Real Deal

Stotts is by no means a championship-caliber coach, in my opinion, but he has had seven seasons over .500 with Portland (of the nine he has coached), so that accounts for something if you're looking for a job. Teams like the Magic and Pistons could look his way, being in the gutter and needing someone new, or maybe even the Hornets, Pacers or Pelicans...teams that are one coach away from being a decent playoff team. Would I have kept Stotts? Yes, for now. Instead, I'm working on who I'm trading to bring in that star player Lillard needs in order to get over the hump. McCollum isn't that guy, and I'm going to do whatever it takes to keep Lillard happy, because right now, you have him locked up until his $54 million PO in the summer of 2024, but we know the leverage star players have in the league these days. Since Stotts is gone, I would like to see a defensive-minded coach come in and have a say in who they acquire via trade or free agency. If they are looking outside of the organization, you have guys like Chauncey Billups and Jason Kidd probably waiting for a head coaching job. JVG is supposedly looking to get back into coaching. Because Portland is a high-octane offensive team, they'll probably look at Mike D'Antoni. He's had a few good things to say about Lillard in the past, so he'd probably love to coach him. Other than that, I don't know. Maybe Sam Cassell? I think all of those names could push the team into the top 4 seeding, but it's going to take a few adjustments to the roster in order to really be a threat to teams like the Nets, Bucks, Lakers, Suns, etc. If it's up to me, I'm taking Jeff Van Gundy. He's got the experience, he's a winner, and he can coach both sides of the ball. I'm not taking a risk by signing a first-year NBA coach and putting myself in a position to have to deal a disgruntled, exhausted Lillard next summer.

One championship, first season together. Second season filled with injuries. LeBron doesn't have many more years in his back pocket, and who knows how patient the Lakers' front office will be with AD as his absences pile up. Will the LeBron and AD duo win another ring? Will they split up? What's in store for the two superstars over the next 1-3 years?

Yeah, I would say we could still have 1-2 years left where LeBron is in the Finals, just depends on Anthony Davis and/or what the Lakers do with a guy like Kuzma, who probably just needs relocated. Plus, they could still wiggle talent away from other teams in free agency. As far as Golden State goes, they'll make it back. You haven't seen the last of Curry, and even if he doesn't stay (he should), he seems like the type of player to go find another talented, good team to contend with. I don't see him headed to a bottom-feeder, especially after what he had to do this season. But yes, it's going to be awesome watching other teams get there, even though I'm a Lakers fan. I'm an NBA fan first and foremost. Guys like Luka Doncic and Ja Morant (two of my favorites right now), Booker, Jokic, Mitchell, Young, Tatum...it'll also be interesting with how much the league has changed. Fun times ahead.

No wonder why I was talking to myself, lol. Try it now. Sorry guys. These are the type of troubleshooting posts I need, if you find anything else.

All eyes on him. That spotlight gets pretty big in the postseason, especially when it's your first time AND you're getting MVP chants at MSG.

I should've added him. I absolutely hated it when the Lakers didn't want to pay him, because he grew up a huge fan of the Lakers and Kobe, and you could tell he was going to be a workhorse, but whatever. I'm glad to see him playing so well (minus this playoff run, smh).

So we no longer have either of those players, and we never did get PG. Randle is now an all-star, and Clarkson is the best sixth man in the league. D-Lo ended up averaging 21/7, but he's been passed around from team to team (Nets, Warriors, Wolves) since the trade. And the pick we landed was Kyle Kuzma, who I wish we had traded instead of Ingram. Oh well. It's fun looking back at these older posts, haha.

Wizards found a way to get one game, and now, Joel Embiid is hurt. Game 5 is in Philly, and I wonder if they can find a way to close it out without Joel. I do have confidence they'll win the series, but not much more after that.

