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

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2023/11/20/23968151/cade-cunningham-detroit-pistons-breakout-advanced-stats

getting strong 2020s evolved austin rivers vibes from cade

lol oh no

he strikes me as the NBA version of a rookie QB who is put on a terrible team with bad coaching and then everyone is like, well this guy sucks. meanwhile none of the WRs, OC etc would even get on the field for like 3/4ths of the league. idk. i read that ringer article and my takeaway was that the guy is repeatedly being put in a position to fail and subsequently has put inefficient stats

like, the whole jaden ivey pick was made with the understanding that scoring is not one of cade’s top skills & thus having a dynamic scoring guard next to him makes for a good fit. meanwhile, ivey is playing fewer mpg for them than alec burks and kevin knox. somehow this is not mentioned in the assessment of his play.

this part actually made me laugh out loud. this is the best we can come up with for “a line up geared towards cade cunningham’s success”

In his abbreviated sophomore campaign, Cunningham was just as inefficient despite playing most often with Bogdanovic, Ivey, Saddiq Bey, and Isaiah Stewart, all of whom can make a jump shot

yeah i still think cade would be good on a good team but being bad is uh bad

i dont put much stock in that small second season since he was experiencing an injury that ended the season, likewise hes currently coming back from missing almost a whole season, would be better if he was playing good tho

yeah it’s def not his fault he plays for a cursed franchise with an awful roster and the worst coach in the league…but a 21 year old sick athlete with his chops should ideally be making some shots

he’ll very likely end up being significantly better than he is now, but I think the takeaway that his projection should be revised away from a top guy seems reasonable

yeah seems pretty unlikely hell be an all nba level player at this point

idk they’ve voted julius randle all NBA second team twice i wouldn’t cross that one off the list just yet…

*a worthy all nba player

Cade Cunningham full highlights vs Team USA:

▫️ 11 PTS - 2 REB - 6 AST - 1 TO

▫️ 4/4 FG - 1/1 3P - 2/2 FT

The man didn't miss a single shot — DOMINANT.

🎥 via @HoopJab pic.twitter.com/9hrFHN4O5e

— Jack Kelly (@jack_kelly_313) August 5, 2023

zach lowe was saying that cade was really good in the last stretch of his rookie season called him a 75% luka or some such

i also think there's a disconnect that happens in the way people view the top of the draft through the lens of "is he an alpha dog no 1 scorer" with the reality that every team is looking to put two stars together to actually compete for a title

i think about this a lot in terms of embiid vs bam, in that embiid is the 30 ppg scorer every team would kill for yada yada meanwhile his entire career has been a sojourn to find a second superstar. you'd look at bam and say "well you still need a no 1" which is true but that's also true for embiid so who really has the edge? the fact of the matter is that the number of players who can just be the best player on a team and drag that team up a mountain... i think we overrate how common this is among even championship teams.

or to put it another way more directly related to cade -- cade is not the scorer that anthony edwards is. or that luka is. or that scottie barnes is, to pick someone from the same draft. but does anybody think those three guys are winning titles w/o second stars & great rosters around them?

so i agree w the ringer conclusion that cade might shade more towards the no 2 player on a team than the no 1 but... all teams with "number 1" player are still after a "number 2" player who is about as good as the number 1 player. so i'm not sure the pistons are in some sort of horrible quagmire aside from the fact that they are the pistons and have otherwise made a lot of really bad decisions and will prob continue to make them

definitely feel like if you pair cade up with competent wing shooting and a good high volume scorer at any other position, he makes a lot of sense. tough getting looks when hayes and thompson are the 2 and 3. stewart makes sense as a role-player, but he cant be your best 3-point threat. i dont get why hayes continues to start when ivey has some breakout potential still.

i dont get why hayes continues to start when ivey has some breakout potential still.

― oatly carmichael (m bison), Monday, November 20, 2023 2:49 PM (seventeen seconds ago)

because they hired a coach who appears to get off on breaking the spirits of young players, prob a great fit for this franchise

lol

xxxp this is a good pt, like how many "true" #1 guys are there in the league rn? like a 'put the ball in his hands and they can lead to playoff wins' + 'ride them to regular season success' kinda #1s. jokic, giannis, luka, steph, tatum, shai (too soon?), embiid (i'd argue yes), jimmy, bron and kd (maybe not anymore?), kawhi theoretically. maybe tyrese is getting in this convo soon. like not even half the league basically has That Guy.

*tyrese haliburton that is

is cade on a trajectory to be a top two guy on a championship team? i wouldnt rule it out but also i wouldnt bet on it, its a pretty high bar

also does he have that dog in him, so many questions

no dog mris released from nba combine, a shame rly bc ppl need to know

Pistons should keep building around Cade, Ausar and Duren. Be patient idk. Ivey too early to really tell but they absolutely have the wrong coach lol.

