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

they have done well developing players but i suspect that had a lot to do with the alltime coach who no longer works there

well, we'll see how green and hardy develop & if they end up w/ their pick this year how that plays out. the green and hardy developments obv have nothing to do w/ carlisle. this kinda circles back to our OG mavs arguments where ppl for some reason just seem unwilling to grant that the mavs developed a string of undrafted players/second round picks into above average role players at a rate that is far above that of the average team. of course, even that only gets you so far and returns us back to the main issue of missing badly on the big moves meant to take that role player nucleus over the top

I actually think the Hawks have done a really good job in the draft the last few years: okongwu, jalen Johnson, AJ griffin are all very good. Jalen will break out next year

you should follow more nba lol

idk im sure a lot of carlisle people and practices are still with the org will prob take a few years for it all to wash out, and green had a couple years with carlise, but its also prob fine to draw the line when he left who cares, i do think you should just admit defeat with the mavs arent a clown org at this point tho lol xp jordan

the mavs are heading directly towards rock bottom which is maybe the most valuable player in the league asking out just nothing is going right scandal plagued clown org run by shark tank guy with nike guy doing the day to day big swing for the fences trade for the most radioactive player in league has crashed and burned worse than the biggest skeptics thought bad coach reverting to form after riding the fumes of an alltime coach for a year guy they let walk lighting it up in another city hard to imagine them fucking up the having luka situation worse

― lag∞n, Tuesday, April 4, 2023 11:50 AM (thirty-one minutes ago)

i guess i'm just less panicked about most of this stuff than everyone else. harrison & kidd can be fired if it comes to that. the mavs are typically in the playoffs every year, i think ppl are downplaying the possibility that things more or less bounce back to normal here

Trae has been the biggest disappointment this year. Really off from season averages and very TO prone in the 4th. Quinn figuring out how to get Collins involved on a nightly basis would really go a long way. Otherwise they need to just give up on him. I think their ceiling is better than 2nd tier EC but I’m a homer

trae is just too small for todays nba unfortunately, i dont love this development but whatre you gonna do

just being in the playoffs isnt enough when you have a perennial mvp candidate, also this season is a very bad sign falling to the lottery absolutely shouldnt happen xp

the way i would put it is this -- the mavs are a volatile franchise right now & part of volatility means the possibility of extreme outcomes on either end of the spectrum. after carlisle left everyone was predicting doom and then they made it to the west finals, and now they're out of the playoffs & perhaps even worse than the doom that was predicted initially. that's an insane swing & i think there is more of a chance that it wildly pings back in the upward direction bcuz they have one of the best players of all time on their team

the west finals run last year was pretty flukey they were in quality a second round team, not close to contention

lukas whole thing needs to be examined too, being out of shape, playing awful d, doing absolutely nothing off the ball, these are not the habits of someone who wants stay on top, the heliocentric style is a huge trap too which is on him and the org

there was certainly some fluky elements to it, i also think the blueprint they used to get there was very basic and is repeatable even given their current situation. and frankly if they were in the east this would be a moot discussion but given the state of the west i don't think it can be ruled out that they get back there as early as next season & that goes for what... 8 or 9 teams in the conference?

I actually think the Hawks have done a really good job in the draft the last few years: okongwu, jalen Johnson, AJ griffin are all very good. Jalen will break out next year

― Heez, Tuesday, April 4, 2023 12:38 PM (seven minutes ago)bookmarkflaglink

the trae era hawks have this weird thing where they have objectively drafted well -- collins, heurter, okongwu, griffin etc -- except w/ those first two players & prob okongwu too i feel like they left a lot on the table in terms of development. those guys proved themselves to be rotation players very quickly and then never (or haven't) gotten better, w/ the exception of heurter who went to a different team & saw all his stats tick up

it is pretty funny how much luka's career is mirroring trae's now but whereas i have a hard time seeing the path for the hawks to get back to the finals in the next three seasons, i don't feel the same about luka. and that just boils down to the differences between those two players, for me

back to the conference finals, obv

its not impossible that the mavs get back to being a decent to good team but theyve got a lot working against them now theyre pretty fucked up id rate a luka trade demand way ahead of another western conf finals appearance

