Only watched about five minutes but Mudiay is good. Flashed several nice passes while flying through the paint on a drive.
Kobe air balled two threes in that same period of time.
Kobe air balled two threes in that same period of time.
2015-2016 NBA Game Thread
- Thread starter ifmanis5
- Start date
I'm pretty confident Mudiay will be good down the line, but it wouldn't surprise me if he was one of the worst players in the NBA this season.
I mean, I know I just said PER is a joke (and it is) but this is crazy, even given the small sample...
Players #1 and #2 square off in Oakland tonight.
Players #1 and #2 square off in Oakland tonight.
I understand the appeal of PER, in that you don't need to wait for it to update, but if you want a good, in-season, all-in-one stat, use BPM. It's as good as RPM for offense, and reasonably strong defensively (but weaker).
Aside from Curry you can make a strong case that Andre Drummond has been the single most dominant player in the NBA this year.......yet he trails JJ Hickson, Joffrey Lauvergne, Jeremy Lamb, and Kendrick Perkins in PER.
Your point stands on Curry's sickness.......and the major flaw in PER for limited minute players. Perkins > Drummond is comical though.
Your point stands on Curry's sickness.......and the major flaw in PER for limited minute players. Perkins > Drummond is comical though.
Well, Hickson, Lauvergne and Lamb have played limited minutes, in a tiny sample of games to begin with. More importantly, I think we all agree that PER is (mostly) bunk.
Note about Perkins: he's out indefinitely with a possibly serious pectoral injury, sustained while trying to put a full nelson on strong-like-ox Festus Ezeli.
Note about Perkins: he's out indefinitely with a possibly serious pectoral injury, sustained while trying to put a full nelson on strong-like-ox Festus Ezeli.
I don't think you can really make the case that Drummond has been the most dominant player in the NBA so far this year apart from Curry. His defensive rebounding has been great to be sure, but that's just one part of the game.
ifmanis5 said:
Magic are the tough luck all-stars so far. Lost to Washington by 1, OKC by 3, Bulls by 4, and Rockets by 5.
This dubs clipps game is over already. But can some explain to me why it is widely accepted for curry to throw his ass into people and contort his body in the most unnatural shooting motion possible yet it's a foul on the defender?
How has this become the accepted in the nba today?
How has this become the accepted in the nba today?
Portland had 19 TOs, shot 15-32 from the free throw line...and won by 16 in Salt Lake City, spoiling a second home opener in three nights.
It's a 4-possession game in the first half......the game is far from over. If a defender is not in control of his body and the offense player can draw contact players have taken advantage of this savvy move for decades. Todays athletes who are longer and quicker provide more opportunities for these situations to occur.
Ezeli's improvement since coming into the league has been remarkable. How many seven foot projects come into the league as late draft picks and actually turn into quality centers? Testament to the player development of Golden States organization.
How many times can they announcers talk about how it's a good thing that these two teams dislike each other?
How many times can they announcers talk about how it's a good thing that these two teams dislike each other?
This Clippers team is deep and healthy. They will be right there until the very end of the season.
The guy playing center for the other team tonight for one.Kliq said:
The center position is actually one where you do see quote a few late bloomers. Marc Gasol, DeAndre as mentioned above, Whitehead, Gobert, Perkins, and about 4-5 of the foreign centers from Mozgov to Vucecic to a bunch others.
It has to be eerie for Pierce to be on the second unit with Austin Rivers who used to come to his Celtic practices as a 12-year old when Doc first came to Boston.DeJesus Built My Hotrod said:
This is a great observation. It has to be surreal. Especially since Rivers is probably one of his weakest teammates, including some of the guys on those poor Cs teams.HomeRunBaker said:
So through five games, Curry's at 76.3 TS% (57.4/51.9/94.6) with 29 assists and 8 turnovers with his usage at 33%.
As a masshole looking at a big-ass fish once said, we're seeing some shit we ain't never seen before.
As a masshole looking at a big-ass fish once said, we're seeing some shit we ain't never seen before.
DannyDarwinism said:
Just to clarify: 76.3 TS% at a scoring volume of 40.3 points per 36 minutes. We're not talking high efficiency low usage guys like DeAndre Jordan or Tyson Chandler (or even low-moderate usage PGs like Stockton or Nash).
The 8 turnovers in five games on 33% USG may be almost as amazing to me as a longtime Curry fanboy, as turnovers have always been a bit of an Achilles heel for him (or really, for any high-usage PG). By way of comparison, Russell Westbrook (who I'm also in awe of) has 30 turnovers through five games.
Playing LeBron 36 minutes against the 76ers in November isn't exactly a great idea at this point in his career.
