The Muthafuckin' Sports Thread!

[elevenism]

All you guys in here talking about Dallas. Try being a Charlotte Hornets fan. I pretty sure they're not even aware that there is a playoffs after the season. I'd love to have had a Dirk and to have taken LBJ's soul in the 2011 finals. Never have I seen a superstar as frozen as the Mavs had him that series.

Dude we've only won ONCE.

But your team will get it one day.

The year we won was insane. The whole city was just fucking electric. I never really used a car in Dallas, so i saw everything street/bus/train level.
It was Mavs everything, everywhere.
You could hear the whole fucking city cheering every time we won a close game in those playoffs. Then you'd walk to the corner store for another beer, where you'd encounter 20 other cats who'd had the same idea, but were waiting for the end of the game. And everyone would be randomly hugging each other and whatnot.

The mavs were born the same year i was.
I was raised on basketball, and arrived in DFW at like 7 years old. The mavs were pretty much the worst team in the league, but we didn't care. We went to a SHITLOAD of games and watched all of them.

2011...11 years ago. I was living with my exie in her friend's GARAGE, in the hood. And it literally didn't get below 100 degrees that summer very often, even when the sun went down. That house didn't have water, either: i kept giving the lady money for the bill, but i finally figured out she was spending it on coke. We'd "borrow" buckets of water from the neighbors every day. Struggling, you knoe?

I'll never forget the night we swept the lakers. We were watching on a $25 craigslist tv from like 1990, in that grimy ass garage.
Game 4. I was sobbing. I'm talking like, legitimately sobbing.
This was after 24 years of intense fandom for a team who was awful for most of those years.

So that was enough. It was fucking LAL. WE SWEPT THE LAKERS.

I could have died. I swear to god, i think i could have died happy that night.

Edit: ANNNNNND, SO, @chuckrh , i called it.
Lost by a blatant uncalled EXTREMELY flagrant foul, two missed free throws, and one point.

[chuckrh]

Dude we've only won ONCE.

But your team will get it one day.

The year we won was insane. The whole city was just fucking electric. I never really used a car in Dallas, so i saw everything street/bus/train level.
It was Mavs everything, everywhere.
You could hear the whole fucking city cheering every time we won a close game in those playoffs. Then you'd walk to the corner store for another beer, where you'd encounter 20 other cats who'd had the same idea, but were waiting for the end of the game. And everyone would be randomly hugging each other and whatnot.

The mavs were born the same year i was.
I was raised on basketball, and arrived in DFW at like 7 years old. The mavs were pretty much the worst team in the league, but we didn't care. We went to a SHITLOAD of games and watched all of them.

2011...11 years ago. I was living with my exie in her friend's GARAGE, in the hood. And it literally didn't get below 100 degrees that summer very often, even when the sun went down. That house didn't have water, either: i kept giving the lady money for the bill, but i finally figured out she was spending it on coke. We'd "borrow" buckets of water from the neighbors every day. Struggling, you knoe?

I'll never forget the night we swept the lakers. We were watching on a $25 craigslist tv from like 1990, in that grimy ass garage.
Game 4. I was sobbing. I'm talking like, legitimately sobbing.
This was after 24 years of intense fandom for a team who was awful for most of those years.

So that was enough. It was fucking LAL. WE SWEPT THE LAKERS.

I could have died. I swear to god, i think i could have died happy that night.

Edit: ANNNNNND, SO, @chuckrh , i called it.
Lost by a blatant uncalled EXTREMELY flagrant foul, two missed free throws, and one point.

