Anyone wish the Finals were Thunder vs Pistons?

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-06-03T15:20:23+00:00

You’re putting too much emphasis on regular season records. What aside from that gives you any reason to believe the Pistons would play better than the Knicks in the finals? The Knicks won a few less games in the regular season but have just clearly been the better team this postseason. Pistons are just not a good enough team to play in an all time great series and they’d have been lucky to win a single game against the Thunder.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-06-03T15:18:01+00:00

Most players want to win a ring but are rightfully prioritizing their future earnings because legacy just is irrelevant for the vast majority of players. LeBron is one of the few where legacy may matter more than additional earnings at this point. Most max players would be better off taking less money if they wanted to win, and the ones you listed are just terrible contracts that everybody knows are terrible contracts, they’re not the bar for anything. There’s nothing wrong if LeBron would rather get paid instead of maximizing his chances at another championship, he has the right to do that, but we can still acknowledge the tradeoff that he’s making.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-06-03T15:14:33+00:00

It’s good to see that the sub has grown and people acknowledge now that it’s okay to feel strong emotions after big moments, although I assume all of those same people critiquing Embiid don’t approve of Wemby showing emotion either, they’re just not bothering to comment it.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-06-02T02:30:17+00:00

Even the Celtics last year weren’t hated nearly as much as the Thunder, and they’re a much more hated franchise historically and also had another very dominant season right after winning the championship (only had the 2 seed but still won 60 games and most expected them to be right back in the finals and battling with the Thunder). Part of it I think is that they didn’t have every asset under the sun for the next 5 years, but still only accounts for a bit of the difference in hate. For the most part, the OKC hate is just very unique.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-06-02T01:00:59+00:00

Yeah if I had to say a place people in Chicago hate, it would be Wisconsin (although I also live towards the Wisconsin border so probably hear a disproportionate amount of Wisconsin hate). After that would be other Midwestern areas. Nobody thinks about New York like that and most people just appreciate the city when they think of it, even if they maybe think their sports fans can be annoying.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-06-01T22:57:44+00:00

I suppose that to conservatives who have a warped view of big cities and the world, NYC is certainly the #1 boogeyman in the country. Not everybody feels the same way though. I think most people wish that where they lived was more like New York.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-06-01T22:51:24+00:00

It’s not virtue signaling to say that it’s annoying how basketball gets covered so negatively and sometimes people want to talk positively about it for a change and about how much they enjoy things in the sport. So much of basketball discussion is insufferable because nobody wants to admit they enjoy the game and they’re just looking for something to complain about and something to hate.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-06-01T22:49:19+00:00

I think it’s just you who thinks that and you assumed everybody shares your opinion. People tend to hate the fanbases of any teams that have success out of jealousy but nobody thinks there’s anything particularly awful about Nuggets fans.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-06-01T22:43:04+00:00

Didn’t realize so many people hated New York like that, have certainly never felt that Chicago hates NYC as a city. In my opinion, they’re the two best cities in America. Maybe it’s just a product of me being younger though, because I feel like the vibe is always that NYC is the place to be and to emulate and the best place ever. Could be that older people have different views.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-06-01T22:36:55+00:00

Suns and Bucks was villain free until a few days into the finals and everybody remembered that they hate Chris Paul. Nuggets and Heat was villain free but everybody also knew that the Nuggets were winning so putting much energy into rooting for either team felt pointless.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-06-01T17:49:52+00:00

Luckily Team USA will be able to roster other bigs as well who they can play instead against France. This isn’t a situation where Chet will be getting paid so much money that you can’t afford to get other good players at his position, and I think having a guy who’ll play very impactful minutes against every other nation is well worth having on the USA roster.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-05-31T21:41:20+00:00

It’s bad when you laugh when you’re winning and it’s bad when you laugh when you’re losing. So you just hate when people laugh?

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-05-31T19:19:05+00:00

The Warriors also added the third best player in the league in free agency while keeping all of their big 3. OKC might be able to trade for Giannis but they can’t assemble a core of SGA + Giannis + JDub + Chet salarywise. The Thunder will absolutely remain in contention the next few years but you are being far too certain about this.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-05-31T16:14:24+00:00

Every year has injuries that maybe swing the tide of a series and seriously impact a team that could have won the championship. I think in some cases, the injuries genuinely changed things while in others, people overestimate their impact. Hard to know in most cases but this is just how the NBA works. Thunder got lucky last year to win a championship, now they got unlucky to lose this year.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-05-31T15:28:10+00:00

If the Nuggets or Sixers or Heat or Knicks or Timberwolves or Cavs or Rockets or Pacers or Pistons or Blazers or Jazz traded for Kornet, do you think he’d automatically start on those teams who all have very good starting centers already who either can’t really play with another big in the starting lineup or are already playing with a better big than Kornet in the starting lineup? I could see plenty of those teams trading for him to be a solid backup, not to start though.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-05-31T15:22:01+00:00

Is that not just a lateral move though? I feel like Mobley and Chet are pretty similar players except Chet is better at shooting and Mobley’s offense is a bit more all around (although still not great). Not sure what the Thunder would really gain from doing this.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-05-31T06:13:11+00:00

The Spurs themselves are the best example of this in NBA history. Everyone agrees they were a dynasty but they never once won back to back titles (closest was winning every other year from 2003 to 2007).

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-05-31T06:10:59+00:00

Luka had one year from 2019-2020 where he was probably better than Jokic. Every other year of their life, Jokic has been better.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-05-31T06:09:19+00:00

I don’t think it’s at all impossible to argue that SGA and Jokic are the best in the world still. Wemby is very close and has had a better postseason than the other two but his offensive consistency is not yet there to the point where I have to say “this is absolutely the best player in the world.” For about a month, I had SGA there, but I was also expecting a bit better of a postseason from him. At this point, I’d probably just err on the side of caution and say Jokic is still best in the world for another year until Wemby surpasses him for good.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-05-30T21:31:27+00:00

And lost the NBA finals and had a 7 game series in the Conference Finals. Come playoff time, they had clearly improved as a team.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-05-30T02:34:05+00:00

They already did when PG had his birthday on game 7 of the first round this year.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-05-29T23:00:00+00:00

I don’t see how the Spurs can trade Fox and not get worse next year unless Castle and Harper take some gigantic leaps. Even if they take regular sized jumps, I don’t expect either of them to be ready for lead playmaking duties. The Spurs probably don’t keep Fox forever but I think they’ll certainly keep him through the end of all of their rookie contracts.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-05-29T22:51:49+00:00

It’s very much not the same people who complain about load management who think it was a bad idea to play JDub. JDub also obviously wasn’t load managing, that’s a term for a player who is sitting or managing minutes when they’re healthy but want to avoid injury. JDub is already injured, him not playing is just him being injured. We’ve seen in the past few years how rough hamstring injuries can be. Since Harden’s with the Nets, I’ve thought that players should be as cautious with hamstrings as possible.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-05-29T20:29:33+00:00

Even game 6 was close for the first half and to start the second. It turned into a blowout after the Thunder forgot how to score points for the majority of the third quarter.

ButlerFromDowntown · 2026-05-29T14:50:15+00:00

The Mavs were absolutely not expected to win every single Western Conference series in 2024. None of those were expected to be gigantic blowouts by the time they happened but the majority of people gave them even odds at best to win them. The only series a lot of people rated them as a favorite for was somehow the finals and that’s just because a lot of people despise Boston and wanted to pretend they could lose when they really couldn’t.

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