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Official 2019-2020 NBA Thread

Hustletown said:
They’ve been slippin since Dipo came back
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Yup they sonned Chicago in overtime in his return game and have lost every game since

Some bad losses in there too, at home vs NY, at home vs a Mavs team with no Luka, blowing that lead against Toronto and the Dinwiddie buzzer last night
 
Everything with the Ball family is on tape, so in last week’s episode “Ballin’ in the Big Easy” viewers got to see LaVar and his wife, Tina, visit Lonzo in New Orleans for the season opener last fall. It also happened to be his birthday (Oct. 27), and LaVar’s gift was ... a basket of Big Baller Brand gear with a sales pitch on the side.

LaVar pitched his son on the additions to the ZO2 line — the shoes he put on blast — with a T-shirt that read “Family Don’t Break Up.” And at a different dinner that same time period, he went into the sales pitch again and said his sons should put their money together to build the company back up.

sports.yahoo.com

LaVar Ball celebrates Lonzo's birthday by telling him to give his money to Big Baller Brand

LaVar is still at it. Lonzo still isn't surprised.
sports.yahoo.com sports.yahoo.com
 
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www.espn.com

Miami made the Jimmy Butler gamble that Chicago never could

Jimmy Butler has found his basketball nirvana after three tumultuous stops.
www.espn.com www.espn.com

WHEN WADE FOUND his way back to Miami after the failed one-year stint in Chicago -- and an even shorter stretch with the Cleveland Cavaliers -- he had a message for Erik Spoelstra.

"He said [Butler is] our kind of guy," Spoelstra said. "He's a Heat guy. Whether that could happen or would happen, he just said, 'This guy is like us.'"

The organization had done plenty of due diligence on Butler and even came close to trading for him in October 2018, but Wade's words resonated nine months later.

"When Dwyane played with him and came back and started to tell us about him, everybody's eyes just lit up," Spoelstra said.

That's why Spoelstra, team president Pat Riley and the rest of the Heat contingent made it a priority to meet with Butler at the start of free agency last summer to close the deal with the man they believed could lead them back to the top following Wade's retirement.

Spoelstra's belief only strengthened over the summer, after a face-to-face dinner in London a few weeks after Butler and the Heat came to terms. Spoelstra and his wife, Nikki, were on vacation in Italy and decided to reroute their trip to spend some time getting to know Butler.

"We've had a lot of different kinds of players come through our doors over the years and a lot of different personalities. Not all of them have been easy," Spoelstra said. "But the thing that we definitely know is you need talent to win in this league. And it's hard to find talent to move the needle like we want, to be able to compete for a title. And Jimmy is unquestionably one of those guys.

"So if you have an opportunity to get him, you don't hesitate. ... We're not making decisions based on fear."

Butler admits now that Wade, who recently said he knew Butler was the right kind of "crazy" for the Heat, told him over the years that he would fit within the structured confines of Miami's culture better than that of any other franchise.

"[Wade] told me, 'You could play anywhere. You're that caliber of a player,'" Butler says. "But he said, 'To be the best player that you could be, Miami Heat's the place because they work like you work. They're honest like you're honest. And as much as you might butt heads with anybody in the organization or on the court, it's never going to be personal because y'all both have the same goal in mind, and that's to win a championship.'"

THE WORD "CULTURE" gets tossed around in the NBA, but Miami's is real. It has been tested. It's something the Heat can trust to withstand a personality such as Butler's.

"We're not easy," Spoelstra says. "We're not. Even the staff. We're not easy."

"You hear about [the culture]," Butler adds. "But when you're actually two feet in, you sense it, you love it. Because it's not for everybody."

The search for players who think and prepare like he does has defined Butler's career, and that's the reason he believes he has found his forever basketball home. The pride in the craft is something that resonates for Heat players and coaches as they watch Butler take the next steps in his progression.