I watched most of that game & some of the Celtics-Brooklyn. I can only take the NBA in small doses. I used to have full on season tickets for the Sonics until the little dictator (David Stern) stole our team. Now they're floundering in OKC ranking #27 in attendance. The owner wanted to retire Payton & Kemp's numbers & they told him to shove it. At one point OKC had 3 future MVPs on the team & the owner blinked. Now all they do is deal draft picks. Seattle is the #14 tv market in the country & OKC #41. It's insane that we don't have a NBA team. At the time only 2 owners voted against moving the Sonics. The late Paul Allen & Mark Cuban. I met both of them at different times. Cuban is the reason I can't hate on Dallas. Not a fan of Texas sports. I think he's one of the few (sort of) Republicans I could vote for. I'm going a bit off track here but Cuban is actually trying to do something about drug prices. Check out the link below & it explains what he's doing with his online pharmacy.

https://costplusdrugs.com/

[elevenism]

@chuckrh man, I'm sorry. I feel your pain.

Of course, I love Cuban and I'm pretty sure he'd bristle at the "sort of" Republican label, especially THESE days, but I can see where someone might see him as such. He supported Hilary and Biden, though.

I think Cuban's vision is as important to the Mavs as Dirk or Luka. When he bought the team, they were fucking terrible, and nobody was going to.the games. So he set up a ticket price model that included $4 seats: like, "at least we're getting SOME money instead of NO money, and we're also getting asses in seats."

He tricked out the player's lockers, hired Dennis Rodman (I'm convinced this was a publicity stunt.)

He developed the strategy of scouting for international players instead of just worrying about draft picks, and the philosophy of having a damn fine bench.

And he was the only NBA owner on the court, getting in refs' faces, screaming about calls. They were fining him $500k, $750k, etc, and he was just like "ha, yeah, here. It was worth it."

I'm very excited about his pharmacy venture. It may be a damn game changer. It was born from Cuban's attempt to stop Martin Schkreli or however you spell it: he wanted to buy ALL of the drug Pharmacy Bro was gonna use to fuck people and give it away for free or super cheap, but it was already bought. That's the supposed origin story of his drug price venture.

And I'm sorry you lost the Sonics.

Early OKC was one of the biggest disappointments in my life as a sports fan. Those fuckers just would not play TOGETHER.
They all 3 had to be THE dude.

[burnmotherfucker!]

@elevenism

Yeah the Mavs may only have 1, but that's a hell of a one to grab. And since you're from Texas and all, how do you like them Spurs? That's yet another Texas team that dominated the Heatles. I've always respected their program and Timmy D is the GOAT power forward for sure.

The thing with the Hornets is that it's just always bad news. We lost them for years and then had to suffer through the Bobcats for chrissakes and then finally they seem to be back on track (at one point they were the #1 offense in the NBA) and they just completely fall apart for no real reason.

But fuck it, for the rest of this playoffs I'll root for the Mavs since I don't have a team.
@chuckrh

The NBA definitely isn't as good as it once was that is for sure. Hopefully you will get the Sonics back one day, if Charlotte can get the Hornets back anything could happen. I just hope the rebuild works better for you guys.

[elevenism]

Fucking LOVED the old school spurs @burnmotherfucker!

Edit: also, for the record, GO HORNETS.
Dallas is living proof that you just need a plan, some good players, and a few years to develop. It'll happen. It damn sure CAN happen.

Tim Duncan was a baaaaad man. The Duncan led Spurs were fucking epic.
And don't forget about OLD old school spurs with David Robinson.

Dallas and San Antonio had some unreal playoff barn burners, specifically game 7 in 05-06 for the west.

I had a cool apartment in the big ass middle of Old East Dallas (aka The Real Dallas) at the time, and that overtime win was the first time I remember going outside and hearing the fucking CITY cheering, and people shooting guns off and shit

In fact, THAT'S my main memory of.people at the beer store across.the street randomly hugging each other and hollering and whatnot: black folks, white folks, latinos, people from the hood, hipsters from the gentrified apartments, mid grade cats like myself.

Fucking basketball, man. It can bring a city together. There were like 250k people in downtown Dallas for the victory parade in 2011 (and downtown Dallas is pretty fucking rough), and there were only 6 arrests.

[burnmotherfucker!]

Fucking LOVED the old school spurs @burnmotherfucker!

