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Mitch Cumsteen

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Posts posted by Mitch Cumsteen

  1. 1 hour ago, ztejas said:

    I'm not sure I agree that Boston is "by far" better than Minny. I guess we'll find out but I'm fairly confident that Minny would have also kicked the shit out of the three teams Boston played. Let's not pretend like they didn't sweep KD/Book then beat the defending champs and best player in the world.

    I think 75% of the league (if healthy) would have kicked the shit out of the three teams that Boston played. "Far better" may be a stretch, but Boston is still a more complete, versatile, deep, and experienced team than Minnesota. I'm still trying to wrap my head around that Minnesota/Denver series. It was bizarre on so many levels. 

  2. Getting back to the draft during what will be an interminable wait until the finals... more and more Castle makes sense at 4, which means they will probably do some unexpected Josh Primo/Luka Samanic dumb shit and fuck this whole thing up. He should be available unless Houston trades #3 to someone who wants to move up for him. I figure Risacher/Sarr go 1/2, in either order, then Houston takes Sheppard or Clingan. 

    At 8, I'm starting to come around on Dalton Knecht. He fills a desperate and immediate need for a shooting wing. He's a competent defender or at least big and athletic enough (39" vertical, fastest shuttle in the combine and second fastest in lane agility) to become one. Do you spend #8 on potentially the next Doug McDermott? The thing about Knecht that makes his developmental curve a little different is that he grew 5 inches after high school. So, it's not like he maxed out just by aging and being older than his peers like that one dude that killed Kentucky in the first round of the tourney. He maxed out by hitting a late growth spurt. It's reminiscent of the Derrick White trajectory, even down to the part about playing small college ball in Colorado before growing taller and then stepping up in class twice. The Spurs have always been drawn to those rags to riches stories about guys who have had to work their way up vs guys who came up through the AAU entitlement system. I could talk myself into him despite his being older than Wemby, Sochan, Branham, Cissoko, Barlow, and Wesley. He would immediately supplant Champagnie in the lineup.

    If they are going to roll the dice on another can't shoot prospect instead of Knecht, I'd go with Cody Williams. He's one of the easiest to visualize being a great pro because of his brother, yet also requires the most projection to get there. Also, has one of the longest developmental timelines, which will say something about their patience if they go there. Dillingham is also likely to be available at 8 as well but I don't think they want to play like they will have to on defense if he's your lead guard. 

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  3. 54 minutes ago, Mittens said:

    Not having this isn't dealing with adversity?

    image.png.68d6ffaade99d2a26a36cb638bdcc008.png

     

    No, not really. HIs absence hasn't impacted their winning. 

    I'm talking about adversity in the sense of... you're losing games, players are struggling, coaches are struggling, and you have to figure out how to work your way through it. The Celtics haven't experienced that, at all. They haven't been pushed and you don't know how they are going to react or who is going to step up.

    I know everybody thinks the regular season is meaningless, but teams learn how to play together, grow together and how to lean on each other and overcome when shit goes bad. Because at some point, shit is going to go bad in the NBA Finals. I'm not saying they won't figure it out, just that they haven't had to yet. Those lessons are better learned in the regular season than in the finals.

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  4. Boston has played down to its competition so far. They are going to have to pick everything up a notch. They also haven't faced any adversity essentially the entire season and the playoffs. How do they respond when shit goes sideways? There's a ton of pressure and scrutiny on them and their coach. I don't know how much I believe in them despite the gaudy record.

    As I bag on the Celtics competition, Dallas also caught a break  with Kawhi out. OKC had next to zero playoff experience. They were fortunate to avoid Jokic. And the fucking Wolves are choking losers. Not to discredit their incredible run and it's been much more challenging than what Boston faced, but likewise this will be by far the best team the Mavs have faced as well. 

    The matchups are intriguing. Holiday is probably the best perimeter defender in the league. White also plays defense at an all league level. Brown is also very very good. They are built to switch everything. Dallas isn't going to see drop coverage like they did all series with Minnesota. 

    Boston is going to want to push pace and jack a million threes. It's an entirely different look than Dallas has seen this playoffs. The Dallas defense has been spectacular since the trade deadline but the Celtics stress you much differently than the iso heavy Thunder or the 4 on 5 hamstrung Wolves. As Tatum and their three point shooting go, so go the Celtics. 

