2022-2023 NBA Season Thread

[Cobra Mgr]

Not how the T-Wolves want to walk into the playoffs.

[rudel.dietrich]

Minnesota's playoffs are over before they even began.

I was not expecting much after the terrible Gobert trade. But wow, what a way to end your regular season.

[thehef]

Gobert's postgame Tweet was predictably but suitably contrite. There may be more the story, or not. And if not, the T-Wolves can simply say that the incident was of the sort that happens on every team from time to time (it surely does), but not usually in front of the public, and that they have handled / are handling the matter internally.

Draymond Green's sucker punch of Jordan Poole was much worse, and Green got off with a fine and "spending a few (unimportant preseason) days away from the team." So unless the the Gobert/Anderson dustup was some sort of serious & lingering issue and not just a heat-of-the-moment thing, I could see Rudy jumping center on Tuesday night... We'll know soon enough...

[rudel.dietrich]

Well, their best defender also broke his hand by punching a wall as well.

So there is also that.


And Naz Reid was already facing six weeks out due to a wrist fracture. I already didn't like their team. Now I don't like them getting out of the play in.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by rudel.dietrich

Well, their best defender also broke his hand by punching a wall as well.

So there is also that.


And Naz Reid was already facing six weeks out due to a wrist fracture. I already didn't like their team. Now I don't like them getting out of the play in.

Even if we set aside the T-wolves drama, the Lakers are at home and have been playing the better ball as of late. So ya, the L's would have to be favored...

[thehef]

Originally Posted by rudel.dietrich

And I do not really see players warming up and playing 2 minutes and then intentionally fouling to be subbed out.

First off, most players whom I have seen interviews with, will tell you that just getting warmed up and going through pre game is almost as intensive as the game itself.
Getting your body loose and in condition to play.

Mikal Bridges played all of 4 seconds - FOUR SECONDS - in order to keep his consecutive games streak going before he committed a foul and was subbed out. This seems like a pretty cheap way to keep that kind of streak going. I mean, he could've at least played a few minutes.

Guys have been denied triple-doubles for shooting the ball at the wrong backboard and grabbing the "rebound." Bridges' four seconds of hoops doesn't seem any more legitimate than that to me...

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by thehef

Mikal Bridges played all of 4 seconds - FOUR SECONDS - in order to keep his consecutive games streak going before he committed a foul and was subbed out. This seems like a pretty cheap way to keep that kind of streak going. I mean, he could've at least played a few minutes.

Guys have been denied triple-doubles for shooting the ball at the wrong backboard and grabbing the "rebound." Bridges' four seconds of hoops doesn't seem any more legitimate than that to me...

I remember when AC green did that back in the day.

[thehef]

Seems like the T-wolves are blowing the Gobert-Anderson conflict - or at least Rudy's side of it - way out of proportion. Apparently, Anderson - who has been known to be abrasive among his teammates - was repeatedly calling Gobert (who was playing injured) a bitch. Is it any surprise that Rudy ended up giving Kyle what was essentially a hard shove to the chest (not exactly a vicious sucker punch)? In this day & age, certain segments of society are practically encouraged to react emotionally, irrationally, and sometimes violently - often in response to what are merely words. That's what Rudy did...

In the end, it was certainly embarrassing for the T-wolves given that it occurred in public, but was it really a big enough deal to suspend Gobert - for a playoff (well, play-in)game? And if anything, if Gobert was suspended, shouldn't Anderson also be suspended for being the primary instigator? And both guys are saying the right things, indicating that they support each other and it was just heat of the moment. So I don't see what the 1-game suspension accomplishes, other than weakening the T-wolves for a very important game - and possibly catering to a segment of society that thrives on pettiness, double standards, and punishment that self-satisfies those who feel punishment is warranted, but otherwise accomplishes nothing.

[rudel.dietrich]

I had a long reply typed it but I lost it thanks for thanks to the forums awful software.

Anderson has been regudred as a good treammate in the past on all of his stops.
Gobert, not so much.

And as Anderson said in the locker room, they kiss Goberts ass too much and off-season season decisions will need to be made.
Which is true. It was a bad trade and he is paid too much to be played off the floor in the fourth quarter.
And it also seems he grates on his teammates nerves.

I side with Anderson here. He did push him a bit far. But Gobert decided to act back after losing his temper.

