NBA / 21 / 22 / FG / FT / 3PM / TO / BL / STATS

KAT with 40 last night, can't wait until we trade this guy to the Knicks for Julius Randle

four of the top five offensive teams are bottom eleven in defense, two of them are bottom five

philly boston okc top ten in both

aka "the good teams of 23-24"

dunks and threes adjusted net rating has top five boston philly minny denver okc which are prob the five best teams or five of the best teams at least

bucks lurking at 7th, few other teams have the potential to get it together miami phx sac cleve, clippers are on the rise

big question for the bucks is can they trade patty c and two seconds for a guy who can defend guards and hit an open shot

right now theyre starting what has to be the worst defensive backcourt in the league and there are no obvious solutions except somehow getting a new guy even though theyve traded almost everything they can

would someone of say a saddiq bay quality be enough to plug the hole

After last night's debacle, the Pacers are surrendering 121.4 points per 100 possessions.

If that were to hold for a full season, it would be the worst defensive rating posted by a team in the last 28 years for which the NBA's advanced data is available.

— Caitlin Cooper (@C2_Cooper) December 19, 2023

New stat for kev to keep an eye on to rival the Ben Simmons one

Thanasis Antetokounmpo has more fouls than baskets in his 6-year career:

🧱 191 fouls
🧱 188 FGM pic.twitter.com/WqbulrYeDg

— BrickMuse (@BrickMuse) December 24, 2023

interesting list — lotta good teams at both poles, but all the paper tiger-y type teams (atlanta, dallas, indiana) up at the top. the cavs being no 1 in attempts but middle of the road in terms of efficiency prob explains their season

Most Moreyball attempts in the NBA this season: pic.twitter.com/tXuOHzsazB

— Sravan (@SravanNBA) December 23, 2023

Trae Young has posted his seventh consecutive game of at least 30 PTS and 10 AST.

That ties Oscar Robertson's NBA record for the longest such streak.

H/T @johnhollinger pic.twitter.com/AiPg8UswAM

— The Athletic NBA (@TheAthleticNBA) December 24, 2023

they just cant defend at all, same deal with indy and dallas

alt tho trae aside actually have a bunch of good defenders and im told a good coach idk what their deal is they should be able to play at least middling d but they cannot

if they had an average defense, which is something it seems like they should be able to do, theyd have a, fake math incoming, +5 point differential which would tie them with the denver nuggets

i guess the question we have to ask is trae so bad at defense that hes capable of sabotaging an entire team by himself

i’m finding them confusing anew after seeing them this week with trae on his oscar robertson streak bcuz when you watch them they are not putting many bad or even below average players on the floor in a vacuum (the end of their rotation is a bit dicey at the moment but that’s true for a lot of teams throughout the season). and yet they’ve got a bottom 10 record in the league after two straight years of exactly .500 basketball. they fixed the coach part… so now what? i don’t understand how this roster is supposed to meaningfully improve internally or thru making moves. they have an extra first this year from the kings but the spurs have their picks for the three years after next. murray and trae have trade value but not so much that you’re likely to acquire a difference maker in return that allows you to immediately reload. it feels to me like there has to be like a full changeover of this roster in some way for them to break into even the second tier of the east

they should be a second tier east team, getting jalen johnson back will help, but they just need to defend a little bit and theyll be dece, idgi

like you look at dallas and indy and theres just not a ton of defensive talent on their rosters, but thats not true of the hawks

it’s crazy they have a worse defensive rating than the pistons that should not be possible

their top 8 guys is 6 good defenders and two bad ones

maybe they need to trade bogdan and isolate trae as their only bad defender

they're just not a physical team on either end of the floor and have never been w/ trae there and what that amounts to is a bottom 5 defense and a top 5 offense but not one that is actually scary when going up against the best teams in the league, because those are the games where physicality really matters and the hawks don't have the ability to play that level of game. the hawks are a little brother team and i don't want to attribute that strictly to trae, but perhaps his playing style on both ends of the floor dictates that franchise and we see what follows. i'd like to think you could change the roster around him and become a team that could genuinely go toe to toe w/ the heat, celtics, bucks, sixers etc but maybe that isn't possible. if any team should be overpaying to have PJ tucker around it's them

yeah setting aside whether his personal style transfers to the team in some sort of cultural manner trae himself has trouble with physical teams in the offs, hes just very small

but is there some non vibes reason the rest of the team cant play more physical what is going on there

for the record i do think there has to be a trae vibes thing happening there, but id like to exhaust the non paranormal explanations too

the thing that would help trae with physical play is moving with out the damn ball

if you look at the trajectories of the knicks and hawks since their playoff series in 2021, the knicks kinda acquired the version of trae that is bigger, more physical, prob more fun to play with, prob a better tone setter on both ends of the court etc and along w other aspects of their roster/franchise can more so play at that physical level of basketball at the top of the league. there’s a hard ceiling on the knicks too so i don’t wanna overstate it but they’re def a tier or two above the hawks and overall are more respectable, their fans don’t loathe the team etc

yeah true knicks get after it brunson is strong and friendly

Everyone needs the strong and friendly guys

great type of guy

brunson is a great enough vibes guy to counteract the presence of negative vibes guys randle and rj

i feel like it’s partly vibes and partly functional (brunson can switch on D and not be completely steamrolled by any player weighing over 175 pounds)

my okc 50 wins prediction was supposed to be a stretch but now its gonna look like i was being boringly safe

yeah no one had chet being a superstar from his first game in the league

strength of sched can be overrated but seems like the celtics do have the opportunity to tcb for home court

Record:

Celtics: 22-6
Bucks: 22-7
Sixers: 20-8

Strength of Schedule:

Celtics: 1st
Bucks: 30th
Sixers: 26th

— Dan Greenberg (@StoolGreenie) December 23, 2023

celtics simply haven't played the pistons yet that's all that means

lol

check this out

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GCEbox1WoAAudyZ?format=jpg&name=medium

embiid rolling up to the kindergarten court

counselors vs campers

Luka
50-6-14-4-3
And just continues to own the suns flat out

aaron gordon so far out in front of all the other non big men in dunks

gordon 64
jaylen brown 38
ausar thompson 38
jayson tatum 37
lebron 34

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2024_shooting.html

24 points and 25 rebounds for drummond last night. capela and okongwu put up 24 points and 11 rebounds combined. in a related story the hawks lost to the bulls

43 for fox and 34 for sabonis last night on a combined 30-45 shooting. the rest of the team shot 15-48 combined, no other player scored more than 9 points, and in a related story the kings lost to the blazers

fox shot 7-15 from three which means the rest of the kings shot 3-27 from three. probably gonna be hard to win…

aaron gordon so far out in front of all the other non big men in dunks

gordon 64
jaylen brown 38
ausar thompson 38
jayson tatum 37
lebron 34

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2024_shooting.html

― lag∞n, Tuesday, December 26, 2023 12:00 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

gordon’s really rounded the corner after a shaky start to the season, jamal being out really messed with his head because teams just wouldn’t respect his jumper, but he’s been beasting lately. not sure he’s really a non-big tho, he plays the 4 and gets some backup 5 minutes too

yeah i mean same thing with tatum, is he a big tho, no hes a wing

lebron too, these are running around guys

Jokic joins Wilt Chamberlain as the only players with 3 triple-doubles on perfect shooting.

26-14-10 on 11/11 FG. https://t.co/5hnawTldb6 pic.twitter.com/gXfZQIdryv

— Adam Mares (@Adam_Mares) December 29, 2023