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***2021-2022 NBA Season Thread***


RonArtest15

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2 minutes ago, Mr. Sinister said:

Honestly I didnt think Boogie should be playing either. Seems awfully quick coming back on a quad tear (!) after coming back from an achilles, and being in terrible shape.

 

TBH you could probably say it about Iggy, Klay, Looney, Kawhi, VanVleet, and Lowry too.  This year's championship is going to come at a big cost.

 

It's making me rethink the argument to shorten the season.

 

And it's also making me appreciate all over again how unbelievable Bill Russell's run truly was.  I made a mistake in comparing the Warriors to the 60's Celtics.  It looks like they might be breaking down after less then half the time Russell did his thing.  He made his run with crappy travel acommodations, on crappy courts, in crappy shoes, with crappy medicine treating him afterwards.  Playing in stupid rotations that had him out on the court 40+ minutes every night.  And he was coaching the team by the end.  It is unfathomable that he didn't get worn down and managed to go out on top.  That man was the greatest competitor in the history of the NBA in my opinion.

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1 hour ago, BenningRoadSkin said:

Durant 😥

 

Really hope he can come back but I doubt it.

 

Wanted to see him naturally, and not in this expedited way.

 

He should take the year off IMO.  Cousins rushed back and suffered what is likely a compensation injury because he was desperate to get a ring this year.  Durant has already won his career accolades and achievements.  He should take as long as he needs to recover.

 

I think he can come back from the injury.  He might never be the same kind of above the rim force as he was, but his game has never really been predicated on leaping.  His length is never going to go away.  And neither is his skill or his IQ.  When you've got size and below the rim and perimeter skill, you can remain a great player long after you lose your athleticism.

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13 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

I think he can come back from the injury.  He might never be the same kind of above the rim force as he was, but his game has never really been predicated on leaping. 

KD’s game is based on his athleticism

 

He is supremely skilled but 7-footers driving to the basket is not something you can smart your way too. He is (or was) ridiculously explosive and has an amazing first step. He is also ridiculously agile.

 

I also never like when people say professional athletes games aren’t based on athleticism. You can’t make the nba without being an a-1 athlete in comparison to the rest of the world. If you are limited athletically and lose that, it’s a wrap. (Not the case for KD, but its something all athletes who have bad leg injuries have to worry about, even if limited)

21 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

And it's also making me appreciate all over again how unbelievable Bill Russell's run truly was.  I made a mistake in comparing the Warriors to the 60's Celtics.  It looks like they might be breaking down after less then half the time Russell did his thing.  He made his run with crappy travel acommodations, on crappy courts, in crappy shoes, with crappy medicine treating him afterwards.  Playing in stupid rotations that had him out on the court 40+ minutes every night. 

His team also has like 10 of the best players in the NBA and there were only 16 teams in the league. That’s not knocking Russell but I hate cross-era comparisons like these.

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2 minutes ago, BenningRoadSkin said:

KD’s game is based on his athleticism

 

He is supremely skilled but 7-footers driving to the basket is not something you can smart your way too. He is (or was) ridiculously explosive and has an amazing first step. He is also ridiculously agile. 

  

I also never like when people say professional athletes games aren’t based on athleticism. You can’t make the nba without being an a-1 athlete in comparison to the rest of the world. If you are limited athletically and lose that, it’s a wrap. (Not the case for KD, but its something all athletes who have bad leg injuries have to worry about, even if limited) 

 

I'm saying lose his athleticism relative to NBA standards.  Even with an Achilles injury in his history, he'll still be one of the most explosive and agile athletes relative to normal people.  NFL players who've torn ACLs could still beat me in a 40 yard dash time by like two seconds.

 

KD's been in the league for 12 years.  His quickness was going to decline in the near future no matter what.  But he's shooting over a chair against virtually any defender, and that's never going away.  And I think he will still get to the rim.  Skill, strong hands, aggressiveness, and size are enough to get to the basket and have success in the paint even if you don't have a first step any more.  Kawhi Leonard has been demonstrating that.  And I also don't think he'll be restricted to playing below the rim because he's so big that he doesn't have to jump that high to play above the rim.