And the front office will have to decide how to proceed forward with Gobert.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by rudel.dietrich

I had a long reply typed it but I lost it thanks for thanks to the forums awful software.

Anderson has been regudred as a good treammate in the past on all of his stops.
Gobert, not so much.

And as Anderson said in the locker room, they kiss Goberts ass too much and off-season season decisions will need to be made.
Which is true. It was a bad trade and he is paid too much to be played off the floor in the fourth quarter.
And it also seems he grates on his teammates nerves.

I side with Anderson here. He did push him a bit far. But Gobert decided to act back after losing his temper.

And the front office will have to decide how to proceed forward with Gobert.

I don't really disagree with any of that. Except that I don't think that there should be any connection between how overrated Gobert might be, how bad a trade it might have been, etc., and what happened between these two guys... The bottom line is that Anderson crossed a verbal line, and then Gobert crossed a physical one. Physical is generally worse than verbal, for sure. But Gobert's push-punch wasn't really that dangerous, and as even Anderson said, this stuff happens ALL the time, just not usually in front of the public...

The main thing is that the one game suspension served zero purpose. Does anybody think Gobert - who was already contrite before the suspension was announced - has learned anything (or even needed to) as a result of the punishment? Of course not. It's a charade that does nothing more than check a box.

[Ragnar]

I've basically stopped watching the NBA for several reasons. The playoff format is comical. They have 16 teams make the playoffs and maybe 6 of them have any chance at winning it all. It's not like hockey. It's really boring crap meant to generate revenue, not to entertain. The regular season is meaningless. Most of the playoffs are meaningless. I can't be bothered.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Ragnar

I've basically stopped watching the NBA for several reasons. The playoff format is comical. They have 16 teams make the playoffs and maybe 6 of them have any chance at winning it all. It's not like hockey. It's really boring crap meant to generate revenue, not to entertain. The regular season is meaningless. Most of the playoffs are meaningless. I can't be bothered.

First off this is not a shot. You sir should win a prize for being the first person in say the last 30 years that gave a reason for not watching the NBA without saying "they don't play defense" or "all they do is travel."

[Syd Thrift]

As a fan of a team who will likely be a first round exit if they even get through the playin… I dont understand what people want here. It feels like upsets happen in the NBA playoffs about as often as they should happen, and usually the “upset” is about one team who is seeded lower but played better down the stretch and so is arguably the actual better team. To me the first round of the playoffs is mostly an opportunity to showcase the top talent in the league against mostly meh squads, although 4v5 is usually a fun matchup. That said, upsets, even in the first round, happen. I watched the first 1 seed to ever get upset by an 8 seed when I was in college and it was heartbreaking.

The larger argument is that the season is too long but I don’t see a way the league rolls that back so it is what it is. The dumber argument is that the playoffs are too large, which frankly goes against most of NBA history up to around the late 90s - prior to 1989 you had more than 2/3rds of all teams make the playoffs and even into the late 90s when the league expanded from 23 teams to 29, the fact that it became a simple majority instead was cushioned by those awful expansion teams in most years. In the early years of the league it was often 6 out of 9 teams making the playoffs.

So hey, if that’s too much for you, the NBA might be too much for you. Let’s not pretend that adding a playin to make the playoff ratio somewhat similar to what it was historically is some kind of brand new, anti-basketball development.

[Cobra Mgr]

I keep up w/the NBA. But watching a whole game just doesn't interest me anymore. I trace it back to when David Stern started fixing outcomes. My ability to watch refs manipulate outcomes has dropped year by year.

I do always enjoy watching the Dubs cause the potential to see Curry/Klay bomb 10-15 3's in a game is like anticipating a Nolan Ryan no-hitter.

Wish they had more Jason Kidd/Williams point guards. The flashy assist has virtually disappeared.

[dsvitak]

Originally Posted by thehef

Mikal Bridges played all of 4 seconds - FOUR SECONDS - in order to keep his consecutive games streak going before he committed a foul and was subbed out. This seems like a pretty cheap way to keep that kind of streak going. I mean, he could've at least played a few minutes.

Guys have been denied triple-doubles for shooting the ball at the wrong backboard and grabbing the "rebound." Bridges' four seconds of hoops doesn't seem any more legitimate than that to me...

Cal Ripken, Jr. had a broken forearm for several weeks, but managed to play every day.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

I keep up w/the NBA. But watching a whole game just doesn't interest me anymore. I trace it back to when David Stern started fixing outcomes. My ability to watch refs manipulate outcomes has dropped year by year.

