2024-25 NBA Regular Season Thread – Capture the Flagg or King of the Hill?

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I forget, is this the thread that starts with all the funny photos?

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YES!

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double posts why not

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im currently wearing this tee

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I can't stop laughing at the guy with the James Bond villain name chasing the small boy.

damn y’all brought it with the pics this year! well done

as far as opening night goes, we have this to look forward to

LeBron and Bronny James will share the court at some point during the season opener. They're going to get their photo op together, they'll get another with Ken Griffey Jr. and Sr., who will be there, they'll talk about it postgame and then we'll (maybe) move on with the season.

— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) October 22, 2024

also

With 6 missed FG tonight, LeBron James would pass Kobe Bryant for the most in NBA history 🤯

🔗 https://t.co/D8Eg40FnyD pic.twitter.com/BskaMH9bw7

— Basketball Reference (@bball_ref) October 22, 2024

It's hard not to think about bronny almost dying from playing hoops, but he still plays on. Under the circumstances, the Laker publicity campaign around LeBron's dream of playing with bronny in the NBA takes on a weird ghoulish aspect. The whole situation feels very wtf.

Please tell me the pic of Bron blocking Bronny is real.

it is lol

1:24 of Luka Doncic playing the worst defense you will ever see in the NBA Finals. pic.twitter.com/88SRPe0All

— 𝙍𝙞𝙡𝙚𝙮 ☘️ (@CelticsRiley) June 13, 2024

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lol "SUCK"

otm tho

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great pic of Dikembe!

mikal bridges jumper watch starts now

the ball is upon us

first bridges jumper looked hitchy

celtics are hoisting

bridges is up there at the top of his jump fidgeting w/ the ball

brunson is smoking basically anyone the celtics put on him

yeah I think the celtics are gonna be good again this year

playing this celtics team in game 1 is basically the hardest task you could give to a newly constructed team -- that said whatever defensive structure the knicks are going to implement to have hart/OG/anunoby protecting KAT def feels like it's... in its nascent stages

i think the celtics should try and score 200 points

reggie miller incredulously calling out bridges shooting, i'm cracking up

bridges is hitting side rim like he gets a tip each time

Here’s the thing with Mikal Bridges’ jumper: He’s tried to make his release point really high and because of that on farther out shots, he’s just yanking the shot back to get more power. Often a red flag for me when a guy’s midrange and 3-point form are vastly different.

— Fred Katz (@FredKatz) October 23, 2024

i will say that if he does not make a single jumper all year it will lower the knicks' ceiling

it was a weird decision for him to go to markelle fultz's shooting coach

are shooting forms like pokemon moves in that in order to learn something new you have to forget how to do something?

maybe he can find his original shooting form as a TM in the depths of madison square garden

i still don't understand the impetus for this. was his jumper being regularly blocked? i don't feel like that was the case. his 3pt% dropped a percentage point between phoenix and brooklyn but that feels explainable by his role changing

celtics are a simulation man

bridges catch and shoot % on 3 pointers per nba.com

19-20: 35.3%
20-21: 40.5%
21-22: 38.3%
22-23: 38.8%
23-24: 38.5%

idk man

are you still watching Good at 3's?

|continue hoisting|
|exit|

boston celtics

that's a lot of threes

he made one! beating the fultz allegations

KAT has played pretty well, it's really bridges, OG and hart who have looked kinda lost

It would be so funny if the Knicks made all these "objectively good" moves and ended up worse off.

Celtics gonna avg 140 this season

It would be so funny if the Knicks made all these "objectively good" moves and ended up worse off.

― il lavoro mi rovina la giornata (PBKR), Tuesday, October 22, 2024 8:29 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this kinda shit really bings my bong (laudatory)

the celtics tying the league record for threes and then missing 11 in a row is actually more annoying than if they had broken it

12!

13! what a hilarious turn of events

NYK is thin, injured, and very early developing chemistry -- which really showed tonight. All that will improve. Boston is the favorite for a reason. But Celts also went at KAT on *both* ends the way a lot of good, smart teams will, and NYK responded poorly. It's early. 81 left.

— Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) October 23, 2024

celtics are so good at targeting guys basically second nature now underrated aspect of their success

crazy that the most physical dude out there right now might actually be LeBron James

yall what if the wolves knicks trade was the rare "lose-lose" trade

possible

one can only dream

sorry for being a sap but Bronny actually getting into a game with his dad made me a little emotional

nice of his dad to set that up

finally some positive news for nepo babies

i dont have a problem with nepo babies if the person they're nepo'ing from is cool. very few cool people to nepo from though

it was fine they can release him now and give his roster spot to an actual player (thanasis)

a Thanasis/Bronny 1v1 would be incredible content for the ASG this year

when lebron retires he should buy a lil hardware store and call it James & Sons or maybe a professional basketball team with the same name

his team lost and he didn’t play well but something tells me DDV is still gonna sleep very soundly tonight

JOrdan, I don't remember which thread the Embiid talk was on, but I want to say I'm closer to your view after reading this in the Philly media:

Embiid again showed nothing of obvious concern. He made jumpers, handled contact fine, didn’t seem hesitant in his movements, playfully trash talked.

His coach insisted “there’s no setback.”

“Again, he’s really active, he’s lost some weight, he’s out on the court,” Nurse said. “It’s just kind of sticking with our plan of making sure we’re getting him in a really, really good place to then get him playing live.”

None of that summation is untrue. It still begs several questions, including how to reconcile the notion that Embiid’s ramp-up plan would not include him playing on opening night.

“I don’t know what to say to you,” Nurse said. “He’s in practice, he’s looking good, he’s progressing. He’s not quite ready yet. He’ll be ready pretty soon.”

After Embiid’s left lateral meniscus injury last season, is there a specific physical condition (or injury) of note here besides “left knee management?”

“This is getting him to where he needs to be to get him on the court,” Nurse said.

Either Embiid had a setback or is progressing more slowly than everyone planned. Nothing else makes sense.

def weird sitch

yall what if the wolves knicks trade was the rare "lose-lose" trade

― Cruz crews cruise through Carew's car ruse, cur ooze (m bison), Tuesday, October 22, 2024 9:53 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i would estimate i've consumed about as much writing/podcasts/whatever on the trade as is possible and at the end of the day there wasn't really a way forward for the team with KAT's contract, the Knicks finally caved on including DDV in the deal and the Wolves pulled the trigger, another injury or bad playoff performance and the contract would be untradeable

yeah agreed that they had to get off that contract and prob got as much as they could, im surprised they did it tho you dont see teams dumping salary after a great season, the aprons are real man

i think the risk for the wolves was pretty minimal. the opportunity cost is probably just this season, which isn't nothing -- i think ppl would have had them as close to co-favorites in the west had they kept the team together. it's possible we're sitting here in 3-5 years w/ the wolves not having made it back to the second round or something like, damn they should've pushed for that final KAT year. the risk for the knicks is far greater

until this trade i also didn't understand how onerous the restrictions of the second apron are -- it's far worse than just paying luxury tax, you lose your mid-level exception, you can't use trade exemptions, bunch of weird stuff

they start pushing yr draft picks to the end of the first round after a while

General vibe from opening shootaround; Bulls players are quietly confident they’ll exceed the modest expectations surrounding them.

— K.C. Johnson (@KCJHoop) October 23, 2024

love to exceed surrounding modest expectations

quiet confidence that the 7th seed is theirs for the taking

i like the wolves roster better now tbf i think they're going to figure it out. ant will control whatever their ceiling is but the floor should be top 3 seed pretty easily. lakers physicality is just a bad matchup for a few specific teams

dare i ask how bronny played last night?