 

Being a run and jump athlete isn't what defined his game.  It's his size and instincts and skill.  I think he'll still be a top ten player when he comes back.

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Also another thing about KD's dribble is that he's a huge strider.  That second stride is special, and it's not predicated off explosiveness, but rather length.  He should still have that after he comes back.

 

And it's worth point out that he's recovered from a serious foot injury before when he came back from that Jones fracture in 2015.  He's got experience with a long rehab on a lower leg injury.  That barely even slowed him down once he was finally healthy.

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6 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

I'm saying lose his athleticism relative to NBA standards.  Even with an Achilles injury in his history, he'll still be one of the most explosive and agile athletes relative to normal people.  NFL players who've torn ACLs could still beat me in a 40 yard dash time by like two seconds.

 

KD's been in the league for 12 years.  His quickness was going to decline in the near future no matter what.  But he's shooting over a chair against virtually any defender, and that's never going away.  And I think he will still get to the rim.  Skill, strong hands, aggressiveness, and size are enough to get to the basket and have success in the paint even if you don't have a first step any more.  Kawhi Leonard has been demonstrating that.  And I also don't think he'll be restricted to playing below the rim because he's so big that he doesn't have to jump that high to play above the rim.

 

Being a run and jump athlete isn't what defined his game.  It's his size and instincts and skill.  I think he'll still be a top ten player when he comes back.

Athleticism isn’t just run and jumping. You need athleticism to get into your spots. Steph Curry isn’t a run and jumper but if he tore his Achilles his career would be over because he would lose his burst and be fearful to run the Marathon runner miles he usually does.

 

There is a reason why no one has come back and been themselves post-Achilles. People cite ‘Nique averaging 29 ppg but he shot 41% and was traded to the Clippers the next season.

 

Durant’s explosion is a big key to his game.

 

And I know Durant is getting older and losing his quickness. My point is that it’s now going to Be unnaturally expedited instead of him aging naturally.

 

 

Its always the small things too

https://www.goldenstateofmind.com/2018/8/25/17782070/2018-nba-offseason-golden-state-warriors-trainer-chelsea-lane-got-more-money-from-atlanta-hawks

Quote

Strauss elaborated a bit, saying, “The Warriors, they have a very venture capitalist position on these matters, which is, ‘We’re spending on the players. That’s where the talent is.’ And then maybe on some other fronts there isn’t going to be as much spending, because they think that they can get a better deal or a better person.”

 

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So, I guess that's the last time we'll tell someone to gut it out. I'll deal with Durant and his injury later. Because that sucks.

 

Let's be positive for a second. (You guys can do it). Last night was the reason I love the NBA. This is the one sport where you can see the guys gutting it out second by second. In baseball, you will see it with pitchers. In football, it's all hidden by helmets and pads. It does happen in hockey, but it happens in minute bursts.

 

Last night, you saw Kawhi go on a run that felt like "This is what you play the day I get voted into the Hall of Fame" and that was followed by Curry and Thompson showing why they are the greatest back court ever and then Draymond makes the most Draymond defensive play ever with Gasol riding him like a pony. You just see these guys working so hard and doing impossible stuff.

 

Anyway, I like basketball.

 

 

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Bomani's incredible.  He's got some good points here.  There is a harmful racial bias in the way the NBA front offices and the venture capitalism worlds are overly embracing analytics, and it will increasingly cause former players to be shut out of positions of leadership.  And it will lead to losing on the court.  You've got all of these arrogant assholes getting hired to influential front office roles who can break down the success of a euro-step to the left against man defense starting with the ball in X player's right hand who think they know everything about building a team and it's offensive and defensive systems.  And yet they don't know dick about creativity and competitiveness and can never see the forest through the trees and they think of every player as a chess piece who can perform X move set always and under every circumstance.  IMO great scouting and teambuilding will always hinge on intuition and gestalt and basketball lifers like former coaches and players have infinitely better intuition than the hedge fund mathlete crowd Bomani speaks of.

