( ( ( ( ( nba bubble ball 2020 ) ) ) ) )

i'd call them the fivers now

horford back into the starting line up?

shd be noted too that this thunder team does have a lot of talent, i think people looked at them and didnt see a star but theyre deep with quality players and have had good health too

― lag∞n, Thursday, August 6, 2020 10:03 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

the thing is they do have a star, cp3. even when he’s changed his game a couple of times in major ways, he’s still been impactful in elite ways that don’t necessarily show up in the box score. his teams win, they are much better with him on the floor — but this has been the story of his whole career: quarterbacking winning teams that come up just short for reasons that are sometimes not entirely in their control. obviously things like griffin getting hurt in the playoffs in the prime of his career, paul getting hurt a couple years ago in the WCF — those things are baked into the measure of a team. staying on the floor is part of being good. but it is without question the case that he’s had shit luck and also imo certain that if he had played in the eastern conference, he’d have played in the finals at least once. I mean there are some people who still put guys like kidd above he when stacking up the greats ... his only current peers in terms of career body of work are lebron, steph, durant, and harden probably (AD and giannis will get there soon). he’s a top 25 player easily imo, too 20 probably

i found this picture of kevin

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/dd/3e/41/dd3e41b93333ae720d917fe37e289ddc.jpg

the commercials are soooo bad lol.
I feel like as an NBA fan and as a paul fan in particular I have a warped view of his general popularity, but my sense is he’s not well-known enough for these commercials? like even lebron doesn’t have a similar personality-driven ad campaign (or does he?)

prob just kind of a random thing where the insurance company signed him up to make some ads then never stopped

theyre doing it im assuming to torment nba fans

my thought, too. the insurance company wanted a recognizable, but not too expensive, athlete for their ads placed during televised games. cp3 looked like a good deal and they signed him long term. it's about as random as Michael Jordan pitching Hanes underwear.

Kneecap things are weird because the recovery truly can go fast.

It’s possible to dislocate it, pop it back in place with no significant damage to tendons

isnt that what happened with mahomes?

big Ewing Theory vibes with Simmons out

(irony noted)

I thought the bucks would show some pride here

an interesting fact about the potential bucks-heat match up is that the bucks defense is designed to give up three pointers and the heat had the highest three point percentage in the league this year

yeah something is not right with Milwaukee

still decent amount of time before the playoffs but I'm starting to doubt that they're big favorites in the East

though I guess every good team this year has had stretches like this

guys, is cam payne a serviceable role player now?

in the bubble he's been exactly what the suns needed all season

the bucks are good again

gotta say i love that the wizards were invited to the bub and lost a bunch of games and now have a worse winning percentage than charlotte and might fall below the bulls in the next couple days

the suns look pretty damn good. they were playing fast and sharing the ball.

Has anyone written an article about the seeding scenarios? I would assume the nuggets and clippers want the 2nd seed but idk

Nurkic dunks on Bol Bol 😳 pic.twitter.com/IffR5E2mZX

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) August 7, 2020

an interesting fact about the potential bucks-heat match up is that the bucks defense is designed to give up three pointers and the heat had the highest three point percentage in the league this year

yea I think they really need to clean that up lest they get rocked by fucking Fred VanVleet again

lakers are not that good without bron

i think nurkic is the happiest player in the bubble. dude looks so energized to be playing basketball again.

kyle kuzma is the evolutionary jeff green

btw harden has finally transitioned to a mature hairstyle

Malone benching Jokic in the 4th could cost me a lot of money. I’m upset

matt, are you betting on bubble seeding games? do you need help?

hes playing the fan duel

btw did just regular sorts betting become legal seeing all these ads not sure how i missed that

they need to legalize online poker so i can become wealthy

sports betting is legal in oregon since january there's an app and eveyrthing, been surprised so far that it has not ruined the life of any men i know

i have a handful of vices but every day i thank the higher powers that gambling is not one of them

the few absolute degen gamblers i know are basically unsalvageable as humans

some light wagering here and there is fine but as far as something to ruin yr life with its kinda lane

betting on random prime time games makes them way more fun to watch but you have to find that middle ground between "not trivial amount of money" and "won't hurt much to lose"...for me that's about 20 bucks

Again though I have questions about all of this. I feel like there’s lots of weird jockeying considering home court doesn’t exist anymore

its all about da matchups now baby

tho im sure teams are also trying to balance that with "finding their groove"

feel like the first round will still be dealing with rust but then by the second round teams shd be up to speed, but its still gonna be different than it wouldve been, different teams will be peaking, theres no home court and so forth

Denver never wants to play Houston so they probably have some stats guy running all the scenarios for maximizing that avoidance

sort of feel like houston is less scary to me matchup-wise this year, but yeah I'd still rather not play them

there was an interesting segment on lowe's pod today about the lakers' half-court offense, apparently it ranks 18th or 20th or something in the NBA (they're first by a mile in transition offense), and their offense overall is dead last since the re-start of all the bubble teams

no one is making shots on that roster

*since the return

Utah is probably the 6th seed and they seem to be completely out of sorts so maybe it’s the right plan

interesting contrast watching the heat minus butler beat the celtics and then w/o dragic beat the bucks for 3.5 quarters for running out of gas vs the sixers (fully healthy) struggling to beat the wizards and spurs and now w/o simmons playing the magic even

not sure theres too much to learn from bubble ball thus far. its basically summer league for good players.

except it's not bcuz the games matter and the preparedness of your team is a reflection of your franchise!

it's not a coincidence that the pacers are 3-1 despite losing sabonis and having a gimpy oladipo, the heat are 2-2 vs four of the best teams in the league despite their injuries, and the sixers are going to be lucky to go 3-1 w/ wins over wizards, spurs, and magic. the 4-5-6 battle in the east actually matters, this is an incredibly important season for the sixers -- the coach's job depends on it -- and i don't think anyone would seriously argue the sixers are better off facing the celtics than miami or the pacers. they need to win games, which they are, but they look bad and nobody will deny that, and if they keep playing like this they're gonna get the 6 seed and lose to boston and it will be a miserable offseason.