Every year it’s a different team too, people don’t learn

It’s such a lack of self evaluation.

Did anyone really think a year ago that San Antonio could beat OKC this year?

Did anyone really think two years ago that New York could beat Boston the following season?

Did anyone really think three years Minnesota could beat Denver the next season?

Did anyone really think 4 years ago LA could beat Golden State the next season?

The answer is no. So while I won’t pretend to know what it is, I can GUARANTEE there will be in the 2027 playoffs a result that everyone here would laugh at as completely delusional and impossible if it were predicted today.

Spot on. Nobody outside NY was picking them before the playoffs and they were incredible. You never know what will happen and competing is the only way it ever gets done.

Exactly, I don’t get why everyone has such a defeatist mentality. That’s why I’m so pissed off that we gave up on Lamelo to try and shift our window to the future when the east will be “easier”. Such a pathetic mentality to have

They play the games for a reason. Basketball discourse is broken. The overwhelming negativity around everything legit makes it harder to enjoy the sport.

Nah man this is r/nba. Spurs and Cavs are trash. De’Aaron Fox should be playing in China. OKC is a lottery team without the refs help. Celtics 2024 ring is the weakest ever.

This also isn’t the 2017-2019 Warriors where I understood West teams just sitting on their hands to wait for KD to leave since they didn’t have a chance. Thunder/Spurs are very good teams but nowhere near insurmountable we just watched it!

Injuries happen, teams get hot, if the Lakers aren’t trying as hard as they can to win when they have a top 4 player in his prime what’s the point of having him?

If you are a top 5 player, all you can ask is a chance to compete at the highest level. I believe the Lakers have positioned themselves to do that

I love how you are supposed to be able to somehow build a roster in one off season to beat the spurs and OKC who have been drafting and building their roster for years.

I do not understand this take that if you can’t build a complete championship roster in one off season you should just blow it up and start over.

Obviously, on paper, no team is better than OKC, Knicks, and Spurs. What’s the alternative? Everybody else just forfeits and refuse to compete? In the last 8 years, we’ve seen multiple “dynasties” fall apart right after they win

I agree

No one had the Spurs or the Pacers making the finals the last two years. Crazier things have happened.

Did you only read the headline and then write a 500 word post about it? He at no point claimed they should just pack it in and if you can’t see why this offseason feels like a lateral move for the Lakers then I’m not sure what discussion there is to be had. You’re diatribe about stars is also not countering Lowe questioning these moves. 

I also think it’s a little funny that you rant about the Knicks before discussing how star power doesn’t matter when the Knicks literally traded for multiple stars to make their title happen. Do the Lakers moves this offseason really give you the same vibes as NYK adding KAT, OG, and Bridges? The point being made isn’t that the picks are crazy valuable, but that using them to get a guy like Kessler seems like poor strategy. 

Like not to be a dick, but your reaction here is a major part of the problem and is exactly why media discourse has become what it is around the NBA. Lowe literally lead off by saying he understood that the Lakers were in a tough spot and that he didn’t think the Lakers would be a bad team, but he expressed extremely valid concerns regarding this roster’s ability to compete over the next two years and the fact that their only out is to trade Reaves if it doesn’t work out. Like cool, the Spurs beat a hobbled Thunder, team building shouldn’t be approached with an “anything can happen” attitude because of injuries. 

Western Conference supremacy has fans in a chokehold. Both teams can be beat. The top of the East is strong and Finals are matchup dependent as always.

Luka, a second scorer, and a lob threat center could never beat the Thunder. That definitely hasn’t happened in the very recent past

Nah injuries don’t exist (the Thunder were fully healthy when they lost!) so they should tank

From what you described, it doesn’t seem like Zach is saying that at all as much as he’s saying.

If your benchmark is to compete with SA/OKC in your own conference, why lock yourself into a clearly inferior team. Thats not the same as saying teams shouldn’t go for it.

He doesn’t like how the Lakers went for it. I tend to give the Lakers a little more benefit of the doubt. But we’ll see who’s right.

Facts are every team seems to be building the best rosters they can.

I dont think any contender is running scared. So this is kinda of a solution in search of a problem.

