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

Tatum should simply play better if he wants it

or they could just give it to him

He’s only 20 still plenty of time

he is leading the league in points so he should get it

This really was funny to me

"I built a family over there."

Kevin Durant got emotional when reflecting on his time as a Brooklyn Net.

🎥 @SNYNets pic.twitter.com/D24B0KGQJh

— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) February 16, 2023

I don’t want to spam this thread with too much MVP debate in february but as amazing as tatum is…just a totally different cut of cloth compared to jokic, at least at this point in his career. and that’s no knock against him, in a normal year he’d be a serious candidate for MVP, we’re in a truly insane era

ill guess well just have to wait until the mvp award is awarded

can i get a sidebar on how k3vin became a nuggets fan

— Who's your #1 team:
the nuggets

— Why is that team your #1:
I grew up in upstate NY and had filial and geographical connections to syracuse college sports. I was 13 or so when the carmelo-led team won the NCAA title and ended up just following him to the nuggets as I didn’t really have an NBA team. I was really into those teams from melo’s early years but only really became an every-game-watching fanatic after he was traded and fell in love with the deep, fun team they put together (especially the 2013 nuggets, my favorite team ever)
— Who's your side-piece(s):
whichever team chris paul is playing on, mid-2010s spurs for aesthetic and manu reasons, and generally any team that is good and plays fast

— How, when, why you got into the NBA:
I was only a casual fan for most of my early life, watched the late jordan bulls and the shaq lakers, but probably started the league more closely once I started following the nuggets

this is well documented in ILH lore, but I grew up in upstate NY with parents who met in grad school in syracuse. I was a syracuse fan my whole childhood and after carmelo led syracuse to the national championship, I followed him to the nuggets and have been a fan of theirs since then

tyvm!

xp yes

fuck chris paul tho

he's no gerry mcnamara

ok now things have gone too far!

hahah I definitely still have a gerry mcnamara jersey in the closet at my dads house

mcnamara…josh pace…kueth duaney…hakim warrick…seems like a lifetime ago

you young pup

i saw billy owens score 53 for the carlisle thundering herd in the 1988 PIAA finals in hershey. a man-among-boys event only rivaled by mia hamm in college tbh

that’s sick

thats a lot of points for college

lol rudys feelings got hurt

The NBA is looking to avoid a ‘last picked’ situation in the NBA All-Star draft this year, per TNT

NBA All-Star captains will now pick reserve players first, then will pick the starters right after. pic.twitter.com/Brz8eZuc8X

— NBACentral (@TheNBACentral) February 17, 2023

weak

im actually surprised they didnt change it after the first one lol

but but but isn't the last reserve player still the last one picked?

that makes no sense, essentially they're saying "here's the least useful all star first!" isn't that even worse?

now the last picked starter is gonna be butt hurt

dont they know that having a last guy picked is part of the appeal

maybe dont start the corona virus next time

watching wembamyana en famille live and direct

he just sank two threes in a row, one of them the one-footed kind

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

i mean wembanyama fml

he just hit a long fade-away off the glass

boulogne-levallois down by 12 lol

enjoying hoops w the fam love to see it

future laker

Welcome @FredVanVleet! pic.twitter.com/MxFr5mU5Zu

— Klutch Sports Group (@KlutchSports) February 18, 2023

Yup

Chicago Bulls point guard Lonzo Ball is not running or cutting yet and the expectation is that the team will come out after the All-Star break saying that they are shutting Lonzo down for the season, per @KCJHoop on the Bulls Talk Podcast.

— Daniel Greenberg (@ChiSportUpdates) February 18, 2023

Westbrook in, why not

millions of why's but I would appreciate the content

Wait a sec. I heard that guy's a vampire.

Bulls might be the most depressing franchise going atm. All their young talent look like middling role players at best. All their best players don’t fit and aren’t gonna get better. Lonzos knee. Low on draft capital. guys they traded out look great on their new teams (Lauri, WCJ). Everyone looks miserable.

yepppppppppppp

This really might be as bad as it has ever been for the Bulls. No picks, no cap space, no commitment from the front office to consider *any* outside solution. At least Jim Boylen was funny.

— Ricky O'Donnell (@SBN_Ricky) February 16, 2023

going all in on this team looked bad when they did it and it turned out much worse

it’s pretty amazing

even crazier they were 14 games over .500 and first in the east for that one little stretch

they basically built their team around a bunch of guys nobody wanted that much, and they did it at a premium, not the smartest series of ideas

yeah prob wouldve ended up more of a second round team if it werent for bad injury luck xp

Yah they were kinda fun when lonzo was playing

i still have real doubts they were actually better than last year’s east final 4 (boston, miami, milwaukee, philly) but clearly there was something going on there that is miles from what they look like now

also find it a bit odd we still have no idea (afaik) whether the pelicans let lonzo walk in the first place over medical concerns & to what degree the bulls knew or should’ve known what they were getting into in that regard

bcuz the counter narrative on bulls twitter is that this was an excellent team that fell apart when their lynchpin role player suffered a weirdly catastrophic knee injury & you can’t fully fault their front office for how this played out. but that narrative falls apart if the pelicans sold them a lemon

yeah gotta think lonzos knee was already fucked