Late on the Redick news, but did no one learn anything from Steve Nash’s coaching tenure? Steve Kerr is the only successful player to coach with no experience this century and the other successful coaches were all Celtics coaches back when they won every other year. Oh well, new scapegoat for LeBron.
In recent news, Paul George is entering free agency. There was decent buzz about him going to the Warriors and apparently the Clippers were asking too much (this was all if PG took his player option). The Sixers are supposedly the favorites to land PG in free agency, which makes sense because they’re one of the few competitive teams who can. Replacing Tobias Harris with an outright better version of him should improve the Sixers, but at the end of the day it will come down to Embiid’s health and how the Sixers can avoid bleeding massive amounts of points when he sits in the playoffs.
In recent news, Paul George is entering free agency. There was decent buzz about him going to the Warriors and apparently the Clippers were asking too much (this was all if PG took his player option). The Sixers are supposedly the favorites to land PG in free agency, which makes sense because they’re one of the few competitive teams who can. Replacing Tobias Harris with an outright better version of him should improve the Sixers, but at the end of the day it will come down to Embiid’s health and how the Sixers can avoid bleeding massive amounts of points when he sits in the playoffs.
The Lakers have drafted LeBron James Jr. so now for the first time in NBA history a father and son could potentially play on the same team.
I didn't think this was something LeBron could actually achieve, but I guess I underestimated how much influence he has. I believe Bronny will get some playing time just to placate LeBron but he won't be a great player and will probably end up in the G-League. I also predict LeBron will retire after this season having achieved his ultimate dream.
Blowing pick #55 to keep your superstar happy honestly isn't that big of a deal. Most of the time whoever gets picked there isn't seeing the court anyway.
Bron getting his podcast buddy hired as coach is significantly more questionable. That could screw them up for a few seasons if he sucks.
Speaking of Bronny, he is on a summer league advertisement and the number one pick is not. Not sure why Brunson is on here, he got outplayed by Dennis Smith Jr in that summer league for the Mavs. That was also the Kevin Knox summer league year, funnily enough. In other summer league news, Scoot Henderson will not be playing in it, possibly because the Blazers want to sort through other players using summer league, but Scoot needs more reps.
Back to Bronny, the bigger nepotism is him getting a full NBA contract before any summer league play. Lot less roster flexibility for the Lakers compared to if Bronny was on a two-way deal.
I think France has the most interesting roster for the Olympics outside of the US, as a front court of Wemby and Gobert with no three seconds is hellish on defense as shown by Turkey not scoring points in a warmup match until substitutions for those two.
Yeah. Team USA's bench is what's killing everyone. Other countries can keep it pretty close with starters on the floor but the minute they rest and the bench players come out it's a fucking massacre.
I don't really expect it to be too much different with Serbia.
Yeah. Team USA's bench is what's killing everyone. Other countries can keep it pretty close with starters on the floor but the minute they rest and the bench players come out it's a fucking massacre.
I don't really expect it to be too much different with Serbia.
Its pretty brootal but if Serbia can get bronze after demolishing the aussies I'll take that dub
Sorry to double post but the match between Serbia and USA was crazy. Jovic and Bodgan Bodganovich (kek) led the USA by 17 at one point as loss by 4, for a second there I really thought the LeBronze memes came true. Steph Curry actual had a performance tonight with like 7 3-pointers.
Serbia probably could have taken the silver if they hadn't happened to be in the same side of the bracket as the US, but as it stands they'll probably grab bronze.
Having KD and Ant coming off the bench is crazy. There's just nothing even close to that sort of depth elsewhere in the world. Sure, the tippy top guys may not be American anymore due to age and improvement overseas, but having the 4th or 5th best through 17th best players depending on how you feel about Shai vs Embiid is still huge.
Gold medal game was pretty solid, France just couldn’t get enough from anyone other than Wemby and Yabusele. Gobert remains the strangest surefire hall of famer with his lack of minutes the last few games of the Olympics. Wemby is going to be the next face of the league.
