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

they made a good coaching hire which helped a ton. basically everything else they’ve done has been a mess

great finish between the bucks and knicks. brunson put up 44 and made several really difficult shots on jrue. but jrue hit three huge shots himself and the knicks just couldn’t catch them

my favorite bulls thing was when they drafted curry and chandler in the same draft for some reason

no one who spelled eddy that way was ever going anywhere

I think it's just the cumulative effect of so many people going "just give us one more, I don't care if they never win again"

when i was watching the last dance i was slightly surprised to realize that oh yeah, jerry reinsdorf is still the owner of the bulls after 35 years and still coherent enough to give interviews and stuff. might be time for him to realize some capital gains.

today's nba factoid of the day is that chris duarte is only 15 months younger than myles turner

i did an investigation a while ago trying to figure out how he got so old it wasnt totally conclusive but it seemed like he did some extra high school when he moved from the dominican to usa

is it common knowledge that mike love is kevin love's uncle?

ya, it is a great knowledge tho

him and klay thompson were on the same little league team too, thats all the kevin love factoids i know

https://nbarankings.theringer.com/

#nbarank back

i just cant get behind the idea that the lakers having two top nine players. brow was on a heater but availability is important. and lebron is looking good of late but consistency is important.

spiritually yellow carding kevin for posting ringer nba content

hahaha they really do suck I agree but I’m a fiend for the content

top seven is is reasonable goes off the rails after that tho

siakam ranked ahead of jimmy butler…. serenity now…

they dock kawhi a bunch of spots for never playing then just put davis at 9 cause why not

tatum remains weirdly the most underrated top player in the league to me... i guess this list is ranking players for right this very second of the regular season but if you were drafting franchise players and have him lower than 3 overall in the league we don't see eye to eye

i'll put jokic to the side but the idea that embiid is better than tatum... sometimes i feel like i see a different world than other people... i took the blue pill...

trae young down below guys like sabonis and brandon ingram now

this right here says that the new york knicks don't have any of the nba's 50 best players. there must be some mistake!!

it was only like 14 hours ago that i watched him do things to jrue holiday that nobody does but it feels like brunson should be in the top 50

my feeling on tatum is that hes the most complete player in the league he can really do everything on both sides of the ball but that hes not as offensively dominant as the guys in front of him and ultimately having a guy who can single handedly shred the opposing defense to the point that it breaks down is just more valuable, however! you have to be able to do it in the playoffs too which everyone on that list has at times had trouble with so idk, i think id prob take tatum over embiid and durant in a playoff series and steph im kind of suspicious of just cause of his age and injury history

and yeah if were talking about a multi year stretch tatum would be higher cause hes still only 19

re: brunson, he prob has a better case for the top 50 than some of the second and third bananas listed ahead of him

if he's your number one guy, it's not ideal, but he's better-suited to be a number one guy than say jerami grant or mikal bridges

lamelo behind a bunch of role players is insane does the ringer even watch ball

trae young down below guys like sabonis and brandon ingram now

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, January 10, 2023 1:19 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

sabonis definitely having a more impactful season than trae currently, insofar as they're at all comparable

ingram though, lol

yeah i don't necessarily disagree, it's been a bad year for trae. just interesting to track

it’s just the average of the votes of four dudes so saying whether one guy is 6 or 7th is kind of splitting hairs, tho I do agree I’d take tatum over embiid for sure, but the pyramid gets pretty steep after that and it’d be tough to make a convincing argument for him over any of the top 5. if we’re doing the choosing a franchise player for the next 5 years thing then probably only giannis jokic and luka are ahead of him (among the guys ranked ahead of him on this list, who knows what ja or zion or wemby will look like in a couple of years)

well, i might disagree. but it's not surprising. KAT is down even further. i believe when espn did their rankings preseason both trae and KAT were in the top 15 (ahead of jimmy butler,,. you may be sensing a theme) xp

lamelo behind a bunch of role players is insane does the ringer even watch ball

― lag∞n, Tuesday, January 10, 2023 1:29 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

in their defense, the criteria is "a year-round, around-the-clock ranking of the players making the biggest impact on the league right now," and he's been hurt. so maybe he will rise as he plays more?