 

I keep thinking back to how I used to read stories where the Wizards were mentioned as one of the teams that had been most enthusiastic to embrace analytics in the front office.  It doesn't surprise me that it hasn't made a bit of difference in wins and losses for us.  It doesn't surprise me that we still make so many team building mistakes.  I was a long time member of a different Wizards forum where Kevin Broom was kind of a de facto leader of a majority of posters that basically took pure analytic analysis as gospel.  It's the most white collar DMV **** ever.  I spent way too much time pissing into the wind about how basketball metrics don't capture a complete picture of player contribution--they don't account for offensive creativity, they don't capture the fact that not all rebounds are the same, they don't capture the fact that not all points scored are the same, they don't capture individual contributions to team defense well, etc.  IMO comprehensive metrics only start to capture a player's performance well when used over sample sizes as big as entire seasons, and even then, they still don't really capture a player's shot creativity or individual defense that well.  Kevin Broom was pretty good.  But so many of the other stat guys's projections and predictions were ludicrously bad.  So many of the analytics media types who've covered the NBA have been ludicrously bad (looking at 538).

 

I think the ideal executive is someone who either played or coached the game at a decent level, and then spent time grinding it out as a scout or video coordinator and thus learned the craft of scouting and evaluation as well.  But I do think it'd be hard to get former NBA players and coaches who may have made quite a bit of money in their careers to do the grind it takes to master scouting.  That's why I think it's usually the former players who were either fringe guys or role players who often make the best executives.

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The NBA and it’s partners are in a weird place where VC Bros, nerds, and hot take artists are beginning to mean more than the game itself. I have a feeling this is what team owners eventually want – E-sports is a way to that – where athletes are out and thus no big salaries.

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9 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

Bomani's incredible.  He's got some good points here.  There is a harmful racial bias in the way the NBA front offices and the venture capitalism worlds are overly embracing analytics, and it will increasingly cause former players to be shut out of positions of leadership.  And it will lead to losing on the court.  You've got all of these arrogant assholes getting hired to influential front office roles who can break down the success of a euro-step to the left against man defense starting with the ball in X player's right hand who think they know everything about building a team and it's offensive and defensive systems.  And yet they don't know dick about creativity and competitiveness and can never see the forest through the trees and they think of every player as a chess piece who can perform X move set always and under every circumstance.  IMO great scouting and teambuilding will always hinge on intuition and gestalt and basketball lifers like former coaches and players have infinitely better intuition than the hedge fund mathlete crowd Bomani speaks of.

 

I keep thinking back to how I used to read stories where the Wizards were mentioned as one of the teams that had been most enthusiastic to embrace analytics in the front office.  It doesn't surprise me that it hasn't made a bit of difference in wins and losses for us.  It doesn't surprise me that we still make so many team building mistakes.  I was a long time member of a different Wizards forum where Kevin Broom was kind of a de facto leader of a majority of posters that basically took pure analytic analysis as gospel.  It's the most white collar DMV **** ever.  I spent way too much time pissing into the wind about how basketball metrics don't capture a complete picture of player contribution--they don't account for offensive creativity, they don't capture the fact that not all rebounds are the same, they don't capture the fact that not all points scored are the same, they don't capture individual contributions to team defense well, etc.  IMO comprehensive metrics only start to capture a player's performance well when used over sample sizes as big as entire seasons, and even then, they still don't really capture a player's shot creativity or individual defense that well.  Kevin Broom was pretty good.  But so many of the other stat guys's projections and predictions were ludicrously bad.  So many of the analytics media types who've covered the NBA have been ludicrously bad (looking at 538).

 

I think the ideal executive is someone who either played or coached the game at a decent level, and then spent time grinding it out as a scout or video coordinator and thus learned the craft of scouting and evaluation as well.  But I do think it'd be hard to get former NBA players and coaches who may have made quite a bit of money in their careers to do the grind it takes to master scouting.  That's why I think it's usually the former players who were either fringe guys or role players who often make the best executives.

