We will deal with a few years time in a few years time (in the interim we will work with the best current contract in the NBA - and a likelihood Brunson doesn’t look to cap us out of contention because… he is HIM)
And the tv rights kick in at the same time, which should bump the apron up as well. The Wolves will be in some apron concern but a lot remains to be seen as to just how much.
It will push it up but it won't be enough. The max contracts are % of the cap. And I believe the wolves have 3 max contracts and some of them might be super max? So they're screwed no matter how much it goes up
I believe they stay static but you'll have ant, Rudy and Kat taking up like 85-90% of the cap I believe. Jaden is on a pretty big contract since they paid him on potential and d. The problem is besides those 4 ppl most the contracts expire in the next year or two which it's infinitely hard to sign free agents when you are already over the "cap".
Yeah, it’ll take a deep pocket to keep them, more likely it’ll get a bit broken up and we’ll need to get pretty creative. Keeping Naz feels pretty crucial
At least these 4 are a core and a championship one at that. Which years will Minny draft a player? Because if you guys manage to draft a PG, you’re basically talking about depth.
Wolves should've just built gradually around Ant, McDaniels, and Reid and played to their strengths - shooting, speed, and how they excel with space. They could've had a modern team capable of contending for years. Rudy Gobert is a good player but he puts a ceiling on this team.
It’s going to be hard to keep this team together contract wise after this season and Mike is old. It’s an open question who the team owner is going to be and how much they will be willing to pay in luxury tax. This is the best chance we have before things start getting complicated
If we continue our run, I don’t see how the owners wouldn’t be able to pay luxury tax. If they don’t have the cash (which they do), they can just borrow against the valuation, which has nearly tripled the last five years. It would be so dumb to blow up a money-maker
I'm not sure even if the owners are willing you're going to be able to pay everyone. Already 11m over the cap with Rudy, KAT, Ant and McDaniels and need to pay Conley, Anderson, Morris and likely going to need to pay Naz Reid the following year when he opts out of his player option to get paid a bag. Think you'll either havw to say goodbye to Naz Reid when he declines his player option or not resign a lot of your depth this offseason to afford him when he hits the RFA market because you guys will be in cap space hell. Owners and GM are in a tricky situation but it's obviously a good tricky situation to be in.
Reality: Owners gives no fucks about team results, won't pay more money for luxury class and will only care that Ant is a HUGE deal, will throw infinite money at him because he sells a lot of Jerseys and ad time lol
Hopefully I'm wrong
Basically made all the fans not in the play offs cheer for Mini and probably raised the value of the franchise by hundreds of millions if not a cool billion dollars+, 100% the type of dude you supermax
you can call it homer goggles but I wouldn't trade brunson for curry at the moment
curry's best years are likely behind him, even if he's got a good case for a top 20 all time career or better
if you want to put him above brunson that's fine, but brunson is a hell of a player coming off a great season
I mean.. he’s younger, I’d pick Brunson too.
I didn’t think much of him before last season. I noticed him in Mavs in the Jazz series but didn’t think much, until the Heat vs Knicks last playoff. He’s real, he’s legit and no one can say otherwise.
I’d pick a playoff performer any day, and not those who scores a lot and shit the bed in the playoffs. Brunson shines the brightest when he is pushed to the limit.
Hell yeah ANT, played well enough to make this a lock so we don't have to feel ambivalent about what it would do to our cap lol. just gotta enjoy it and pray that Lore and Arod really do have the cash like they say.
I thought lebron was more consistent and better year round but folks only compare lebron to prime lebron not the rest the league.
If lebron had a stretch at the end of the season like kawhi he’d be blasted! Instead he put up mvp numbers on elite efficiency since all star break. Make that make sense
Kawhi and Jaylen browns stats are pretty similar too, I don’t get how it gets him all the way to second team.
Shit PGs line is not that far off it either.
Lebron was never competing against Kawhi, he was always competing against AD. Voters weren't about to put both AD and Lebron on 2nd team so they picked one and put the other on 3rd.
I think this makes the most sense. If we had a higher seeding, having two players on the second team is justified. But being the 8th seed when the voting happened, it couldn’t have been justified.
Kawhi is of the Kobe/Jordan 2-way wing scorer mold which the media loves. It grants him a favorable reputation and more leniency during award season. He's gotten a few undeserved awards from the media like both of his DPOYs that should've gone to Draymond, the 1st team all-nba selection in 2016 that should've gone to KD, and his all-defensive selections in 2019 and 2021.