Edit: also, for the record, GO HORNETS.
Dallas is living proof that you just need a plan, some good players, and a few years to develop. It'll happen. It damn sure CAN happen.

Tim Duncan was a baaaaad man. The Duncan led Spurs were fucking epic.
And don't forget about OLD old school spurs with David Robinson.

Dallas and San Antonio had some unreal playoff barn burners, specifically game 7 in 05-06 for the west.

I had a cool apartment in the big ass middle of Old East Dallas (aka The Real Dallas) at the time, and that overtime win was the first time I remember going outside and hearing the fucking CITY cheering, and people shooting guns off and shit

In fact, THAT'S my main memory of.people at the beer store across.the street randomly hugging each other and hollering and whatnot: black folks, white folks, latinos, people from the hood, hipsters from the gentrified apartments, mid grade cats like myself.

Fucking basketball, man. It can bring a city together. There were like 250k people in downtown Dallas for the victory parade in 2011 (and downtown Dallas is pretty fucking rough), and there were only 6 arrests.

Oh yeah David Robinson is the og. Him and Timmy have gotta be the most lethal PF and C of all time.

Your Mavs had Dirk and now you've got Luka. I feel like one of these years they'll put the right guys around him to get it done. He's not afraid of anything and one thing I like about him is he isn't overly concerned with stat padding and "efficiency" like so many of these "superstars" are in todays game. Only stat that matters in getting those W's.

Yeah that's pretty awesome about Dallas. I don't really have an experience to compare except that I grew up in NC, not far from where MJ came from. In fact, I was a Timmy D fan because he played in NC at Wake. Our state has no pro championships so what the people really care about is college basketball. It was crazy growing up watching MJ and knowing the greatest athlete of all time came to power a mere small drive right down the highway.

I've been a UNC fan my whole life and so it sure was a dream come true that they took an 8 seed team this year to the final 4 to whoop Coach K and those carpetbagging imposters one last time. It was surreal, in fact.

[burnmotherfucker!]

Holy shit! It's kinda nice being a substitute Mavs fan! Luka just hit 2 back to back 3's and the second one was an insanely sick step back.

This shits over in the third. Mavs going to be up 3-2

edit: and now make that back to back to back 3s. Mental.

[otnavuskire]

I'm not a massive basketball fan, but I'll always root for the Celtics. Glad to see they swept the Nets in the first round.

[elevenism]

Holy shit! It's kinda nice being a substitute Mavs fan! Luka just hit 2 back to back 3's and the second one was an insanely sick step back.

This shits over in the third. Mavs going to be up 3-2

edit: and now make that back to back to back 3s. Mental.

First time we make it out of round 1 since our title win, provided we do.

Luka is definitely a special player. He's definitely one of the best in the NBA right now. It reminds me of watching KB, and I don't say that shit lightly.

[burnmotherfucker!]

First time we make it out of round 1 since our title win, provided we do.

Luka is definitely a special player. He's definitely one of the best in the NBA right now. It reminds me of watching KB, and I don't say that shit lightly.

The thing that stands out to me about Luka is his footwork is off the charts. He also knows how to change his speed up on a dime to confuse defenders.

If him and Dirk would have been in their prime together, man...

[ryanmcfly]

If Luka is hitting 3s the mavs are unstoppable.

[Self.Destructive.Pattern]

What gets me about Luka is, dude is hurt A LOT and comes back days or less than a week and doesn't show many signs of fatigue; he is for sure like Kobe Bryant and just on another level, mentally...and he is ONLY 23.

Luka is the first player that made me go out and buy a Mavericks jersey. Kind of nice seeing him and Trae Young develop, even if Luka is miles ahead of him. Imagine if Atlanta never traded him?

[burnmotherfucker!]

What gets me about Luka is, dude is hurt A LOT and comes back days or less than a week and doesn't show many signs of fatigue; he is for sure like Kobe Bryant and just on another level, mentally...and he is ONLY 23.