Why? He averaged 36.1 minutes per game last year. He has never averaged fewer. He's at 34.3 so far this year.
Because he needs to play less and games against the 76ers in November are meaningless. Bron and the Cavs keep saying they understand this concept yet their actions are the opposite.
LeBron himself has said his body isn't what it used to be, and went so far as to say he'd rather get eliminated in the first round than in the Finals given the wear and tear on his body. He's now at 43,500+ career minutes played, more than Bird or Magic logged in their whole careers. Just cutting from 36 to, say, 30 minutes per game saves him 500 minutes of wear-and-tear over the course of a season. I think an underplayed aspect of the .487 ts he put up in last year's playoffs is that there were stretches (especially late in games) where he seemed totally gassed. Meanwhile, one of the underplayed aspects of the Warriors' great "luck" with health was that throughout the season most of their key guys were deliberately kept closer to 28-30 minutes a game than to 38-40, to keep them fresh for the playoff run.
I agree with Ifmanis: the Sixers seem like the type of opponent where you want to keep the minutes low. (Though the game was relatively close, so that does have to be balanced with the desire to win).
I agree with Ifmanis: the Sixers seem like the type of opponent where you want to keep the minutes low. (Though the game was relatively close, so that does have to be balanced with the desire to win).
Harrison Barnes was the only player on the Warriors to average 28-30 minutes per game last year. Their key guys, assuming you mean Curry, Thompson, and Green, averaged 31-33. Now, that's still fewer minutes per game than LeBron averages, so your point stands.
However, my point was not about the idea that his minutes should be kept down, I'd agree with that, but I think that is already happening. He is averaging 34.3 MPG this year. Just to sample a few other marquee players age 31 seasons, Duncan averaged 34, KG averaged 32.8 and led his team to a championship, Paul Pierce averaged 37.5, Dirk averaged 37.5, Kobe averaged 38.8, Bird averaged 39, Jordan averaged 39.3, and Pippen averaged 37.7. (Note: this is every player I bothered to look up.) The norm here is for players to have continued to play big minutes into their early 30's with a few exceptions, but even the guys who are on the low end of the spectrum are much closer to LeBron's current minutes for this season than to anything under 30.
I think the Cavs are limiting LeBron's minutes. They played him nearly 2 minutes less per game last year than he had been averaging with the Heat and, so far this year, they've cut nearly another 2 minutes per game off his average. Targeting around 33-34 MPG would seem like a reasonable goal and would match him to the lower end of the spectrum of players I looked at. Assuming that is the goal, a total of 36 minutes in a close game that is not part of a back-to-back strikes me as perfectly reasonable.
I wrote "closer to 28-30 than to 38-40" so the fact stands as well.
You also left out NBA Finals MVP Andre Iguodala, who played 26.9 minutes per game, and in the finals — probably not coincidentally — looked frequently like the freshest and most energized player on either team. Iguodala was born the same year as LeBron, and as a young player was similarly explosive with a similarly heavy workload. And like LeBron, he had been showing slight signs of physical decline in recent seasons. Kerr and the Warriors staff made a conscious effort to reduce his minutes throughout the season to keep him fresh for the stretch run, and we saw how that turned out. Having experienced that first hand, you'd think the Cavs might try to emulate it somewhat.
Easier said than done without Kyrie and Shumpert around, but a stitch in time...
Last edited:
The 38-40 number seemed worth ignoring since Cleveland has never looked interested in playing him at that level of minutes.
I'm legitimately shocked you think Iguodala is a reasonable reference point for comparison to LeBron James. Ignoring the obvious player quality differences, Iguodala was not a starter for his team. He was a 6th man who played 6th man minutes. Golden State was not keeping his regular season minutes down, they used him, among other players, to keep the regular season minutes of guys like Thompson, Curry, Barnes, and Green down. If the Cavs had a player like Iguodala, they would do the exact same thing, and a low 30's number might become an option for LeBron. As I tried to demonstrate in my previous post, elite talents in their age 31 seasons do not play 28-30 minutes per game. They play 34-40 MPG. That the Cavs look to be targeting the low end of that range for LeBron is evidence that they are being responsible with his minutes. That he played 36 minutes in a single game and it is being discussed as a high usage game is further support for that.
Well, as I said, it was more about being the same age than anything else. They're 11 months apart, so LeBron this year is the same age as last year's Iguodala, or possibly older than that if you weigh hoops mileage as heavily as age.
