2023-24 NBA Season Discussion

[Colbinii]

Giannis/Jrue/Brook in 2021
Brooks/JJJ in 2023
KG/Rondo in 2011

[penbeast0]

Jokic is still great and with Gobert out for Game 2, he has a chance to really take over. Still rooting for the Wolves though.

Wolves making the WCF would be huge for a tortured franchise. I am sure the Celtics coaches and players are watching every game of this series really praying for the Wolves to get rid of Nuggets

Don't settle for less than a ring! (What can I say, I'm a Wizards fan, we only get to live vicariously this time of the season)

[Texas Chuck]

Giannis/Jrue/Brook in 2021

Yeah that one is just silly. Two DPOY candidates and then the third guy is Jrue. Like a cheat code.

[Special_Puppy]

I honestly had no idea that Brunson is almost 28 years old. Thought he was like 24 or 25

[Texas Chuck]

I honestly had no idea that Brunson is almost 28 years old. Thought he was like 24 or 25

3 years of college. 4 years in Dallas. 2 now in NY. Time catches up to all of us.

[Colbinii]

Brunson was in the same high school class as Donovan Mitchell, Ben Simmons, Brandon Ingram, Jaylen Brown, Jamal Murray, Malik Beasley, Mo Wagner and Luke Kennard.

[rk2023]

Games within the game, OKC Dallas edition:

• Gafford vs Chet (being drawn away from the paint, rebounding)
• Can Kyrie be the best producer in the series?
• DJJ as Shai’s primary defender
• Dallas’ TOV%
• 3P battle between the two teams
• JDub all-star production?

[OhayoKD]

The only people who will say "first GOAT candidate since MJ" are the Lebron haters.

Now the one bone I'll throw Jokic skeptics is the 2023 Nuggets did face the weakest group of opponents for any NBA champion since Magic/Larry came on the seen. Their 4 opponents had a combined SRS of 2.16 and the peak opponent was 2.08. That is beyond terrible competition.

But I see that as a data point for skepticism around the Nuggets rather than Jokic. Denver has a good coach but they haven't done a great building around Jokic.

I already brought this up and the LeBron Hater's explained it away and of course, tried to provide context to each team's SRS.

I think we can all agree that SRS doesn't do a good job of capturing the quality of last year's opponents.

The version of LA that Denver played wasn't a 0.43 SRS team. They didn't play the team that started 2-10 with Westbrook, or a group missing LeBron/AD for nearly 30 games/piece. They played the post-tradeline version that was arguably the hottest team in the league.

The version of Miami they played wasn't a -0.13 team. That was a team that knocked off a 3.61 SRS, 2.99 SRS and 6.38 SRS.

Min was missing Towns most of the year, but he played against Denver, although Naz/Jaden didn't. Phoenix didn't have Durant the whole year but played against Denver, though they also didn't have time to gel with him either.

Every team they played was materially different from the overall season numbers. I can't think of a run where SRS would be less useful.

And then I address all the points, but the explanation isn't enough.

Okay, what were they?

The Lakers literally beat a one-handed Ja Morant team while Ja played in just 5 games [and again, literally had 1 hand].

In round 2 the Lakers beat a 1.66 SRS Golden State Warriors team who in round 1 barely squeeked by a 2.30 SRS Sacramento Kings team.



This is because Miami was hot from 3 though. They weren't hot from 3 in the NBA FInals, which means Miami was very much a -0.13 team it the NBA Finals.



Towns was putrid and Gobert was hurt most of last year with massive back pains.

Phoenix isn't any better this year with Durant [2.53 SRS this year, 2.08 last year].

Both of these teams RS SRS paints them accurately to their playoff levels last year.



I disagree. I don't see Miami, Minnesota or Phoenix being any different than their regular season SRS in the series they played Denver.

Like come on. None of these teams [Minnesota, Miami, Lakers, Phoenix] were actual title contenders or close to it.

SRS may not be perfect, but let's not pretend this was some amazing run Denver did. They played mediocre [at best] playoff teams.

On what planet am I a LeBron hater? I've been defending the guy since 2007

How dare I provide context! All I said was SRS wasn't useful last year, which I stand by. I didn't say he faced godly competition. You're better than this my guy. Much better.

You have a talent for side-stepping people's arguments

[Ambrose]

I already brought this up and the LeBron Hater's explained it away and of course, tried to provide context to each team's SRS.



And then I address all the points, but the explanation isn't enough.

On what planet am I a LeBron hater? I've been defending the guy since 2007

How dare I provide context! All I said was SRS wasn't useful last year, which I stand by. I didn't say he faced godly competition. You're better than this my guy. Much better.

You have a talent for side-stepping people's arguments

Thanks

[sp6r=underrated]

Does anyone else think the NBA has a unique culture of ref bashing/conspiracy theories? I just don't see the same level of conspiracy theories in other sports league I follow/followed but want to know if others agree.

[ronnymac2]

Does anyone else think the NBA has a unique culture of ref bashing/conspiracy theories? I just don't see the same level of conspiracy theories in other sports league I follow/followed but want to know if others agree.

I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of it in American football currently.

[OhayoKD]

Does anyone else think the NBA has a unique culture of ref bashing/conspiracy theories? I just don't see the same level of conspiracy theories in other sports league I follow/followed but want to know if others agree.

Pretty much all the sports have a culture of ref-bashing.

[jalengreen]

Does anyone else think the NBA has a unique culture of ref bashing/conspiracy theories? I just don't see the same level of conspiracy theories in other sports league I follow/followed but want to know if others agree.

