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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

idg why the nets are favored

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

public money, baby

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

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

the 2 biggest names even

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

pat bev is not cool

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

I forgot that Kyrie does fasting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ew he is so grody

eric rahill vibes

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

— Eric Rahill (@ericrahill) April 13, 2022

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

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

...

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

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

Nets Post game drama!

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

— DaveEarly (@DavidEarly) April 13, 2022

kd is pretty funny

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

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

having said that should the celtics play the bucks in round two it would be very nice to have him back

well, yeah

the beautiful game... lamelo/trae/rozier combined 8/36 fg in the 1st half.

i seriously cannot believe isiah thomas gets minutes for the hornets. sadly he looks like one of the worst players in the NBA, like just strictly negative plays

the most interesting thing that’s happened in this game is me learning that ted turner has a “jersey” hanging in the rafters of the hawks arena

gotta give the rich man his propers

When Ted Turner bought the Hawks, his basketball men asked what their first move should be. Turner just smiled and said "Get someone who looks like me only a lot bigger." The men laughed. "Do I look like I'm fucking joking?" said Turner. pic.twitter.com/Wt5y3yRQL1

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) October 8, 2018

tweet i've never been able to get out of my head

i have a weird soft spot for ted as i live near and honestly enjoy one of the only northeast location's of ted's montana grill (tm)

good riddance to the hornets. please learn how to play something that resembles defense

they need a lot of re-engineering to be a serious team and i'm not sure how it happens

this is why i circle back to them finding a new coach. it’s the easiest potential fix. no idea if it’s barrego’s fault or not but they prob need to try something else. the hayward contract has ended up playing out like we thought it would

it's too soon and i am sorry but free lamelo

re: firing the coach, you know it's not going to fix anything, right? who on this roster is ever going to play defense?

like they will move on from borrego and that's fine but their incredibly passive approach to team building is what created this.

they need more guys

i know i said it the other day but it still amazes me--there is no principle or point of view about what they're trying to be. they've found a completely random assortment of ok players.

I know it's dumb to have these sub-.400 teams in the playoffs but watching them play this hard & constantly panicked is fun, like a mini-March Madness before the real playoffs start.

they don’t have any good defensive players on their roster but their guys could also… try? maybe a different coach gets through to them, or gets them more organized on that side of the floor? i don’t think it’s a crazy thought. barrego seems like a fine coach but he might just be mismatched with this roster. their offense barely needs coaching meanwhile they need a massive effort on the defensive end. there’s prob someone who could squeeze more out of them

or now what if, just hear me out, mike dan tony

i hear thibs may be available soon

xp i'm sure there is but effort and organization is like 20% of the problem and personnel is like 80%. as usual it comes down to what the teams goals are and i'm not sure the hornets really have any.