The NBA Thread
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Derrick
kiwifarms.net
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- Mar 15, 2024
Every time I see 2004 mentioned in relation to the NBA my mind goes here
I think of this before I think of that year's NBA finals.
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2023
Prolly cause of Caitlyn Clark. It's gonna be hilarious when the other players in the WNBA drag her down cause of their crab bucket mentality, plus the fact she's straight and white.
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2024
At this point, what exactly does Draymond Green bring to the Warriors ?
He's the quintessential Basketball American in every sense of the expression.
The other thing that's hilarious is that all of these talking heads are blaming Steph and Kerr for the "culture of enablement" that exists at the Warriors which is true, but no one is straight up calling Draymond out for being such a detriment to the team. Not that I expected any less because it's current year but God damn.
He's the quintessential Basketball American in every sense of the expression.
The other thing that's hilarious is that all of these talking heads are blaming Steph and Kerr for the "culture of enablement" that exists at the Warriors which is true, but no one is straight up calling Draymond out for being such a detriment to the team. Not that I expected any less because it's current year but God damn.
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2023
I also see people defending him by talking about 80s and 90s ball, but fail to realize those eras went after the stars or other enforcers, not complete randos who don't fight back.
Derrick
kiwifarms.net
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- Mar 15, 2024
I like how you bring up the different eras with Basketball and how the quality and skill sets have changed. I feel like far too many people look at the 90s players and rate them higher than some top athletes of today (the classic MJ vs LeBron debate) and completely neglect the ways the game and skill set of players have changed over time. Like you can't just compare stats and stuff like Basketball hasn't radically changed in the past quarter century plus.
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- Joined
- Dec 12, 2022
Every time anybody mentions the WNBA, I think of this joke:
"Nigga what the fuck is WNBA?"
That push from Wallace was the "OHH SHIT! GET HIM!" heard 'round the world.
Derrick
kiwifarms.net
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- Mar 15, 2024
Honestly I think it was the solo cup at 0:37 that did it more than anything, it looked like the refs had nearly restored order with the worst possible outcome being an ejection for Wallace (as if it mattered with less than a minute left in a 15 point game in the 4th) prior to the cup coming in. One thing this make me nostalgic for is old school sports broadcasting, I watch Baseball a lot and when incidents like this happen the announcers say that they're not going to "disrespect the game" and refuse to put the camera on the mayhem.
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2020
Watched part of the Iowa v Colorado game today and I get some of the hype. She's very skilled for a woman, great court vision and awareness. Probably going to get harassed by the wnba lesbians and "women" like Griner.
Its hilarious to me that the top 2 nba players are white. Guess slavs count now lmao.
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2021
I don't think it's crazy to have Giannis over Luka given he's not that far behind on offense and is miles better on defense, but it's still funny. Probably plays into some of the stuff over who's going to be the next "face of the league" once LeBron and Steph are finally done though, especially if the MVPs start appearing kinda monopolized by Luka and Jokic.
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2020
I don't disagree about Giannis. Wonder if any of these euro guys(white or brown) will be able to become the face of the league. Feel like thats always going to be someone in a big market who appeals to a large section of the American audience. There's big shoes to fill once Lebron and Steph are gone.
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2021
As far as the "Face of the NBA" thing goes, here's my general take on it.
The NBA's popularity as a whole is on the rise, but it's increasing abroad while it decreases domestically. With the idea of a face of the league being primarily a marketing thing, I'll therefore assume that trying to push someone as that will be with the US in mind. With that being said...
LeBron, Steph, to a lesser extent KD: They serve this role currently, but they're old and won't be like this indefinitely.
Jokic: Up in that tier you can reasonably say is the best player in the world, but he's white, European, and doesn't really give a shit about such a media push.
Embiid: Similarly elite player, but he's African and has some baggage in the form of playoff failure, foul baiting, flopping, and being hurt all the time. I think the season he's played the most games in is still below the season Jokic played the least. The weirdness and whininess surrounding last year's MVP also doesn't help.
Giannis: Certainly has the on the court ability for the job, European though and has expressed that he doesn't intend to stick around for media stuff after he doesn't have to (I think he even compared himself to Tim Duncan in that regard lol) but he's certainly more inclined to engage with that side of things than Jokic. He's also still black, so people will have an easier time getting over him being foreign than with a Jokic or a Luka since the sport is mostly viewed by black people.
