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

and it's entirely possible the whole rockets thing stems from ime and not FVV/brooks

perk is a hilarious vet to get as he was not only very bad at basketball but also a dumbass who prob had an unbearable vet schtick that no one listened to

keys to rockets success are prob something like
theyre not actually that good
sengun making the leap
fred and dillion are on court upgrades
cutting kevin porter jr
getting a good coach

constantly tinkering with the rotation and roles is probably whats actually bad. having a guy who is definitively your point guard prevents a lot of failed experiments or w/e

also just trying to be good, last year they were a bad team that was not trying to be good just letting jalen green and porter jr do whatever, now theyve got fred running pick and roll with sengun and its a lot more coherent, but also theyre already dropping off and will prob end up being an amount better than last year that makes sense as opposed to their holy shit is this team actually good start

especially with chet i think most every team would have signed a hulking center and played chet at 4 until he got stronger etc which is exactly what ppl thought they would do bcuz it seems prudent and standard. but they were like, no we're good & they were even more right than anyone would've thought. seems like they know what they're doing over there, in contrast to some other franchises

yeah this okc rebuild has been so good its crazy

sorry to bring up a specific podcast episode in a second thread in less than 10 minutes but there is a good thing from nate in the new hollinger & duncan orgs ranking podcast about OKC may have tweaked their approach to roster building in b/w the two eras that has helped them this time around. he mentions specifically the hiring of a dynamic coach and not a rigid babysitter type and also drafting more for basketball talent than freakish length/athleticism wings with no skill who they think they can develop (perhaps poku was just a pang of nostalgia hitting). i think you could prob throw the not trading for any vets thing in there too tho

keys to rockets success are prob something like
theyre not actually that good

― lag∞n, Friday, December 1, 2023 12:09 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lmao <3 lagoon

also the okc guys seem to have a certain level of maturity

― infinite wiggles (Spottie), Friday, December 1, 2023 1:55 PM (forty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

*kool aid man* chris paul set the tone for this franchise and SGA’s development

crisp all strikes again

idk havent noticed any of them grabbing guys nuts from behind

cp3 and shai are close from what I understand and SGA reveres him, to be clear he was probably gonna be awesome regardless

was gonna say… if that’s the case i think shai declined to internalize one of cp’s key lessons to basketball success…

also I just have to point out that troy vincent is an eagles legend

I don’t think it’s fully appreciated how bad of a player perk was, the fact that he’s like one of the faces of the industry now is pretty funny, like if bismack biyombo ended up being a prominent pundit or something

playing chet at center right away was a surprising and delightful decision which i hope influences other teams in the future.

durant ended him on twitter i have no idea how he came back from that xp

lol yes, "you played hard tho, champ"

there were a couple of seasons where he was a rebounding beast iirc and i liked him, classic east grinder type but yeah i have no doubt you guys are right in the big picture of things

i mean he was a solid role player big guy on a celtics team that didnt need any more from him than that

not that these are gospel by any means, but pretty much every adjusted plus-minus stat hates him. his EPM for his career:

boston: -3.3, -1.3, -2.2, +0.6, -0.6, -0.1
OKC: -3.5, -3.5, -2.8, -1.8
after that: -4.1, -4.7

those last few years in boston equate to solid rotation player, but he was an end of the bench caliber guy most of his career. I certainly remember haralabob trying to tell us this in the early nba twitter days haha

Sixers coach Nick Nurse said Joel Embiid is not playing tonight against the Celtics.

— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) December 1, 2023

sounds like maxey might not play either

come on

investigate the seventy sixers

maxey and batum out haha

wonder if they all woulda played if it was the I.S.T.

what they should do is rename the 'regular season' to 'in season tournament' and see if the players respond accordingly

i think this is the 15th straight time embiid was a gameday decision vs. the celtics

he is scared

https://i.imgur.com/LDuR3sH.png

rent free

in a game where embiid and maxey aren’t playing, jayson tatum just got ejected at the end of the third quarter

he must have said something bad because all three refs T’d him up at the same time, an innovation I have not seen before

great teamwork by the refs theyre really working hard tonight

not a great game you never want to see pat bev put up a career high 26

jamal and aaron out tonight, both day-to-day things as I understand it, but it’s a big day for “mike guys” (I’m a “mike guy”)

doc just said deandre jordan should be the first clippers to get his jersey retired and I agree

when the nuggets make every shot, they are tough to beat

A true formula for success most teams, but not all, should try.

clippers dont have any jerseys retired? rough, guess it stands to reason

jokic has 6-2-10 with no turnovers in the first half, playing his most effective personal style of basketball even if some posters only want him to score

any Clippers jersey retirement would feel sarcastic somehow

they should have a statue of Blake spilling water on the fans

its crazy that the suns have won any games considering their guys never play

https://i.imgur.com/VN4VSBX.png

all three still haven’t suited up in the same game

another case for nba jomboy

I wonder what Udoka told Bron to get himself ejected 😂😂😂pic.twitter.com/TCfmisiKuX

— Ahmed/The Ears/IG: BigBizTheGod 🇸🇴 (@big_business_) December 3, 2023

was thinking hes actually one of the foul baiters where i generally think ok he got fouled on that. doesnt seem as unnatural as others

― infinite wiggles (Spottie), Friday, 1 December 2023

i would dispute this

no games today then only IST games mon tues thurs sat then no games sun again, guess those no game suns are to avoid the ist teams playing back to backs, wed and fri have many normal games, which i guess they just scheduled once they found out who was in the knockout rounds

yeah weird scheduling since they cant do it ahead of time