As someone that remembers him fondly on the Bulls and when he was on the Knicks, it’s a shame that leg injuries and ACL tears kept this young man down from ever attaining a championship ring. Even when he was on the Grizzlies, he showed some flashes here and there, but I could sense it would never be the same when compared to his standout years from 2010-2012.
Either way, Godspeed to Derrick Rose. He’ll still go down as one of the best point guards that (almost) attempted to have the same kind of legacy that Michael Jordan had, but I guess it was just never meant to be.
Yeah, in some ways I am sad because he will always be remembered as a Big If, like Penny Hardaway. But I always immensely appreciate his game after the injuries and his general outlook/personality. Here hoping for the best
Derrick Rose's retirement raises the question of whether or not he makes the hall of fame, mostly due to his MVP. Derrick Rose's accolades are said MVP, one first team All-NBA (no other All-NBA teams), three all-stars, and rookie of the year. I don't know of anything standout in college besides being good enough to be drafted #1 overall. It's really just a question of if having an MVP automatically gets you in the hall. Most players who end up with MVPs had to be good enough to get one that they'd have made the hall of fame regardless, and even the similarly injury impeded Bill Walton had a championship and one of the best college careers to bolster his resume. In fact, the two best comparisons and weakest MVP players seem to be him and Wes Unseld. However, I think they both have the edge over Derrick Rose.
Walton was a 2x champion, 1x FMVP, 1x MVP, 2x All Star, 1x All-NBA 1st Team, 1x All-NBA 2nd-Team, 2x 1st Team All-Defense, and 1x 6MOTY. The finals wins, particularly the finals MVP, help him out quite a lot (The only FMVP to miss the HoF is Cedric Maxwell, though I don't think Iguodala gets in either and it remains to be determined for Jaylen Brown), but what really got him into the hall imo is his god tier college career. No matter what, he's clearly done more than Rose has.
Wes Unseld was a 1x Champion, 1x FMVP, 1x MVP, 5x All Star, 1x All-NBA 1st team, and 1x ROTY. Interestingly, his MVP was won during his rookie season, which has only ever happened with him and Wilt Chamberlain. Both of these MVPs were back when players voted for them, of course. Only making 1 All-NBA team after being a rookie MVP seems really odd, I don't really know what happened there, but he's got an FMVP and 5 All Star appearances isn't nothing. He was on the 50th and 75th anniversary teams, so I'll just assume that this is a case of his ability not being perfectly represented in his accolades since I don't know much about him. His accolades are still clearly better than Rose, however.
Derrick Rose not only would be the only MVP to not be a hall of famer if that was to happen, but it would also be the case that the youngest MVP ever is also the one guy to miss it. The MVPs who aren't in the hall of fame because they are currently playing are LeBron, Durant, Curry, Westbrook, Harden, Giannis, Jokic, and Embiid. I don't think it's realistic to say any of those guys are going to miss the hall short of becoming a terrorist or something, and not even due to the NBA hall of fame being easier to get into compared to MLB or NFL. Embiid's the one exception towards having a really strong resume if he retired tomorrow due to catastrophic injury, but he'd still get in first ballot. Personally, I'd say Rose definitely doesn't get in first ballot, and I'm not sure if he would later down the line. His accolades fall off a cliff because of his injury, and in the modern day he'd be negatively affected by his rape case where he infamously said he didn't know what consent was, but the novelty of him being the youngest MVP ever feels like something that people would find awkward to not have in the hall of fame.
The recent CBA seems to be the driver behind this trade due to KAT’s contract being massive along with the impending need for extensions for the Wolves young players. I don’t think a Randle-Gobert frontcourt is a better fit with the rest of the team, especially since Randle is perhaps the most inconsistent player in the league in terms of defensive effort. This is to say nothing of losing KAT, who is the best big man in the league at providing spacing, in exchange for the black hole of inefficiencies that is Randle on offense. I guess Naz Reid is the solution to that, but who knows how well that will work in the playoffs. The Knicks are going to be a lot better in terms of spacing, but the rim protection is going to be a lot worse. This is assuming that Mitchell Robinson gets traded since he’s been posting like an NFL wide receiver lately.
At the end of the day, I still think the Celtics are the team to beat in the East and overall, but that may change depending on how healthy Horford and Porzingis can stay because Kornet, Tillman, and Queta are very poor replacements if both of those two are out.
players. I don’t think a Randle-Gobert frontcourt is a better fit with the rest of the team, especially since Randle is perhaps the most inconsistent player in the league in terms of defensive effort. This is to say nothing of losing KAT, who is the best big man in the league at providing spacing, in exchange for the black hole of inefficiencies that is Randle on offense. I guess Naz Reid is the solution to that...