On the women’s side, A’ja Wilson and Brianna Stewart might be one of the most unfair duos in Olympic history. Both can do every facet of the game at a high level and make it impossible for smaller teams to have a real chance.
Back to the NBA, I have seen some people putting Steph into some ridiculous talks all time because of the Olympics (better than Magic and Kobe). I strongly disagree and don’t even have him top 10. If KD isn’t worthy of being top 10, I see no reason Steph should be. Defense is a very important part of the game and Steph is by far the worst player defensively in top 10 conversations. What do y’all think on this topic?
Back to the NBA, I have seen some people putting Steph into some ridiculous talks all time because of the Olympics (better than Magic and Kobe). I strongly disagree and don’t even have him top 10. If KD isn’t worthy of being top 10, I see no reason Steph should be. Defense is a very important part of the game and Steph is by far the worst player defensively in top 10 conversations. What do y’all think on this topic?
MJ, Bron, Wilt, Kareem, Magic, Bird, Duncan, Russell, Hakeem, Shaq, Kobe is already eleven players and you'd be hard pressed to say Curry is better than any of them. Yeah he's the best 3-pt shooter of all time but Duncan and Kobe were also scorers while being absolute nightmares on defense.
Gold medal game was pretty solid, France just couldn’t get enough from anyone other than Wemby and Yabusele. Gobert remains the strangest surefire hall of famer with his lack of minutes the last few games of the Olympics. Wemby is going to be the next face of the league.
On the women’s side, A’ja Wilson and Brianna Stewart might be one of the most unfair duos in Olympic history. Both can do every facet of the game at a high level and make it impossible for smaller teams to have a real chance.
Back to the NBA, I have seen some people putting Steph into some ridiculous talks all time because of the Olympics (better than Magic and Kobe). I strongly disagree and don’t even have him top 10. If KD isn’t worthy of being top 10, I see no reason Steph should be. Defense is a very important part of the game and Steph is by far the worst player defensively in top 10 conversations. What do y’all think on this topic?
The performance by Curry in the 4th quarter will never happen again. Being able to do three points four times and intercepting three times made people talk about how he ranked within the league. Is he the best player in it? Not necessarily, but his legacy as a competent player in the NBA and during the Olympics is valid currently and for future players.
Gold medal game was pretty solid, France just couldn’t get enough from anyone other than Wemby and Yabusele. Gobert remains the strangest surefire hall of famer with his lack of minutes the last few games of the Olympics. Wemby is going to be the next face of the league.
On the women’s side, A’ja Wilson and Brianna Stewart might be one of the most unfair duos in Olympic history. Both can do every facet of the game at a high level and make it impossible for smaller teams to have a real chance.
Back to the NBA, I have seen some people putting Steph into some ridiculous talks all time because of the Olympics (better than Magic and Kobe). I strongly disagree and don’t even have him top 10. If KD isn’t worthy of being top 10, I see no reason Steph should be. Defense is a very important part of the game and Steph is by far the worst player defensively in top 10 conversations. What do y’all think on this topic?
I don't personally have Steph top 10, but I don't think that's totally ridiculous and I do have him over KD. If we take a pretty stock top 11, you'll have some order of Russell, Wilt, Kareem, Magic, Bird, Jordan, Hakeem, Shaq, Tim Duncan, Kobe, and LeBron. If you were to put Steph on this list and make it a top 12, he's not the only one who's polarized between one half of the game and the other, he's pretty similar to Bill Russell in that regard.
