I don't think the Durant signing was very smart by the Warriors or by Durant

4,879 Views | 39 Replies | Last: 7 yr ago by cdhaggie07
knoxtom
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Obviously I think Durant is a great player, but I just don't think it was a smart signing by GSW, and I would not pick them to win it all. He simply didn't solve the problems they had on offense, and he greatly magnifies their defensive problems.

Durant's points per shot is fine, but every one he takes removes a shot from Thompson or Curry who have similar or better PPS. Only one ball. Curry needs it in his hands constantly as does Durant and as does Draymond. I just don't see Durant becoming a corner three guy, which is the role the person he is replacing had. Durant also isn't exactly know as a drive and dish type, being more of a shooter. GSW had those roles filled already and unless Curry gives up his shots, I don't see where they come from. Curry is the only one who distributes, but do you really want him turning into a 14 shot a game guy?

So look at what they are giving up. GSW are letting go of every role player on the team. Is Draymond really going to be the starting center? Who else is defending inside? Durant is a horrible defender, Curry is a horrible defender, so those two will be rubbed off on any play the other teams wants to score. Green, Thompson, and Iggy cant cover 5 guys for 48 minutes.

This team will be fine in the regular season where nobody plays hard and nobody exploits patterns in the game, but just like in the playoffs this year, once they go against a good team that exploits a weakness, they will get exposed.

Durant should have gone to Washington or Boston. He had to leave OKC since he hates Westbrook, he did not choose wisely.
rms007
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Who plays D besides Green? Bogut just got sent to Dally, probably won't be able to resign Iggy, Barbosa either. Barnes Gone.

Lots of vulnerability with trying to outscore everyone, see Suns, PHX circa mid 2000s & current Rockets teams since acquiring Harden..
Ag Natural
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Durant is not a horrible defender and he's a very good rebounder. I could see a matchup issue with him though. He will probably need to play a lot against big guys and I know he hates that.

I'm curious as well about how this team will play. Now they have 3 guys who live to Jack up quick, contested shots from deep. They'll be unstoppable some games but they will have some bad ones.
knoxtom
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It is what I am saying. I think everyone is over-reacting to the signing thinking the NBA season is trivialized. I don't really think the GSW made themselves better.

Obviously Durant did not want to play with Westbrook. The Ibaka trade made OKC the favorite among people who actually know the game and he still left money on the table to excape OKC. He wanted out bad.

Surprising thing is not that he left, it is that he left for the GSW. Durant + Warriors - every role player and rim defender they had = not the best chance to win it all. Durant + Wizards or Celtics, or heck, how about the Jazz, would have been nasty.

Last thing - Durant is a chicken **** to leave. Superstars win their own championships not run away to tag along on someone else's championship team. I don't care if he wins the next 5 on 5 different teams, he will always be a chicken.
knoxtom
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quote:
Durant is not a horrible defender and he's a very good rebounder. I could see a matchup issue with him though. He will probably need to play a lot against big guys and I know he hates that.

I'm curious as well about how this team will play. Now they have 3 guys who live to Jack up quick, contested shots from deep. They'll be unstoppable some games but they will have some bad ones.
Durant is a good rebounder when no one else is trying for the rebound or he is matched up with someone 4 inches shorter. He NEVER gets a rebound in traffic, mostly because he NEVER goes into traffic. Now he will be playing the 4. Good luck wiht that.

AS for defense, Durant doesn't play defense. Never has never will.

Ag Natural
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quote:
quote:
Durant is not a horrible defender and he's a very good rebounder. I could see a matchup issue with him though. He will probably need to play a lot against big guys and I know he hates that.

I'm curious as well about how this team will play. Now they have 3 guys who live to Jack up quick, contested shots from deep. They'll be unstoppable some games but they will have some bad ones.
Durant is a good rebounder when no one else is trying for the rebound or he is matched up with someone 4 inches shorter. He NEVER gets a rebound in traffic, mostly because he NEVER goes into traffic. Now he will be playing the 4. Good luck wiht that.

