2023/24 NBA REGULAR SEASON THREAD "THANKING FOR WEMBANYAMA"

theyve really got it all, im predicting a lakers sweep of the nba playoffs

Yah they are mediocre with a lebron/brown ceiling. Which could be anything on any given night, neither the model of consistency any more.

They basically just retained all their guys and picked up some more ok 9/10 men. they were banking on Reaves making a leap, hasn’t happened yet. Everyone else is who they are and are a year older.

That harden TikTok is perfect

why take the open 3 when you can launch the ball into the 6th row

they were banking on Reaves making a leap, hasn’t happened yet

like half the nba prognosticotti thought he'd be an all-star this year lmao

hard to predict much for the Lakers, feels like even if everything goes right they'll still wind up laboring to get to 45 wins. whereas if things don't go right they may look like one of the worst teams in the league as they did pre-trade deadline last year. they haven't been fully healthy yet but I kinda doubt they ever will this year. also LeBron turns 39 this year so like what's the best case scenario there

fwiw I think this Rockets team might actually surprise a lot of people

Lmao Giannis got ejected for mean mugging and now the Bucks are gonna lose

coming into the year the west looked like a big blob of teams after denver. i think banking on lebron and brow to be healthy is foolish but i don't really begrudge ppl who thought one of the west finalist teams might be one of the 4 best teams in the conference. people were fawning over their offseason in a weird way tho

kelly oubre got a tech tonight for hanging on the rim and seemingly pointing at a ref while doing it, very odd, idk maybe he was pointing at someone else, still pretty weird, i wanted to get another look but no one has posted it to twitter cause that site is dead, big loss for nba highlights

They never looked dominant in any playoff games they won and then got swept.

not sure how i'm ending up as lakers guy here but they were the first western conference team in 10 years to beat the warriors in a playoff series. it's not like they just bumbled their way to the west finals...

whatever was going on with the jazz last year does not appear to be happening this year

the clippers had 8 turnovers in the fourth quarter in brooklyn tonight and also had one possession where they gave up three offensive rebounds, culminating in westbrook's man running in from the three point line for a put back dunk. kawhi and PG glared over at him with exasperated looks on their faces.

it was a bold experiment to put the two worst clutch players of their generation on the same team but sadly its not working out

jaime jaquez jr hit the dagger 3 to beat memphis tonight in what i have to assume was the first battle of JJJs in nba history

got a good look at memphis tonight. i think their issues right now are a. they only have like 4 good players b. two of those players are marcus smart and JJJ, who for as solid as they are you wouldn't really say "decision making" is one of the things either is bringing to the table. JJJ in particular -- for as much as people rag on KAT, JJJ isn't a lot better in terms of doing dumb shit, throwing his body around recklessly, fouling at inopportune times etc. i don't feel like you can rely on him to be the leader of a team and then the veteran presence is marcus smart (frequently doing dumb/reckless stuff on the basketball court)

look at the guys who played for them tonight

biyombo - 30 mins
kennard - 27 mins
aldama - 26 mins
zhaire - 21 mins
jacob gilyard - 15 mins
roddy - 13 mins

brutal

(to be clear, the guys who played for them around bane/smart/JJJ)

suns barely beat bulls in ot, kd takes 16 shots in 41 minutes, okay sure

That’s bad lol xp

you lose two starters in parity nba and youre in rough shape, not a lot of deep teams out there

Wiggins dunk the ball challenge

He did it!

nikola wtf was that man

that no goal tend call was costly. Good game

His post game summary LOL

that was a sick pass by cp3 to klay at the end

Klay was clearly… not ready

jaime jaquez jr hit the dagger 3 to beat memphis tonight in what i have to assume was the first battle of JJJs in nba history

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, November 8, 2023 10:41 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

how’s he been? he was one of the guys I was really hoping would fall to denver

pic.twitter.com/qe5UAWnahz

— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) November 9, 2023

jelly fam

oh my

ayton would never pull off that move because it can’t be done in 2k

Anthony Edwards crazy chasedown block pic.twitter.com/qDO3utLhJk

— Timberwolves Clips (@WolvesClips) November 9, 2023

was just looking at the West standings and I really wonder if Memphis is already done, like even if Ja comes back and everything works great, is the hole going to be too big to climb out of?

unless they start winning games asap yeah prob

Yah I think Memphis is done. Too many injuries and ja thing. Utah might be cooked too.

Sweet Edwards block! Almost brained himself on the backboard!

grizzlies will miss the nba playoffs

feels like at this point coming out of the non-Ja games best case scenario is like 8-17 or something

theres 12 teams in the hunt for the ten west playoff spots would be helpful to the grizz for a couple of them to drop out due to injury trades deciding to tank etc

there's currently two teams outside the west top 10 (memphis, lakers) that i could envision replacing two teams currently in the top 10 (houston, new orleans)

when you look at their schedule before ja comes back though, they still have to play: @clippers, @lakers, celtics, rockets 3x, suns 2x, wolves, mavs 2x, @okc, @pels ... not a lot of breathing room. there will be other teams in the west who lose 7 out of 8 but the grizz do need to start winning games

i think they'll be in the play in race to the end so the question for me is more whether they go and add more pieces to the team this year to try and reclaim contender status. because i think the ceiling for this current roster (w/ ja) is making it out of the play in and then losing in round 1. but the smart trade was clearly made w/ the belief that this is a top 2-3 team in the west that should be making the conference finals. that feels disconnected from reality currently

they were 5th in the league in SRS the past 2 years its not hard to see how they could have thought they were close esp before the ja suspension

the real issue is less missing ja than it is adams & clarke suffering long term injuries. they don’t have a real front line. jarren had 5 fouls to 4 rebounds last night. like

yeah being down three rotation guys is not tenable for almost any team in todays nba

chet holmgren has quietly been instantly good sad that they keep putting wemby on national tv but not him hes on a much more watchable team too

maybe dillon brooks wasnt the real problem after all...

spurs are unwatchable right now. im fine just watching wemby highlights.

the plight of only being 7 feet tall

their defense might end up being worse than the wizards

wems looks tired