 

I think the NBA is getting this from the MLB...where advanced metrics might help a little more.  Every sport now wants to Moneyball their game.  And every front office wants to think that they've got some cutting edge insights to help them make better decisions.  It's not a catch-all in the MLB, but it works better there.  

 

 

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1 minute ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

 

I think the NBA is getting this from the MLB...where advanced metrics might help a little more.  Every sport now wants to Moneyball their game.  And every front office wants to think that they've got some cutting edge insights to help them make better decisions.  It's not a catch-all in the MLB, but it works better there.   

 

 

 

It's because you can track the consequential action of a baseball game around the ball, and baseball meticulously records what happens to the ball at every sequence of play.

 

You can't do that in basketball.  Certainly can't do it in football either.  But if you can build in the context of role to your analysis, and you look at the big sample sizes of seasons, I do think comprehensive metrics can capture a lot of what NBA players do on offense and on the boards.  That was my experience for explaining when the pure stat guys and the pure eye test guys would end up at similar conclusions about players.

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1 minute ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

It's because you can track the consequential action of a baseball game around the ball, and baseball meticulously records what happens to the ball at every sequence of play.

 

You can't do that in basketball.  Certainly can't do it in football either.  But if you can build in the context of role to your analysis, and you look at the big sample sizes of seasons, I do think comprehensive metrics can capture a lot of what NBA players do on offense and on the boards.  That was my experience for explaining when the pure stat guys and the pure eye test guys would end up at similar conclusions about players.

 

Correct, as you said that advanced metrics don't take into account creativity.  There's no way it can.  Way less creativity on a baseball diamond than a PG running an offense with a myriad of options.  

 

I think there's a place for it but as you and Jalen Rose seem to think it's part of the toolbox, not the whole box.  

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44 minutes ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

 

I think the NBA is getting this from the MLB...where advanced metrics might help a little more.  Every sport now wants to Moneyball their game.  And every front office wants to think that they've got some cutting edge insights to help them make better decisions.  It's not a catch-all in the MLB, but it works better there.  

 

 

 

I get more into the numbers with baseball because there's a lot of downtime between **** happening. I watch basketball to see ridiculous athletes do ridiculous ****, not for the deep dive in analytics

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This feels like the best season of performances by coaches in a while.  Nobody cares about the award, but I'm genuinely interested to see who wins CoY this season.  I would probably vote for McMillan first, Rivers second, Budenholzer third, and Malone fourth.  But Nick Nurse has turned out to be a fine coach too, and he deserves some votes too.

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I think analytics has to play a role in basketball, but I think it has to be at a macro level not micro level. I mean, it literally took dudes with stacks of spreadsheets decades to convince NBA coaches and executives that 3 points were worth more than 2 points. I think things like pace of play, stats for five-man units, etc are extremely helpful. I don't know if you will ever be able to take a player and assign one or two numbers that tell a damn near whole story like you can in baseball. (And I will say that it has actually taken some of the fun out of baseball, because aside from one or two old media holdouts, everyone kind of agrees on everything now. There's no real debates about players because the numbers really don't lie - until you get into the post-season and talk about winners and clutch and **** again and pretend it means stuff.

 

Here's something you guys will have one with.

 

Where does Klay rank on the all-time list of NBA third bananas? Here's some names to get you started: Parish, Worthy, Aguire, Rodman, Fisher, Ginobli, Bosh.

 

Also.....don't ask me why I did this....but when I saw the phrase "hot take artist," a voice in my head said, "What is Skip Bayless doing these days?" I literally haven't thought of him in over a year. From what I can gather, he's made Kawhi his new target. Calling him #2, ****ing at him for not doing something on the last shot last night.

 

What a miserable existence that must be. Either, he really believes this stuff which....my god. Or, he doesn't, and he's spent 22 hours a day on some type of media playing a heel for like two decades.

