Guiness Posted June 28, 2016 Share Posted June 28, 2016 Draymond Green: Finals loss will 'never wear off' but ready for RioNEW YORK -- It has been just over seven days since Game 7, and Draymond Green is still reeling from the NBA Finals loss to Cleveland."That will never wear off," Green said, even as he was proud to be introduced with the rest of the 2016 USA Men's Basketball Olympic squad at a youth clinic in Harlem. "We had an opportunity to win a championship. That never goes away. [but] you got to move on." One person who might help Green and the Golden State Warriors move on is Kevin Durant. The league's most sought-after free agent will meet with six teams, including the Warriors. The idea of the 73-win Warriors potentially adding a superstar scoring machine such as Durant has the league buzzing ahead of free agency, which opens on July 1. "I don't know," Green said when asked how much better the Warriors can be with his new Olympic teammate. "There's different dynamics to everything. At the end of the day, there is nothing set in stone. I don't worry about things I can't control. "This is a business. I've always been taught that you are either getting better or you are getting worse. Teams are always trying to look ahead at what's next." While Carmelo Anthony has already told ESPN.com's Marc Stein that he's recruiting Durant to the Knicks, Green said he will try to woo Durant if asked by the Warriors. Golden State's Green, Klay Thompson and Harrison Barnes are all on Team USA along with Durant. Cleveland's Kyrie Irving is also on the Olympic roster. Green said "it's not weird at all" playing alongside Irving despite losing to the Cavs' point guard in the seven-game Finals. "Of course it is (still fresh)," Green said of the championship defeat. "But that don't mean I am coming into this like, 'Oh man, I am mad at Kyrie.' Number one, they beat us, so you respect that. Number two, we are here for this. It is not about anybody's personal feelings. It is about representing the country."Green will do that alongside Durant. Could the two be teammates beyond this summer? That remains to be seen. "I am not talking about that right now," Durant said of the teams he plans to meet with. "It's USA Basketball, I don't want to take my focus off that or be a distraction. When I know, you guys will know what I do. "The best thing about all of us, none of the guys here have put any type of pressure. It has been cool." Quote Link to comment
Maki8 Posted June 29, 2016 Share Posted June 29, 2016 cno sa b tlga pinaka important player ng warriors? Quote Link to comment
*kalel* Posted June 30, 2016 Share Posted June 30, 2016 i think its curry.. his shooting opens a lot of things for the warriors.. and then klay... green is a close third Quote Link to comment
Guiness Posted June 30, 2016 Share Posted June 30, 2016 (edited) The Warriors were never revolutionizing basketballBy Bethlehem Shoals on Jun 29, 2016, 11:33a Golden State’s legacy is profound even after losing the 2016 Finals, but talk of them changing the entire fabric of the game was always overstated A month ago, it all seemed so clear. Big men were expendable. The next generation of NBA players would be weaned on half-court threes and cross-court passes. Fixed positions were a thing of the past. Defensive schemes would all but eliminate one-on-one matchups. And iso-driven hero ball would no longer torment the very soul of the sport. After the Warriors pissed away a 3-1 lead in the Finals, though, the future of basketball doesn’t seem nearly as certain. It wasn’t just Golden State’s assault on the record books that made its 2015-16 so exhilarating. There was the sense -- at times an outright declaration by some -- that we were watching the game evolve before our very eyes. The Warriors were so devastatingly successful that they would serve as a template for the rest of the league going forward. In and of itself, the notion of one single team (or player) dictating the direction of the sport is remarkable. While basketball is a game of eras and epochs, you’d be hard-pressed to identify the kind of key turning point that the Warriors were supposed to represent. There have certainly been players who single-handedly altered the way the sport was played: Michael Jordan, Julius Erving, Kevin Garnett and George Mikan immediately spring to mind. But many of the NBA’s greatest players have been so singular that it’s hard to quantify their influence, or chart how their teams left a lasting imprint on the game. That’s part of why the idea of teams copying the Warriors -- and institutions scrambling to keep up with the revolution in progress -- was always, to some degree, laughable. The Warriors may have had a readily apparent system, but it was one driven by truly remarkable individuals. In the grand scheme of the league, Stephen Curry has taken a backseat to GOAT-candidate LeBron James, but he’s still a deadly, transformative weapon who might be the greatest shooter who ever lived. The postseason has opened up a lot of questions about Draymond Green’s attitude and maturity level; that doesn’t do anything to diminish his multifarious talent. And when Klay Thompson gets going, he’s nearly Curry’s equal as a long-range threat. That’s a long way of saying that to play like the Warriors, a team would somehow need to approximate all these pieces, which seems all but impossible. The SSOL Phoenix Suns, who in many ways predicted this Golden State team, would never have existed without Steve Nash’s telepathic playmaking and Amar’e Stoudemire’s pyrotechnic game around the basket. No less key was Shawn Marion, who covered everyone’s ass on defense, knocked down visually abhorrent corner threes and proved invaluable