battle of the hoops unicorns

still his potential as a two way player is xtremely tantalizing

he carries more of a load offensively than any of the other 3

why is he bad at all the other stuff then lol

i don't think he is personally

also he plays out of position

yeah that might have something to do with it, though he considers himself a PF and who knows whether he could really handle full center minutes at this stage of his career

you definitely can't ignore his potential and I grant that numbers aren't everything but...there aren't a whole lot of encouraging signs when you look you look at most of the publicly available stuff. and other than getting a lot of blocks I'm not aware of any of the defensive numbers being in love with him either

Kristaps Porzingis: ‘I’m tired. I’m tired. I’m so tired right now’ https://t.co/XifNxZiPry

— Kurt Helin (@basketballtalk) January 4, 2018

the team he's on is still such a trainwreck that i don't take much from some of his more questionable stats.

wow great timing

his assist and rebounding numbers are, plainly, atrocious. he's pretty elite at avoiding turnovers, tho this might be because he never passes

the jury is still out on him as an efficient scorer -- you can definitely make the case that a young player like him has to get buckets first and then figure out how to score efficiently. but he's a league average 3p shooter right now and is shooting less than 50% on twos, and his percentage of total FGA that are between 10ft and the 3pt line has increased from 31% last year to 44% this year

knicks shd cut bait and trade him to the celtics imho

he does need to learn how to pass....i think he would rebound more if he played more center and played less w/kanter.

i was dumbstruck to discover that the knicks have to give minutes to kanter, o'quinn, AND jo noah to the extent that hernangomez, who i really like, barely plays.

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2018/1/11/16877958/kristaps-porzingis-superstar-injury-history

yeah wld agree that injuries are the biggest threat to zinger superstardom, the health record of guys his height is not too good

maybe all the guys in this poll are bad actually, embiid is still as undisciplined as a rookie and the other two cant defend

simmons also is bad giannis is good tho

but it wld be good to get a look at the zinger on a functional/team org, seeing dirk on that list of seven footers who managed big minutes and usage makes me wonder if his goto elbow shot wasnt just employed so much cause it was effective but also cause it didnt use that much energy, zinger shd just practice that shot lol

from Lowes piece:

• Porzingis has hit half of his shots in three of his past 16 games. He doesn't rebound or pass enough; his go-to move is catching the ball 15 feet from the rim, whipping around without taking a dribble or scanning the court, and launching. When he's going badly, Porzingis almost looks like a rich man's Harrison Barnes -- a guy who gets buckets one-on-one in the middle of the court, but doesn't really elevate his team in doing so.

anybody got insider access? http://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/22665881/ranking-giannis-antetokounmpo-anthony-davis-25-best-nba-players-25

I voted KAT, who I predict is not going to be a consensus winner here due to his conspicuous defensive failings. otoh, I predict he will be extremely durable physically and have a long and very productive career, during which time, if he starts to get to the playoffs regularly, he'll improve his defense enough to not be a liability.

Embiid may surpass KAT in my esteem in the next few years, but his durability is open to doubt. As a Blazer fan, I've seen too many talented bigs go down in flames with shortened careers due to injury.

I get bad vibes from KAT

what kind of bad vibes?

Admittedly haven't seen a whole lot of him, but from what I have seen he strikes me as lacking qualities that old dudes like me value: heart, toughness, fire, things of that nature. I can't see building a champ-caliber team around him.

The unanswered question on KAT: is he Shaq-style unserious or Dwight-style unserious?

i was down on kat bigtime upthread for playing some of the worst defense ever but since then hes been totally better that fast improvement is heartening imho, on the flipside zingers stock is fn down exhaustion then injury does not bode well

yeah man zinger has dropped significantly.