    I think I lean slightly to Dallas in a long series. They are on such a heater it might just be their year. Of course, the way this playoff has gone for Boston, Luka and Kytie will probably both get hurt and they will roll to the title not having played a single team anywhere near full strength. 

    Pains me to say it, but Mavs in 6. 

  5. Awful, embarrassing, pathetic effort. As if @MNLonghornFUKM hasn't been through enough over the years. Brutal way to end this season where they seemed to turn the corner. 

    Denver is going to be kicking themselves all summer for losing to these bums.  

  6. I'm actually kinda bummed about the egg bowl getting moved. That had become a Thanksgiving tradition for me. After a long day of family crap, sitting down in a quiet place with a beverage and watching the crazy shit that always happens in that game was something I looked forward to. 

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  7. 7 hours ago, sasquatch69 said:

    - Best dive bar we visited was 45 Tchoup, on Tchoupitoulas near Napoleon. Great bartenders and cheap prices - and they’re known as a baseball bar so that adds to the vibe. And my new beer discovery from there was Canebrake from Parish Brewing - good stuff.

    Not sure who was working while you were there, but the owners Debbie and Frankie are great folks.

     

  8. 4 minutes ago, definitely not derka said:

    all of those guys were more known commodities when they came out than the crop of g league players + anthony black, jarace walker, taylor hendricks, etc. were. all of those guys were role players who came and went without anyone hardly noticing. ask your friends who follow college basketball who they knew more about when they entered the draft, those guys, or jayson tatum, lonzo ball, josh jackson, de’aaron fox, etc. again, it’s really not even close. there is no comparison.

    What do  you say we go back even further, to 2013:

    image.thumb.png.4aac205bbe3d29eca8b31a06641a07d2.png

    You think a lot of people were fired up for Anthony Bennett, Victor Oladipo, Otto Porter, Cody Zeller and Alex fucking Len? That was a bad, bad draft. And of course, at #15, a skinny Greek kid went to Milwaukee that nobody knew shit about. 

    I see where you're going but I just think you're missing the forest for the trees.

  9. 18 minutes ago, definitely not derka said:

    i just went and looked at the drafts from 2015-2020 to see what some more recent drafts (so drafts that are more relevant than those of TD and G Hill) and even in these more recent drafts the guys being picked are all much more known commodities with well defined bodies of work than the kids getting drafted today. for example:

    IMG_6270.thumb.jpeg.9a7db296508912075367cc5339240556.jpeg

    none of those guys came straight from HS, none of those guys transferred during college, none of those guys played for the G League Ignite, and pretty much all of them played huge roles for competitive ncaa teams and/or blue blood programs. they were known commodities. this was just a few years ago and yet you can’t say that about the most recent/upcoming/future draft classes.

    I'm not sure I'm buying it. Markelle Fultz was a one and done. Huge bust, at least for a #1 pick. Lonzo Ball, Tatum, Josh Jackson (bust), Fox, Isaac, Markkanan, etc. were all one and done. I'm too lazy to go down the rest of the line, but that was a pretty good draft class overall.

    None of the current draftees are straight from high school. This was the last year of ignite, they announced. Going forward, most of these guys are going to end up playing in college for at least one year, or will have to go overseas. NIL makes it much more palatable and it's honestly a better marketing tool for the league if they play in college. But they're still going to be one and done, because the guaranteed first round money is too much to pass up.

    This year is just a down year for talent. I wouldn't read too much into it. There are busts every year even at the top of the draft and even guys who played for blue blood programs and never transferred. Cooper Flagg is likely going #1 next year and is playing for Duke. Rutgers (I know, Rutgers!) has two of the top players in Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper. VJ Edgecomb will be at Baylor. Tre Johnson is a projected lottery pick. I'm just not seeing it.

  10. 13 hours ago, definitely not derka said:

    it’ll probably continue to be that way the current climate of american youth basketball. from players focusing on skill over being a competent, winning player, to what aau has done to player development, iq, and work ethic, to the fact that every 19 year old with a chance to get drafted is entering the draft these days, what you’re left with is a bunch of lesser known foreigners and 19 and 20 year old americans who may be a top five pick who’s already peaked, or a second round pick and future mvp. the talent level of draft classes is probably going to stink going forward.

