NBA season 2019/20
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@raznomore said in NBA season 2019/20:
That was as rewarding an ending as anything I have seen.
When he was sitting there at the end I got chills. Cigar in his mouth, looking out the window. Wearing shoes bearing his name. Slightly aged and very fucked up crooked fingers. It was like Thanos in the Avengers when he clicked his fingers(and there’s already a meme for that too).
I will cry like a 2yo when he’s gone.
Wasn't it though. I went to bed and lay awake for hours thinking about it and how much he put into winning.
There is a lot to learn from that series.
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That. Was. Awesome.
I forgot how much I hated the Jazz. Bunch of speccy white fluffybunnies. Stockton looks like he does your tax return.
I love Reggie Miller though, so great to hear him. He's such a cheeky fucker.
Everything about MJ just screams that he's the king. Even now. He just has presence.
I'm gonna binge watch that one rainy day.
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@mariner4life said in NBA season 2019/20:
That. Was. Awesome.
I forgot how much I hated the Jazz. Bunch of speccy white fluffybunnies. Stockton looks like he does your tax return.
I love Reggie Miller though, so great to hear him. He's such a cheeky fucker.
Everything about MJ just screams that he's the king. Even now. He just has presence.
I'm gonna binge watch that one rainy day.
It's funny I used to hate Reggie as a kid because of the trash-talking etc. but as I've grown older (and admired those traits in other athletes) I've become a big fan. Also, he hasn't aged a day since 1998!
As for MJ, Le Bron ain't got shit on him and this series is a timely reminder of that fact!
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@junior Reggie hasn't. Did you watch the 30 for 30 on him and the Knicks? It's pretty funny
I read a great quote from Jalen Rose about how in LBJ's era all the great players get a turn to win a ring, in MJs time no one got a turn.
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@Bovidae said in NBA season 2019/20:
Reggie vs Spike Lee is one of the best stories in NBA playoff history.
He's not bad for the second best player in his family.
That’s a great story when she talks about kicking his ass constantly when they were younger.
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@shark said in NBA season 2019/20:
I should say, by no means would i want air time devoted to boring scenes showing Mike walking his kids to school, or laying in bed with a fat stogie after honing out the ex wife, but you'd think there would be something. It's one thing to say they're not part of the basketball story, but to not have featured - bar a brief appearance and one throwaway comnent - thus far in eight episodes which predominantly follow MJ, seems like a deliberate marginalisation.
Wouldn't MJ have said, hey, if you want balance in this doco which has me coming off largely as a prick, how about we show how much I love my kids? And while we're at it, I had some tough times off the court in my marriage too, so maybe that should be part of the narrative?
Because the doco maker was explicit that that had nothing to do with the story he wanted to tell.
This is the bit I love most.
'Look, winning has a price and leadership has a price. So I pulled people along when they didn’t want to be pulled. I challenged people when they didn’t want to be challenged. And I earned that right because my teammates who came after me didn’t endure all the things that I endured. Once you joined the team, you lived at a certain standard that I played the game. And I wasn’t going to take any less. Now if that means I had to go in there and get in your ass a little bit, then I did that. You ask all my teammates. The one thing about Michael Jordan was he never asked me to do something that he didn’t fucking do. When people see this they are going say, ‘Well he wasn’t really a nice guy. He may have been a tyrant.’ Well, that’s you. Because you never won anything. I wanted to win, but I wanted them to win to be a part of that as well. Look, I don’t have to do this. I am only doing it because it is who I am. That’s how I played the game. That was my mentality. If you don’t want to play that way, don’t play that way.”'
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@mariner4life said in NBA season 2019/20:
@junior Reggie hasn't. Did you watch the 30 for 30 on him and the Knicks? It's pretty funny
I read a great quote from Jalen Rose about how in LBJ's era all the great players get a turn to win a ring, in MJs time no one got a turn.
Yeah good point about everyone getting a ring these days. Seems to be much more "glory hunting" than there was in MJ's day. (Obviously guys moved around back then too, but it seemed much less prevalent and not as many moved during their peak years in order to get the ring.)
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Saw a good quote the other day from his old trainer (Tim Grover he has an awesome book IMO).
"The ad said 'be like Mike' not 'like Mike' you don't have to be liked you have to be respected".
In other non MJ news I am coming out of retirement....
Card collecting retirement. Some decent money and good liquidity in them these days. Been doing a bit of learning.
Me and 5 mates are just about to do our first 'live break' where you all chip in and buy a box of cards (we brought 2 different boxes) was $250 each. We then had a random wheel pick our names and had a draft so we all get 6 teams each and whatever cards come out from your teams you get them. At the moment the rookie cards with most value are Zion and Ja Morant so I was stoked to get the second pick and land the Grizzles.
Looking forward to jumping on zoom this weekend and having one of the boys open the packets for us.
Haven't been this excited in a long time.
