*~*~* 2022 PLAY-IN GAMES THREAD *~*~*

ultimately the reason this pat bev story is so appealing is because the wolves generally as a team are soft, tuxedo guys

yeah their best player apparently melted as soon as someone touched him so not sure where that fits into the culture

yeah some of the wovles elation was prob at surviving kats total meltdown which they were all prob a lil worried about ahead of time

kat was trying to follow the new narrative and play physical but he just ended up fouling out in 24 mins lol sometimes even when the prevailing culture is pressuring you its better to be yourself

ultimately the reason this pat bev story is so appealing is because the wolves generally as a team are soft, tuxedo guys

― lag∞n, Wednesday, April 13, 2022 9:39 AM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is close to it, I think the Pat Bev thing is sort of overrated and underrated at the same time? I mean, when you say impactful I don't think setting a locker room vibe is on par with what happens on the court, as frustrating as KAT is (last night being a great example) he's the most impactful player, love Edwards but night in, night out KAT produces and is the #1 reason we had a good season so far.

However, to lagoon's point, I think Wolves fans have embraced Pat Bev so much because goddamn we have just seen (aside from being shitty basketball) the most passive, least aggressive, least passionate teams...Wiggins is obviously the classic example of this

KAT is our most talented player but he's not a leader, and he's kind of a nerd and a bitch overall, so there's a weird vacuum there that Bev has filled

And you do have to give him credit, many people on and around the team have talked about a preseason meeting he held where he talked to the team about setting a standard and understanding their roles. Also, frankly, he can yell at the stars in a way that gets through with them, but at the same time they really have an affection for him (something Butler tried to do in his psychotic way but he generally seemed to hate KAT and Wigs, whereas Pat always talks about their talent, always gushes about them.)

also, I think his effort on defense (something that has been sorely lacking for a long time) was an example, most of our players, including KAT, aren't naturally great defenders, but particularly Ant this year has shown hustle and is athletic enough to stay in front of guys and has active hands.

But ultimately he had 7 points last night and was a -5 so people need to relax

plus he's just kind of the classic "hate him when he's not on your team, love him when he's on your team" kinda guy.

yeah all reasonable points tho i dont think pat bev is quite the culture guy he sells himself as hes too unhinged and unpleasant and also not that good at basketball, i actually dont think id like him on my team hes way too chaotic, marcus smart for instance is the real deal as far as that kind of guy still super passonate and fiesty too the extreme but much more focused and skilled, draymond is maybe the ultimate, tho if you look at where hes got himself in trouble its the more pat bev aspects of his personality coming out

xp that makes sense, this team desperately needs someone to kick them in the ass and he is capable of doing it.

the other thing to remember is that the media LOVES pat bev because he's always a good quote and seems like he's happy to play ball with them so they're going to overrate what he does probably no matter what.

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oh for sure i would never suggest he's on the same planet as smart or draymond, i will push back on this a bit:

i dont think pat bev is quite the culture guy he sells himself as hes too unhinged and unpleasant

because honestly in all the local and beat coverage people on the team and the org (and finch) seem to genuinely like the guy! i don't know if that's not been the case elsewhere, but don't think he's as unpleasant as butler was at all

.....but I agree w.your overall points, and I'm fearing a playoff game where he takes the schtick too far. (and as much as I love him and Vando - I LOVE Vando - it's tough to have 2 of your starters be so limited on offense despite all the D and "little things" they do)

i guess the best way to say it is that he's a very flawed and weird player but the wolves are a very flawed and weird franchise and for whatever reasons in this particular circumstance he's had a positive impact. but it feels like a one in a million confluence of things.

lol maybe honestly the whole thing is "this guy can yell at KAT and get away with it"

i dont know if hes well liked or not but he just seems like he would get old fast

jimmy butler is periodically psychotic and tries to fight his own coach but hes cool and will make you coffee

pat bev is not cool tho idk i just dont like his whole thing hes too proud of being a maniac

not shit on the wolves first good season in forever tho! all this talk of impactful culture narrative just got me going

its important to have guys that arent afraid of the bigger games. tuxedo teams 100% need a goon and pat bev is the perfect goon for the wolves. when your best three players are guys who've had 'does he even like basketball?' questions circling around them you need a psycho to kinda force them to care night in night out... to manufacture beef and infuse some bravado. jimmy didnt embrace the role to lift them up and instead shit on them, bounced and found an organization that embodies it vs pat bev whos embracing trying to lift the teammates/franchise up. ie he was on JJs pod he said ants gonna be as good as jordan lol. i think bev was a good signing by them and i dont think they win that game last night without him.

m@tt made some of those points i see. sorry hadnt refreshed

idk his shtick didnt prevent kat from having maybe all things considered the worst game ive ever seen from a guy whos about to make an all nba team, the idea that it should when framed that way seems kind of ridiculous, ultimately imo what tuxedo teams need is just fewer tuxedo guys

pat bev is an 8th man on a good team people are asking too much of him

i dont disagree but maybe his schtick helped lift up other guys. this stuff is basically impossible to quantify.

i liked D Los game last night, pretty unique player

thats the thing culture narrative impactfulness are all very abstract terms which have their uses when you want to you know be abstract but then people try to solidify that into some lil chunk of convenient meaning, your and matts posts were more getting at how constituent parts of these big ideas might actually function in basketball terms which i appreciate, but i do think the analysis has to include the not as good pat bev stuff too which is basically that hes a loose cannon whos not that good at basketball lol, so i think its reasonable to say that he functions as "the spark plug" for them but that in the hierarchy of basketball culture thats a relatively minor role when compared to guys like "the professional" and "the difference maker"

dlo can def do some stuff but hes pretty soft too maybe not the best fit with kat, and you worry about edwards development too

so i think its reasonable to say that he functions as "the spark plug" for them but that in the hierarchy of basketball culture thats a relatively minor role when compared to guys like "the professional" and "the difference maker"

yah otm spark plug.. not the engine that makes a lot of it work ie dray/smart. borderline starter. but hes a good fit with those three scorers.

