2023-2024 General NBA Season Thread
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I’d probably have him in the 20-30 range as of now. He’s top 5 defensively, and the offense is coming along much quicker than I anticipated.
He’s rising fast though lol.
This is great stuff--these guys are must-watch when they play each other:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8piyGXmnk7Q
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8piyGXmnk7Q
Yea Maxey will win MIP but I'd rather have J-Dub. Does it all by the age of 22, he was guarding Wemby on defense, then initiating the offense.
Has Maxey improved that much? He is average 5 more ppg, on worse efficiency. His playmaking has improved, I guess. It seems more like the case that he just has the ball a lot more without Harden on the team so his counting stats went up. Williams has also added 5 ppg to his season, on better efficiency and is a much better defender.
MIP is always hard to gauge because people take different leaps forward. I imagine Jalen Johnson, who has tripled his scoring output from 5 ppg to 15 ppg, to go along with almost 9 rpg, while shooting 52% from the field, will get some votes.
MIP is always hard to gauge because people take different leaps forward. I imagine Jalen Johnson, who has tripled his scoring output from 5 ppg to 15 ppg, to go along with almost 9 rpg, while shooting 52% from the field, will get some votes.
Wow. I mean, Chet is great and really enjoyable to watch, but Wemby is just something utterly different. The ease with which he protects around the rim is just phenomenal. I don't know in general what his shooting is like but it sure looked good there. Of course it's a highlight film, but he was taking 3pters in crunch time and sticking them.
Terry Rozier has been completely terrible with Miami. 30 minutes per game, 24% from three, 38% overall. It's only 12 games, but oof
I don't think it's crazy to say wembys ceiling is best player ever. he's unlike anyone else who ever played.
I may be too aggressive with my rating as I have him a little higher. Challenging to envision his role/impact on a good team bc he is still so raw but I’m thinking he’d be even better in a more structured offense….and defensively he’s just whatever, a unicorn.
One of the biggest crap shoots a GM faces is how a player is going to jump into a team midseason. You could do a Harden as easy as a Rozier. McCollum was great for NO, some just don’t fit. High variance those midseason deals.
Yeah, it's kind of hard to tell what he would be like if he was on a genuinely good team. He's kind of allowed to do whatever on the Spurs, which is not a bad thing for his long term development. He made a lot of threes last night, but he's pretty lousy overall on the season and he is a very inefficient scorer for a player of his size, just going by the numbers. I wonder if he would be more like Chet--lower counting stats but a lot more efficient and getting much better looks by playing with good/great teammates. I've thought something really underrated about Chet is his ability to seamlessly fit in on a good team, and doing anything he needs to do on offense--whether that be make catch and shoot threes, screen and roll, create off the bounce, or pass out of the high post to cutters. I don't doubt Wemby could do all of that, but he hasn't really been allowed to given the state of the rest of the Spurs.
I feel like Wemby's blocks should count for like, 2 bpg each, because he not only blocks shots, but blocks them with such ease that he is able to control the ball, which leads to transition points. Maybe he should get one block and one steal for each of them.
It would be a tough call, because while he doesn't unlock nearly as much on offense (people really underestimate the work KP has put in there), no one would ever score points against the Cs on the other end, and Wemby's very playable offensively.
I think he'd Wally Pipp KP as he gained experience on both ends during the season.
I was going to throw Jalen Johnson as a possible MIP candidate. His minutes played has more than doubled and all his rate stats have improved. He went from the latest Hawks wing who may or may not figure it out (Reddish, Collins, Huerter, Hunter) to a guy they might end up building a team around.
Agreed 100%, but someone in Rozier's situation seems less likely to succeed than the others you mention. It's been five years since he played in a game that matters, I'm not sure there's a worse environment in the league than Charlotte. Not that any of those Blazers teams were that great, but McCollum had been in the playoffs literally every single season with Portland, and obviously Harden has played in high leverage games for his entire career. Rozier is definitely pressing now, but would it surprise anyone if he's a really effective 6th man when the playoffs start?
