The Warriors are showing us the new NBA, and the Celtics better be taking notes

[LarBrd33]

Bottom line is you aren't replicating golden states success without curry and klay. The same way you can't replicate the mid 90s Bulls success without Jordan and pippen. And you aren't replicating the early 00 lakers success without Kobe and shaq.  And you aren't replicating the Miami heat's success without Lebron, wade and bosh.  And you aren't replicating the 80s Celtics success without bird and Mchale.  And you aren't replicating the show times lakers success without magic and Kareem, you aren't replicating the Spurs success without Duncan.

Superstars gonna superstar.  The most superstary team is winning right now.  There's little to be learned from it.   If you are the wolves you can hope towns develops into a superstar and try to build around his talents.  If you are Philly you can hope Ben Simmons and/or Embiid is the next big thing.  Everyone else can pray Kevin Durant chooses them and try to build a champion around him - but nobody is simply copying golden states style and philosophy to win.   Step 1:  acquire a legendary player.

While there is some truth to this point, that you have to utilize the talents of what you have, it misses the bigger point of the OP: The game is changing, based on how GS plays ball. They have made it clear that guys with practice can hit 30 foot shots almost as consistently as 24 foot shots. The repercussions of this are revolutionary to the game of basketball, requiring defenses to be able to switch at a far more frequent rate than before.

I know you are stuck in the mind set that Philly drafted the best player available each time they selected in the draft. But their talent meter may prove to be anachronistic, especially with the drafting of Okafor over Porzingis (this will only become clearer in the next two years, in my estimation, when Zinger takes over from Anthony as the man in NYC).  I will never fault them for drafting Embiid, who, if healthy, has the athleticism to adapt and thrive in the new NBA.

Okafor at 3 was a no-brainer.

Had they passed on Okafor for Porzingus, they would have been buried.  And there's no telling how Porzingus would have looked on that joke of a roster.  Porzingus is a little overrated right now.

[IDreamCeltics]

I think the problem for the Cavs is they've acquired players based on what their superstar thought would work best for him.

It doesn't seem to me that they have a good top down view of how they want to get the most out of their roster.  It's been more about playing politics to keep LeBron happy than having the right pieces around LeBron as he gets older.

Of course, it's on management to work with the star player(s) to instill a trust that management and the coaching staff have a vision and know how to implement that vision.

Jeeze... they're in the NBA finals playing against an all-time great team...

[vjcsmoke]

Like the post.  A lot of things to pull out of it.  This is the modern NBA.  The Celtics have a nice base, but no stars outside of IT right now.  We need to build ourselves the talent base to compete with the likes of the Cavs in the East.  And as we've seen, the GSW have the kryptonite.  Great outside shooting, versatile-switch defense. and athletic big men.

We are pretty far from reaching that level right now, but adding 1 more star would help a lot, adding a 2nd star would give us our own version of the big 3.  And with a modern supporting cast like Smart, AB, Crowder playing key roles defensively.  Who knows maybe Mickey will be important for us in the future, or maybe we draft an athletic rim protector like Deyonta Davis to shore up that 5 position.

[ThaPreacher]

It's funny,  because had OKC not squandered their series through inept decisions down the stretch of two games, the same bloggers would be calling Golden State a flash in the pan and asking for an asterick next to last years championship because of the Cav's injuries, last year.

What Golden State does successfully, similar to the Celtic championship teams, is that they move the ball exceptionally well, they hustle, are committed to team defense and they fast break.

While I have been cheering for the Warriors, so far they all they have done is simply held serve.  Cleveland, relies upon ball dominant, dribble drive penetration (Lebron, Kyrie) which takes many of the role players out of the game.

What makes Golden State special, besides their two spectacular shooters, is not just the ability of players to make switches, it is their commitment to self-less play.  They ride the "hot hand". And they all seem committed to each other on both ends of the court. 
Their success seems predicated on basketball fundamentals of Ball movement and help defense.
Those go back along way. 

Let's face it, its not like the Cav's have a low post offense that exploits the size of the Warriors.

This new so called new eral-is really successful by one team so far-The Warriors.  The same way that other championship teams were built upon a style of play that worked for them. I wouldn't necessarily call it revolutionary. 

But this Golden State team is alot of fun to watch.

[ahonui06]

Like the post.  A lot of things to pull out of it.  This is the modern NBA.  The Celtics have a nice base, but no stars outside of IT right now.

Viewing IT as a star is already a stretch.

We need to build ourselves the talent base to compete with the likes of the Cavs in the East.  And as we've seen, the GSW have the kryptonite.  Great outside shooting, versatile-switch defense. and athletic big men.

Exactly. Celtics were 29th in team 3 point shooting and really need improvement in this year to be a legitimate contender. Opposing teams need to honor Boston's perimeter shot to improve the overall offense of the Celtics.