Pretty much how you'd expect:

Bronny was 0-for-2 from the field and got a single rebound in nearly three minutes of play.

i think theres a chance that the wolves had a lighting in a bottle season last year and they regress somewhat, trading away their best shooter is pretty rough for a team that doesnt have a lot of shooting, they did get donte back but i dont think hes nearly as reliable as kat as far as that goes, ant not nearly as good as everyone thinks at least not yet didnt watch the game but saw someone saying that he didnt pass for ten possessions in a row and randle was visibly frustrated

i'm gonna yell at my dad tonight about his failure to become an alltime baller

very rude of him imo

saw someone saying that he didnt pass for ten possessions in a row and randle was visibly frustrated

― lag∞n, Wednesday, October 23, 2024 10:57 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

spiderman pointing dot gif

The NBA is likely to commence an investigation into the Philadelphia 76ers surrounding the player participation of All-NBA center Joel Embiid, sources told ESPN. More to come on NBA Today on ESPN right now. pic.twitter.com/WwZNHgLLcl

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) October 23, 2024

what does that mean

like all those words are in the english language. but when put together in that order

shams is the only journalist who should not only not be fighting AI, but should be actively feeding his writing into it for legibility purposes

lol. and the “story” has no inside information either, just regurgitating quotes from the past couple of weeks

Embiid is the last player who should be investigated for not playing. They should investigate him when he plays.

prob happening cause the sixers are supposed to disclose what the issue is instead theyre just saying "ramping up"

god i miss woj already

Maxey has the AI shooting % to go with the AI cornrows.

cade looks good

heez im so sorry that i have to be an anti-hawks guy for the next 3 years but will be rooting so hard against u until 2027

grant williams for the lead! rockets/hornets is a fun game of who’s next up

i've decided. we don't really need a camera on Ballmer

Xp bise alls fair in love and war

Dyson Daniels might actually make the hawks good at defense. Cool player so far 5 steals tonight

suns ideally would be beating the clippers, no?

blazers might be bad this year

warriors might also be better than mid too... that was beautiful basketball, holy shit

I doubt that level of effort from Hield is sustainable but he does really seem to enjoy playing with Steph.

dubs movement offense prob good for him

dubs roster is weirder than i thought. lots of solid wing depth and tjd and looney are really their only bigs.

The thing that impressed me was the defense and its impact, but I'll temper my excitement until they play someone better. They did have some closer matches with this team last year and probably only looked this good a handful of times from start to finish. The chemistry was palpable last night too

Pistons looked improved from last year but Cade/Ivey/Duren/etc still look like a collection of assets for better teams to start picking off, maybe things will look different once Ausar Thompson is in the mix again. Cade balled out for stretches but had a rough 4th Q. Ivey also had stretches where he looked like an all-star driving to the basket – feel like he's always had great burst, but he was putting some moves together and looking very confident finishing at the rim, very Ant-like.

Redick: "I'm gonna send in a request for the league tomorrow that we can play with worn-in basketballs." pic.twitter.com/IQmPqMm3U0

— Spectrum SportsNet (@SpectrumSN) October 23, 2024

the lakers deserve and demand used balls

very relatable to me lol. when i played pickup (RIP, retired now) i was always the dude that was super picky about the ball we played with

maybe they start the season with all new balls, or maybe when they were doing their lil test at the beginning of the game the players thought the ball was fine

between redick and bronny this might be the most annoying lakers season in a number of years

new nba balls are insanely hard and slick, but once broken have thee best feel easily

between redick and bronny this might be the most annoying lakers season in a number of years

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Thursday, October 24, 2024 1:40 PM (nine seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

a very hard bar to clear but they may be able to do it yup

old or new balls, it's looking good that we are going get some truly weird JJ press conferences, should be fun

yeah it might be funny for redick to share all his pet peeves, you know every coach has them but theyre usually not telling the media

pretty promising redick returns on game 1 tbf. they already look more organized and like... playing their best players the most minutes.

altho lakers always look pretty good when brow plays like an mvp tbh

ha i had exactly the same thought process

hi guys so I work mega part time at a tiny family law firm where I mostly pick up some slack from a couple lawyer friends, anyways I got an email today asking me to gather a bunch of info on and put a call in with a w*lli*m h*nry p*rk*r in NJ as we are handling his divorce. A follow up email tells me to refer to him as Smush as that is his family name. So turns out…

whoaaaa willium horny porker? thats huge news

also the spurs are playing like a real nba team for the first time in like 5 years

wiz are starting alex sarr and i dont think its good

he should be in the g league

Lukas fade is tragic

is he bad now

hes just a lil eepy in this game

jeremy sochan was born 4 inches too short for how he wants to play

thats why he wears the clown hair

just watching him get destroyed over and over trying to finish at the rim like a sad clown

watching wemby play is still so like what am i seeing here 7-4 guys slithering through four defenders low to the ground making a perfect interior dish off

all the new washed vets on these teams, lol

i dont think adam silver should wear suits anymore there should be a commissioners office uniform

Klay couldn’t ask for a better mavs debut.

spurs played great in the first half, but they couldnt trade buckets when the mavs got hot. wemby neeeeeeds to get smarter about shot selection, too. he was trying too much hero ball shit.

i was (am…) pretty convinced the klay signing was a horrible idea but maybe he really did just need a change of scenery

yes but have u been to dallas the scenery is not good

klwy will get some nice looks playing with luka and the mavs need shooting i do have questions about the kyrie-klay-luka defensive line tho

jalen williams opening the season by basically hitting jamal murray over the head with a club

season doesnt start until you get punched in the head

yeah i think you can see why the thunder wanted hartenstein

not a great game for the thunder to be missing every large player except chet

chet looks shook on offense they need him to play with a lot more confidence

nuggets non-jokic minutes looking worse than ever

yeah rough stuff

4/22 from 3 :(

sick move by shai

chet time baby

sigh

well hello chet

put me down as not being a fan of the westbrook experiment

kngs-wolves in a good one

put me down as not being a fan of the westbrook experiment

#freejokic

i want to believe that nuggets doomsayers are overselling it. but maybe it’s all true

Wemby really takes a ton of bad shots man. He should not be taking more than a few threes per game

i want to believe that nuggets doomsayers are overselling it. but maybe it’s all true

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Thursday, October 24, 2024 10:38 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

they went up against the team that is almost guaranteed to be the 1 seed and they have a lot of new guys to integrate. problem is malone has never really been known as a lineup wizard and I am not really expecting him to improve there. lineups with AG, pwat, and russ all playing at the same time are drawing dead offensively

Just realizing how much I missed basketball. Baked before lunch on a nice Friday thinking about how Trae reminds me of a hard bop drummer

salute Heez

it’s prob a bad thing when your best player is saying this about your roster on opening night of the 2024 nba season

Nikola Jokic after the Nuggets' opening night loss to the Thunder: "We are not a good shooting team, except Mike and Jamal. All of us are kind of streaky, not streaky, but just average shooters."#MileHighBasketball pic.twitter.com/pkkVFfVX6Y

— DNVR Nuggets (@DNVR_Nuggets) October 25, 2024

Things sure change fast in the NBA. Everyone was saying they had this big window in the aftermath of their championship, but it feels like that window is closing.

the dreaded aprons doing their thing

well in denver’s case the owner is just cheap aprons or not

i wonder if their approach w/ draft picks has been “we don’t need to draft shooters bcuz jokic is gonna get guys open threes at will” … or does booth just generally value athleticism over shooting in prospects? bcuz they’re in a weird spot now having added no vet like idk gary trent jr or michael beasley or something while also going several drafts w/o taking a player who has shooting as a carrying skill

where is their isaiah joe or sam hauser or duncan robinson type shooting development success story. they could really use someone like that right now

Just realizing how much I missed basketball. Baked before lunch on a nice Friday thinking about how Trae reminds me of a hard bop drummer

― Heez, Friday, October 25, 2024 8:44 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

love this

well in denver’s case the owner is just cheap aprons or not

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Friday, October 25, 2024 9:13 AM (forty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

window closed as soon as they let bruce and kcp walk and decided to give those slots to rooks. window REALLY closed when they signed russ

jokic otm nuggs arent a good enough shooting team

think ive mentioned this before but watching mazzulla celtics relentlessly hunt threes has warped my mind now when i watch other teams and theres a momentary window to launch open im like why didnt they shoot that whats going on

a lot of people dont like the style but once you get addicted theres no going back

Russ might have to watch his back, Joker brothers looming

haliburton might be broken

weird sitch

also loving this tre mann allen iverson cosplay

ha i just switched between those two games

i would like to wish all the hornets (except bridges) a very beat the hawks

Sixers shuffled the deck again and still have no shooting, lol.