What Butler appreciates most about what Miami has built is the fact that the group can have a hard practice, words can be exchanged, tempers can flare, and when they come off the floor, everything goes back to normal. Feelings don't linger or fester like they might have at his previous stops.

"Maybe this league is just too sensitive sometimes," Heat guard Goran Dragicsays. "If the guy wants to win, then he'll tell you what you need to do or what he thinks. Some people have a hard time accepting it."

Both Spoelstra and Heat lifer Udonis Haslem see the same qualities in Butler that they saw in franchise legends Wade and Alonzo Mourning over the years: the mental and physical toughness to get better each day, the DNA to work harder no matter the circumstances.

"You had to go through something in life that's put a chip on your shoulder," Haslem said of Butler. "And that's built grit inside you that you're willing to go through extreme circumstances to get where you're trying to go."

It's also the reason the Heat are so confident that any issues Butler had in the past aren't going to reappear in Miami. The culture is built in such a way that a single player is never bigger than the team. And for now, the Butler-Heat partnership is working: Miami is 35-18 and chasing home court as the surprise of the Eastern Conference.

Butler is averaging 20.5 points, 6.8 rebounds and 6.2 assists per game -- one of only six players to reach those numbers this season. Spoelstra said it was a "joke" that Butler, who finished sixth in All-Star player voting, wasn't named a starter.

Butler knows the doubters will always exist. Many within the Bulls organization still hold the belief they did all those years ago: He is a great player with an insatiable work ethic who still can't be the No. 1 player on a championship team.

The Heat were willing to bet that Butler can be.

"Don't nobody be on their own agenda here," Butler says. "It's not about stats. It's not about fame. It's not about money. It's not about none of that. It's legit about winning a championship, and we're capable of it. It's punched into our minds every single day."

That's why the smile comes so easily when Butler talks about his new NBA city. His basketball worth has always been in the eye of the beholder.
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meant to say this yesterday

scust at some of you oogling over Rachel Nichols and Doris fucking Burke

they got sistas that are built like that everyday, and ya'll turn ya noses up at them, but then get excited when a white chick happens to be thick in those same areas

some of you would sell your soul for a chance to fuck some pink pussy
 
AP21 said:
meant to say this yesterday

scust at some of you oogling over Rachel Nichols and Doris fucking Burke

they got sistas that are built like that everyday, and ya'll turn ya noses up at them, but then get excited when a white chick happens to be thick in those same areas

some of you would sell your soul for a chance to fuck some pink pussy
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I love all flavors of women


:hehe:
 
AP21 said:
meant to say this yesterday

scust at some of you oogling over Rachel Nichols and Doris fucking Burke

they got sistas that are built like that everyday, and ya'll turn ya noses up at them, but then get excited when a white chick happens to be thick in those same areas

some of you would sell your soul for a chance to fuck some pink pussy
Click to expand...
Wasn’t Bret Favre hitting Rachel back in the day.
 
It has been nearly a decade, but Jae Crowder said, to this day, it has been difficult to let go of that previous ride alongside Jimmy Butler, when the two played as teammates at Marquette in 2010-11.

"It's great, man, to have my sidekick back," Butler said after Monday night's victory over the Golden State Warriors at Chase Center. "We were Batman and Robin when we were at Marquette. He was Robin and I was Batman, so it’s good to have him back."

"It's been a long time coming," Crowder said. "It's an honor to share the court with him again, the tremendous work he put in to be where he's at today. I know what he's about; he's a winner. And it's just an honor to be on the court with him again."


It was like, 'Boom,' we were back in the day," Crowder said, with the Heat turning their attention to Wednesday night's game against the Utah Jazz, the final stop on this five-game trip. "Like I said, I know what he's about. I've been with him long enough to know what he's about. It's not hard to play with him. He's just the ultimate leader, the ultimate warrior."

0094F9A8-8BE2-493D-B79F-C9E4552BC858.jpeg
 
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