AS for defense, Durant doesn't play defense. Never has never will.




OKC was the best rebounding team in the league last year and KD led the team. I'd say that point to some pretty good rebounding prowess.
rms007
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It's not just playing defense. Who's gonna set screens, play consistent D & rebound??

Losing Bogut, Iggy, Barbosa, Festus & possibly Livingston will hurt
Token
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Livingston re-signed
Obi Wan Ginobili
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I disagree with almost everything you said.

When one of the greatest, most unguardable scorers in NBA history wants to come play for your team, you take him. Anything else would be stupid.

Yes, Curry and Thompson will take less shots. I'm sure both of them would settle for 4-6 less shots if it means their other 12-15 are that much more open, which they will be with a third Splash Bro dropping 30 foot bombs.

Draymond doesn't need the ball in his hands. He's going to benefit from this just as much as everyone. He's going to get to abuse opponents in the paint, and he will have three of the best 10 shooters in the league to dish it out to, which he is already really good at.

As far as defense, they will be just fine. Durant is statistically proven to be a competent if not decent defender, and Curry just led the league in steals. If they can keep teams under 105 per game, they are going to win another 65-70 games.

What GS has now is insurance. Curry's ankles start to give him trouble again? No big deal, you've still got Durant and Thompson. Curry and allay can't hit a shot to save their lives? Move the fouck out of the way and let Durant go to work. No one has to carry the scoring load. The threes are going to be raining all game, every game.

Also, Boston would have been a different fit, not necessarily better. Washington would have been interesting, having John Wall to run point. The Spurs would have been a decent fit as well, if only to give Pop the kind of scoring weapon he's never had.
Pumpkinhead
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Durant not only went to the Warriors replacing Barnes (GSW is bringing back Curry, Green, Thompson, Iguodala, Livingston, and trying to resign Speights) but he also in the same move took the OKC Thunder out of contender status in the West.

quote:
GSW are letting go of every role player on the team.

Thus this does not seem correct. They clearly are still trying to have a roster where they have Iguodala, Livingston, Speights, the 7-footer rookie Jones that they just drafted, plus pu-pu platter off the bench. That is still a pretty solid looking bench when you got 4-All Stars in your starting five.

So who is most likely to stop them in the West from getting to the Finals now? Spurs? maybe Clippers? Wake me up when the Clippers actually do something.

That leaves the Spurs as probably the only team with a really legit chance of stopping GSW next season from blowing through the Western playoffs next season. The Spurs team that got torched by Durant in these last playoffs.
Token
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One thing I don't agree with. Curry is not even close to competent as a defender. He was exposed terribly all postseason. Harden was in the top 5 in steals. You gonna tell me he's a good defender?
Pumpkinhead
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Warriors just signed Zaza Pachulia probably as their veteran starting center replacing Bogut. Started 69 games for the Mavs last season.

Looks like GSW's plan is:

Pachulia
Green
Durant
Thompson
Curry

and then Iguodala, Livingston, Speights, Damian Jones, and pu-pu platter off the bench.

They clearly are Western Conference favorites next season.

cdhaggie07
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Disagree completely with OP. The Warriors just turned Barnes into durant. That is a massive upgrade. He fits perfectly at the 3 next to Green at the 4, and he can play the 4 in their small ball lineups. Durant is no dummy, he actually fits perfectly into their team, and they're going to be the most prolific shooting team in nba history. They might take 40 3's and bury 17 of them a game. They're going to be impossible to guard, they have too many options and ways to attack people now, especially when you consider that all their main players can play off the ball and shoot, they are going to fit together beautifully and be relentless by the time the playoffs roll around.
Head Ninja In Charge
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quote:
What GS has now is insurance. Curry's ankles start to give him trouble again? No big deal, you've still got Durant and Thompson.
This is the exact reason the trade was made. It took Klay going nuclear in Game 6 of the WCF for them to advance and it took Draymond having an MJ-shrug half for that Game 7 to be competitive. Now if one of their existing big three goes down, instead of depending on Harrison Barnes, Shaun Livingston, or Iggy - you get Kevin ****ing Durant.

