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

clippers missing the playoffs and coughing up their pick to playoff team okc is kind of incredible?

jordan very otm all around. ja def good enough to go toe to toe with the best. but that org is already showing they wont pay to fill out the roster so i have a hard time taking them seriously. letting solid rotation players/winners like slomo, dillon, tyus and melton walk for nothing is just bad business.

banes contract kicks in next year going from 3M to 34M. worth it obv but its gonna be even harder to retain rotation level dudes in a small market that doesnt want to spend.

in other news the fully healthy lakers got 44 pieced by the 76ers

In other other news the fully healthy clippers got smacked by the nuggets sans Jokic Murray and Gordon. Deandre Jordan 21/13/5/2/1 reggie Jackson 35/5/13/2 amazing stuff

Embiid had 30/11/11 in 30 mins.

Sixers had an extremely fluky shooting game - Pat Bev and Marcus Morris shot a combined 8/13 from 3 - they will beat anyone when that happens.

i think the thing with ja in the playoffs is if he continues to be a not that good of a shooter it just makes him much easier to scheme against, play off him and have another guy lurking behind his defender, which doesnt mean he cant still succeed hes a great player but if he could shoot the whole thing would be a lot easier, and the non shooting is hard on his body since he has to do crazy drives all the time to be his best self

but that org is already showing they wont pay to fill out the roster so i have a hard time taking them seriously. letting solid rotation players/winners like slomo, dillon, tyus and melton walk for nothing is just bad business.

― infinite wiggles (Spottie), Tuesday, November 28, 2023 1:25 AM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

and yeah this is bad

yeah like lots of other teams the grizzlies would need a rock solid 1-7 or 1-8 rotation to make it deep in the playoffs and they’ve definitely been going backwards in that regard. if the player development was working they would look really smart and financially prudent, but currently all their recent draft picks kind of suck.

i think we’re also seeing jjj plateau a bit and where he lands is looking a little disappointing.

i'm not as convinced that there's some huge issue w/ ja's shot. his 3PT FG% in the playoffs the last 3 years has gone 32% -> 34% -> 42%. obv it's all small samples (he's taken 112 total threes in the playoffs) and the regular season 3PT% is all over the place so i'm not gonna say that trajectory should be taken as gospel. but we're not talking about a broken shot here or something. if he actually establishes himself as a 36-38% shooter from three in the playoffs, given the nature of most of his attempts, he will be hard to stop

i think the thing w/ him is just that the blatantly obvious defensive strategy is to go under a pick bcuz going over a pick on him makes no sense at all. but it's not like that's some foolproof plan to victory, again just referencing some of those big games from the last few years he can make you pay from back there. what level of consistency he can find feels like the crux of the whole situation. but i think you can say the same things about fox (career 32% 3PT) and shai (career 35% 3PT) at the very least... ant looks like he might be a more reliable three point shooter but also it's the same sorta deal of what else are you gonna do except go under and hope he misses

jas a pretty bad shooter basically teams dont even guard him on the line, whatever % hes shooting is all on looks a teams wouldnt dream of giving a good shooter or prob even a decent one

i dunno, maybe. if you couldn't give him open looks at 3 he would prob be the best offensive guard in the NBA.

starting from the 22 playoffs (the MIN, GS & LAL series) he's 30 of his last 81 from 3 (37%). maybe that's just a total fluke, i don't know. there's games where he's made 4, 5, 4 and 6 threes... could be blind luck. there's also ones where he's made 0 and 1 threes. a few makes or misses in either direction would skew the overall number. but the way he's performed in the playoffs isn't lining up w/ what you guys are describing it, so the argument is basically "i just don't believe in it." which is cool. totally could be right. i'm more open minded on this one

ja also has the stuff you can't teach, he can get by anyone, has made a number of big plays at the rim in the playoffs, getting shots at the end of games all that shit ppl fetishize about the nba. shooting can be learned or at least is so variance dependent that he can go on hot streaks that effectively make him a different player for a series

in other news the fully healthy lakers got 44 pieced by the 76ers

? They didn't have Vanderbilt or Reddish or Hachimura.

Not sayin' those guys are world-beaters of course

anyone still left on austin reeves island?

he averaged 15-5-6 on 50/36/86 shooting in november... you guys have a really weird thing w/ him that i don't quite understand. well, he is a white guy on the lakers so i guess i get it. but you guys are just off on this one, sorry to say

there's some stuff he needs to figure out role-wise, how he can play w/ lebron along w/ being the 6th man type role, he needs to get the scoring up closer to 20 ppg, not a perfect player etc but he isn't one of their problems

in other news the fully healthy lakers got 44 pieced by the 76ers
? They didn't have Vanderbilt or Reddish or Hachimura.

― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Tuesday, November 28, 2023 10:49 AM (forty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

meant the main guys (really just lebron and AD and our boy reeves) but i guess cam and rui are a couple of the main rotation guys my bad

Reaves also got trapped last night on the baseline by the ghosts of Pat Bev and Robert Covington. Sources say they took some of his lunch money, too.

Actually I think it was the sideline, but I like saying baseline.

we were promised more than 15-5-6

Fans always love an undrafted "energy guy" off the bench. Now that Austin Reaves is getting used and paid like a valued sixth man it's natural that he's getting more scrutiny and more criticism of his flaws, real or imagined. We'll know who he is at the end of this season, especially if the Lakers get into some playoff games.

i will continue to not know who he is because i will never watch the lakers

Reaves really benefits from Vanderbilt being out there. He's been getting targeted on D, which is why they resorted to playing Cam in the starting five. Cam was playing pretty well actually, but I think their best lineup has Vandy and Reeves in it.

he was also on team usa ahead of some notables

Anthony Davis over his last 10 games:

17 points
32 points
10 points
26 points
27 points
16 points
9 points
19 points
30 points
18 points

Is AD inconsistent? pic.twitter.com/7JZvxvcJbr

— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) November 28, 2023

the lakers have no pizzazz they need to get back to their showtime roots

free dangelo russell, its the only way

even with austin reaves, one of our most exciting young players, there is no feeling

btw huge in season tournament game tonight the celtics need to beat the bulls by 23 in order to move on to the knockout round

warriors vs kings is a big one too

The Warriors wrap up their In-Season Tournament schedule Tuesday against the Kings at Golden 1 Center. They can only advance to the quarterfinals with a win over Sacramento. Here’s how the Warriors can make it out of the group stage:

Warriors beat Kings; Thunder beat Timberwolves
The Warriors and Kings both would be 3-1, and Golden State would win the head-to-head In-Season Tournament tiebreaker over Sacramento.

Warriors beat Kings; Timberwolves beat Thunder
The Warriors, Kings, and Timberwolves all would be 3-1 with 1-1 head-to-head records against each other. The winner of Group C would go down to the next deciding tiebreaker in this order: point differential in group stage, total points scored in group stage, 2022-23 regular-season record and random drawing.

After three games, the Kings boast the best point differential among those three teams at plus-29, followed by the Warriors (plus-5) and Wolves (minus-3).

If the teams still are tied after point differential, it goes to total points scored in Group C play, which the Warriors lead with 360 points, followed by the Kings (358) and Timberwolves (332).

+ dray is back

i dont think thats how it works does it? first tiebreaker is the head to head game so theyve already lost the group to orlando they need the wild card

knicks heat and cavs are the other teams in play for the wild card, knicks are the highest at +18 and are playing the hornets which is not promising, if they blow out the hornets then celtics have to blow out the bulls by 18 more than that

also all 4 of those relevant games are happening at the same time

It's a success!

cuban is selling the mavs?? but retaining control? why in the world would you buy the mavs and the one thing you keep around is mark cuban lmao

billionaires absolutely love billionaires

guess if you just see it as an investment and dont want to bother with the basketball part, except that cuban controlling the basketball ruins its value as an investment as almost all buyers want to fuck with the basketball, feel like there must be more info that makes this make sense

really unfortunate that cuban isnt leaving our lives

in this case given that it’s the adelson family it’s not that shocking that they would look at the NBA purely as an investment vehicle

sounds like a pretty amazing deal for cuban tho... he gets all the benefits of selling an NBA team ($3 billion) without any of the downsides (no longer being in control of an NBA team)

al horford is leading the league in fg% defense

given that cuban can't own the team *forever* i'm curious what the exit ramps are for someone else to take over the team

btw huge in season tournament game tonight the celtics need to beat the bulls by 23 in order to move on to the knockout round

― lag∞n, Tuesday, November 28, 2023 5:42 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

up by 19 at the half the dream is alive

don't know if it's gonna happen for patrick williams

Patrick Williams goes at Al Horford eek pic.twitter.com/oJqa9lHmRf

— ✶ Ⓜ️𝕒𝕣𝕔𝕦𝕤 ▶️ ✶ (@_MarcusD3_) November 29, 2023

confirmed bust

ll and the roots doing a whole campaign for the in season tournament based around mama said knock you out yet they didnt record any custom nba specific lyrics kinda fucked up if you ask me

xp in 5 years we'll probably be saying he's a nice 8th man on the 65-win orlando magic but as far as star/starter, it's over

missing on a top five draft pick is so rough for a team