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2018/3/23/17153784/giannis-antetokounmpo-nikola-jokic-unicorns-bucks-nuggets

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

i voted

it’s fuckin embiid btw

it’s fuckin embiid btw

yup

embiid prob wld win unanimously if not for the injury concerns

this is the minors tho the real poll is giannis v brow

brow is def above giannis atm

lot of ppl like giannis long term tho

simmons
embiid
giannis
brow

might make a good pt 2

hmmm now you have to make the poll thats the rules

ill wait to see who wins this one then bump them up to the bigs

eesh

Knicks owner James Dolan says Kristaps Porzingis may miss all of next season while he recovers from ACL surgery. 😱 https://t.co/LhYBNKqbcZ pic.twitter.com/aAs8qana1f

— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) April 19, 2018

wtf, complications or is just cos he's a giant? horrible news.

sounds like it cld just be dolan running his mouth tbh

“I’ve been told everything from December to him being out for the season, so I don’t know what to expect on that,” Dolan told the New York Post’s Larry Brooks this week. “But we can’t just sit on our ass while he’s away. We need to develop a team and then integrate him into it when he comes back.”

love when dolan gets more involved

he shd def take on the project of developing a team

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

battle of the hoops unicorns —2—

jokic last huh

I am shocked to think ilh may have failed to accurately predict the future

the thing u have to be able to do is project into the future

― lag∞n, Monday, December 25, 2017 3:28 PM (ten months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

told u but u dont listen

i definitely voted for jokic here even though there's no proof

Fun comparison!

printing this thread out and plastering it all over my walls

i definitely voted for jokic here even though there's no proof

― ciderpress, Sunday, October 28, 2018 11:30 PM (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink

btw because I started this thread no one is allowed to quote my post where I said the answer was embiid, that never happened

if we get jokic vs tatum in the finals it could end up being a really interesting data point in a larger positional value debate

even putting embiid's specific issues aside i think we just saw in this series why ppl think wings > bigs, generally speaking, given what tatum was able to do at the end of game 6 & his overall performance in game 7

i don't think that tatum necessarily showed that he's better than embiid in that series, tho he might be, just that he often shows (when he is on) why his archetype of player is the most sought after in the league, even if he also kinda leaves something to be desired when compared to, like, peak kawhi or whatever

i've thought since last playoffs that even tho he was not the best player in any series after round 1 i'd prob take tatum over any player in the league aside from giannis bcuz of the position he plays. but if jokic knocks everyone out including a boston team that would have the best ability of any team left to test him defensively, then he may be the true hoops unicorn of them all

tatum is a great player man but I mean, as you alluded to, he’s sort of an ersatz lebron/kawhi archetype you’re referring to. his specific value is in no small part thanks to playing on a very deep switchy team on which he happens to be the best player. imo…

I will wait a month or so (winky face) to post my giannis thoughts but the short version is he’s a big toe and a couple of really hot nights at the free throw line away from being perceived quite differently…

his specific value is in no small part thanks to playing on a very deep switchy team on which he happens to be the best player. imo…

he has a well built roster around him but his specific value is in being able to get a shot off against any player in the league at the end of a series deciding playoff game, and having the ability to make them. or perhaps more generally what we saw yesterday or in game 6 vs milwaukee last year where he is a very specific type of unguardable offensive fulcrum who also can't easily be exploited on defense bcuz he's pretty good at 6' 9"

I will wait a month or so (winky face) to post my giannis thoughts but the short version is he’s a big toe and a couple of really hot nights at the free throw line away from being perceived quite differently…

this is true although he's at a level where the staying power of one title will only last so long. he's probably out of the grace period now, quite frankly. the expectation for the next 2-3 years, regardless of what else happens w/ the bucks' roster, is that we'll see them in the finals again at least once at minimum. and if he doesn't win another one it will in all likelihood result in lots of ppl having more explicit conversations along the lines of what you just said about him. and look if jokic or tatum win it this year they'll be on the same clock too. that's the game. but certainly giannis getting the first has helped, and you could argue it was a funky title! the nets were hurt, the hawks were a paper tiger, all 4 bubble conference finals teams were evidently sapped of energy. so we'll see, lots of chapters still left to be written for these guys (except maybe embiid...)

did we ever determine whether jokic was the most impactful half court offensive player in the league

he was pretty impactful against markieff morris

sadly for us all the snarky revives of this thread lose their impact given that k3v reminded us that he voted for embiid :[ the honesty is very much appreciated tho

lol

hahaha

this thread would be your magnum opus if only you could delete that one double post in your moment of weakness

it’s fuckin embiid btw
― k3vin k., Wednesday, April 18, 2018 7:20 PM (three years ago) bookmarkflaglink

it’s fuckin embiid btw

― k3vin k., Wednesday, April 18, 2018 7:20 PM (three years ago) bookmarkflaglink

― Spottie, Thursday, November 18, 2021 5:22 PM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

it’s Shakespearean