I judge opposing nba coaches on how well they take advantage of Trae’s size. It’s kind of surprising how many teams do not do this. Also I think ppl really underestimate how good of an offensive player trae is

would just like to point out that the "state of the west" is extremely temporary, it's still the stronger conference and will be going forward imo. besides giannis, embiid, tatum, and maybe jimmy (whose team is going nowhere) all of the top 12-15 players in the league play in the west, the best 2 teams (for now) are probably in the east but seeds 4-11 in the west are considerably stronger than the east, this was an injury heavy year which of course is something you can't completely rule out continuing but my money would be on the west being overall stronger for the forseeable future

that all may be true but i'm not sure how it refutes the notion that there is a logjam of elite teams at the top of the east but not at the top of the west thus leaving the west open to be won by a larger group of teams

I think projecting forward 2-3 years especially the west is going to be completely loaded at the top. nuggets and grizzlies should be set to continue competing for a title through that window. suns depending on how they replace cp3 should still be contending. the thunder have serious juggernaut potential. you obv can't rule out the lakers, clippers, or warriors given their chances in the free agent market. meanwhile in the east the bucks, unless they bring in a major free agent, are likely about to start their downswing. seems at least as likely that the mavs are battling for a play-in spot in the next few years as they are to be contending for a chance to make the finals

its hard to predict too far out in todays wild nba

seems at least as likely that the mavs are battling for a play-in spot in the next few years as they are to be contending for a chance to make the finals

― k3vin k., Tuesday, April 4, 2023 1:11 PM (sixteen minutes ago)

i think this is probably true but pairs w/ the notion that the west is going to be uniquely open to this sorta volatility the next few years

what the nuggets look like in the playoffs will go a long way towards projecting the strength of the west over the next few seasons

it’s going to sound like I’m hedging but the west playoffs this year are probably going to be a bloodbath and I doubt it will portend anything long-term, there are just too many teams in the mid seeds who are actually top 4 seeds in a normal season

Luka Doncic mentioned that Mavs haven't been able to recreate chemistry from last season. How much have they missed Jalen Brunson?

"A lot," Doncic said with a pained smile. "I mean, amazing guy, amazing player, for sure."

— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) April 4, 2023

lukas whole thing needs to be examined too, being out of shape, playing awful d, doing absolutely nothing off the ball, these are not the habits of someone who wants stay on top, the heliocentric style is a huge trap too which is on him and the org

― lag∞n, Tuesday, April 4, 2023 9:51 AM (thirty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm. he's sill not top tier to me for those reasons. he's also just extremely pouty and mopey, doesn't seem like a player that other stars want to team up with.

hes also got fam stuff going on and whatever else has him down. hopefully he can get past that and find some joy in the game.

Volatility is deeply embedded in the contemporary NBA, which is fine with me. More messy drama never hurts. I wish they'd drop the love affair with online betting parlors, tho. Inviting that kind of potential for corruption and chaos is the wrong kind of messy drama.

yeah its also just socially/vibes bad eg that guy yelling at brad beal over a bet the other day

he's also just extremely pouty and mopey, doesn't seem like a player that other stars want to team up with.

― four square ups... no punches thrown (Spottie), Tuesday, April 4, 2023 1:43 PM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeh the body language etc is pretty much as bad as youll see from a star player

The Morant situation really stained the season for me. They were supposed to be the fun team

the mavs situation is orders of magnitude worse now than it was a year ago. who is their third best player?

Could be Jason Kidd

lol

the kings are gonna be a 50 win team this year w/ the no 1 offense and no 26 defense by rating. w/ some slight changes to the supporting cast or just some better shooting i could pretty easily see next year's mavs putting together a similar combo. i wouldn't expect 50 wins but again i think the formula for them to get back into the 4-6 range is not very far fetched. it doesn't solve the larger longer term issues but still

the kings have good players, a good coach and good vibes... but theyve also gotten at least 70 games from all their main rotation dudes.

yeah the kings have had a really nice season but it sort of seems like they've already hit their ceiling

being bad at defense while having the very best offense just doesnt seem like a great way to do things imho