Luka is the first player that made me go out and buy a Mavericks jersey. Kind of nice seeing him and Trae Young develop, even if Luka is miles ahead of him. Imagine if Atlanta never traded him?

Wow, only 23? If he stays healthy he is only going to get better.

And I agree, he is a gamer. Like Kobe, he may not have the highest regular season 3 point percentage, but you want him taking the last shot in crunch time. He has been big time. Fearless. I caught a game earlier this year against the Lakers where he was calling for iso's against LBJ and he was dominating. The guy's got that competitive fire that so many modern superstars lack. Perfect example is KD and Kyrie in that Celts series.

[ryanmcfly]

I remember draft day. I really really wanted Luka but I accepted they were getting Mo Bamba and that it was gonna be a slow rebuild. My wife even asked me who I wanted and I said I really really wanted Luka. About shit myself when they announced the trade.

[M1ke]

blue jays!!

[burnmotherfucker!]

blue jays!!

​yankees!!!

[elevenism]

@ryanmcfly i could have sworn you were from Dallas, but i must be confusing you with someone else if you were in TN for the Mo Bamba draft.

And Luka would have been a slow rebuild for either team.

But Memphis is going hard as fuck right now!
You guys have that Ja Rule, or Ja-Hova, or whatever clever nickname you cats have given him, alongside fucking BANE- that guy doesn't even need a nickname; he's already a batman character.
One more win and they'll face Golden State, barring some Dallas Curse level fuckup on the part of the Warriors.

Also, GO PELICANS! NO needs to force a Game 7. That way, DAL doesn't have to play the Suns, but also, i've BEEN to Louisiana. I've never been NEAR Cali.

Edit: ruff to see my Nuggets down 3-1; my brother's fam is out there and they all four go to a lot of Nuggets games, so i have love for Denver and Joker. My niece and nephew love them, and Jokic in particular

[ryanmcfly]

@ryanmcfly i could have sworn you were from Dallas, but i must be confusing you with someone else if you were in TN for the Mo Bamba draft.

nah. You’re right, I’m originally from Denton. Moved to Colorado for my wife’s masters, now I’m in BFE Tennessee while she gets her Veterinary Degree.

Gonna be able to catch the second half of the game tomorrow night assuming NIN doesn’t play past 11 at Raleigh. Can’t wait!

[chuckrh]

​yankees!!!

​Mariners!!!

[chuckrh]

^^^^^I'm serious!!!!^^^^^^

[elevenism]

nah. You’re right, I’m originally from Denton. Moved to Colorado for my wife’s masters, now I’m in BFE Tennessee while she gets her Veterinary Degree.

Gonna be able to catch the second half of the game tomorrow night assuming NIN doesn’t play past 11 at Raleigh. Can’t wait!

Damn, dude.
The original plan was for me to live with my wife and her son and daughter in Murfreesboro, starting in 2012 or 13, where she worked as a nurse. I still held a CNA license, and was to attend nursing school, but due to a near unbelievable, black comedy style sequence of interconnected, fucked up events, she lost her job, house, kids, car, literally everything she owned, and we both wound up in jail.

THAT'S how WE landed in BFE Texas in 2013.
In some part of the multiverse, i'm sure we're, catching the same shows, enjoying being fans of Dallas AND being reasonably allowed to cheer for Memphis, and likely kicking it and reminiscing on the DFDub.

Anyway, yeah. I need DAL to take it home tomorrow.

Game 7s are bad for my heart, literally, and there also shouldn't BE a game 7 in this series.

[elevenism]

I don't like HOW we won that last game...it took us till the last 2 min of the third quarter to get a 5 point lead. And if homeboy had hit that three, we'd be talking about game 7, and i'd need extra xanax.

But a win is a win, and this is the first time the Mavs have made it out of round 1 since we got the rings in 2010-2011.
And that's...well, it's definitely SOMETHING!