I might get downvoted for saying this but no one was beating the healthy 2026 Thunder. But guess what. In 2026 they weren’t healthy. That’s the name of the game at the end of the year. Health is part of the game. The Knicks were healthy and won the championship like many before them. The Thunder were healthier than the Pacers the year before. It happens every year which is why we play the seasons out.

This narrative is so funny to me. I came away from the playoffs thinking both San Antonio and OKC seem super beatable. If anything I’m way less bullish on both teams because second apron stuff is coming at them quick

The whole “WCF is the real finals” talk every year is absolute horseshit and I will never understand why especially this year even after the Knicks manhandled the east that was pretty much the consensus. The way the spurs were celebrating seems like they felt that way too lmao (in all seriousness there’s nothing wrong with celebrating that win like that)

OKC was injured.

I don’t think Zach was saying ‘ they should just pack it in’.

I think he was pointing out how flawed this Lakers team is. Luka / Reaves / Grimes/ Mamu / Kessler is laughably bad defensively, especially on the perimeter. And that team doesn’t even have a respectable 3rd option. That’s the all he was saying, its not that deep.

I’ve heard Zach make the exact case you’re making now on other pods. The Knicks are a prime example: built a veteran team that had shooting, defense, rebounding. Maybe got a little lucky with the matchups they drew, but so do most title teams at some point.

Philly should absolutely go for it with this group. Detroit should add an actual #2 guy and go for it…. that’s not Zach’s point. His point is this Lakers team is… not that good… but hey they’ll be there in the post season unless something happens to Luka

people were talking about the knicks blowing it up in the middle of the season last year just go for it whats the worse that can happen you have good teams that are fun to watch and you maybe dont win it wall the horror

This is true in every sport. Crazy things happen all the time, so give yourself a chance. The Raptors were definitely not supposed to win in 2019, but they did. People think the Dodgers are unbeatable right now, but baseball is basically random and honestly they should’ve lost last year. Sam Darnold just won a Super Bowl. I don’t know anything about hockey but I’m sure it applies there too.

That said, I don’t think it was a good trade for the Lakers

Yeah but it misses the point. Some of these moves are bad, you sacrifice long term future for short term. Lakers are absolutely going all in, and the fact is they have to overcome OKC and Spurs to get to Finals.

Your point makes sense but also misses the balance of short term vs long term success. And so many teams make this mistake. You point to the Knicks but ignore all the other teams who made bad moves and are stuck in purgatory because of the moves. Look at the Bucks, they did everything to accommodate Giannis and get another run. Now they are starting completely over. Look at Suns.

To be fair Knicks didn’t “try and go for it”

They’ve been slow building this squad for YEARS

Mikal trade was on the off-season of 2024

OG Anunoby was December of 2023.

As everyone here is saying, these teams can be beat, things happen. Guys get hurt, distracted, out played whatever all the time.

And, more importantly, you have to put yourself in position to take advantage when things happen.

I agree 100%

Yeah especially in this climate where we have like 8 straight different champs

suns in 5

Tbf one of them beat the other lol

Nobody is saying that to say that teams shouldn’t go for it. They’re saying it to evaluate whether a team “went for it” in a competent manner

Going into the playoffs, the Knicks were probably the 6th or 7th strongest team from most perspectives.

In February nobody thought the Knicks had a chance.

Yes! An actual good post. You’re right. 

A bunch of people on the Blazers sub are convinced there is no point in trying to field a competitive team as long as OKC and SAS are this good. Well they could be good for a lot of years, especially the Spurs. You think we should just not try for the next decade? To hell with that.

Very dumb especially since indiana went 7 vs OKC (and maybe win if haliburton doesn’t get hurt) and Knicks just took out the spurs in 5. Anyone can be beaten. 

The only there’s no chance team I’ve seen were the KD warriors, which was a cheat code. There’s be defense for having 3 of the best shooters of all time, in their prime, who can always get off their shot. 

People love analytics when it comes to individual players, but when it comes to the fact that basketball is an extremely low variance sport where the better team usually wins, with little chance of upsets and virtually no chance of a low seed ever winning it all - People are like, “Yeah but you gotta believe!”

it took OKC 7 games to beat Pacers and Haliban was going sicko mode until he tore his achilles. who knows what happens that game if he didnt. was incredible.