I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of it in American football currently.

the "NFL is rigging it for the Chiefs because of Taylor Swift" conspiracy probably trumps anything in the NBA currently in terms of virality. whining about the Lakers and their free throw differential over the last year being the leading competitor

[sp6r=underrated]

Does anyone else think the NBA has a unique culture of ref bashing/conspiracy theories? I just don't see the same level of conspiracy theories in other sports league I follow/followed but want to know if others agree.

I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of it in American football currently.

the "NFL is rigging it for the Chiefs because of Taylor Swift" conspiracy probably trumps anything in the NBA currently in terms of virality. whining about the Lakers and their free throw differential over the last year being the leading competitor

I'm not trying to be argumentative but I follow the NBA much closer than the NFL. When I watch NFL games I see way less yelling at the refs from player even though there is more dead time in an NFL game. And I almost never hear players imply games are fixed the way I see guys like Gobert do in the NBA.

And yeah the Taylor Swift thing is so stupid. The NFL is basically the one league in America that can sell basically any team. They truly don't care.

[jalengreen]

I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of it in American football currently.

the "NFL is rigging it for the Chiefs because of Taylor Swift" conspiracy probably trumps anything in the NBA currently in terms of virality. whining about the Lakers and their free throw differential over the last year being the leading competitor

I'm not trying to be argumentative but I follow the NBA much closer than the NFL. When I watch NFL games I see way less yelling at the refs from player even though there is more dead time in an NFL game. And I almost never hear players imply games are fixed the way I see guys like Gobert do in the NBA.

And yeah the Taylor Swift thing is so stupid. The NFL is basically the one league in America that can sell basically any team. They truly don't care.

oh from a player perspective i'd certainly agree. i was mainly talking fans in which case i think it's largely the same, but yes i'd say the relationship between players and refs is more present in general in the nba. including constant complaining to a degree that isn't in the nfl.

i think i've seen a fair share of complaining towards umps/officials in baseball and soccer, but not as much of a fan so dunno how it compares.

[lessthanjake]

It can pretty clearly simultaneously be the case that the Nuggets had a relatively easy slate of opponents in last year’s playoffs *and* that SRS doesn’t do a good job of capturing those teams’ quality.

Like, I think that was definitely on the easy side in terms of opponent quality, but they faced teams that had made moves during the season that made them substantially better, or had other obvious reasons to think they were better than their SRS:

1. Across almost 40 regular season + playoff games after the Westbrook trade and before facing the Nuggets, the Lakers had about a 6 SRS. Yes, they didn’t beat any great team in the playoffs, but the team had proven to be quite good post-trade over a pretty significant sample size and had taken care of business pretty straightforwardly in the first two rounds.

2. Kevin Durant was a major upgrade for the Suns (and they had done great with him after he’d joined, though the sample size of games was small). They were not great this year, but the team was also really not the same, so I don’t think that’s very meaningful. The only players that were in the playoff rotation both years were Durant, Booker, and Okogie. And Durant was significantly better last year, by essentially any measure (not surprising, given his age). It’s hard to really know how good the Suns were, given how small the with-Durant sample size was, but assuming they were only as good as this year’s Suns seems like a pretty tenuous assumption.

3. The Wolves were without KAT for almost the entire season last year. On its face that seems like good reason to think they were better in the playoffs, where they did have KAT. Granted, they didn’t really play better in the games with him that year, but most of his games were at the beginning of the season. And, on a team that, at the beginning of the season had a really young and actively improving star (ANT) and a newly-integrating Gobert, it seems reasonable to think that those early-season games with KAT weren’t really representative of what they were. Granted, even with KAT, I don’t think they were as good as they are this year, when they’ve had more time to improve and integrate together (and also they have McDaniels) and KAT is in better form. But it seems reasonable to think that a team with an all-NBA/all-star guy that missed 53 games is probably better than their SRS when they have him in the playoffs.

4. The argument that the Heat were better than their SRS is perhaps less straightforward, but I do think it’s reasonable to think that a team that in recent years has twice made the Finals with low SRS (and also lost a close game 7 in the ECF another year, despite their best player being hobbled) and has the best coach in the league is probably better than a -0.13 SRS team in the playoffs. It’s not a fluke team that did really well in one playoff run because of hot shooting—it’s a team that has repeatedly had a lot of playoff success.

All of the above can be true, without requiring us to think that the slate of opponents was actually on the difficult side. Like, it’s really not mutually exclusive to say that the Nuggets’ opponents were significantly better than their 0.54 SRS average and that they were still on the weak side in terms of difficulty of opponents in a title run.

[Heej]

That 1st half defense from the Wolves was maybe the best I've ever seen in the playoffs(without their best defender too). Certainly up there if not the best.

They've been incredible thus far.

How often have we seen the best big man defender in the league and arguably the best perimeter defender on the same team? Spurs with Bowen and Duncan? Maybe Cs with Tony Allen and KG

Draymond-Andre

Haha damn I'm a bum for forgetting that one

[eminence]

Congrats to Mr 4x Gobert, joining some big defensive names.

He's not my pick but he has the outlines of a case for 2nd best defender ever (Russell #1, duh, and obviously guys like Duncan have had better careers).

Would truly love to see the Wolves get the job done this season.

[sp6r=underrated]

Boston is playing a GOAT squad. This is an extremely impressive club.

[eminence]

Results have been spectacular this season, so I'm probably wrong, but I'm not that high on the Celtics bench. Horford is still strong, but not what he once was, and Pritchard/Hauser I'm just not particularly excited by. It's worked in Boston, but if my team acquired them I wouldn't see that changing much.

And obviously Horford isn't coming off the bench without KP, so they really only go 7 deep (even less excited by Kornet).