Of the three listed so far, Giannis has the best chance of being the face of the league, but these 3 are also on the older side of things. Giannis and Jokic are 29, Embiid's 30. LeBron has distorted a lot of people's perceptions of what's a normal career length in professional basketball, but it's safe to say we shouldn't be holding our breath for these guys to still be elite at 40, especially the notoriously injury prone Embiid. LeBron will still be around a couple more years, so when he's gone are you really getting that much time with Giannis as your face before he starts to decline a little too much for that? Jokic's game should age the best since it's the least dependent on athleticism, but he's the one of the trio who's just a total non-starter for being the league's face because he'd refuse. As such, I think they'd look younger, which brings us to two younger subsets I find more likely. SGA, Luka, and Tatum, then Anthony Edwards, Ja Morant, and Wemby. As for the younger players:
Shai: While he is a foreign player, he's Canadian rather than being from somewhere overseas. The NBA has a Canadian team, after all. He still played in an American college and Canadian youth basketball is still similar to American AAU. He's got the ability needed, given his MVP contention and that his team is doing well. I will say I don't see a ton of him around in the media, but I think the media could certainly work with him if they were so inclined.
Luka: Top tier player who'll probably get an MVP at some point, his biggest issue is being a white European but he's way less media shy than Jokic is and I think would have an easier time overcoming his foreignness. His attitude and defense could also impede this sort of thing, but that's stuff he can grow out of and I believe he was already on the cover of one of the video games.
Tatum: A really weird one, because you'd think he'd be the obvious choice but he just isn't. I don't even really know what it is, there's just a lot of people who aren't big fans of Tatum. Vibes are off, as they say. He's a high level black American player, if a tier below the serious MVP candidates, he isn't 7 feet tall, he plays a pretty all around game, and he's also got ties with Kobe who was reinvented as a media darling post rape trial, and yet people just don't seem too keen on embracing him as the face and I don't really know why beyond "LeBron and Steph are still playing."
Ja Morant: Young fans really love him and he plays flashy and athletic (a very stereotypically "black" way of play, really) but I think the double helping of gun nonsense has sunk this ship, and the way he plays does put him at a lot of risk of injury and a sharp decline once he gets too old.
Anthony Edwards: Young fans also really love him, and he's another flashy, stylish, trash talking black American. Big thing with him is that he's not media trained at all, given stuff like his homophobia incident and calling players "lil ass niggas" on live TV, and forcing that out of him runs the risk of alienating people who like him *for* that. I think the league can memory hole the gay stuff well enough, and a lot of people already compare his style of play and demeanor to Michael Jordan to the extent there's a lot of jokes about him being Jordan's bastard son. He's also 22, so he's got plenty of time in the league and to maybe tone it down just a little bit on social media. I'd say he's a front runner for this status.
Victor Wembanyama: Clearly he's gonna be impossible to ignore. However, he is French and relatively quiet while also not playing aspirational basketball at all, being 7'4. Then again, he's probably the most hyped draft prospect since LeBron. He'll definitely get a lot of push, I just don't think he'd be a singular face.
My tl;dr prediction: Transition from LeBron/Steph to Giannis as a stopgap, then a mix of Shai, Luka, Edwards and Wemby with an overall bias towards Edwards.
The NBA's popularity as a whole is on the rise, but it's increasing abroad while it decreases domestically. With the idea of a face of the league being primarily a marketing thing, I'll therefore assume that trying to push someone as that will be with the US in mind. With that being said...
LeBron, Steph, to a lesser extent KD: They serve this role currently, but they're old and won't be like this indefinitely.
Jokic: Up in that tier you can reasonably say is the best player in the world, but he's white, European, and doesn't really give a shit about such a media push.
Embiid: Similarly elite player, but he's African and has some baggage in the form of playoff failure, foul baiting, flopping, and being hurt all the time. I think the season he's played the most games in is still below the season Jokic played the least. The weirdness and whininess surrounding last year's MVP also doesn't help.
Giannis: Certainly has the on the court ability for the job, European though and has expressed that he doesn't intend to stick around for media stuff after he doesn't have to (I think he even compared himself to Tim Duncan in that regard lol) but he's certainly more inclined to engage with that side of things than Jokic. He's also still black, so people will have an easier time getting over him being foreign than with a Jokic or a Luka since the sport is mostly viewed by black people.
Of the three listed so far, Giannis has the best chance of being the face of the league, but these 3 are also on the older side of things. Giannis and Jokic are 29, Embiid's 30. LeBron has distorted a lot of people's perceptions of what's a normal career length in professional basketball, but it's safe to say we shouldn't be holding our breath for these guys to still be elite at 40, especially the notoriously injury prone Embiid. LeBron will still be around a couple more years, so when he's gone are you really getting that much time with Giannis as your face before he starts to decline a little too much for that? Jokic's game should age the best since it's the least dependent on athleticism, but he's the one of the trio who's just a total non-starter for being the league's face because he'd refuse. As such, I think they'd look younger, which brings us to two younger subsets I find more likely. SGA, Luka, and Tatum, then Anthony Edwards, Ja Morant, and Wemby. As for the younger players:
Shai: While he is a foreign player, he's Canadian rather than being from somewhere overseas. The NBA has a Canadian team, after all. He still played in an American college and Canadian youth basketball is still similar to American AAU. He's got the ability needed, given his MVP contention and that his team is doing well. I will say I don't see a ton of him around in the media, but I think the media could certainly work with him if they were so inclined.
