yeah, i'm talkin dwight / yeah, i'm talkin steve: 2012-2013 NBA regular season thread (part 1)

thanks

idk either

maybe just the way im looking at the arguments

haha hit me up when he wins something

― Luchinski pourin' from the sky, let's get rich (what) (Spottie_Ottie_Dope), Tuesday, November 13, 2012 10:23 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hit me up when Lebron wins a championship with a Darko/Luke Ridnour/Micheal Beasley/Wes Johnson starting lineup

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWSJcJ7KLbA

pretty sure he's won nba games, don't know how exactly to hit you up tho

what? jessica alba is a clippers fan? am i dreaming?

Lebron took some extremely crap rosters deep into the playoffs.

ok i will defer kevin love is not the single most talented basketball player of the last 20 years

but seriously i don't know what else the guy can do, watch him night in and night out and he's just a great player

26.0 PPG
13.3 RPG

last year

I never said he wasn't a good/great player, just overrated is all. I would like to be proven wrong though, I like the Wolves roster w Rubio healthy.

Adrian Wojnarowski ‏@WojYahooNBA
After knee surgery today, Minnesota Timberwolves forward Chase Budinger will miss three months, league source tells Y! Sports.

jesus

WITE DOWN

compu (or others pacers fans): what the fuck is happening to roy hibbert?

RIP NBA WYTES

Adrian Wojnarowski ‏@WojYahooNBA
After knee surgery today, Minnesota Timberwolves forward Chase Budinger will miss three months, league source tells Y! Sports.

jesus

― lil dirk (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, November 13, 2012 10:48 AM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

FUUUUCK...this team is cursed....Pek hurt his ankle last nite too :( :( :( :( :(

oh hai im back

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AMatbvRgos

this should be called, fuck the rules

smh @ those announcers

It was just one game, but it was a pretty impressive one for the Minnesota Timberwolves. With five players missing due to injury and a sixth (seemingly indestructible center Nikola Pekovic) joining them by the end, the Wolves somehow left Dallas with a fairly easy road win to improve to 5-2 on the season.

With no Kevin Love, no Ricky Rubio, and of late, no Chase Budinger or Brandon Roy, the Timberwolves somehow are within striking distance of the West's top spot despite playing four of their seven games on the road.

Which takes us to the real story here, Andrei Kirilenko. He's been the best player on one of the league's best teams, posting a 20.87 PER while shooting 57.1 percent from the floor and averaging nearly two blocks plus 1.7 steals per game. He's also made several clutch plays as a go-to offensive player, none more impressive than his pass to Budinger to beat Indiana at the buzzer last week. With a fairly easy stretch of schedule upcoming, the Wolves now are looking at the possibility of having double-digit wins banked by the time Love returns, especially if Pekovic can return quickly from his ankle sprain.

As a result, Kirilenko tops my list of the league's surprises in the early going. You can probably see where we're going with this -- below we have 11 more surprises for you from the season's first two weeks. Again, the usual caveats apply about it being early, but consider these interesting trends that bear further monitoring as the season wears on:

Kemba Walker, Charlotte: Nobody's talking about this because the Bobcats are invisible, but Walker has been fantastic so far this season. While Charlotte's perimeter players in general have punched way above their weight (Ben Gordon, Ramon Sessions and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist all have produced far more than expected thus far), Walker has been the breakout star of this group. Through five games -- two of which the Bobcats actually won! -- he's averaging 18.8 points, getting to the line, and handing out three and a half dimes for every turnover. In Year 2, it appears he may have figured out to how to harness his shoot-first tendencies to fit into an NBA offense.

Jrue Holiday, Philadelphia: While The Jruth was outplayed by Brandon Jennings Monday night, it's been a breath of fresh air to see the Sixers take the handcuffs off Holiday and run a real NBA offense. With Holiday now permitted to penetrate and attack and the Sixers spacing the floor with shooters, he's averaging 19 points and nine assist, and has more than doubled his free-throw attempts -- no longer is he "long 2 Jrue." One thing he still has to work on, alas, is his league-leading turnover total -- a whopping six per game.

