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

lebron james

The blurred blue crowd is weird. It feels like the bubble.

it DOES feel like the bubble. that’s such a good call

lebron having the 2nd best shooting season of his career make him make sense

lebron james

we haven’t talked enough about how the trophy design in the paint of these IST courts is completely illegible and just adds a bunch of lines onto the basketball court that simply do not need to be there. the trophy is not even remotely cool or interesting looking and it’s already plastered over center court. maybe we can just leave the most important part of the playing surface as is…

the court designs are a complete travesty and easily the biggest miss of the IST

guess we shouldve expected this with zion and BI spending the night/day in vegas

they gonna get 50 pieced or what

lakers pacers interesting matchup the big team vs the fast team

i still think the team that scores more will win

jordan never won an IST lebron has a chance to solidify his status as the goat here

otm

interesting that the finals are between the teams with the 9th and 16th net rating so its not really even showcasing the teams playing the best in the early season like someone suggested it might upthread, it's just its own little world layered on top of the season like those codes where you read every first letter of a sentence

yeah, not an ideal outcome for the IST meaning anything at all

no i think it's cool

yeah i like it too tho would be better without the lakers

interesting that the finals are between the teams with the 9th and 16th net rating so its not really even showcasing the teams playing the best in the early season like someone suggested it might upthread, it's just its own little world layered on top of the season like those codes where you read every first letter of a sentence

― ciderpress, Friday, December 8, 2023 2:30 PM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

That was me – the IST quarterfinals featured basically the entire top-half of the league (I think OKC was the only top 10 net team that missed the cut). Up to the highest net-rated teams to win their games to advance though!

single elim changes everything, i imagine it will be like this every year.

fair enough i was just thinking of like, minnesota, orlando, and okc are teams that werent contenders last year but had a hot start and yet none of them were in

pels and pacers are that too though so we got some

will be interesting to see if some teams take it more seriously than others in year 2, didnt really get the sense that anyone was doing a higher level of prep than reg season prep this time, especially not for the group stage games

i think lebron absolutely wants another award to add to his stack

In fifteen years younger fans hearing about the IST will think: there was a what?

it would be really funny if the lakers lost

these pacers wins have felt like NCAA tournament wins in this way

The easiest way to explain why this Haliburton story has taken basketball by storm is it’s similar to an NCAA Tournament run by a dominant guard. Shabazz Napier, Steph at Davidson, etc.

Being able to bring that feeling to the NBA alone makes the In Season Tournament a success.

— Sam Vecenie (@Sam_Vecenie) December 8, 2023

yeah its been cool to hear the media fawning over a new name

they should add another IST in january/february

right i was already thinking during the pacers-celtics game… ok so how do we get more of these

idk if you can do multiples might ruin the novelty, but maybe something else

the fall cup and the winter cup

2023 IST *** THE FIRST ANNUAL THREAD FOR THE FAMOUS NBA IN-SEASON TOURNAMENT *** IST WE LIVE FOR IT

i agree. two seems right

yeah maybe idk it would ruin the nba treble tho

it would prob be a nightmare to schedule but i could see them doing a version in the second half of the season where the winner gets some version of a postseason birth

would be cool if there was some way to integrate IST win with getting to pick your opponent in the actual playoffs, or an automatic play-in slot if won by a team that isn't already there

yeah, not an ideal outcome for the IST meaning anything at all

― Heez, Friday, December 8, 2023 2:34 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

there's two great narratives happening simultaneously - the rise of hali and the pacers, and lebron sucker-punching father time. so unless the game tomorrow is ass it seems destined to have a nice lil bow wrapped around it and leave folks feeling like it was awesome. i guess it all depends on what it means for it to "mean" anything. by design it seems to straddle having significance in the broader nba season context, and its own unique novelty vibe. kinda feel like they walked that line just right.

Could you have 2 IST with winners guaranteed a play-in game?

seems like a pretty high likelihood that any ist winner will make at least the playin i personally dont love the idea of monkeying with playoff seeding but you could give them a top six spot or just some extra wins or something

this is the second straight game where the knicks’ opponent goes bananas from three. maybe not a coincidence…

good place to go bananas from

irradiate entire rooms
go bananas baboon

Wtf is wrong with this guy

https://Twitter.com/big_business_/status/1733337395586617417?s=20

tfw you’re in the zone and can’t get out

lol

ok man

Tom Thibodeau stated that he does not regret his decision to keep Jalen Brunson and the other starters in the game, despite being down by 12 points with only 20 seconds remaining, per @SbondyNBA

Brunson injured his ankle after the Celtics had already cleared most of their bench… pic.twitter.com/HkHU1IGO5C

— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) December 9, 2023

remember when d rose hurt his knee in a playoff game that was already over

many knicks fans in the comments of that tweet do lol

why is there no games tomorrow

people need a breather after the pure intensity of the IST

yeah i think its so the ist champ game teams dont have a potential b2b

also it just seems like the NBA would put “we support hamas” on its courts before it ever genuinely challenged an NFL sunday with its scheduling…