2017-18 NBA Regular Season Game/Observation Thread
- Thread starter DeJesus Built My Hotrod
- Start date
They need Michael Carter Williams back badly, which is something no nba team has ever said before. Monk is currently the backup point guard and he can't hit a shot to save his life.
Porzingis wanted no part of the Sixers and his “people” refused to have him come in for a workout. In the end, they obviously did him a huge disservice. Imagine an Embiid/Porzingis/Simmons frontcourt...
Nets are getting blown out at home by the Suns.
edit: were, anyway. They've made a run to make it a 5 point game.
edit: were, anyway. They've made a run to make it a 5 point game.
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Even more that! You're talking about only the offensive end of the floor. On the other end: opponents are averaging 113.1 pts per 100 with Kemba off the floor and 100.2 with him on.
Net on-off: +45.9 pts 100 possessions.
After 3 quarters, Giannis 9/13;2/3;8/9, 28 points.
Rest of the team, 12/44;3/20;9/12, 36 points.
Down 20.
Rest of the team, 12/44;3/20;9/12, 36 points.
Down 20.
BRK at one point was down 18, made it all the way back and then some and took a 8 pt lead early in 4Q but PHO retook the lead by finally playing some defense with this lineup: Booker, Mike James, Bender, Warren, and Chandler. Bender, James, and Chandler play good defense. Warren and Booker can score. Mike James looks to add a lot to that team.
P.S. Bender hit a 3P and looked like a NBA player for the first time I've seen.
Bender is intriguing; he's still crazy young and from what I've seen I like his attitude and plays hard on defense, has great length and mobility. If he can become a good outside shooter I think he can be a real player.
I almost can't watch any Laker games because the announcers gush about everything Lonzo does, no matter how subtle. He passes the ball four feet to his right and it's this amazing marvel of a play that nobody could make except Lonzo. It's like watching Nantz and Simms try and prop up end-of-the-line Peyton.
I almost can't watch any Laker games because the announcers gush about everything Lonzo does, no matter how subtle. He passes the ball four feet to his right and it's this amazing marvel of a play that nobody could make except Lonzo. It's like watching Nantz and Simms try and prop up end-of-the-line Peyton.
Josh Hart just made a nice pass with Lonzo on the bench and they just spent a minute talking about how Lonzo's passing is so contagious that even when he isn't in the game he is still making plays. These are the NBA TV guys too, not even the Laker homers.
Watching Stanley Johnson and thinking oh there goes another 2015 draftee that makes me happy to have Rozier.
It'll get me lynched around these parts, but I'd still rather have Bender than Brown. Higher risk perhaps, but worth it.
Lakers have had it pretty cushy so far. Two road games in Phoenix and Utah, everything else at home. First time traveling any farther than that will be Game 11 @Boston. Nice break for a young team.
This Jon Leuer ISO gameplan is fascinating stuff from SVG.
This Jon Leuer ISO gameplan is fascinating stuff from SVG.
Giannis gonna get his. The rest of the Bucks? Not so much.
Thunder are starting to gel, on offense and defense. PatPat looks like he's finally turned the corner, given his late start for the season. Looking forward to Thunder vs. Celtics on Friday.
I actually believe this to be true. The culture of a team is set by their leaders and that does carry on down the roster. It was like when Bird and Magic entered the league and suddenly the local playground games placed a premium on passing........then when Jordan and (mostly) Iverson came into the league along with the rules that the Knicks famously took advantage of, the playgrounds were suddenly dominated by stagnant isolation and everyone trying to "cross over" their defender. Now with Curry taking the lead you go to a high school game as I did last winter and all 5 guys are launching 3's from five feet behind the arc.
For better or for worse, young players are impressionable and Ball's passing certainly can be contagious as part of a culture change within the team.
Kyrie better be pretty good this year, because the Nets are looking pretty bad again. They got outrebounded 66-44 last night against lowly Phoenix at home. I watched the first half of the Denver game, and Denver's big men were just backing them up in the paint and scoring easily. Any night that the three-point shot isn't falling, there's a good chance Brooklyn gets blown out.
There literally isn’t a scenario where I would regret trading a hurt IT, a decent player in Crowder, and a volatile lotto pick for Kyrie Irving. We are much better off with him. This team has enough young guys. They needed established stars and they got one at a position of need.