Julius Randle may have inconsistencies offensively and defensively but the one thing he can manage is a double-double. Rudy Gobert on the other hand. He's been a liability since the Jazz days. He makes such dumb mistakes in key situations. If Randle manages to remain injured, Naz will fill in the role that same way he did last year. The only benefit from the trade was Divincenzo. When most teams start doubling Edwards, Divincenzo hits a more consistent 3pt than KAT did.
The Knicks are going to be a lot better in terms of spacing, but the rim protection is going to be a lot worse. This is assuming that Mitchell Robinson gets traded since he’s been posting like an NFL wide receiver lately.
Losing Robinson would be a huge mistake. KAT can't manage 10 rebounds a game and never defends the paint. Losing Robinson would allow most teams to bully KAT on the boards again. If you trade him, add more big bodies and shooting. Jalen and Mikal can't do all the rebounding and shooting.
The Celtics run has instilled confidence in a team that's was always close but couldn't win. Since the core remains the same and has finally won. There's nothing that can't stop them from repeating unless injuries. It's Celtics v whatever West team that catches fire in May since the West is a 7 team race.
The recent CBA seems to be the driver behind this trade due to KAT’s contract being massive along with the impending need for extensions for the Wolves young players.
Yeah, you see this affecting a lot of teams this upcoming season. Shoutout the Nuggets being really scared to go over the second apron for some reason despite having a player so good it really is worth it to go for a championship, shoutout the Celtics owners selling the team after loading up on salary because they didn't really want to pay that salary and the tax. I'm actually feeling like the Knicks come out of this trade pretty well assuming that they keep Mitchell Robinson around. A lineup of Brunson, Hart, OG, Bridges, and KAT has some of the best wing defense in the league even if Brunson and KAT aren't good defenders, and even with KAT just being really big alone will usually be enough since the wing defenders make actually becoming a threat at the rim in the first place so much more difficult. We only would need to ask mediocre defense of KAT for this, and then you can swap Mitchell Robinson in and play 2 big lineups similar to what Minnesota did with KAT and Gobert in cases where you'd need some extra size and defense, like against someone like Embiid or Giannis. Robinson capping out at ~20 mins per game while getting more playing time against specific offensive threats seems like a decent way to go.
A fun fact about Mutombo was that he actually was originally going to Georgetown on an academic scholarship to become a doctor and ended up playing basketball mostly because he was extremely tall. It was always something in mind, but as a backup plan. Turns out it came to fruition and we got one of the best defenders ever, but he still tended to send a lot of his money back home in an effort to improve things because despite what usually happens the money and the fame just didn't change the guy's intentions.
A passing comment in an article that was stupid but he apologized for that part of the article. Embiid freaked out because of the criticism, he's such an unlikeable player.
A passing comment in an article that was stupid but he apologized for that part of the article. Embiid freaked out because of the criticism, he's such an unlikeable player.
It will be interesting to see what the NBA's response is. Not only is Embiid sitting out games despite not being injured, now he's laying hands on journalists. Would be nice to see him made an example of, but I expect a slap on the wrist.
Wes Unseld was a 1x Champion, 1x FMVP, 1x MVP, 5x All Star, 1x All-NBA 1st team, and 1x ROTY. Interestingly, his MVP was won during his rookie season, which has only ever happened with him and Wilt Chamberlain. Both of these MVPs were back when players voted for them, of course. Only making 1 All-NBA team after being a rookie MVP seems really odd, I don't really know what happened there, but he's got an FMVP and 5 All Star appearances isn't nothing. He was on the 50th and 75th anniversary teams, so I'll just assume that this is a case of his ability not being perfectly represented in his accolades since I don't know much about him. His accolades are still clearly better than Rose, however.
Unseld was Dennis Rodman back when being Rodman would be of far more value than the 80s and 90s. He grabbed a ton of boards and was capable of guarding all positions. He just wasn't flashy, and being on the Bullets his whole career didn't have his contribution in the limelight.
Can we all agree the NBA sucks this season? Viewership is way down, three pointers are way up, load management is back with a vengeance, players are more spoiled and unlikable than ever, the Eastern Conference is dog shit, they are persevering with this 'NBA Cup' that nobody wanted... Is the NBA terminally ill or will it bounce back?
Can we all agree the NBA sucks this season? Viewership is way down, three pointers are way up, load management is back with a vengeance, players are more spoiled and unlikable than ever, the Eastern Conference is dog shit, they are persevering with this 'NBA Cup' that nobody wanted... Is the NBA terminally ill or will it bounce back?
