Remember when Larry Nance and Rodney Hood fixed the Cavs? That was a fun half-week.

The fact he averaged a triple double was the basis of every post! And the whole argument for why he had to do that was basically “who else is going to score?”

Add him, Tyson Chandler, Touch Juice, and JJ Barea too (always had a soft spot for JJ). That team was such an oddity. Underdog in every round (including the first, if memory serves) and found lightning in a bottle for two straight months.

You’re not allowed to ‘round these parts.

The Ringer’s up its own ass. This is a fair point. But the Westbrook MVP was pretty fugazi. I know that most Deadspin writers were weirdly stanning for Russ last year because Big Round Numbers and the fact he had “no help” except a guy who immediately became an all-star as soon as he left and a top 5 center in the…

Embiid hitting the rookie wall in his fourth year is the most Process thing of all time.

The whole Heat era was a blast. The Dallas upset was a great beginning (and I was happy to see Dirk and Shawn Marion and a few other dudes get their ring), followed by the OKC Big Three and the split with the Spurs. All those Finals were fascinating and really fun, even rooting against them the whole time.

“Given his worldwide fame and well-justified legend, it’s been strangely unremarked-upon that Curry is having one of his best seasons in 2017-18.”

What makes birds cool? They can fucking fly. What makes birds far less cool? When you put them in jail and cover their jail with a blanket so they’ll shut the fuck up.

“I feel like people who are on the outside looking in don’t really understand, because they see us as superheroes.”

It just sounds like Ballmer really wanted to meaningfully create meaning in a meaningful way. Not sure why you have to be so cynical, Emma.

I would also take this bet, except Dan Gilbert would totally go and he and Trump could complain about LeBron not giving them enough credit.

Nah, no snark taken. Those are facts and I can’t really disagree with those. You just left out a few high-profile flame outs from each guy.

They’re much, much better than I expected them to be this year, but Harden and CP3 have pretty anemic playoff resumes. I can’t trust either until I see them do it in the postseason. CP3 tends to get real tight and Harden gets less fugazi foul calls.

DNP: Trying to give that pipe

Should a promising young team add one of the best players of all time or should they stay true to my idealized view of rebranded tanking taken to its most cynical extreme?

Curry’s a no-brainer to me. Feel you on Harden as a SG, but he’s there for me (as in, if you let me start an expansion team with a PG of my choosing, I’d go Harden over Westbrook if those were my options). After that? God I hate Chris Paul, but there’s no denying it.

I’m not a big Harden fan, but I woulda given it to him last year, especially over Westbrook’s blatant stat-mongering and the fact he made a lot of his teammates worse. He’s really good, of course, but there are five or six PGs in the league I’d rather have on my team than Russ. That isn’t really an MVP in my book.

Great question.

You used to have to be on a legitimate contender. Then we gave it to Westbrook because large counting stats, so I’m not sure what the criteria is anymore.