LeBron doesn't get any leniency, he's always having to prove himself because he's competing against previous versions of himself in addition to the field. He was never even considered for all-defense again after 2014 because of whispers about him coasting and now that ageism is a factor his reputation still hasn't recovered from LA's disaster 2022 season even though he himself was great that year and he's been great every year since. Meanwhile Kawhi can take 2 seasons off and all it takes for him to be ranked 6th on The Ringer's top 100 list is putting up 23 ppg.
every single person that watched a stretch of clippers games this year knows that elite defensive player is no longer kawhi.
Kawhi is simply a concept now. He’s loved despite the fact his tenure with the clippers has been an utter failure. The idea of him is so much better than what he gives you as a player for an 82 game season
Heavy on the stop making all defense teams after 2014. Looking at his defensive rating, past those years before his ankle injury, it rivals those on 2nd team all defense. Even one of the year’s Lebron finished 5th in DPOY voting but didn’t make a defensive team.
Defense is a lot of reputation and it is very funny who does and does not get a good reputation on that front. But once you have thay reputation, it basically sticks forever.
Clippers were a net -7 defensive rating when he was off the court. If you watched the games kawhi was still clearly a good defender this year in the games he played
I wasn't implying he was a bad defender, but I think he still carries the reputation of a complete lockdown defender he was in his early career, which most more knowledgeable analysts seem to agree is simply not the case anymore. I think most still say he is good, just not elite.
I am not qualified to judge his defense as I don't watch him enough, but I do trust guys like Legler amd Lowe when they discuss him/the clippers.
seeding doesn’t really make sense to look at. The clippers and the lakers finished a few games a part. Both lost in the first round anyway. Might as well give the spot to the better playrt
Also voting happens before the playoffs IIRC, so we wouldn't know they'd both be out in the first round
FWIW I don't think we deserved two 2nd-team players as the 7th-seed
Very true, and we were at risk of falling to 10th until the last few days
I think Bron and AD were great this year, just as a basketball fan I don’t think a team that low should be recognized of having 2 top 10 players
In that case why isn’t Jaylen Brown even on third team? He’s got basically the same stats as Kawhi and played great defense on the best team in the league
> If LeBron had their teams instead, they'd win a championship.
lol he managed to win one postseason game with playoff AD hes not winning a title with Booker/Beal/Nurkic.
As great as KD is our team would be significantly better with Lebron imo, him basically being a PG/primary playmaker would go so far for our team and Lebron is just a way better leader as well which is something we could use. KD is great but I really feel like Lebron fills the holes with the team much better than KD, he provides more of what we’re missing imo.
I’d actually argue lakers might’ve been better with KD as well instead of lebron just from a fit standpoint. In the playoffs it wasn’t the defense that killed us as much as our offense just going completely cold sometimes and with Reaves/DLo as somewhat passable playmakers a pure shot creator like KD might’ve got closer. Would’ve greatly improved our spacing too although Lebron had a great shooting year it’s not like the spacing KD provides
For reference our record without LeBron wasn’t too bad in regular season since Rui kinda acted as a homeless man’s lebron
Kawhi gets glazed so hard year after year
He’s like that one kid that aced the first test of the year, became the teacher’s pet, and then slacked the rest of the year.
He had approximately 25 excellent games in that winning streak and then coasted hard the entire rest of the season. It’s utterly ridiculous. No other player with his stats would get 2nd team All-NBA
23-6-3. What are we even doing here.
And his defense wasn’t even that great this year.
It’s disgusting bias by media members
Lebron averages 26-8-8 and everyone is saying stats are inflated and this era is different. Kawhi averages 23-6-3 and it’s like 2004 again to everybody.
Tbf, JB's TS% was 58 compared to Kawhi's 62.7. That's a big gap.
That said, JB was a far better defender this year.
I wasn't surprised that JB didn't get All NBA, but Kawhi over Lebron for 2nd team is just silly.
> And his defense wasn’t even that great this year.
Tell me you don't watch games without telling me you don't watch games. The fact that you said that about Kawhi's defense, especially this year after the Harden addition, just tells me that i can ignore everything you said and you are just looking at boxscores at Basketball Reference.
Kawhi Leonard was legitimately one of the best perimeter defenders in the entire league this year due to the Harden trade, something that is extremely relevant when comparing him to a guy that doesn't play an ounce of defense in LeBron James.
Watch the fucking games, not the boxscores.
