NBA 2017-18 Hype Thread: Ball(s) to the Wall

Wall (barely) won the battle, but the Lakers won the game.

Now discuss why your team is tanking or going all in, even though (barring serious injuries) it's going to be the Warriors and Cavaliers in the Finals again.

One person's preview of the Miami Heat next year.

Andre Drummond had offseason surgery to repair his deviated septum. Maybe that extra nose hole gives him enough energy to actually attempt to play defense this season. Now medical science just needs to figure out a procedure that stops a person from attempting hook-shoots from outside of the paint and things might not be so terrible.

The East being so bad gives me a little bit of hope as a Pistons fan. The Cavs will be good for one more year until the Lebron takes off. I guess you could talk yourself into the thinking the Celtics might be decent if you don't believe defense, rebounding or sharing the ball matter to the game at all. The Bucks could be scary good if they stay healthy. And the rest of the conference is just kind of a big ball of "meh" and then doing that thing where you hold your hand flat and kind of move it side to side. I'd set my expectations at a 4-6 seed and a first round playoff series win. Anything less than that, assuming the team stays relatively healthy, and the Van Gundy regime has to go.

The Wizards basically locked up all of their cap space in their starting 1-3 players (plus Ian Mahinmi because that money was burning a hole in Ernie Grunfeld's pocket after the stillborn #KD2DC project and he just had to pay someone at the 4 or 5 with it) so they really have no choice but to go all in with Wall, Beal and Porter. They won't beat the Cavs but at least they'll make it interesting.

The fear is the same as it was last year, as to whether anyone on the bench not named Kelly Oubre will be able to step up if the starters go down because even the Point God, John Wall, needs a breather at some point each game. With Keef already busting his ankle and being out until November we're going to see if Jason Smith can be the Stretch 4 that he showed flashes of last season. Hopefully Mid-season Ernie can work his magic and dump Mahinmi's salary off on another team to make up for Pre-season Ernie's dumbassery, but whether or not that happens Mahinmi has to keep his knees untorn and prove he was worth some of that money.

I think the 'zards will return to the 3-4 seed in the East, make it to the second round, and then lose to a team they should have beaten in 7 games, just like last year.

The East has 2 Great teams(Cavs/Celtics), 3 good teams(Bucks, Wizards, Raptors), and everyone is else is just there.
The West is not even fair honestly. Warriors, Spurs, Thunder, Rockets(the top seeds) TWolves are going to be good too. But unless something crazy drastic happens, it'll be Cavs/Dubs again. It would be nice for the Suns to actually do something( I love Booker), but unfortunately for them they don't play in the East...

Bulls are gonna be terrible and probably get another 7 rnd pick with the new rule changes. Smh, worst ran franchise in the nba.

The third best team in the West is probably better than any team in the East. The alleged "great" teams in the East, Cavs and Celtics, have huge turnover and major question marks. I don't think the Thunder are going to be as good as a lot of people do. They've got some good talent, but I don't see that talent meshing well together. Their big 3 all dominate the ball on their prior teams, Paul George only hits big shots in Gatorade commercials, and Melo is a fading superstar who plays zero defense. I'm a GSW fan, and as fun as the last few years have been, I don't want another regular season that's wholely irrelevant. I want some other teams to step up and challenge them.

@oursin_360: The Bulls are going to have to work hard to be worse than the Nets, Lakers, and Suns, but with this roster they have a chance to pull it off. They've got Robin Lopez! And...uh...Zach LaVine! And a bunch of other people!

sigh...Go Suns...

Bulls are much worse than any of those teams, the only one close is probably the nets lol. Our rookie is alright but i don't think he will any where near as good as people think he will be. With an equal 14% chance for a top pick between the 3 worst teams, chicago picked the worst time in history to tank lmao. Should have sank the ship last year when it made sense or build around butler.

Lets go OKC! Wesrbrook has signed long term lets try keep the rest of the core together beyond this year

Who do I have to bribe to get the Jazz into the Eastern Conference?