No, I think a big part of the reason KP has fit in so seamlessly is because he makes relatively few mistakes (he knows where he's supposed to be on both ends of the floor), and rookie Wemby needs the freedom to occasionally screw up on a team that doesn't have title hopes. I'd take KP this year, but almost definitely would prefer Wemby by next fall.
MIP is impossible (someone like Derrick White, who got demonstrably better at age 29 probably deserves some consideration when compared to all these guys in their early 20s who are expected to improve) to figure, but I don't think this is fair to Maxey. His efficiency has gone down (but not as bad as it seems at a glance because his FTR has gone up), but he went from being really the third option to being the first option most nights. I'm curious to see how he looks the rest of the year.
LeBron definitely tries incredibly hard to maintain a narrative about himself and never really owns up to what he's done. Latest case being the whole Bronny thing ("Just let the kid play!!" ...after talking about how Bronny is better than a lot of NBA players right now).
Coach killer is pretty fair too.
But, man, there is some serious hyperbole and some pretty wild takes in here.
A-Rod level?!?! Seriously??? I really think you're forgetting what A-Rod was like as a player. No one liked A-Rod. He was supposed to be a gigantic fucking prick to basically everyone. Teammates didn't like him, pretty much everyone didn't like him. He'd put on a front for the media but even then there were still reports about how much of an asshole he was. You NEVER hear the type of shit we used to hear about A-Rod with LeBron.
Buried teammates? I mean, I guess? I would say it's more that he's a bad scout/GM who didn't really understand the type of player that needed to play with him (cough Russell Westbrook cough).
The pursuit of padding his resume is pretty fair but that's basically the era that we are in now. And compared to the trio of Kyrie/KD/and Harden he looks like the most loyal foot soldier ever
He's also taking important shots.. down the stretch last night you got the whole TR experience. He got hot for a minute and got something like six points in a row to get Miami close to Denver. He then went for a heat check three on the next possession and missed.. and Denver sealed it. The more shots TR is taking down the stretch over Butler, the better for every other team's fans.
I was going to say this.. play Wemby on the perimeter and KP in the paint and just switch them around.. only problem would be who you'd sit in your starting lineup.. have Drue come off the bench and play Tatum, Brown and White? The defense would be insane.. and every Celtic would lob to Wemby all day.
edit: of course one of those guys would be gone probably.. but if somehow Wemby were just magically added..
I am a big Wemby fan, and his rookie year has been incredible, but I think he is more in the 5th team race than 3rd
Jokic, SGA, Doncic, Giannis, Kawhi, Tatum, Haliburton, Curry, Durant, Booker, Lebron, AD, Mitchell, Brunson, Ant, Porzingis, PG, Markkanen, Gobert, Dame - that's 20 guys right there, and there are probably a few more that would make the 5th team over Wemby
I don't think "missed" fully does just justice to how far awry Terry's three went. Think Billy Cundiff against the Pats in the 2011 AFC Championship Game.
Since December 1 (36 games), Wemby has averaged 21/11/4 with 3.6 blocks and 1.3 steals per game, and a TS% of .582, on just 28 mpg. The sky's the limit with this guy, that and health.
WOW is that dark. That's like, out-of-character-for-you level dark. I laughed, but also, sheesh.
DARKO has Wemby already ranked #11 for what it's worth. Right behind Luka and right above Anthony Edwards. (KP is 22nd).
Feels (maybe) a bit high, especially for someone playing less than 30 min per game.
But I think he's already comfortably top 20 and knocking on the door of 3rd team all NBA. The D already bumps him over guys like Booker, Kyrie, Lillard, Brunson, etc. on an overall ranking list in my opinion.
Feels (maybe) a bit high, especially for someone playing less than 30 min per game.
