Official NBA 2017-2018 Thread - Final day of the regular with playoff seating still unknown

Fuck Markelle... Da Fuck they got him in the post game interview for!! Ole Chopper Suit wearing ass, Get yo bitch ass on the fucking court!!! :lol:
 
Fans deserve better than what the New Orleans Pelicans are offering

http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orle...l&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

You deserve better.

Yes, you. The rare, curious creature known as the New Orleans Pelicans fan.

The person who reads columns like this, buys tickets and watches games on television. You have been vastly underserved by this franchise for most of the past 10 years.

The combination of short-term thinking, meshed with low expectations, may have lulled you to believe this is somehow an acceptable NBA circumstance.

It is not.

And a 27-hour debacle last weekend in the Smoothie King Center crystallized that concept. Consecutive losses to the scuffling Dallas Mavericks and New York Knicks illustrated the Pelicans’ predicament. They are a win-now team who isn’t winning right now.

To be fair, New Orleans is still 18-18 and there’s enough time and top-end talent in place (Anthony Davis, DeMarcus Cousins, Jrue Holiday), inside the muddled Western Conference standing, to vault the Pelicans into a decent playoff spot by season’s end.

But, based on the evidence provided, it’s hard to believe this team is capable of generating the sustained success required to propel them into a position better than the No. 7 or No. 8 seed in the West, eliciting a likely first-round exit.


That’s not really the point, though.

The underlying cynicism is accepting whether a middling team, who hovers near .500 and gets soundly booted from the first round, should be considered good enough.

It’s not.

This team isn’t selling a budding youth movement. Or a process. Or a brand of basketball.

It’s selling the now.

It’s pitching two All-NBA players, in their primes, paired together in an attempt to save one another from being the league’s best players devoid of meaningful games.

Yet, even with that specter lingering over the locker room, this team doesn’t generate a consistent effort or a reliable product.

On any given night, any version of the Pelicans could show up. The one who blew out the Spurs, Cavaliers and Thunder or the one who loses to Orlando, Sacramento, Dallas and New York at home (combined 55-92 record).

What are fans supposed to think? Is having a mediocre team with marketable stars and clever social media enough to satiate the public?


Should they just be satisfied to even have the NBA in a small, relatively poor market like this?

Since arriving in 2002, this franchise has done nearly nothing to capture the imagination of the region. Outside of the meteoric 2007-08 season, which saved basketball in New Orleans, this team has defined mediocrity under two different ownership groups, in two cities, with two nicknames.

They’ve won one playoff series in 15 years. Fans watched future Hall of Famer Chris Paul demand a trade out of town three years later and now fear the same fate is coming for Davis, with even less team success in his wake.

Every other franchise in the league can at least point to some grand moments in team history or a string of seasons when championship aspirations weren’t completely laughed off by the national public.

The sibling Saints have done a masterful job of unfurling the team’s legacy over the past few years, despite being riddled with losing seasons, bringing home former stars and highlighting past achievements.

Not across the street.

Not a single banner hangs in the Smoothie King Center. There are zero reminders of the team’s (albeit futile) past.

Going to a Pelicans game is like going to a sports bar. It’s marketed as a night out of the house more than a source of citywide passion.

Spend three hours in the arena and if someone were to tell you this the first season (or game) in franchise history, you’d have scant evidence beyond your smartphone and a lobby display to disprove them. It’s all about that night and perhaps the next one.

It is this franchise’s DNA.


Get to the next day, the next week, the next season. An ounce of competitiveness over a pound of patience.

It’s why they’ve traded every first-round pick since 2012 and endlessly try to fill gaps with longshot second rounders or known-quantity veterans.


And if you injected truth serum into the franchise’s uppermost executives, they’d tell you the deck is stacked against them, in this market, to win a championship. So, logically, prolonged patience may be less of a virtue than a vice.

But even if not everyone can be San Antonio, how about Oklahoma City, Memphis, Orlando, Indianapolis and Milwaukee; non-marquee NBA markets without titles who have built real connections with their city.

So, where does this leave the fans?

For now, the only hope is to root for this roster to snap out of the team’s endless line of mediocrity and make this a spring worth remembering. The opportunity is still ripe.

Perhaps, then, it’s enough to get Cousins to re-sign and keeps Davis on board for the longer term. Maybe they’ll coalesce together and become a dynamic duo capable of competing at a higher level.

But based on prior evidence, the fans shouldn’t expect it on blind faith. And in the meantime, the Pelicans’ fragile customer base is growing frustrated and some are openly dropping their allegiance, at least until the results change.

Don’t blame the fans. They’re starting to realize they should demand more.



 
Some takeaways from the above article,

In the thread about the Celtics pursuing AD, everybody ignored me but this article basically validates what I said about why the Pelicans will not trade him unless he forces it. The fan base is fickle and the city's collective basketball IQ is low, football is king (as it is in most of the south), the difference here is that people in this city have a clear understanding of how market size plays a part in the NBA and for quite a few, the attitude is, "small markets can't compete so why have basketball here".

Trading away AD and Boogie might not be a bad idea in another market that needs to rebuild and reboot but in this one, it could kill basketball here. 18-18 isn't impressing anybody but it does keep the hopes of some type of post season alive, being 5-31 with a team of G-leaguers means an empty arena, tickets being given away and the Benson family probably looking to sell the team.