At this point I'm all for just ditching the conferences completely and setting up schedules based on travel time/distance. Maybe cut the playoffs down to the Top 8 teams to save space. Or we could do Euro-style promotion/relegation and switch the best 3 teams from the D-League (excuse me, "G-League, brought to you by Gatorade(TM)!") with the worst 3 from the NBA as a hedge against purposeful tanking.

Huh, guess there are a lot of Kimye fans in Philly.

If anyone is in need of hard copies of the NBA schedule, I've formatted it for print and made it ready to download over here. I mostly make these for my mom, because she doesn't use the internet, but other people have found them useful in past years and I figured someone here might like it.

@oldenglishc: Hoping for the Pistons to move up in the East by other teams getting worse is the only hope I have for this season. Just make the playoffs and win at least one game, is that too much to ask?

There's not a chance in hell the team owners will ever approve promotion/relegation, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if they get rid of conferences. The imbalance between east and west has become a genuine problem, and they don't seem able to address it through changes to the draft.

@frytup: oh I know they would never approve pro/rel for basketball, it was just a joking suggestion

@oobir: At least we have Boban.

I'm sad we didn't have an off season thread, so much shit went down. Crazy trades, Dumb Kyrie drama, KD catfishing.

@chocolatet: Hell yeah! I'm excited af to watch OKC this year. How they pulled off getting this team together, I have no idea.

8 more months till the season starts!

@kingbonesaw: Wouldn't that just promote 7th and 8th seeds tanking? I mean would you rather get swept in the first round by the Dubs/Cavs or get the number one pick? Also it leaves teams like the Nets and Kings with no way to dig themselves out of the bottom of the league.

It did give me an idea though. Building on what you said, what if every year the process itself was randomized. For example, one year its the team with the worst record, another year its the 9th place team. All determined by a coin flip.

@kingbonesaw: the lottery is pretty much the only way smaller franchises have a shot at getting top talent. Free agents tend to go to bigger markets with more endorsement opportunity, except the bulls nobody wants to come here anymore. :-(

The season's almost upon us and I was informed that Vince Carter is still alive and playing with the Kings for some reason. 40 years old and not even ring-chasing, which is fine I guess.

@kingbonesaw: they should just get rid of the draft all together. It's supposed to make bad teams better but that's almost never the case. Players have so much power now that they can just leave or force a trade off a team so where they're drafted doesn't matter anymore. just let all incoming rookies be free agents and let the teams fight it out

Don't look up Gordon Hayward's leg injury, it's brutal. Sorry to Celtics fans.

Sorry to all NBA fans. I was really looking forward to the East getting more competitive. This doesn't help.

@oobir: I made the mistake of looking it up. My ankle hurts and I feel a little sick. WHY DID I DO THIS TO MYSELF!?

Poor guy, I hope he can come back from that.

In lighter news, the bulls are down 2 power forwards after they get into a fight and one breaks the others jaw and gives him a concussion! :-/

@oursin_360: Didn't Michael Jordan punch Steve Kerr in the face once? Maybe it was an homage.

Also holy shit, poor Hayward. Brutal, unlucky way to possibly end a season.

@dochaus: i believe he punched paxson, who was at the practice lol. Probably had flash backs

Niko is out 6 weeks with a concussion and broken jaw, bobby out 8 games for suspension.

I dislike the Celtics, mainly because of Kyrie, but I definitely feel bad for Hayward. Hopefully he bounces back next year.

I think the Rockets, Thunder, and Spurs can cause problems for the Warriors and as long as they don't win in the finals again I'll be happy. Golden State is the only team that I hate. I have some of those reasons below.

• Curry: He acts like a little kid who is high on sugar sometimes and he doesn't get even 30% of the heat/criticism that Lebron, Harden, Westbrook, and other top guys get.
• KD: The weakest superstar I've ever seen in the NBA between going to the Warriors and having multiple twitter accounts to defend and express himself.
• Zaza and Green: Dirty players, Green is the most dirty player I've seen since lame ass Bruce Bowen who went after Iverson, Kobe, and others ankles. You can see video comps of Green kicking nuts and wrestling guys on Youtube.