Maxey seems like he's trying to do too much.

tough when you dont have your guys

I'm used to it.

lamelos shot should be studied by science it looks so weird but he gets it off effortlessly looks like hes shooting from ten feet when he takes a three

he has nine threes

imagine if he had three nines

he fouled out

that's six sixes

Lakers fans really go deep in their tic tac toe strategy

https://streamable.com/ps837e

derrick mutumbo white

clutch play vs the checks notes detroit pistons

pistons choked it man they were up by like 6 with a couple minutes left but alas

they looked good tough sched to start the season but theyre playing good teams close so far

much better than last year. cade and duren gotta stay healthy and ivey looks more comfortable for sure

nuggets lose at home to a mid team when jokic did this

Seen Steph lose w/ 60 last year, Jokic welcome to hell. https://t.co/KtZitHJTXo

— Niko (@nikotaughtyou) October 26, 2024

cade kinda beasting hes playing strong out there xp

he looks stronger

had to miss the nuggets game but…uh

they have too many guys who are bad at scoring seems like

+russ who is a historically bad player at this point in his career

the russ curse is so strong, jesus

https://media.tenor.com/zIJYl-oM-YAAAAAM/usnkrs-lebron-james.gif

He’s older than I am how the fuck is he doing this?? That was 16 points in 4 minutes has he ever done that before?

I can give you an answer

in 4 minutes? hes truly declining then

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyd4NPvzKQg

Milwaukee didnt count back then

Kevin Durant calls Luka “too small.” 💀

pic.twitter.com/4UJ6LKXGo0

— Hoop Central (@TheHoopCentral) October 27, 2024

pic.twitter.com/EkWQcSq9Qq

— Nuggets Community (0-2) (@nuggetsfan_) October 26, 2024

soon

sorry to bring in politics but this long off-the-cuff answer from Pop about the election is so eloquent and on point

🎥 Gregg Popovich spoke at length about the American elections between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Full answer 👇 pic.twitter.com/VYyKCaw8TT

— Théo Quintard (@TheoQuintard) October 26, 2024

xp vj edgecombe sounds like a pen name a fantasy novelist would use for their off-brand series of murder mysteries

The audacity to even think you can do this let alone actually know you can do it pic.twitter.com/bH607rBIHl

— Zach Harper (@talkhoops) October 26, 2024

this is insane?

is that obi?

they usually get the broom for those ones

feels fitting that the signature play of obi toppin’s career is jumping really high when the game wasn’t happening

So casually too

yeah he got up there easy

Pacers picking up where they left off in the conference finals (multiple terrible turnovers in crunch time)

sixers with the intentional foul up two lol

and hali misses the free throw yeesh

sixers with the intentional foul up two lol

― symsymsym, Sunday, October 27, 2024 6:36 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

what

yeah they fouled up 3 a couple times, then missed one of their free throws, went up two and fouled again. caleb martin didn't know the score I guess.

lol jesus

the sixers were very relieved that it didn't cost them the game (or send them to double OT)

so tired of teams fouling up 3 at the end of games, nice to see it go wrong. wish there was a way the NBA could ban it.

they could make intentional fouls in the last 2mins 1ft + side out

Gotta say the hawks did well getting Dyson Daniels in the Murray trade. The type of guy who changes the whole team’s defense.

Gotta say the hawks did well getting Dyson Daniels in the Murray trade. The type of guy who changes the whole team’s defense.

Maxey with another Iverson-esque statline:

47:48 14 32 43.8 5 17 29.4 12 15 80.0 0 4 4 4 1 2 5 3 45 6

thats too many numbers

Well, it's not just the percentages that are AI, it's the volume.

harden just passed to a ref also it was a bad pass hit him in the feet

thunder are good man close game going in to the fourth and they just flipped the switch on the hawks

chet is destroying them at the rim on both sides

Yeah hawks couldn’t match that fourth. Trae looked gassed

I really like the team they’ve put together. big hole behind Trae but some cool players otherwise. Risacher is such a Frenchie it’s amazing

chet basically putting up peak anthony davis numbers at both ends so far, if he is this good all season then they may actually win 65+ games

chet is so good

bucks lost to the nets by 13 doesnt seem great

dennis schroder and cam thomas both went off seems like the bucks point of attack defense has not been fixed

i think the bucks are not good and the jrue-for-dame trade was a bad idea and also giannis is coming to san antonio

not sure about that part at the end

but maybe idk where giannis should go

It’s genuinely sad you can be this mentally terrified of the moment pic.twitter.com/4dcmRGFZOF

— Josh Eberley 🇨🇦 (@JoshEberley) October 28, 2024

yeesh

oh no

He is a HOF weirdo as a player.

giannis will join the famous golden state warriors

afraid of the moment his team was up 17 in the 4th hes afraid of the layup

giannis to warriors does feel right

wigdawg killing the clips over here

there's really nothing about the bucks except the idea of having two stars that would make you think they should be considered contenders. age curves are all in the wrong places, no young talent behind them, zero proof of concept over the last two seasons. it's very respectful to giannis, but...

yup

dame is going to end up a weird career guy

steph rolled his ankle then came back in and rolled it again wtf :(

remember when steph's glass ankles were going to keep him from being great?

wow looks like Alex Sarr really sucks. poor Wiz

any other rookies looking good?

sarr was so obviously not currently at least an nba quality player in the celtics game just chucking up wild shots getting blown by gotta send him down to the g league

i'd like to think the hawks would have passed on him but i appreciate him denying them that opportunity

might have another james wiseman on our hands

speaking of... wiseman tore his achilles. just a really sad career

damn

people have been saying good things about yves missi

pelicans finding a center would be good for them

odd thing this year where the rookie ppl in the media are most excited about (reed sheppard) is barely playing and doesn’t have a clear path to more minutes

people speculating that jalen greens deal was made to be traded

steph castle passes the eye test even if his shot isn’t cooking rn

marcus smart type

jalen green strikes me as one of those offense only two guards who is theoretically tradable except for the part where no team seems to ever want to give up anything of value for that kinda player on a big contract

they have a bunch of draft picks too

k3v are you tracking this or what:

Ben Simmons is averaging more fouls (4.7) than shots (4.0) per game 🤯

Nets vs Hawks:
5 PF
4 FGA

Nets vs. Magic:
5 PF
5 FGA

Nets vs. Bucks:
4 PF
3 FGA

Season Total:
14 PF
12 FGA pic.twitter.com/iy1zbh2MLM

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) October 28, 2024

speaking of weird career guys...

Risacher got his first start last night and i'm thinking he may stay there here on out

i mean look at this dude

https://youtube/ri2uy7L4iG8?si=k6L9MhcWqPeJG5eD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri2uy7L4iG8

the move he puts on Chet is cool

clingan averaging 2.7 blocks in 13mpg so far

thats crazy, risacher looking way better than people thought

risacher's game looks very mature already, no hesitation but no hurry either

lol at this bbref feature being enabled this early in the season. 2016 is back baby

https://i.imgur.com/z9cN5CH.png

maybe risacher drank all the french basketball juice and sarr got none

the process 2

paolo cookin'

37-7-6 in the first half

wow

dario saric is really bad

yeah the saric and westbrook signings were inexcusable

malone had to go with aaron gordon backup 5 minutes in the first half of game 3/82. (they were actually pretty good)

saric had some good moments early in the season last year but something changed after his knee injury and he looked scared to be out there after it. was unplayable by the end of the season.