I don't know if I'd say Bender has a higher ceiling but he certainly has a chance of being a more efficient player. I'm sure Brad would have fun with him given that he can guard a lot of different guys. Still, Bender isn't doing much more than standing in the corner and playing defense so Brown is much more productive at this stage of their careers, which the Cs really need right now.
Bender's extension will probably be cheaper though.
I agree the trade looks brilliant right now. Zizic hasn't seen much playing time, Crowder has underperformed, and IT hasn't even seen the court yet, plus Irving has been a pleasant surprise defensively. My question is whether it still looks brilliant two to three years from now, when the C's are supposedly primed to compete for a championship, and the Cavs will have picked up what I think will be a top 5 pick from a stacked draft class. But we'll see ...
+1
So interesting to imagine what the team would look like had Ainge not decided to move on from Fultz, the clear consensus #1 at a position of need and leading perfectly to exactly the right leverage with IT4. Big Brass Ones.
Sir, would you please step away from that spreadsheet...
Yes the trade will still look good 2 years from now. Irving will be 27 and the Celtics will run out Irving (27), Hayward (29), Horford (33), Brown (23), Tatum (21); on the bench they'll have whichever of Rozier/Smart they choose to extend, whoever they get in draft or trade with the three non-lottery 2019 picks they'll have (Memphis/Clippers/C's), and what is most likely a high 2019 lottery pick from the Kings. Once LeBron leaves the Cavs this summer I'm not concerned about anything that terrible organization does.
Lin blowing out his knee in the Nets season opener certainly hurts a bit, if he were healthy I'd have them comfortably in the late lottery which seems like where Danny projected them with the information he had at the time of the trade. Still, the bottom 4 in the standings is almost certainly going to be Bulls/Hawks/Mavericks/Kings in some order, those teams are all terrible and have no incentive not to tank. The Suns are really bad, we'll see if the dead Watson bounce is at all sustainable but all the preseason projections had them fighting for the #1 pick and that was before they sent Bledsoe home. The Knicks and Lakers are garden variety bad but injuries could send them bottom feeding too. Feels like the Nets floor is the 5th worst record, and even that is only a 55% chance of a top 5 pick.
Edit: I forgot whoever the C's get in draft or trade with their own first rounder this year. I want to be thorough in my praise for how well Ainge has built this team for the present and future.
Asking Monk to learn to play the PG position at the NBA level imo is a fireable offense. I can't possibly think of a worse role for a pure dynamic scorer than to be taken from that role and ask to learn how to facilitate when facilitation is not a strength of his game. It's awful......it is making the player "think" on the floor which is what you never want to be doing in a basketball game which is a game of instinctual reaction. Train wreck coming for Monk if this continues by taking an aggressive player and making him insecure while losing confidence in asking him to do things that his skillset doesn't offer.
The Nets will have a long way to fall before joining the dregs of the league like the Kings, Bulls, and Hawks not to mention all the others they will be "competing" with for next 3-4 spots in the lottery. I'm confident the Nets pick will not be a top top pick without much lottery ball luck.
Replacing the Nets pick with the Lakers/Kings pick is going to provide us with additional draft value if the Lakers can escape that Top-6 with the Kings being in contention for the worst record next season.......at worst we end up with the Lakers pick in a stacked draft and all for the right to allow Philly to draft Fultz.
Are we seeing more wacky stuff because everyone is bombing threes and on any given night one team might go on a run?
One would think that there would be a correlation to a higher variance of results with an increase in higher variance shot attempts however the Nets case is unique in that with little resistance on the defensive end they are going to consistently be allowing a higher pct of 3-point makes than most teams.
Variance only goes so long when you are dealing with such great open shooters throughout the league at all positions in todays game.......if you aren't contesting 3-point shots the opponent is going to shoot a high percentage the large majority of the time. Take Phoenix last season.....they ranked last or close to last in nearly all defensive categories last season and allowed opponents to shoot a league-best 38.2% against them from behind the arc. That isn't coincidence, randomness or luck.
Bombing threes will increase variance even if the true talent of some of the bad teams is to allow 38% of threes to go in. However, this should be at least partially balanced out by the higher pace the league is playing at in conjunction with the extra threes. More possessions increases the sample and means there's a smaller chance for a worse team to sustain a hot streak.
Cavs game up over 120 points to the Pacers at home. Indiana was on the 2nd night of a back to back and had to travel.
