2021-22 NBA "REGULAR" SEASON THREAD

wow that JJ clip is SPICY

kinda funny how they neglected to mention jjs own beef with pelicans management there

i kinda think if anything the fact hes going at zion that hard despite having no respect for the organization is even more damning of zion

yeah i took it to be how you're expected to treat your coworkers even if the boss sucks

should we poll if zion ever plays another game for NOP? i feel like we're headed for he never suits up this season, offseason full of messy drama, plays 15 disengaged games at the beginning of next season before forcing a trade harden-style

idk zion is obvs being very shady here but jj is grandstanding when he couldve offered some insight into player he played with and an org he himself had major public issues with, and stephen a, who knows something about grandstanding, is dickriding him for it

he was insightful enough--"detached teammate" says plenty

nah that was just some ol espn boilerplate, couldve just as easily been delivered by perk, with better energy too

i dunno that said enough to me. also breaking the 'teammate code' to say anything is eye opening

jj pretending to be a stephen a (i only ever watch him in viral clips, i have no idea if jj is a reg) isn't needed for my pessimism, zion's extreme shadiness can do it easily on its own. it's more the antidotal griff quotes and the like that make me think things are a lot more broken than we imagine. it also reminds me of the playbook kawhi used to leave the spurs. but obv zion is at a different stage in his career such that the pels have more leverage, but i and am unclear exactly how they should use it so it actually gets him back on the court and such

i don't think JJ said anything crazy i just thought his perspective as an ex player was useful & calling zion "detached" was very subtextual if the subtext had a neon sign reading "SUBTEXT" with an arrow pointing at it

has anyone else considered the idea that maybe zion was kidnapped and is being held for ransom and the pelicans are hushing it up while the fbi looks for him?

zion is obviously detached we know that already i mean hes living in portland when the team he plays for is in new orleans tell us something besides that you called free agents that doesnt make you a hero mr jj redick natures perfect boy why did you want to not play for the pelicans so badly too whats going on there

well JJ allegedly wanted to be somewhere in the northeast near his huge apartment in beautiful brooklyn new york check it out here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZDNGVmHxn4

Well I practically almost live in Portland and I haven't seen him. And it's a well known fact that NBA players who weren't drafted by or traded to portland stay tf away from here. How can we be sure this isn't just a cover story?

should we poll if zion ever plays another game for NOP? i feel like we're headed for he never suits up this season, offseason full of messy drama, plays 15 disengaged games at the beginning of next season before forcing a trade harden-style

― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Tuesday, February 22, 2022 2:13 PM (nineteen minutes ago)

it's gonna be interesting if it keeps going down this route, it will be the most high stakes game of chicken that two different sides have played in the NBA in a long time. zion's ppl will prob make the argument to the pelicans that they should get value for him now before he walks in free agency, the pelicans will put a max on the table and dare him to turn it down and take the qualifying offer. i believe his QO is like $17 million so even tho no one picked anywhere near no 1 overall has ever turned down their first huge extension to take the QO, zion's ppl could say that 1 year $17 million and is a nice year for him, plus he has big endorsement money and would still get a huge contract on the FA market even if he had pouted for 2 years and there were questions about his health. and they would prob be right. moral of the story is that the pelicans need to be moved to a city where they aren't the subsidiary of a football team

JJ said reaching out to a new teammate is the bare minimum, not patting himself on the back for it

lmao dumbo is the perfect neighborhood for a rich herb like jj

if i played for the nets id live inside the clock of the williamsburg bank building descending for games like the phantom of the opera

i'm starting to feel like an offseason trade is on the table. that season ticket thing isn't an accident.

i for one would like to see him play again, so i hope something happens soon so we dont get another season and a half of sitting and mystery

yeah seems like they have to trade him

prob best to rip the bandaid off before more weird shit drives his value down

ordinarily id say you never trade a talent like him but between the injury history and his willingness to totally opt out doesnt seem like they have too much choice

losing two #1 picks in weird fashion like this should mean you get moved to seattle sorry

New Orleans is such a great city, would love to see them land a star who actually embraces it and just leans into the culture

the problem is not the city of new orleans per se tho clearly the enthusiasm for basketball there compared to football (not just pro but college) is a bit lacking. it's more that the franchise is owned by a family that exacerbates that divide by being owners of the saints first and owners of the pelicans second.

