NBA 2025-26 Season Thread: THE NY KNICKS ARE CHAMPIONS! BING BONG!
Lettuce NBA!
and lettuce lol @ James Harden
they are ****ed for much longer than that. owe $300M to JB who is already declining and another $300M to JT who may have just torn his achilles. Jrue, KP and Horford are looking pretty washed as well.
Boston is the past. OKC/SAS are the future.
They're not even the past. They won the fakest title ever against a bunch of scrubs and blew it every other year.
They're not even the past. They won the fakest title ever against a bunch of scrubs and blew it every other year.
To be fair the nuggets won the fakest title ever
This squad a close second though
dont even know what Celts would do if tatum is gonna miss a year
lost in all of this is that they got completely owned by the knicks 2nd half, he got inj down 9 2:55 left
i don't consider any titles fake but if anyone got a fake 1 it was the bucks obviously
whole league was hurt that year and barely beat nets with no kyrie and harden on 1 leg
think both the celts and the nuggs were the best teams the years they won (maybe denver was better last year if they played since KP was hurt)
Inb4 Boston Slappies say they would’ve beat the Knicks in 7 if not for Tatum tearing his Achilles, en route to back to back titles.
All credibility lost when wishing injury to someone. **** him
I'm basing this on feels and not backing any of it up with numbers, but the Nuggets title was way less fake imo. They didn't play any 50 win teams but they destroyed everyone. Celtics competition was much weaker given everyone was injured and they still struggled.
Tatum was already hurt.
Chilltown could pray to Basketball Jesus and it won’t heal Tatum.
I wouldn’t get so worked up over what a 2p2er has to say about one of your team’s players getting injured.
I'm basing this on feels and not backing any of it up with numbers, but the Nuggets title was way less fake imo. They didn't play any 50 win teams but they destroyed everyone. Celtics competition was much weaker given everyone was injured and they still struggled.
struggled?
they lost like 4 games and all when way up in series or something lol
obviously they were playing down to competition some vs indy/miami/cle but they did own the mavs in the finals with KP barely playing when people thought the series would be competitive
I mean Celts been there at the end almost every year since 2017, getting some positive injury variance ain't exactly a shocker
but they got jrue/KP and gaveup very little, think last years team was clearly a lot better than the others
Yeah fair, it was more about playing down to competition than anything, but they always do that ****. They did it against the Heat in ‘23 and against the Knicks last week. They were better than the Warriors in ‘22 too. Real champs don’t do that ****.
100% this, that Knicks team ****ing ruled (even if they were prob drawing dead to stay healthy in reality)
Surely the 2019 Lakers are the fakest of all the fake champions.
Shortened season due to Covid, and playoffs were in the bubble. They beat
Portland (35 wins) in 5
Houston (44 wins) in 5
Denver (46 wins) in 5
Miami (44 wins) in 6
Think GS clearly proved superior in '22, loss to Heat in '23 was inexcusable/bad though
Best way of looking at it is they are/were a flawed perennial contender that broke through with a much improved team (Jrue/KP massive ripoff trades....also the Derrick White trade was a massive ripoff but took a little time for him to reach his peak) + easy road
Think it is probably a more interesting conversation, wtf should they do now? ...Jrue, Horford, White are all over 30 and Tatum is likely done next year, they also have major cap issues coming
Surely the 2019 Lakers are the fakest of all the fake champions.
Shortened season due to Covid, and playoffs were in the bubble. They beat
Portland (35 wins) in 5
Houston (44 wins) in 5
Denver (46 wins) in 5
Miami (44 wins) in 6
Maybe I just have bias with the results, but I also thought that team was the best team when all was said and done that year
Clippers had a lot of talent but the pieces didn't really fit with their 2019 Harrell/L Williams pieces, Bucks didn't have Jrue yet
Think GS clearly proved superior in '22, loss to Heat in '23 was inexcusable/bad though Best way of looking at it is they are/were a flawed perennial contender that broke through with a much improved team (Jrue/KP massive ripoff trades....also the Derrick White trade was a massive ripoff but took a little time for him to reach his peak) + easy roadThink it is probably a more in
Trade Jaylen Brown for Cooper Flagg + salary.
Nico would probably salivate at the offer.
Surely the 2019 Lakers are the fakest of all the fake champions.
Shortened season due to Covid, and playoffs were in the bubble. They beat
Portland (35 wins) in 5
Houston (44 wins) in 5
Denver (46 wins) in 5
Miami (44 wins) in 6
Voice of reason enters thread.
Think GS clearly proved superior in '22, loss to Heat in '23 was inexcusable/bad though Best way of looking at it is they are/were a flawed perennial contender that broke through with a much improved team (Jrue/KP massive ripoff trades....also the Derrick White trade was a massive ripoff but took a little time for him to reach his peak) + easy roadThink it is probably a more in
I agree. Getting a pure winner like Holiday put them over the top.
Other than the 2022 Warriors which is one of the great title runs, every title since like... Durant Warriors has been "fake" (and even those are kinda fake because just having Durant Warriors is total BS lol) :
- Toronto obv only won because of Durant injury (and still maybe only because of also the Klay injury)
- Lakers had Covid bubble that was an unprecedented non-basketball situation which they handled best (unsurprisingly being a LeBron team) and that caused their biggest two rivals to completely implode
- Bucks were a literal millimetre away from losing to Nets that had injured Kyrie AND Harden. Then also dodged LAC in the finals because of Kawhi ACL.
- Denver just had a super easy run, no 50 win teams
- Celtics got the god run in the East playing injured teams and then in the ECF an injured team that was only there becuase of other injured teams. Crushed the actual finals fair and square though so I think this is one of the better ones tbh
Who was Denver supposed to face that year to give them a better challene though? Celtics? The finals would've been lined closely but Celts played 20 games vs Hawks/Sixers/Heat for a reason that year.
They still beat KD/Book, Bron/AD, Butler/Bam to win the title
I mean who exactly did the 2005 or 2007 Spurs beat? or all those years an East team won but the East was a bye to the finals. You can do this stuff all day
The 3peat Shaq/Kobe lakers big series in their run was against Chris Webber and Mike Bibby.
I'm basing this on feels and not backing any of it up with numbers, but the Nuggets title was way less fake imo. They didn't play any 50 win teams but they destroyed everyone. Celtics competition was much weaker given everyone was injured and they still struggled.
How did they struggle in the playoffs? They went 16-3, never lost more than one game in any series, and were +8 per game.
Who was Denver supposed to face that year to give them a better challene though? Celtics? The finals would've been lined closely but Celts played 20 games vs Hawks/Sixers/Heat for a reason that year. They still beat KD/Book, Bron/AD, Butler/Bam to win the titleI mean who exactly did the 2005 or 2007 Spurs beat? or all those years an East team won but the East was a bye to the
Shaq and Kobe should’ve lost to the Kings. Man they were a fun team to root for.
blazers also would have taken out the lakers one of those other years without massive riggage. that era was peak stern bullshit
- Toronto obv only won because of Durant injury (and still maybe only because of also the Klay injury)
the raptors were up 3-1 in the series when durant got hurt, and klay was injured after that