Now all we gotta do is win this next round, and that won't be shit.
All we gotta do is beat the 1st place Suns 4 times.

[burnmotherfucker!]

@elevenism

Do the Mavs steal this one? I caught the end of the last game and Luka showed up but the rest of the team looked asleep. The suns seem to have a lot of size, can Dallas' bigs hang with them?

[elevenism]

@elevenism

Do the Mavs steal this one? I caught the end of the last game and Luka showed up but the rest of the team looked asleep. The suns seem to have a lot of size, can Dallas' bigs hang with them?

Man we're over here hoping we win ONE of these, and this is coming from a household full of mavs posters, shirts, hats, nightgowns...

I never expected us to win this series, but it's definitely looked like Phoenix Suns vs Luka. I think some of these guys are just straight up scared.

And good god, Chris Paul is THIRTY SEVEN. He's almost old enough to be Luka's dad. I'm seriously wondering how he's still playing at this level.

[burnmotherfucker!]

Man we're over here hoping we win ONE of these, and this is coming from a household full of mavs posters, shirts, hats, nightgowns...

Man they were hanging in there through 3, it just blew up in the 4th. The Suns have the advantage of having Paul and Booker and that's tough to match with Luka alone. And then their bigs are just more athletic than the Mavs (and most other teams too).

They say a series doesn't start until someone loses a home game so hopefully the Mavs can send it back 2-2.

But yeah this Suns team is playing out of their minds. They seem to be on a mission in the same way the 2014 Spurs were after losing the year before.

[elevenism]

Man they were hanging in there through 3, it just blew up in the 4th. The Suns have the advantage of having Paul and Booker and that's tough to match with Luka alone. And then their bigs are just more athletic than the Mavs (and most other teams too).

They say a series doesn't start until someone loses a home game so hopefully the Mavs can send it back 2-2.

But yeah this Suns team is playing out of their minds. They seem to be on a mission in the same way the 2014 Spurs were after losing the year before.

I dig your optimism, but there's one grim statistic: coming back from 0-2 is a feat that's been accomplished 31 times in NBA history. in a 7 game series.

Teams up by 2 have gone on to win the series 93% of the time.
And if we lose this next one, well...ZERO teams have come back from 0-3.

Edit: I checked the actual.stats and went on and annotated that, so you know I'm not talking out my ass.

I'm happy enough with winning the first round for the first time in this era.
Also, I honestly think we could, and likely WOULD have beaten ANYONE other than the Suns in round 2. The 2-7 seeds were all pretty damn evenly matched this season.

I KIND of wish the seeding had worked out to where we got to play NOT the Suns twice.

[chuckrh]

Sorry @elevenism , I want a Golden State/Miami final. The thing I like about both of them is that they play as a team, not a group of superstars. Granted they have superstars but they play as a cohesive unit. Luka is a great but the rest of the Mavs kind of suck. They have to get Luka some help. I like Milwaukee & Memphis, too. Giannis reminds me Hakeem Olajuwon some. Hakeem doesn't get near enough mention as 1 of the greatest ever. I saw all of the big names in person up to a certain point & Hakeem was at least their equal if not better.

[elevenism]

Giannis is fucking awesome.

As far as the finals, I never thought Dallas was going to the finals this year. I just wanted to win one round, and I got that.

I honestly think we DO have more talent in Dallas, currently, than people realize.
It's that they're all playing in Luka's shadow.

Hell, Brunson, Finney-Smith and Dinwiddie all have higher FG% than Luka.
Brunson and Finney-Smith are also statistically more accurate from beyond the arc, and Tim Hardaway Jr. is right there with him.
Maxi Kleber is pretty damn good. Dwight Powell ain't half bad.

I think Dallas comes out of these playoffs looking at HOW we beat Utah. Remember, Luka was only THERE for 50% of the wins, and Utah is a good team.
AND, after back to back wins WITHOUT Luka, we lost WITH him.