I do always enjoy watching the Dubs cause the potential to see Curry/Klay bomb 10-15 3's in a game is like anticipating a Nolan Ryan no-hitter.

Wish they had more Jason Kidd/Williams point guards. The flashy assist has virtually disappeared.

Unfortunately, one of those guys has missed the last season and a half and might miss all of next season with a weird knee condition that won't go away. I'm speaking of Lonzo Ball and I remain convinced that if he was in the Bulls' lineup all season they'd be a top 4-5 seed in the Eastern Conference. He's very good but more to the point, the Bulls were a complete black hole at the 1 before they signed Pat Bev and even with what was left of him they started to absolutely chew through the league at the end of the season. I think the 5-man starting lineup they ran towards the end with Beverly-Lavine-Caruso-DeRozan-Vuc was like 2nd in the NBA in on/off. They were stealthily really, really good at some aspects of the game, they just absolutely crumbled in their half-court offense, especially when DeRozan and Lavine weren't playing lights out (and Beverly - again, who isn't even all that good - wound up being a guy who could push them to being lights-out a lot more often).

I really, really miss Lonzo on this team. The Bulls were the #1 seed in the East for a while last year and honestly it wasn't that much of a fluke. Sorry, but I'm going to make an aside for this team before they get knocked out of the playin tonight... I think their rep is that they're a bad defensive team who can't quite generate enough offense to get ahead, kind of like a worse version of the current Kings. In fact, it's sort of the opposite, and If you see the rotations they toss out I think you can see why:

Starters
----------
Beverly - still a good defender in spite of his age
Caruso - a lockdown defender
Lavine - by no means a great defender but I'd put him at average
DeRozan - a bad defender, just straight up, not because he doesn't try but he just doesn't have the quickness to guard wings and bigger 4s get into size mismatches with him
Vucevic - derided as a bad defender but honestly he's fine as a post defender. What he doesn't do is protect the rim but guess what? There are like 3 guys in the league who do that and it's just not as valuable an asset as it was 15 years ago

Rotation
-----------
Williams - honestly he's a great defender already and just needs the reputation. If memory serves he led the entire NBA in iso stop percentage
Coby White - was... fine defensively. Honestly I think the fact that he wasn't horrific at the 1 where he was soooo bad 2 years ago was a bit of a revelation
Ayo - Completely out of place on offense, and I hate to say it a big part of why the team struggled this year, but he hustles and works hard on D
Derrick Jones Jr. - A fantastic defender who would be rated up with a guy like Mattisse Thybulle if he played for teams like the 76ers the past few years
Javonte Green - Also a fantastic defender. I mean, the guy basically does nothing but play defense and jump
Andre Drummond - Kind of the opposite of Vooch and useful when they need a big man who can bang around

Including the guys off the bench, that's 5 plus-plus defenders who got regular rotation minutes (Beverly, Caruso, Williams, Jones Jr., Green). That's also 4 guys - 5 if you want to count Beverly although things picked up when he joined - who could be offensive black holes. That kind of goes triple or quadruple for guys like Green and Jones who, when things are going well, generate what points they do generate in transition and with cuts and lobs - i.e. exactly the things you need a good point guard to see and pass to.

This team was also awwwwwwful at offensive rebounds, which is going to be harder to fix.

[Cobra Mgr]

I had high hopes for Lonzo. I thought for certain he was the reincarnation of Kidd. His younger bro has even more potential, but he is stuck in Charlotte. Jordan possibly selling the team is the best news he could have had.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by Ragnar

I've basically stopped watching the NBA for several reasons. The playoff format is comical. They have 16 teams make the playoffs and maybe 6 of them have any chance at winning it all. It's not like hockey. It's really boring crap meant to generate revenue, not to entertain. The regular season is meaningless. Most of the playoffs are meaningless. I can't be bothered.

Hockey is very low scoring, low scoring sports will always have more variance.

[Syd Thrift]

Spoke too soon! The Bulls live another day!

[Syd Thrift]

dola,

Thanks to Demar’s daughter, nonetheless:

https://youtu.be/GuXsjZUX4I4

Demar’s daughter screaming at free throws, the clip:

https://youtu.be/BuLN2kxoYv8

Demar DeRozan might be my favorite player in basketball.