The NBA peaked in the 90's (or 80's depending on who you ask) and it'll never be as or nearly as popular as it was literal decades ago. For all the talk about how much more talented players are now, that sure doesn't translate to viewership (and I don't buy that bullshit to begin with, maybe more athletic and shoot more 3's but that doesn't make them all time greats). Load management, 48 minute 3 point contests, lack of physicality, wack ass uniforms, soft prima donna's with loud mouths who are outspoken about everything but basketball and dip into politics when they should shut the fuck up and dribble, the death of the big man, and LeBron being the face of the NBA for far too long while being one of the most unlikable players ever. That shit sounds like a losing formula to me.
Can we all agree the NBA sucks this season? Viewership is way down, three pointers are way up, load management is back with a vengeance, players are more spoiled and unlikable than ever, the Eastern Conference is dog shit, they are persevering with this 'NBA Cup' that nobody wanted... Is the NBA terminally ill or will it bounce back?
NBA viewership always sucks right in the beginning due to overlap with the World Series and Football. The NFL kinda warps everything around itself, yesterday only had one game airing while tonight has like ten because they wanted to avoid Monday night football, you don't really start getting good numbers for comparison until around December. I've got some thoughts on overall viewership trends, but it's long winded even for me.
I'd personally attribute the viewership woes to the changing landscape of the media, piracy, and more competition. The changing nature of the game undoubtedly turns off many old heads, but it draws in younger fans who certainly don't react too well to older basketball. A lot of the time, this sort of thing is just an unspoken preference for the game you grew up with rather than one being innately superior one way or the other, and I think you'll run into a lot of trouble trying to isolate that variable.
Media wise, people just aren't on cable like that anymore, and the product from a non game standpoint has gotten worse. Ads are everywhere and it certainly doesn't feel like it used to be that bad. Television is diminishing in prominence to where sports are now the only thing some people have cable for, as opposed to something assumed as a default. The NBA's app isn't a very good service either, due to how US TV rights work they have to black out local games (which is what a lot of the fans who properly follow a team would really care about, as opposed to weirdos like me) in ways that aren't terribly intuitive to the majority of consumers. Cable isn't really worth buying just for one sport and their own app sucks, so people instead turn to streaming sites. All you gotta do is run an adblocker and know the names of a couple, and for some minor inconvenience you save a whole lot of money. If your own platform is more difficult to use and offers an inferior user experience when compared to piracy, people are just going to pirate. The best way to fight piracy is to offer a service of high enough quality that consumers would rather pay you, and that is not something the league is doing very well.
True, but I don't think the solutions people propose ever made a ton of sense. Three point shooting isn't affected by letting bigs beat the shit out of you in the paint at all. If anything, freeing defenses to do more might encourage them because it's just inherently more difficult to defend if you have the accuracy to do it. Same with being tighter on offensive fouls, 3 point shooters already aren't fouling people as is so that only ends up discouraging drives and banging down low. I would like the foul baiting stuff to go away, but that doesn't solve stuff like the Celtics all shooting 60% from 3 and tying the franchise record on the first game of the year in a blowout. No shenanigans were needed to get those, they just all popped off at the same time and removing defensive 3 seconds, adding hand checking, and letting guys get beat up in the post isn't stopping that. Modern offensive schemes are designed to open up a lot of space in ways that haven't really been seen in the past, and even if you could outright foul people beyond the arc with impunity teams would still be able to get their guys open for corner 3s and such. People just got better at 3 pointers than ever expected, and I don't think that's going away.
Is this even the case? We've had a huge amount of injuries this season, but we've seen them all happen on the court. The only load management suspects I'm really aware of are Kawhi and Embiid, and they're both chronically injured players (particularly Kawhi, who's knees literally will never fully heal). I don't see much reason to doubt that those two genuinely are just injured this much, we see them go down on the court all the time even when they do play. I think the issue is more that of the 30 teams, there's always going to be 1 team desperate enough to offer them the max (or their goal isn't to win, and they believe paying one of these two can rake in the big bucks from ticket sales) which forces the other 29 to offer a lot more money than they otherwise would, so they end up way overpaid for how much they can actually play. If Embiid and Kawhi weren't making the money they were I don't think most would be as mad (maybe they would with Embiid, because he's annoying for unrelated reasons) but alas there's always going to be one GM stupid enough to offer a golden ticket.