Any team with any sense will make this move 100 out of 100 times.
knoxtom
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You guys are looking at the benefits without looking at the costs.

In order to get Durant you just gave up Festus, Barnes, and Bogut, which was their interior defense. Green can only do so much.

Their only center is Zaza, and Green is the only PF, and an undersized one.

So lets say they go 17 for 40 on threes like you said, that is 1.275 points per shot. What percentage does LaMarcus shoot against Zaza, 60%? That is 1.2 points per shot, almost the same and that doesn't include free throws. How about when Zaza is out after 24 minutes and they bring in the rookie? What do they do then?

GSW will abuse some teams, but they will get abused as well.


How about when this team plays the clippers? Are Zaza and Draymond really going to stop Blake and DeAndre?

How about San Antonio with LaMarcus, Pau, and Kawhi?

Or Memphis with Randolf and Gasol?

Durant is a huge upgrade over Barnes, I get that. But looking at the entire teams, GSW have a lot of weaknesses to exploit.. Don't size up their rings quite yet.
Head Ninja In Charge
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The benefits outweigh the costs. That's the entire point.
Head Ninja In Charge
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You can have all the bigs in the world pounding out 2 points over and over in the paint, but what is it going to matter when the other team is hitting threes at the same frequency? We saw it in the playoffs when teams tried to ugly everything up with 20 second possessions and switch everything defense. All it took was one guy from GS getting hot and that strategy was out the window.

So when you have someone like DeAndre living off of a pick-and-roll buffet or Zach Randolph playing bully ball, now you have a three-headed monster plus Draymond firebombing you to hell on the other end, so it won't even matter.
BMX Bandit
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Signing a top 5 player is never "not a smart move"
Token
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quote:
Signing a top 5 player is never "not a smart move"
Guitarsoup
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Giving up Bogut, Festivus, Barnes and Speights to get an NBA MVP and four time scoring champion in his prime is absolutely, positively a no brainer.

If you had proposed a trade on 2k16, the playstation would have automatically shut off and never turned back on because it was laughing too hard.
Pumpkinhead
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The fivethirtyeight analytical site says that 'on paper' the 2016-2017 Warriors will be the most talented team since 1980 at minimum. On paper...

Agree that if you have a chance to maybe build about the closest thing to a 'Dream Team' that a NBA franchise has ever seen...due to an amazing fortune of events (huge spike in salary cap plus getting really lucky that Steph Curry is incredibly underpaid) you go for it and then sit back and see how it works out. It would have been idiotic to keep Harrison Barnes, Bogut, and Ezeli if Kevin Durant is willing to come on over.

Even if the sum of the parts is less than what you expect (the team next season underperforms compared to its on paper talent level) you gotta go for it IMO.

And note that thought that Miami 'superteam' didn't quite live up to expectations, it still went to 4 straight NBA Finals and won two titles.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/superteams-like-the-warriors-usually-underperform-will-the-kevin-durant-era-be-different/

quote:
If we use Basketball-Reference.com's Simple Projection System to predict each player's Box Plus/Minus for the following season and sum up those projections for each team,1 next year's Warriors would be the most-talented team since 1979-802 if they merely surrounded their existing players Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston, Zaza Pachulia and David West, who is reportedly signing with Golden State on the veteran's minimum with replacement-level talent (think Luc Mbah a Moute or Norris Cole). In other words, even if they don't add another meaningful player, Durant's Warriors will probably surpass James's 2010-11 Heat as the best collection of talent in the league's past four decades or so.

quote:
And as my colleagues Nate Silver and Kyle Wagner wrote Monday, these superteams often manage to squeeze better-than-replacement talent onto their rosters despite a lack of cap space, since their high odds of winning a championship are a strong lure for veterans. So it's possible that Golden State will cobble together even more pure talent before the offseason is over.

