Navy? You colorblind?

"Sunset orange" is OKC's Sunday color

Pahdz said:

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Navy? You colorblind?

"Sunset orange" is OKC's Sunday color

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Aren't the stripes navy? It's weird to me that some teams wear colors that aren't theirs. Same with Houston in black.

Ulrich said:

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Pahdz said:

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Navy? You colorblind?

"Sunset orange" is OKC's Sunday color

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Aren't the stripes navy? It's weird to me that some teams wear colors that aren't theirs. Same with Houston in black.

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Haha, okay thought you were talking about Houston's jerseys. Navy is in the Thunder's color scheme albeit muted.

Look at the old woman in the front row.

Guitarsoup said:

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Look at the old woman in the front row.

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Guitarsoup said:

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Look at the old woman in the front row.

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Very Donald Sloan old Baylor guy -esque.

If the Thunder don't have Russ they have the worst record in the NBA. Andre Roberson was his go to 3 point guy on the perimeter last night and he shoots 24%. You Rockets fans can upvote yourselves all you want but that doesn't make it true. But if your argument is that Harden won head to head, when the Spurs win in 5 over Houston let's just give MVP to Kawhi.

When did votes close for MVP? Saturday?

HossAg said:

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My argument isn't head to head, although Harden obviously showed his importance to the team last night in the second half when he turned it up.

I don't understand the argument of "take away Russ and they suck". Ok, take away kawhi and the spurs suck. Take away Lillard and the trail blazers suck. Take away Harden and the rockets suck. Take away Greek freak and the bucks suck. You can say that about most teams with their best player.

I still don't really see what argument Russ has over Harden other than his padded stat line. I watch a lot of games for both teams and I personally think that Harden is better at creating opportunities for his teammates and being a leader.

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There's a whole thread on this topic. Good cases can be made for both players. Westbrook likely going to win regular season MVP (based on publicized ballots thus far). Harden likely going to advance to round 2. Not much more to see here.

mm98 said:

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When did votes close for MVP? Saturday?

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Yep. Voting closed before the playoffs. Voters cannot change their ballots based on playoff results.

Yup. They're both good. I think Thunder would be worse without Westbrook than Houston without a Harden. Good job Daryl Morey. Okay back to the playoffs for fans of teams that suck like the Mavs.

AggieSportsGuy said:

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Yup. They're both good. I think Thunder would be worse without Westbrook than Houston without a Harden. Good job Daryl Morey. Okay back to the playoffs for fans of teams that suck like the Mavs.

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Houston's talent minus Harden is much much better than OKC's talent minus Westbrook. Westbrook has Jerami Grant and Andre Roberson as wings getting big minutes in the playoffs. Yikes. And Dantoni is >>>>>>> Donovan.

Harden is still awesome, but he does have more to work with than Russ.

Looks like these playoffs are going to be really entertaining so far.

mAgnoliAg said:

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mavsfan4ever said:

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AggieSportsGuy said:

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Yup. They're both good. I think Thunder would be worse without Westbrook than Houston without a Harden. Good job Daryl Morey. Okay back to the playoffs for fans of teams that suck like the Mavs.

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Houston's talent minus Harden is much much better than OKC's talent minus Westbrook. Westbrook has Jerami Grant and Andre Roberson as wings getting big minutes in the playoffs. Yikes. And Dantoni is >>>>>>> Donovan.

Harden is still awesome, but he does have more to work with than Russ.

Looks like these playoffs are going to be really entertaining so far.

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But yet okc was picked by most to be better than the rockets this year.

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And people were raving about how good Kanter, Adams, and Oladipo were as a supporting cast

If we're going with the "take x player away and their team would suck" argument, should Isaiah Thomas win MVP?

It seems practical to think that basketball prognosticators (including Vegas, 538 and many others) underestimated how well the Rockets' pieces fit into D'Antoni's system and how much James would thrive in said system, which was likely influenced by the Rockets' disappointing campaign last year. Hindsight has sort of proven this to be the case.

But regardless of where we stood 10 months ago, it's pretty clear which system/supporting cast was better during the regular season and which is better today. If you want to make that a referendum on James vs Russ, I suppose that's your prerogative, but that's just one of many many factors that goes into an MVP voters mind.

At the end of the day (and I can't stress this enough), Russ is likely going to win MVP and James is likely going to move on to round 2. Both players have had great seasons.

Johnsy3 said:

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mAgnoliAg said:

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mavsfan4ever said:

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AggieSportsGuy said:

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Yup. They're both good. I think Thunder would be worse without Westbrook than Houston without a Harden. Good job Daryl Morey. Okay back to the playoffs for fans of teams that suck like the Mavs.

