11 Comments
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Rohit Shukla's avatar

The ownership is responsible for that trade, and that statue was pure disrespect

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Mike Shearer's avatar

I can't imagine they had to hold a gun to Nico's head, given how bad that relationship was, but either way, I should've at least acknowledged the Dumonts/Adelsons in the room!

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Alex Khalifa's avatar

It was a dreadful trade, but from what I read I got the sense that ownership forced Harrison’s hand.

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Mike Shearer's avatar

I've seen enough reporting about Harrison's frayed relationship with Doncic that I'm at least sure it didn't take much convincing, but either way, I should've acknowledged the Dumont in the room!

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Marc Campbell's avatar

Spoken like a true parent: I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed.

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YM's avatar

As a Spurs fan, Wemby’s DVT injury was the biggest one for me. The Luka trade also segues into Luka’s disappointing season in general - I personally thought he would win MVP going into the season and he never seemed to be at the level he was at in that finals run. Another one to me is the Kings firing Mike Brown and later Monty McNair and officially ending their short-lived competency era. I will say, even with all the injuries, Haliburton’s being the most gut wrenching, the playoffs were amazing this year which was nice.

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Mike Shearer's avatar

I originally planned on a separate call out for Wemby/Lillard's DVT but ran out of time.

And yeah, the Hali injury sucks for a lot of reasons, but it definitely will overshadow what was clearly the greatest playoffs in decades -- certainly since I've been watching ball.

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Michael's avatar
2dEdited

From what I've read Wemby seems to be in good shape for the long term, and the Spurs were just being very cautious with literally one of the most valuable assets in NBA history.

And it did suck for this year, but Dylan Harper is pretty sweet compensation, right? :)

If Wemby is as healthy and ready as I've read, I think they could be a major dark horse in the West. I wouldn't put a top 4 seed out of play with good injury luck. Fox, Castle and Harper all know how to play, they'll figure it out together. And Kornet was a huge pickup. A poor man's Hartenstein.

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YM's avatar

Yes, Harper is quite the consolation prize and I like the Carter Bryant pick too as a 3D wing to augment their on ball guy. I like the top 4 optimism- with Wemby’s ceiling anything is possible.

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Michael's avatar
2dEdited

I'm hoping the achilles injuries are just one of those things, a coincidence that makes us think it's part of an ever-growing pattern.

But yeah, it DID ruin this season, absolutely - and it ruined next season for those teams as well. I felt we got cheated as basketball fans, even if there were some awesome playoff moments. It's hard to get over Hali missing the rest of game 7 though.

And secondly, it wasn't just those 3 achilles injuries. So many big name players suffered significant injuries in the season, or in the playoffs, or were trying their best to gut it out in the playoffs at way less than 100%.

Just off the top of my head, severe injuries happened to: Tatum, Haliburton, Lillard, Middleton, Embiid, George, Maxey, Ivey, Butler, Wagner, Banchero, Suggs, Jalen Johnson, Quickley, Lamelo, Brandon Miller - that's just the east!

And for guys who keep getting hurt, like Embiid, George, Ingram, Porzingis, Mitchell Robinson, Lamelo - it still sucks even if it is predictable at this point.

When I look at some of the old timers I'm not just amazed that they played 80 games a year - it's how few seasons of 0-20-40 games there are.

Blurg. No easy answers. Maybe no answers of any kind. Hopefully it's just been a run of crappy luck.

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