Russell was the best defender in an era where defense was more highly valued, and potentially the best defender ever (main competition for that is probably Hakeem). Curry's a uniquely dangerous offensive player in an era where offense is more highly valued. He's definitely the best shooter ever, his passing is still high level, and his elite off ball play combines with this to give him a gravity which isn't really matched by anyone else. You have to guard him, even if he seems uninvolved. As far as the other side of their games, they're both actually underrated, being more slightly above average than they are bad. Rusell's percentages look bad by modern standards, but they were about league average at the time and he was a good passer. The Celtics offense was awful with him off the court and significantly better, even if it still wasn't great, with him on it. Steph's an above average defender for what he is, it just ultimately holds true that he's just not that big by NBA standards and there's only so much tenacity, skill, and court reading ability can get you. It's less that he's an outright bad defender and more that he's probably the worst on any given lineup he's on, exemplified by those playoff series where LeBron just hunted him for the iso all the time which makes him look worse than he really is. Russell's obviously got more rings, and that shouldn't be totally discounted by any means since he still had to go through guys like Wilt, Oscar Robertson, and Jerry West to get them, but we understand that there's context to those. He had by far the best team in a much smaller league without real free agency, while a lot of the guys on those teams who made the HoF did so due to him there's still guys like Havlicheck who were getting there either way. There's a reason nobody brings up his 11 rings as a counterpoint against someone like Jordan, because it's just understood that the exact numbers there may not be 1:1 representative of the modern game.
I don't think Steph's above Magic, but I don't think it's that crazy to have him there and it's certainly a real conversation. I'd argue Steph would probably be more effective in today's game due to that unique shooting threat and the greater dissemination of passing and ball handling ability throughout other positions, and I think the idea of all time starting 5s exemplifies this. Whatever the lineup, you're probably going to have LeBron on it at one of the forward spots, and potentially Larry Bird if you want to knock Duncan off or play him at the 5. Having one or both of those guys makes Magic's passing slightly redundant compared to Steph's shooting, especially when you consider that Steph's still an elite passer in a vacuum. He wasn't the best guy on his team for all of his rings, but neither was Magic given he had Kareem around. Steph got a franchise out of the mud in a way not really seen since Jordan. The Warriors were perennially a joke after Wilt left them, now they're a hugely lucrative franchise and an attractive destination for young talent because of him. What puts Magic over Steph for me is largely not strictly basketball related stuff, mainly that his career was cut short and he still was able to achieve all he did without ever truly finishing on his own terms. However, I don't think Steph's that far off, and I'm not gonna fight you on which order you wanna put them in. I think these super tippy top tier players are generally going to be successful in a variety of contexts as long as you're not just time machining them in.
Having said all that, I'd agree that he's not top 10, and I'd have him around that 12 spot. I find Wilt and Bill hard to rank because of how different basketball was back then, but even still I'm comfortable having them above him. I just don't think it's a wild take to sneak him into the lower end there.
What I mentioned above about all time teams does remind me of people pitting these two teams together. I personally think it's a weird scenario where 1992 is the better team with better players, but 2024 would probably win a game because modern 3 point shooting and spacing is just that impactful. I think that the only players of 2024 who are clearly better than their non Laettner counterparts are LeBron, Kevin Durant, and Steph (over Stockton). Past that, you could argue Embiid over Ewing but I would disagree due to Embiid's health issues and you can't really argue him over Robinson. You could argue one of the other forwards over Chris Mullin, but I don't know enough about Chris Mullin to do anything more than a raw stat comparison. Larry's back was all kinds of fucked up by this point, but I'm talking more in terms of all time stuff here. Either way, 1992 had 11 hall of famers while 2024 only has 5 locks imo (LeBron, KD, Curry, AD, Embiid). I guess we'll see how things pan out once the younger guys have had their time, but I'd like to hear what others think.
Taking this from Twitter since it’s a very funny debate topic.
The typical rankings on Twitter seem to be Kyrie, Klay, Dame, and PG last. I would personally reverse that, but would be willing to switch PG Dame and Klay Kyrie. I think Kyrie is overrated by the casual crowd in a similar way to how Iverson can be, but AI led a team to the finals with the second and third options being Theo Ratliff in his one all star season and 34 year old Mutumbo. Kyrie hasn’t ever led a team to anything. Klay is Klay, his reputation has been hurt by his awful performances recently in the playoffs. Dame and PG have both gotten top 5 in MVP votes, something the other two aren’t close to, only Klay has any MVP votes (one). Dame and PG also have NBA First Team appearances, which Klay and Kyrie don’t have. It’s odd to see two career second options get ranked above guys who have led their teams and actually gotten major accolades.