PAYTON PRITCHARD DOES IT AGAIN 😱 pic.twitter.com/FgIO7vCZ67

— NBA TV (@NBATV) October 29, 2024

jeremy sochan breakout season downloading

pritchard is an elite nba 3pt shooter

im not a fan of tony brothers reffing

darius garland looking like an elite scoring guard right now vs the knicks, would be cool if he could bounce back this year

he had a weird year last year broke his jaw missed a bunch of time and lost a bunch of weight because its hard to eat with a broken jaw

nuggets were down 10 with like 1:30 to play and just sent it to overtime on a sikk jamal reverse layup

taylor hendricks injury, my friends... is not good dont look it up unless you can handle the worst of the worst kavin ware style

think i might skip that one

ryan dunn looks like a perfect fit in phoenix

broken fibula + ankle dislocation combo is all i need to know on that one xp

anthony davis basically looks like the best player in the NBA with the way he’s moving around and this level of efficiency

fun finish lakers/suns

knicks very much “still figuring things out”

Cam Payne
26 FG attempts this season in 52 mins

Karl-Anthony Towns:
25 FG attempts this season in 78 mins

Not ideal

— Tommy Beer (@TommyBeer) October 29, 2024

And similar to Redick with AD, Kenny Atkinson is feeding Mobley some more reps as PNR ball-handler. The Mobley/Merrill inverted PNR caused NY some issues. KAT with 6 3PAs in three games isn't going to cut it given early issues on defense. https://t.co/4ECpE9Ns2k

— Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) October 29, 2024

number of teams seem to be benefiting from their coaching changes already lakers cavs suns nice to see except for lakers

pistons too

everyone is jerking JJ off for the plays he’s running and i’m sure there is truth in that but what’s gonna matter there is how he handles things when they start going less good, when lebron starts agitating for weird stuff, all the nonsense that happens in that organization etc you see this in football a lot where a new coach changes the scheme and everyone thinks the heavens have opened but then guys get hurt, teams get hip to your plays etc you have to be more than schematics especially in basketball. the rest of those just seem like pure coaching upgrades w/ guys who have been around the block so they feel more real to me

also ad is playing out of his mind which will prob not last

rudy gay retires

I’m 38 years old.

I’ve had an 18 year career in the NBA.

It’s time to hang it up. Thank you for everything — it’s all love. @PlayersTribune https://t.co/GOEjp3rolL

— Rudy Gay (@RudyGay) October 29, 2024

“DEFENSE!…NOOOO NOT RUDY GAY! NOT THIS GUY! NOOOOOO YOU FN A**HOLE!” https://t.co/wP71u5Qf9s pic.twitter.com/tCYCLRPL50

— Jamal Cristopher (@JamCristopher) October 29, 2024

lmaoo genuine fan hate gotta respect it

wish I could remember when that was from. has to be at least 10 years ago now

yeah likely from like 2011-12 or so id imagine

ant 24pt 1st quarter

luka some sort of knee sprain didnt look terrible but he wasnt putting weight on it

hes back

seems like hes trying to have a better attitude this season, he did just get teed up anyway tho

minnys d not up to their standard

really sloppy game by the wolves, barf-o-rama

early season basketball baby

pretty fun game tho i thought

the nuggets have once again won an overtime game

best OT record in the league

ive been watching some of the youtube shows where they analyze nba plays and theyre not too impressed with the bucks defense rn

think maybe dame told giannis about the idea of not really trying that hard

if the plays guys don’t like it that’s rough

the plays guys watch some of the plays multiple times they know what happened

that’s crazy

theyre like super interested in basketball

Dubs looked really good without Steph, Wigs and Melton

Defense in the 2nd was so good. Like 10 steals

think maybe dame told giannis about the idea of not really trying that hard

Jrue took all the vibes with him when he went to Boston

Lindy Waters III, forced out of OKC by the roster squeeze, has been doing well for the Warriors. 21 points tonight.

He looked amazing... mad effort, smooth stroke from 3, solid D... wow! Dude was playing blowout garbage time against the Blazers

i caught like 10 mins of the game and he had a dunk that popped off the screen to me. i was like, damn who is that

okc so good at drafting even their cast offs can play tre mann is balling too

small sample size alert, but, luka doncic's usage rate through four games is 33.7 percent. it would be the second-lowest mark of his career.

— Josh Bowe (@Boweman55) October 30, 2024

there’s a lot to say about the bucks i think ultimately the idea they had to acquire an offense first PG at the expense of a defensive PG and many of their assets was a bad idea, a misread of their team

if you think back to the root cause of it all, which was jimmy butler somewhat randomly making jrue look like he couldn’t play defense anymore, and then think about an alternate history of that series, where jimmy is… picking on dame every time down? is dame’s ability to hit pull up threes solving that? i guess at the time they thought the solution was to score more points. but taking a step back from it, it really doesn’t make a lot of sense, actually. they just didn’t see the harm it would do to their defense, which is pretty bad when you’re running the team

Cmon guys I’m sure it’ll all work in the end

one thing to remember is giannis was pressuring them to make a move and when they traded for dame he signed an extension

the other problem with the bucks is that all their vets started declining and they're like the worst draft and development organization in the nba

they developed Donte DiVincenzo

well, they certainly drafted him

if you think back to the root cause of it all, which was jimmy butler somewhat randomly making jrue look like he couldn’t play defense anymore, and then think about an alternate history of that series, where jimmy is… picking on dame every time down? is dame’s ability to hit pull up threes solving that? i guess at the time they thought the solution was to score more points. but taking a step back from it, it really doesn’t make a lot of sense, actually. they just didn’t see the harm it would do to their defense, which is pretty bad when you’re running the team

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, October 30, 2024 8:09 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

there is certainly something to this, but just as important probably is that their other key guys have been either injured or slowing down with age. giannis hurt the last 2 playoffs, doesn’t matter if they have jrue or not if giannis isn’t 100%

Coulibaly for the wiz seems like a good player

I know Embiid and PG are out, but the Sixers losing by 16 to DET isn't a great sign for this season.

love coulibaly, amazing defender

are the wizards...good now? (no, they just beat the hawks twice)

i just watched this breakdown of coulibaly guarding trae young earlier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMC9EILN8mQ

the hawks are decimated by injuries but good for the wiz nonetheless

some big questions about the celtics tonight most pertinently are they NOT frauds judy is out

judge judy?

yes judge judy is our what’s your question

she’s not sure

judge judy also does not appreciate gotchas regarding post autocorrects she’s a serious jurist

lol celtics made a 14-2 run to send the game into overtime but couldnt close the deal and continue their playoff run of winning games vs the pacers at the last possible moment

bams 3 pt shooting has not carried over from the preseason

shocking that a veteran would revert to their old behaviors once the season starts

well, it was more than just the preseason

Preseason, workout videos, Ben Simmons Instagram. We've all been there.

It really sucks that I'm fated to watch the Tatum/Brown Celtics never, ever be out of a game against the Pacers, really doesn't feel different from watching Heatles v. Pacers except instead of and endless loop of LeBron and-1s, it's the Celtics dialing up their defense 5% and Pacers just crumbling.

Mathurin beginning to look too good to come off the bench. He started last year looking like he'd regressed – really weak finishing at the rim, which affected the rest of his game. Very much back on track this year, just hope his body doesn't wear down by the end of the regular season. He's had a few beautiful combo spin moves that I don't remember seeing from him; would be amazing if he could hit his ceiling and develop into an impactful 1-v-1 scorer. Feel like the ball has also been sticking in his hands less.