DeMar DeRozan, Toronto: My favorite Twitter follower is having a nice season so far. DeRozan's per-game stats are inflated now because he played 60 minutes in Monday night's triple-OT marathon with Utah, but even after letting the air out he's scoring at a better clip than ever, and doing it with reasonable efficiency. Actually, his stats in each category don't look that different, but when you add the subtle improvements across the board, especially in rebounding and turnovers, it adds up to a 17.85 PER that's a five-point improvement on last season's number.

Mike Conley, Memphis: As with Holiday in Philadelphia, Conley benefits from a lot more offensive freedom and a dramatic reduction in long 2s. Conley is shooting more 3s and more free throws, while shooting 50 percent from the floor and scoring more than ever. As with Holiday, he's seen a bump in turnovers, but he's also turbo-charged the Grizzlies' transition game, and in the halfcourt his pick-and-roll attack has provided a viable alternative to their historic pattern of post-ups and Rudy Gay isos.

Al-Farouq Aminu, New Orleans: Aminu's first two seasons were so unimpressed that the Hornets declined his fourth-year option, but this season he's finally showing signs of being the long-armed, Kirilenko-lite type player he hinted at in college. Aminu is shooting 53.8 percent, yanking 8.6 boards per game, and proving a menace in the passing lanes with 10 steals and seven blocks in the first five games. He still needs to work on his shooting and ballhandling (14 miscues already), but his energy alone is enough to keep him on the court.

Kobe Bryant, Lakers: Look who's turned into Mr. Efficiency! The Princeton might not have been working for everybody, but apparently it helped Bryant get some better looks and abandon the Heroball approach of recent seasons. Bryant has a scalding 66.2 TS percentage through seven games, including a 43.3 percent mark on 3s and 53.8 percent overall, and his secondary categories haven't suffered at all.

Jamal Crawford ,Clippers: Look who's turned into Mr. Efficiency, Part Deux. Crawford shot 38.4 percent last season and is at 40.9 percent for his career; this season he's beating that on 3s and shooting 50% overall, with a career-high free-throw rate and virtually no cost in turnovers. To say he's been the league's best sixth man so far is a massive understatement; he's averaging an obscene 28.1 points per 40 minutes and, again, he's doing it with unprecedented efficiency. While an occasional pass wouldn't hurt -- he's averaging 1.1 assists, an embarrassing total for a high-usage guard -- nobody will mind if he keeps filling it up like this.

Carl Landry, Warriors: A free-agent afterthought, Landry has basically saved the Warriors from total immolation on offense, coming off the pine to average 24.1 points per 40 minutes on 60 percent shooting. Wait, there's more -- he's also blowing away his career high on the glass, with nearly a rebound every three minutes, and defensively he's shown none of the lapses that periodically got him benched in New Orleans. One can reasonably wonder if he'll be promoted to the starting lineup soon ahead of the struggling David Lee.

O.J. Mayo, Dallas: Through eight games, Mayo is just 17-of-70 on 2-point shots. This is not a problem, alas, because he's made an insane 30-of-50 on 3s. Mayo's 60 percent mark from downtown, as well as the sheer quantity of shots he's taking from that distance, have combined to make him an extremely valuable player so far despite the usual reservations about his suspect finishing and distribution. Producing 24.9 points per 40 minutes -- more than half of which come on 3s -- for a Dallas team starved of offensive options minus Dirk Nowitzki, he's been the biggest key to the Mavs' surprising burst of early-season competence.

Gary Neal, San Antonio: Neal's fourth-quarter outburst in Portland was the high point, but he's been a major catalyst off San Antonio's bench all season. This isn't just 3-point flukishness, either -- Neal is shooting 68.4 percent inside the arc, and has scored better than a point every two minutes while committing just seven turnovers in seven games. His scoring burst has made up for a disappointing start from San Antonio's usual bench ace, Manu Ginobili, and helped the Spurs to a quietly excellent 6-1 start.

