Celtics Win NBA Title

[SuperDuck]

I'm not really a Boston fan, but I am happy for Peyton Pritchard.

[OregonFan4Life]

It is cool to see Pritchard develop the reputation of being a buzzer beater specialist. It is crazy how many half court buzzer beaters he’s made this year.

[Phalanx]

I was bummed that Payton didn't show out more during the finals - I think those two buzzer-beaters might have been his only baskets in the series. Anyway, glad he got a ring, and he absolutely was a contributor during the season. Also, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that Jrue Holiday got traded away for Damian Lillard, and now Jrue has another ring while Lillard sat at home and watched. Jrue won my respect several years ago when he cleaned Dame and C.J's clocks on offense and defense on his way to the playoff first-round sweep. Now he has won two championships and Lillard has still never won a game in the conference finals.

[TheDrake]

Pritch had 17 pts in the finals

[pezsez1]

Now he has won two championships and Lillard has still never won a game in the conference finals.

Not bad for a fourth or fifth option.

Seeing the Celtics win without a reigning superstar gave me a small shred of hope for the Blazers years from now. But by years, I mean YEARS. This team is going to be awful for a long time, and we still haven't seen any evidence that Cronin has any kind of plan. (Other than lose a ton of games and maximize draft position, which literally anyone could do.) I don't think Cronin will ever be fired because Jody got him on the cheap, but hopefully Cronin can piece a few things together during the next couple seasons. Or, hopefully Jody sells the team and we get a proven GM who can get the job done.

Look at Boston's top three though of Tatum, Brown and Unicorn. Even that level of talent seems unfathomable with Portland's current roster.

[Phalanx]

Now he has won two championships and Lillard has still never won a game in the conference finals.

Not bad for a fourth or fifth option.

On offense maybe. One thing Lillard fans will never get is that winning basketball is played on both ends. Jrue is one of the best 2-way point guards in the game, and he doesn't cost as much as diva Lillard. That's why having him on your team helps you win. Having Lillard on your team means going from contention to first-round losses. He has done that for two teams now and counting.

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[droop10]

Now he has won two championships and Lillard has still never won a game in the conference finals.

Not bad for a fourth or fifth option.

On offense maybe. One thing Lillard fans will never get is that winning basketball is played on both ends. Jrue is one of the best 2-way point guards in the game, and he doesn't cost as much as diva Lillard. That's why having him on your team helps you win. Having Lillard on your team means going from contention to first-round losses. He has done that for two teams now and counting.

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Lol, it's so disingenuous to continue to blame the Bucks first round loss on Lillard. No team is sustaining losing a top 3 player in the NBA for an entire series. I do agree that Holiday is a better overall player at this point in time, but he definitely has never had to carry the kind of load that Lillard has. The reason the Bucks felt the need to shake things up is that they lost in the first round last year to the 8 seed and weren't even competitive in that series. Giannis missed multiple games in that series too, but was actually available for 3 of them, and they lost all 3. Hard to point to Lillard being a reason for regression in that case.

Middleton being injury prone and getting older is a bigger reason for their decline, since he has primarily been set up to be their 2nd option. He would have been fine as a 3rd option if Giannis were healthy, but alas. I'm not even a Blazer or Lillard fan. Your blind hatred of him just leads you to spin every narrative against him, whether it makes sense or not. The Bucks biggest mistake was moving on from Budenholzer, who is a good coach. It's become obnoxious how often NBA coaches are fired these days for stuff out of their control, like injuries and roster construction. Star players have too much say in these decisions and who they hire to replace them, and they don't make for good GMs. I like Giannis, but it seems like he's becoming a bit of a coach killer, and that's led them to the retread that is Doc Rivers.

[pezsez1]

On offense maybe. One thing Lillard fans will never get is that winning basketball is played on both ends. Jrue is one of the best 2-way point guards in the game, and he doesn't cost as much as diva Lillard. That's why having him on your team helps you win. Having Lillard on your team means going from contention to first-round losses. He has done that for two teams now and counting.

We know you hate Lillard, but man this is just .

1) There's a reason why the Bucks (and Giannis) wanted to swap out Jru and capital for Dame.

2) In Jru's best playoff runs, he was never any better than a third option. Probably more like a fourth option. Dame was always the #1 and the second-best player at any time with him was CJ McCollum. Let's see how he does next season if Giannis makes it to the postseason with him.

3) Jru isn't even the best defensive player on his own team. The Bucks' best defensive player in the playoffs was... maybe Lopez? Maybe in little moments a washed out Pat Bev? Dame is great, but the Bucks are built around Giannis and he wasn't available.

It's seriously laughable that you just kind of skip over that to try to make a point. That pretty much sums up what I hate about sports debate. The amount of strawmanning that goes on is just wild! If people can't make points without strawmanning or skipping over vital information then they really should just sit out, but that's never what happens.

The only real way you can criticize Dame in this Celtics conversation (and I'm shocked you didn't figure this out on your own) is that Dame probably could have played with Tatum/Brown but he was too fixated on Miami and didn't want to go to Boston. Tatum was trying to recruit him, according to multiple sources. In hindsight, Dame probably would have been a much better fit being a sniper on that Celtics squad (which is much better at sharing the ball) than with ball-dominant Giannis.

[Phalanx]

Let's see how he does next season if Giannis makes it to the postseason with him.

Always appealing to future results is a hallmark of a blind Lillard fanatic. The last 12 seasons don't count, it's the next one that will prove your elusive narrative.
Also, the idea that a supposed 'Top 75 all-time' player needed another player rated even higher in order to get out of the first round seems like logical acrobatics.

Does George Karl also hate Lillard? He said in the tweet I posted above that Jrue for Lillard was a downgrade. I still think the Bucks needed to make the trade to hold on to Giannis, but he may be regretting signing a new contract with them now that he has actually seen what playing with Lillard looks like on a daily basis, and how Lillard's contract will prevent them from filling out the team in any way that could possibly help them contend with the Celtics. That contract will be an anchor around their necks the same way it was in Portland.

[pezsez1]

Always appealing to future results is a hallmark of a blind Lillard fanatic.

Dude, I'm not promising a Lillard title. I'm saying let's wait to see how this Bucks team does in the postseason with the guy it's literally built around. Dame isn't that team's #1 option, Giannis is, and that's how that team is built. Jordan wouldn't have won a title as the only elite player on that roster even with your beloved Jru as his PG. You Lillard haters are insane with your crazy takes.