2017-18 NBA Regular Season Game/Observation Thread
- Thread starter DeJesus Built My Hotrod
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Josh Jackson looks like he needs another two or three years of NCAA seasoning. After throwing up a brick early in the shot clock, he allows offensive juggernaut Jordan Clarkson to totally break him down at the other end. The Suns are absolutely putrid.
If that's now five teams clearly worse than LA then we're going to need some help with the ping pong balls.
Robert Covington is the most underrated player in the NBA as a really good three and D guy. And he only makes ~$1mm. He is so going to get paid this summer...
Casually watching 76er v Clips game. Seemed like Sixers were dominating them, how is it a 2pt game at half?
oh, yea Austin Rivers stinks, $12M a year? nice one Doc
oh, yea Austin Rivers stinks, $12M a year? nice one Doc
Austin is fn terrible. One of worst junk offensive players in the league. Pound, pound, pound the ball in the court, rarely looks to get people involved. Just all around awful.
Can't wait til Bev is back
should have his extension announced on Nov. 16th
http://www.sportingnews.com/nba/news/robert-covington-contract-extension-sixers-news-joel-embiid-ben-simmons/16mdlei6tdfm11kuqhh9za42z1
Yup. I heard about it 2 months ago from someone who would know. Has apparently been agreed to for a while now.
Right before the end of the first half, he and Blake clearly had some words after Rivers threw a bad pass and Blake was fouled trying to catch it. You would think that Rivers would defer to Blake however - and this was clearly my interpretation of the interaction via League pass - it looked like instead of listening to what Griffin had to say, Austin went back at him causing Blake to throw up his arms in exasperation. I won't be surprised that after all is said and done, more stories come out about how Rivers wasn't liked by the rest of the squad. Of course, I am probably wrong and he is well regarded by all of his teammates.
Good for Philly. He is one of my favorite under the radar NBA players of the past few seasons. After this season, he likely won't be as obscure, extension or not.
Yup. I remember laughing off that rumored offer of Covington/Noel/24/26 for #3 (Jaylen). Still wouldn’t do it but not as bad now. Dude’s a keeper. Yet another thing Hinkie did to set up Colangelo for future success!
No way I trade cheap 21 year-old Brown for soon-to-be 27 year-old making more money. If you’re just talking who you’d rather have right now, I would agree.
If the 76ers can sign him for what essentially is 4/$50MM, that would be a bargain for them. Covington's value has gone up in two months I would say.
Absolutely. I don’t know the terms but was told it’s done. Huge part of their future and great fit with Simmons.
My WAG is 4/$60MM. Covington gets his money 7 months early and Sixers get a bargain but not the absolute minimum.
hmmm, interesting question. Covington would be an All-Star in Brad's system. Right now Covington is clearly a better player and one of the poster boys for the modern NBA. That said, I'm not dealing 21yr old cost controlled, huge potential Jaylen Brown for Covington straight up. But it's closer than I originally thought.
They aren't doing any one thing you can point to that screams "fluke" but Harris isn't going to shoot over .500 from 3 all year. They are an interesting team.
Since starting 4-0, the Clippers are 1-8 with their 1 win being against the Mavericks. Pretty tough stretch of games though.
It's been an embarrassing stretch regardless of who is out. For a team that preached how much they'd move the ball all off-season, they do little of it.
I'm hoping this keeps up and Doc and his son can take a hike out of town.
Raptors are beating the Rockets on the road 76-67... after half time. Or 76-64. Not sure if they counted the 3.
Raptors are 24/41 and 8/15 from 3. 20/24 from the Line.
Rockets 20/40, 7/19, 17/20.
Raptors are 24/41 and 8/15 from 3. 20/24 from the Line.
Rockets 20/40, 7/19, 17/20.
Raptors were up 20 with a quarter and a half to go. Rockets have closed it to 6 with 8 minutes left in the 4th. Harden picked up his 5th foul on a charge though.
Mavs down 3 at home to the Spurs with 6:42 left.
edit: And just like that, they are down 11. What an awful team.
edit: And just like that, they are down 11. What an awful team.
Exaggeratedly Harden-esque performance tonight: 38 pts on 8-25 fg, 3-11 3fg, 19-19 ft, 6 reb, 11 ast, 9 tov.
Also: Delon Wright (Dorell's lil brother) seems to have come out of nowhere to become a really good player.
Also: Delon Wright (Dorell's lil brother) seems to have come out of nowhere to become a really good player.
He was a helluva college player at Utah. I remember being interested in him for the Celtics, but he went a couple of spots after Rozier. He was old for rookie, but great college production. Seems like the Raptors believe in him, they've stuck with him through some injuries and picked up his option.
Or ends?
I think he'll eventually make them better than they are now — he's too good a player not to — but he remains a somewhat awkward fit on a team whose two best players are playmaking guards, and I suspect it'll take at least a few weeks to get the chemistry right.