Going all in is wonderful, but a big part of going all in is making coherent moves that compliment each other and make sense. It’s not just throwing every asset out to bring in whatever you can bring in. Kessler is a very unproven commodity at this point. Trading the 1sts for him would have been a lot. Signing him to this contract would have been a lot. Doing both is an insane overpay. But ok, lets say that is the plan anyways, then bring in other players that complement that move. Perimeter defenders that can take some of the responsibility off of Kessler, and minimize how bad defensively Luka is. But Rob has brought in guys who have reps as scorers (but are not as good of scorers as Lebron and Rui who we are letting walk for nothing) and giving them each way overpay contracts that are going to be problems moving forward. We will likely need picks to get off of Grimes and quite possibly Sandro’s deals before they are up, but we just moved all the picks for Kessler.

So this team has lost 2 of our best offensive weapons (Lebron and Rui) for nothing. Lost our best perimeter defender in Smart for nothing. Lost our 2nd best shooting “other rotation guy” in Luke for nothing. And our replacements for all of that is a promising center who played 5 games last year, and has played 8 games less than AD over the last 3 years (but everyone was so mad at how injury prone AD was), Sandro who struggled when he got moved to the 4 spot, and Grimes and Sexton who are small undersized guards.

This defense has gotten substantially worse than the defense we just saw get scorched by OKC all season long. It’s a matchup situation. Luka vs. Shai is the only matchup on the floor with OKC where we have the better player by a clear margin, but the problem is is our better player is not gonna play defense, as we just witnessed all this last year. Go back and watch the tape, Luka was a worse defender than Lebron consistently throughout this last season.

This is getting too long I know, but it’s just recognizing the shortcomings of this roster right now. We can probably score ok with most teams, but i have no idea how we are going to defend OKC, San Antonio, Minnesota, Houston, or Denver. And if Lebron really goes to the Warriors, I don’t see how we defend that team either with no talented perimeter defenders on our roster currently.

phillys issue last year was depth, and their issue remains depth. if teams only had locked 5 man rosters Philly would win the chip but they can’t be going only 7 deep in the playoffs

Tbf, OKC had 2 of their top 4 players out with injuries against the Spurs. Realistically, the Spurs survived OKC. OKC were considered the best team 80% of the year, at least. They were considered favorites vs NY so the series likely would’ve been much different. That doesn’t mean it would’ve been free but it’s not far-fetched to think they would’ve likely repeated. However, the Knicks earned their championship, clearly. OKC and Spurs both have a very solid foundation to build upon for the next several years so referring to them as the teams to beat is pretty reasonable, even if you may not be a fan of them.

pascal that star you talkin about right ? (1 star & the rest role players) & it took another behemoth to take down okc that only had 1 scoring option but i wont knock the spurs, you play who is in front of you. & i dont think the knicks beat okc but i knew that they could beat the spurs. the shit is all a game of matchups when the top dogs play. Okc matches up great vs the knicks, the knicks matchup great against the spurs & the spurs match up great against okc. cleveland wasn’t winning it, 76ers weren’t either. the only east teams who had an actual shot were the Celtics(blew a 3-1 series) & knicks. the knicks got their favorable matchup, they bust the spurs ass all year.

You’re the first person to actually say this lol how ironic

Another semi related factor: Injuries

2019 is perfect example. Almost everyone thinks it is a sure ring for GSW (KD/Steph/Klay/Draymond were still there)

Raptors still went all in and traded Derozan for Kawhi to compete.

And guess what, due to some few injuries, Raptors was able to upset GSW in that 2019 Finals.

Ya, why believe anything is certain or given in this world

No one picked the spurs before season. It was Denver and OKC the media said no one could beat. It’s funny how the media gets amnesia on the things they say.

Honestly I feel like the people who say that never played any competitive sports before and dont understand how dynamic a game can be and all the small variables that add up

Zach Lowe is washed unfortunately

Yeah and injuries are always a very important factor in the outcome of playoff series’

Its tough because it used to be like that. You practically knew who was going to be in the finals before the season even started 10 years ago.

People take a while to adjust.

Also the talent level of the nba has improved dramatically. Bottom 10 teams now have a bunch of guys that could contribute/start for a championship team.

