Basketball predictions and hot takes
Credit to Author: MICHAEL ANGELO B. ASIS| Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2019 16:18:19 +0000
(Part 1)
The casual fan takes his tin-foil hat, gobbling a formula comprising more of wild imagination, wishful fandom and sprinkled with just a dash of logic and basketball knowledge. Not the best recipe for predictions you can bet on — but for pandering purposes, I went 5 for 5 on my free agency prediction column. Yes, I had to go there.
PBA Commissioner’s Cup prediction
I have already forecast that it will be a Ginebra-TNT match-up in the semis. That was easy enough. Getting a bit bolder — whoever wins this series will win the title, winning over SMB or Rain or Shine. Yes, any of these two can beat the Beermen with Chris McCullough.
So who will take it all? Close call but Ginebra in 5. Terrence Jones’ weakness has been exposed. He is a regular season player, not a playoff player. Houston Rockets’ GM Daryl Morey saw it that’s why they didn’t keep him for the playoffs, not renewing his contract last March.
Jones in the PBA is good enough, playoffs or not. If TNT were up against any other opponent, I would bet on them. But against Justin Brownlee, the best import in the last two years bar none, it would be tough. The Barangay has an intact lineup rejuvenated by Stanley Pringle. Too hard to beat now that they’re peaking.
Incidentally, Justin Brownlee will also be the Gins import in the Governors Cup. The advantage teams had over Ginebra was that they had taller imports—now that’s also gone. The other teams need to get high quality imports if they want to contend.
Chris Paul is stuck in OKC
Bill Simmons is a Chris Paul fan and he kept on spewing out trade scenarios for CP3 to get out of the basketball limbo that is the OKC Thunder. He suggested the Memphis Grizzlies and now, the Minnesota Timberwolves. Both these teams have zero motivation to spend trade for Paul.
Face it, CP3 and his horrible contract are stuck with the Thunder. There was no trade interest at all, not even with the Knicks or Heat. Hats off to the aforementioned Morey for escaping the Paul trap (that he himself also created).
The Thunder have a ton of picks, and the only reason they were willing to take on CP3 is that it ends a year earlier than Russell Westbrook’s deal. The Rockets draft pick won’t amount to much, but it’s added artillery for Sam Presti to do what he does best: drafting.
Chris Paul will get an average of $40 million to mentor whoever’s left of the Thunder lineup, and whoever Presti drafts in the next two years (if he declines his player option — which is highly unlikely so it’s actually three). If he’s not down with that, he can negotiate the biggest buyout in NBA history (also unlikely).
Lakers will be better than the Clippers
The NBA world celebrated Kawhi Leonard and the Clippers’ “masterful” move of combining two superstars along with a “solid lineup.” They quickly shot up on the championship odds’ list, overtaking their cross-town rivals, the LA Lakers.
The reasoning behind this is that the Clippers had a better lineup than the Lakers, pre-Kawhi acquisition. The Lakers also gave away their young core.
Are the Clippers really the better team? I think not. It was more of the element of surprise that made this a boss move. Let’s take a closer look:
The Lakers duo is better than the Clippers duo.
There, I said it. You may be suffering from recency bias if you choose the Clippers. The image of Kawhi with the trophy, George finishing third in MVP voting — whereas Anthony Davis was demonized for the trade demand and LeBron spent half the season injured.
George was third, but remember, he did not get any first-place votes. Kevin Durant and Steph Curry usually disqualify each other, we’ve mentioned the ruin of James and Davis’ seasons. Kyrie and Kawhi had injuries and load management too. PG is not the third best player in the NBA.
In contrast, we may have forgotten how good Anthony Davis is.
(To be continued)
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