Kings have a lot of players who can go off, Mavs seem like they're gonna look for Luka to do insane things every night. like the thing with the Bucks is you don't need a crazy game from Giannis to win, and it seems the guys on the Mavs who could have big nights here and there all got traded away

xp it's definitely not a recipe for playoff success. i'm just saying that for as much talk as there is/is gonna be about the mavs being in a ditch, the path for them getting back into the thick of the west playoffs next season is not very complicated

they just need to add an all star and like 4 solid rotation players lol. if kyrie walks for nothing they are really screwed.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/contracts/DAL.html
rumors swirling in mavs land that they ddint play wood all season so they can sign him to a cheap contract and while that sounds like nonsense, it also sounds like something the mavs would do lol

xp it's definitely not a recipe for playoff success. i'm just saying that for as much talk as there is/is gonna be about the mavs being in a ditch, the path for them getting back into the thick of the west playoffs next season is not very complicated

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, April 4, 2023 5:46 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

we are going in circles, but the point I was trying to make is that the kings being a 3 seed is an aberration and not exactly a recipe you want to follow. it is not a given that the suns best role player holds out, wiggins’ dad dies again, ja gets suspended, lebron/kawhi/AD all play half the season and zion missing the whole season (ok maybe those last ones are in play)… we’re looking at the western conference getting considerably stronger next season, so simply retooling around luka and whatever is left is not going to be a great bet to be competitive next year

if you go back and look at the last decade, if you have a top 5 off rating you're a pretty great bet to be a solid playoff team at worst. now, maybe the mavs w/ luka & kyrie fall more into the bucket of the hawks & blazers who can never overcome the defensive shortcomings regardless the quality of the offense. it's tempting to point to how they've played since the trade and say "well duh that's what would happen" but the mavs are only ~no 20 in off rating since kyrie arrived. which is obv an issue in its own right but if they had a full offseason + season i'd expect them to be way closer to the top 5 which would potentially put them w/in striking distance of making some noise in the offs depending on how the match ups fell

all that stuff about how the west fell on hard times this year.... meh

hard to imagine Kyrie playing more than 50 games a season at this point though

looking at some individual net rating stuff for the mavs this season

dwight powell +5.9
kyrie irving +5.7
tim hardaway jr +3.3
josh green +2.6
luka doncic +1.8
dorian finney smith +0.4
reggie bullock -0.9
christian wood -1.2
jaden hardy -2.0
spencer dinwiddie -2.1
maxi kleber -2.8
javale mcgee -9.0

(god i hate that mcgee signing so much lmao)

here are the mavs top rated 3 man groups this year involving any sort of real minutes

doncic-hardaway-green +2.8
irving-bullock-hardaway +2.8
doncic-green-wood +2.7
doncic-hardaway-powell +2.4
irving-green-powell +2.3
doncic-DFS-powell +2.2
green-bullock-powell +2.2
doncic-dinwiddie-powell +2.0
hardaway-green-wood +2.0

if you flip to sort by negative you will see the name "C. Wood" quiiiiiite often

if you break it down to top 2 man line ups

irving-hardaway jr +6.1
doncic-hardaway +3.6
irving-powell +2.5
doncic-powell +2.3
doncic-green +2.3
irving-doncic +2.2

anyway i'm sure there's noise involved here but i see a lot of luka, kyrie, hardaway, green & powell here which is a good sign given that those guys are all still on the team. i do think you can see the bones of a better team here between those guys, hardy, kleber (healthy). i assume wood won't be back & bullock is an expiring who could prob be moved. dinwiddie is gone. javale i assume will barely play. they need to find a few more good rotation players if kyrie comes back. more than that obv if he doesn't. but i still believe the overall structure of luka + spacing + mobile bigs who don't want the ball can get you right in the mix

my main takeaway after looking at all these numbers is that the mavs should run very far and very fast away from christian wood

mavs 5 worst three man line ups this year

hardaway-wright-wood -4.7
holiday-kleber-wood -3.7
bullock-wright-wood -3.7
doncic-holiday-wood -3.6
doncic-green-wood -3.5

here are the mavs top rated 3 man groups this year involving any sort of real minutes

doncic-hardaway-green +2.8
irving-bullock-hardaway +2.8
doncic-green-wood +2.7
doncic-hardaway-powell +2.4
irving-green-powell +2.3
doncic-DFS-powell +2.2
green-bullock-powell +2.2
doncic-dinwiddie-powell +2.0
hardaway-green-wood +2.0

lol, not a single one includes doncic AND irving. That seems bad for their prospects going forward.