Spurs are always a going to be a contender because Spurs gonna Spurs, and it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for me to imagine an MVP award going to Kawhi Leonard this season. I'm a huge Melo fan so seeing him go to OKC and actually have a team he doesn't have to carry night in and night out is huge for me. Only thing I worry about is their bench, as I don't really see who would carry the scoring load when Westbrook, George and Carmelo sit.

I have the Rockets as the nr. 2 seed in the Western Conference right now and see them as probably the biggest contender against Golden State. They're the only team with enough offensive firepower and 3-point-shooting to rival the Warriors. I think the addition of Chris Paul is huge, and will allow James Harden to play a lot more off the ball, although he didn't exactly do that yesterday. They managed to escape with a W, but any game where PJ Tucker has to put up 20 points is not exactly repeatable so we'll see what happens in the rematch.

Also can we get @alex in here to chime in on some basketball & more Stephen A Smith impressions? I'm pretty sure he follows the sport, and is after all the resident Giant Bomb Big Balla.

Btw guys, the new lottery changes don't go into effect until next season. This will be the last year with the regular lottery odds.

Last seasons real finals MVP - Zaza, for essentially taking out Leonard and erasing a 24 point deficit. I still think the Spurs could win a 7 game series against Golden State provided they remain healthy.

@frustratedlnc: Hopefully we get that this season!

The Wizards now down two 4s (Keef Morris & Jason Smith) before the first half was over, but on the bright side Kelly Oubre got to play some serious minutes as a result.

Sixers got a nice young nucleus in Simmons, Fultz and Embiid. Simmons esp looked terrific today in his NBA debut.

@dochaus: Watched most of this game due to nationalistic interest in Ben Simmons' first NBA game. Oubre was pretty strong when he was out there on the floor - impressive game.

Pacers on pace to finish 82-0!

Jeez, first Gordon Hayward, now Lin out too. His reaction really did not look good...

fact check, he punched will perdue as well not paxson. Don't know why i keep thinking it's paxson? Maybe wishful thinking.... lol j/k

Well that sucks for the Nets. Looks like they're going to be fighting for a lottery pick again (if they haven't traded it already) unless D'Angelo Russell and Hollis-Jefferson really step up.

Step one of the Pistons' 82-0 season is complete.

Charlotte just looked disinterested and sleepy last night. I never thought the Dwight Howard effect would happen so quickly.

Ah yes, the hate. Let it flow like wine, but don't give in to bad sports takes because of it. The opening game aside, I think the Rockets won that game in spite of Chris Paul not because of him. I think they'll be a good team again. Their flame out in the playoffs last year was baffling so I think there might be some unresolved issues there. Last year I referred to the Thunder as "Russell Westbrook and a bunch of crap". This year its Russell Westbrook and over the hill Melo and zero clutch Paul George. Won't be a factor. If the Spurs stay healthy they could give the W's a run, but only if LMA channels his Portland days. You know you're having a bad playoffs when your own coaching staff calls out a star player in the middle of the series.

What heat/criticism is Curry getting a pass on? I'm confused by that. Agree about Zaza and Green. KD can be a bit churlish on Twitter, but he and Green are great players.

That rockets and warriors game was a lot of fun to watch. Harden and curry trading buckets will never get old to me. Draymond green is a trash human being.

Was surprised how easily Portland crushed Phoenix even without McCollum. While I still don't know if they could get past the Warriors, they are likely to be one team nobody wants to play in the playoffs if they can stay healthy.

I think the Curry criticism(which is true to some extent) is that he's portrayed as a humble, nice guy who plays the game the "right" way when in fact he is incredibly cocky and arrogant on the court and is constantly showboating. He also doesn't take nearly the amount of heat that Lebron or KD got for choking in the playoffs and doesn't get criticized for his awful defense the way Harden and Westbrook do. He's definitely not held to the same standards as other NBA superstars.