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Per what?
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Per Vegas
Nets remain title favorites after Harden-Simmons trade
The Brooklyn Nets remained the consensus favorite to win the NBA title Thursday afternoon after trading James Harder to the Philadelphia 76ers for Ben Simmons.
www.espn.com
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That's pretty crazy. I'd say they should be like 3rd or 4th to come out of the east.Per Vegas
Nets remain title favorites after Harden-Simmons trade
The Brooklyn Nets remained the consensus favorite to win the NBA title Thursday afternoon after trading James Harder to the Philadelphia 76ers for Ben Simmons.
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Losers of 9 in a row and sitting in the 8 spot in the East and just traded away harden…yet, still the favorites lol
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Perhaps it needs time to change lol.Per Vegas
Nets remain title favorites after Harden-Simmons trade
The Brooklyn Nets remained the consensus favorite to win the NBA title Thursday afternoon after trading James Harder to the Philadelphia 76ers for Ben Simmons.
I seem to recall last year though was Nets-Lakers.. despite Lakers being 7th seed.
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538 for some reasons has the Celtics at a 17% chance of winning the championship lol.
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Lol Vegas doesn’t wait to change things. They are pretty on top of it. In reality, if Simmons is in good shape…nets are probably a better team today than they were pre trade
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Lol they must be headquartered in Boston or something…
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I questions Simmons ability to be mentally repaired.. but I won't know that for sure until he actually steps on the court.
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I mean, do we think he was good mentally before the playoff ending last year?! he will be fine
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No.
Also, he has had issues actually working on and improving his game, so I'm not sure how you don't factor hack-a-Simmons into your bets. If I'm the opposing playoff team, I'm fouling him any time my team is in the penalty and definitely the entire 4th quarter until he can prove he can make free throws.
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You can’t hack a guy for an entire 4th quarter typically. Can’t afford that many fouls, and can’t afford to have the opposing team in the bonus a couple min into the 4th quarter. Asking for trouble then. And you’d have to put in a guy just to foul, which likely leads to less effective offense for your own team.
now, down the last 5 min of a game, sure. But the nets can simply take Simmons out at that point and let Durant and Kyrie handle the end of games.
as far as Simmons not improving his game…fair point. But, as it stands his game is already all star caliber without improving anything else. Simmons will be a better fit on the nets roster than harden was IMO
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If we are talking current health and regular season maybe the nets are better today than yesterday, if we are talking about chances to win in the playoffs, they took a big hit with the trade
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Well yes, you would run out of players if it isn't strategic. Last year teams did this, and with Atlanta, and it clearly began to fuck with his head. So that would be the strategy there.
And yes, they can remove him from the game, and then that factor is taken out. However, at the moment, Kyrie won't be playing any home games, so you would need Simmons at the moment. I kind of expect NYC to drop their vaccine mandate at some point though, so Kyrie may be able to play by playoff time making that point mute.
Simmons is a good distributor and can play defense. That's about it from him. Last we saw from him he was afraid to even do a layup.
He can go out there and prove everyone wrong obviously. We're in a wait and see approach, but I won't be surprised either if he did jack shit all this time off and all of his previous problems remain.
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Huge risk on both sides. Brooklyn and Philly just likely made their division rival/championship contender better in order to make sure they get/stay better short/long term.
Brooklyn just got deeper and potentially better but no guarantees with the way Steve Nash coaches.
Philadelphia basically made a no-brainer type of move. Essentially, they swap out Seth Curry for James friggin' Harden, and lose their back-up center. Ben Simmons was never going to play for them again, however, by giving him to Brooklyn, it basically gave them a chance to STILL contend *instead* of watch them implode.
Brooklyn was going to watch Harden walk in FA anyway, but at least they scrapped a return for it from Philly (his likely destination). A late first round pick next year (meh) and a protected first round pick the year after (meh). Seth Curry is at least a decent starting 2. And Drummond can actually help them behind Aldridge (Claxton is out).