As great as CP3 is, I'm still not convinced the Rox wouldn't have been slightly better off keeping their team more or less as is (i.e. with Beverley, Harrell, and Dekker) and just adding the hard-nosed D and versatility of PJ Tucker and LMAM to the mix.
Dennis Smith Jr. with a nice night in the Mavs loss to the Spurs. 27 points on 10-23 shooting including 5-11 from deep as well as six boards and two assists.
I don't know what kind of player he winds up being but the kid can score in just about every way. And while he wasn't facing Kawhi, tonight, the Spurs sans him are still obviously well coached so the kid wasn't getting any gimmes.
I don't know what kind of player he winds up being but the kid can score in just about every way. And while he wasn't facing Kawhi, tonight, the Spurs sans him are still obviously well coached so the kid wasn't getting any gimmes.
Haha, *we* don’t have to. I use it when I’m feeling lazy to save keystrokes, since the Rockets don’t have a natural shorthand like Ws, Cs, Raps, Cavs, Mavs, Wiz, Clips, etc. (And as a Ws fan, I refer to them often, as our nominal top competitor — after the Cs of course!)
You wanted them to keep the team that got their asses handed to them in that close out game in the playoffs by a Kawhi-less Spurs team? You take the superstar every day of the week over those role players.
It's close, but yeah, I'd at least consider the merits of keeping the 29 year-old Beverley (.400, .382, .396 from three over the last three seasons and a defensive beast) and freeing up Harden and Gordon to initiate more plays, while retaining my youth and depth (Harrell, Dekker, possibly Lou Williams) and adding defense in Tucker and Mbah a Moute.
They played the Spurs pretty tough in that series even before Kawhi went down. Plenty of young teams get their asses handed to them one season, then come back the next season a year older, tougher, wiser, and better, with another year's worth of chemistry and cohesion (see 1991 Bulls, 2015 Warriors, e.g.)
As I said, I think there's a good chance the CP3 experiment ultimately works, but I also think it's worth considering the potential downsides. He turns 33 this season, is 6'-0", and is used to a very specific, ball-dominant, ball-pounding type of game. He's not a defensively versatile, plug-and-play guy (like Durant, Hayward, Klay, et al.) that you can just drop in any system and expect an instant, smooth upgrade, especially not when that system already features a top 3 PG in Harden and another excellent combo guard in Gordon.
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The NBA is all about opportunity and the PG position is one that historically had taken many real good ones 4-5 years to grasp. The Raptors had Cory Joseph playing behind Lowry the past two seasons while Wright learned the NBA game. This year now that Joseph is gone he's running with this chance and the Raptors are also playing many more minutes with two PG's on the floor opening up even more minutes for Delon.
The Rockets were not especially young last year. Their top 5 guys in minutes played last year were Harden (27), Ariza (31), Gordon (28), Anderson (28), and Beverely (28). There's a lot of reasons the 1991 Bulls won, but among them was that Pippen and Horace Grant were both still on the upswing (24 years old in 1990) and hadn't peaked yet. The same is true of the Warriors: Klay was 23, Curry was 25, Barnes was 21, and Draymond was 23. Plus the Warriors fired Marc Jackson...
This top 5 cutoff misses some younger guys like Clint Capela or Dekker, but the core pieces of the Rockets were in their primes last year already (if not past them with Ariza or Anderson). I'm fine just running the same team out there again if your core is still improving, but that's not the Rockets.
Hawks are beating the Kings at home 64-35 at the half... OKC is up 27-7 against Chicago after 1... Chicago had 1 fg in the first quarter.
haven't seen much of the Pistons this season, but they sure look good. Lots of scrappy play, hustling on D, have to love Avery Bradley
Charlotte really stinks. Got waxed by the Cavs bench at the end of the third and the beginning of the fourth when LeBron was on the bench with four fouls.
Meh, they really don't stink it is their schedule which has been brutal to begin the season with only one "gimme" out of 13 games (home vs. Atlanta in game 2) including their previous 4 games on the road to SA, Minny, NY, and Bos.....then tonight against a Cavs team in Batum's return who are probably ready to run off 10 straight. They had to play these games without Batum in any of them while also being without Zeller, Kidd-Gilchrist, and Carter-Williams for a combined 19 man-games. This has forced Traveon Graham (27 games last season, along with rookies Monk and Bacon to each play 20+ minutes per game.
I still feel they are a slightly above .500 team who are at 5-8 about where they should be at this point.
After spending entirely too much time trying to figure out is weird about Ball, I think I’ve settled on the idea that his torso is too small for his body. His arms and legs are NBA-proportioned but his “middle” is too short—it reminds me of someone who’s eyes are too close together.
That's pretty apt. He's built like a late 80s action figure.
Edit: I'm changing my comparison to Frozone, from The Incredibles. Except with one.
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Dammit, I just solved my Lonzo conundrum. Now I’ve got a new puzzle to solve. Looks like I’m going to need that extra beer while I noodle on this one.
Kuzma is going to turn out to be the steal of what likely was a very deep draft. And I say that as a huge fan of both Semi and Bell. Kuzma is already an impact player.