Parker was a Finals MVP over 30 year old Tim Duncan. Counting stats aren’t as good, because a) it was 2007 and b) Spurs were always about team ball so nobody put up big numbers even by 00s standards, but he was amazing in that series.

Try to imagine explaining Giannis or Jokic to somebody from 20 years ago when nobody was putting up numbers like that. A guy built like a slightly stretchier Karl Malone with the speed of a guard, who can handle the ball on the perimeter and is a good passer to boot. A traditional centre who can play out of the post and clean up the boards, but he also has a handle and can shoot from anywhere and is one of the best passers in the league history.

These are one of a kind talents we haven’t seen before, players people would have told you couldn’t be real 20+ years ago. Plenty of players will put up those stupid stat lines a few times a year, these guys do it almost every game because they’re special. It’s easy to go “Oh stat inflation” because pace is up and more teams are adopting a high-usage do everything model for their stars, but don’t lose sight of the fact that these guys are also doing things we’ve never seen before regardless of what their box score looks like at the end of the game.

Tbf Giannis turns into Steph Curry for absolutely no reason every time he plays the Lakers, that TS% isn’t all on AD.

Like, outside your window?

It’s because he forces contact. He’s so good at putting defenders in a position where they either have to foul or get out of the way and give him a free lane to the basket, and what that generally looks like is a defender getting called for basically just trying to stay in front of his man.

There’s always people who whine about calls going against their team when their team is clearly hacking the fuck out of someone, but for a whole lot of fans it just doesn’t feel right when someone’s getting a call after initiating contact despite that being 100% within the rules.

Marvin Bagley, famously free of criticism throughout his career. Nothing but good vibes sent to that guy since he got drafted.

One game. Dame great. Giannis ass. Team ok. Coach TBD.

Hate our slow start. Feel like we’re Squidward watching the SpongeBobs and Patricks of the NBA out the window frolicking about.

Yeah, Ben Wallace would have just dropped the pass instead.

Hey quick, how is it that we were getting handled defensively? Explain what went wrong for us. In detail. See if you can add 2 and 2 together. It’ll be a challenge, but I believe in you.

Bro. This is not difficult. The best regular season defence had shit defensive guards. That defence continued being good in the playoffs, despite the loss because of a bad offensive and rebounding performance. Neither of which are likely to be issues for the Bucks. What are you not understanding here?

Knicks had the 3rd best offence in the league last year btw.

Their D rating in that series was 111.1, which still would have been good for second best defence in the league last year. 0.5 points behind the regular season Cavs.

Maybe this is profound basketball knowledge for you or something, but there’s actually two ends in a basketball game. A good defence doesn’t guarantee winning if the offence is shit. Lucky for us, we have Giannis and Dame Lillard. I hear those guys go alright offensively.

KD also just doesn’t have the same frame. Giannis was skinny as fuck when he came in too but he was still physically developing, his actual frame changed as well as him putting on a heap of muscle. KD couldn’t put on that much muscle even if he wanted to with something resembling a normal basketball workout routine.

The best defensive team in the league last year started Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland. I think we’ll be ok.