Meanwhile, the Wizards are about to blow a 22 point game at home to the Suns.
Oh and the Celtics continue to take care of business despite facing the biggest adversity of any team in the league.
Meanwhile, the Wizards are about to blow a 22 point game at home to the Suns.
Oh and the Celtics continue to take care of business despite facing the biggest adversity of any team in the league.
Clearly, Monk read this thread and came out bombs away to start the 4th quarter playing the way he did at Kentucky with that second unit.
simmons with 19/13/9 and a sensational dunk late.
kid is so far ahead of what i expected especially as a rookie
kid is so far ahead of what i expected especially as a rookie
i agree, esp as a rookie, let him get a taste first eh.
i do like trying him running pnr though.
In fact Crowder 's advanced stats has been putrid in Cleveland. I have not watched Cleveland play yet, so I have no idea why.
It's possible, I suppose, but they are being killed in areas that are not in Kyrie's wheelhouse.
- They are turning the ball over way too much and getting far too few assists. (Kyrie protects the ball but assists are not his thing.)
- They are giving up too many offensive rebounds despite starting Tristan Thompson and Kevin Love.
- They are letting other teams shoot .402 on threes!!!
In hindsight I am thrilled with the Kyrie trade but most of that is due to learning about Thomas' arthritis, Crowder having the worst stretch of play in his career and the Nets pick probably ending up in the 5-8 range rather than the 1-4 range like last year. Meanwhile Cleveland fans have to be pretty pissed off.
Anyone watching the Orlando games? Still trying to wrap my head around their 6-2 start, and last night they beat Memphis, in Memphis. ??? One thing I did notice: Jonathon Simmons (the other Simmons) has been very good so far coming off the bench for them. I really don't understand why San Antonio let him get away, because he had a few good games for them last year and showed a glimpse of his talent.
Edit for a quick add on Simmons: I know that apparently he wanted to leave because he didn't like the way he fit into Pop's system, but it doesn't sound like they did much to dissuade him.
Edit for a quick add on Simmons: I know that apparently he wanted to leave because he didn't like the way he fit into Pop's system, but it doesn't sound like they did much to dissuade him.
Aaron Gordon is shooting 50+% from 3 and Fournier has at least 3 3Ps in the last 33 games. Which is to say that they are really shooting well: They’ve hit 44.1 percent of their 3s and 44.4 percent of their midrange jumpers. Doubt that's sustainable so we'll see hat happens when those #s creep down.
Source.
Unsustainable shooting aside they've completely changed the offense and play at a much higher pace now. Gordon appears to be taking the leap, Isaac has been surprisingly good for a rookie, Simmons has been a big add, Vucevic being able to stretch helps. Also Payton has been out which may secretly be good for them
IT is not likely to help in any of these areas when he returns. Seems like Cleveland will get back on track to some extent as the season progresses however given the Celtics' depth I like their chances in a playoff series at this point.
Their assist numbers are essentially unchanged from last season as a percentage of FGM:
16/17: 56.7% of baskets
17/18: 56.0% (2 more assists would have them even).
TOs are up from 13.7 to 16.1.
This isn't quite the case either. Last year they gave up offensive rebounds at a 24.2% rate (20th in league). This year it's 21.5% (9th in league)
However they are rebounding on the offensive end a bit worse than last year, they are taking and making fewer three pointers and they have been HORRIFIC with LBJ off the floor. Last year they may not have had a good record if LBJ didn't play, but at least they had a guy in Kyrie that could score the ball when he took a rest. They don't have that this year.
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This is not Crowder's worst stretch of his career. This also occurred when he lost his rotation minutes in Dallas toward the end of his second year and in his third year prior to being traded to Boston after they gave up on him that prior offseason. Role players need specific duties and systems to be effective as they by definition have a limited skillset......we saw this in Boston many times over the years with Eddie House and Jordan Crawford, two other limited skilled players who also failed everywhere else they [have been when they didn't fit what their teams were doing. Role players need the right fit. When they don't have it they are rendered essentially useless. "Right now" this is a terrible fit for Crowder in Cleveland just as it was for him in Dallas.
Yeah, I suppose it's possible Rose/Wade is a PG downgrade from Kyrie /intentional snark
The turnovers and poor offensive efficiency this year are unquestionably a direct result of replacing Kyrie with Rose/Wade at the PG position......I'm sure any reasonable basketball person can recognize this.
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