They’re gonna have to show signs of life this season at some point. And Cade gotta do better than 40/30 with a gastly assist/to ratio

side note: i wish i could erase the word "alpha" from sports discourse

so behind the times in the manosphere discourse, where are the sigma hoopers who just shoot and do not pass or talk to their teammates

kyrie is the top sigma baller obvs

btw funny thing about the term alpha male is it originated from the study of wolves, but they were looking at captive wolves whod been thrown together with out any say in the matter, when they looked in the wild they found that wolf packs were primarily family groups, meaning that another term for alpha male is... dad lol

among many social creatures the primary leaders are female

Pistons should keep building around Cade, Ausar and Duren.

they will have to build around a defensive identity in this case which i don't think is a bad thing, but you can already see the problems offensively if ausar and duren are two of your building blocks

and actually i do think cade's size is being underplayed in this discussion. basically every team w/ a dynamic but small point guard has a whole set of defensive & team building issues to deal w/ that won't be the case w/ cade because he is 6' 6". of course he has to be good enough for it to matter. but let's say jaden ivey actually stuck as the 2 guard, then you're looking at a line up where your smallest player is 6' 4". darius garland for example might be a better offensive player but cade's size gives his team the opportunity to be less handcuffed when looking at the rest of the roster, at least in theory

An early look at the NBA’s best and worst isolation scorers…

-Luka is a true outlier

-Edwards can still be even better

-Zion’s efficiency is way down

What catches your eye? pic.twitter.com/XOlZKBIrn0

— Kevin O'Connor (@KevinOConnorNBA) November 20, 2023

i also just heard on the hoop collective pod that ausar is 64 out of 64 among eligible rookies in plus minus so far this year. i think there may be some issue in detroit

everyone trying to jump on the what jumps out bandwagon

yeah usually what sounds out to me is my lack of understanding regarding the importance of any individual NBA scatter plot

these numbers are ridiculously low, 25 possessions! who cares

i also just heard on the hoop collective pod that ausar is 64 out of 64 among eligible rookies in plus minus so far this year. i think there may be some issue in detroit

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Monday, November 20, 2023 6:00 PM (twenty-five minutes ago)

raw plus minus sure, but he’s first among all non-chet rookies in EPM. he obv doesn’t have the offensive game (yet?) to be a primary or even secondary dude but he’s already established himself as a premier connector type guy. just needs some competent teammates

cam thomas being as prolific and effective an isolation scorer as paul george, giannis, and kyrie is very funny to me

tbf he can get some shots up, i noticed that as long ago as sometime last season

love how every tenth reply to that post is a spam ad for the same windshield snow removal device x dot com nice website

he is the new jamal crawford

he tortured me during the michigan/lsu sweet 16 game in 2021 by taking and making so many ridiculous shots and helping keep the game close. glad to know that he can get those shots up against anyone haha

the game in question

its funny how there are some guys who really understand the game and try to master it at a high level then there are others who are just weirdly good at scoring and just want to keep doing that

raw plus minus sure, but he’s first among all non-chet rookies in EPM. he obv doesn’t have the offensive game (yet?) to be a primary or even secondary dude but he’s already established himself as a premier connector type guy. just needs some competent teammates

― k3vin k., Monday, November 20, 2023 6:29 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago)

my point wasn't about ausar, it was about the pistons. and him being first in EPM (is this stat real?) but last in raw plus minus (aka what actually happened on the court) would seem to highlight said point

EPM (is this stat real?)

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Monday, November 20, 2023 7:00 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

its an estimation, rpm is the real one

lol look at how bad this is did brandon miller forget to jump

Jrue Holiday fechando a porta pro Brandon Miller 🤚🚫pic.twitter.com/kx4Vgl0JZe

— Matchup Brasil 🇧🇷🏀 (@MatchupBR) November 21, 2023

we’re making the same point I think jordan, the whole point of the adjusted plus minus stats is to adjust for the quality of teammates and opposition, EPM seems to think them being terrible is mostly not his fault which the eye test seems to support!

speaking of the pistons jokic just got ejected, nuggets are officially reeling, i’m sad

its funny how there are some guys who really understand the game and try to master it at a high level then there are others who are just weirdly good at scoring and just want to keep doing that

― lag∞n, Monday, November 20, 2023 6:57 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

to do a cross-sport analogy there have been some guys like this in baseball....keith foulke did not like the game of baseball but liked the idea of pitching and trying to get another guy out. obv it is a less destructive trait in baseball where you aren't asked to do every aspect of the game.

getting a guy out is pretty sweet

hell yeah

nuggets gut out a win in detroit with jamal out and jokic/malone both ejected in the first half