lol that sentence is ludicrous the ringer is an embarrassment truly

it’d be tough to make a convincing argument for him over any of the top 5

it would be pretty easy to make a case for tatum over KD or jokic, personally. he just destroyed KD in a playoff series 6 months ago and i'd rather have the superstar wing over the superstar big every time. i would point to team playoff success here, when comparing tatum and jokic. i think you could also make a pretty easy argument for tatum over luka! a verified two way superstar SF is just the most valuable thing you can have and i think sometimes that gets downplayed in these discussions

but this playoffs will tell us a lot. the expectations should be sky high for tatum, jokic, and embiid. assuming normal health around them tehy can't ask for anything more in terms of showcasing their abilities to carry a team to a title. giannis, KD, and luka are in slightly different situations w/ less than ideal rosters, to differing extents, compared to boston, denver, and philly. not sure there is anything to say about steph at this point, it's more of a macro historical convo w/ him

one thing about tatums defense in the context of the celtics is their top eight are all plus defenders which is pretty cool come playoff time since theres not really a weak link to hunt you have to settle for size mismatches

that's true. on the other hand, based on what we saw in the playoffs, if he and KD had played one on one i'm not sure KD would've been able to score. but maybe there's something about stamina and how much energy tatum has to burn over the course of a season or a game that allows him to play that level of defense for longer in a playoff game

its because hes 19

in all seriousness tatum played way too many minutes last season and was injured and exhausted by the playoffs, brown too, and theyre doing it again this year yay

lamelo behind a bunch of role players is insane does the ringer even watch ball

― lag∞n, Tuesday, January 10, 2023 11:29 AM (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lamelo might be the worst defender in the league, next to trae

this list just solidifies that the tier system is a much better way to look at this stuff

in all seriousness tatum played way too many minutes last season and was injured and exhausted by the playoffs, brown too, and theyre doing it again this year yay

― lag∞n, Tuesday, January 10, 2023 1:57 PM (forty-four seconds ago)

yeah tatum definitely seemed gassed by the end of the finals, i feel like maybe he admitted as much. the one thing about that tho is the way the seedings fell gave them as exhausting a second round series as you could possibly have. the heat by contrast barely needed to try in the first two rounds. even if we think the east is really strong again this year it should *probably* be easier on the celtics this time around assuming milwaukee can stay inside the top 3

just based on the way they’re playing now it seems like durant is having a slightly better year (he’s playing great defense this year too), though tatum is more durable and I definitely take the point that last years series can’t be forgotten. they’re close for sure

I know I’m a homer but to me comparing tatum favorably to jokic in terms of body of work is just silly and premature. the on/off stuff speaks for itself and in terms of team success a lot of that is as the term implies dependent on the rest of one’s team, jokic dragging a boobie gibson ass roster to 48 wins in the west last year was a miracle and while this is not necessarily a knock on tatum I’d be very interested to see how the celtics fared over the course of a whole season with brown and whoever their third best player is not playing. but ultimately we are talking about two great players and as we both know our perceptions of great players tends to depend heavily on team success, which is why we can settle this when the nuggets and celtics meet in the finals later this year :)

this list just solidifies that the tier system is a much better way to look at this stuff

― im a beacon of light (Spottie), Tuesday, January 10, 2023 2:01 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

tru

lamelo might be the worst defender in the league, next to trae

― im a beacon of light (Spottie), Tuesday, January 10, 2023 2:00 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

it doesnt matter rn tho he needs to be higher hes too good

i'm giving everyone a pass on their lamelo takes this year bcuz that situation is so fucked up i'm not sure how you're supposed to measure him as a player, plus he's been hurt. it feels like one of those things where ppl overhype a player early off potential and then are overly down on him when his trajectory isn't a rocket ship to the moon before coming back around when the situation gets better and he's matured as a player. feels kinda like what happened w/ shai the last few years. the idea of thinking of sports thru the lens of ranking players every day of the year is a relatively new (and probably bad) content farm era of culture way of looking at things

otm

the idea of thinking of sports thru the lens of ranking players every day of the year

"round the clock" even. ridiculous

i will say that i have liked some stuff i read by michael pina, who accounts for 25% of those rankings i guess

i'm totally cool w/ the idea that jokic is the most valuable regular season player in the NBA. if that's the parameters of the discussion i don't really have much ammo or even reason to dispute that, it's a completely legitimate POV. he is the better player than tatum thru that lens. it's when we start to talk about the parts after the regular season that i have to get off the bus. which is why i'm so excited for the playoffs this year

the cool thing about jokic is his game gets even better in the playoffs.