Luka: Top tier player who'll probably get an MVP at some point, his biggest issue is being a white European but he's way less media shy than Jokic is and I think would have an easier time overcoming his foreignness. His attitude and defense could also impede this sort of thing, but that's stuff he can grow out of and I believe he was already on the cover of one of the video games.
Tatum: A really weird one, because you'd think he'd be the obvious choice but he just isn't. I don't even really know what it is, there's just a lot of people who aren't big fans of Tatum. Vibes are off, as they say. He's a high level black American player, if a tier below the serious MVP candidates, he isn't 7 feet tall, he plays a pretty all around game, and he's also got ties with Kobe who was reinvented as a media darling post rape trial, and yet people just don't seem too keen on embracing him as the face and I don't really know why beyond "LeBron and Steph are still playing."
Ja Morant: Young fans really love him and he plays flashy and athletic (a very stereotypically "black" way of play, really) but I think the double helping of gun nonsense has sunk this ship, and the way he plays does put him at a lot of risk of injury and a sharp decline once he gets too old.
Anthony Edwards: Young fans also really love him, and he's another flashy, stylish, trash talking black American. Big thing with him is that he's not media trained at all, given stuff like his homophobia incident and calling players "lil ass niggas" on live TV, and forcing that out of him runs the risk of alienating people who like him *for* that. I think the league can memory hole the gay stuff well enough, and a lot of people already compare his style of play and demeanor to Michael Jordan to the extent there's a lot of jokes about him being Jordan's bastard son. He's also 22, so he's got plenty of time in the league and to maybe tone it down just a little bit on social media. I'd say he's a front runner for this status.
Victor Wembanyama: Clearly he's gonna be impossible to ignore. However, he is French and relatively quiet while also not playing aspirational basketball at all, being 7'4. Then again, he's probably the most hyped draft prospect since LeBron. He'll definitely get a lot of push, I just don't think he'd be a singular face.
My tl;dr prediction: Transition from LeBron/Steph to Giannis as a stopgap, then a mix of Shai, Luka, Edwards and Wemby with an overall bias towards Edwards.
Womble of Wimbledon
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2022
Does anybody else hate J. J. Redick? Everybody hated him at Duke, I am totally indifferent to college basketball so I didn't understand the hate. Now that he has joined the media I completely understand. He is unbearable. He also kicked off a very disturbing trend of NBA player podcasts. Sportsmen with very few exceptions should be seen and not heard.
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2022
The face of the NBA is a Nosferatu kike and the reason the ratings are declining in the U.S. and rising abroad is because people in the U.S. see all the refball bullshit going on and tune out while people abroad either didn't watch basketball 20-30 years ago or don't care about/agree with said bullshit.
If they want higher ratings and engagement for the WNBA, don't call fouls and don't do all this review shit that slows down the game. Let those bitches beat the shit out of each other for every single point.
And mop the fucking floors. I never saw as many players slipping on sweaty floors in 30 years of watching basketball as I have this season.
QED
Porter goes for a three and comes down awkwardly to avoid a sprained ankle, like what happened to Kawhi and many others. Malone gets ejected for yelling at the refs about the no-call:
Derrick
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2024
Or have them dunk. (or lower the rim)
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- Joined
- Oct 22, 2023
You mean like him trashing older players in order to seem good with his "peers"?
It's weird how they already have shorter 3 point lines and smaller balls, but a slightly lowered rim is where they draw the line.
std::string
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- May 17, 2018
Nah, they need to move to the NBA 3-point lines and the men's basketball size.
It barely makes a difference and incels are weirdly fixated on it.
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2021
The issue with the rims is more an infrastructural ones, because girls wouldn't grow up shooting on lowered rims especially in low income areas. Adjustable rims are omnipresent at college level and up, sure, and it's unlikely any random rim out on a streetball court is at exactly 10 feet to begin with, but it does cause some weirdness in AAU and High School.
A Bit Concerning
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2023
Most mainstream NBA commentators/podcasters are fucking idiots. Stephen A. Smith, Kendrick Perkins, J.J. Redick, even some of the player podcasters like Draymond Green just consistently say the stupidest shit. NBA media is kind of a wasteland aside from guys like Charles Barkley who actually manage to be funny.
Of the current MVP favorites, Jokic is Serbian, Shai is Canadian, Luka is Croatian, Giannis is Greek, and Tatum, who doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell unless the other 4 guys get injured is the only American on that list. And an American hasn't won it since 2018 when Harden won it with the Rockets. It's a bit short sighted, but it feels like foreign (i.e. Non-American) players are the best of the best right now.