He's obviously not the same caliber as James, though it's worth noting that he went into last season as the #1 player in the NBA by overall RAPM (ahead of #2-3 James and CP3). He's a former all star and Team USA regular who Coach K constantly raves about. He rates consistently in the top 2-3 wings in the NBA in both defensive RAPM and assist/turnover ratio. In terms of passing and handles, he may be the best wing player in the league not named James. When he left Philly, they went from a playoff team to league doormat. When he arrived in Denver, he took a mediocre team to a 57-win #3 seed, then sent them back to mediocrity when he left. He turned the Warriors from the mid-pack defensive team they were before he arrived into the league's best defense. He's an elite player by most measures except PPG and fantasy points and stuff.
To be clear: he was a sixth man in name only. He was a starter for this team his first season — for all the reasons mentioned above — and arguably its second best player. (Green was really the only other guy with a case). He was a miles better player to start the season than Barnes, who was coming off an atrocious sophomore year and had Ws fans worried he might be a semi-bust. And Kerr adored him. He asked Iguodala to become the a sixth man for a few key reasons: (1) to develop and better integrate Barnes; (2) to improve and lead the bench mob, which had been awful (a la Manu in San Antonio, who was also pretty consistently his team's second-best player); and (3) to keep him, at age 30, as fresh as possible for the stretch run and playoffs.
Where did you hear this? From everything I've read and heard on the matter (which is like, a ton), this is simply not true. Indeed, the opposite of the truth: Barnes got bigger minutes than he had earned to keep Andre's minutes low.
Well, they do kind have a player kinda like Iguodala. He even looks like him a little. He's just bigger and better.
That was all pretty persuasive. I just wonder if more recent studies about player workload aren't changing that calculus somewhat. The last two NBA champions (Spurs and Warriors) won convincingly despite not having the best player on the floor, in large part by virtue of having fresher, better rested players than their opponents.
You could be right on all this. If he is kept around the 34-minute mark, I don't really have an issue, and all my blah-blah-blah is for naught. But if come playoff time, after a season of 34-ish mpg, and without the luxury of the two-week sabbatical like last season, he starts looking old and gassed, I will wonder if it wouldn't have been worth it for the Cavs to trade a couple-few regular season wins for a fresher LeBron by cutting his minutes closer to 28. Interesting to see how it all develops. In a lot of ways I think LeBron's aging curve may be the biggest X-factor in the NBA over the next 2-3 years. (Well, that and who KD decides to sign with).
Blake is terrific but he is a scorer and not a center and not a guy who is going to average 20+ rebounds.
Blake, great as he is, doesn't defend the rim and has a wingspan under 7 foot (6'-11.25") which to me kinda disqualifies him from being in the same category as Drummond and Davis. To me the defining factor of a true big is that he defends the rim and anchors your defense defensively. Blake is like Kevin Love in that he needs to paired with bigger player if you don't want to be killed defensively, which to me makes puts them both in the category of "traditional four" more than "big."
Basically, if Griffin and Love are considered bigs, I start to wonder why guys like LeBron, Durant, Paul George and Draymond Green can't be as well.
Basically, if Griffin and Love are considered bigs, I start to wonder why guys like LeBron, Durant, Paul George and Draymond Green can't be as well.
This discussion runs a bit into that Jalen Rose comment about positions in basketball only existing so fans can follow the game. I also thought of "bigs" as just a synonym for PF/C, but I don't think it really matters.
There is nothing about Simmons leaving ESPN that bothers me more than losing the Bill and Jalen shows.
Andrew Wiggins is even better. The Timberwolves may get us a #13 pick after all.
Minnesota looks really good, Flip might have conducted his greatest effort with this team, fleecing Cleveland for Wiggins and then lucking out with getting the top pick in a loaded draft class. LaVine is also promising, it looks like they may have found something in Bjelica and they might still get something out of Shabazz Muhammed.
Karl was doing all he could to help Rondo get his 10th Turnover for the triple double.
Actually, Collison and Curry were out injured leaving the Kings with Rondo as the only PG with McLemore and Anderson at the 2. Be patient though it will only be a matter of time before Karl intentionally tries to kill him.
Well, Karl may not be around that long.
Also, I thought you might trot out an old story about how Vlade used to average 50 minutes per 48 and then go out and smoke an entire carton of Serbian ripoffs of Marlboro Reds including a few at halftime. Why would he care that his big offseason acquisition is simply playing an entire game?
For a team with that much implosion potential their schedule so far has been unfortunate. Next couple weeks will determine the fate of this mess.
Cousins health is what will determine the direction of the season for the Kings. He completely changes everything the team does both offensively and defensively. His impact has been underrated the past couple of years as he's kept them from being 76er/Nets-bad both last year and when he's played this season as well. Those aren't empty numbers he puts up.