I think these guys spend the off-season moving TOWARDS playing more as a unit, rather than relying so much on Luka.
This wasn't intended to be the Luka show: it was meant to be Porzingis and Luka. But that dude just wasn't who we thought he was gonna be, which is a motherfucker, as we gave up TWO future first round draft picks for him, and signed him to a 158 million dollar contract, and THEN, gave up a SECOND round pick to get RID of his goofy ass.

So I definitely think we need some help before we're finals material, but maybe not as much as you think.

All we need is a Steve Nash to Luka's Nowitzki, OR, a big badass center like Tyson Chandler, and some good coaching/strategizing.

This is (amazing basketball genius) Jason Kidd's first year coaching a team that went through a fairly drastic lineup change in February, and he had to work with what he inherited.

All in all, I'm pretty damn happy with the season.
I'll be REALLY happy if we can take this current series to 5 games, or 6.

Two rounds would have been really nice, but ultimately, i don't think anyone's getting past CP and Booker. I HOPE Golden State does.

Fuck Miami and their years of showboat bullshit.
Fuck Chris Paul.
Come to think of it, fuck Draymond Green.

[chuckrh]

Giannis is fucking awesome.

As far as the finals, I never thought Dallas was going to the finals this year. I just wanted to win one round, and I got that.

I honestly think we DO have more talent in Dallas, currently, than people realize.
It's that they're all playing in Luka's shadow.

Hell, Brunson, Finney-Smith and Dinwiddie all have higher FG% than Luka.
Brunson and Finney-Smith are also statistically more accurate from beyond the arc, and Tim Hardaway Jr. is right there with him.
Maxi Kleber is pretty damn good. Dwight Powell ain't half bad.

I think Dallas comes out of these playoffs looking at HOW we beat Utah. Remember, Luka was only THERE for 50% of the wins, and Utah is a good team.
AND, after back to back wins WITHOUT Luka, we lost WITH him.

I think these guys spend the off-season moving TOWARDS playing more as a unit, rather than relying so much on Luka.
This wasn't intended to be the Luka show: it was meant to be Porzingis and Luka. But that dude just wasn't who we thought he was gonna be, which is a motherfucker, as we gave up TWO future first round draft picks for him, and signed him to a 158 million dollar contract, and THEN, gave up a SECOND round pick to get RID of his goofy ass.

So I definitely think we need some help before we're finals material, but maybe not as much as you think.

All we need is a Steve Nash to Luka's Nowitzki, OR, a big badass center like Tyson Chandler, and some good coaching/strategizing.

This is (amazing basketball genius) Jason Kidd's first year coaching a team that went through a fairly drastic lineup change in February, and he had to work with what he inherited.

All in all, I'm pretty damn happy with the season.
I'll be REALLY happy if we can take this current series to 5 games, or 6.

Two rounds would have been really nice, but ultimately, i don't think anyone's getting past CP and Booker. I HOPE Golden State does.

Fuck Miami and their years of showboat bullshit.
Fuck Chris Paul.
Come to think of it, fuck Draymond Green.

Draymond Green is 1 of my favorite players. He's going to be fantastic when he retires & goes on the TNT team. I predict he'll replace Kenny Jones.

[elevenism]

Draymond Green is 1 of my favorite players. He's going to be fantastic when he retires & goes on the TNT team. I predict he'll replace Kenny Jones.

Oh he's AMAZING. So is Chris Paul. They just talk too much shit.
I'm especially mad at CP right now for a particular stunt he pulled yesterday.

And tbh, I'm not even up on today's Miami. I just know how they used to operate, with LeBron, and that velociraptor hybrid Chris Bosch, and just their whole vibe.
@chuckrh so apparently Dallas is looking at that giant French dude from Utah...Gobert?That would be a REALLY nice addition at the C position. THAT'S exactly the type of Tyson Chandler type I had in mind.

There are also Kyrie Irving rumors, but I think that's FAR less likely: that dude is really expensive and fairly problematic.