NBA 2022/23 General Chat

Somewhere, there's a 6 year old ballin' out right now trying to prove you wrong in a decade or so... 

somewhere in France there's a Wemby that wants to prove it wrong.

Didn't just beat Boston ... but beat 'em in such a disheartening finish. Brought me much joy.

Certainly not expecting that, but man, that would forever change the "Play-in for what?" mantra.

That's got to be some very long Vegas odds.

Wonder who will sign Dillon Brooks. Seemed like a Sacramento type signing but they're actually good now.

Guy is a bigger clown than Green.

And he's Canadian...

I don't think I would have voted for Embiid. But when I look at the NBA over the past five years ... seeing 2 MVPs going to Atentokoumpo, 2 to Jokic, and 1 to Embiid seems about right. 

Coach Bud has been fired. I get why but at the same time, dude's brother died in the same week. Ballsy for them to still fire him.

It’s like, Ujiri put together an athletic, flexible roster that can do almost anything but, you know, put the ball in the hoop. Bit of an oversight, that.

Anyhow, I maintain that our team has some pretty good talent, it’s just terribly constructed. Way too much overlap. So getting rid of one of our forwards for a good shooter should make a huge difference (just like acquiring Poeltl did).

A shooter (or three) is paramount but they also need ballhandling. I dont think they put enough pressure on the rim. Vanvleet drives it but isn't much of a threat to finish at the hoop. Nor is he a very good passer in traffic. Is there anyone else who can beat his man off the dribble and finish? It's not Siakam despite his being our best isolation option. He's no passer either.
Nobody on the team plays above the rim or finishes with force on the drive. Anunoby has some muscle and finish but can't get to the rim.
Barnes is a little better but is lacking in quickness to be an isolation option. Barnes and Siakam are essentially the same player.

And in related analyses.. one thing that annoys me about where the Raptors are now is remembering all those stories about how good we allegedly were at player development and teaching shooting. But the regression over the last four years has proven that laughably wrong.

We stopped playing young players and instead have cycled though a whole bunch of retreads. And that wouldn't be so bad if they had kept any of the retreads to the point that they became an effective part of the rotation. Instead we play them for half a season and dump them, wasting valuable development time that could have been given to one of our draft choices.

Nurse wrote a shooting book. He was supposed to be the guy to get them there. The lack of development there I'm sure contributed to the problems.

Celtics save their season, the Suns do not. All in trades seem to cause so much problems, they emptied the bench and that was their biggest problem going forward, well that and Ayton actually being mediocre and Chris Paul age showing through.

I think the days of trading everything for a player are about to end. Gobert is obviously a terrible trade so no surprise that didn't end well for them, but now you traded everything for KD and it still doesn't work out because you're way to thin. Now they have to try to manage to add players around then but have very few options to do it. Those 2 may be fantastic but you need 7 to 8 guys that can play, stars can't do everything forever, eventually you hit burnout.