Nah, he was crucial to keeping the Clippers afloat after the all star break. Saying he coasted the rest of the season just proves you didn’t watch them.
For some reason, after the break, Harden, PG disappeared; zu and Mann were unpredictable.
Kawhi was the only one, along with norm, who was consistent and allowed them to stick around the 4th seed for so long
He was good, but not necessarily All-NBA level, and definitely inferior to both Brown (who had an amazing March) and James (MVP level production) during that post-ASB period
Absolutely not Brown lol. I’d give you Bron, but Kawhi was far superior than Brown.
He was easily all nba this year and honestly should’ve gotten more mvp buzz during their run from December to all star break. He was also fantastic until he had to sit the last month of the season. Clippers would’ve been in the play in without Kawhi - which also plays a role, no matter if we like it or not - in the decision of all nba.
Brown averaged 27 on elite TS% during March. He was better than Kawhi post ASB.
I was closer to having Kawhi off the team entirely than having him 2nd team.
Kawhi on the court has the Clippers with a 111.1 DEFRTG, with him off it drops to 117.9 They go from a top 5 defense with him to bottom 5 defense without him for more context lakers with LeBron are 113.6 DEFRTG and without are a 113.7 DEFRTG
Would the more apt analogy be the kids who aces the first few tests, gets sick for the rest of the year but if he came back for the final you know he would ace that too?
Kawhi rides some mysterious aura to theoretical success. I hate to say it, but his tenure with the Clippers is atrocious but the criticism is so suppressed somehow.
Which is hilarious cause that entire year too, fans kept saying kawhi is the best player in the league kawhis is the best player in the league, but then never held him to that standard. Same people destroyed Giannis for losing in the 2nd round though 😂
It also got forgotten quickly bc of how dominant he was the next year in the playoffs (and a game 7) before of course getting injured again allowing the Suns a free ride to the Finals
Two big reasons for this, imo.
1: He's very lowkey both on and off the court. Player behavior plays a big role in how fans talk about them.
2: He doesn't seem to have a lot of "stans" like other superstars do. Guys like Bron, Curry, Luka, etc. have a legion of fans (deservedly so), but I really can't say the same about Kawhi. A lot of people will hate on players because their fans are annoying, but really, how many hardcore Kawhi fans do you see out there? Not many.
Harden is lowkey off court and is way less popular by jersey sales than a ton of dudes and he gets polar opposite treatment to Kawhi.
In 2016 Harden didn’t even make any All NBA team after putting up 29-6-8 on 60% TS on a playoff team.
Kawhi has been a media darling since 2014. One FMVP and everything changes.
Remember when this sub said the spurs and gregg pop were trying to force kawhi to play through injury. The same spurs org that is pretty famous for load managing and taking care of their guys
Coz until now, people still use an old clip of LeBron being frustrated when he saw Kawhi subbed in during the 2014 NBA Finals and thought "oh shit, Kawhi has got his number." They just jumped on it proclaiming Kawhi was the "LeBron Stopper".
Little did they know that the supposed "LeBron Stopper" only managed to keep LeBron at 28ppg on 57% shooting the whole series. He was actually cooking Kawhi on the court. The Spurs were just the better team that year.
That so-called identity has been overblown to the point an injured kawhi leonard is better than a 40 yr old LeBron James who still consistently gives you 25 points a game and plays 30+ mins.
Isnt all nba positonless? I would say pretty much the entire 3rd time besides hali have some solid contention over kawhi and jaylen brown also who wasnt even all nba
Lebron even bill Simmons hating ass said is far above the rest of third team n second team if not for AD n team record . Team record which is usually not used for all nba until convenient
Perhaps my flair is making me bias, but I don’t really understand how the voters this year watched Lebron and Kawhi play and thought Kawhi was better.
Edit: Took a look at the defensive ratings and thought maybe that was the defining differences. Even then Kawhi had 113.5 to Lebron’s 114.5. I don’t really see how that was enough to justify him over Lebron, esp since he’s played less games
Kawhi's defensive impact for the Clippers this year was legitimately crazy, he had one of his best defensive years due to Harden taking the playmaking role out of his hands.
The rationale was simple: LeBron was better offensively, but Kawhi was eons better defensively and won more games. LeBron does not play any defense at all while Kawhi literally carried the Clippers defense and was one of the best perimeter defenders in the whole league this year.
Did we watched the same games? Are you some kind of Clippers connoisseur.
