2022/23 NBA REGULAR SEASON THREAD "TANKING FOR WEMBANYAMA"

and they prob let carlisle go at the right time too, the kidd thing is just lucky tho im sorry... probably, and even that he could be just hitting a sweet spot where hes benefiting from carlises offensive/development work while being able to use his strong suit of getting the guys to play hard, will be interesting to see if the mavs continue to find diamonds in the rough

tehyre one of those teams that instead of rebuilding wants to just always be pretty good and hope to spike a finals run now and then, which, they have done. but teams like that tend to make weirder moves to try to sustain their thing

even the mavs getting to the western finals: lucky

conclusion: theyre just lucky, but its real, they actually have luck on their side

i will say they are smarter than the three teams that didnt take luka

I do think that having a transcendent player, who as been pointed out preceded cuban’s tenure, did like 75% of the heavy lifting for their single NBA title in 20 year

i mean...isn't a transcendent player largely responsible for 90% of championship teams?

crazy thing about that mavs team was the lack of a second star, hadnt happen like that since the rockets first title with hakeem

may be a challops but i think the hawks move was fine at the time, it didnt pan out but they did get the 2nd best player in the draft and another lottery pick its easy to imagine a world in which luka is a bit worse and they won

the other 2 teams though, yeah

03-04 Pistons are probably the biggest outlier

i mean if we're talking about acquiring a top 25 player of all time yeah you probably need some luck. the cavs and spurs won lotteries to get lebron and tim duncan. the warriors needed one of the worst GMs of all time to take two different PGs over steph curry. idk that's kinda how this sport works a lot of the time ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

hawks is more forgivable but on some level there was a systemic failure where the nba as a whole didnt recognize luka as the consensus #1 pick, which he absolutely should have been based on the available evidence, but the mavs zigged and traded up, and for that they deserve credit

yeah i remember asking why he wasnt the consensus in here at the time and no one really had an answer

he was the mvp of the second best league in the world at 18, meanwhile the suns are drafting ayton at 1 to fill a positional need, total madness

i give sacto a partial pass just because i respect balkan blood fueds

wld be cool if another insane team defense team came along like that pistons team so we could check and see if it still works. probably not because of hoisting

luka is more valuable than the entire hawks roster i know they're a decent to good team and all but he's gonna be one of the very best players in the history of the sport and he was just sitting right there for them

also they just dont let you play physical anymore, lock down d not really possible xp

not to ruin heez's day, always respect heez, but i can't fathom what the hawks would have to put in a trade to acquire luka. trae, murray, collins, 4 first round picks... you name it. if you were starting an NBA team from scratch and were given the option of "luka and figure it out" or the hawks roster i don't think you'd even hesitate w/ your decision

also they just dont let you play physical anymore, lock down d not really possible xp

― lag∞n, Wednesday, November 9, 2022 11:33 AM (forty-six seconds ago)

yeah the game is totally different now, we're never going to see games played in the 80s again and thank god for that. when tayshaun prince had that block against the pacers in the playoffs the score was 69-67 with 40 seconds left in the game. pure madness. but the celtics and warriors were 1-2 in defensive rating last year... the celtics and heat in particular played some ugly games in the ECF. i think you still need an incredible defense to win the title in most years

defense now, like much of the league, is more about optimization than really imposing your will or whatever

you gotta have guards, wings, and bigs who can guard up and down the positional spectrum and you gotta be able to mix and match line ups. the one outlier might be the bucks who are a more traditional defense built around huge rim protector type guys. and i guess we'll see about the cavs

schlenk wanted to build warriors east it made some sense at the time. hindsight says not so much. but they got a franchise guy and will be competitive-to-great for a long time depending how things shake, so its not a total loss.

suns decision is still one of the all time fumbles. luka cried so he didnt have the right mindset... so they picked a notoriously un-serious local big.

re mavs: they have for sure been more successful than the majority of the league and getting luka alone moves them into the top half/third range. i think it's that they had one of the all time greats and only got one chip, and now they've got another and we're skeptical they know what to do. they got a little success last year and then didnt retain their 2nd best player and brought back christian wood. the team is worse than last year, but luka is likely better so it may be a wash.

the christian wood trade was unambiguously good? what am i missing. also if you go by net rating they've so far been twice as good as they were last year

luka coming into the season ready to go is a big reason.

wood is fine but keeping brunson woulda been better

speaking of poor franchises... the nets name Vaughn their head coach

i think it's that they had one of the all time greats and only got one chip, and now they've got another and we're skeptical they know what to do

i feel like these are just really high bars of success to clear & some teams do clear them historically but also not clearing them can still mean you're a very successful franchise. do we shit on the jazz and knicks franchises of the 90s for not being able to win w/ malone and stockton, ewing etc? those great pistons teams won one title. the KG era celtics won one title. winning two titles is really hard! not many teams can pull it off. the mavs were in a conference w/ one of the true dynasties in NBA history. i mean we can go thru every series the mavs lost in that era, it's not really all that damning to me