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/31553654/duke-blue-devils-coach-mike-krzyzewski-plans-leave-season-leave-next-season-sources-say

Won't lie...in my opinion, this is it for the Sixers. Even if he does try and play through it, which would be a mistake, I don't think they'll beat the Hawks in the second round. Embiid gives them so much of an advantage over all the teams in the league, both offensively and defensively, and he allows his teammates to save energy on both ends of the floor. Huge loss.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/31553588/philadelphia-76ers-joel-embiid-meniscus-tear-right-knee-game-5

Good to see you guys here. And to think, you two could've been in here debating over who'd advance to the ECF's between your favorite teams...but Trae. At least the Knicks are breathing again, instead of the franchise resting in its death bed, lol. And Philly is back! You know, jokes aside, if you two and BFT would post a couple times a day, that would be 6 posts + my 50, making nearly 1700 a month. Not bad. Maybe others will see our activity and join. OMG.

Well, the Bucks sweep the Heat. Of course, the Bucks improved a bit on the offensive end, but they were the best defensive team in the NBA last season, 10th this year. And we are talking about a Heat squad that went to the Finals and gave the Lakers two losses.

CP3 is looking healthy, and AD can't stay on the floor. Now that it's 2-2 and we're headed back to Arizona, I'm wondering if the Lakers have a chance, but with LeBron, you always do. Unfortunately, I think LBJ is giving up on us this season. Our last 3rd QTR, Bron had just 3 points on just 1/3 shootiiiiiiiiin. Not good enough, says JVG. Just put your head down and drive, Bron. Instead, Bron seemed disinterested, walking around like a role player, taking a couple of shots, not calling for the ball much. NOT WANTING TO SCORE WHEN AD IS OUT FOR THE GAME. At the half, it was 54-50, Suns. At the end of the third? Phoenix found themselves up 16, and even a small Lakers run couldn't get them back into the game. Not to mention, the game is getting a little, um...chippy, maybe....and LeBron would rather not have to play in those kind of games. My problem is, LBJ is averaging just 21.8 PPG, and he's shooting under 50% and 59% FT. Where is the LeBron from the regular season, who averaged 25 and would have games of 46, 38 and 37? Not looking good for the Lakeshow.

Luka is hurt, and it showed in Game 4. If he stays hurt, series over. If he's not putting up 30/10/10, the Mavericks lose the game. It's that simple.

Well, it's tied 2-2, and Portland actually has a chance to win the series here. It's Joker vs. Lillard, and it all comes down to who has the better teammates. Lillard has McCollum and Powell. The Joker has...Porter Jr? He's providing Denver with just 15/6 as basically the second option. In Game 4, Jokic struggled shooting the ball (under 40%), and scored 16. Nobody else scored over 12. Porter Jr had just three. Meanwhile, Lillard shot just 1/10 for 10 points, but Powell had 29, McCollum 21, Nurkic 17, and Melo scored 12 off the bench. Portland just has a lot of firepower. Will that win them the series? I'm starting to think so.

Not sure how many people know this, but Gobert has hit 20/23 total shots in this series (87% FG), to average 15.7 PPG. He's grabbing nearly as many boards (14.0 RPG). Meanwhile, Ja Morant is showing me why he is my favorite player (with Luka).Fearless? Yes. Ja is giving the Jazz a headache with 34/4/6 on 51% FG. He can stay away from the 3PT line until he gets more practice in, but feel free to continue attacking the rim and hitting those pretty floaters! Not to get too excited, though, because Utah is looking like a 1 seed now, and Mitchell and Conley are back and playing great. Utah should cruise the rest of the way.

Well, I got 33 from Beal, with one game to go. Russ gave me 26/12/10 in Game 3. None of that resulted in wins. Game 4 is coming up, and I have a gut feeling the Sixers are going to close it out. Last two games: losses, by 25 and 29.

Thanks to Tatum and his 50, Boston was able to pull out a win. Now they are down 3-1, and it's not looking good headed back to Brooklyn. When you have Durant (42), Irving (39), and Harden (23) scoring a total of 104 points (tying a record for trio points in the playoffs), you're not worried about shit.

