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

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

*it

it was also the first time in my life that i thought maybe pop should hang it up bc how distracted are you from the game that you have time to yell at your hometown fans razzing on kawhi fuckin leonard

Scott foster game in phx

Cp foster feud adds another layer

CP3 to Scott Foster: “You’re a bitch”. pic.twitter.com/5zD9JXnaqg

— John Voita (@DarthVoita) November 23, 2023

Absolutely deranged for Steve Kerr to just keep rolling with this bench lineup in a game that might actually matter and on a night where Klay was hot. This ending is absurd

I don’t really blame him honestly. He tried them back when they got it to 10 and it immediately ballooned to 17.

What’s up with Scoot?

he's bad

I don’t really blame him honestly. He tried them back when they got it to 10 and it immediately ballooned to 17.

funny thing was the spurs crowd just booed harder after that

― oatly carmichael (m bison), Wednesday, November 22, 2023 10:34 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Just sayin there’s no way Pop didn’t know this was gonna happen

Just chiming in late to agree with goon on Orlando. Not sure it’s really going anywhere special

Ah shit Middleton’s hurt again

brunson

Nuggets shoulda paid Bruce brown

Gary Payton jr is gonna be bragging to his kids, grandkids and great grandkids about this block. Wemby is 13" or 14" taller.

GP2 SWATTED WEMBY 😮 pic.twitter.com/Z2SLXt5rwC

— 95.7 The Game (@957thegame) November 25, 2023

lol no way are the Warriors gonna blow this

DEVIN BOOKER FADEAWAY 3 FOR THE LEAD ‼️

1.7 seconds remaining Knicks ball...

Suns-Knicks | Live on the NBA App
📲 https://t.co/1VIDFw6r0U pic.twitter.com/O77I2jielr

— NBA (@NBA) November 27, 2023

sick shot especially when you consider who he was on the court with

lol man booker is ice cold, amazing

grizzlies at 3-13, seems over...if ja comes back at 6-19 or something i don't know how much of a run you can really go on in the west this year

yeah they're done

ja fall from grace really is some shit

they are probably totally fucked, but even still you’d expect them to finish ahead of portland and utah, who are only 1 and 2 games ahead of them in the standings, respectively

if you clear those teams out, memphis would need to finish ahead of two of the following teams to get into the play in: clippers, pelicans, rockets, lakers, kings, mavs. (i’d prob consider the remaining teams — wolves, thunder, suns, nuggets — to be playoff locks.) it’s not impossible but it’s definitely unlikely. they will prob need a months long injury from one or two of those other teams

long term i think they’re probably ok — ja should be fine once he gets back on the court. they have 2 other really good young players. but i think a lesson they do have to take away from this season, even taking injury into account, is that their roster around those 3 guys isn’t as good as they thought

maybe ja is learning to shoot in his time off

yeah let’s hope not — oh wait you mean the other kind of shooting

ayy

he did shoot 41% from 3 (13-39) in round 1 last year

if he can do that all the time its good

he'd be the best player in the league

if he could get to the point where hes really hunting threes and hitting them yeah hed be a top guy

9 game losing streak vs. 13 game losing streak. it’s all come down to this. pic.twitter.com/4CJOTM92Li

— jeff (@DedicationHoops) November 27, 2023

appointment viewing for sure

long term i think they’re probably ok — ja should be fine once he gets back on the court. they have 2 other really good young players. but i think a lesson they do have to take away from this season, even taking injury into account, is that their roster around those 3 guys isn’t as good as they thought

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Monday, November 27, 2023 12:01 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I‘m pretty bearish on them long-term, they’re in a conference with several other ascendant teams and they don’t have a real 1A guy. starting next year they’ll probably be a perennial playoff team but as far as championship contention goes they’re never going to have the best player on the floor in a late-round playoff series, and they’re going to be paying ja as if he’s that guy

https://twittervx.com/BiasedSlightly/status/1729305452725367274

^ the other definition of "out of his mind shooting"

hahahaha what a dummy

I‘m pretty bearish on them long-term, they’re in a conference with several other ascendant teams and they don’t have a real 1A guy. starting next year they’ll probably be a perennial playoff team but as far as championship contention goes they’re never going to have the best player on the floor in a late-round playoff series, and they’re going to be paying ja as if he’s that guy