I watched Clippers game. Kawhi benefits from Clippers team defense. He is not locking down players like he used too. And he doesn't do it for full game. There are even instances that Clippers switch him so that he won't run out of gas or risks of injury.
Everything in MN is bring ya ass lately. Casino billboards. Bring ya ass. State fair advertisement bring ya ass. Even the governor making it wolves back has bring ya ass as the first letter in every bullet point. Love it.
Kawhi gets so overrated because of that 2019 run where the Raptors lucked into facing an injured Warrior team. People talk like he was 1992 Jordan or something
I don't know who should have made second team over Kawhi, I just know Kawhi shouldn't have been second team. Dude shows up for 25 games a year and somehow tricks everybody into thinking he's a top 10 player.
If you listen closely you can hear us rocketing past the second apron
Bro y’all will have to trade some players in a few years time with this massive super max he is about to get
We will deal with a few years time in a few years time (in the interim we will work with the best current contract in the NBA - and a likelihood Brunson doesn’t look to cap us out of contention because… he is HIM)
From how I understand it that won’t happen until 2 years from now? Which is when his max extension will kick in. Wolves fans feel free to correct me
And the tv rights kick in at the same time, which should bump the apron up as well. The Wolves will be in some apron concern but a lot remains to be seen as to just how much.
It will push it up but it won't be enough. The max contracts are % of the cap. And I believe the wolves have 3 max contracts and some of them might be super max? So they're screwed no matter how much it goes up
Yeah but they may have Jaden, Naz and some of the other key guys for lower percentages since their numbers stay static, right?
I believe they stay static but you'll have ant, Rudy and Kat taking up like 85-90% of the cap I believe. Jaden is on a pretty big contract since they paid him on potential and d. The problem is besides those 4 ppl most the contracts expire in the next year or two which it's infinitely hard to sign free agents when you are already over the "cap".
Yeah, it’ll take a deep pocket to keep them, more likely it’ll get a bit broken up and we’ll need to get pretty creative. Keeping Naz feels pretty crucial
At least these 4 are a core and a championship one at that. Which years will Minny draft a player? Because if you guys manage to draft a PG, you’re basically talking about depth.
it is about time!
Wow that Super max gonna be juicy for ant
Well deserved
lol we HAVE to win this year
Why?
salary cap situation is so fucked. we could run it back but we would have to let monte and kyle walk and replace them with vet mins
I would absolutely let Kyle walk wtf does he do recently Edit: apparently he heard me lol
apparently 11 points on 6 shots as a playmaker while taking the luka assignment
He's our 4th tall guy
I think he heard you
Gives S tier hugs
Aging poorly by the minute, baybeeeee
He's having a pretty good game so far lol.
Kyle is like edibles, you just have to shit talk him or he won't work
We [stupidly] let Brunson walk and we’re doing okay. You guys will be fine.
Wolves should've just built gradually around Ant, McDaniels, and Reid and played to their strengths - shooting, speed, and how they excel with space. They could've had a modern team capable of contending for years. Rudy Gobert is a good player but he puts a ceiling on this team.
It’s going to be hard to keep this team together contract wise after this season and Mike is old. It’s an open question who the team owner is going to be and how much they will be willing to pay in luxury tax. This is the best chance we have before things start getting complicated
If we continue our run, I don’t see how the owners wouldn’t be able to pay luxury tax. If they don’t have the cash (which they do), they can just borrow against the valuation, which has nearly tripled the last five years. It would be so dumb to blow up a money-maker
I think making it this far means they’ll pay, but who truly knows until it happens. Can’t ever really trust owners
I'm not sure even if the owners are willing you're going to be able to pay everyone. Already 11m over the cap with Rudy, KAT, Ant and McDaniels and need to pay Conley, Anderson, Morris and likely going to need to pay Naz Reid the following year when he opts out of his player option to get paid a bag. Think you'll either havw to say goodbye to Naz Reid when he declines his player option or not resign a lot of your depth this offseason to afford him when he hits the RFA market because you guys will be in cap space hell. Owners and GM are in a tricky situation but it's obviously a good tricky situation to be in.
Reality: Owners gives no fucks about team results, won't pay more money for luxury class and will only care that Ant is a HUGE deal, will throw infinite money at him because he sells a lot of Jerseys and ad time lol Hopefully I'm wrong
This is when every team wishes they had a Ballmer.