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@junior said in NBA season 2019/20:
@mariner4life said in NBA season 2019/20:
@junior Reggie hasn't. Did you watch the 30 for 30 on him and the Knicks? It's pretty funny
I read a great quote from Jalen Rose about how in LBJ's era all the great players get a turn to win a ring, in MJs time no one got a turn.
Yeah good point about everyone getting a ring these days. Seems to be much more "glory hunting" than there was in MJ's day. (Obviously guys moved around back then too, but it seemed much less prevalent and not as many moved during their peak years in order to get the ring.)
Player power wasn't as prevalent back then. As Simmons said recently, in the modern era MJ and Scottie would have simply said to Reinsdorf that Krause needs to go and they need to bring Phil back. And it would have happened. And Scottie would have been paid.
Not sure it's a fair reflection to say that modern guys are just chasing rings, they just know their power now and use it accordingly.
As for LeBron, yeah he's a clear #2 to MJ. But I also think he's a clear step ahead of Kareem, Russell, Magic and Bird. His career has been phenomenal, his 8 straight finals overblown but his supposedly poor finals record massively overplayed. The Cavs teams he dragged to the finals were so poor in comparison to anything MJ carried, and the GSW (in particular) team was markedly better than anything MJ faced. Some of the stats that LeBron produced in those series' are otherwordly, and really unlikely to be repeated.
The guy is a beast, and I have no doubt that he works just as hard as MJ, his body and longevity are surely a testament to that.
That last episode was superb. The best of the series by a country mile. Just basketball.
I came out of it all not leaning too much new, but having MJ reinforced as a prick, a classic personality formed by his uber competitiveness combined with years of being surrounded by yes-men.
But what a fucking player and absolutely no doubt as to who is the GOAT.
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The player power thing is far and away the worst thing about the modern game. I can't stand how players can manufacture a team and the domino effects that can follow. And the ring chasing is just as bad. I did think several times throughout the series, had that Bulls core been formed twenty years later in 2009, how different it may have been in terms of second-tier and role players. Would the likes of Steve Kerr ever had a chance, or would MJ have demanded they sign Chris Paul? Would he have put up with Scott Burrell or demand he be traded?
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@voodoo I agree re LeBron dragging the Cavs kicking and screaming past the Warriors, but not so much that they were such a poor team compared to what Jordan had. Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love and even an old Richard Jefferson made for a quality support crew amongst others. They're just not the all round team loaded with stars the Warriors were. So he gets credit for competing with the Warriors but it wasn't like he was Patrick Ewing on the Knicks.
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@shark said in NBA season 2019/20:
@voodoo I agree re LeBron dragging the Cavs kicking and screaming past the Warriors, but not so much that they were such a poor team compared to what Jordan had. Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love and even an old Richard Jefferson made for a quality support crew amongst others. They're just not the all round team loaded with stars the Warriors were. So he gets credit for competing with the Warriors but it wasn't like he was Patrick Ewing on the Knicks.
Yeah, the poor Cavs comment is the early Cavs teams. The latter team was much better, it just had no chance against GSW. That said, Love and Kyrie were only ever BOTH good in 2017, in other years ome of them sucked / was inexperienced / was injured.
I actually think Kyrie was a great sidekick for LeBron, he was able to be the alpha scorer in the crunch where Lebron couldn't be, and LeBron could cover all his defensive lapses.
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@mariner4life said in NBA season 2019/20:
That. Was. Awesome.
I forgot how much I hated the Jazz. Bunch of speccy white fluffybunnies. Stockton looks like he does your tax return.
I love Reggie Miller though, so great to hear him. He's such a cheeky fucker.
Everything about MJ just screams that he's the king. Even now. He just has presence.
I'm gonna binge watch that one rainy day.
I actually liked the Jazz. I never cheered for them, but I respected the hell out of them. Stockton might look like your tax guy, but he was an evil little prick, all elbows and filth . Competitive as they come. The Mailman was/is the whitest black man alive, with all the coolness of Billy Ray Cyrus. But damn was he efficient. And I really liked Hornacek. But mostly I just liked the way they moved the ball. They must have averaged 1-2 dunks per game only, but they always found the open guy.
As for the LD, would you really binge that? I honestly don't think I'll ever watch it again. Over 10 episodes, I reckon there is 2 hours of quality footage that I could watch on repeat. But all those back-stories should be consigned to the cutting room floor. Great finish, but it really left me thinking about how good this could have been
Edit - I also love Reggie, fucking legend
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@voodoo Stockton was one of my favourite players. He might look like an IRS accountant, but he was a fierce competitor that knew how to win with the pieces around him. I would watch hours of how he played the 2 man game with Malone. The detail of when to dribble, when to take the step off the screen, what holes presented for the pass.
I was fortunate to play a lot of ball when I was younger with a Samoan mate who was the teenage equivalent of Karl Malone. Big, strong and a beast around the basket.