quote:
But that Miami team should also serve as a powerful restraint on enthusiasm about the 2017 Warriors' potential. Before 2010, we'd never really seen a group of team-carrying stars assembled in their primes like James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh; it was uncharted territory, and the possibilities seemed endless. But despite such unprecedented ability, Miami struggled to live up to its perceived potential, becoming the first in a line of superteams that would not be as good as the sum of their parts.

quote:
On the other hand, staggering Durant's minutes with Russell Westbrook's worked well for Oklahoma City last season, and with four stars to spread across bench lineups instead of two, Golden State may find ways to minimize wasted potential possessions for its stars throughout the game. Besides, the Warriors also figure to have a mix of shooting, passing and defense6 that will be unrivaled in the league. That combination alone will probably help Golden State gel better than other superteams have in recent seasons, even if it can't fully escape the force of diminishing returns.
Pumpkinhead
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LOL

Sixers_Fan
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Wonder how the small ball lineup will be able to play against hard-nosed cavs-esque lineups that plagued them in the finals without Bogut. Without a true rim protector and a bunch of guys that want to live out by the 3 pt line it'll be tough to stop paint-dominant teams.. but thats not a challenge that Steve Kerr can't stand up to (I don't think).
PatAg
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quote:
Wonder how the small ball lineup will be able to play against hard-nosed cavs-esque lineups that plagued them in the finals without Bogut. Without a true rim protector and a bunch of guys that want to live out by the 3 pt line it'll be tough to stop paint-dominant teams.. but thats not a challenge that Steve Kerr can't stand up to (I don't think).


I thought Durant had developed a mid range game, no? And he will go to the rim on you.

And the idea now is, you have 3 guys the other team has to hope play under their avg outside, if you go that way
Guitarsoup
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quote:
quote:
Wonder how the small ball lineup will be able to play against hard-nosed cavs-esque lineups that plagued them in the finals without Bogut. Without a true rim protector and a bunch of guys that want to live out by the 3 pt line it'll be tough to stop paint-dominant teams.. but thats not a challenge that Steve Kerr can't stand up to (I don't think).


I thought Durant had developed a mid range game, no? And he will go to the rim on you.

And the idea now is, you have 3 guys the other team has to hope play under their avg outside, if you go that way
Yep. Durant shot .455 from 16-22 feet and .542 from 10-16 feet. About 1/3rd of his shots come from 10-22 feet.
Pumpkinhead
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quote:
Wonder how the small ball lineup will be able to play against hard-nosed cavs-esque lineups that plagued them in the finals without Bogut. Without a true rim protector and a bunch of guys that want to live out by the 3 pt line it'll be tough to stop paint-dominant teams.. but thats not a challenge that Steve Kerr can't stand up to (I don't think).


Watch highlights of Durant defending the Spurs and Warriors in the playoffs. He was a beast playing at an elite level on defense. he is 6'11" with a great wingspan.

On offense Durant can score in every possible way imaginable. Spot up three, off dribble mid range, post up, right at rim for dunk.....he is probably the most versatile scorer in the world right now.

I really think the rest of the NBA may be f***ed for the next 5 years or so. all the GSW core stars are 28 or younger. They will probably be the Mecca each season for some decent veterans looking hop on the bandwagon to get a ring. It is a ridiculous roster.

Obviously nothing is certain as we just saw with the Cavs pulling it out but you have to make GSW the heavy favorite now.
Sixers_Fan
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I think Klay is gonna go elsewhere and try to create his own legacy when all is said and done. They might win 4 in a row or whatever but something has to be said for them doing it as a super team. Call it a dream (and a half) but if he jumps on the Sixers -PURELY AS AN EXAMPLE YOU HATERS- right when they hit "lets win" time then he becomes a greater candidate for a top player of this generation. In my opinion he is FAAAR too overlooked and could be the best player on that team given the right spotlight. But this is just my wish/opinion and he could very well ride steph and KD to multiple championships. (Not saying anything about Draymond bc I think he knows that part of his greatness stems from who he has around him)
Pumpkinhead
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quote:
I think Klay is gonna go elsewhere and try to create his own legacy when all is said and done. They might win 4 in a row or whatever but something has to be said for them doing it as a super team. Call it a dream (and a half) but if he jumps on the Sixers -PURELY AS AN EXAMPLE YOU HATERS- right when they hit "lets win" time then he becomes a greater candidate for a top player of this generation. In my opinion he is FAAAR too overlooked and could be the best player on that team given the right spotlight. But this is just my wish/opinion and he could very well ride steph and KD to multiple championships. (Not saying anything about Draymond bc I think he knows that part of his greatness stems from who he has around him)
I suppose.