We are pretty far from reaching that level right now, but adding 1 more star would help a lot, adding a 2nd star would give us our own version of the big 3.

Boston really does that need superstar takeover player for isolation at the end of games. It is sorely lacking at the moment.

And with a modern supporting cast like Smart, AB, Crowder playing key roles defensively.  Who knows maybe Mickey will be important for us in the future, or maybe we draft an athletic rim protector like Deyonta Davis to shore up that 5 position.

With the plethora of picks, Boston needs at least to take a pick on 1 athletic rim protector.

[Ilikesports17]

Bottom line is you aren't replicating golden states success without curry and klay. The same way you can't replicate the mid 90s Bulls success without Jordan and pippen. And you aren't replicating the early 00 lakers success without Kobe and shaq.  And you aren't replicating the Miami heat's success without Lebron, wade and bosh.  And you aren't replicating the 80s Celtics success without bird and Mchale.  And you aren't replicating the show times lakers success without magic and Kareem, you aren't replicating the Spurs success without Duncan.

Superstars gonna superstar.  The most superstary team is winning right now.  There's little to be learned from it.   If you are the wolves you can hope towns develops into a superstar and try to build around his talents.  If you are Philly you can hope Ben Simmons and/or Embiid is the next big thing.  Everyone else can pray Kevin Durant chooses them and try to build a champion around him - but nobody is simply copying golden states style and philosophy to win.   Step 1:  acquire a legendary player.

While there is some truth to this point, that you have to utilize the talents of what you have, it misses the bigger point of the OP: The game is changing, based on how GS plays ball. They have made it clear that guys with practice can hit 30 foot shots almost as consistently as 24 foot shots. The repercussions of this are revolutionary to the game of basketball, requiring defenses to be able to switch at a far more frequent rate than before.

I know you are stuck in the mind set that Philly drafted the best player available each time they selected in the draft. But their talent meter may prove to be anachronistic, especially with the drafting of Okafor over Porzingis (this will only become clearer in the next two years, in my estimation, when Zinger takes over from Anthony as the man in NYC).  I will never fault them for drafting Embiid, who, if healthy, has the athleticism to adapt and thrive in the new NBA.

Okafor at 3 was a no-brainer.

Had they passed on Okafor for Porzingus, they would have been buried.  And there's no telling how Porzingus would have looked on that joke of a roster.  Porzingus is a little overrated right now.

I agree that Zinger is overrated right now, its a product of playing for the Knicks.

[Beat LA]

IMO the style the Celtics are trying to build is very similar to the formula Golden State has. If you listen to what Danny and Brad say on the subject of style.

If the Celtics truly want to emulate, or even clone, the Warriors, it wouldn't take much.  All we'd need to do is apply the Otto Skorzeny approach used in the Battle of the Bulge where English speaking German commandos wearing GI uniforms were dropped behind American lines and caused complete confusion and paranoia because nobody could be sure who was really an American.  Even a general was temporarily detained because he didn't follow baseball and thus did not know who had won the world series that year, iirc, lol.

With that in mind, here's what we should do -

1.  Trade for Tyler Harvey and have him start at point guard.
2.  Start RJ Hunter and have him grow Klay Thompson's facial hair.
3.  Sign Marvin 'Gardens' Williams and make him our starting sf.
4.  Sign Brandon 'All About Dat' Bass and have him grow Draymond Green's facial hair.  They really do bare a striking resemblance to each other even without the facial hair component.
5.  Sign David Lee and start him at Center (former teammate only adds to the confusion).
6.  Change all said player's numbers to those of their matchups (Harvey gets 30, etc.).
7.  Wear our white home jerseys on the road and our road uniforms at home, as the white ones are far more similar to the home uniforms of the Warriors, obviously.
8.  Employ their dumb 'switch everything' defense.
9.  Sit back, relax, and enjoy the chaos.  They'll be so confused that their offense will grind to a halt.  Jawohl!

This is a joke, btw .

[footey]

Bottom line is you aren't replicating golden states success without curry and klay. The same way you can't replicate the mid 90s Bulls success without Jordan and pippen. And you aren't replicating the early 00 lakers success without Kobe and shaq.  And you aren't replicating the Miami heat's success without Lebron, wade and bosh.  And you aren't replicating the 80s Celtics success without bird and Mchale.  And you aren't replicating the show times lakers success without magic and Kareem, you aren't replicating the Spurs success without Duncan.

Superstars gonna superstar.  The most superstary team is winning right now.  There's little to be learned from it.   If you are the wolves you can hope towns develops into a superstar and try to build around his talents.  If you are Philly you can hope Ben Simmons and/or Embiid is the next big thing.  Everyone else can pray Kevin Durant chooses them and try to build a champion around him - but nobody is simply copying golden states style and philosophy to win.   Step 1:  acquire a legendary player.