― k3vin k., Monday, November 27, 2023 5:41 PM (yesterday)

ja's playoff career averages are 27-7-9 on 45/35/76 shooting. he needs to up the efficiency/three shooting a bit but he's been a pretty great playoff performer given his age. he's been the best player in enough playoff games that i'm not ready to say he can't be the best player in a high level playoff series 3-5 years from now

i mean here are 3 games he played against the eventual champion warriors in the second round before getting hurt

game 1 - 34-9-10, 14-31 FG, 4-11 3PT, 2-3 FT, -1 in a 1 point loss
game 2 - 47-8-8, 15-31 FG, 5-12 3PT, 12-13, FT, +13 in a 5 point win
game 3 - 34-3-7, 13-21 FG, 4-7 3PT, 4-5, FT, -6 in a 30 point loss

and then he broke his wrist. he wasn't the best player in the series bcuz that was steph so i can't refute that aspect but these are incredibly good games vs the team that would win it all as the lead guy at the age of 22. he also had 3 steals in each game.

he had a 45-9-13 on 13-26 shooting game and a 31-10-7 on 13-26 shooting game vs the lakers in round 1 last year

if the argument is that ja is a hothead and you can't win a title w/ a guy like that as your best player & leader that's one thing but he has a pretty strong track record of legit playoff performances at a very young age. he can also get to the basket at the end of games & all that. the idea that you can just go under the pick & roll on him can get you burned in real playoff games, he's already shown.

i guess we'll see how it all plays out. i doubt we'll get a lot of info this year on ja as a playoff performer. so then you're looking to the following playoffs at which point those games against the warriors will be 3 years in the rearview. maybe he never gets that magic back etc. it's entirely possible. but the only guy in his age group w/ anywhere near this level of playoff performance so far is luka

the idea that ja can't be the best player in a playoff series gets back to the thing i was talking about recently about how every team needs 2 guys basically so this whole prism of "do you have the best guy on the floor" feels limiting unless you have like *literally* 1 or 2 guys in the league. so i'm not sure how compelling i find that argument. i'd argue the issue is just as much how good desmond bane and JJJ are then it is how good ja is. because ja was in all likelihood going to be a back to back all NBA player before the gun stuff. those other two guys are not at that level.

like let's project out the best players on some teams in the west 3-5 years from now

denver - jokic
dallas - luka
suns - booker
okc - shai
wolves - ant
kings - fox
spurs - wemby

the only guy on this list who i'm like "yeah he can just put the entire team on his back and win the title" is jokic. every other guy on this list luka included needs the "second star." i don't think anyone would say that ja is better than booker right now -- booker didn't win shit until chris paul showed up and now has a super team assembled around him in the hopes he can get back out of round 2. shai, edwards, ja, fox, luka are all in the same boat to me -- we could argue all day and night about who is better but it's very hard for me to look at ja's playoff track record vs these other guys and just say that there's no way he can be better than them in high level playoff series down the road. maybe you're just really down on ja's game, i dunno.

i think it's pretty interesting to look at ja-bane-JJJ vs shai-williams-chet. which trio do you like better? is it because you think shai is a lot better than ja, or bcuz chet is a lot better than JJJ? if OKC wins two or three titles and memphis wins none will it be because of the quality of their best player or the fact that memphis has swung and missed on a bunch of role player first round picks and OKC controls the most draft picks in NBA history?

i'd bet against ja winning a title bcuz most teams just don't. but to me memphis' issue is not the quality of its best player it's the rest of that roster & the assets the GM has already burned through acquiring players who aren't currently very good & don't project to be very good

well, i should clarify that obviously ja is a huge issue for memphis for off the court reasons and of course that may derail his career and the entire enterprise. but i don't sense that's the point being made here.

horrible loss at home by a fully healthy clippers team to denver w/o jokic or murray. good lord