as a rebounder and finisher. Small ball as practiced by the Suns or any number of Don Nelson’s teams down through the years, has always been more a philosophy than a fully-formed idea. If anything, this year’s Warriors -- who were seen as a triumph of team-oriented basketball -- were simply the latest manifestation of an approach predicated on irreplicable players and unpredictable synergy. The Warriors weren’t a clear-cut formula; no squad is going to contend for a championship by simply jacking up 30-footers and making the extra pass when necessary. They were what happened when an outrageously good roster fell into the hands of a coach smart enough to let individuals’ games shape the overall approach. This wasn’t a triumph of ego-less, team-first basketball. If that’s your bag, take a look at the mega-accomplished San Antonio Spurs and how abruptly their postseason ended. Rather, the Warriors’ success was predicated on the importance of letting players be themselves, gelling together naturally, and then based on these observations, tailor a system to their strengths. When the team stumbled in the playoffs, it wasn’t some sort of reflection on the Warriors’ system. With a diminished version of Curry and Green making a mockery of everything he’d accomplished during the regular season, there was no Warriors system.The Warriors have served up a vision for the sport, albeit one more nebulous than previously thought. It’s not about finding or manufacturing a Curry clone, but for being able to pull talent like Curry, Thompson and Green (all drafted, all steals) and then intuitively piece them together. Instead of prescribing a course of action, the Warriors should put more pressure than ever on coaches and front offices to be astute and creative in the way they do their jobs. Imposing a top-down system on a roster demonstrates a lack of imagination and will invariably fail to get the most out of players, no matter how good they are. It’s worth noting that when the Thunder outplayed the Warriors, it had as much to do with Billy Donovan’s retooling of their strategy as it did the one-two punch of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. The Warriors didn’t teach the league anything useful about what to do or how to do it, or even who should do it. Rather, they were an example of how an organization, from top-to-bottom, can view the construction of a team. Their failure to win a title in no way invalidates what that team stands for, provided we correctly identify that for what it is they stood for. Regardless of whether their exact tactics or overall strategy succeeded against Cleveland, it’s hard to say that a 73-9 team is an exercise in futility. If they had won that impossibly close Game 7, the Warriors would now be taken literally like never before. And if that were happening, the future of basketball would be thoroughly misguided. Edited June 30, 2016 by hahnz Quote Link to comment
MustangEco Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 isiah thomas jr is way better than steph curry.......thomas shooting percentage is far high than curry Quote Link to comment
CirocBoy Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 ^ ^ ^ da fuq!??? What you smoking on? Quote Link to comment
startoffbeat Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 hindi masamang mangarap ng mataas para kay thomas. remember, jeremy lin had far more hype than steph curry. Quote Link to comment
Mad Damian Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 Warriors were a team in disarray till Steve Kerr took over.Made them go back to the basic as a team.Something Mark Jackson couldn't do/see. If only Dwayne Casey could see the potential of his Raptor other than just developing DeRozan And Lowrythey'll go farther in the weak East. To answer the question, the team as a whole is the most important players.From the bigs who anchor the D to the shooters and passers who open up the floor for the slashers.No one player stands out till the final moments of a clsoe game. Quote Link to comment
Guiness Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 Well the narrative that the Warriors were displaying, that its because they were a team, they became successful, kind of like what the Spurs are only they were younger. Thing is, they were exposed by two teams that hold on the old adage of basketball that rely on top level Superstars to get them over. They struggled mightily against the OKC Thunder who were being burned by Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. They won because the Thunder didn't have the mental toughness to finish them off when they had the 3-1 lead. Against the Cavs they ran into the best player in the game in Lebron James who put up monster numbers. Maybe it means. that team play can only get you so far and when it comes to crunch, you still need a player you can rely on to win you the game. A Go-to-guy to make the shot in the final moments of the game. Kind of like what Irving did when Curry couldn't stop him from hitting the game winning 3. Curry couldn't duplicate the Irving shot at the other end. Something a player of his talent level should have made. And now they are making a play for Durant. Is it because they need a CLOSER at the end of the game? Something that Curry is incapable of doing when the going gets tough the tough gets too Scurry for Curry? Quote Link to comment