The playoffs are an entirely different ballgame. Your path can blow wide open with one or two different things happening. There is an imaginary line, somewhere, with how good you need to be to be able to capitalize on the things happening to win… knicks were above that line while simultaneously being not a top 4 or 5 team imo at least at the time of the playoffs beginning. They absolutely turned it on and were incredible but their road to the title was among the easiest in history imo. I’d say as it sits today there are about 12 teams i think “could” win it. I expect that to be whittled down to 8 maybe through injuries (i think you can be taken off the list with an injury but that doesn’t necessarily propel someone up). You gotta take a long hard look at yourself come trade deadline and make a decision… and if last year teaches us anything its that having one bad matchup (denver v minn, sa vs okc, boston vs 76ers) can absolutely kill you or make you so you need to adjust accordingly.

The media is obsessed with discussing it this way because on paper both of those teams are super deep. But every single year of nba history is riddled with injuries and surprises. Teams should always be going for it.

I mean, you make moves to try and be competitive and win a title which is the ultimate goal. The benchmarks are your peers in your conference which were the last two teams to be Western Conf Champions that are mostly unchanged. It’s not defeatist and Zach Lowe didn’t even say the Lakers should blow it up. It’s just a prediction based on who the Lakers lost and who they acquired. It was the best they could do given the circumstances.

Its why we play the game. Favourites lose all the time lol

Absolutely. All it takes to win a championship is two months of health and great basketball. The Knicks were healthier than their opponents and even then they played fantastic basketball when necessary which led to their incredible comebacks and wins.

Especially for a team in the East, considering the Spurs and OKC would have to go through each other to get to the finals (most likely obviously), you should want to maximize your chances of getting to the finals like the Knicks did this year. They got there so easily, while San Antonio had to fight their way there, which showed in the finals when it came down to stamina.

Every team in the East with a chance should go for it and any team in the West that believes they can really do it (like Minnesota) shouldn’t be afraid to do it as well.

I just don’t understand the criticism.

The Lakers got better. They had to use the cap space. Were they supposed to waste a year of Luka and not get better?

I don’t get it.

No one said that no one could beat OKC in the Indiana series; that idea didn’t exist. That notion only emerged after OKC won the championship. And yes, I’m one of them I’m a Spurs fan and I agree: if OKC had fielded a full squad this year, they would have knocked us out. The entire burden fell on SGA, which is why they lost to us. As for the Spurs, we were ahead in every game of the Finals; we lost those matches because of our own mistakes. New York didn’t win; we handed them the matches thanks to our own errors.

All the trades being made right now are down to the OKC and Wemby effect. Because team managers now know there’s something special “Wemby” about the Spurs, and to become champions, we need to get past them. Five players alone aren’t enough; they’ll need another four or five players coming off the bench to get past OKC and the Spurs. Our weakness in the Finals was the bench; apart from Harper, no one else contributed. But thanks to our successful draft and the other additions we’ve made, everyone will be facing a much tougher Spurs side this year.

This year’s clear favourites are OKC and the Spurs. Whichever team makes it to the Finals from the Eastern Conference, the favourites will be either OKC or the Spurs and this is how it’s going to be for the next 10, perhaps even 15 years. Let’s face the facts.

I always say this: in 2023, Wemby entered the league and the process of change began; in 2025, OKC won the championship and the first steps of that change were taken. By 2026, the league had officially undergone a transformation. These two teams will take the league to the next level. The NBA of the 90s and early 2000s is back. We call this the ‘Wemby effect’.

Their oldest guy is 28 too. They can get a lot better with some luck.

Did anyone think the Pacers were one freak injury away from winning a chip?

Ran the numbers on this a couple weeks back. If you Monte Carlo 10k simulations of next season, OKC comes out as champ in about 28% of runs, Spurs in 22%. That leaves 50% for the other 28 teams. The idea that any single team has “no chance” going into a season is hard to defend when historical variance in a 7-game series is that high. Last 3 champs all had preseason title odds under 12%. The math just doesn’t support the certainty narrative.

honestly the 8 different champs in 8 years argument says it all. people act like the gap between contenders and the pack is way bigger than it really is. just get in the dance

Any discourse that discourages teams even trying to be competitive is dumb.

Facts. People acting like Wemby’s already got 3 rings 💀 he’s year 3 and still adding muscle. 8 different champs in 8 years tells you everything about the parity. Pacers proved it - one hot stretch and any team can make noise. I respect teams swinging even if the roster construction is messy.

