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

mavs lost to the hornets lol

Luka and Kyrie are 3-7 as a duo.

The Mavs are currently out of the play in. pic.twitter.com/GybSVNmwlm

— StatMuse (@statmuse) March 25, 2023

honestly one of the better possible outcomes

lmao that all of the Big 3 Nets are on different teams now and Harden is the one with both the best team and injury situation

He's been out a couple games, but lol.

Also, who would have thought the Sixers actually sold high on Simmons?

besides every single person on ILX?

I didn't realize that was the prevailing view. I thought it was more that the Sixers overpaid for Harden.

i was trying to remember and i think youre right tho maybe it was more about the picks than giving up simmons idk our opinion of simmons simply must have been higher than it is now

I mean I still don't think the Sixers are going to win anything with Harden, but they clearly won that trade even with the picks, Curry, and Drummond. At least when taking into account what the Nets gave up to get Harden:

In the trade, the Nets send center Jarrett Allen and forward Taurean Prince to Cleveland, and guard Caris LeVert and forward Rodions Kurucs, as well as three first round draft picks (2022, 2024 and 2026) and four first round pick swaps (2021, 2023, 2025 and 2027) to Houston

But let's look on the bright side:

and Brooklyn acquires a 2024 second round draft pick from the Cavaliers to complete the deal.

I mean, Simmons is doing some heavy lifting in that second deal, lol.

I don't know if I've ever seen another professional athlete play at such a high level and then suddenly decide he didn't really want it

the picks were a 2023 first and a 2027 top 8 protected first, not exactly a haul

it was a really good trade and if the sixers can’t ever make it to the finals with him on the team no one will care

it would prob take two firsts for the nets to get off simmons contract let alone while getting back a player of harden’s caliber, even in this somewhat diminished state

but if they don’t win and he walks or wastes embiid’s prime years the harden era in philly won’t be about how they made a great trade to get him it will be about how they didn’t trade for someone else. remember that daryl morey went on the radio and said it was absurd to expect him to stoop to the level of trading simmons for a player as lowly as tyrese halliburton. we’ll see how that assessment looks 3-5 years from now

Embiid shoots a lot of free throws huh

Kyrie Irving on boos in Dallas: "So what? ... You obviously want to play well, but you it's only five people on the court that can play for Dallas Mavericks. If the fans wanna change places, then hey, be my guest. Got years of work ahead to be great enough to be on this level."

— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) March 25, 2023

“You get up here and see if you can do a better job” is not where you wanna be as an entertainer

pic.twitter.com/1ihvnnfNaq

— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) March 25, 2023

lol :(

Mavs in 11th now. Suns 3 Ls in a row now in 5th and tied w warriors

Oooof

Mavericks' Luka Doncic expressed that he doesn't feel the same joy on the court lately. He mentioned there's "a lot going on" beyond basketball. pic.twitter.com/tgpViirHEo

— Grant Afseth (@GrantAfseth) March 25, 2023

Seems somewhere between plausible and likely that Kyrie walks if the Mavs don’t win a playoff series, let alone don’t make it out of (or even into!) the play-in. They’re pretty fucked then in terms of maintaining a team that will keep Luka happy. Maybe shouldn’t dance with the devil when you actually have something to lose…

I'm not even asking for the Sixers to make the Finals with Harden. It's looking like they're going to have to beat one of the Bucks or Celtics in the second round just to make an ECF. They haven't shown they could beat one of them in a 7 game series, let alone both.

J0rdan, you're right, Morey didn't exactly cover himself with glory with the Simmons trade. My comments more about how diminished an asset Simmons was than how smart Morey was.

wheres kyrie gonna go if he doesnt resign with the mavs who has the cap space and desire to sign him

i feel like eventually teams will realize that having him on your team isnt good, evenutally

i was thinking about that this morning. with the lakers putting it out that they’re all set i have no idea where else he could go.

if lebron tells the lakers he wants kyrie, they’re getting kyrie

how do they get him tho

they basically have to bail on all the guys they acquired in season to get close

maybe sign and trade but fwiw lebron already said he wanted kyrie and the lakers did not get him so

yeah and then he got injured, going against lebrons wishes is bad karma

thats a real wake up call for the lakers

Kyrie laying down the "let's see you get out there and play" card, what a fuckin loser

Irving said. "I've been in New York City, so I know what that's like. You obviously want to play well, but it's only five people on the court that can play for the Dallas Mavericks. If the fans want to change places, then hey, be my guest. Got years of work ahead to be great enough to be on this level.

I think it would take me more than years of work

i think i could do it i havent played in a few years but just give me a couple weeks to get back in shape and im ready to go

is there any good rumor stuff out there about what’s going on w/luka outside of basketball?

Luka doncic takes legal action against mom in battle for trademark control https://t.co/dLbgYPPeT6 #trademarks

— TMchecks (@TMchecks) March 19, 2023

You obviously don't know what happened today. She was at the game today and tweeted a pic of the score when the mavs were down big. Hee might have had problems before but any problem can become bigger. His mom actively showing up at work to mess his mind shows what's happening

— Somesh Narayan (@NarayanSomesh) March 25, 2023

Wow that is sad

Rough vibes in mavland

Remember when the refs weren’t calling foul baiting for a couple months and all was well? Sad that stopped

The game we used to love no longer exists
pic.twitter.com/mbMoMpuFZQ

— Niko (@nikotaughtyou) March 25, 2023

thought this video was good theres a lot in there but one the thing that really stuck out for me is the increasing willingness of refs to reward offensive players for initiating contact, in the 80s that cp3 play wouldve never been called a defensive foul because he so clearly drove into hueter, where as now offensive players get calls for collisions in any situation where they have a right to the space unless they really put their shoulder into it or extend an arm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IPXSqOhykg

make defense legal again

They really need to divorce

Sources: The Portland Trail Blazers are leaning toward shutting down All-Star Damian Lillard for the season's final nine games. The franchise is seriously considering taking precautions as Lillard deals with calf injury and the team is 3.5 games out of Play-In Tournament race.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) March 25, 2023

blazers need to, god i don't know, basically reboot the franchise with new owners and employees and players, raze it to the ground

alternatively: win the draft lottery

i think dame rly does want to be the all-time greatest blazer, played start to finish, etc also who else is gonna pay this man $60m whe he's 37

this thing where the owner is not the person who bought the team and has enough money to not care about it prob isnt the best

when your local sports team is a portfolio asset for an inheritance billionaire with no conscience i agree this is not ideal

who else is gonna pay this man $60m whe he's 37

― slai gorgeous-alexander (m bison), Saturday, March 25, 2023 6:17 PM (thirty seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

someone wld put together a nice package for him this offseason hes just that good but the clock is def ticking hes one injury away from being untradable, maybe blazers shutting him down is an indication that theyre looking to move him who knows