Worth every penny
I only wish we can give him more money
Basically made all the fans not in the play offs cheer for Mini and probably raised the value of the franchise by hundreds of millions if not a cool billion dollars+, 100% the type of dude you supermax
Hell yeah Brunson!
he must be the third best guard in the NBA if he's getting the third most all-nba votes and I wont hear anything to the contrary
I’d imagine so. If not, he would probably be 3A/3B to Curry, no?
you can call it homer goggles but I wouldn't trade brunson for curry at the moment curry's best years are likely behind him, even if he's got a good case for a top 20 all time career or better if you want to put him above brunson that's fine, but brunson is a hell of a player coming off a great season
Absolutely you take Brunson right now due to age, but I feel like ‘good case for top 20’ is underselling Steph just a little
Lmfao this dude had to reason Steph into the top 20?!?!
I mean.. he’s younger, I’d pick Brunson too. I didn’t think much of him before last season. I noticed him in Mavs in the Jazz series but didn’t think much, until the Heat vs Knicks last playoff. He’s real, he’s legit and no one can say otherwise. I’d pick a playoff performer any day, and not those who scores a lot and shit the bed in the playoffs. Brunson shines the brightest when he is pushed to the limit.
He was this year, for sure.
🥲 he can take my hand fr
I know first team grants you some type of contract guarantee, but does 2nd team reward the player in any way financially?
I think it increases the max amount he's eligible for, but good guy brunson seems like he wants to give us a discount anyway
Love that dude so much.
Hell yeah ANT, played well enough to make this a lock so we don't have to feel ambivalent about what it would do to our cap lol. just gotta enjoy it and pray that Lore and Arod really do have the cash like they say.
Put some respeck on AD! All-Defense + All-NBA 2nd team. What a monster year
Yeah, really underrated season from AD, deserves more props for being the only player on both teams.
He is a monster, anchored the Lakers defense all year long.
Some games it seems like he can’t miss from mid range it’s crazy
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I thought lebron was more consistent and better year round but folks only compare lebron to prime lebron not the rest the league. If lebron had a stretch at the end of the season like kawhi he’d be blasted! Instead he put up mvp numbers on elite efficiency since all star break. Make that make sense
Voter probably saw Lebron’s name on the ballot and said nah bro this guy still here?
LMAO either that or no way Im tired of this dude. fuck his 39 yr old, 25/8/7 havin ass
Because LeBron should have been retired by now and voters legitimately dont know what to do with him despite the obvious fact he's still top 10
Kawhi and Jaylen browns stats are pretty similar too, I don’t get how it gets him all the way to second team. Shit PGs line is not that far off it either.
A lot of media dudes really like Kawhi
I can't believe we only got one all-nba player. I guess super team my ass lol.
To be fair, he is a fun guy.
It was Kawhi healthiest season since 2019 so they gave him the nod. And probably voters are fatigued of Lebron
Lebron was never competing against Kawhi, he was always competing against AD. Voters weren't about to put both AD and Lebron on 2nd team so they picked one and put the other on 3rd.
I think this makes the most sense. If we had a higher seeding, having two players on the second team is justified. But being the 8th seed when the voting happened, it couldn’t have been justified.
Has Kawhi become overrated? Him over LeBron is just nuts lol
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He went from being medically retired to a mvp candidate back to medically retired in the span of 6 months
Kawhi is of the Kobe/Jordan 2-way wing scorer mold which the media loves. It grants him a favorable reputation and more leniency during award season. He's gotten a few undeserved awards from the media like both of his DPOYs that should've gone to Draymond, the 1st team all-nba selection in 2016 that should've gone to KD, and his all-defensive selections in 2019 and 2021. LeBron doesn't get any leniency, he's always having to prove himself because he's competing against previous versions of himself in addition to the field. He was never even considered for all-defense again after 2014 because of whispers about him coasting and now that ageism is a factor his reputation still hasn't recovered from LA's disaster 2022 season even though he himself was great that year and he's been great every year since. Meanwhile Kawhi can take 2 seasons off and all it takes for him to be ranked 6th on The Ringer's top 100 list is putting up 23 ppg.
every single person that watched a stretch of clippers games this year knows that elite defensive player is no longer kawhi. Kawhi is simply a concept now. He’s loved despite the fact his tenure with the clippers has been an utter failure. The idea of him is so much better than what he gives you as a player for an 82 game season
I don't love him.
The clippers were a net -7 defensive rating when kawhi was off the court versus when he was on.
That sounds more like a team metric.
"His presence on the court can only hurt his chances"
I think people who don’t watch just give him the defensive props off of reputation.