like, keep in mind when the benson family bought the pelicans they installed mickey loomis as the person who oversaw the front office while he was *at the same time* also the GM of the saints. now when david griffin took over they were said to have started spending more money and giving him the autonomy to make it more of like... a real nba franchise... but they are owned by family that shouldn't own a basketball team. the bensons care about keeping the team in new orleans (which is why they bought them in the first place) but their investment in the success of the team is pretty minimal and that seems obvious in the way the franchise is run, which trickles down to the players

i hear all that and it is an accurate take. it would just be so sweet to have a perennial competitor in nola

competitor = contender

yah everything can be erased by a star who buys in ala ja morant

ja had an actual organization to buy into--the people who run the grizz have their shit together.

maybe it was another org i was thinking of

bucks? idk

giannis definitely bought in to an organization that was kind of tumultuous and seemed maybe on the verge of cracking but given giannis' story of getting to the NBA and becoming a star it's not a surprise that he would have a loyalty to his franchise beyond pretty much any of his peers

i think of dirk too but the cuban mavs are sort of their own beast

(don't really fit the paradigm of either a consistently well- or poorly-run org)

i think you could broadly draw a dividing like between guys like giannis, dame, and ja who were underdogs/unknowns/small school players for most of their lives/careers up until being lottery picks and prob still felt doubted well into their times in the NBA and guys like zion and anthony davis who were top 5 recruits and the best players on the most storied college teams and were mega hyped as no 1 overall picks before they even stepped into the league. the loyalty shown to the franchises that believed in the first group vs the loyalty shown to the pelicans by the second group is pretty stark and if you wanted to draw conclusions about the individuals involved based on that you probably wouldn't be crazy.

but the bucks, blazers and grizzlies were all committed to some sort of longterm vision of building around those players in a coherent, measured fashion. across multiple front offices, the pelicans have, via ownership directive, made tons of irrational and shortsighted moves in a misguided effort to "win immediately" and have given off a general air of incoherence and incompetence. i mean, the stuff david griffin has done since drafting zion has followed no logic, he traded jrue for assets but now basically has no young players left on the team while still being bad, he's hired 3 different coaches. to me the overarching dominant factor beyond any notion of individual loyalty is franchise incompetence coming from the ownership level which causes the GMs to do stupid shit from jump street and for the stars to be like, why would i have any trust in this franchise to put me in a position to succeed

yeah, there's a lot of narratives stacked on top of each other here. Like Zion, Brow was crazily hyped and preordained for stardom. But he did still give the Pels 7 years, and if they had actually put a team together around him, we might think of him in the Dame/Giannis group. Otoh I just looked it up and they did go to the second round the year immediately prior to the trade request or whatever it was, not that their ceiling was any higher than that

yah good points jordan. we can add jokic and maybe even steph to that group.

lagoon is such a hater, jj’s apartment is really nice!!

imo zion will never be a positive player on a winning team, this was forseeable, and the pels shouldnt have drafted him.

i also think the brow/zion comparisons are weird. brow was there for a long time, aside from injury very high level play, multiple all star appearances, got them to the playoff etc

zion has played like what 35 games or something?

i dont think thats fair to zion. he played 61 games (out of, what, 72?) last year and averaged 27 ppg

zion played 61 games last year scored 27 points a game on 60% shooting and lead the league in paint points, he was 20 years old, all things considered prob one of the most talented players to ever set foot in the nba, as to whether he can stay health and keep his head screwed on who knows

lol xp

i think you could broadly draw a dividing like between guys like giannis, dame, and ja who were underdogs/unknowns/small school players for most of their lives/careers up until being lottery picks and prob still felt doubted well into their times in the NBA

yeah this probably matters a lot because I see this sort of thing a lot in real life, for a lot of people the mentality you develop at 15-19 sticks with you. like Giannis was absolutely not a sure thing, he had a ton of holes in his game and was so physically odd, I remember when he ran during his rookie year he always looked like he was gonna fall over. a lot of Bucks twitter thought they should've drafted Shane Larkin instead. of course after a couple months he was the consensus best guy in the draft but still, what are the odds he would turn into the guy he is today? 1 in 400? idk. Zion otoh was absolutely one of those "dude will dominate unless he gets hurt" guys, maybe the surest thing since LeBron

really hope zion gets it together the nba needs him

I’m skeptical that much of this Zion stuff has to do with playing in New Orleans or the pelicans organization per se.

only one way to find out (zion to boston)

New York City has a plan to phase out the vaccine mandate in the coming weeks, Mayor Eric Adams says, at which point Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving would be cleared for home games.

Spokesperson adds that current rules remain in place.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) February 23, 2022

nets fortunes about to change drastically. theyll get kd back soon, ben will be activate and kyrie 'unshackled'