    Disagree. You don't have to look any further than next year's class. It's loaded. I feel like the league from top to bottom is as talented as it's ever been and there's more parity because of it. It's never going back to the majority of players sticking around in college for 4 years, but that doesn't mean that the players coming out today won't be great pros, even if it takes them a little bit longer to get there. 

    7 minutes ago, MNLonghornFUKM said:

    Looking at bronnys game log sheet… his career high is 15 pts in a loss to Oregon state back in December.

    Reached double digit scoring (11 & 10 pts respectively) 2 other times.

    8 1 bucket games
    6 0 bucket games
    6 2 bucket games.

    At this point I might actually be pulling for Bronny to make it. I don't think he will, but I'm a sucker for a riches to riches story. 

  11. Saw it in IMAX over the weekend. Have to go with the general concurrence that it's very good, but it doesn't live up to the impossible standard set by Fury Road. I got out of Fury Road feeling like I had been on speed for the previous two hours. I could hardly catch my breath. Still better than 90% of the crap out there, though, and I did like it.

    One minor complaint -- and I can't tell if it's just because I'm getting old and there's something fucked with my hearing -- but I had some difficulty understanding what the characters were saying at times. It seemed like they were running SFX over the dialogue. Weird complaint for a movie that is so light in dialogue to begin with, I suppose. Did anybody else have that problem? 

  12. 16 hours ago, Mittens said:

    I'm sure you were very upset for the fans when Tatum was playing with a broken wrist in the '22 playoffs or rolled his ankle in G7 of last year's ECF.  We can pull your posts where you lamented the lessened fan experience when both teams weren't at full strength, yes?  Not that Boston deserved the loss when their All-NBA forward couldn't walk?  

    Boston beat those teams at full strength during the regular season, so it's not like they're getting over on a better team.  Would it have been more entertaining if all the series were going 7?  Sure.  You're whining about something that no one has any control over.  Life isn't fair - if it was, we'd all have giant crabs in our bathrooms.

    By all means go into my posting history and you won’t have to go too far to find me complaining uniformly about the nba playoffs being crushed by injury. I hate it. This isn’t me whining about the Celtics even though they are benefitting in a historic way from other teams injuries. It sucks as a fan. And fyi it’s not just the teams they are facing that you keep throwing out the irrelevant regular season records about, it’s also the other injured teams they got to avoid (Knicks, Bucks, Sixers). Nothing against the Celtics and I’m not trying to say they aren’t good or take anything away from them, but this is the biggest cakewalk to the finals probably in NBA history.

  13. 4 hours ago, Mittens said:

    Boston won the East by 14 games.  Largest gap in either division since the NBA/ABA merger.
    3-0 vs Miami regular season
    2-1 vs Cleveland regular season
    3-2 vs Indiana regular season
    The odds were well in their favor to come out of the East, regardless of who was playing.

    Sure, but those are three lottery teams without Butler / Mitchell & Allen /  Halliburton. Literally, they would be among the 10 worst teams in the NBA. Better than Detroit, Washington, Portland and Charlotte, but even Atlanta and Chicago would have given them a better challenge.  Sac, GS, Houston, & Utah -- none of whom made the playoffs -- would have been more competitive.

    It's the luckiest run, ever. And it's very disappointing from a fans perspective. The NBA playoffs are supposed to be basketball played at its highest and most competitive level. Who wants to watch this shit?

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  14. 12 minutes ago, Dutchrudder said:

    Long time coming, will be interesting to see who they hire and if that helps Mitchell sign an extension. 

    Cavaliers fire coach J.B. Bickerstaff after five seasons

    https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/40203249/sources-cavaliers-fire-coach-jb-bickerstaff-playoff-exit

    They are going to let Mitchell hire the coach, essentially. It's all ridiculous because he's going to sign the extension no matter what. If he doesn't like what's going on in Cleveland, then he just asks out. There's all this posturing these days about free agents and movement, but when was the last time a bona fide star free agent actually got to the market? There is no downside to taking the extension. You maximize your money and get your security, and then just pull the cord if you want out. So, so dumb.

    The more interesting thing is Garland. Seems like he's going to ask for a trade if they keep Mitchell. 

    Just now, d2o said:

    Coaching (especially in the NBA) is a thankless job but firing him after he led them out of the doldrums, got them to the 2nd round and competed with a 66 win team before almost all of his team went on IR seems crazy.