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Houston's talent minus Harden is much much better than OKC's talent minus Westbrook. Westbrook has Jerami Grant and Andre Roberson as wings getting big minutes in the playoffs. Yikes. And Dantoni is >>>>>>> Donovan.

Harden is still awesome, but he does have more to work with than Russ.

Looks like these playoffs are going to be really entertaining so far.

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But yet okc was picked by most to be better than the rockets this year.

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And people were raving about how good Kanter, Adams, and Oladipo were as a supporting cast

If we're going with the "take x player away and their team would suck" argument, should Isaiah Thomas win MVP?

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Kanter and Adams have probably suffered most from the Thunder's lack of outside shooting. They operate in a much more crowded paint than they did last year with the threat of Serge/KD's range. Presti has some work to do this summer to "modernize" the roster and make it more compatible with today's game.

No. Isaiah has a really good supporting cast

AggieSportsGuy said:

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So we're basing MVP on how good people thought a team would be before the season was even played? Doesn't make any sense.

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These are all just factors. Stop with the blanket statements.

I disagree with the premise that how good the media thought a team would be before the season is a factor in who wins MVP.

AggieSportsGuy said:

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I disagree with the premise that how good the media thought a team would be before the season is a factor in who wins MVP.

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But that is crucial to his argument that belongs in another thread entirely.

With 3-4 candidates, it will be interesting to see how the second place point totals affect the winner and runner up.

mm98 said:

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With 3-4 candidates, it will be interesting to see how the second place point totals affect the winner and runner up.

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Agreed. I saw that 44/100 ballots have been revealed. Of those 44, 30 had Westbrook MVP. Barring a wildly disproportionate amount of non-revelated ballots going Harden's way, it seems like Westbrook's odds are pretty high.

BUT, not voting for Westbrook sort of implies a stronger emphasis on team performance, which means Westbrook could easily be 3rd or 4th on the ballots that didn't vote him 1st, while Harden could be consistently 2nd on most of Westbrook's ballots. Perhaps this will be tighter than it seems.

Okay back to the playoffs for us lottery fans and fans of teams in the playoffs that want to ridicule our team or talk about other teams.

That press conference by the Grizz coach was awesome. He will get fined but definitely worth it. Not sure how to post twitter on here.

https://twitter.com/SInow/status/854193752189087744?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Ftexags.com%2Fforums%2F52%2Ftopics%2F2681181%2F6

mavsfan4ever said:

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That press conference by the Grizz coach was awesome. He will get fined but definitely worth it. Not sure how to post twitter on here.

https://twitter.com/SInow/status/854193752189087744?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Ftexags.com%2Fforums%2F52%2Ftopics%2F2681181%2F6

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His team was getting absolutely SMOKED in that game and he's just upset that their comeback fell short.

That being said, could be a good career move for the guy. As a fair weather basketball fan I had no idea who he was before last night. Very much reminded me of the Jim Mora "playoffs! you kidding me, playoffs!" rant after an NFL game. The fact that I still remember Jim Mora's name is possibly proof enough that sometimes throwing a temper tantrum can be beneficial in some ways!

I kinda thought he had a legit gripe. Kawhi was getting some calls that Conley and Randolph weren't. They were overselling even pretty light contact on drives in the playoffs, but Kawhi got a couple of those calls. The bad no-calls on the Gasol brothers evened out.

I like that Fitz came out and said that. It didn't seem like a desperate ploy, either, the guy just cares.

Unfortunately he's incredibly over-matched tactically and from a personnel standpoint by Pop and the Spurs.

When I saw Fitz call out zipper ISO for Zach Randolph 3 times in a row I had to lol for a minute. The guy knows he's playing the Spurs, right?

Ulrich said:

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I kinda thought he had a legit gripe. Kawhi was getting some calls that Conley and Randolph weren't. They were overselling even pretty light contact on drives in the playoffs, but Kawhi got a couple of those calls. The bad no-calls on the Gasol brothers evened out.

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As a Spurs fan I agree... but it's not like we haven't seen this before. Over and over and over again this is what we see in the NBA. Every team has been hurt by it at times but also benefited by it at others.

I don't remember all the details exactly, but when the #1 seeded Spurs lost to the #8 seed Grizzlies a few years back I recall the refs allowing the Griz to be VERY physical with the Spurs. Spurs couldn't compensate for the allowed physical play and they lost.

Yeah I don't know what I was thinking. He also has an amazing HC.