Embiid is a much better player than Howard ever was.

I feel Embiid is going to be one of the most hated players in the league once Philly is pushing for championships.

People will respect his game, but a lot of the stuff he does will rub people the wrong way.

He gets away with it now because Philly is still growing, but what is seen as okay now will be seen as arrogance when they become really good.

It happened with Steph. People respect his game, but stuff he did 5 years ago that everyone loved is now seen as him being arrogant (e.g. the shimmy).

I mean if Steph did what Embiid did a few weeks ago (laugh at elbowing someone in the head), it would be the first thing run on every TV show the next day and people would say he's arrogant and disrespecting the game.

It comes with success, but his style will definitely be polarizing.

Awful comparison.

This just isn't true, at one point Howard was the second or third best player in the league, plus he was a cyborg with the amount of games and minutes he played.

Nah. HGH was an absolute FEAST of a rim protector

Forgot to post this, the first round brought us one of the great redemption stories of the playoffs (turn sound up):

I feel Chris Paul is receiving too much critism for the first two games. Lots of talk about "Chris Paul needs to play better".

But you can't run an offense that's "Give the ball to Harden and let him do his thing", and when that's not working say "Chris Paul needs to play better".

He needs to be more aggressive offensively to take some of the burden off of Harden. The problem is, I'm not sure if he can. GS just has so much length on the floor and they just switch everything.

I said this a few pages ago but Hou would really benefit from having someone like Jamychal Green and just play 5 out. Their current personnel seems to small to do it consistently. That would probably give Paul the spacing he needs since Draymond is taking away most of Capela's production anyway.

But that's the Houston offense. Harden.

Most studs actually take on more burden in the playoffs.

You can't play one way all year and then say "I want to take the burden off my best player (that he handled all year) and put it on my second best player"

Paul is basically giving exactly what he did in the regular season. His scoring has actually gone up a bit.

But the "experts" are saying "I want Paul to have a 25/10 night tonight".

Why?

That isn't how Houston play.

It's hilarious D'angelo tried to sneak weed on a plane via Arizona Iced tea bottle because he chose to hide it in something that wouldn't have even been allowed through security in the first place.

I dunno who the "experts" are that you are referring to but if Hou did want to win this series, CP would likely have to play better than he has the first 2 games. Maybe game 3 he can crush a zig-zag game but in general I just don't think he really can take on more usage with Iguodala back healthy. Warriors D when locked in is too much.

Houston pays CP3 $35m+/yr. On that salary he should be good enough to step up if plan A isn't working, the problem is he's just not that good anymore. Houston has staggered their minutes all season so CP3 having to create offense without Harden isn't a sudden thing.

Chris Paul is a 15-20 point per game player now (plus 5-8 assists).

Expecting more is unfair.

Underrated is that he's helped keep Curry/Thompson relatively quiet.

You're kinda putting my answer in some type of ESPN type context where I'm saying "CHRIS PAUL HAS GOT TO STEP UP AND PROVE HIS WORTH!"

I'm just saying if they're gonna beat the Warriors then he has to play better. I also think we're all in agreement they're probably not going to beat the Warriors barring injury.

fair enough.

But Capella is the guy that's been the main problem. Needs to dominate the Warriors small ball line up or go sit on the bench.

That's only more of a reason to talk about how great he has been this year then. If he's as mediocre as you're making him out to be in past years, the way he's playing this year should be a huge talking point. It's taken for granted he's playing like a top 1-2 player because nobody cares about the Raptors. You really think if he swapped places with say Ben Simmons he wouldn't be getting more coverage?

Simmons, Embiid, Jokic, Dame, and a few others who are not playing as well as he is this year are all getting way more media coverage than him. I know there's reasons that can be listed off why they should be, but there's plenty of reasons Kawhi should be getting more as well -- the largest one being that he's playing better than all of them right now.

Don't know 100% but pretty sure he told Morey that if he was gonna opt into his deal with the Clippers to be traded to Houston that he would have to be made whole for doing so after the 2018 season.

I guess you could debate if Lou/Harrell/Bev for him was a good deal for the Rockets since those 3 as assets would be better than CP right now but Houston came damn close to winning the title last year and in the era of superteams it would've been hard not to make that deal.

I wasn't making him out to be mediocre, I was just saying that as an elite player on the Spurs, there was never really any time for the basketball universe to collectively put all of their eyes and attention on Kawhi Leonard because of the Spurs playoff results and then his injuries in '17 and '18.

I felt like after game 1 of this series that what you are suggesting should happen was actually beginning to happen. The MJ comparisons were starting to come out because of the style similarities. But now that Philly has taken control of the series, he may not get his due again.

I know right!

Welcome to the Big Board NotReddBoiler !

+1500 TZ Points

He was like a deer caught in headlights.

Now he's ****ing Rambo out there.

+2000 TZ Points

Is this actual game footage?

LOL

"What? he ****ed me in New York!"

He will after they win this series

I'm hoping Philly makes the finals just for the Draymond-Embiid shenanigans

Philly is gonna need to bench Ben Simmons to get past Boston.

Is Brett Brown smart enough to do that?

I think Embiid’s personality comes from extreme confidence and Howard’s came from a lack of confidence in himself.

I'm still leaning towards a Toronto v Bucks ECF.

Howard must be the most overrated player of the last two decades.