2001 - lost to the spurs in round 2... no shame in losing to the spurs
2002 - lost to the kings in round 2... webber era kings were one of the best teams in the league
2003 - lost to the spurs in WCF... ditto again on the spurs
2004 - lost to the kings in round 1... don't really remember this kings team but you can prob ding them for this one
2005 - lost to the suns in round 2... d'antoni/nash era suns, great teams
2006 - lost to the heat in the finals... made the finals & we all know what happened in this series
2007 - lost to the warriors in round 1... ok we know this one was bad
2008 - lost to the hornets in round 1... lmao uhh
2009 - lost to the nuggets in round 2... the one great melo team, don't remember this series but i'm sure the mavs could win. fine.
2010 - lost to the spurs in round 1... losing to the spurs, whatever
2011 - win the championship... ok let's remember they won the title
2012 - lost to the thunder in round 1.. the west starts shifting here to the KD era thunder + spurs revival teams. great teams. idk

and then from here they fall off as we know towards the end of dirk's career. it's a bit of a mixed bag no doubt, some bad losses, some acceptable ones, made the finals twice, won the title. the 2004-2010 stretch has some early losses... they also made the finals in there. the idea that this is some particularly objectionable stretch for an NBA franchise i just don't buy, i'm sorry. dirk is great but he wasn't magic johnson or larry bird something. a lot of players as great as him or better (barkley, malone, KG etc) did not win more titles than him

and as far as the luka era goes... luka is 23. that the mavs don't have everything quite lined up for him at this stage in his career is far from abnormal historically speaking in the NBA. let's see what happens over the next 3-4 years

agree! but im skeptical

they need another guy

interesting to see all those playoff wins/losses laid out like that. i do not remember a few of those, that 08 hornets team was good

mavs have all their draft picks from 2024-2030 and have no one besides luka set to make more than $20 million after this season and the cap is going up. they're set up well to make a big move whether it's thru a trade or FA or both. let's see how it plays out

yeah theyve got the ammo just need to nail it, wait for the next young(ish) star to shake loose

luka needs to start recruiting

another way you could look at the dirk era mavs historically is like... ok who were the great dynasty-esque teams in the west of the 2000s and early 2010s

duncan spurs... won a bunch of titles, they're clearly in a different tier than the dirk mavs
kobe lakers... won a bunch of titles w/ two diff eras of teams, also had some stinker teams, but we'll put them in a different tier as well

7 seconds or less suns... never made the finals
webber/vlade kings... never made the finals
KD/wesbtrook thunder... made the finals one time, no titles

the mavs fall neatly in between these two groups as a team that made the finals twice and won the title once. again i just don't think this is damning of them at all & actually speaks to the fact that they cleared hurdles other franchises did not

luka needs to start recruiting

― im a beacon of light (Spottie), Wednesday, November 9, 2022 12:40 PM (thirteen seconds ago)

i think a legitimate concern is that luka's style of play prob will make it hard for them to attract another star thru recruitment. i think the more likely path for them is using their picks to acquire a star & then using their cap space/first round picks they're not allowed to trade to get the high level role players you need to flesh out a roster

you know who would be amazing for the mavs and also maybe available is siakam

yeah that would be an ideal combo. if the wolves move on from KAT he and luka would be nearly unstoppable as an offensive combo but the defense aspect might be too bad to wanna do that

there's some wing guys like anunoby and jaylen brown who are gonna hit FA in the next few seasons for various reasons that would make tons of sense for them to target

they could be a KD team if he goes on the trade market for real. does brow get put out there? paul george? if the sixers go upside down and embiid wants out, suns and booker same thing. idk

luka + kat would be the GOAT whining to the refs team

theyd have to have three plus defenders to play kat and luka together

all those other pairings make sense. do those guys wanna play luka ball tho is the question

feel like they should not go for old guys like kd or brow, they gotta build for the long term

yeah but does luka want to wait?

just get siakam or kat

they simply need a second guy whos better than 'average role player' doesnt really matter who as long as they can play off ball

it would be good if theyre a good fit who doesnt like that

to their favor none of the teams in the west are particularly scary so the best player on the floor any given night or in the series thing might have more power.

their idea w/ the porzingis trade was for the second star who is a big who could play w/ luka in the pick and roll as a floor spacer. i think the issue they ran into was that talented big men who can space the floor don't necessarily want to *only* do that. also the bigs who are dynamic on offense esp as shooters and also can hold up on defense are few and far between and if they're star level players are gonna be really hard to acquire. i would love to see them learn from that and target a wing player or shooting guard instead and stick w/ the kleiber/wood kinda bigs who can do the pick and pop thing from a role player perspective.

i agree they should get a wing idk who though

siakam (big wing, best type of guy)

the problem with zinger more than anything was that he was bad because of injuries