( ( ( ( ( nba bubble ball 2020 ) ) ) ) )

are jamal murray and gary harris playing in the bubbble?

Murray has a sore hammy and Harris is in covid quarantine of some kind

Ah ok

Brandon Ingram is probably the MVP of the 2020 “he’s good now” team. Who are the other guys?

Isaac was on this team RIP

the aforementioned tj warren

TJ was already good imo. But now he’s a top 40 player

I feel like a bunch of guys went from kinda bad to clearly good this year

SGA and ja are both tall guards who can shoot and are really difficult to guard downhill esp when they both get to the rim. ja is obviously more explosive and SGA more floater-y, but SGA can be dominant in the same way around the basket

looked it up and ja is listed as 6'3" which kinda blew my mind. thought he was 6'5" at least, not the same height as curry.

yeah sga def a finesse dude

jas got a lot higher ceiling than sga because of his explosiveness imo

Ja is more of a genius. SGA more of a craftsman.

well said

It’s very hard for me to imagine Zion having a 10 year career in the nba

jas got a lot higher ceiling than sga because of his explosiveness imo

― lag∞n, Monday, August 3, 2020 8:30 PM (thirty-two minutes ago)

prob but conversely means ja prob has a better shot at a longer career

It’s very hard for me to imagine Zion having a 10 year career in the nba

― Matt Armstrong, Monday, August 3, 2020 8:59 PM (five minutes ago)

shaq played almost 20 years i think zion can pull off 10

i meant SGA obv xp **

Shaq was miraculous. Unique.

Shaq also didn’t walk and run like a nose tackle

joel embiid with a robust 9 points in the first half against a team that has one guy with any sort of chance of guarding him

Shaq was miraculous. Unique.

― Matt Armstrong, Monday, August 3, 2020 9:14 PM (thirty-two seconds ago)

how do those two words not also apply to zion

I hope Zion makes it work but he showed up out of shape after 4 months of quarantine, moves like no other player in nba history etc

Shaq putting on all that weight and being able to carry it for 10 years in the nba is exceptional. Will Zion be able to do it? I highly doubt it

from a body composition perspective, young shaq was light years ahead of zion iirc

Young Shaq had a great build. Then he went to LA and put on a ton of weight and somehow it still worked.

shaq was listed at 325 as a 27 year old in 1999... zion is listed at 285 now and prob won't even put on much more weight as much as he will just replace fat for muscle over time. he'll prob hit 300 once he's that age but he's going to be much more lean than shaq was at an older age even tho he's much pudgier now. you can tell zion's frame will be able to hold muscle & we've never heard anything negative about his work ethic. i'm not going to judge his physique too harshly post-injury and post-pandemic... btw he put up 23-7-5 in 25 mins tonight and was physically dominating everyone on the court in the crunch time lmao

well never know how much shaq or zion really weigh

that game turned on plays in which zion got the ball w/ less than 5 seconds on the shot clock and put his shoulder into ja, sending him back 2 feet before laying the ball in over top of him and a second where he drove baseline and elevated thru 3 dudes for a lay up

i really have the opposite view... i think eventually he'll be healthy and the world will be more normal, he'll be able to get in shape, and there won't be anyone in the nba outside of like embiid who will be able to handle his physicality

rookie shaq was listed at 300! he had to have been over 400 at some point

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a1/99/18/a199180a07d201f3105a7de3ded23c6d.jpg https://www.celticshub.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/shaqretiresx-large.jpg

it's one thing if zion's knees break down but i rly don't get the vibe that he's going to eat his way out of the league

yeah injuries is what worry me hes such a tank and plays with so much force jumps so high etc, carrying around the extra weight obvs isnt great for that

hopefully with an offseason of nba level training he can drop 50lbs or w/e

yeah i'll feel better once zion has time to seriously change his body and add muscle. as we see above, young shaq was basically 100% muscle and there's no real comparison to him.

their games are so different too

Zion leaps high and often, runs the break hard, and makes very hard cuts (witness the exploding shoe incident). It's his knees and ankles that will get torqued around most. If they hold up, it seems like everything above the knees will do fine.

shaq was listed at 325 as a 27 year old in 1999... zion is listed at 285 now and prob won't even put on much more weight as much as he will just replace fat for muscle over time. he'll prob hit 300 once he's that age but he's going to be much more lean than shaq was at an older age even tho he's much pudgier now. you can tell zion's frame will be able to hold muscle & we've never heard anything negative about his work ethic. i'm not going to judge his physique too harshly post-injury and post-pandemic... btw he put up 23-7-5 in 25 mins tonight and was physically dominating everyone on the court in the crunch time lmao

If you think Zion is gonna have a healthy career at 6’6 300, ok! Shaq not a great comparison for that

This isn’t a moral question. For however long Zion’s career lasts his absolutely insane physical presence will make him a great player. But if you ask me, 6’6 290 pound nba players have an expiration date

derrick white! wow.

lebron is 6' 8" and likely played at or around 300 pounds for most of his 20s and is gonna play 20 years

zion's problem isn't weight it's just the composition of his body... if he puts in the work to get in better shape i don't see why he wouldn't be able to carry the weight. as a senior in high school (two years ago) he was in good shape. if he can stay healthy (no evidence yet he's particularly injury prone) and able to work out consistently i'm absolutely placing my bet on "zion is a dominant 15-18 year player in the NBA" and not "zion washes out of the nba before 10 years"

there's a group that is like the shawn kemps and larry johnsons ... and another that is like the charles barkleys and karl malones. zion feels like the latter to me

lebron played at 300? really??

during the heat years i def remember windhorst type ppl talking about how bron was playing at about 300 even tho the heat were listing him at 250 or w/e

he def made an effort to slim down the second go round in cleveland tho... remember the first few months were super weird bcuz he couldn't finish at the rim even against big guys who sucked at defense

that's crazy, i mean i trust windy et al on all things lebron but i just don't remember him ever looking that big

there's stuff online where ppl speculate about leborn playing as high as 295... idk it never seemed crazy to me

reddit thread where lebron says on rj & channing frye's podcast that he's weighing 295 https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/6nnzbm/lebrons_weight/

bleacher report article w/ matt moore citing scuttlebutt

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1751682-evolution-of-lebron-james-post-game

lebron was big in his heat years... i bet he was playing at 275-280. 300 prob a bit much but there was a point where he was built like a defensive end

275-280 makes more sense to me

i cld see it bron is huge

philly is going to escape with a 1-point win over the spurs