But I think he's already comfortably top 20 and knocking on the door of 3rd team all NBA. The D already bumps him over guys like Booker, Kyrie, Lillard, Brunson, etc. on an overall ranking list in my opinion.
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Vassell is the only other one of them on the team besides Wemby who looks like an actual NBA player who has a full NBA player skillset. Definitely not sure what Tre Jones is adding to that combo, if I were advising him I'd tell him to start learning Turkish.
He’s pretty solid. Super different offensive game than his brother, but neither turn it over at all.
View: https://twitter.com/jackfrank_jjf/status/1763621177614893160
Wemby's offense is still pretty bad. His 56.5% true shooting is well below league average, and well well below for centers. His defense is sick, but if we are just looking at this entire year and not projecting forward or just looking at the past 2 months, I don't know how you can say he is better than those two
Have you seen the Spurs offense? They rarely play an NBA point guard and their offensive initiation is that of a G-League team. Wemby isn’t getting many of his looks in rhythm and almost all of the times he gets the ball in scoring position it is from him doing something spectacular to get the ball there himself.
Most of the advanced metrics have his offense as positive. Looking at his true shooting ignores so much else - for example he is 7th in the NBA in usage rate, and there is a strong tradeoff between usage and efficiency.
In addition to not agreeing with the metrics, saying his offense is bad to me does not agree at all with what I see watching the games. I watch the spurs a lot just to see Wemby. His passing is nuts for a guy his age, and it doesn't always lead to points because his teammates suck. He also has significantly more latent impact than most other bigs because he may be the biggest lob threat of all time already. Finally, he has taken rapid leaps in mere months in all his offensive skills. The shooting is still streaky, but for an offense Id much rather have him than Gobert and it isn't close.
Windy claiming that Kuzma turned down a trade to Dallas at the deadline? He says Washington gave Kuz the chance to kill it - he doesn't have a no trade - and he did.
If true, that's interesting.
If true, that's interesting.
Portland whomping Memphis, with Banton and Stevens leading their respective teams in scoring.
I think Kuzma has openly talked about it. Hey, whatever makes him happy.
I had definitely heard that Kuzma turned down a trade to stay in Washington, I didn't hear it was to Dallas. I said years ago that Kuzma's ultimate destiny was as a high volume scorer on a bad team. He's got his ring, he's got his money, now he can relax and just enjoy it.
Rooting for Kings - the Western teams outside the top 4 are sliding in a way that is far too convenient for GSW and the Lakers.
Wemby's offense is pretty bad? We might be watching a different sport.
Obviously he is raw and his percentages are not great, but he's a already positive on offense by all the metrics. I don't think TS% is all that helpful in a vacuum, and I certainly wouldn't compare him to other centers that play entirely differently than Wemby. Even if you ignore the metrics, he's averaging 21 points per game in 29 minutes a game.
Obviously he projects to get much better than where he is now on offense, but it's already a strength. He's a top 20 guy right now because his offense is already above average and his D is elite.
A little late coming into this conversation, but the above is proof that I would want nothing to do with facing LeBron in a Game 7.
Fixed a typo for you
NBA Leaders, Threes Made
1. Curry 281
2. Doncic 201
3. Thompson 186
3. DiVincenzo 186
5. Bogdanovic (ATL) 175
Career (reg season plus playoffs)
1. Curry 4,289
2. Allen 3,358
3. Harden 3,304
4. Thompson 2,900
5. Miller 2,880
The Babe Ruth of the NBA.
(Apologies — I may post a few of these with the Warriors-Cs showdown impending…)
1. Curry 281
2. Doncic 201
3. Thompson 186
3. DiVincenzo 186
5. Bogdanovic (ATL) 175
Career (reg season plus playoffs)
1. Curry 4,289
2. Allen 3,358
3. Harden 3,304
4. Thompson 2,900
5. Miller 2,880
The Babe Ruth of the NBA.
(Apologies — I may post a few of these with the Warriors-Cs showdown impending…)