I never expected Pippen to be willing to sell his soul for a book. Invoking the racial aspect after so many years wow... So fecking weak
NBA 2020-2021
- Thread starter altodevil
- Start date
Pippen thinks Jordan was essentially the most powerful man on the planet planning that he could casually rehearse a last shot for Kerr 
Giannis 
Not good at all seeing Giannis hobble off
That really, really sucks. I was hoping we'd at least have a healthy Suns vs Bucks finals.
wow
The Hawks should just stick Cam on Middleton so nothing stupid happens.
The Clippers might win it all without Kawhi.
I hope Giannis is okay, but he's probably done for the playoffs. It looked ugly and I doubt it's worth the risk of him coming back.
I hope Giannis is okay, but he's probably done for the playoffs. It looked ugly and I doubt it's worth the risk of him coming back.
Think the Bucks and NBA will not officially rule out Giannis for any future games, similar to what the Clippers have done with Kawhi.
Need to get scans and at least one night and flight back to Milwaukee to see how severe the injury is. Walking off makes some difference, but seeing the initial swelling makes a difference.
Even if it's a hyper extended knee, it's going to take time to properly heal. He's The Freak for a reason, so let's just see how he physically reacts. Hope he's okay for Game 5.
Need to get scans and at least one night and flight back to Milwaukee to see how severe the injury is. Walking off makes some difference, but seeing the initial swelling makes a difference.
Even if it's a hyper extended knee, it's going to take time to properly heal. He's The Freak for a reason, so let's just see how he physically reacts. Hope he's okay for Game 5.
Great defensive effort by the Hawks and they shot extremely well. Competed very well and the bench rotation was a little deeper with Reddish and Dunn out there.
But yes, Giannis will be the talking point...rightfully so. Really sad to see him go down.
But yes, Giannis will be the talking point...rightfully so. Really sad to see him go down.
That Giannis injury is so crucial. I don’t think they can even beat Hawks let alone win the Finals without him.
2021!
Who's next then?
Who's next then?
It's worth the risk because this year would be their best ever chance to win a championship in a long time.
Bucks are done without Giannis imo. Makes it all the more important that the Suns close it out in Game 6 for the love of God, can't be having the Clippers this close to a Finals against a beatable team.
Now we pray the clippers get beat
To be fair: Jackson was probably a bit of a racist (there's some pretty damning quotes from his playing days floating around). Also, Pippen's son recently died. He's clearly in a lot of pain right now.
Yeah I’m sure Giannis will be eager to play if he can. He won’t worry about what happens next season. If he has to take six months off after this, he will.
This reminds what Isaiah Thomas had to say about how the Celtics sold him his injury and didn't make the long term consequences of playing through it would be. Athletes, particularly young athletes like Giannis should be careful with that type of thing.
IT was dumb for playing through injury on a contract year.
Giannis has an incoming max extension kicking in this summer for the next 5 years.
It's a totally different scenario.
The issue isn't the contract or money(though it can be an issue) but aggravating an injury and damaging your body long term which would limit your chances to play at your highest level.
Yeah I reread the quotes and they aren't as bad as the first time I read them. As for Jackson being a bit racist , wouldn't surprise me, most people of that age are. Didn't know about his son passing. Very sad news.
Is anyone else struggling with League Pass? Yesterday and today I'm unable to use the website - when I try to sign in it just loads and loads without anything happening. Any tips?
Please reply direct as I'm avoiding spoilers for last night's Bucks-Hawks!
Please reply direct as I'm avoiding spoilers for last night's Bucks-Hawks!
Are you using a VPN? Because Leaguepass doesn't like that.
Nope. Just in the UK, on Safari.
It worked by clearing all the cookies on Safari, but then going back on the League Pass site I immediately had the score spoiled for me. FFS.
I hope the NBA will think about spacing games out more with this season's spate of injuries having more to do with who wins than anything sense.
When's the last time somebody actually won a championship and faced all healthy teams?
The NBA doesn't care about injuries as long as they can still sell out tickets and retain their TV revenue.
Thought about this myself, that core.... this IS their window, otherwise he's waiting on a wingman, Middleton's a third man to me and a very very good one. But yeah.
I don't see how he can play if he feels it's not right, at least when KD did it, opponents aren't gonna leave him open for 3's... with Giannis they'd likely just leave him open, allowing him to shoot or attempt the explosion to rim and risk injuring himself.
But, I'd be surprised if it's as serious as KD's... at worst I'd take a game out, if Trae's out too.
Worth it for the bucks, possibly not for Giannis. If he is risking long term problems with his health and getting the max for his next contract then it's absolutely not worth it.
I certainly agree they’re concerned with ticket sales and tv revenue, how will that be effected by Giannis and Trae missing?