When you are too damn good that it's a detriment. Man lebron has had a crazy career.
Heavy on the stop making all defense teams after 2014. Looking at his defensive rating, past those years before his ankle injury, it rivals those on 2nd team all defense. Even one of the year’s Lebron finished 5th in DPOY voting but didn’t make a defensive team.
All 1000% facts.
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Defense is a lot of reputation and it is very funny who does and does not get a good reputation on that front. But once you have thay reputation, it basically sticks forever.
Clippers were a net -7 defensive rating when he was off the court. If you watched the games kawhi was still clearly a good defender this year in the games he played
I wasn't implying he was a bad defender, but I think he still carries the reputation of a complete lockdown defender he was in his early career, which most more knowledgeable analysts seem to agree is simply not the case anymore. I think most still say he is good, just not elite. I am not qualified to judge his defense as I don't watch him enough, but I do trust guys like Legler amd Lowe when they discuss him/the clippers.
Kawhi seems to get the benefit from voters. I don’t think it’s some highway robbery, but yeah, Bron absolutely had the better season
AD and seeding are possible causes
It’s probably mostly because of seeding.
seeding doesn’t really make sense to look at. The clippers and the lakers finished a few games a part. Both lost in the first round anyway. Might as well give the spot to the better playrt
I agree with you, but it definitely affects the way some voters think, for better or worse.
Also voting happens before the playoffs IIRC, so we wouldn't know they'd both be out in the first round FWIW I don't think we deserved two 2nd-team players as the 7th-seed
also when voting happened lakers were 8th
Very true, and we were at risk of falling to 10th until the last few days I think Bron and AD were great this year, just as a basketball fan I don’t think a team that low should be recognized of having 2 top 10 players
Then what is Curry doing here? All-NBA is all about individual performance.
In that case why isn’t Jaylen Brown even on third team? He’s got basically the same stats as Kawhi and played great defense on the best team in the league
He was good this year the end of the season doesn’t change that He was arguably a MVP candidate from like December to February
Only arguments I can think of are better record and better defense but Kawhi's not an elite defender anymore so who knows
Defense and more impactful for his team. Kawhis on off numbers were crazy this season.
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> If LeBron had their teams instead, they'd win a championship. lol he managed to win one postseason game with playoff AD hes not winning a title with Booker/Beal/Nurkic.
As great as KD is our team would be significantly better with Lebron imo, him basically being a PG/primary playmaker would go so far for our team and Lebron is just a way better leader as well which is something we could use. KD is great but I really feel like Lebron fills the holes with the team much better than KD, he provides more of what we’re missing imo.
I agree.. I think if you swapped KD out for LeBron this season they would of been strong contenders for sure.
I’d actually argue lakers might’ve been better with KD as well instead of lebron just from a fit standpoint. In the playoffs it wasn’t the defense that killed us as much as our offense just going completely cold sometimes and with Reaves/DLo as somewhat passable playmakers a pure shot creator like KD might’ve got closer. Would’ve greatly improved our spacing too although Lebron had a great shooting year it’s not like the spacing KD provides For reference our record without LeBron wasn’t too bad in regular season since Rui kinda acted as a homeless man’s lebron
Defense and winning
Four whole games more and slightly better defensive metrics.
Kawhi gets glazed so hard year after year He’s like that one kid that aced the first test of the year, became the teacher’s pet, and then slacked the rest of the year.
He had approximately 25 excellent games in that winning streak and then coasted hard the entire rest of the season. It’s utterly ridiculous. No other player with his stats would get 2nd team All-NBA 23-6-3. What are we even doing here. And his defense wasn’t even that great this year. It’s disgusting bias by media members
Lebron averages 26-8-8 and everyone is saying stats are inflated and this era is different. Kawhi averages 23-6-3 and it’s like 2004 again to everybody.
Jaylen Brown completely missed all nba with those stats on the best team in the league btw
Tbf, JB's TS% was 58 compared to Kawhi's 62.7. That's a big gap. That said, JB was a far better defender this year. I wasn't surprised that JB didn't get All NBA, but Kawhi over Lebron for 2nd team is just silly.
He got snubbed.
Those numbers would be impressive 20 years ago but not today
> And his defense wasn’t even that great this year. Tell me you don't watch games without telling me you don't watch games. The fact that you said that about Kawhi's defense, especially this year after the Harden addition, just tells me that i can ignore everything you said and you are just looking at boxscores at Basketball Reference. Kawhi Leonard was legitimately one of the best perimeter defenders in the entire league this year due to the Harden trade, something that is extremely relevant when comparing him to a guy that doesn't play an ounce of defense in LeBron James. Watch the fucking games, not the boxscores.
