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

is orlando interesting now, finally?

― Clay, Wednesday, 22 November 2023

yes totally. their defense is insane. they run a unique scheme and generate heaps of turns. odd because their big rotation is kinda meh defensively but they make it work

they need more shooters so bad

xp proof that good defense is less about "find good defenders" than "have good schemes and ppl who buy into and play their role in the scheme"

they do have first team level defenders in suggs and isaac and other excellent defenders in f wagner, anthony black, fultz and g harris

they need more shooters so bad

― lag∞n, Thursday, 23 November 202

yes and i think their chosen defensive scheme (overhelping at the nails and forcing cheap threes) would be the most effective counter to their current junk offense

imo their defensive scheme provides a blueprint of sorts to counter the current offensive meta. if you have enough long enough defenders you can close off the paint and still be able to get back out and contest kickouts. you might give up a few more outside shots but centering the defense at the middle of the floor means less chance of going into scramble mode and fumbling it (which is i think the goal of motion offense)

Wendell’s been out for a while wonder if that’s been good or bad for them. Due back soon

There have been very few players I’ve seen this year make Capela completely irrelevant and Isaac was one of them

i only saw them play one game and it was vs the hawks so grain of salt and all but what i found interesting, as i sorta mentioned upthread, is that they were a very guard driven offense. you can find touches per game on nba.com and the leaderboard for the magic is

1. paolo - 68 touches per game
2. fultz - 58
3. wagner - 57
4. anthony - 56
5. suggs - 42

if you sort by "time of possession" and "average dribbles per touch" fultz & anthony rank ahead of everyone else. part of that is prob just endemic to point guard play, but they do play a style that doesn't align w/ the vision people have of this team, where the big forwards are the ball handlers and the guards are the spacers.

of course the logical response to all this is that their offensive rating stinks. the concept of a paolo-franz driven offense still makes the most sense, i think, but they're definitely leaning into an almost traditionalist style of basketball. i guess we'll see if that's some organizational vision or just a function of them having a pretty guard heavy roster (gary harris is also having a career shooting year for them)

the guards cant space since they cant shoot

def. but then they took anthony black 6 overall who is another guard who can't shoot so it does raise the question of whether their front office views the team in its fully formed fashion the same way everyone else seems to

are people super high on the magic now i mean they have some nice players but seems like theres a ways to go

well i think you'd have to say they've shown real proof of concept on defense so far. you look at their top guys and cole anthony is the only one who really projects as an offense only player. so to see the defensive potential on paper lining up w/ what's happening on the court (no 1 D rating) seems significant to some degree

but they have a bottom 4 offense among teams who are trying this year slash aren't playing dennis rodman 2.0 at PG slash don't have their best player on a 25 game suspension for waving guns around & unless you have jimmy butler on your team it's prob pretty hard to accomplish much w/ an offense at that level

yeah you cant have a backcourt that shoots that poorly its just not gonna work, suggs not panning out is pretty rough for them

i’m still optimistic about him

career 39/28/76 shooter at 43/35/84 this year. he’s ultimately prob a 6th man bcuz im not sure his shooting will improve to true starting SG levels. but i think he can play a legit role on a good team

it’s perhaps only a compliment in my head when i say that he strikes me as the (eventually) actually good version of the avery bradley/evan turner kinda archetype

yeah i mean i think hell stick but he looked good in college i thought he was gonna be making all star games

its funny looking at that draft the one guy who was picked in the same range as suggs who turned out to be obviously much better is the other guy they took

*after obvs

feels like they're where the cavs were a year or two ago? cavs still haven't turned the corner tho

well the cavs traded most of their future assets to bring an all star in which the magic haven’t done but might do

was listening to the peloton section of the hoop collective thxgiving pod and he mentioned suggs as a potential all defense candidate, noted he leads the league in steal rate

pelton… pelton. my phone autocorrecting to the name of a stationary bicycle coroirafion feels evil

corporation…

Suggs got that dawg in him. Marcus smart like impact seems like a good comp

forgot this was an espn game and sat down 15 mins too early

I feel like Al Horford gets described as "prideful" more than most ppl

not great Bucks!

celtics doing globetrotters stuff vs the bucks defense

sterling "scoot" henderson is back tonight after two and a half weeks of everyone saying he is bad!

More like Draymond Jokic the last couple games

Can’t believe they didn’t review that little dust up w him and suggs

Aw shucks, our man Scoot is just encountering some of that famous adversity that so many athletes must wrestle with and vanquish before they can rise up to meet their destined greatness. It's in the rulebook I think.

W T A F

This is crazy pic.twitter.com/Gah321gdfS

— Fame (@youFamousEnough) November 23, 2023

I mean if anyone’s earned the right it’s pop but i have definitely never seen anything like that

One of the lamest things I’ve ever seen haha

shades of ian mackaye yelling at people for moshing

cannot fault pop for protecting his guys, even when they're no longer his guys. you gonna shit on him for hugging demar too?

also ian was correct

i don't support booing, it's stupid, but pretending to be everyone's dad is also stupid

booing is fine imo! but booing a guy because *your team* traded him elsewhere is stupid

That’s def the whole story

cannot fault pop for protecting his guys, even when they're no longer his guys. you gonna shit on him for hugging demar too?

I mean this was mid free throw routine!

idk, serious red-asses do not tolerate fraternization

lol thats some shit from pop hes not done innovating

pop is primarying biden i think this is pretty transparent

reaching across the aisle

funny thing was the spurs crowd just booed harder after that

and like the spurs played a lil better afterwards, too

but i def gave cranky principal yelling at kids in an assembly at the auditorium kinda vibe