NBA (and Raptors) 2024 Season

[Senator Clay Davis]

The second LeBron retires it'll be the media going balls to the wall to get Wemby into LA or New York. MLB and NBA media actively hurting their leagues by always trying to make it about a handful of teams always makes me laugh. NFL is king for a lot of reasons, but you'd never have NFL media trying to get Mahomes to the Rams or Giants every year.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by bluejays

Good point. I don't think it'll be Victor, because the NBA loves guys with bravado and attitude. Giannis had his cup of tea briefly, but didn't really life himself up as that face of the game. Steph is too "old" to take the reins. So it think it's Shai. Just based on age, numbers and some flash. But he doesn't have that physical presence of Lebron, and he also doesn't have the flash of Kobe. So it's hard to say. Maybe it becomes a focus on particular teams.

Anthony Edwards probably...that narrative is already starting this playoffs.

Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts

How soft is Anthony Davis?

The Lakers team is probably better off if they kept all those young players today. Typical LeBron getting his way and having young players traded for immediate help, and whining he has no help.

Maybe...but Lakers have a ring to show for it with Anthony Davis which is all that matters. Lakers probably make a move like that whether Lebron is there or not. They made or tried to make those same moves when Kobe was there too.

It's the Lakers way.

Brandon Ingram
Lonzo Ball
Josh Hart
Jaxson Hayes
Nickeil Alexander-Walker
Didi Louzada
Herb Jones
Dyson Daniels

I'm still taking Anthony Davis over that mismash of players that the Pelicans ended up with out of the deal.

Now if New Orleans actually turned the 4th overall pick into something in 2019 (Garland?) and if the 2022 and 2025 picks become something then maybe it would be better. But overall I'm taking Anthony Davis and that championship right now.

[dammage79]

Who would be face of the league post LeBron??

That Anthony Edwards (AKA one of MJs illegitimate children lmao) kid is making a statement. But the Alien that is Webanyama should be. It's freakish how good he is for a
wet spaghetti noodle.

[flamingreen]

Does Darvin Ham even know how to coach basketball?

https://twitter.com/user/status/1785290354058727566

[trackercowe]

Giannis out, Kawai out, Lillard missed most of the series. What's the point of bringing in these big names when they never play?

[Senator Clay Davis]

Gotta say hearing these stories about Sixers management calling fans to beg them to show up and be loud tonight, about how they bought 2000 tickets to give away to Philly first responders...pretty embarrassing stuff. And whats the stop those first responders from taking the free tickets and just selling them to Knicks fans anyway? If they were smart that's what they'd do. But yeah a pretty sad look, although why this game is tipping off at 9PM EDT is insane.

[Kasi]

Lakers won a title and got to a conference championship. You take that trade any day. The issue is with trading for players who don’t move the needle. But even trading for guys like Durant is not working these days. But Lillard and Beal were just dumb moves to make.

[bluejays]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Gotta say hearing these stories about Sixers management calling fans to beg them to show up and be loud tonight, about how they bought 2000 tickets to give away to Philly first responders...pretty embarrassing stuff. And whats the stop those first responders from taking the free tickets and just selling them to Knicks fans anyway? If they were smart that's what they'd do. But yeah a pretty sad look, although why this game is tipping off at 9PM EDT is insane.

For an Eastern Standard Time game 9pm is very odd. I've thought years ago though, as a novelty game on a Friday or Saturday it would be fun to have a 10pm start game here or there (or somewhere thereof).

[Senator Clay Davis]

Knicks trying to blow a 22 point lead in a half, impressive choke that offers the Sixers the chance to blow a 20 point lead in the second half. But yeah this years East might be the worst conference I can ever remember, Celtics should be -5000 favorites to win it.

[Hockey_Ninja]

Bye bye Sixers. Huge game by Brunson. Hart really came up big in key moments in the series

[Senator Clay Davis]

That was a fun, and chaotic, series. Sixers have a ton of cap space and are finally free of the Harris disaster, so it'll be interesting to see what they do this offseason.

