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

Pistons on a 6 game losing streak

6 losses arent cool you know whats cool 6 billion losses

as a Wolves fan I relate to the Wiggins angst

I mean I’d take the worst year of wolves Wiggins vs whatever he is right now

I’ve never seen anything like this Wiggins season. It’s not like oh he’s just missing shots it’s like oh uhh he actually can’t event catch a pass or dribble pull up without the ball slipping out of his hands and throwing it out of bounds. It’s like he’s playing with 3 broken fingers and vasoline on his hands out there. Baffling stuff.

Before he mysteriously left for half the season he was playing so well, add the playoff run and all star bid and it was like 1.5-2 seasons of quality play. I never worried about him, his effort was there 90% of the time and he was a reliable scorer and defender. This was who he was now. Contract went from overpaid to a seemingly team friendly signing. A genuine massive warriors culture win. And now…

I just wonder if he had a mental break over that absence or something. He’s so private I don’t think we’ll ever know

yeah seems like something like that just cant get his head in the game

for all the handwringing over what moves OKC should make, it seems pretty clear to me when you watch them that giddey just doesn’t make much sense there as a long term fit. he has to play off the ball a lot almost by definition and that just isn’t his skill set. they make it work anyway bcuz they’re so good and he has some ways to mitigate his deficiencies on offense but his skill set is just very ballhandler forward, and he’s not giving you a ton on defense. meanwhile cason wallace is pretty much perfect as the third guard who can play off either shai or j dub or w/ both of them. once you take the extension aspect into account too i just think breaking giddey down into a few role players with more complimentary role player skill sets just seems kinda obvious to me, if not inevitable

yeah his shooting has been better this year but still pretty low usage, amazing passing obvs but im not a huge fan, prob be better for him to go somewhere where he can get more touches anyway, he still has upside and theres a dece chance theyd be selling low but seems like the right thing to do

watched this breakdown of the end of celtics wolves, which is not that great tbh its a i guess "live breakdown" where hes just watching the game and talking about it rather than making and edited video, anyway watching ant seems like hes in a pretty typical point in his development for stars his age which is that hes got all the major stuff in place yr dribbling shooting etc and now needs to hone the subtler aspects of his game, in this game particularly the celtics were showing him a lot of attention late doubling shading switching and he was having some trouble with it, worst was dribbling right into the sideline trap in overtime and turning the ball over which lead to a celtics dagger three, but his passing out of double teams wasnt great either he just passed to the nearest guy every time which wasnt always the right play caused a turnover and a couple bad shots from that, doesnt seem like he can see the skip pass yet or at least wasnt last night, thought he was playing a little slow too letting the celtics really set up on him, stuff like that processing the game faster seeing the right plays etc will prob determine if he really maxes out his potential and becomes and mvp level guy, hes got plenty of time and is on the right trajectory just gotta put it all together, makes you appreciate what an advantage natural court vision geniuses like jokic and luka have, someone should figure out what theyre doing over in the balkans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96F5WlrEgYQ

Edwards went 0-for-5 with three turnovers to his two assists in the final eight minutes, his only points coming to tie the game in the closing seconds of regulation when he finally beat Brown off the dribble.

yeah i'm not a huge giddey fan either, just hard to be very valuable these days if the two main deficiencies in your game are shooting and defense

his shooting is on the right trajectory at least, tho his shot stll looks pretty bad and slow seems like he really only takes the most open of threes so not sure if hell ever get there, might not be a great scorer altogether, sort of a no defense ricky rubio if you will

the heat-okc game was fun last night... something i'm keeping in the back of my mind is that chet had a stretch early in the 4th where he was just dominant on both ends and in particular on defense really had bam spooked around the basket in ways you rarely see. but then it seemed like bam, largely out of pride, was like, "i can't keep getting punked by this rookie" and started to figure out ways to get to his spots, get fouls etc. it made me wonder if to some degree teams who see chet in the regular season are kinda just like "what the fuck" but over the course of a 7 game series where you can really lock in on a team and pick at stuff, and just generally get more used to your opponent, whether he will be exploited as a rookie center in the playoffs in ways that we haven't really seen in the regular season.

it was a great match up overall tho -- 23-9-2 w/ 3 blocks on 10-15 shooting for chet, 25-11-6 w/ 2 blocks on 9-16 shooting for bam

if playoff teams cant figure out how to exploit a rookie center who weighs 100 pounds then were all living in chet world for the next 15 years

that is a good point

Wolves came out of their rough 16 game schedule 9-7 and still first in the West, which I'd feel better about if they hadn't regressed in terms of some of their on-court habits and let some games go they could have won, still feels nuts to be nitpicking

lagoon - to your Ant comments, he's really erratic with decision making, sometimes you can see he knows what to do but it just goes out of his head sometimes, Finch has been in that classic coach "grumpy after wins" mode lately and says a lot of things addressing the Royal We that feel like they are really directed at Ant.

but i guess if i had to choose between hoping a player would develop the on-court skills that Ant has or hope a 22 year old gets less dumb about decisions I'll take the latter easy

maaaannn Klay is bumming me out this season, such a bad vibe I generally have liked him a lot

https://www.twitter.com/957thegame/status/1745305089815007287?s=20

yeah ant is in a great spot just needs to keep putting one foot in front of the other xp

asking a 22 year old to be the man on a good team particularly one without that much offensive depth is a lot

hits keep on coming for the griz, marcus was playing good too

Veteran Memphis Grizzlies guard Marcus Smart has suffered a severe right finger injury and will be sidelined for six weeks, the team announced Thursday.

hey cool theres a game on right now (in paris)

i put it there

eating a croissant watching nba like aruhruhruh

the nets are just very blah i dont get why they arent sellers right now. they have the type of players that almost every team would be interested in and would probably be willing to overpay for.

mikal, dfs, cam j, royce, lonnie all on good contracts

plus dinwiddies expiring 20M

can understanding wanting to keep mikal but yeah the rest of those guys should be on the market, one thing is they have no incentive to be bad since they traded all the picks for james harden

well recoup some of those picks!

does anyone they have besides mikal recoup a lottery pick tho

maybe Cam J or Claxton. but mikal is worth at least a couple

fwiw they did recoup many picks via trading kd and kyrie but theyre not theirs so tanking doesnt help, they could get firsts for a number of those guys to add to their stash then look to make a big trade later

maaaannn Klay is bumming me out this season, such a bad vibe I generally have liked him a lot

https://www.twitter.com/957thegame/status/1745305089815007287?s=20

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, January 11, 2024 10:16 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i think he's been chill, this is basically how he sounds in every presser. and one thing you can never accuse klay of is not caring. if anything, he gets in his own head cos he 'cares too much'. he was his normal self for the presser but just mad about the loss.

i also think its very lame the fans are booing them... leave that to philly fans.

bucks came to play

or at least giannis and portis did

36 point lead in the 2nd god damn

scheduled loss

back 2 back blues

celtics protected the home win streak, now this is a lower stakes game

38 is not many points at all i looked into it

ive seen way higher numbers

just got home from work. any close games to watch?

not at this time lol

wait around for the suns lakers disappointment bowl

damn TNT just switched to mavs/knicks

a nice tight 16 point contest

fairly close 17 point game

blazers getting doubled up by okc good times

THANASIS IS BACK 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/deuYPevMPH

— BrickMuse (@BrickMuse) January 12, 2024

good news is thanasis is getting some run!

77-139 is a truly insane score

scorigami