IMO alarm bells should be way louder for Haliburton. Doesn't seem like he's playing with any nagging injuries (he plays with a perma-grimace when he's playing through injury, and he's been generally pretty smiley so far this season), but his offensive numbers are absolutely cratering across the board, it does make me wonder if he's tweaked his (awful) shot form somehow. Shot selection has been worse, he's rarely making his way to the paint and missing those easy assists, even his FT% shooting is way down. However he's looked better on defense!

i haven’t seen tons of the pacers this year so this is not a deeply informed theory — and perhaps it’s all just a shot thing — but i do think the rest of the league was bound to find a way to curb the way the pacers were playing offense early last season. teams are too smart and too understanding of what good offense is these days & how you might be able to stop it. i don’t think you can just 7 seconds or less style run roughshod over the league for multiple seasons anymore. the pacers were second in pace last year and are 12th this year — i’m sure they’ll move up as the season goes on bcuz several teams like chicago, washington are playing at paces right now that you can’t keep up for a full season. but i do think it would be fair to assume that teams playing the pacers are keying in on slowing the pace of the game down and just generally disrupting their style of play. another stat — pacers are 24th in 3PA per game so far, last year they were 12th. the difference is only 3 attempts per game, their ranking has slid moreso bcuz other teams are shooting like crazy, but even that somewhat defangs the advantage of the pacers’ style. but you also have to imagine that there is a concerted effort to run them off the 3 pt line

and then w/ halliburton himself, he’s obv a basketball genius to some degree but he doesn’t have the raw athletic skills of i.e. a ja morant where you can try and game plan for what he likes to do but there’s still gonna be times where he just does stuff athletically that no one can defend. a lot of what made tyrese indefensible was the long range shooting, but if that is not at steph levels then he is a far more conventional player. his shooting numbers so far are obviously unsustainably bad so we’ll see where everything levels out, but he never struck me as being an indefensible basketball player in the way other top guys are or project to be bcuz of the physical attributes

You're definitely right that their pace has slowed / 3PTA are down – they've done far less early-shot-clock jacking and psychotic fast-breaking this season by design I think, in an effort to improve defense / defensive rebounding, which has been m/l fine so far. So you lose a few of those extra points from the 3PTA as well as at least a few fast-break layups a game. Suddenly, you're looking at a quick 10pt/game drop that you're hoping to make up w/ efficient half-court offense (which they're not getting so far) and more defensive stops (which they're getting). They've also had Nembhard start initiating the offense, which again has been m/l fine but just means the ball is in Hali's hands even less.

What makes Hali great is that logo-3pt range, but what makes him at least a good player was his ability to penetrate and dish or find a decent shot, and he's not doing that. The wildly atypically bad %s across 2pt, 3pt and FT attempts makes me think it has a lot less to do with teams scheming for him and more either idk shot tweak, some hamstring/back injury, or a tiny case of the shooting yips? Some of these shots have looked really, really bad. It would be funny if he simply has to exert this much of his offensive performance just to be a league-average defender, which I think he has been so far. I don't think he's even had a single highlight assist over the first five games?

There really aren't any other massive dark spots in their offense so far otherwise. Luckily there are enough young players on the roster who all look like they've taken positive steps, so Hali's awful start is masked a bit.

Sources: Milwaukee Bucks are declining the rookie-scale $4.7M fourth-year option on MarJon Beauchamp and the 24th pick in the 2022 NBA Draft will become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season. pic.twitter.com/yZpK1dcMzE

— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) October 31, 2024

more coulibaly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEkmXVx-G4E

ja is so good man really cool guy to watch play

he's such a creative scorer

some great passes tonight too

bucks guys cursing at each other after letting the grizzlies score 1 second after a dame lay up

bucks are old and slow

yeah theyre not exactly radiating good energy

dame has turned into a fulltime foul merchant

who is the best athlete on the bucks after giannis

ja is embarrassing them

out of the guys who actually get minutes yeah not sure xp

it honestly might be taurean prince which really shouldn't be possible

at least in this game edey's presence isn't impeding the grizz's ability to run or ja's ability to get into the paint

ja 21-8-9 first half

Ok I changed my mind Milwaukee is not very good

well i think they are exceptional

You’re not wrong

ja throwing lefty lobs to whoevers around nbd

I’ve never seen them just give up like this

So early in the season too

its not great

so last year they fired the coach. this year …?

fire the coach

unless middleton getting back rights the ship this doesn’t feel sustainable to me for even this season

i know it sounds drastic but they may be better off just admitting the dame thing isn’t working and seeing if they can at least get a different kinda roster around giannis. i can’t imagine dame would stand in the way of getting moved out of there

be pretty hard to trade dame and improve the team on the other hand not sure what they should do give up maybe

yeah that’s why i said different. brook may actually have more trade value

maybe trade brook move giannis to center

trade giannis to the spurs

torn oblique for paolo, out 4-6 weeks at least

come on

shit

reed sheppard growing a mustache between college and the pros hes up to something

you know whos not that athletic the dallas mavericks, currently getting run over by the rockets

they have athletic bigs who can play above the rim at least and that’s def a positive for them offensively in the half court. but yeah at the guard and wing spots…. no

so i guess the jazz are just fully going for one of the three worst records this year

its the right move

but also lauri isnt playing

suns were down 18 at the handful, then hit their first 14 shots of the third quarter and now have a lead early in the 4th

Another *extremely* disconcerting loss for the Bucks last night. Sure, some bad shooting luck (9/42 on 3s), but absolutely run off the floor. Every team making a point to bully MIL guards. More teams putting Dame in ball screens. Ton of demoralized body language/miscommuniction

— Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) November 1, 2024

Offense lacks flow. Chemistry/connectivity b/w Dame and Giannis still isn't where it needs to be. Doc going back to Jackson Jr. last 2 games screams "we just need some freaking speed + athleticism out there," + AJJ stands out in that regard -- probably too much. Red alert stuff. https://t.co/kENxJmsGTI

— Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) November 1, 2024

such a bummer about paolo :( was off to an incredible start

five games in, list of games guards have had vs the bucks:

Pritchard: 28 points 100% TS

Cam Thomas: 32 points 62% TS

Schroeder: 29p/6a 78% TS

Coby White: 35p/6a 80% TS

Ja: 26p/14a/10r on 68% TS

— subscribe to the state of the league patreon (@JoestarJokic) November 1, 2024

only guard who didnt tune them up is the one youd think would maxey he had 25pts but shot poorly

dame 3 pt shooting %

19-20: 40%
20-21: 39%
21-22: [hurt]
22-23: 37%
23-24: 35%
24-25: 27%

dame having his heart set on miami and getting traded to milwaukee has got to factor into all this

dame having his heart set on miami was unrealistic to say the least. miami had minimal interest in dame and nothing of value they wanted to give back in trade

youll have to talk to him about that

i'm trying not to psychoanalyze too much but dame just seemed to be going thru the motions of the game last night. the shots he took were rarely in rhythm -- they weren't "forced" in the sense that he was heaving the ball up as the shot clock expired, but more forced in the sense that a lot of the shots had a vibe of "well, if someone was in this position i'd guess they'd shoot this" and so he'd shoot it, usually contested, and the ball would clang off the rim

for as bad as the defense has been they're 24th in offensive rating by NBA.com's stats and the one thing that was really noticeable last night is that when dame has the ball it was extremely easy to force him to pass the ball to either gary trent jr or taurean prince, neither of whom were being guarded. they shot 1-13 from three and that's obv not gonna happen on most nights, but it just seemed to me like the defensive game plan was very simple and it was "give dame an open pass to a guy we want shooting and force him to make the 'right' play." and so he made a bunch of the "right" plays except it all was just really mechanical and rote, swinging the ball to the open passer w/o even looking for another answer. you never sensed him trying to change the game in any way, to try and regain control of how he was being played. maybe physically he can't as much anymore, maybe it's more mental

it was a jarring juxtaposition tho watching the energy and speed and creativity and force and just overall "i am going to leave my fingerprints on every possession"-ness ja was playing with vs this listlessly robotic version of dame

yeah I agree he seems to have a sort of an Eric Bledsoe type of energy about him these days

the cowards curse

it really pains me to say it but unless they can somehow get Khris back and healthy for the whole year I don't think this team is gonna work and they don't really have any prospects for the next few years so it might be time to see who's gonna give you the biggest haul for Giannis and plan to be relevant again in 2027

yeah i think giannis demands a trade before the start of next season

its really hard to stay good in the nba these days

dame 'bledsoe' lillard

I Dont wanna be here

— Eric Bledsoe (@EBled2) October 22, 2017

xp self obvs theres the luxury tax situation but also i think the value of non star guys has gone up you really need ~7.5 quality players and then also the bar for quality player has been raised guys have to be able to defend and shoot and make the right pass, if your roster isnt loaded with quality guys then yr opponents will ruthless exploit you in the playoffs

new KG quotable just dropped

https://t.co/a5Eu8WaHLN pic.twitter.com/FNhC5U48GV

— ⚡️ JM ⚡ (@WeAreOKC) November 1, 2024

He’s the best

if your roster isnt loaded with quality guys then yr opponents will ruthless exploit you in the playoffs