I personally find the Bucks versus the Hawks without those two a pretty dull game, but I’m a casual fan.
We’ve seen the Lakers crumbles without AD, Nuggets are a different team with Porter, Clippers missing Leonard, Nets missing Harden then Kylie, now Trae and Giannis.
More stars out than in it seems! I’m not sure I’ve seen that before. I’d be surprised if the league isn’t concerned.
His new max contract kicks in this summer which means he has about 5 years to recover to try and get back healthy for another max contract in 2026. There's no guarantee the Bucks will be in the ECF another time within the next 5 years. This year is his best chance to win it all.
They're capped in salary as it is with multiple players in the roster the wrong side of 30 and no draft picks and it'll only get worse since Giannis is averaging about 46m a year on his contract extension which is around 1/3 of the cap. It'll only get harder to build a team around him.
Last edited:
Tickets will still sell out even if Trae and Giannis is missing, it's the conference finals and potentially the finals! You think a champions league finals match featuring us wouldn't sell out because Bruno and Rashford are out of the game?
If the league was really concerned about players health, they would have reduced the regular season by at least a third, but that's a huge chunk of ticket revenue missing and neither the players or the owners would accept taking a cut.
We don't disagree that's why i said if it effects his long term health and/or that next contract.
1 or 2 stars usually. Not what we're seeing now.
AD, LeBron, Kyrie, Harden, Murray, Mitchell, Doncic, Embiid, Kawhi, Trae, Giannis, Brown, CP3, all out for the season or missing games or playing through massively debilitating injuries
I mean seriously, who were the stars going into the playoffs? Embiid, Simmons, KD, Kyrie, Harden, Giannis, Middleton?, Randle?, Trae, Butler, Bam, Tatum, Brown, Russ, Beal, Mitchell, Gobert, CP3, Booker, Jokic, Murray, Kawhi, PG, Luka, Kristaps?, Dame, CJ?, AD, LeBron, Ja ....yes? 26 + 4 maybe stars? 13 of those guys got injured. Half of them, going from season altering injuries to series altering ones
The worst part is that while this season in particular was always going down this way and everybody knew it going in, the season changing injuries have become fairly common in recent years. Hell, the last 5 seasons before the pandemic we've seen Love and Kyrie, Steph, Kawhi, CP3, KD and Klay...
Not one title that wasn't severely impacted by injuries to stars
And that's without mentioning the Timberwolves. Their title race was stopped in January with multiple injuries.
Lakers 2020? Unless you are counting already planned full season injuries.... in which case, maybe 2016 Cavs?
I'm not sure it's the NBA's fault or simply modern pro athletes being so unbelievably fit that they are actually making themselves more fragile - the constant training to stay at that level can't be good, forget continuing to play games at the same regularity as they did in the 90's... or the in NFL's case, more often. Injuries have been massively increasing everywhere, even before lockdown.
The Miami Heat were anything but healthy. Neither were the 2016 Warriors as Curry was hobbling after an MCL injury. But that's the way things have always been. Players are going to get injured and you rarely face teams that are perfectly healthy for an entire playoff run.
If you're gonna count that one of Curry's.... I'm gonna say never then. *shrugs*
I thought he was asking genuine serious key injuries that heavily turned matchups, and the only reason I didn't count the two KD-Warrior wins was because Paul and Kawhi in the conference finals more than anything.
I thought he was asking genuine serious key injuries that heavily turned matchups, and the only reason I didn't count the two KD-Warrior wins was because Paul and Kawhi in the conference finals more than anything.
In 2016 by the time game 7 came around Curry was at best 70% fit. He came back too early from the MCL strain, but it's the playoffs, so you do what you have to. The Dubs had already struggled against an OKC team they really shouldn't have and by the finals the injury was just getting progressively worse. Heck even Kevin Love was able to stop him. by the time the series was over.
To be honest, 2016 illustrates the big difference between Steph and Lebron. No excuses from Steph, Lebron would have done his closing interview in a body cast if he had been going through similar injuries and the Cavs had lost game 7.
Last edited:
Speaking of a playoff series in which a major injury or two affected the series, look to the 1989 Finals. The Lakers roared through the West in 1989, sweeping all three opponents. Then, in practice before Game 1, guard Byron Scott injured his hammy. He missed the Finals, a big loss on both ends of the court. In Game 2, Magic pulled his hammy in the third quarter and exited with the Lakers up two (they nearly stole Game 2), then played five minutes in Game 3 before he was done. Minus their top two guards, the Lakers had little left to match a more youthful and physical Pistons side also playing on revenge from the prior year. The Pistons guard rotation annihilated the depleted Lakers.