I have been feeling for a while that the top teams in the East are better than the top teams in the West. Things can change with an injury and other factors but PHO now has a question with Booker hurt. I wasn't that worried about them to start with. They are good, well balanced but I don't see them as way better than the Celtics or anyone else. I am more worried about MIL or even PHI and MIA.
As to GSW, yes, they have their guys back and they are playing well. Poole is playing out of his mind, enough so that he is really changing the calculus, but it is against Denver. Denver is depleted due to injury. They have hung in through the regular season, good for them, but GSW beating them is not telling me anything about how good GSW may be. I am not sure that GSW beats a healthy PHO but I will put them right there with PHO.
As to DAL, I believe in Doncic for sure but I am not sure about Brunson and Dinwiddie. UTA is overrated (or was based on regular season record), not sure what is going on with Conley, but they just won a big game. If Conley plays like he did in the regular season (41% 3pt vs 25% in playoffs so far), i think UTA can beat DAL. I have DAL, UTA, MEM, and MIN all in the same range but a tier down from the top teams East or West. Better than CHI or ATL but not MIL or PHI.
Oh absolutely, its become something of a running gag debating the conferences because the east was so much stronger. There are currently 4.5 teams being given a chance to win the title in the east and 2 in the west. As I said earlier in the thread Dallas is 35-1 to win the title for a reason.
You are also right that Utah is probably overrated. They really struggled the second half of the season and because of their defensive scheme and roster complexion they have struggled in the playoffs for years. Either team winning this series doesn't make them particularly scary.
And yet the East series are all being dominated by 1 team while 3 of the 4 series in the West are dog fights. So maybe just maybe it really is as I said all season long i.e. the West has more good teams than the the East and thus is in fact the better deeper conference. The allegedly awful Pelicans are all tied up with the Suns, and sure the Suns lost Booker, but if the Pelicans are really that bad, shouldn't that have still been a blowout for the Suns? You know like the Bucks losing Middleton and still blowing the doors off the Bulls because the Bucks are just flat out better.
Hahaha come on. Booker is probably all nba first team. Middletown isn’t even in the conversation for making third team. You also literally talked about how great the suns were all season. Now you are flip flopping on that? You talked about that for literally 6 months. I realized a long time ago you don’t actually believe the things you argue and just want to be disagreeable but this is egregious even by those standards.
Great, as in, great record. 11 games better than the Heat. I never thought the Suns were a super duper title contender though because they don't have a super duper player, and you by and large need one of those. I've been pretty consistent on that all season long. The Suns aren't quite the DeRozan Raptors as Paul and Booker are better than DeRozan and Lowry, but they are much closer to the DeRozan Raptors than they were the Kawhi Raptors. Last year the Suns got very lucky with injuries to their opponents or there is a good chance they lose in the 1st round to the Lakers (they were after all down 2-1 in a close game 4 when Davis went out).
Middleton this season averaged 20.1 p, 5.4 r, 5.4 a, playing + defense with a TS% of 57.7. Booker has basically the same TS% (57.6), but as the #1 scoring option gets more shots thus the extra ppg at 26.8 p, 5.0 r, 4.8 a with below average defense. I really don't think there is a whole lot of difference between Booker and Middleton as players, though do think Booker is a bit better. Neither one is a guy good enough to be the best player on a title team without a great deal of luck or a super mega deep team.
Good grief. A bit better is first team all nba versus not even being In the discussion for being on the third team? You literally talk about how all nba teams are indicative of how great a player is (you used it to argue pierce was overrated just a few days ago). Stop constantly contradicting yourself and getting yourself in knots. Say what you actually believe and be consistent or it is not even worth responding to.
Booker is making his 1st All NBA Team this year. Middleton has none. They both have 3 all star appearances. It isn't like this a comparison of Lebron to Love. Before the year, ESPN had Booker at 15 and Middleton at 19. Acting like there is a huge difference in their skill level seems a bit strange to me. Booker had a better year, but he was the #1 option on the "best" team in the sport. If my team had a true #1 option, I'd absolutely take Middleton as the 2nd piece over Booker, because Middleton is a much better defender, scores at a similar efficiency, doesn't need the ball in his hand as much, and thereby is a much better complimentary player. We also saw what Middleton could do when Giannis went out in the ECF last year. In the 2 games Giannis missed, Middleton went for 26/13/8 and 32/4/7 as the Bucks closed out the Hawks in 6. So he not only can play the complimentary role, but also can be a lead scorer when required (he also outplayed Booker in the finals last year, though again they were close).
Now if you want to argue that Booker is more important to Phoenix because he is the #1 scoring option, that is a fair argument. As we've seen Chris Paul can't string together great games consecutively any more and guys like Ayton and Bridges aren't #1 scorers. So it is absolutely fair to say the Suns need Booker more than the Bucks need Middleton just because of their roles, but their talent is absolutely at a similar level.
This is so silly I’ll bite. Why in the world are you comparing the career accomplishments of a 30 year old in his 10th season to a 25 year old in his 7th? Barring injury the all star appearances are going to be 6-3 at the same seasons and all nba teams will be what 4-0? Are you being serious with this? Even funnier you bring in player rankings that have Chris Paul as the 13th best player in the nba. You really need to have a tiny bit of consistency in your arguments man.
Because this is the current season. Booker will almost certainly end up with a better career than Middleton, but I'm not sure why that has anything to do with the current season where they are both pretty similar players.
Chris Paul is one of the 5 greatest PG's in history (according to most people). He had just led his team to the NBA Finals. A season in which he finished 5th in MVP voting and was 2nd Team All NBA. Why wouldn't Paul have been a top 15 player entering the year? If he played more than 65 games this year, pretty good chance he would have been All NBA this year (still may as well) given he led the league in apg at 10.8, while throwing in essentially 15 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 2 steals. Heck in early March, the Ringer had Chris Paul as the 10th best player of the year to that point.