Also the article's note about the 2007-2008 season is interesting. I always thought that the then Hornets, missed a major opportunity to make a major imprint on this city after that season. 2007 was the year that the many Katrina evacuees started to make their way back home and as a result, many people were pleasantly surprised to see a basketball team that was winning and had likable players lead by CP3.. Instead of trying to build on that the Hornets went backwards and that season is just a faded memory at this point.
 
He was being sarcastic.
I know you're thinking "oh them niggas down there think he's gonna stay"
That wasnt sarcasm bro.. And what im thinking is "i said from day one this duo wouldnt work and that Cousins was a fucking malcontent and loser." . If NO was smart they would get on the phone with the Wizards and get as much as they can for Cousins while they can.
 
That wasnt sarcasm bro.. And what im thinking is "i said from day one this duo wouldnt work and that Cousins was a fucking malcontent and loser." . If NO was smart they would get on the phone with the Wizards and get as much as they can for Cousins while they can.

The writer of that article was being sarcastic with that line, look at the way he compared the Saints and Pelicans, look at how he basically ran down the franchises history from 2002 to today.
 
Cousins takes the hits, but AD is overrated as the leader of your basketball team. Great talent, but I actually think Cousins plays with more fire and desire.
 
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Cousins takes the hits, but AD is overrated as the leader of your basketball team. Great talent, but I actually think Cousins plays with more fire and desire.
Fire and Desire!???.. man this aint Teena Marie. This is basketball. Cousins is a fucking loser. Sac gave him away for a bottle of hot sauce and a peanut chew and they got better. AD always had shit guard play and coaching... Ship out Cousins, give AD a shooter and better guard play and they will improve.
 
Fire and Desire!???.. man this aint Teena Marie. This is basketball. Cousins is a fucking loser. Sac gave him away for a bottle of hot sauce and a peanut chew and they got better. AD always had shit guard play and coaching... Ship out Cousins, give AD a shooter and better guard play and they will improve.
Hes gay... :smh:
 
Fire and Desire!???.. man this aint Teena Marie. This is basketball. Cousins is a fucking loser. Sac gave him away for a bottle of hot sauce and a peanut chew and they got better. AD always had shit guard play and coaching... Ship out Cousins, give AD a shooter and better guard play and they will improve.

Anthony Davis is a loser. Hes been the franchise face the last 4 years. They got 1 playoff appearance they get swept in and a bunch of lottery appearances. Dude stays hurt, plays passive at times, gets winded QUICK, and doesnt seem to lead his teammates. The few games Ive watched of them this year Cousins impressed me more.
 
Now tell me about DeMarcus Cousins playoff exploits..

He played in Sacramento and New Orleans for half a year. Not really playoff organizations. Tell me which of his teams SHOULDVE made the playoffs? He has his flaws to his game but Pelicans sucking the last 3 seasons is more about AD then Boogie. AD isnt a leader and needs to be a #2 guy.
 
He played in Sacramento and New Orleans for half a year. Not really playoff organizations. Tell me which of his teams SHOULDVE made the playoffs? He has his flaws to his game but Pelicans sucking the last 3 seasons is more about AD then Boogie. AD isnt a leader and needs to be a #2 guy.
Boogie is advertised as the best big in the game and franchise player. ALL his teams should compete for playoff slot in a league where more than half the teams make the postseason. Hes never even sniffed a 9th spot let alone 10th. Further, hes a coach killing cancer and malcontent with a propensity to get stupid techs and kicked out of games... and hid defense stinks. AD has atleast made a postseason.. And whether he needs to be the #1 or #2 option is immaterial here. Im saying AD>>>>>>>> Cousins. Not sure how you can argue that .
 
One problem that comes in in these New Orleans Pelicans discussions that gets lost when we start talking about AD, Boogie and the potential of trading those guys away, is the BOX OFFICE. Read the above article, during the George Shinn years, this franchise went from 56 wins in 07-08 to being the prime example of why the NBA needed to contract some teams out of the league.

Then the NBA buys the team, CP3 does the franchise a huge favor (that he gets little credit for) by telling them ahead a time that there is no chance he re-signs and the team starts looking for trades, Stern nixes a trade to the Lakers that people are still debating to this day and Benson steps in buys the team and Stern gives the Hornets the number overall 1 pick and speeds up the process of changing the name from Hornets to Pelicans, The only thing Stern didn't do for us is let us have the Jazz name back. All of this was done to try to grow basketball in a place where basketball has always been iffy.

On BGOL, you guys tend to (rightfully so) stick with the on-court issues. If New Orleans fanbase had the IQ for basketball that it does for football, Boogie Cousins probably would not be here but Mickey Loomis and his "win now" mindset is one of the reasons he's here. 18-18 and 8th in the Western Conference ain't shit to real basketball heads but in this city it means hovering at or above .500, being in the running for or making the playoffs (even if it means a swift exit) and two all-star worthy stat lines that you can promote on social media to tell Saints fans "Hey our city's basketball team doesn't totally suck, so come see them". The above article is basically one of few that starting to trickle out to say that maybe you should expect more.



 
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