Both sides made the right move. East is now wide open. It will likely come down to health/protocols. It's hard to bet against KD/Simmons/half of Irving. Simmons can essentially guard the best player on the opposing team every night and Aldridge can stay in the corner or just have Simmons in the 5 spot setting the screens after a dribble hand-off and rolling to the rim. And if he gets the ball back, he can consistently attack the basket and either pass out if the defense over-commits or dunk/take the FTs (although this is obviously where Ben's biggest weakness resides). I think the Nets can still win a championship given the fact that they still have KD who is the most dynamic and prolific scorer in basketball. Embiid and Simmons are both most effective in the paint where the Nets have KD and 1/2 of Kyrie to score all over the court and spread the floor/move the ball.
Bulls just became the 5th most likely team to go to the Finals in their conference IMO behind MIL, BRO, MIA, PHI in no particular order.
Brooklyn just got deeper and potentially better but no guarantees with the way Steve Nash coaches.
Philadelphia basically made a no-brainer type of move. Essentially, they swap out Seth Curry for James friggin' Harden, and lose their back-up center. Ben Simmons was never going to play for them again, however, by giving him to Brooklyn, it basically gave them a chance to STILL contend *instead* of watch them implode.
Brooklyn was going to watch Harden walk in FA anyway, but at least they scrapped a return for it from Philly (his likely destination). A late first round pick next year (meh) and a protected first round pick the year after (meh). Seth Curry is at least a decent starting 2. And Drummond can actually help them behind Aldridge (Claxton is out).
Both sides made the right move. East is now wide open. It will likely come down to health/protocols. It's hard to bet against KD/Simmons/half of Irving. Simmons can essentially guard the best player on the opposing team every night and Aldridge can stay in the corner or just have Simmons in the 5 spot setting the screens after a dribble hand-off and rolling to the rim. And if he gets the ball back, he can consistently attack the basket and either pass out if the defense over-commits or dunk/take the FTs (although this is obviously where Ben's biggest weakness resides). I think the Nets can still win a championship given the fact that they still have KD who is the most dynamic and prolific scorer in basketball. Embiid and Simmons are both most effective in the paint where the Nets have KD and 1/2 of Kyrie to score all over the court and spread the floor/move the ball.
Bulls just became the 5th most likely team to go to the Finals in their conference IMO behind MIL, BRO, MIA, PHI in no particular order.
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Simmons can be an absolute mental case and the Nets can still win the chip. Just what he offers on defense alone will help them leaps and bounds.
Let's not forget that without Kawhi's crazy, bouncing GW in game 7, Philly goes into OT with the team that ended up winning the chip in 2019.
He scored like 44(?) points in a win in Utah without Embiid in the lineup. He is capable of scoring when given an opportunity. But they doesn't necessarily even need him to score. What they need is Kyrie. He is the biggest question mark, IMO. And the main reason Harden wanted out
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The bulls were already less likely to come out of the east than Brooklyn and Philly. So didn't the bulls just remain the 5th most likely to go to the finals?
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He must be one hell of a distributor and defender then to be an all star with zero other abilities ?
kyrie will be playing come playoff time. Even if the nets just end up paying the fines for him to play in Brooklyn at that point
imagine the nets end up the 7 or 8 seed…think Philly or Milwaukee will be excited to have to play them in the first round(assuming they are the top 2 seeds). This season could be one where it’s better to NOT be a top 2 seed lol
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They were kind of in the thick of it with Philly and Brooklyn was ready to implode before they managed to get Simmons back for Harden. But, now, yes. Definitely 4 better teams in the East (health considered).
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I don't disagree with what Simmons can be.. it's a will he be kind of thing. Dude is clearly talented, but he also seems like one of those guys letting his talents go to waste over his ignorance/arrogance of his own abilties.
I always like these lines, like if Philly vs Milwaukee would result in the same thing that Toronto vs Milwaukee was. You just don't know what happens in the ECF.
Looking this up, it looks like you're referring him scoring 42 points in a 11 point loss to Utah last season.
In conclusion, he's a question mark. I have many questions on him. He can go out and answer all of them soon. For now it's just everyone's opinion as to what is going to happen.
I also agree on Kyrie. He is injury prone and it's even a question he can last an entire playoff.
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