Ben Simmons, Embiid, Luka's attitude has been getting pretty annoying this season, but past that I haven't really seen that much on the court and anybody saying stupid stuff on twitter I can just ignore since I don't use the website. I tend to just watch games that seem interesting when they're on, so maybe I just have amazing luck or something, but I really haven't seen anything too terrible thus far.
True. The Cavs and Celtics are looking great, but things are pretty grim otherwise. That being said, the Magic were looking to be neat until Paolo got hurt, and the Knicks have a good shot at bouncing back once they get more used to playing together and playing in different schemes and maybe moving KAT to the 4 again. The east is the weaker conference but the numbers look particularly bad because most of their games so far have been against the west. Things will stabilize a bit as the season goes on, though we're probably not getting more than 2-3 actually competitive teams out of that half.
Popularity wise, probably true. Sports were a greater cultural touchstone back then and there was a lot less to split your attention. The internet wasn't so widespread, modern streaming services weren't a thing yet, cable was still king, and kids were still going outside to their local court and just playing pick up for hours back then. This does mostly apply to the US though. International ratings have been consistently increasing due to the international players, so who knows if the total number will even out one day.
For all the talk about how much more talented players are now, that sure doesn't translate to viewership (and I don't buy that bullshit to begin with, maybe more athletic and shoot more 3's but that doesn't make them all time greats).
Two things. One, the greatest improvements are seen in the 2nd tier guys and the role players. You put tippy top guys from pretty much any time except maybe the 50s into any other time and they'll do fine. Wilt Chamberlain would be very good today, Michael Jordan would be very good today, prime LeBron would be very good in the 80s. Those are the outlier level guys to begin with. On a team level, though? The modern day is pretty undeniably significantly superior to eras past. There's less of a gap between the tippy top tier and the average because the average has improved by leaps and bounds. We have a greater talent pool, we have the lessons of the past, we have modern medicine and PEDs (everyone in pro sports is doing something), and we have modern analytics and strategies to push things over the top.
The 2nd thing is that it really depends how you'll define greatness. Does media/charisma stuff heavily factor into it for you? How much do you value intangibles like being a team player or being visually appealing? How do you rank team achievements vs individual ones? When it comes to ranking style conversations, I feel that the more interesting part isn't so much the actual ranking as much as it is the analysis of what we value and why. The conversation should be more interesting than who's on top. From a standpoint of just whatever's the most effective, there's definitely a lot of improvement. If someone could shoot 100% from 3 and played no other aspect of basketball at all they'd still guarantee their team a win barring outright sabotage from their teammates and as such would be the best ever by default, but would people really see that as "great?" I will say I feel like the only currently playing guys in the top 15 are LeBron, Steph, and KD. Jokic will probably get there by the time he's done, and I think it's possible for Giannis, but I'm not exactly on the zoomer "we're done with the 90s" train and I think the top of the top are harder to dislodge than a lot of people give credit for.
We're never going back to the early 2000s with 10 guys shoving it out in a mosh pit, but the 90s and 2000s are the outlier in that regard. 80s, 70s, 60s basketball was more restrictive on contact than it is today, largely by way of offensive foul calls, and you can still get your pushing and shoving in with the right guys.
soft prima donna's with loud mouths who are outspoken about everything but basketball and dip into politics when they should shut the fuck up and dribble
Never personally been too much of a "shut up and dribble" type, if I don't want to listen to what someone' saying I just won't. Like I mentioned above there doesn't seem to be that many people bitching and moaning on the court itself... but the people who do it are still annoying enough for it to be something I agree should be curtailed. People foul bait because it gives them a competitive advantage, and it's on those setting the rules of the competition to minimize incentives for degenerate gameplay because ruthless exploitation of the rules is ultimately just what someone maximizing their competitiveness will do.
Now this is just not really correct anymore. There was that dark time where DeAndre Jordan was 1st team all-nba because all the centers sucked, but we've got plenty of established guys and up and comers in the modern game. Jokic, Giannis, Anthony Davis, Paolo pre injury, Embiid when he actually plays, Wemby, Sabonis, Gobert, Evan Mobely, and Chet Holmgren are all big guys who are central to their teams and clearly effective in controlling the game. You've also got LeBron, Tatum, and KD at power forward this season. Sure, Tatum's more naturally SF and KD is really light (though he's 7 feet tall...) but LeBron's the size of Karl Malone. It's pretty silly to pretend he doesn't count at all when he's generally been at his best at PF or at PG. The guy can play every position but he's the size and build of an old school PF. Even in the 90s when the big man was at his apex I think there were numerically fewer of the super important ones.
