part two of the nba 2020-21 anything but regular season

The Blazers were down by 17 points with 6 minutes left. They went on a 25-7 run to win the game.

Damian Lillard scored or assisted 18 of those points. He finished with:

50 PTS
10 AST
13-20 FG
6-13 3P
18-18 FT pic.twitter.com/npELwpXxgF

— StatMuse (@statmuse) March 17, 2021

Damian Lillard scored 50 points on 20 shots tonight.

That’s the second most points on 20 FGA or fewer since 1983. pic.twitter.com/4QjXibuDr4

— StatMuse (@statmuse) March 17, 2021

i meant to put that in the stats thread

in any event

Damian Lillard is in a different world right now. pic.twitter.com/IGWEo3rrLK

— ProCity Hoops (@ProCityHoops) March 17, 2021

ingram clunking midrange j after midrange j while melo is on Zion and the pelicans can’t get a bucket is...............

it’s a problem. they can’t go either or at the end of games it needs to be zion every possession

as much as i would like to continue the thread in praise of damian lillard, i just read this and i think we will have to talk about it

https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/adrien-brody-pat-riley-hbo-lakers-series-1234931961/#!

show sounds pretty tight honestly

i mean there is a 100% chance i will watch the hell out of it, especially if it turns out terribly

I’m in.

he has the appropriate douchebag face for it

— trae young’s floor is kyrie irving

wait you think his floor or ceiling is kyrie? i thought you were not a trae fan

ha k3vin said trae young’s floor is kyrie which i thought was absurd

rating how good kyrie is is pretty hard tbf

ah well, if we're pulling receipts, you did suggest the Hawks maybe made a mistake taking Herro over Trae

'scuse Trae over Herro

did i say herro was better? those were different drafts tho

rating how good kyrie is is pretty hard tbf

― lag∞n, Wednesday, March 17, 2021 11:44 AM (two minutes ago)

it's true, almost impossible

i even made Herro one of my keepers in my fantasy league bc i trusted you :(

lmao

im just glad ive never said anything wrong about basketball but also im magnanimous so i will not point out the mistakes of others

No I forget exactly what you said but it was along the lines of Herro may turn out to be better in the long run or something. it was a crazy time though. COVID was challenging all of our assumptions

Hawks have won 6 straight and Trae has scored under 20 in the 3 of those. love to see it

ball movement is the true winning formula in the nba + having a guy who can get a decent shot when ball movement doesnt work + good defense + and if all else fails having lebron james

J0rdan S. wrote this on thread ( ( ( ( ( nba bubble ball 2020 ) ) ) ) ) on board I Love Hoops on Sep 24, 2020

i've been posting this like once a week per playoffs basically but everyone knew going into the 2019 draft that it was shit after the top 2 and like a dozen GMs still let one of the 5 most elite shooters in the NBA almost slip out of the lottery. idk how you could have watched herro shoot and take step backs and be like, give me coby white. it's unconscionable. the hawks took two players who are worse. the t wolves traded up for a shooting guard who might not make it to his second contract. the cavs drafted a shooting guard who is demonstrably worse than herro. this is how bad franchises stay terrible.

J0rdan S. wrote this on thread ( ( ( ( ( nba bubble ball 2020 ) ) ) ) ) on board I Love Hoops on Sep 24, 2020

how much better is trae young than tyler herro serious question

J0rdan S. wrote this on thread ( ( ( ( ( nba bubble ball 2020 ) ) ) ) ) on board I Love Hoops on Sep 24, 2020

i feel like if you put herro on the hawks and gave him trae young's role he would average 29-10-5 w/ better efficiency

i went back and found these posts... i have no recollection of posting any of this haha. this was the day after herro put up 37 in the east finals which, in my defense, is still a more meaningful performance than anything trae young has done in his NBA career so far. but certainly i was under the influence of his cherubic stylings. de'andre hunter really challenging my statement in the first post, i'm curious to see how that one plays out over time.

herro has had a pretty mediocre year tho his counting stats are still pretty good for a bench player. i'll be interested to see how he looks in the playoffs this year bcuz often these sorta lou williams, jamal crawford style sixth men are less valuable in the playoffs than in the regular season but herro flipped that on its head in the bubble

fuck i fell asleep at halftime of Blazers Pels last night, natly televised shootout, shouldve known Id miss a vintage Dame game.