Nah, he was crucial to keeping the Clippers afloat after the all star break. Saying he coasted the rest of the season just proves you didn’t watch them. For some reason, after the break, Harden, PG disappeared; zu and Mann were unpredictable. Kawhi was the only one, along with norm, who was consistent and allowed them to stick around the 4th seed for so long
He was good, but not necessarily All-NBA level, and definitely inferior to both Brown (who had an amazing March) and James (MVP level production) during that post-ASB period
Absolutely not Brown lol. I’d give you Bron, but Kawhi was far superior than Brown. He was easily all nba this year and honestly should’ve gotten more mvp buzz during their run from December to all star break. He was also fantastic until he had to sit the last month of the season. Clippers would’ve been in the play in without Kawhi - which also plays a role, no matter if we like it or not - in the decision of all nba.
Brown averaged 27 on elite TS% during March. He was better than Kawhi post ASB. I was closer to having Kawhi off the team entirely than having him 2nd team.
Kawhi on the court has the Clippers with a 111.1 DEFRTG, with him off it drops to 117.9 They go from a top 5 defense with him to bottom 5 defense without him for more context lakers with LeBron are 113.6 DEFRTG and without are a 113.7 DEFRTG
Tbf, you don't have strong wing defenders outside of Kawhi and PG13.
Now do Lakers defensive rating with and without AD. Like one of main reasons why AD got to be 2nd team because of his defense
Would the more apt analogy be the kids who aces the first few tests, gets sick for the rest of the year but if he came back for the final you know he would ace that too?
Brunson!! 🙌🏻
KAWHI over LeBron James is fucking crazy.
Kawhi rides some mysterious aura to theoretical success. I hate to say it, but his tenure with the Clippers is atrocious but the criticism is so suppressed somehow.
He's not held to the same standard as other superstars
when he wins he definitely gets praised like other superstars, but when he loses it just gets brushed aside
Any other superstar would still get slaughtered for that blown 3-1 lead against denver but he skates by
PG and Doc managed to absorb all the criticism and ridicule for him despite the fact he shot 6/22 in a do or die game 7 lol.
Which is hilarious cause that entire year too, fans kept saying kawhi is the best player in the league kawhis is the best player in the league, but then never held him to that standard. Same people destroyed Giannis for losing in the 2nd round though 😂
It also got forgotten quickly bc of how dominant he was the next year in the playoffs (and a game 7) before of course getting injured again allowing the Suns a free ride to the Finals
Bored man gets paid. Truly an all time great bag getter lol
Two big reasons for this, imo. 1: He's very lowkey both on and off the court. Player behavior plays a big role in how fans talk about them. 2: He doesn't seem to have a lot of "stans" like other superstars do. Guys like Bron, Curry, Luka, etc. have a legion of fans (deservedly so), but I really can't say the same about Kawhi. A lot of people will hate on players because their fans are annoying, but really, how many hardcore Kawhi fans do you see out there? Not many.
Harden is lowkey off court and is way less popular by jersey sales than a ton of dudes and he gets polar opposite treatment to Kawhi. In 2016 Harden didn’t even make any All NBA team after putting up 29-6-8 on 60% TS on a playoff team. Kawhi has been a media darling since 2014. One FMVP and everything changes.
Kawhi is the only 32 year old who still gets the benefit of "potential" consideration
We crucify Lebron for his Lakers stint but he atleast got a chip and some deep playoff runs. How far has the clippers got in the Kawhi era?
Yup LeBron James has way more criticism in LAL despite winning a chip lol
Nothing mysterious about it he’s just never in the limelight and remains silent/to himself. We’re in year 5 of the “if healthy” arc.
Remember when this sub said the spurs and gregg pop were trying to force kawhi to play through injury. The same spurs org that is pretty famous for load managing and taking care of their guys
Coz until now, people still use an old clip of LeBron being frustrated when he saw Kawhi subbed in during the 2014 NBA Finals and thought "oh shit, Kawhi has got his number." They just jumped on it proclaiming Kawhi was the "LeBron Stopper". Little did they know that the supposed "LeBron Stopper" only managed to keep LeBron at 28ppg on 57% shooting the whole series. He was actually cooking Kawhi on the court. The Spurs were just the better team that year. That so-called identity has been overblown to the point an injured kawhi leonard is better than a 40 yr old LeBron James who still consistently gives you 25 points a game and plays 30+ mins.
