i think the obvious argument against Hill is that he's getting older and he had a career year, so you probably should expect a decent decline next year. But what he did was great, offensively too. Only absolutely elite pg's (neither of which is going to be available) could be expected to improve their offense.

You gotta put it in context. He is about to be 31 and people are talking 3/75 or 4/100. If you lock in George Hill and a Favors extension at those prices what do you really have? A good defensive team that probably can't score enough to beat a top 4-5 team in the West.

Don't have too much of an opinion on Favors, but he seems like he has plateaued, never healthy either. And he is gonna be due some $ after next season as well.

Gobert/Favors had injury issues in the series but they beat the Clippers without Blake, I think they're mistaking themselves if they think this core is getting to rd 2 most years.

GS vs Cavs should be fun at least.

We are talking about Utah here.

Them building a solid playoff team for the next few years is absolutely an okay scenario. Geoff said the rebuttal I was mulling posting.

That 17 ppg cited for Hill is also at the slowest pace itl.

Specifically this:

High upside, low floor under 6ft scoring guards are available every draft super late.

Corral a couple of those and take them to training camp with you.

I like keeping Hill, giving the team more time to actually play together, and see if they can grow as a team.

I like your style Dodger.

i don't agree that the warriors played especially well in this game. they played decently, but their defensive effort and their overall focus were suspect in the middle third to half of the game. jazz also hit some tough shots even when they started defending again, hayward especially, and wouldn't really go away.

also mike brown sucks. hopefully he nabs a ring and a parlays it into another head coaching gig. don't want him on the sidelines if kerr ends up going down longterm

edit: like however much i feel like i ***** about little stuff with kerr, i find myself scratching my head a lot at things that mike brown does

Ingles is a FA, what's he get?

3/40?

Solomon Hill got 3/35 last year.

They are an all-star team that can overwhelm people so it is tough to try for the entire game. Why Utah scored 67pts in 2nd-3rd Q and 20 in the 4th. It would be hard to be that much better than your opponent and keep a defensive intensity for 4 quarters when you know you can drop 120 either way. This was the case vs Portland last year in a lot of those 2nd rd games.

I don't really buy on/off switch narratives, but when your just that much better than your opponents you kinda can do that.

Maybe they got a 30 point win coming.

Missed the games tonight, agree with above. Dray is insanely valuable, insane like taint. He's like duct tape or whatever, I'm to lazy to think of a good simile. I can't think of a single team off the top of my head he wouldn't drastically improve. Put him on POR instead of Aminu and I would guess they'd win 15 more games next season.

Lol

Dray is like the basketball version of Flex Tape:

man i am just remembering how awesome OKC vs GS was last year. KD just joining the other side after going up 3 : 1 is just so pathetic.

Dray is like Power Forward version of Jason Kidd.

Legit think it was because KD didn't like Russ' ball hog "alpha" ways

I thought he was more of a cross between Donkey and Shrek.

A willing passer playing with Russ would die a little inside.

And then you look over and see GS whip the ball around in an even more free-flowing way than SA.

So what's the takeaway? OKC screwed up soooooo bad when Harden and KD were right there for each other for a decade plus.

yeah, i mean it's understandable to some extnent but it's not an excuse. they still need more consistent effort. iggy said as much in his post game interview.

regardless, just wouldn't say they played really well when they coasted in the middle and let the opponent back into the game. i don't mean to discredit utah fwiw

That's about as good a team can coast when playing a team that gets hot themselves.

Somewhat unrelated:

We talked about this 2 nights ago ITT.

I think as we get closer to what is supposed to be the best parts of the playoffs, more and more people are gonna have that lightbulb go off in their head and come to the realization you just did.

I think Houston can take them to 6.

If so, that will mitigate that effect.

I like SAs chances to be competitive over Houston. Atleast they got a style that could give the Warriors some problems. And maybe Kawhi could get KD off his game. Maybe LMA can get going downlow a few games vs the lack of size on GS (like G1-2 vs OKC last yr before Adams went on him) Maybe Pop can bring a wrinkle or two to steal a game.

Houston is just a poor mans version of the Warriors. They will D them like OKC's starters were able to, play Anderson/Williams off the court and drop 120 with ease.

And I don't think SA has much chance either, but Hou seems like a wrap. That's like playing your little brother.

As far as GS being so fun to play with and OKC wasn't, ehh...Yeah if you can smash everyone and there is no pressure and everyone gets easy looks because you dominate then yeah, the game is gonna be easier. Exactly. He took the easy way out.

Yes they are the poor man's version. But there's variance in the 3 point shot, for each side.

SA could def beat Houston tho, you're right. I don't have a strong feeling on GS/SA with no Parker, gut says sweep or maybe 5 but we'll see how they look shortly.

Thinking about it, it does remind me of when Sac was still elite and they played young Dallas with Nash and just ran them off the court playing the same style superiorly.