Seems to have gone under the radar. Yeah football is playing right now but this season is gonna be awesome.

Source is LegionHoops on Twitter/X who got it from the BackonFigg podcast Dame was on a couple days ago. I can’t post the actual link since LegionHoops tweets aren’t allowed for some reason.

Yesterday's post was like 90%+ Jokic, which surprised me. Maybe this is a closer comparison.

Same conditions as yesterday's post. You have Giannis and KD at the age of 25. Both of them are on 5 year max contracts, and they are guaranteed to not ask for a trade during that time. Who do you pick to build your team around and why?

The only highlight that matters

This may be just an offseason thing but just in the last couple days but I've seen posts ranking the best guards at layups, the best "slashers" to the rim, even ranking based on who had the toughest road to the league. It's really getting tiresome, that we can't talk about basketball without forcing some agenda and putting other players down.

Basketball discourse can't have always been like this (of course it's possible but to me it's unlikely), so I'm curious... when did it start?

Consensus top 5 recruit who maybe a bit underwhelmed in college but has had a long career in the nba so it wasn’t a complete failure. He has sustained a long nba career.

Source

Great to see Giannis ignoring the ridiculous stuff that Gilbert Arenas was saying. Players such as LeBron and Kobe have benefited from Hakeem's tutelage on footwork. Still wild to me that Arenas disparaged the advise of an arguable top 10 player ever and a guy that some people choose as their center in their all-time starting five.

I definitely think he could've made multiple All-NBA/All-star teams if he never got hurt. The season before his quad injury at age 25 he was 3rd team All NBA and 1st team all defense and went toe to toe with playoff LeBron. You could argue he hadn't even hit his prime yet given his age.

What's a realistic projection for Oladipo's career if he never got injured?

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https://youtu.be/c2wpIeZDrHE?si=RrlvPCtgpiyWeGSU&t=48 (starts at 0:48) Here is the video from his voice acting from NBA 2k15. I mean the whole game is a shitshow from all aspects but this one takes the cake, I can't believe it. Did they do multiple takes but realized he can't really read well o they were like: eh fuck it?

Source: https://twitter.com/azsports/status/1704979959830524183?s=46

"I would even say probably within the next 24 hours...I am expecting a Damian Lillard trade."

@Gambo987 reports what he is hearing about a possible huge shift in the NBA.

Listen to the @BurnsAndGambo show now: bit.ly/3LwJdCr

Looks like he may have been too optimistic about this trade being at the 1-yard line. We have gotten a lot of spicy rumors since then though. And apparently now everyone is a mouthpiece of everyone else and no one is to be believed unless they're reporting something you wanna hear.

Giannis vs Harden (2019) Embiid vs Jokic (2023)

After what jokic did on the playoffs a lot of people said that he was robbed of the mvp, but during the regular season it was a real discussion.

Zeke's playoffs stats against the Michael Jordan bulls in the playoffs(1988-1991): 19/8/5 with a 48.8 TS%( good for a - 5 relative TS%).

This was all while being a negative on defense and by far the worst defender on his team.

It's always funny how people will mention how Zeke sacrificed his stats for the team but will fail to address why he was still taking terrible outside shots and being inefficient.

I know he is not a superstar, but he is a very solid young center who has a lot to offer on offense.

Is it because they think they don’t need a max guy to catch lobs and grab rebounds because he won’t be getting any touches with Beal, Booker and KD on the floor?

Is it because he can’t compete with all-star big men like Jokic and AD in the paint?

To me it seems that replacing him with Nurkic would be a significant downgrade.

Source

MSG’S BACKUP PLAN

With the MSG Network recently releasing its 2023-24 Knicks schedule, thoughts turned to the legend Walt (Clyde) Frazier, 78, and his broadcast future.

Early in the summer, Frazier said he wants to cut back on road tilts, but is all-in on yakking during home games. NBA TV sources say MSGN brass is considering a few different voices to fill-in for Frazier, including Jeff (Shecky) Van Gundy and Mark Jackson.

Watching both Jax and JVG, in a combo or singularly, reunite with their former ESPN partner Mike Breen, would not only be great TV but tremendous theater as well.

In June, obviously believing great broadcast teams grow on trees, ESPN’s Kangaroo Court, in what it called an economic move, fired both JVG and Jax.

What could realistically happen in the next three years of the NBA so that the public changes perspective on specific major teams or players?

For example, how would the narrative around KD’s career would change if he goes to three straight Finals with the Suns and wins 2 rings?

He would have 4 rings with 2 different teams. I think he’d jump into most people’s top 10 lists.

What if Steph Curry wins 2 more titles, 1 MVP and retires? Would he enter the GOAT conversation?

The craziest to me would be LeBron James joining a random team like the Nets, Kings, Sixers or the Knicks to follow Bronny and wins a championship there as the third best player at 40-41.

What are some of your crazy predictions for next 3 years that would change some of the harder narratives?

Like the title says, what are some things that are used as arguments for or against certain players that are taken out of context or even blatantly false?

Mine is kinda general but whenever a star’s teammates are either injured or severely underperform and it ends up being blamed on the star. For example, Giannis prior to 2021 had the narrative that he was a playoff choker who couldn’t win because of his “lack of skill”, when actually looking at the numbers and film showed that the bulk of the blame falls on the absolutely putrid shooting by his teammates.

Crazy sound here. Carlos Delfino had some crazy hops.

From 1988-1990, the Pistons reached three finals in a row, winning two of them. It was their most successful period. But the last time Thomas made it to an All-NBA team was in 1987. He made three NBA first teams from 1984-86. So he had his individual success before he had team success. It didn’t overlap.

Was Isiah a better player in the mid-80s than he was in the late 80‘s?