    Bickerstaff was a dead man walking. They released a full hit piece on him within minutes of their getting bounced from the playoffs. He's at odds with the front office. Mitchell (and it seems, much of the team) lost confidence in him. And he's just not a very good coach in general. That team didn't win because of him. They won in spite of him. 

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  15. I'm leaning Wolves in the series, but only by a hair because of homecourt.

    Overall I think the games will be low scoring. Minnesota has been the best defensive team all year, and you can't discount what Dallas has done defensively since the trade deadline. They've been incredible, even Luka and Kyrie.

    Both teams will have to play a little differently than they did in the previous rounds. Dallas shouldn't be able to exploit the paint like they did against OKC. Minnesota is going to have to work harder on offense than they did against Denver. 

    I think it eventually comes down to a few things:
    1. Can Dallas small ball Gobert off the court and get Minnesota out of their defense? Denver couldn't do that because they have to keep Jokic in at all times.
    2. Can KAT stay out of foul trouble and will Naz Reid be the X factor?
    3. Which team's role players make their open threes.

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  16. 1 hour ago, LTtxfan said:

    What is it that people hate about celtics??

    • Team?
    • City?
    • Patriots?
    • Red Sox?
    • Bruins?
    • Accent?

    Just curious...

    Personally I hate Lakers, Yankees, aggys, blOU, and B12 much much more.  

    I've hated the Celtics going back to the 70s when the ABA/Spurs merged with the NBA. Red Auerbach continually talked shit about the ABA --  that coaches were bad, the players weren't good enough to play in the NBA, that Julius Erving was a nice kid but not a great player, and that the ball belonged on the end of a seal's nose. And then of course, post-merger the ABA players dominated. Then they backdoored their way into Larry Bird and continually fleeced dumb GMs in trades. 

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  17. I give Indiana a better chance in this series than most. Their pace (no pun) is weird for Boston. The Celtics get over reliant on the three point shot. Indiana will push it. Boston wants to play fast but nobody wants to play faster than Indiana. Boston is going to have to slow it down and it just ain’t their thing. 

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  18. I could be talked into Sarr, but I'm not giving Atlanta any of its draft capital back to move up three spots for him. Clingan is a hard no for me. The last thing they need is another big clogging up the paint for Victor. They can find a big in free agency who can suck up some minutes and take some fouls.

    I haven't watched that much of Salaun, but he looks very stiff to me. Not a fan, and he seems like a massive reach at 8. I can talk myself into just about any of the top 10 or so prospects in this draft, but he is the one that I would be outright disappointed about the Spurs picking. 

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  19. 11 minutes ago, definitely not derka said:

    it’s funny that everyone in here casting aspersions on MM never said a word about him until the very moment he got knocked off if his throne. where have these opinions been all of this time? lol

    I think it's less about piling on when he got knocked off the throne and more about piling on after watching his reaction to being knocked off the throne. And he did look like a fool in the parade last year.

    I don't think he's any sort of villain. He just comes off as bush league. Not that a Spurs fan like me has any room to talk as horribly as Pop has treated the press over the years.

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  20. 1 hour ago, aggie08 said:

    Such an enigma as a player. Dude should be a lock for 20 points a game with his skill set and athleticism. He's 6'10" with career 50/41/81 shooting splits. Yet, he completely disappears for long stretches almost every night. He scored single digits in 5 of 7 games this series, despite playing 30+ minutes in all of them.

    Everything he gets is off of Jokic/Murray or somebody else. He can't create his own shot and they don't run any actions for him, which is weird for such a knock down shooter. Why aren't they running him off of 10 different screens and pin downs at least every once in a while to mix things up? I suppose the Jokic/Murray combo is so good that they don't have to much, but it wouldn't hurt them to be more diverse on offense. Having a secondary creator like Bruce Brown last year made them much more difficult to defend. They've become more and more Jokic-centric, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it seems that they could open up a lot more by being less predictable.

    The jackass is strong in Mike Malone. His bit at the parade last year was awkward. I felt a little embarrassed for the guy. I don't necessarily want coaches who are robots and act "classy" all the time, but it just seems like there is an unjustified pettiness to him that is unsettling for someone who has had every advantage possible moving into and up in the coaching ranks.

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