While there is some truth to this point, that you have to utilize the talents of what you have, it misses the bigger point of the OP: The game is changing, based on how GS plays ball. They have made it clear that guys with practice can hit 30 foot shots almost as consistently as 24 foot shots. The repercussions of this are revolutionary to the game of basketball, requiring defenses to be able to switch at a far more frequent rate than before.

I know you are stuck in the mind set that Philly drafted the best player available each time they selected in the draft. But their talent meter may prove to be anachronistic, especially with the drafting of Okafor over Porzingis (this will only become clearer in the next two years, in my estimation, when Zinger takes over from Anthony as the man in NYC).  I will never fault them for drafting Embiid, who, if healthy, has the athleticism to adapt and thrive in the new NBA.

Okafor at 3 was a no-brainer.

Had they passed on Okafor for Porzingus, they would have been buried.  And there's no telling how Porzingus would have looked on that joke of a roster.  Porzingus is a little overrated right now.

I agree that Zinger is overrated right now, its a product of playing for the Knicks.

When you factor in that he deferred to Carmelo, and had fewer scoring opportunities, I think Zinger is under-rated relative to Okafor.  We won't agree on this, which is fine.  Let's revisit in a couple of years, and see who is the better player in the NBA, Zinger or Okafor.  I think Zinger by a long shot.  He can do so many more things on the court.  When we look back at the 2015 draft class, it will be a discussion of who was the best pick, Towns or Porzingis.  Okafor will be an afterthought. 

[__ramonezy__]

OP was a great read and I agree completely.

The danger with the NBA since the mid 2000s is that we've become too much of a copy cat league. What GS does works for them but all teams will not be able to emulate nor should they try to.

[loco_91]

I agree to some extent, but it's easy to overdo the copy cat thing. The Spurs and Thunder were both very good this year using more traditional lineups. The 2014-15 Hawks showed us what a less-talented version of the W's looks like, and what happened to them in the playoffs.

While the balance of playing styles in the NBA has started to shift, I think more has remained the same than people realize. The Suns went small two decades ago. Great shooters have always been tough to stop. Switching screens has always been a powerful tactic. And most of all, banners have always been won with *talent*.

[GC003332]

Bottom line is you aren't replicating golden states success without curry and klay. The same way you can't replicate the mid 90s Bulls success without Jordan and pippen. And you aren't replicating the early 00 lakers success without Kobe and shaq.  And you aren't replicating the Miami heat's success without Lebron, wade and bosh.  And you aren't replicating the 80s Celtics success without bird and Mchale.  And you aren't replicating the show times lakers success without magic and Kareem, you aren't replicating the Spurs success without Duncan.

Superstars gonna superstar.  The most superstary team is winning right now.  There's little to be learned from it.   If you are the wolves you can hope towns develops into a superstar and try to build around his talents.  If you are Philly you can hope Ben Simmons and/or Embiid is the next big thing.  Everyone else can pray Kevin Durant chooses them and try to build a champion around him - but nobody is simply copying golden states style and philosophy to win.   Step 1:  acquire a legendary player.

While there is some truth to this point, that you have to utilize the talents of what you have, it misses the bigger point of the OP: The game is changing, based on how GS plays ball. They have made it clear that guys with practice can hit 30 foot shots almost as consistently as 24 foot shots. The repercussions of this are revolutionary to the game of basketball, requiring defenses to be able to switch at a far more frequent rate than before.

I know you are stuck in the mind set that Philly drafted the best player available each time they selected in the draft. But their talent meter may prove to be anachronistic, especially with the drafting of Okafor over Porzingis (this will only become clearer in the next two years, in my estimation, when Zinger takes over from Anthony as the man in NYC).  I will never fault them for drafting Embiid, who, if healthy, has the athleticism to adapt and thrive in the new NBA.

Okafor at 3 was a no-brainer.

Had they passed on Okafor for Porzingus, they would have been buried.  And there's no telling how Porzingus would have looked on that joke of a roster.  Porzingus is a little overrated right now.

I agree that Zinger is overrated right now, its a product of playing for the Knicks.

When you factor in that he deferred to Carmelo, and had fewer scoring opportunities, I think Zinger is under-rated relative to Okafor.  We won't agree on this, which is fine.  Let's revisit in a couple of years, and see who is the better player in the NBA, Zinger or Okafor.  I think Zinger by a long shot.  He can do so many more things on the court.  When we look back at the 2015 draft class, it will be a discussion of who was the best pick, Towns or Porzingis.  Okafor will be an afterthought.

Porzingis is overrated by some only due to the fact that he takes the limelight away from one of Philly's 'Elite' prospects, we can't have that on this board. Lol

[crimson_stallion]

Bottom line is you aren't replicating golden states success without curry and klay. The same way you can't replicate the mid 90s Bulls success without Jordan and pippen. And you aren't replicating the early 00 lakers success without Kobe and shaq.  And you aren't replicating the Miami heat's success without Lebron, wade and bosh.  And you aren't replicating the 80s Celtics success without bird and Mchale.  And you aren't replicating the show times lakers success without magic and Kareem, you aren't replicating the Spurs success without Duncan.

