Correct, someone in that thread is talking about how they are happy that at least the Lakers have more modern titles than the Celtics, and I want to make an account and respond "The only reason you guys are even close is by counting the Minnesota titles that were won before the shot clock was invented and Black players were not allowed in the NBA."
SO I looked this up, and the NBA was integrated by the time of those Mikan titles. Or do I somehow have that wrong.
Lakers fans cherry picking the modern era is mind-boggling. The Minnesota titles were won before we had 50 states.
The Lakers did win two titles before integration, which occurred at the start of the 1950-1951 season. However, integration meant basically there were a tiny amount of Black players in the league. They did beat the Knicks twice in the finals, who had one of only a half-dozen Black players in the league at the time in Nat Clifton. It wasn't until the Russell-era Celtics with Russell, KC Jones, Satch Sanders, etc. that the informal "two Blacks per team" rule was broken.
That should haunt the Pelicans more since LA would have traded both Jays for AD.
If you hit the three dots near the smiley face, click media, put the link in and swap out the x for twitter, it'll post the tweet itself.
If I were one of "them guys", I would shrink this down, make it my avatar, and join that Lakers site... just to see how long it takes someone to notice.
The LA picks were defensible. Simmons, if youd done your homework you might have detected something but maybe not. Fultz wasn't right AT THE TIME, no defending it.
Agreed. Ingram and and a healthy Lonzo may not be a home run but those are two solid to really good players (again, when healthy). Everyone was taking Simmons so that’s more on Philly for not getting rid of him with all the additional information they had before his value cratered.
Danny obviously saw it that way, and thank God he did, but Fultz was a consensus #1 pick. It was because he was almost universally believed to be the best player in the draft that Danny could comfortably trade that pick and be reasonably sure Tatum would be available at #3. I don’t think a whole lot of people would’ve cautioned against taking Fultz at the time.
You can find a whole lot of SoSHers criticizing that deal at the time because historically number one picks are so much more valuable (on average) than number three picks.
MAgic deserves credit in being clear he was taking Ball and putting his honor on that promise. That was just as nice as his play in the 84 finals.
Something was knowable though. Philly may have truly had no way of knowing what boston suspected, and maybe ainge just wanted to take a risk on a teenaged wing vs guard so we got lucky. But i wouldn't be in a rush to let those Colagelo morons off the hook.
I mean if the general argument is that Colangelo ensured Hinkie's legacy would be closer to an infected abscess than a trustworthy process, then sure. But a lot of people not named Ainge or Colangelo thought Fultz was a can't-miss pick.
The Lakers also f’d up but of course they were blinded by Lonzo’s star power. The nerve of Danny Ainge to make that trade and ultimately embarrass the Sixers and Lakers in the process is up there with Red signing half the Knicks to offer sheets in 1983 to keep them away from McHale.
Isn't there a pre-season trophy between the NBA finals winner and in season tournament winner? Did Silver not create the NBA's version of the Community Shield?
90% chance that if the Lakers had drafted Brown and Tatum instead of Ingram and Ball, they'd be in the exact same place they are now. Those guys would've both been moved for AD, almost without question. The Lakers can still hate those drafts because it may have given the Celtics a title contending core for the next 15 years, but I don't see a world in which either guys would still be with the Lakers even if they drafted them. Maybe the Pelicans feel that pain.
Oh wow that just jogged my memory. I remember Rory Sparrow was one of them. Couldn’t recall who the other ones were so found this blog post from years ago:
I'm not sure that anyone, prior to draft night, could see Fultz's mental health issues.
