waiting for the other shoelace to drop: 2013-2014 NBA regular season thread (part 2)

prop bet is really the only viable answer imo

omg at this season

already 195 attempts what a phenomenally dumb person

his defense has been bad too

so many Knick fans at this game lol

Heat getting soooo many calls

not that I mind

i like this "masked-lebron" look.

the knicks cannot guard any position

Hahaha wtf happened to Josh Smith in '09-'10? Here are his yearly 3pt attempts:

2005-06: 34/110 31%
2006-07: 38/152 24%
2007-08: 25/99 25%
2008-09: 26/87 30%
2009-10: 0/7 0%
2010-11: 51/154 33%
2011-12: 28/109 25%
2012-13: 61/201 30%
2013-14: 46/195 23%

In 2871 minutes, dude shot seven threes, how is that possible without a season-long sulk.

― Call me Shitmael (CompuPost), Thursday, February 27, 2014 9:44 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is fascinating

u know what, as i look at those numbers, i bet he doesnt think he takes that many threes at all. its only like 2 or 3 a game and he sometimes hits one!

the other issue is that he also shouuldn't take any long twos

the funniest thing about that josh smith season is that it was AFTER he got a huge contract

CUT ME SOME SLACK WILLYA is a scene-stealer, can't take that away from Amar'e.

Ethan J. Skolnick ‏@EthanJSkolnick -- Covered Rick Pitino's last game as an NBA coach here. Think I'm covering Mike Woodson's tonight.

Trying to figure out that stat is gonna drive me crazy. The best explanation (?) I can find is from this Zach Lowe SI piece the following season: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/blogs/nba-point-forward/2011/01/27/josh-smiths-shooting-fluke-or-new-skill/

Smith attempted just seven three-pointers last season, a development most Hawks fans found pleasing because he entered 2009-2010 with a career three-point mark south of 28 percent. That’s awful. And his percentage on long two-pointers usually came in around 33 percent — below the league average.

The Atlanta forward kept taking long twos last season, but his abandonment of triples was a big reason why, by any measure, he had the best season of his career. But that wasn’t good enough for Smith, Bucher tells us:

He thought abandoning the three to focus on shotblocking and rebounding would be his ticket to the 2010 All-Star Game. Instead, all he got was runner-up for Defensive Player of the Year and an uneven game. Enter Idan Ravin, the personal trainer known as the Hoops Whisperer for his unorthodox drills and positive reinforcement.

If you’ve read The Art of a Beautiful Game by Sports Illustrated‘s Chris Ballard — and if you’re a fan, you definitely should — you know Ravin is a serious dude. He’s trained a bunch of elite players — LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul, among others — and he accepts no nonsense. He tells players what they’re bad at, and he devises creative and difficult drills to address those deficiencies. Here’s how Ravin went about fixing Smith’s jumper, according to Bucher:

Ravin … straightened out Smith’s lefty stroke so that the ball rises in a perfect vertical line instead of being brought over from the right side of his body. He also patched the hole in Smith’s psyche with texts containing affirmations such as “You don’t need their approval, so stop looking in their direction.”

And it appeared to have worked! Smith is shooting more long twos than ever before and more threes per game than in any season since 2006-07, and he’s making both shots at a career-best rate. ...

so a game has to go to 3 overtimes for TNT to do a lookin huh

wow, just everything about that xp

that whole "not caring what anyone thinks" mindset is really good when you end up with Rick Barry, not so good when you end up with Josh Smith or Bargnani

Ok so who are the top ten forwards right now? Looking at guys who are really 3s/4s so no Duncan etc

1 Lebron
2 durant
(Huge gap)
3 Paul George
4 love
5 aldridge
6 griffin
7 dirk
8 the brow (not sure how much time he plays 4 vs 5 now)
9 Carmelo??
10 millsap? Z-Bo? Ibaka?

I haven't read that insider article yet but depending on how you count we're at at least 11 before considering josh smith and I would 100% rather have chandler parsons in that range since he can at least hit a three and that's before weighing relatively contracts

that's a helluva group.

even in a sometimes "position-less" league, is that the most loaded position in the nba?

Well it's blending two of the better positions really, but the order is sort of irrelevant point being I can toss out ten better forwards than smith without much thought

Josh Smith has unequivocally been a worse player than James Johnson this season

Point guard might be the single most loaded position in the league right now other than the two best guys playing mostly small forward

bosh doesn't make the cut, i assume. he's nominally a center, but really . . .

Oh snap I knew I was forgetting someone when I toyed that up slap him in there too since since they really have gone back to him as a 4 most of the time this year

Simmons saying that is just bizarre, inexplicable

it genuinely feels like an editing error where he meant to say like "has talent to be a top-10 forward"

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bhb9cPECYAElwyn.jpg

btw important hoops photo from yesterday

it's . . . happening

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BhiDKMtIUAEG_S4.jpg

xp I recognize bill and pops, not the other two.

l-r: nba jam (tournament edition) cult figure bill clinton, fellow philanderer henry cisneros, wondertwin julian castro, air force colonel and kgb double agent popovich

xxp

just soe bros eatin some tex-mex in downtown sa, nbd

bill was eating barbacoa and drinkin big red

he was jammin sme aniceto molina

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3mM0hscV3Y

btw everyone should bump aniceto molina every fuckin day

:o

clinton talking them into birdogging by paseo del rio?

3 Paul George
4 love

― z-time champion (agent hibachi), Thursday, February 27, 2014 10:43 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

omg people stop the madness, kevin love is having a truly amazing season and is a utter fn superstar and absolutely no one is noticing, instead everyones on paul georges nuts, ffs

the nuggets roster tonight is a straight abomination

rating him ahead of aldridge and griffin is pretty dubious but ahead of love is just unconsionable

i'd rather have paul george, he's a more versatile player who's a top defender at his position

ur dumb

carmelo is squarely in that group btw dude is having a great season

you have to reconcile kevin love being pure garbage as a defender

you have to reconcile kevin love being twice as good at offense as pg

gonna go with wins brah, PG wins games, love gets stats REAL TALK

well PG is twice as good at defense so i guess it's just personal preference

i would take a great wing player over a great PF in current NBA tho

lol when will the madness end, kevin love is putting up number that havent been seen ever and people are all well you know paul george is very good at defense smh smh smh