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I could be wrong, but I think Skip is a Spurs fan and that he hates Kawhi for forcing his way out of San Antonio.  Skip is an empty husk now.  He sits inert until it's time to wheel him out in front of the cameras.  This is what he's reduced to because he barfed up bits of his soul every time he looked in the mirror, until it was finally gone.  He used to be a real journalist until he figured out you could make a lot more money doing entertainment.  I'm worried that the same **** is going to happen to Stephen A.  He's getting a little more crazy and megalomaniacal every year.

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32 minutes ago, Lombardi's_kid_brother said:

Where does Klay rank on the all-time list of NBA third bananas? Here's some names to get you started: Parish, Worthy, Aguire, Rodman, Fisher, Ginobli, Bosh.

 

I wouldn't put him on a top ten list because he's got a lot of career left and he could also end up being Golden State's second banana.  My list would go:

 

1 - John Havlicek

2 - Robert Parish

3 - Manu Ginobili

4 - Bobby Dandridge

5 - Chris Bosh

6 - James Worthy

7 - Dennis Rodman

8 - Bill Sharman

9 - Dave DeBuscherre

10 - Gail Goodrich

 

Honorable mentions Tommy Heinsohn, Horace Grant, Kenny Smith, and Mo Cheeks.

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1
18 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

I wouldn't put him on a top ten list because he's got a lot of career left and he could also end up being Golden State's second banana.  My list would go:

 

1 - John Havlicek

2 - Robert Parish

3 - Manu Ginobili

4 - Bobby Dandridge

5 - Chris Bosh

6 - James Worthy

7 - Dennis Rodman

8 - Bill Sharman

9 - Dave DeBuscherre

10 - Gail Goodrich

 

Honorable mentions Tommy Heinsohn, Horace Grant, Kenny Smith, and Mo Cheeks.

Klay's already had a better career than half this list.

 

We can compare him and Ginobli right now, and Klay is better. I wouldn't have Ginobli that high at all.

 

Big time disrespect for Bosh and Worthy too. Worthy won a Finals MVP with one of the best performances ever.

 

Rodman shouldn't be on this iist. 

 

IDK dawg, I think you need to revise it. 

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I’m watching espn discuss how the warriors shouldn’t have played him and risked his achilles.  I’m still wondering when we established a link between calf injuries and achilles tears.  If this was ever a known risk no sports league would treat calf strains as lightly as they currently do.  

 

The question I have, is was his initial injury misdiagnosed by the team doctors?  If so, things could get ugly.  

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1 hour ago, Destino said:

I’m watching espn discuss how the warriors shouldn’t have played him and risked his achilles.  I’m still wondering when we established a link between calf injuries and achilles tears.  If this was ever a known risk no sports league would treat calf strains as lightly as they currently do.  

 

The question I have, is was his initial injury misdiagnosed by the team doctors?  If so, things could get ugly.  

 

I should probably just like this, but this also has me confused.  People are talking like he had some known increased risks.

 

Achiles tears with little to no warning aren't unheard of.

 

Why are people acting like him "rushing" (he certainly looked fine in the beginning of the game) back has anything to do with the injury?

 

I've had calf problems (more than once, including recently) and still (tried) to play.  I know he's at a different level and a different person, but nobody I've played with, coach, trainer, or doctor I talked to told me that I was increasing my risk of an achilies tear.  And he wasn't playing like I have with a calf injury.

 

He came back from a calf.  Then his achilies tore.  To my knowledge, he shouldn't get extra kudos because his achilies tore.

 

(From what I know, it is possible he ruptured his achillies heal, it was misdiagnosed, started to heal on its own, and then re-ruptured it.  In which case, he's actually going to be better off having played and gotten it injured so it can be repaired properly ASAP (obviously, the proper diagnosis the first time would have been better).  But either way he's got a torn achilies.

 

But there's nothing I've read or seen to suggest it is likely that because he was playing on a strained calf he had an increased risks of tearing his achilies.)

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