What could have happened to a player in a team with 2 ball-hog, 2 stars and several other vets?
Meanwhile Clippers are playing Russell Westbrook who is scoring 12ppg on 49%TS when they had Bones Hyland that before the Harden trade was scoring same 12ppg with 55%TS…
Clippers are a mess I think Mann is a lesser problem among anything else.
I think the hype was massive and the fact they can’t buy a win… but people forgot almost all rookies couldn’t buy wins in their first year and in particular in the first few games. People forgot also Lebron went 4-15 in the first 19 games, just comparing if Wemby and the Spurs went 2-1 next 3 games they will be equal…
Also as pointed by many others, Spurs need more to gain experience and future high picks for the next 1-2 years than winning now. You either Chet that land on an already good team.
Nah man, among the one you said only AD and Bam are really difference makers. Rudy has elite perimeter defender helping him the most (he never really had good perimeter defenders), as well as Mitchell being part of a great defensive system. Brook Lopez was trash beginning of the season and him like Rudy and Mitchell and other rim protector, is good only in the paint.
How the hell you left over all the perimeter defenders out??
Lol you find interesting that a guy playing for the n.2 team in the conference has a much higher total +/- than the guy playing for the worst team in the conference???
Lol tell me you are a nephew without telling me.
I would only comment on your 2 point.
On the other hand, NBA in season tournament is more similar to European basketball (not soccer) national cups. And in European basketball usually the in season Cups are played in a weekend span, are super fun and followed because everything stops and the 8 best (usually, some League just pick the 4 best, some pick 6, etc) teams plays in a win-or-go-home bracket. In European basketball the league cup is more regarded because of that. It is also played exactly mid season, which also is a good thing because some teams are better early on or some are better in single elimination games rather than playoffs…
Finally you can arbitrarily say that this title is worth nothing but if you think about it, you can say the same for the NBA Finals. What makes the NBA Finals champion the champion? Why not consider the RS best team the champion? It is only conventional, so you can also say ring means nothing, as you can say it for the Tournament. Rather I would see this Cup as an opportunity to crown an early season Champion, and eventually it would be fun to see a matchup between the NBA Finals champions and the In Season Tournament champs…
Came here to say this. Maybe also Beijing Ducks.
Many, Derozan if he keeps his Kobe like ability would have been a high 20s ppg game with people comparing him to Kobe and MJ.
Drummond would have been something like little Shaq.
Totally agree, what happened to him?? Am I out of the loop on something?
He passed from a solid starter with great instincts and good scoring for stretches to his Phila form in the span of a summer??
He is a a third leg. His role should be to be a consistent 3pt shooter, making 18-20ppg on good efficiency. He won’t have much attention as in the past so he should be more efficient.
Tbh the role was perfect for Jrue and they should have trade Middleton in the Lillard trade.
Lol and CP3 is still better than washed bums like Westbrick… just imagine the shit show it would be to see the brick out there with the Warriors, or Suns, or any other potential contenders like the Lakers… ops
I think 1vs1 it is only Jokic mindset that could stop him, while 1v2 I think Towns and Gobert did a decent job and I totally see that Allen+Mobley could do damage too (but there are no statistical evidence)
Then if you look at numbers last year the only team that make Jokic look bad was Chicago for some reason. 13ppg in with 55%FG and 60%TS in 2 games is the worst he had with any team (still a +11.5 tho). Another notable was Utah, with more relevance too. I think the length of the Jazz really bothered the Joker in RS vs them.
Yeah and according to my mom I’m the most beautiful dude on earth…
Surprised nobody said either Blake Griffin or Vince Carter, both players peaked in year 1 and 2, and steadly declined since…
He got hurt and game changed after 2015. He still had some run after his 26 tho, it wasn’t that obvious that he was useless, his firsts Houston seasons he still had dominant playoffs runs for example
Hawks and Minnie already proved to be kinda stinkers rather than sleepers… they didn’t improved by a bit if not for Ant which I’d expect to be all NBA level. Trae was a huge mistake for the Hawks to begin with.
I think they got really hyped by the change of mood and the team improved greatly from getting away from Russ… AD stayed healthy too in that stretch and really I don’t think it was a great thing to have a great record post trade deadline where the top of the class teams usually starting to rest players, as well as tanking teams, so it isn’t really that hard for teams that actually has to be good.
Remember also that at certain point Dallas decided to fuck up the season for draft right reasons, or less the Lakers wouldn’t even been a top 8th seed for sure…
All of this couldn’t be discounted as well imho. But I guess we will see how it goes this season now that they have a full season plus a full off-season to prepare. Imho in the West they are for sure worst than Nuggets, Warriors, Suns and maybe even Kings. I’m not sure about Memphis, Clippers (which really I think they will be bad) and OKC too. Lakers will be in the mix for sure but I hardly see them go over the 4th seed and over the second round again, realistically.
On the last statement I could argue that the Celtics could have been up 3-1 with a commanding lead if Steph didn’t went up and put one of the greatest finals performances ever… for sure the best 3pt performance in the Finals ever.
The fun thing is that Wemby completely obliterated Wiggins in so many possessions, and it is not like Wiggo isn’t lengthy and athletic by himself too. And i think he is also on the upper hand of the league skill wse.
So don’t know what Wemby will do to mid level players, or player with less athleticism or leght than Wiggo. And in actual league games too!
I think it actually is a reach instead. The deep run was made by a series of lucky strikes, like I said Minnie owned that playin game for 3 quarters and half, god know what have happened in game 2 of playin then and even with a win I think Denver would have swept the Lakers anyway… then Memphis in round one presented a whole series of good lucks, Memphis had issues with Ja, Ja got injured at the beginning of the series, still Memphis somehow had the opportunity to go 2-2 and chocked… and also GSW had some bad luck coming from a drenching 7 games vs Sacramento and having Poole loosing single handly a game already won in game 4 (plus game 1 absurde numbers of FTs and fouls called on GSW…)
Don’t want to discredit too much the Lakers, they were totally good and a team with Lebron and AD shouldn’t arrive nothing close to 7th seed to begin with, but track history didn’t says too well for them. Yes they won a title full 3 years ago, but since they never arrived more than 7th seed and the West is probably even better now than some years in the past…
I just don’t see them as a contender right now, they will be a 4 or 5 seed by the end of the season, considering that both Lebron and AD couldn’t play 65+ games…
Lol playing against a team in the back end of the the back-to-back, after they give it all the night before… Still wondering why the fuck back-to-back are even a thing, it is a massive competitive alteration of the final results, massively depending who you plays in those 2 games…
Anyway Kawhi was a great player, you would expect a non-washed player to be consistent, not just playing good once in a while. Washed Kobe put up 60 in his final game, didn’t mean he was capable to score 60 at will in any game still, nor that he could be anything more than what he was. This is just a basic example on how pro-sports (or even non-pro) works.