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

regular take: jalen green kinda sucks
hot take: jabari smith is fine

jabari putting up good numbers this year, doesnt seem like hes gonna be a star tho

i thought they'd be like a 30-35 win team so they're doing good still

they prob are essentially a 35 win team but they banked some games with the hot start

spurs coming out and disrespecting dr kings legacy w this first quarter smdh

if i didnt know any better id assume trae young was auditioning for the spurs

pistons won (wizards)

drays back

but the warriors lose to the hospital grizzlies anyway

someone named "gg jackson" scored 23 off the bench for the grizz

q for the panel, who will be making bigger panic trade(s) this szn: gs, phx, lal, or atl?

when i watched the rockets last week i thought jalen green looked like he made a lot more sense playing off the ball, because he does have good size for a 2 guard. the issue is that he doesn’t really do anything well with the ball it’s not that different from an RJ barrett or de’andre hunter situation

xp tough call lakers are the most panic tradey team and situation but they dont have the assets to do that much and supposedly are refusing to trade reaves which is funny since they should be trying to trade him before the shine is totally off regardless, i guess if they trade for lavine that qualifies as panicking but its prob the best option available to them they cant just punt on lebrons final days, seems like the dubs have to make a move they could conceivably make a good trade like kuminga a first and cp3 for siakam their lux tax situation does complicate things tho, suns dont have anything to trade but you know they would if they could, atl is going to get back well less than they traded for murray but maybe they can pretend like they didnt by getting back a mediocre young player

reaves and a 1st for murray would be funny since trae and murray is just not a fit but it might be the best they can get

if i didnt know any better id assume trae young was auditioning for the spurs

― polyamerie "it's more than this 1 thing" (m bison), Monday, January 15, 2024 4:12 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

KOC (I know, I know) had a column today in which he proposed trae as a spurs target. I can see the argument but personally I would not want to be getting into the trae young business

trae just presents so many roster construction problems, you basically have to build your team around him, and even then he might not be good enough

having said that the trae webmy pick and roll would absolutely print money

i was gonna say if any player could cover for trae's defensive liabilities, wemby (with 3 plus defenders) would do it

that said im opposed to trae young on account of you can have too many lil stinkers, sochan is already developing that vibe and 2 is just rly pushing it

how many times now have we seen teams make dumb win-now trades with guys who are too young for it, it's a bad idea

yeah seriously if you have a good young team you need to be trying to keep the window open as long as possible

another thing with trae is that he is like the 15th best starting pg

there are a lot of good guards now

jokic-embiid bowl tonight, looks like both guys are playing

sick

the Athletic just did all the teams vs their preseason over under, Thunder and Wolves at 44.5 looking like some easy money now

there are a lot of good guards now

Shout out to Collin Sexton. Clearly the best extended run of his career, and he's been AWESOME since he entered the starting lineup for Utah in mid-December. Averaging 21 PPG and 4.6 APG in his last 20. 51/38/90 splits.

But moreover, has done so much of the little stuff.

— Sam Vecenie (@Sam_Vecenie) January 16, 2024

just for fun

shai
steph
hali
dame
fox
jamal murray
brunson
maxey
garland
trae
ja
kyrie
lamelo
derrick white
jrue

traes 10th there, tho i do think he worse than the three guys following him but theyre all penalized due to never playing and or being kyrie

career year guys — shai, fox, trae, maxey, brunson, halliburton, mitchell, bane, herro, coby white, derrick white, simons, sexton, bogdanovic, sharpe, suggs … i’m sure i’m missing some. this feels connected to the growing narrative that offense has gone overboard this season…

great time to put the ball in the hoop

its weird that this season is even more offensive than previous years which were also very offensive not sure what changed

the euro foul has been banned

big picture stuff is like

players are better at basketball skills
game officiated tighter
analytics saying what the best things to do are

but still not sure why were seeing a spike this year

the euro foul has been banned

― micah, Tuesday, January 16, 2024 2:39 PM (thirty-two seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah true thats gotta be at least part of it

it was banned last year tho right

oh yeah

oh pace too shouldve put pace in the list teams are playing faster getting more easy transition looks, tho its been pretty stable for the past six years https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_stats_per_game.html

curious if guards are hitting more pull up threes this year by volume and/or percentage. it feels like we’re at a point where the idea that a pull up three is one of the most important weapons a guard can have has been mainstream for long enough to maybe start showing up statistically across the league

feel like not that many guys shoot it effectively still its a very hard shot, tho maybe it has knock on effects that shred defenses could see it

also seeing hollinger write today that the worst teams this year are worse than ever and i’m wondering what everyone’s stats would look like if you filter out games against detroit, portland, washington, san antonio

cause you still have to guard it, there are a lot of guys who can shoot an effective pull up if they can just walk into an open shot xp self

i could definitely see increased training on harder threes having a knock on effect of making guys better at normal threes, and if there’s any group that has prob trained the most at extreme distance shooting i would imagine it’s guards & small ones specifically

having to consistently go over on pick and rolls to guard against pull up threes has got to be tough on defenses, not very long ago that approach was reserved for only a handful of guys

flip side of all this crazy offensive skill is its become hard to play defensive specialists you really need skilled guys who can shoot handle etc so thats hurt defenses too

none of it really explains why offense is spiking particularly this year tho

just spitballing here but i wonder if there’s a bit of a feedback loop where offense first guards who are not great at defense to begin with are also not expected to do much on defense because of everything they have to do on offense, and then you start getting two guys like that matched up in half the games every night & point of attack defense is barely a concern on either end

otm: https://defector.com/the-wizards-leave-you-nothing-to-root-for-but-the-other-guys

i'd completely forgotten that the wiz took the celtics to 7 games in the second round not that many years ago

kelly o game seven baby