― lag∞n, Friday, November 1, 2024 4:50 PM (forty minutes ago)

i believe hollinger was the one who said a few weeks ago that the playoffs were becoming more about the worst player on the floor than the best. the way the celtics are built would seem to exemplify that to me

yeah otm

one of the immutable issues the bucks have is that even when middleton comes back they still have a 5th guy on the floor who is a minimum salary player. last year it was beasley this year it will be prince or trent jr. those guys are probably better than "minimum" players and the bucks have been celebrated in both off seasons for getting these "steals" on the minimum but whether those guys are getting paid $1.5 million or $5 million it doesn't really matter. they're still the flashing red light on both sides of the ball, whether it's being okay w/ that guy shooting the ball instead of dame/khris/brook or on defense where the guy is gonna be in the pick and roll every single time down. their star power is essentially fighting an uphill battle against that one player on the floor -- in theory it's not impossible for them to overcome, but you feel them pushing the boulder. i don't think the NBA has typically been defined on these terms

umm i meant a few years ago on the hollinger thing not a few weeks ago** xp

yeah ideally yr minimum guys would be soaking up regular season bench/spot starter minutes and then not playing in the offs

sometimes you find a diamond in the rough like last year the celtics had hauser on a minimum deal and he played well in the offs but even then he was their 7th man

i guess 6th when zinger was out which was most of the time

salute to sam hauser

When zone defense was technically illegal you always had to stop the best opposing player using man defense, so teams could do a lot of iso plays. Now teams can freely flow from man coverage to zone concepts however they want and it's become very hard to work an iso play for your best guy.

if you look at the best teams now there aren't just old guys hanging around like that. you have the young guys being able to backfill. pritchard & hauser, wiggins & isiah joe, dean wade & sam merrill ... even phoenix getting guys like tyus jones & ryan dunn into their line up

true way better to for yr marginal players to have young legs cause at least then they can run around and whatnot

sam vecenie was saying on his pod that ryan dunn was one of the best perimeter defenders hes ever scouted in college

there was still a time recently where it was standard to have one or two old vets as key parts of contenders. lebron heatles w/ battier & ray allen, lebron cleveland round 2 w/ guys like richard jefferson, the warriors had this w/ like bogut and iggy towards the end. i think we got used to this dynamic and started to consider it like a normal part of championship team building, think of how much ppl cared about when blake griffin or kevin love or whoever got bought out. but i think that has been left behind and now if you have those kinda players in your rotation it probably is a sign of an unbalanced and flawed roster (consider denver's slow descent into minimum russell westbrook being a key rotation cog)

*reverse gif of homer simpson stepping out the hedge*

slob wizard (J0rdan S.) wrote this on thread nba off season 2024 bud 2 suns etc on board I Love Hoops on Jun 27, 2024

the ryan dunn pick by phoenix is also somewhat interesting to me -- they need the ability to play small w/o putting KD at the 5 and he can give them that while also being able to guard probably up to the 1. for what they probably need to do (find a killer small line up) he may really work, he seems like the best switch defender in the draft. it will all obviously fall apart if he is a sub 30% shooter but he will at least be shooting tons of wide open ones, you have to figure. the upside of herb jones but even better is there -- if he went to a bad team in the top of the second round i would've been pessimistic, but he'll have the one crucial thing (tons of floor spacing) that players like this don't get on shitty teams.

nice

Fast ball movement is becoming the dominant winning style, with lots of picks and cutting, few set plays, and instant reads on where the ball needs to go next. Peak Steph used to run his defender ragged all over the court and into half a dozen picks. How's that going for GS this season? I haven't tuned in.

Joel Embiid on accusations he is not trying hard enough to come back and play:

“I’ve done way too much for this fucking city to be treated like this.”

— Underdog NBA (@Underdog__NBA) November 1, 2024

[freedom of speech guy] I think the sixers should follow the rules and update the league and the media honestly about embiid’s health

yeah its been obvious for a while that his knee is held together with mud and straw doesnt really have anything to do with a lack of desire to play joel likes get out there do some dunks ham it up for the home crowd whats not to like

reasonable people could debate how much joel has done “for the city”

its a mysterious statement tbh

i dont understand not leveling with the public about his condition people just come up with their own theories like hes a lazy coward otherwise

what condition? he’s ramping up

its called ramp knee

if he hadn’t played in the olympics they could hide behind ramping up because nobody would have seen him in public all summer. but that isn’t what happened

hornets new coach charles lee came over from the celtics and the hornets are playing celtics style ball vs the celtics tonight which imo is a bit rude

grant tried to murder jayson tonight also a bit rude

halftime of nuggets-wolves. wolves up 3. nuggets starters between +6 and +15. the bench…

yeah idk what grant was up to there def not anything good

A genuine nba weirdo

HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA pic.twitter.com/J9f3cEGNtp

— Aadan (@JMurrayWrld) November 2, 2024

Jamal Murray is out for the remainder of this game in concussion protocol

— Katy Winge (@katywinge) November 2, 2024

damn

bro that double tech?? gobert should be thrown out what the fuck

double tech is always the worst call, that clearly should have been a flagrant 1 on rudy for making a spectacle of himself

how about for assault?

assault on our sensibilities, yes for sure

insanely knuckleheaded call. gobert should have been thrown out

also, russell westbrook sucks. this statement will surprise no one who has been reading my posts the last 10 years

he’s abjectly horrible right now. imagine trying to explain to someone who’s never seen him that he’s a lock for the hall of fame.

one phony mvp trophy and a few seasons coattailing a true first ballot guy does a lot for a mans career

Ant was talking about how he'd been working on his 3 pt. shot this summer so far he's taking a crazy amount of threes with an average of 43.3%

Most three-pointers in NBA history through five games:

33 — Stephen Curry, 2018-19
29 — Anthony Edwards, 2024-25
28 — Stephen Curry, 2023-24
28 — Stephen Curry, 2015-16
27 — Stephen Curry, 2022-23https://t.co/a2vIDwcAjE

— Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) November 2, 2024

Asked Anthony Edwards what he would say to someone who thinks he's shooting too many 3s... pic.twitter.com/NITAeEVGi7

— Dane Moore (@DaneMooreNBA) November 2, 2024

if he can really hit threes at all like he has been so far thats pretty fuckin sick, he prob cant tho

one phony mvp trophy and a few seasons coattailing a true first ballot guy does a lot for a mans career

lol

will say russ is one of the worst crunch time players of all time and one of the worst shooters, weird game

😤the_westbrook_defender😤 has logged on

he was also often their best player in playoff games. was the best player on the floor putting up 43 in an NBA finals game featuring lebron, KD, harden, wade and bosh!

thats the thing is he was often completely dominant, but ultimately imho just way too much trick or treat play, way too much trick

also he couldve just tried at some point to change the footwork on his jumpshot

he had the talent to be a great defender but was just usually bad instead

He’s one of my favorite players ever honestly, just from a pure entertainment standpoint

he was also often their best player in playoff games. was the best player on the floor putting up 43 in an NBA finals game featuring lebron, KD, harden, wade and bosh!