Sweep. The Heat played like they used to in the Rony Seikaly days. Not much to say. Giannis averaged 24/15/8. No big deal. Jimmy Butler shot 27% and averaged just under 15 PPG. Really? This was his chance to knock out the Bucks for a second consecutive time. Bad series. First game was awesome, and the other three were blowouts.

Well, I was wrong all over the place. I can't believe how Randle has been playing. He's a completely different animal in the playoffs... 16.8 PPG on 27% FG (wut), 11.3 RPG, 4.3 APG Forget him scoring 17 a night (which isn't much, anyway). Him shooting 27% from the floor is ridiculous. He's 20/73 from the floor. That means he takes over 18 shots a night, makes just five. Meanwhile, Derrick Rose is trying to drag the Knicks to a victory. He's putting up 23/4/5 on 51% FG, 50% 3PT. I'd say he really hasn't had a terrible game yet. And...he's playing better defense! It's just that nobody is defending Trae Young, that cocky SOB, lol.

FYI - they just moved him into the starting five for Game 3. Of course, Atlanta won the game, but Rose had another really good outing, putting up 30/6/5 on 13/21 shooting, 3/5 from downtown. Career reincarnated!

I can play devil's advocate, like I always seem to do. Orlando has nothing right now. They dealt their two best players in Vučević and Gordon. I can't think of a single player on their team that is worth keeping. So, we know what they could get from Isaac: he averaged 1.6 STL and 2.3 BLK in under 30 minutes of play, gave them excellent defensive effort, and he wasn't a bad scorer. Orlando picked him up probably because he reminded them of Rashard Lewis. Will he ever be as good as Shard? Who knows, but the potential was there pre-injury. Hell, he even drew comparisons to Kevin Durant. I mean...

I put up OTR back in 2005 because I had just left a place called JBB (JustBBall), and at the time, they were the largest basketball message board outside of RealGM (I think...can't remember if they had theirs going yet). Anyway, a large crowd followed me, and by large, I'm talking maybe 50+ members. They were posting every single day, and we started off hot. Guests were browsing, saw the activity, and wanted in. Fast-forward to the later years. Same thing. Our activity was pretty good when you registered, IIRC. We continued to have new members, but we slowly saw a decline in activity. Twitter hurt us, and as it grew, we started to shrink. More of us were on our phones, and message boards weren't so user-friendly on phones. They are better now, the site is easy to navigate on a phone, but it's a little too late. Outside of just having activity here, I don't know what else we can do. I was hoping we'd get at least 10 of our old members in here, because that's enough to lure others in, but it doesn't look like it'll happen. Thank you for logging in and contributing, though. I don't expect anyone to do that, and I wouldn't look down on anyone that didn't. I'm just hard-headed and won't give up easily, lol. And I really, really, really want a place to talk basketball. Twitter is okay, but I get nothing from tweeting how I feel about a player, team, game, etc.

Collins would be good. He's coming off his rookie deal, so he'll be a free agent this summer. I don't think Portland could offer anything in a sign-and-trade, though, because what they have in value (ex. McCollum) is covered by Trae Young, and Collins is perfect for them. Powell, Covington...the Hawks would probably take one over Huerter, but that's not enough to pry Collins away from them. I wish Kawhi had interest in going to Portland, because I think he's leaving the Clippers if they lose to Dallas. I just have a feeling Paul George will be by himself in LA. He's likely to go to Miami, though, but if he would choose Portland, and they would work a S&T to get him (pretty sure they won't have the cap room otherwise), that would be very interesting to see. It would take McCollum and a filler. The bad thing about the Blazers, really, is that they are a first or second-round exit every year (okay, minus 2019), which to them means a lot: no ring, no lottery. Basically, they just swim around in the middle of the pool. They haven't had a lotto pick since 2013, when they picked McCollum. It's that one player they need, the one that can take over defensively and can take the load off Lillard offensively, that they would thrive with. McCollum can score 30, but he doesn't produce it when you need it the most, and both him and Lillard couldn't defend me on the court.