Sort of. The Championship is the goal and what most will remember. However, they won the East.

Think about it this way. There are fans who give a shit about "Final Fours." Winning the Eastern Conference of the NBA is much, much more difficult and a far more impressive feat.
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Nick Nurse is my boy. UNI grad and former UNI player.
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As I said last week, he's not the offensive player Harden is. He needs to develop as a shooter and playmaker to be anything close to him. Harden is essentially unguardable when not choking.

Still think Giannis is overall the better of the two because of his incredible defense, but I think he comes somewhere after LeBron, Kawhi, and Durant.
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Is Durant even going to play? Doesn't sound like he'll be to start anyway.
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Betrayed? Ujiri did his job and traded him for one of the best players in the world because he wasn't good enough. Demar reacted immaturely.

I'm thinking Warriors in 5 or 6 games right now if only due to their experience (not to mention their starting lineup of All-Stars which can't be matched), but it should be noted that the Warriors have not played a defense as good as this Raptors' group possibly since the 2015 Memphis Grizzlies (also with Marc Gasol) in their dynasty. I want to see how this matchup looks on Thursday.
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Yes, Milwaukee needed to adjust their offense if they wanted to win and they never did. When they weren't getting transition buckets in this series, the offense just completely dried up. After game 4, Bud should have tried something else with Giannis and he simply stubbornly stuck to the system that got them there. It's a good system on the whole/in the aggregate, but it's just not going to consistently work when you're being guarded by Kawhi Leonard (former DPOY, one of the best on-ball defenders in the history of basketball) and funneled into Marc Gasol (former DPOY) on drives.
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He didn't act imaturely. All he did was say the Raptors said they weren't going to trade him and they did. How is that acting immaturely? These guys in the NBA are human beings, not robots.

Ujiri did do his job but he could have handled it a lot better. Telling a player you won't trade them and then doing it. Add to it not letting the agent or player know you were looking to trade them - not cool in my book.

That's true it is great to get to the NBA Finals and it is an accomplishment even if they don't win it all. But it's not something that I believe should be overly celebrated especially if it starts to happen consistently and the team always loses like the LeBron's teams and the Bills in the 90s.
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In terms of beating Golden state, thats dead man walking right there if the bucks are that dependent on giannis. Kawhi is an elite defender. I'd imagine playoff draymond wouldn't make it easy for giannis either.
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He did a media interview with ESPN after getting traded to talk about how an organization trading a player was somehow a betrayal (and let's be clear that he never actually said Ujiri directly told him he wouldn't be traded). I understand being upset, but there's a line there you shouldn't cross as a professional.

In any case, Demar (and that entire era) is the furthest thing from my mind now.
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I’m going Warriors in a close 6 if Durant doesn’t play at all.

I’m going Warriors in an easy 5 if Durant plays in Game 3 or earlier at his normal level.

I think the Raptors will be emotionally drained. Their fans seem to be acting like they won it all already. Golden State has been here too many times to look past anyone.

Warriors are better and absolutely should win this.

LeBron playing possibly the greatest Finals Series ever with Kyrie and Love was only good enough to beat essentially this Warrior roster in a very close 7 game series. I don’t see Kawhi (as great as he is) duplicating that. And that assumes no Durant.
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You put final four in quotations like that's not an accomplishment. Winning the east is an accomplishment too but its comprised of 7 game series against the conference that's been significantly weaker for over a decade.
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Leonard actually plays both ends of the court and isnt afraid to guard a star so he adds more value to a roster than Lebron.
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LeBron's ability to create great offense for himself and others remains unmatched by anybody in the league currently (or ever, for that matter). The Raptors won't be able to score as efficiently as those Cavs teams did on the Warriors, but they can defend better. Just how much better will determine how close the series is.
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That's not true. DeMar did an interview and said he understands the business aspect of the NBA. What he didn't like is that Ujiri was communicating with his agent throughout the summer and never once let his agent know that he might get traded.

It's understandable that he would get upset given his history with the Raptors. Since then he hasn't bad mouthed the Raptors at all.

I'm guessing when stuff like that happens it is one of the reasons why so many players leave teams for the highest bidder nowadays... There's rarely any loyalty on either side and it is a shame.
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“I felt like I wasn’t treated—with what I sacrificed for nine years—with the respect that I thought I deserved,” DeRozan explained. “By just giving me the say-so of letting me know something’s going on, or it’s a chance [that I’d be traded]. That’s all I wanted. I’m not saying you don’t have to trade me. Just let me know something’s going on because I sacrificed everything. Just let me know, you know what I mean? That’s all I ask.

“Everybody knows I’m the most low maintenance person in the world. Just let me know so that I can prepare myself for whatever my next chapter is and I didn’t get that.”


I don't know what Demar thought he was owed, but he just sounds like a guy shook (understandably) by a trade that he didn't see coming. That's part of the job, though, if you're a NBA player and he should have accepted that fact without doing media interviews about supposed betrayal.
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