Larry Sanders, Milwaukee: The less we speak of Milwaukee's starting frontcourt, the better. But the good news is that their struggles have allowed Sanders to shine off the bench. The Colonel can't start anyway because he fouls so much -- a whistle every five minutes. In fact, he's committed 31 fouls in six games, just five short of the maximum 36. But when Sanders isn't hacking, he's providing some serious athletic dynamism. He has one of the league's highest blocked shot rates, is pulling down better than a board every three minutes, and is shooting 65 percent on the floor -- mostly because he's realized that dunking the ball is a lot easier than trying to spot up from 15 feet.

kobe! haha

http://i.imgur.com/XNGCT.png

what? jessica alba is a clippers fan? am i dreaming?

― moullet, Tuesday, November 13, 2012 11:38 AM

http://i.imgur.com/feacQ.gif

i didnt know until now that kevin love is mike love's nephew

http://i.imgur.com/feacQ.gif

about damn time we start talking about Larry Sanders. I swear if he was a starter he'd foul out midway through the 2nd quarter. he's Milwaukee's DFG (desingated foul guy)

guyssssss

https://mobile.twitter.com/TrueHoop/status/268443627695525888

@Chris_Broussard
Source says Jim Buss felt "insignificant" when Phil Jackson was coaching the Lakers...

unsurprising headlines

Wish I could be a fly on the wall at this years Buss family thanksgiving dinner.

Larry Sanders, Milwaukee:... is shooting 65 percent on the floor -- mostly because he's realized that dunking the ball is a lot easier than trying to spot up from 15 feet.

Actually it's because he's developed a good low post game but I guess it doesn't sound pithy and semi-insulting to say that.

It's amazing that the ENTIRE LEAGUE hasn't discovered how easy this "dunking" thing is.

Coaches like Doug Collins don't believe in that kind of advance metric.

ban dunking

It'll be like college ball in the days of Lew Alcindor.

if you outlaw dunks, only travis and bo outlaw will have dunks

Does Acie Law qualify since he's out of the league?

if you outlaw dunks, only travis and bo outlaw will have dunks

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, November 13, 2012 4:26 PM (22 minutes ago)

haha

btw i thought that westbrook play was cool *shrugs*

agree, also re outlaws lol

82games is up & running w/ recent data, so we can confirm that the wolves have pulled a white out this year

this lineup has appeared in 4 minutes this season

Ridnour-Shved-Kirilenko-Amundson-Pekovic

heat are -4 with ray on the floor so far this year which confirms my suspicions that he's murdering them on the defensive end

Ridnour-Shved-Kirilenko-Amundson-Pekovic

― lil dirk (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, November 13, 2012 10:03 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I gave you all a heads up about that last night, keep up brah

minnesota timbergenerals

jimmer's PER is 34

82games is up & running w/ recent data, so we can confirm that the wolves have pulled a white out this year

this lineup has appeared in 4 minutes this season

Ridnour-Shved-Kirilenko-Amundson-Pekovic

― lil dirk (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, November 13, 2012 5:03 PM (46 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

exciting to have this officially announced

scott brooks is so hardheaded/terrible... their two dominant lineups (russ/durant/ibaka/perkins + thabo/martin) are just not good, meanwhile they dominate with lebron at the 4 http://www.82games.com/1213/1213OKC2.HTM

i wonder if he'll catch on (probably not)

durant's put up a 49.7 PER at PF this season

16.6 at SF

agreed that okc would dominate w/bron at the 4

lol

btw id just like to take a moment to otm myself for being an early and staunch advocate of playing bron and kd at the 4

HOLY SHIT VAREJAO

he's got 29-18-3 with six minutes left, on 12-16 shooting