Watching the first half though, it seems clear that Brandon Ingram has got to go for Zion and the team to reach their potential. the eye test really makes him look like a classic good stats bad team guy, looking for his own shot, hyperactive out there. they should trade him for a more deferential #2 option while they can still sell high. also in the course of thinking about Pels trades I looked at Eric Bledsoe's b-ref page, and his nickname is Mini-LeBron dating back to when he was making waves in his first couple years. funny how that one worked out

"i have no recollection of posting any of this" should be the official tagline of this board

https://www.cjr.org/criticism/nba-covid-19-risks-pandemic-bubble.php

Since the end of the bubble, though, much of sports media is content to get back to entertainment. Jackie MacMullan, a writer for ESPN, was dismayed to appear on a debate show last month that made no mention of recent news that four members of the San Antonio Spurs had contracted the virus. “A year ago, one player on one team tested positive, and all sports across the world came to a screeching halt.” Now, she says, “we can’t even get it on the air.”

The NBA has sought to have it both ways in recent years, not only associating itself with the Movement for Black Lives but hiring a record number of women as referees and coaches. The pandemic, though, has made the league’s real priorities unmistakable. “The NBA’s no different from any other league,” MacMullan says. “The bubble was a nice little story, but reality has hit, and the bottom line rules, as it always has in sports.”

saw that. pretty bad article.

it all seemed pretty self evident? what did you disagree with?

lol'd at these posts:

i even made Herro one of my keepers in my fantasy league bc i trusted you :(

― Heez, Wednesday, March 17, 2021 8:47 AM (fifty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i went back and found these posts... i have no recollection of posting any of this haha. this was the day after herro put up 37 in the east finals which, in my defense, is still a more meaningful performance than anything trae young has done in his NBA career so far. but certainly i was under the influence of his cherubic stylings.

― J0rdan S., Wednesday, March 17, 2021 9:09 AM (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

guess who my other keeper was- Michael Porter Jr.

i do agree that the idea of the NBA as especially progressive is a myth and that has been proven out many times imo. i’m not sure if the league’s handling of covid shows much at all tho — the league wants its money yes but the players are showing up so they can get paid just the same. plus the bubble turned out to be the safest method of playing sports during covid. the idea at the end that journalists can hold the NBA accountable for being money hungry or whatever... not sure i really understand what that means, in reality. it’s kinda like saying journalists should write more articles about how the sky is blue

seems a lot more like CJR is saying journalists should write more articles about how the NBA says the sky is blue but it's been green for some time now and that bears repeating

i think that the framing in that article that NFL reporters are more adversarial to the league they cover is bizarre. i don't think there's any connection to be made between the racial justice stuff and the pandemic stuff, and i think the implicit assumption that sports media is supposed to work like political media is largely wrong.

the article's thesis that NBA journalists never criticize the league is undermined by all of its sources being NBA journalists criticizing the league

and NBA media was (rightfully) scathing about the decision to hold the all-star game, at least everywhere I saw

Source: Rockets big man Christian Wood is expected to return tonight vs. Warriors. Houston is 0-17 since Wood, the Rockets’ leading scorer and rebounder, went down with a sprained right ankle.

— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) March 17, 2021

Kevin Porter looks good though

yeah he has had some nice games. talent not really the issue w him tho

The Thunder have traded Trevor Ariza to the Miami Heat for Meyers Leonard and a draft pick, sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium. Leonard is signing his trade consent and the trade will go through.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) March 17, 2021

jeez

Former Maverick Shawn Bradley has just released a statement through the team announcing he was recently struck from behind by an automobile while riding his bicycle near his home in St. George, Utah, and suffered a traumatic spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed.

— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) March 17, 2021

Sounds like from the neck down. Just horrible

ugh that fucking sucks

Man that’s rough

very sad to hear that

does trevor ariza have anything left? i have no recollection of what he looked like for portland last year. did he opt out of the bubble?

yah he opted out. he's got probably about the same as what iggy has left to offer.

Sources: Houston is trading PJ Tucker, Rodions Kurucs and Bucks’ 2022 first-round pick back to Milwaukee for DJ Augustin, DJ Wilson and 2023 unprotected first-round pick. Houston also gets right to swap its 2021 second-round pick for Milwaukee's FRP pick unless it falls 1-9.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) March 17, 2021

not sure i’ve ever seen a right to swap a second with a first trade before

seems good fo milwaukee

After going 0-17 in their last 17 games Houston had no further to fall anyway.