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

in retrospect that playoff series vs philly prob should've been a wake up call. philly almost choked it away but they manhandled the raptors for much of that series and that was not a particularly good philly team. it's prob a bad match up for them w/ embiid and all but van vleet was bad in that series, he looked small and overwhelmed. siakam is a good player but he's not putting you on his back and dragging you to the ECF.

yeah, it seems like they were waiting for one of their 6'8" chimera guys to turn into something really special and it hasn't happened. siakam is maybe the least exciting all-nba caliber player of his time.

you really cant just draft based on long arms alone

for a second it rly felt like toronto had figured something out, wonder if okc's all 6'11"+ lineups will suffer a similar fate, but i think sga kind of saves them there

they could desperately use a colin sexton type sixth man scorer

yeah their backcourt depth is rough

they need a superstar (kawhi). otm about them thinking one of their guys would develop into a top tier player. siakim would be a really great 2nd banana. seems weird to blow it up with a relatively young ~solid~ core but selling high on a few of them wouldnt be the worst thing

they could do any number of things but barnes and siakam on the same team is probably never going to make sense

barnes for bones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3fTRk2yEgU

kat is a few weeks past the high end of the range of being out for that injury and they said yesterday he's still out indefinitely. seems not good

yeah tim connelly was on our local sports talk drive time yesterday for an interview and said that it's just proven to be a trickier injury than they thought. he said they aren't worried about the long term but right now he can't go and so it's going to take as long as it takes.

def dont want a kd type of thing so its safe. the later he comes back tho the less chance i think theyll have of making any noise in the playoffs. they hadnt really figured out how to work as a team yet and it wont be enough time

is there not a general lebron thread on ILH? i posted to one recently but just realized its on ILE.

hes about to break the scoring record within a week or so.

so i’ve been told!

breaking records and things of that nature

lebron will never be as good as jerry stackhouse

Lebron is 30, this fuckery won't go on for much longer, thank god

— Draybron (@urklespaces) May 25, 2015

lord willin

who’s lebron

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y_cl3WIO6A

wolves/warriors headed to ot

one of the best wins of the year, down 14 at one point

the suns lose by 32 to the hawks in phoenix??

i checked league pass when that was the only game still going and didn't feel like i needed to see the 4th quarter once i saw the score. the hawks had 15 more made 3s than the suns.

he wld be so good on the griz

Chris Haynes: “Memphis doesn’t want New Orleans to get O.G and New Orleans doesn’t want Memphis to get O.G”

Bidding war 👀

(Via This League Uncut) pic.twitter.com/kUiG46O65p

— NBACentral (@TheNBACentral) February 2, 2023

man dillon brooks has gotten so many minutes for a replacement level player, what do they see in him

tough dude who gives them an edge. i think hed be better served as a 25 minute guy off the bench taking way less shots.

def

yeah it's easy to see why a team would love him

his 3 point shot has fallen off a cliff, needs to get that back to league avg to be a really effective player

in no way should he be third in shot attempts on the team. needs to switch with jjj
https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/MEM/2023.html#per_game::7

hes just really holding them down with those shooting #s no matter what else he does

fouls too much too

for sure a guy that can kill your team singlehandedly on any given night

looking at some of the publicly available advanced stat numbers (real plus minus, 538 raptor) and he still rates as a helpful player bcuz of his defense

if you classify him as a SF he’s still far above replacement level. if you wanna look for some actual replacement level wings the rest of memphis’ roster will give you a good selection

yeah he takes a ton of pressure off ja

i think i would hate him if i rooted for memphis bcuz he def does shoot too much & overall just seems like an annoying guy. but he's gonna check the best ball handler on other teams and is pretty good at it, basically by definition that kinda guy is valuable to each individual team in the league

the fact that he doesnt understand his ideal offensive role, low usage outlet guy, is troubling tho

obvs some parallels to marcus smart who had some of the worst shot selection ive ever seen when he came into the league but has since figured it out cause hes a smart player, brooks is kind of a dumb smart if you will

for this season

RPM

brooks - 1.47 (99th overall)
smart - 1.26 (105th overall)

538 raptor

brooks - 2.5 (T-79th overall)
smart - 2.6 (T-76th overall)

win shares per 48

brooks - .033 (176th overall)
smart - .101 (100th overall)

win shares hates brooks apparently but the other two stats would tell you they've basically been the same player this year. i think w/ these guys in particular since their value is so slanted towards defense there's a lot of noise w/ their numbers as far as these catch all stats go... they're certainly not gospel. i think most ppl would still rather take marcus bcuz he's a decidedly better offensive player. brooks is more of a wing on the other hand, can prob hold up better against true wing stars than marcus. but yeah, it's the same kinda guy

tbf those stats are worthless tho

would any team take two dillion brooks over marcus idk i wouldnt

tho tbf that considers the fact that brooks has not the ideal mental makeup

i don't think they're worthless, but they're more guideposts than anything. i think it's interesting to check your perceptions against those numbers. i think smart is the better player... brooks isn't bad though. again i wouldn't wanna root for him but at the end of the day that defense does matter. i would prob have two versions of dillon brooks than one marcus smart, yeah.

his three point shooting has gone in the tank but early in his career he was in the mid 30s and even this year he's still shooting about 80% from the line. maybe he'll find his shot again

can prob hold up better against true wing stars than marcus

― J0rdan S., Thursday, February 2, 2023 1:10 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

idk marcus is maybe the best player at guarding up in the league but i wouldnt want either of them on a leet wing other that switches or spot duty

brooks has 3 inches and 25 pounds on marcus, that has to matter to some degree, probably. or maybe not.

brooks would never make the pass that marcus made to tatum in game 1 of the nets series last year. the mental side of it does matter, brooks is a hot head and not in a good way most of the time. but a guy who regularly checks the best ball handler w/ the kind of intensity he brings to the game... i think every team is gonna love having that kinda guy around even if he has obvious warts to his game

yeah marcus is a very good playmaker, tho his lack of scoring hurts that somewhat, the benefits of brooks game are pretty easy to see but on the other hand it wouldnt be that hard to pick up a comparable better player, defensive specialist guard isnt a super hot type, brooks does have skills beyond that but at least right now hes not really applying them

and hes very clearly a weird vibes guy fwiw

teammates seem to like him. would be hard to see that team having the f u edge without him.

his three point shooting has gone in the tank but early in his career he was in the mid 30s and even this year he's still shooting about 80% from the line. maybe he'll find his shot again

― J0rdan S., Thursday, February 2, 2023 11:16 AM (thirty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

its really just shot selection, you watch them play and hes got at least 4-5 shots per game that leave you scratching your head. lots of weird floaters, contested threes. warriors basically let him hoist in the playoffs, think the grizz won a game cos he was hitting but you play those odds every time in 7 game series.