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Saturday, November 2, 2024 11:37 AM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

a game they lost btw!!!

often an amazing watch for sure

He really carried them when kd was out that one time. But in the end was one of the worst crunch time decision makers we’ve ever seen

a game they lost btw!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFAdP95vAvM

there’s a lot of tough midrange makes in here that are the shots people hate but he was an absolute demon getting to the basket in the 4th q of this game (down 2-1 on the road)

hm good points but have u considered that russ is in fact a lil weiner tryhard who fuckin loses a lot

russ was always one part skillz, two parts crazed determination

idk man i always liked westbrook better than KD personally. which one of those two is the lil weiner tryhard who fuckin loses a lot is in the eye of the beholder imo

russ not an mvp poaster like kd

both of them are tetchy and brimming with self-regard, objectively bad qualities in a person, russ a bit more of the traditional toxic macho variety and kd more of a post about it kind of guy, neither has an especially winning personality and it’s not really any wonder they’re so widely disliked by different fanbases…but as players kd is both much better and always has been,

(clicked submit prematurely)…and has the added benefit of having a more pleasant game to watch

yeah i have no problem saying i always enjoyed watching westbrook more. i find that level of raw athleticism, abandon and all around involvement in the game more captivating than shooting skill and pure scoremanship personally

ppl can of course have the opposite opinion but you guys are painting it is as a very black and white thing like it would be crazy to have liked westbrook more or like he was just riding KD’s coattails as if that has ever led anyone to success in the NBA. KD, sam presti & scott brooks always had equal or more culpability in OKC’s failures — i was watching that highlight video above cracking up at westbrook having to get into the lane with perkins standing there doing nothing. and on a personality level you can just as easily paint KD as a pathetic moper. different tastes!

I think their personalities are just two sides of the same bitter, self-important coin. as far as play styles def agree it’s a taste thing………

I think bise was being a lil facetious, obv russ was a good player at one point about 4 uniforms ago

once KD left he developed a martyr syndrome and became a lil punk. very unlikable and it all cascaded once his athleticism slipped even like 5%. kd unlikable in a different way but i also think hes settled into who he is a bit more now and i kinda like him now.

he=russ

my fav thing about russ is he singlehandedly ended the lakers lebron era

Lakers Lebron era is just getting started if you ask me

yes but hopefully that was a one time thing

xp

worst qualities of russ’ personality are pretty garden variety as far superstar players go esp in terms of resisting being moved out of the starting line up & stuff like that

russ bad personality is pretty amusing, kd too tbf, theyre both funny

good content machines for sure

The cupcake game was riveting

remembering lots of press conferences in like 2012ish, year they went to the finals, with russ and kd on the podium together and weird, hard to pin down vibes. fascinating to look back on those with what we know now about these 2 oddball dudes' personalities. remember kd's backpack

I’m more talking about the getting fans thrown out of games, acting like a total arrogant crybaby any time anyone in the media asks him anything, things of that nature

yeah on balance he has even thinner skin than kd

agreed but he's less passive aggressive about it, which makes sense, there's not really anything passive about his game, persona, life (wanted to make a joke here about actual passing but assist-hunting or no, gotta give the guy credit he did lead the league in assists 3 times...)

well i have zero issue with players having fans ejected from games. if you say something that crosses a line to the point a player asks for that then imo you have said something that you will only say because the other person cannot fight you without being suspended for a year. so if the way the players “fight” back is by having fans tossed then that’s life. nobody is owed a courtside seat to a basketball

people who pay for a ticket are owed a seat

definitely not the case, for any number of reasons

its literally what the ticket is for

having them ejected for calling you “westbrick” and dishonoring the family name or whatever…diva behavior and indefensible sorry

I mean we are not really going to sit here and defend obvious asshole pattern behavior because he does cool things on the basketball court

lol yeah obvs you gotta have standards and fans get ejected every game mostly for fighting amongst themselves but having players point out people they want tossed seems unadvisable

luka got a fan tossed on some bs last year then sheepishly half owned up to it, also last year there was a video of luka replying to a fan telling him he looked tired by saying your moms a ho bitch

edey makes drummond look normal sized

hes a big fellow, just got a lob from ja

that reverse by ja the play before was sick

ja owns

Edey's genuinely enormous, but still a couple of inches shy of Yao Ming.

this jay huff guy coming out of nowhere this year

mobile 7 footer who shoots threes guess some teams just dont need a guy like that

couldn’t crack malone’s rotation last year. drives me fucking insane. many such cases sadly

doc rivers probably doesn’t make it to the all star break, right?

idk how many coaches does jon horst get to fire before someone notices the state of the roster

vaunted minimum signing gary trent shooting 27% on 3s

docs really bad but i read an article saying that hes totally mindfucked the bucks owner as is his way and that hes the defacto gm now

oh i didn't know that, that is definitely not what you want

doc is the billionaire whisperer hes got the touch, same guy who owns the browns apparently considered one of the worst nfl owners

dame is on one tonight tho

nevertheless

this is what we call a rough start for the bucks

spurs beat the wolves, actually looked like a functional offense in the second half

draymond doing amazing things rn (throwing the game away)

That game was incredible. Dubs up 31 and lost the lead ended up in OT. Insane defense from tari Eason all game that dudes awesome. Everyone fouled out by the end. Game put away by a vintage slo mo (and I mean VERY slow) euro step banker from the front.

recent video from one of the youtube breakdown guys talking about how eason is a secret elite defender

I’ll post the highlights when it goes up but that was a really fun game

Uhhhh apparently Joel punched that reporter that wrote the hit piece?????????

whaat

tbf

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GbbboU5bEAEFAXt?format=jpg&name=medium

shams saying no punch just shove

Yah pompey said punch first then changed it

It was a shove. No punch

— Keith Pompey (@PompeyOnSixers) November 3, 2024

dramatic night for the association

DeMar DeRozan, asked about Drake’s comments on the broadcast: “Well he’s going to have a long way to climb to take it down.” 🔥 https://t.co/6HGLVY6uDP

— Josh Lewenberg (@JLew1050) November 3, 2024

joel can have a little shove the guy who brought up his family in a piece about him being out of shape as a treat

one of those things where no one comes out looking great

Man, look. If you write this, you gotta be accountable to the player. This isn't talking about what Joel Embiid is doing on the court. This is ridiculous.

Is it worth getting physical with the dude? IDK, I want way more details on how this whole thing escalated. pic.twitter.com/lIXkwNrIk8

— Sam Vecenie (@Sam_Vecenie) November 3, 2024

imagine a respected journalist in in any other industry saying this after a rich famous person assaulted another journalist for saying something they didn’t like. gotta hear both sides lol

sam probably didn't need to comment on this since he lives in australia and doesn't cover a particular team or market

i think sam’s tweet is exactly right. if you’re gonna invoke a guy’s dead sibling out of nowhere and are gonna show up in the locker room then you have to be willing to face him. so did it turn from an argument into a benign shoving match? did embiid walk up to him out of nowhere and shove him? the details do matter

i think we can safely put hysterics like “assault” aside, if someone embiid’s size really wants to assault someone there’s not going to be any question about it

sad honestly

it was a journalist “showing up” to their job covering the team lol. how dare they

think we can all relax here…

As reporters entered the locker room to talk to players, Embiid stood and confronted Hayes.⁠
⁠
“The next time you bring up my dead brother and my son again, you are going to see what I’m going to do to you and I'm going to have to ... live with the consequences,” Embiid said to Hayes.⁠
⁠
Embiid continued, with several instances of profanity in the next few sentences. Hayes offered an apology, which Embiid did not want. “That’s not the f——— first time.” Embiid said.⁠
⁠
Embiid later said that he doesn't care what reporters say. “But you do,” Hayes answered.⁠
⁠
Embiid appeared to get louder at that point, and not long afterward pushed Hayes on the shoulder while the team’s public relations chief got between them. Another PR person moved Tyrese Maxey’s interview to the hallway outside the locker room, trying to clear reporters.⁠

under no circumstances does a journalist need to be “accountable” to the person they report on, and certainly nothing they write warrants a physical confrontation

being “accountable to” the people you report on sounds a lot like the bootlicking credo of what constitutes the “journalist” class covering the NBA, but that’s not good I don’t think

under no circumstances does a journalist need to be “accountable” to the person they report on, and certainly nothing they write warrants a physical confrontation