Guiness Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 (edited) Kevin Durant to sign with Warriors Kevin Durant is joining the Golden State Warriors.Saying it has been "by far the most challenging few weeks in my professional life," Durant announced his decision Monday in a post on The Players' Tribune.He is expected to sign a two-year, $54.3 million contract, sources told ESPN's Marc Stein. The deal would include a player option after the first year. "The primary mandate I had for myself in making this decision was to have it based on the potential for my growth as a player -- as that has always steered me in the right direction," Durant wrote. "But I am also at a point in my life where it is of equal importance to find an opportunity that encourages my evolution as a man: moving out of my comfort zone to a new city and community which offers the greatest potential for my contribution and personal growth."With this in mind, I have decided that I am going to join the Golden State Warriors." The contract can be finalized July 7, when a leaguewide moratorium is lifted on signings and trades.With Durant's decision, the Warriors are unlikely to match the reported four-year, $95 million offer sheet that Harrison Barnes agreed to with the Dallas Mavericks. The biggest catch on the free-agent market, Durant met with six teams the past three days: Oklahoma City, Golden State, San Antonio, Boston, Miami and the Los Angeles Clippers. The Warriors held their meeting with Durant on Friday. On Saturday, Durant spoke with NBA legend Jerry West, a member of the Warriors' executive board, on the telephone, sources told ESPN's Chris Broussard. West outlined reasons why he believed Golden State would be the ideal fit for the superstar forward.The 27-year-old Durant has spent all nine seasons of his career with the Thunder organization. He won the MVP in 2014, has been named first-team All-NBA five times and has made seven All-Star teams. He has appeared in four Western Conference finals and one NBA Finals, losing in five games to the Heat in 2012.Durant bounced back last season to earn second-team All-NBA honors after undergoing three surgeries on his right foot to repair a Jones fracture suffered prior to the 2014-15 season, when he was limited to 27 games before undergoing a season-ending bone graft procedure in March. Without Durant, the Thunder missed the postseason. With him back for 72 games last season, the Thunder improved to 55-27 and finished third in the West. The Thunder beat the Dallas Mavericks in five games in the opening round, upset the 67-win Spurs in six games in the second round and pushed the Warriors to seven games in the Western Conference finals.Durant averaged 28.2 points, 8.2 rebounds and 5.0 assists last season, and he scored at least 20 points in 67 straight games.In nine seasons, Durant is averaging 27.4 points, 7.0 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game. Information from ESPN staff writer Royce Young was used in this report. Edited July 4, 2016 by hahnz Quote Link to comment
Sadmellow Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 almost all-star starting lineup na to GS lol Quote Link to comment
Guiness Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 i don't know about you guys, but this smells awfully the same back in 2010 when a guy from Cleveland left to go chasing championships in Miami. Outside of the Golden State fan base you can surely bet bandwagon fans are already riding the caravan of the Warriors when they hear of this news Quote Link to comment
BigBen28 Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 Welcome to the Warriors Mr Kevin Durant !! Quote Link to comment
*kalel* Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/kevin-durant-announces-join-golden-state-warriors-40329716 Good choice! I hope he fits in Quote Link to comment
kind patron Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/kevin-durant-announces-join-golden-state-warriors-40329716 Good choice! I hope he fits in I hope he doesn't haha Fantasy wise, Steph, KD, Draymond and Klay are in the top 15 -- their values will surely take a hit. So I guess, I won't draft any of them in the first two rounds to be safe Quote Link to comment
startoffbeat Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 there goes the neighborhood Quote Link to comment
daphne loves derby Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 WARRIORS will be scary next season. Not the defending champs. main concern here is KD only signed "two years" which means, for him, it will be a trial and error process ala Howard in LA. They have the bigger pressure to win the title next season than the cavs to repeat. What will happen if they didnt even reach the finals? Lets see... Quote Link to comment
Hari ng Spakol Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 if you can't beat them, join them! Quote Link to comment
EL_PY Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Durant chose the best possibilty to earn and win championship.Sa work walang halos nagtatagal. Its either you look for somewhere where you will earn much and grow better.Some people are just too immature to realize na tao din sya.He has priorities too to consider. Quote Link to comment
daphne loves derby Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 if you can't beat them, join them! they are going to be ready .@DwyaneWade is in Cleveland right now meeting with @KingJames & @cavs ownership. Uh-oh @MiamiHEAT. Quote Link to comment
vienvenido Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Kalakas na team. Super taas ng expectation. Quote Link to comment
MustangEco Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 chris bosh wants out of miami and plans to join james and wade incleveland.....warriors vs cleveland 3........Civil War na! Quote Link to comment
EL_PY Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 We all know that bosh is aready done dahil sa condition nya.Sayang sya. Magaling pa naman 1 Quote Link to comment
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