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

and varejao had a cold start to that game!

17-6-1-0-5 for Javale in 22m #emptystats

interesting

http://www.basketballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=978

whoa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bj1Q87f-NE

Austin Rivers down to an incredible 29.6% FG percentage

austin rivers thing is fascinating

is doc rivers twisting monty williams arm or something

monty williams is too good a coach to have lobbied for rivers as his choice in the draft, so the NO front office is probably to blame both for making the pick and for pushing williams to give him minutes.

or monty williams isn't perfect & incorrectly really liked rivers

if the front office isn't behind it, i'm pretty sure monty would bench austin, rather than doubling down on him.

i'm not even sure there's value in benching rivers

the hornets aren't competing for anything, he's not blocking anyone that the franchise is more invested in

maybe they'll dump him to the d-league tho

If they were looking for a PG, Tony Wroten, Jr. and Kendall Marshall were the next choices available and both of those guys are in the D-League.

i haven't seen rivers play much & he's still pretty young but it all just seemed totally doomed from the start

The word "project" springs quickly to mind. He has to unlearn a dozen bad habits while also learning the whole nba game.

usually the term "project" implies NBA talent in some form

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QmTshvfmMHY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=QmTshvfmMHY

ugh fuck just watch it

He'll take a chance to win the game over a small fine/warning any day.

I remember when he played for the TWolves and refs would never buy that crap but the title changed everything

i haven't seen rivers play much & he's still pretty young but it all just seemed totally doomed from the start

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, December 4, 2012 2:46 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

cant recall a player who after watching them play in college i was more baffled by their draft stock

i still maintain that put in the right situation he could grow into a jason terry-like player. but if they're gonna try and force him to be a point guard then everything's could go to hell.

the idea that he doesn't have NBA talent is pretty crazy... this seems like another situation of the one-year rule screwing things up

he's slow as fuck

http://i.imgur.com/DBJ0e.png

<3

beautiful child

Austin Rivers is really good at useless crossovers that defenders just watch him do for 5 seconds before totally locking him down when he finally makes a move

also we'll see how that draft class shakes out... it was a really weak year. unless you feel very strongly about jeremy lamb, kendall marshall or evan fournier, there really wasn't anyone worthy of a top 10 pick in the backcourt after the initial run of picks

Austin Rivers is really good at useless crossovers that defenders just watch him do for 5 seconds before totally locking him down when he finally makes a move

― Matt Armstrong, Tuesday, December 4, 2012 5:45 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

ha

classic playground archetype

i would love to see an austin rivers lowlights compilation

wanna see austin on the and 1 tour

why do they need to take a guard? They ended up giving Eric Gordon a billion dollars anywya.

kinda funny how the son of a coach w/ an nba chip turns out to be the next hot sauce

i still maintain that put in the right situation he could grow into a jason terry-like player. but if they're gonna try and force him to be a point guard then everything's could go to hell.

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, December 4, 2012 5:40 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he's slow as fuck

― Matt Armstrong, Tuesday, December 4, 2012 5:43 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah undersized + unathletic is not the best nba combo, throw in that he has no idea how to play the game and its not a great outlook, i mean i guess anyone could become jason terry but the things abt jason terry is hes really good at basketball

kinda funny how the son of a coach w/ an nba chip turns out to be the next hot sauce

― 乒乓, Tuesday, December 4, 2012 5:51 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

javales mom is a coach too lol

why do they need to take a guard? They ended up giving Eric Gordon a billion dollars anywya.

― Matt Armstrong, Tuesday, December 4, 2012 5:50 PM (32 seconds ago) Bookmark

well i think they got stuck in a bad spot in terms of draft position. they're pretty set in the frontcourt but after the initial run of guards in the draft there was mostly a lot of big guys/combo forwards left. even the wings were like... moe harkless. my point was that it's a shitty draft and the austin rivers pick to me is only totally indefensible because of what they're trying to do with him.

tbh I would forgive everything about austin rivers if he had some sick crossover moves but afaict he doesn't

they shouldve just taken the best player available!

they're playing him a lot at the 2 and giving him every chance in the world to not suck

there's some truth in that but in the NBA i think taking the best player available is a lot less worthwhile than in other sports

xp

no way always take the best player, u can make trades

they probably should've just drafted kendall marshall even tho he looks like he's gonna be dj augestin or something

especially in rebuilding mode

but he doesn't make sense even in terms of position! They gave Gordon all that money to be their starting 2 and they're starting Aminu and Robin Lopez right now.

gordon was just a prank, its all a prank really, a giant prank on anthony davis

All I know is that it seems insane that Jae Crowder slipped to the second round.

no way always take the best player, u can make trades

― lag∞n, Tuesday, December 4, 2012 5:58 PM (8 seconds ago) Bookmark

this takes me back to the terrance ross/demar derozan discussion from a few weeks back. NBA isn't like mlb where your draftees have four years before they play for you or the NFL where 60 guys on every team play and any player could die on the field on any play. guys need playing time in the nba to get better and they need the ball and they need to fit w/ each other etc and i'm not sure that it would've made sense for the hornets to have terrance jones (or tyler zeller or meyers leonard) sitting behind anthony davis, ryan anderson and robin lopez. they probably should've picked jeremy lamb but they needed to take a backcourt guy.

they mostly got fucked by having two top 10 picks an dogshit draft