2014-15 NBA regular season thread: 82 games of injuries and inevitabilities

after lasts nights game i was kinda thinking maybe the pelicans cld make the playoffs but then i looked at their roster nd wow after their top six it is real bad folks, jimmer and rivers got 38 mins combined

yeah shallowest team in the league basically?

salmons fredette rivers thats their 7-9 rotation

not sure trading two 1st round picks for holiday was the way to go

who's their 4th frontcourt player? the pelican mascot?

they didnt play anyone else last night more than 2 mins but they have babbitt-withy-ajinca

a group that inspires confidence right there

withy is capable of standing around and clogging the lane a lil maybe but tbh im not too familiar with any of their games, i dont think anyone is

three man rotation shd be pretty doable between davis-asik-anderson tho casue davis can play both spots

yeah i was looking, ajinca was putting up 6/6 in 17 mins last year, might not be awful?

wonder if theyd ever try to go super big w all three those guys, w asik and davis behind him anderson might be able to sort of guard some threes

yeah he had a 16per last year and 14 the year before who knew xp

Thanks to his size, Ajinca is an above-average shot-blocker. His defensive value decreases exponentially the farther he is away from the basket. Out on the perimeter, pick-and-rolls can expose Ajinca's limited footspeed and quickness. Developing his core strength did help Ajinca defend one-on-one in the post.

seems like he might be a fine 4th big

Early in the 2013-14 season, New Orleans went overseas to bring Alexis Ajinca back to the NBA after two full seasons out of the league. Ajinca was 20 when he was drafted and not yet 23 when he last appeared in the league, and he spent the two years back in his native France improving his body and gaining valuable experience. The improved Ajinca started 30 games for the Pelicans and provided valuable minutes at center.

Ajinca literally grew between NBA stints. Listed at 7-foot when he previously played the league, he's now officially 7-2 and looks every inch of it.

crazy

alright i'm officially in on ajinca

he is my favorite player

man i didn't really ajinca went back to france. i remember seeing a hornets game on espn late last year and being like "wait this guy is still in the league huh?????"

If the Pelicans front office stays on course, AD will fly away asap. My greatest concern is that he must never, ever become a Laker prior to the year 2034.

its unheard of for players who are offered a first max contract by the teams who drafted them to not take it so hes prob in nola for at least the next ~7 years or however long that is

imo the pelicans front office hasnt been terrible, picking up anderson and asik were both great moves, but nor have they been great, the holiday trade was pretty dicey as was maxing out gordon, drafting rivers was obvs just unconscionable

that team is a mess

they got anderson on a good deal, but the holiday/gordon/evans moves are *very* suspect

if everyone is healthy they have 6 guys who can play crunchtime minutes which would strike me as a good problem if their coach wasn't monty williams

holiday is almost not that bad like youre giving up two top ten draft picks but you cld easily come away with zero players as good as holiday if you kept them, fwiw tho i suspect philly mightve got two player better than him

feel like all three of those deals fall in the not good but not terrible range

and itll prob be time to fire williams by the time they round into form anyway

anyway i stand by my conclusion that their front office has been kinda ok

or like slightly below average

you cld easily come away with zero players as good as holiday

esp if Austin Rivers is your idea of a good 1st round pick

i would be fine with all those moves if the hornets were in the east, but they cashed all their chips to compared with a half-dozen teams as geared up as they are.

it doesn't make sense but that's ownership so maybe the front office did the best they could

the tyreke deal was pretty bad wasnt it tho

to compete*

tyreke is not a player i'd want on my team let alone for $11m a year

also they sacrificed two good back ups to get him on a team lacking depth

Took me years of thereapy to forget Reggie's psychic sun tattoo around his bellybutton... now it's all come back

Thanks Clay

you're welcome, follow me on twitter! ;)

lmao

i bet there's a good number of teams that would straight up take grieves over tyreke even if you weren't factoring contracts into it

true

alright im downgrading the nola organization to solidly below average

tyreke's roy trophy got him about about 5mil a year more than he otherwise woulda signed for huh

entire nba media jumping on the dubs bandwagon rn btw

so much depends
upon

a pair of glass
ankles

breaking
toward the basket

picked by the white
center

https://twitter.com/Mike_Bresnahan/status/527545144489168897

poor fuckin kid

Very happy for Randle. The dude managed to avoid this whole cursed season.

unfortunately he accomplished that by literally embodying it

he hadn't been on the team long enough for its virus to infect him and had in theory a promising career, i can never take any joy in injuries

basically all my lakers hatred is turning "be careful what you wish for" on me in ending nash's career and seriously jeopardizing the future of julius's

fn hell curse of kobe

You might root for the Dodgers but hating the Lakers gives you a get out of jail free card IMO, slothrop.

the dodgers are only my NL B-team anyhow! there are 3 teams ahead of them.

dang thats a lot of teams