Superstars gonna superstar.  The most superstary team is winning right now.  There's little to be learned from it.   If you are the wolves you can hope towns develops into a superstar and try to build around his talents.  If you are Philly you can hope Ben Simmons and/or Embiid is the next big thing.  Everyone else can pray Kevin Durant chooses them and try to build a champion around him - but nobody is simply copying golden states style and philosophy to win.   Step 1:  acquire a legendary player.

While there is some truth to this point, that you have to utilize the talents of what you have, it misses the bigger point of the OP: The game is changing, based on how GS plays ball. They have made it clear that guys with practice can hit 30 foot shots almost as consistently as 24 foot shots. The repercussions of this are revolutionary to the game of basketball, requiring defenses to be able to switch at a far more frequent rate than before.

I know you are stuck in the mind set that Philly drafted the best player available each time they selected in the draft. But their talent meter may prove to be anachronistic, especially with the drafting of Okafor over Porzingis (this will only become clearer in the next two years, in my estimation, when Zinger takes over from Anthony as the man in NYC).  I will never fault them for drafting Embiid, who, if healthy, has the athleticism to adapt and thrive in the new NBA.

Okafor at 3 was a no-brainer.

Had they passed on Okafor for Porzingus, they would have been buried.  And there's no telling how Porzingus would have looked on that joke of a roster.  Porzingus is a little overrated right now.

I agree that Porzingis i being overrated right now, however so is Okafor.  Neither of those guys is nearly as good as their reputations / hype would suggest.

However of the two, in my honest opinion, Porzingis has the FAR higher ceiling.  At 7'3" with his mobility and inside/outside game combined with his shotblocking ability, he has the potential to become a perennial All-Star.  There really haven't been a lot of guys like Porzingis - he is a very unique talent, and guys with very unique talent.

Okafor on the other hand will be a good player, but I think he'll max out as a borderline all-star (much like Big Al did over his career).

I was actually very high on Okafor on draft day, and I felt he was going to be the best player in the draft potentially.  After seeing him play against NBA competition I have rapidly changed my tune.

[footey]

Bottom line is you aren't replicating golden states success without curry and klay. The same way you can't replicate the mid 90s Bulls success without Jordan and pippen. And you aren't replicating the early 00 lakers success without Kobe and shaq.  And you aren't replicating the Miami heat's success without Lebron, wade and bosh.  And you aren't replicating the 80s Celtics success without bird and Mchale.  And you aren't replicating the show times lakers success without magic and Kareem, you aren't replicating the Spurs success without Duncan.

Superstars gonna superstar.  The most superstary team is winning right now.  There's little to be learned from it.   If you are the wolves you can hope towns develops into a superstar and try to build around his talents.  If you are Philly you can hope Ben Simmons and/or Embiid is the next big thing.  Everyone else can pray Kevin Durant chooses them and try to build a champion around him - but nobody is simply copying golden states style and philosophy to win.   Step 1:  acquire a legendary player.

While there is some truth to this point, that you have to utilize the talents of what you have, it misses the bigger point of the OP: The game is changing, based on how GS plays ball. They have made it clear that guys with practice can hit 30 foot shots almost as consistently as 24 foot shots. The repercussions of this are revolutionary to the game of basketball, requiring defenses to be able to switch at a far more frequent rate than before.

I know you are stuck in the mind set that Philly drafted the best player available each time they selected in the draft. But their talent meter may prove to be anachronistic, especially with the drafting of Okafor over Porzingis (this will only become clearer in the next two years, in my estimation, when Zinger takes over from Anthony as the man in NYC).  I will never fault them for drafting Embiid, who, if healthy, has the athleticism to adapt and thrive in the new NBA.

Okafor at 3 was a no-brainer.

Had they passed on Okafor for Porzingus, they would have been buried.  And there's no telling how Porzingus would have looked on that joke of a roster.  Porzingus is a little overrated right now.

Who cares if they would have been "buried"? The Knicks were initially buried, did you see the MSG reaction on draft day? Now they love the guy.   

[Scintan]

The Warriors are showing one way to combine personnel and style in such a way as to win, nothing more.  Put Shaq back in this NBA, or even put Duncan back in his prime, and people would be talking about the resurgence of low post play.

The current modern game is the current modern game because almost every quality big man thinks he's a point guard.

[playdream]

At the end of the day it's all about matchups
We almost end their win streak without Smart, and with Smart we end their homecourt legend
On the other hand The Hawks and Cavs just has better matchups against us
If it's us playing them in the finals i think we can very well beat them out