[SuperMatt18]

I wish there was a way to eliminate the intentional fouls near the end of games at times.

Feel like that game would have been more fun of an ending if once the Knicks got up by 3 they couldn't just foul to send the Sixers to the line to shoot 2.

[Senator Clay Davis]

It was hilarious seeing the Knicks go from getting that all wrong in Game 5 to fouling way too quickly in Game 6, at least for the first one. But I can't get behind eliminating fouling up three as a strategy, it's such a three point centric league now that you'd be giving a big advantage to the trailing team. But since it is such a three point centric league teams should just start practicing taking half court shots. Call a timeout and run a set to get a catch and shoot 47 footer. I believe Maxey's make in Game 5 was a 37 footer.

[Kasi]

Ham predictability got fired. Pretty bad coach that forced them into a bad playoff seed and matchup. They should have been in the 4-6 range.

[Paulie Walnuts]

Originally Posted by Kasi

Ham predictability got fired. Pretty bad coach that forced them into a bad playoff seed and matchup. They should have been in the 4-6 range.

He is not a great coach, but as Barkley said the roster is poor and LeBron is a terrible leader. He quit on a lot of plays all season. They have been in the same range his whole time as a Laker.

LeBron is a coach killer.

[Paulie Walnuts]

LeCoachKiller is on to his 10th coach now. A new coach every other year.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

I wish there was a way to eliminate the intentional fouls near the end of games at times.

Feel like that game would have been more fun of an ending if once the Knicks got up by 3 they couldn't just foul to send the Sixers to the line to shoot 2.

Elam ending solves this (with a certain amount of time into the fourth quarter (10 minutes, probably), the game clock is turned off and a target score of leading team + 8 points is introduced). I normally hate the idea of different rules in a certain part of the game, but this so nicely fixes something that is extremely broken in the current NBA game. Fouling (except when fouling a bad freethrow shooter) is never the right strategy under the elam ending, and no matter what the deficit is, there's always a chance a trailing team goes on an insane run to come from behind and win the game.

I doubt think the NBA ever actually adopts it because they don't deeply care that the end of a close game slows down to a crawl, because the stoppages are better for advertising. However, they have tested it in the g-league for two straight years (as well as the all-star game, which sucks as a test environment because the elam ending assumes that teams are highly motivated to win). So there's at least *some* chance it gets implemented.

[Kasi]

He’s almost forty. Most offensive skill players when they hit 30 stop playing defence. It’s not a James thing it’s a conserving your energy thing. I agree the roster is bad and James have some blame for pushing for Westbrook but he wasn’t the one pulling the deals. Lakers management (Pelinka) needs to accept responsibility for making bad personal decisions.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by octothorp

Elam ending solves this (with a certain amount of time into the fourth quarter (10 minutes, probably), the game clock is turned off and a target score of leading team + 8 points is introduced). I normally hate the idea of different rules in a certain part of the game, but this so nicely fixes something that is extremely broken in the current NBA game. Fouling (except when fouling a bad freethrow shooter) is never the right strategy under the elam ending, and no matter what the deficit is, there's always a chance a trailing team goes on an insane run to come from behind and win the game.

I doubt think the NBA ever actually adopts it because they don't deeply care that the end of a close game slows down to a crawl, because the stoppages are better for advertising. However, they have tested it in the g-league for two straight years (as well as the all-star game, which sucks as a test environment because the elam ending assumes that teams are highly motivated to win). So there's at least *some* chance it gets implemented.

But then why even play the first three quarters if the goal is essentially to try and manufacture endings? It works in the All-Star game cause no one cares until the fourth, when the games always tended to get more competitive. Every system is going to be flawed, helping the losing team seems very backwards. And as best I can tell this isn't even really an issue? I don't see a media outcry or anything, or the fans demanding it. Ironically, the only media outcry related to this recently was the Knicks not fouling Maxey and making that strategic error. Honestly seems like much ado about nothing.

[Strange Brew]

This Minny-Denver series is going to be awesome.