― brony james (k3vin k.), Sunday, November 3, 2024 1:02 AM (one hour ago)

if you think this is true you've simply never written mean things about people in public. which you haven't

lol touché

I know we’re talking about a cohort of people where the term “journalism” and the attendant principles are a bit strained… but I’d love to sit in a journo class at an actual J school wheee the message is, don’t say anything they might not like, and if they turn their dislike into a physical confrontation, that is ok and don’t defend your colleague. but again we’re speaking of nba “journalists” whose very precarious careers hinge on them not upsetting their subjects enough so they can eventually get a front office job

also i can't think of anything more ignorant of the history of sportswriting than the notion that sports journalists don't need to be accountable to players. would recommend reading or listening to a single sportswriter who has covered a team daily talk about their interactions with players

sure it’s a grotesquely obsequious and humiliating undertaking if you consider yourself a journalist

but again, think about the career aspirations of NBA “journalists” — if you’re not shilling for gambling companies you’re angling for a front office or corporate media job

sure it’s a grotesquely obsequious and humiliating undertaking if you consider yourself a journalist

― brony james (k3vin k.), Sunday, November 3, 2024 1:16 AM (one hour ago)

no, you're not understanding. if you write publicly about someone you see daily then you have an inherent level of accountability to that person because you see them every day. here is the definition of "accountability" it might help you understand how this works

an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions

sportswriters have an obligation to accept responsibility for the things they've written about players to the players faces when they see them in the locker room. none of them would deny this as it's a simple fact of how the profession works

a sadly captured perspective, sorry!

yeah i don't need to take journalism lessons from a pharmacist. go count some pills, kid

I mean I’m not stupid, I know most NBA journalists see themselves as equipment managers with a college degree, and that this is similar across the entertainment industry. I just don’t think it’s good

wow I’m a real doctor now and everything

I mean I’m not stupid

well, you wouldn't know it

got me!

you're doing this whole glenn greenwald routine throwing around words like bootlicker etc i'm not sure who you think it's impressing, maybe there is a mirror behind your computer that you're peering at as you type. but if you think there's ever been a world where sportswriters could write about athletes and then walk into a locker room and offer no accountability for their writing you legitimately do not know the first thing about sportswriting

strong

There's a difference between the sort of journalism you do where you're like, nailing a corrupt politician, and the sort of journalism you do where you're asking entertainers questions. If you want to treat the latter like the former you're welcome to, but then they will do things like stop talking to you and/or everyone their agent represents will also stop talking to you and maybe they even stop talking to anyone in your entire news organization. And again maybe you and your organization have decided that the story was worth it. But... was it?

the guy who wrote this is being described as a columnist for a local paper, local sports columnists are generally a pretty low form of life and the worst of them have decided they’re above any concept of accountability. i don’t know know anything about this particular guy but i am guessing he knows what he wrote is inflammatory and has already decided that he doesn’t care.

pretty clear that this guys colleagues are not feeling him

reminds me of dan shaughnessey going after manny ramirez, i’m sure there are countless other examples

Embiid had to deal with stuff growing up, including the death of his brother, that I thankfully never had to deal with. Do I wish he had grown enough as a person to be in control of his emotions on this? Yes. Do I think this is one of the things holding him back on the court. Yes. But this reporter had to know this is an emotional weak point for Embiid and chose to bring it up for that specific reason to provoke a response so he got what he was looking for. No one should feel bad for that guy.

yeah that article was plain nasty, when the news of their altercation broke it was embiid punched him then he shoved him then pushed him on the shoulder, obvs not good from joel especially being such a huge guy who could hurt a normal sized person very easily, but also doesnt sound like it rises to the level of assault, overall not a great sitch but also not a catastrophe

I did lol at glenn greenwald routine — solid hit.

maybe this is just laughably high-minded for the occasion but so much about the league is mirroring what I hate about culture in general: the celebrity hero worship, brain dead talking head hegemony, everybody wanting to be an influencer or a star in their own reality show… I find the entitled crybaby act to be as tiring as I do with any mega-rich person who lives in a bubble like these guys do. and like any industry it’s depressing to see people in the media have to choose between groveling for access and being hired by a team, or being laid off because no one cares about their work. so when a certain line is crossed I had hoped the people fighting for scraps might have something to say other than siding with the rich giant feelings-haver…idk

fwiw i do agree that some sports media guys m/l siding with embiid on this is wild, tho re the finer points accountability etc doesnt really constitute that

and let us not forget that journalists wanting some other better jobs these days is driven by the near total collapse of the industry as a whole

I don’t actually see this as something new. Beat writers have always toed a line between access and honesty

i generally agree with kev in the grand scheme of sports/entertainment journalism essentially being pr, the kind of access journalism that allows a lot of local papers stay afloat since their sports coverage is often a traffic leader. that said, i think this particular incident is not rly that. sports columnist dredging up joel embiid's dead brother to admonish his lack of play time? its fuckin wack *tries on internet hardman onesie* i would absolutely slug that fucker's jaw so hard he'd be shitting out his teeth for a week if he did that shit with my family, a lil shove and some cussin out is restraint

i think the reason there aren’t more journalists defending this guy is because the ones who interact with players daily understand that if you do write something like this then you might get confronted about it. and it sounds like this was a confrontation, ultimately. if embiid had actually “assaulted” the guy which is to say shoved him to the ground or struck him or something then i think yeah you’d see lots of people coming out against that, because nobody thinks that should happen. but beat writers do not operate under the assumption that they never should be confronted about their work so i don’t think they see this as especially problematic

i think any journalist who regularly interacts with their subjects or sources would agree that you take on the responsibility of having to answer for the things you write. even if all you’re doing is completely defending every single point you’ve made, you don’t get to put a shield up and just not have the conversation. so this whole notion that being accountable to the people you write about is tantamount to groveling is just not correct. of course it *can* become that but this notion that being a good adversarial journalist means that you’re constantly in battle with your subjects IRL … that is true for people who are questioning the state dept spokesperson every day, yes. to apply that lens to everyday sports journalism is not realistic especially when you’re talking about players and not GMs or ownership or adam silver etc

i’d also say that a lot of sportswriters cozy up to athletes because they genuinely believe in the healing power of sports in the kids movie way, they’re obsequious clowns out of corniness as much as cynicism

m bison OTM

“You’re allowed to talk shit about his dead brother with no checking or pushback because he’s made a lot of money” is straight up sociopathic; we’re talking about a basketball player, not a head of state

the article was for sure rancid shit

and i personally dont have any problem with him letting the reporter know how he feels, the situation getting physical is professionally problematic, tho it turns out to have been very slight physicality, and he did threaten the reporter too, hell prob get suspended for a game or two be made to apologize and everyone will move on

“You’re allowed to talk shit about his dead brother with no checking or pushback because he’s made a lot of money” is straight up sociopathic; we’re talking about a basketball player, not a head of state

― DJP, Sunday, November 3, 2024 11:36 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

not at all what I said!

It looks like Paul George is possibly playing for the Sixers on Monday. They need him badly.

ya maxey seems a lil overextended

Developing story on ESPN: After Spurs' Gregg Popovich suffered a medical issue over the weekend, assistant Mitch Johnson will be the interim head coach for indefinite period: https://t.co/OusIYOzhlO

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) November 4, 2024

aw damn hope pop is ok

oh man

the lack of info here is a bit worrying

:(

damn pop get well

Noooo goddamn. How it wasn't something serious like a stroke

How -> hope