The 2011 Mavs are honestly the best example of this. Nobody outside of Dallas gave that team a shot against the Heatles. Dirk was coming off that 2007 stigma, they had no “real” second star after Butler went down… and they just went out and won it anyway. Parity has been real for way longer than people want to admit.

Guess what, they were wrong, and that team won the finals in 5.

Why does everyone ignore that when people say these things, they obviously assume everyone is healthy? The playoffs always come down to health. that’s why even if you’re not in the top tier of teams, you still have to give yourself a shot and stay healthy

Agreed! Plus how many times have we seen injuries and even a suspension (Draymond) change a team’s chances of winning the chip?! Plenty of times! Off the top of my head - OKC this year, Pacers & Haliburton last year, KD and the Warriors in 2019, Kyrie and the Nets in 2021, CP3 and the Rockets in 2018, Warriors and Draymond in 2016, Cavs with Kyrie and Love in 2015, etc. 

Injuries beat OKC this year tbh

especially in a league where injuries have dominated the playoffs for the last 5 years! There’s plenty of value to positioning your team to be maybe not at the top but being right there behind the top tier

If the fockin Knicks can do it then anybody can.

I think the big lesson of this parity era is the value of being competitive. Outside of the 2020 Lakers each of the last 8 champions had a core that had been together and been beaten in the playoffs before. Teams like the Knicks this year or the 22 Warriors could have tried to move on and make drastic moves but kept course and got rewarded. Hell, extend this to the other teams that made deep playoff runs over this era and most of them fall in the same boat. Injuries happen and no team is invincible, if you have a window of 4 years that’s 4 chances for things to bounce your way.

I’ve always wondered what would happen if that Jazz team kept iterating on themselves instead of blowing it up. Gobert was a good matchup vs the Nuggets in 23 and the rest of the West was weak. The mavs were untested in 24 and Minnie would be much worse. That team had yet to uncover Nickiel Alexander Walker who was sitting on their bench while also owning some of their own picks. Instead they spent the next 4 years playing borderline unwatchable basketball for the majority of it. Now they are set up well for the suture, but in a world where they got average luck this past year and stayed where they were their rewards for suffering would have been Ace Bailey and Keyonte George.

the whole point of having luka is that the normal math stops being normal

if you have a top 5 guy you are always one weird matchup swing from looking like a genius sitting around waiting for okc to get bored is not a team building strategy

i def didnt think the knicks could completely deny wemby from the rim like that

Didn’t Zach pick the Knicks last season to win the title? Or am I misrembering?

Would love the see the Zach quote before last season where he said the Knicks could win the finals. He was mostly gobbling Jokic/OKC cock. Also lmao at his claim that Jokic’s 1 title (despite not even beating a 50 win team) is worth more than Shaq, Kareem and Hakeem’s titles just because recency bias.

Raptors beat the Warriors dynasty as it was falling apart. Sports is unpredictable, usually.

Well absolutely, but it’s also true that 95% of the teams who “go for it” fall short.

Lakers overpaid Austin Reaves, the guy who made OKC’s bench look like all-stars. 

Lakers gave 4 1sts for an injury prone, unproven center. 

Lakers lost Lebron and a lot of other talent. 

Lakers did not address the poor perimeter defense. 

Lakers are not beating OKC and the Spurs unless Shai and Wemby suffer season ending injuries. 

a couple of injuries can change the entire landscape. Those casinos in Vegas weren’t built off of fans getting their picks right.

Spurs are mortal.

Healthy OKC are quite unstoppable. Jdub is key. Chet will be better.

Yep. Anything can happen. Nobody expected a Knicks Spurs Finals last season.

Yeah teams. Stop showing up to OKC and San Antonio, refusing to even get out of the plane.

Who is not trying to beat all the teams they are playing, aside from the Jazz?

Any team can win against any team. That’s a given.

What most analysts like Lowe said is not to deny this. It’s about whether you can build a team to have a good chance against the Spurs or OKC in the west from a roster perspective. We have to evaluate their claims against this standard, not the theoretical chance.

And I think what Lowe said is basically true. Other than Wolves and a healthy Denver, it’s hard to see other west teams doing that. It doesn’t mean other teams can’t win. It means there would be a huge uphill battle.

Exactly. It’s not a definite unless you just give up on trying it

the lakers have no chance. they would only win off injury luck