The only thing is at least per the media reports from guys close to Golden State, the ownership is going to take luxury tax hits down the road to pay Green, Thompson, Curry, and Durant all their maxes. So if one of those four leaves it won't be for $ reasons.
Ulrich
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They say that, but 4 maxes is already more than the cap. Add another 30mm to round out the roster and multiply the excess by 2, 3, or more for the tax payment.
Guitarsoup
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With 4 maxes and other assorted contracts, you are looking at a 60-80mm luxury tax payment per season. Not sure any team is going to accept that as an ongoing thing every single year. That's a ton of money to lose. Don't think any teams are nine figures in the black.
Ag Natural
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Klay just signed a 5 year deal last summer. Draymond signed the year before. Curry will sign the max next summer. So unless Durant opts out or Curry bolts they will be paying out the nose for a few years.
Hudson2508
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Is this thread serious? My God, when you turn Barnes into a top 5 player your team gets better. Also Durant is nowhere near a bad defender. His length and defensive play was one of the reasons they morphed into the best team in the league for 1.75 rounds of the playoffs.

They are going to be a juggernaut. Yes KD will take shots away from Curry and Klay but he's going to create wide open shots for all three of them bc they will be impossible to guard all at once. Hell, they all 3 might get close to averaging 50% from 3 with so many wide open shots.

You know that sinking feeling you get every time Steph or Klay get a wide open 3, yeah that's going to be happening a lot.

This team is frightening.
Pumpkinhead
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quote:
With 4 maxes and other assorted contracts, you are looking at a 60-80mm luxury tax payment per season. Not sure any team is going to accept that as an ongoing thing every single year. That's a ton of money to lose. Don't think any teams are nine figures in the black.
The Cleveland Cavs just paid a $54 million luxury tax hit for exceeding the cap limits to win that championship last year, and they probably feel it was worth every penny.

http://www.foxsports.com.au/basketball/nba-cleveland-cavaliers-cop-us54-million-luxury-tax-for-exceeding-salary-cap-limits-according-to-report/news-story/badb45233385763f6ad2a3b1a655a563

I think posters hoping the GSW 'Fab Four' of Curry/Green/Thompson/Durant won't be kept together because of salary cap issues are off base. First, I thought I read that the salary cap is supposed to go up a lot yet again next season? Second, definitely the media has been saying that GSW is going to pay whatever luxury tax hit is necessary to keep those 4 guys. They are the 'Greatest Show On Earth' right now and apparently rolling in money.
Guitarsoup
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We will see what happens in the next three years. Have a disappointing playoff loss of Curry breaks his feet again and they may not want to be losing that much money every year.

Teams have shown that they will pay a little bit for an extended period of time or a lot for a short amount of time, but no team has shown that they will pay a lot for a long amount of time.

Next year, Livingston, Iggy and Curry come up for contract renewals - as well as everyone else not named, Durant, Klay or Green. Curry's 30% should be 32mm based on a 107mm cap. That puts them at 94 of 107 for four players. Iggy's cap hold is 16mm. Livingston's is 11mm.

Maybe they have no problem filling the roster with vet min coattail riders. But the lack of depth began to hurt the Heat in 13 and 14 when they went back on "we will pay anything" and started letting guys walk.
Ag Natural
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Durant signed a 1 year deal with a 1 year option. I'm sure if he doesn't have an injury this season he'll opt out and demand the new max after the increase. Golden State will no doubt pay whatever they need to keep them together, but dang that is going to get expensive.
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