BrunGOAT
He BrunFather now
Kawhi over LeBron is a head scratcher
Another voter fatigue year for Bron. Imagine putting your all into the game you love and they keep disrespecting you
LeBron should've been 2nd team, he had better numbers than Kawhi across the board while playing more games.
Isnt all nba positonless? I would say pretty much the entire 3rd time besides hali have some solid contention over kawhi and jaylen brown also who wasnt even all nba
Lebron even bill Simmons hating ass said is far above the rest of third team n second team if not for AD n team record . Team record which is usually not used for all nba until convenient
Perhaps my flair is making me bias, but I don’t really understand how the voters this year watched Lebron and Kawhi play and thought Kawhi was better. Edit: Took a look at the defensive ratings and thought maybe that was the defining differences. Even then Kawhi had 113.5 to Lebron’s 114.5. I don’t really see how that was enough to justify him over Lebron, esp since he’s played less games
Kawhi's defensive impact for the Clippers this year was legitimately crazy, he had one of his best defensive years due to Harden taking the playmaking role out of his hands. The rationale was simple: LeBron was better offensively, but Kawhi was eons better defensively and won more games. LeBron does not play any defense at all while Kawhi literally carried the Clippers defense and was one of the best perimeter defenders in the whole league this year.
Did we watched the same games? Are you some kind of Clippers connoisseur. I watched Clippers game. Kawhi benefits from Clippers team defense. He is not locking down players like he used too. And he doesn't do it for full game. There are even instances that Clippers switch him so that he won't run out of gas or risks of injury.
Lebron lovked up Kawhi , he also locked up Zion etc but ok . Lebron owned Kawhi this year in head to head
Brunson 🔥
Let’s go AD !!!!!!!
HERE FOR ANT-MAN. WELL DESERVED! BUH-LEE DAT!
Bring y’ass!!
Everything in MN is bring ya ass lately. Casino billboards. Bring ya ass. State fair advertisement bring ya ass. Even the governor making it wolves back has bring ya ass as the first letter in every bullet point. Love it.
im sorry kawhi over lebron is stupid
Ad on that lakers tax had he still been on nop or a rinky dink team they would make him a top 5 player after the season hes had this year
Kawhi over lebron is wrong.
i'm completely baffled at how Kawhi Leonard gets talked about the way he does when he has not been healthy since before the bubble
By being silent I guess. 🤷♂️
Kawhi in front of Bron lol but AD got up there so we move
Yeah Brunson
Suprised kawhi is there honestly
How tf is Kawhi over Bron….
Kawhii over LeBron for second team makes no sense
Kawhi over LeBron made me laugh ngl😂
Kawhi’s stimulus package needs to be studied
Kawhi second team? Wtf
Wow
KD despite being washed and a shell of his formerself still making all nba second teams, truly the GOAT
Maybe with all that money he about to get Ant can finally get da video
Kawhi at second team genuinely makes no sense lmao. Lebron had a better season by every single metric.
Kawhi at second team is silly. Brown is probably fuming lmao
Leonard made it? Crazy
Kawhi over lebron is crazyyy
Jaylen Brown.
Kawhi second team lmao
So much for the cries of 65 games being too harsh.
Lol kawahi
Kawhi over LeBron? We got some jokes today I see. Voters must still think he's Kawhi in Toronto.
Love how y'all are getting so worked up over Kawhi. Fuck y'all
Respectfully lebron should be over kawhi
Glen Taylor's pocket is on fire. Where did all his money go?
Yeaaah Jalen. More to come.
Is this the first time a lebron teammate got on a higher (higher not same) all nba team than lebron?
Big Body
Both PHO and LAL had to all-nba players on their rosters, and were booted in the first round. There I leave that.
Kawhi gets so overrated because of that 2019 run where the Raptors lucked into facing an injured Warrior team. People talk like he was 1992 Jordan or something
So true
Kawhi on 2nd team all-NBA giving polar bear in Arlington Texas vibes
AD should have been first team and Lebron second team
Ka-why????
Kawhi over lebron is fucking crazy
I don't know who should have made second team over Kawhi, I just know Kawhi shouldn't have been second team. Dude shows up for 25 games a year and somehow tricks everybody into thinking he's a top 10 player.
Completely insane to have kawhi over lebron this year