NBA 2020-21 reg season 1st half thread

their wing match up vs the clippers scares me but the clippers guards trying to stop the jazz guards is laughable. lakers are tough bcuz AD draws your center out naturally

luke kennard just played 8 total minutes across two games vs the grizzlies

exactly what you want from a guy who just signed a $64M contract extension

the chances of the jazz beating the LA teams back to back seem very minimal to me

if the jazz stay at 1 and the lakers and clips stay at 2 & 3 they jazz will only have to beat one of them fwiw

that is true... pretty important one seed this year

1 Across in today's nyt crossword is a delight

yes i thought of ILH :)

post it what is it

The clue is "Hoopster's mantra." 10 letters

haha awesome!

andonetrik

BEHOISTING

It looks like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will be a top 15 player at some point. Pretty cool

hes fuckin good as hell, not even sure that paul george is that much better than he is RIGHT NOW let alone for the next decade plus with all those picks

averaging 23.6/5.3/6.3 on .515/.425/.790 splits, sheesh

https://i.imgur.com/s9wOixV.jpg

Was just stopping to drop off that nyt xword

man the t wolves are fucking awful

I looked up the league average 3 point shooting this year, it’s .369 compared to .355 in 2019. actually not as big of a difference as I thought it’d be

how many more attempts tho

oh yeah 34.9 vs 32.0

Every day I’m mad at myself for losing faith in Randle last year

fake friends smh

I looked up the league average 3 point shooting this year, it’s .369 compared to .355 in 2019. actually not as big of a difference as I thought it’d be

i’m not yet willing to believe that lavine and randle are much better than we thought they were given the offensive environment in the league this year

_I looked up the league average 3 point shooting this year, it’s .369 compared to .355 in 2019. actually not as big of a difference as I thought it’d be_


idk a full 1.5% jump league wide seems pretty big to me

Two young players expected to join New York's Obi Toppin in the All-Star Slam Dunk competition on March 7: Portland's Anfernee Simons and Indiana's Cassius Stanley, sources tell ESPN.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) February 28, 2021

i’d be more interested in whether obi toppin can touch his toes

Haha

if ever there were a year for actual all stars to do the dunk contest

anything involving flying more players around the country to party for a weekend is dumb as fuck

cassius is not an nba player but he does have crazy hops

yeah just make zion and zach lavine do it

this whole play was great

The Greek Freak SLAMS IT HOME for the win!! pic.twitter.com/BUG7kLl4SL

— Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) February 28, 2021

Those are the Bucks I want to see in the playoffs some time (not vs Boston)

commendable to be making passes on a last second play

Giannis has been good this year but its been a while since he just took over a game like that, monster 4th q from him

Atlanta signed Gallinari, Bogdanovic, Dunn, and Rondo in the offseason for about $50m in total salary owed this season, and they've combined for -0.1 EPM estimated wins.

— AKelly (@andlankell) March 1, 2021

lol rough

Bogdan has been shockingly bad what’s the deal there

he's barely played. never got a chance to lock in with the rest of the team. basically all of those guys have been injured most of the season

if the hawks hadn’t signed all those dudes to meet irrational & accelerated expectations you’d consider this season to be pretty successful. capela trade was a boon for them, huerter is having a good season, de’andre hunter salvaged his career and then some. but now it looks mostly like a failure ... the whole signing an entire line up of vets when your entire team is on rookie contracts thing just never made sense to me, it was two teams being jammed into one. another good reminder that bad ownership is the main impediment to success in most cases.

i can see the value of having a quality vet or two around but they really went whole hog, also all of those guys might be kind of weird idk

I didn't even remember (know?) that they had signed Dunn. Either Gallo or Bogdan seemed like a smart level up move, like Denver bringing in Millsap however many years ago. It's a good statement. But adding both, after the Capela trade, seems like they really over-bet on themselves. Also it was basically betting against their own young guys and guess what Hunter turned out to be good (in addition to Trae, Collins, Huerter)

i think gallo made sense esp after the way hunter played last year. but maxing bogdan when you needed to give trae, huerter and reddish big minutes ... even pre-injury he hadn’t clicked at all. can’t judge the contract just yet but i don’t think there was much logic there beyond “we have a lot of money to spend and this is the guy we can spend it on.” the outcome was either splurging on a guy who wasn’t better than the young guys you drafted or decreasing the value of those young guys.

they also have gotten next to nothing for okongwu & if they re-sign collins i don’t see an obvious path for his development. not sure they’d rather have any of the guys who went immediately after him except maybe avdija but you can prob throw them on the pile of teams who will regret passing on halliburton and vassel

which ... are they gonna resign collins? he was completely unstoppable for three quarters last night but i still don’t have a great feel for whether he’s even that valuable to them. my inclination is that they could let him go and not get much worse

everyone seems to think theyre going to trade him since they werent willing to offer him nearly what he wanted in the offseason

but is anyone willing to offer him what he wants (a max contract) and if not are they willing to trade for him if theyre might not be able to resign him

kinda think the celtics should trade for him and resign him + use their tpe + assets to get a big wing

ive been a collins skeptic but credit where its due he just keeps getting better seems like a real worker, and people are saying his d is improving which was the big question mark after he learned to shoot

who knows what the hawks wld demand in return and they might just be planning on matching whatever offer he gets anyway