i do think that aside from the culture impactfulness man stuff pat bev does have an actual role on a team whose three best players are, to put it mildly, far from the most enthusiastic and skilled defensive players in the league. we’ll see how it all goes in a 7 game series when the grizzlies can plan repeatedly to not even pretend to guard him when he’s on the floor. the reason he stopped getting minutes for the clippers is because you end up playing 4 on 5 when you have the ball w/ him on the floor

i think russell’s game could play up in the playoffs where individual scoring matters more. his ability to hit pull up jumpers off the pick and roll makes them hard to guard when he’s on the ball, he was walking into shots in the fourth last night and drilling them

the thing that concerns me is just that he’s a FA after next season and already making $30m per year & i shudder at what that next contract is going to look like for him. if they’re gonna commit huge money to him to play next to towns & edwards they’re gonna need to have a really nice run of GMing and development to put the right pieces around them.

the west was down this year which i think will change, the clippers and nuggets are gonna be much better, you’d have to think the lakers will be too. zion coming back as well. there’s gonna be a morass of teams with real expectations going into next year the majority of which aren’t even gonna get out of round 1

nets are favored over the celtics rn, wonder if the smart money is gonna come in, i have a lil money in an old poker account i was just gonna put on it but they separated out their sportsbook into a different operation wtf, they do have virtual sports you can bet on some sort of simulation lol

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ultimately the fact is we have 2 of our starting lineup (pat bev and and vando) who just aren't starting caliber NBA players, our roster isn't good enough to compete with the real deal teams in the playoffs, i'll be happy to be surprised if they take memphis in the series

i agree, i worry about the D-lo conundrum, he's player way better than expected this year which raises his value but at the same time i don't think he has much more potential to get better than he is now and he doesn't feel like a max player...but losing him would hurt as well if you can't replace him with someone of equal talent

if they could trade him as part of a deal for more general guys it might be good considering they already have their 1-2 scorers in place, they would need to give up picks tho too as not sure theres too much market for dlo at $30m

d lo a guy whos gonna make too much money to contribute on a contendor. unless wolves brass are willing to go wild over the tax like wiggins/warriors (not likely). they might be stuck tho since he and kat are buds? all their hopes really rely on ants development tho. if he turns into an all-nba guy then youve got two of those and roster construction becomes a little easier

idg why the nets are favored

they didn't look particularly convincing last night other than one stretch in the first quarter

public money, baby

my hunch is that the nets are favored in order to juice action on both sides. i think if they were underdogs everyone would be betting them just bcuz the odds would be too favorable

they have the biggest name therefore they must be the better team
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/bf/aa/d8/bfaad899053d6a3c1bf0bbc8487f1fea.gif

the 2 biggest names even

actually their name is so small it is inside another team's name

pat bev is not cool

this is the core difficulty. he constantly plays right up to lines that should not be crossed, but sometimes he crosses the line and that is not cool.

I forgot that Kyrie does fasting

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/kyrie-irving-explains-how-he-is-able-to-play-for-nets-while-fasting-during-ramadan/amp/

kenny was saying hakeem used to do that and it made him play better

what sort of odds are we looking at as far as kyrie lying about fasting

its only sunrise to sundown, not that hard imo. he can eat before night games or during. harder for a pro athlete that eats like 7k calories a day or whatever tho im sure.

fasting all daylight is pretty hard idk im sure people cheat a lot

been reported that he converted to islam but that quote of him talking about fasting was from his post game interview and the way he was talking was pure new age, ive never heard islam brought into that mix tho it would make sense that itd be a more common element in the black new age mix than for whitey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkAbP616uYQ

ew he is so grody

eric rahill vibes

God save the queen and god bless London pic.twitter.com/Z7lEAY9WGZ

— Eric Rahill (@ericrahill) April 13, 2022

pretty good piece yesterday on the nets and the current status of the super team concept in todays nba btw https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/insider/story/_/id/33719050/lessons-brooklyn-nets-controversy-filled-season-superteam-era-over

Yet talent comes with cost, especially with Irving. League sources say executives, coaches and players who were present during Irving's time in Cleveland and Boston shared with the Nets negative intel -- his unresponsiveness and truculence with coaches, his lack of self-awareness with teammates, his constant defiance of offensive game plans, his disinterest in playing off the ball. But the Nets, multiple sources say, knew that bringing Irving aboard was the cost of doing business: No Irving, No Kevin Durant.

...

Admire him, loathe him, pity him or be confounded by him, Irving has been a very complicated piece in that composition. One Nets source says it's not so much one single act that weighs on the team or organization, but rather Irving in the aggregate: "It's always something," irrespective of how productive he is when he suits up.

iow, irving is exactly what we all knew him to be

Nets Post game drama!

-Bruce brown says that with Robert Williams out, the Nets can go at #celtics bigs Al Horford and D. Theis.
-Durant finds out, doesn't like it.
-Kyrie says 'I love you.'
KD says it's Brown's "caffeine pride talking."
Then Durant explains why he was mad. pic.twitter.com/9A5bPeAf6l

— DaveEarly (@DavidEarly) April 13, 2022

kd is pretty funny

giving the other team locker room bulletin board material is never good

bruce brown thinking hes just gonna waltz into the lane and loft floaters like he did vs cleveland is very silly! generally people are overrating how much losing rob is going to hurt the celtics all the guys soaking up his minutes are good players