laughing stock for 4 years? I don't know we will see. a legit contender to lose to the cavs at best (unless lebron bolts)

Butters is exactly what is needed to fix this thing. That and the Braves. Let's win.

the only time i advocate sucking out loud on purpose is when there is a peyton, lebron, luck (yeah he's been iffy but as a draft prospect he was in that class iirc), shaq, etc. type talent...as far as baseball, it's got a whole other bunch of factors that make the argument entirely different like the years of development still required when drafted and the impact on draft budget, etc. i'm still not sure if it's generally prudent either way but it obviously worked out for us (both in draft picks and the dudes we were able to get as a result of sucking and not caring what happened those season).

i seriously love how you like to give everyone crap but get so rankled and defensive when you get made fun of.

so those are really bad takes :dontknow: like really, really bad...like butler being overly expensive is the opposite of true. it is so wrong that it makes me think your opinions on this are about as meaningful as your opinions on baseball players (i'm sorta kidding)

You also think Butler is "really damn expensive" and were cool with trading him for that Minnesota package, soooo....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1hBd7EkNPg