The typical rankings on Twitter seem to be Kyrie, Klay, Dame, and PG last. I would personally reverse that, but would be willing to switch PG Dame and Klay Kyrie. I think Kyrie is overrated by the casual crowd in a similar way to how Iverson can be, but AI led a team to the finals with the second and third options being Theo Ratliff in his one all star season and 34 year old Mutumbo. Kyrie hasn’t ever led a team to anything. Klay is Klay, his reputation has been hurt by his awful performances recently in the playoffs. Dame and PG have both gotten top 5 in MVP votes, something the other two aren’t close to, only Klay has any MVP votes (one). Dame and PG also have NBA First Team appearances, which Klay and Kyrie don’t have. It’s odd to see two career second options get ranked above guys who have led their teams and actually gotten major accolades.
I agree that Kyrie is very overrated, mainly due to the fact he outplayed Steph during his final appearances with the Cavs but I would still take him over PG as someone able to produce as somebody else Robin. He might be the more skilled/versatile player but Kyrie has had better performances when it actually matters. Klay was always good alongside the Warriors but I still think he probably the worst individual player of these 4 and Dame is Dame. So I would probably rank it Dame > Kyrie > Pandemic P < or > Klay which is probably must normies have
Well the Nuggets sure aren't going to be do anything to stop it, not with that bum Murray and the new CBA. There isn't a team in the east that could feasibly stop them and most of the team in the west don't seem up to the task. Not a team that deep. Maybe the T-Wolves
I’ve been reading more rumors and news that the NY Knicks might be real competition for the NBA Finals and Playoffs for when they battle the Celtics in the postseason come 2025. The addition of Mikal Bridges from the Brooklyn Nets managed to give Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart some much needed offensive and defensive strategy to work with Tom Thibodeau.
The Nuggets are in a weird spot because for some reason the front office has decided that the best time to prioritize long time draft picks and future growth is when you have a 29 year old 3 time MVP who won a chip the year before the last one who some people think might retire early if he gets too sick of the NBA media since his legacy and financial future is already secured (though the last part is a bit overblown). Meanwhile the coach doesn't really like playing younger players and likes to stick with his proven veterans, even outside outliers like Jokic. It's a disconnect that hampers their ability to get anything done unless Jamal Murray decides that he's good at basketball again.
OKC's actually looking really strong this coming year. Chet's due for a sophomore leap, and was already a great rookie. SGA just came in 2nd place for MVP. Snagging Hartenstein in the offseason will probably help too. They're in a pretty rare position of being a super young team that's also a top level contender, so they've got time to improve. To a lesser extent, the Mavs could be looking to benefit from a Dereck Lively sophomore leap. In general I wouldn't really want to count out a team that has any of the true top tier players on it before the season's started, since this is a team sport where one player can still have a pretty outsized impact on the game. Even Embiid's an amazing asset when he's actually healthy, and that's still theoretically possible.
On that line of thought, the Bucks still got a shot. People got too hyped for Lillard coming over to them, but it's not like they're trash. Lillard was impacted by a divorce and hopefully that's less of a dampener on his game this season, and Giannis got hurt right before the playoffs and didn't play in them at all. He's still at worst the third best guy in the world or so.
Knicks are also worth keeping an eye out for. Remember that during last year's playoff run the entire team was injured. They had no bench, and I think they didn't even have their usual starters besides Brunson. Josh Hart was playing 48 minutes a game when he was supposed to be their 6th man. That level terrible injury luck is just such a statistical anomaly that it's pretty safe to say they'll be healthier this year, and Mikal Bridges is a good, reliable guy known as an iron man which helps in that regard too.
Overall, I still think the Celtics come into the season looking like the best, but not by a mile. It's not a KD warriors situation by a long shot, they're plenty beatable even if they're at the top of the pack.
