NBA THREAD: Toilet Fleet Jr 2013!!

[Toilet Fleet]

when the warriors' offense was humming, they could find cutters going to the basket, which kept the perimeter defense honest—a bunch of times klay or somebody would be facing like it was a pick and roll, then just cut into the paint which pulled (occasionally late) help defense, opening up a passing lane to the corner. and then, they stopped doing that and just played four out. what????

yeah, the splash brothers both gagged and harrison barnes was apparently drinking faderade this whole series, but i give you the combined box score of festus ezeli and anderson varejao:

19 minutes, 0-5 fg, 1-2 ft, 1 rebounds, 2 assists, 0 steals, 0 blocks, 5 fouls

mo speights, a guy that can actually shoot from the perimeter, got 5 minutes (4 rebounds, 2 blocks)

[ThePhillyExperiment]

The Warriors magically morphed into the 2007 Patriots.

[Toilet Fleet]

being in LA there's a lot of lonzo ball hype

homeboy's shot is jank as hell; like, his gather to cross-body makes it basically impossible to be as effective on the pick and roll, since they can come late to his nonshooting side and still affect his stroke. plus he's not getting square to the basket until way late in his shot. and he shoots like 50% from the line; that is abysmal for literally any position, but it's murder for a so-called court vision ball handler. he's gonna leave like 10-15 points a game on the table and that's gonna really rankle lakers fans when it costs them a playoff game—and it will if they ever get there with him running the point

[Ray]

Good.

[Toilet Fleet]

i mean the kid's young enough and if he was able to be an okay college scorer with that shot, some time with a pro-level shooting coach or five can get him on the right path; i mean, jason kidd and all

ingram's rounding into form as a dollar store kevin durant—not a bad thing to be. randle's a good piece. i'm still confused how they landed lopez. rumors that rondo would be interested in playing in LA: in addition to being the death of what little love was left for him in boston, that isn't a *bad* pickup. that's basically what the lakers are getting with ball's current skill set, and as much as rondo is locker room poison in the wrong situation, i think a walton ball movement offense with some young pieces is a good landing place for all parties involved, and rondo is still an outer space alien re: passing lanes and angles

the lakers have like four years to get it right considering the age and cost of the warriors, so this is a totally fine timeline for them.

[Toilet Fleet]

Man this thread vanished. I overprojected Ingram, he's a penny ante Kevin Durant without the perimeter shooting (yet?), but I like that he can theoretically use his length on defense. Still don't know why the Lakers didn't try to retain Randle apart from clearing... something for LeBron? Except Randle can actually create his own shot, which is something that the Lakers obviously needed when LBJ was hurt. His defense is like... mediocre, but not bad bad? Gist is that eye test showed that the dude was something at least good in the making, and at this point, he's a bargain. Dumb.

Not surprised the Lakers fired Walton, but that team was genetically stupid as-constructed: no shooters around a guy that dragged an otherwise quite mediocre Cleveland team around by virtue of having said shooters? And that's already with a nonshooter at the point? Fucking insane. I still stand by the Rondo signing, despite his also not being able to shoot a wad into a sock, because when he was on the floor, he did shit! Whatever.

The Kings were this close to being middle-of-the-pack with a bunch of nobody-believed-in-us guys, and so they... fired their head coach? That is insane to me. Very proud of the Kings to figure out new ways to do inexplicably stupid shit! Somebody rescue WCS and get him as a rotation stopper, the boy deserves better.

Really impressed with how far the Bucks have come. Shooting 35% from three, and that includes Giannis, who despite being the Platonic ideal of a basketball player, isn't good from deep yet (taking Giannis out of the team calculation bumps the team percentage up almost a full point, which is nuts). Probably the most insane part is how incredibly balanced they are: I cannot conceive of a team that plays at this pace, shoots this often from three, and can still play hyper-efficient defense. They are also one of the few teams I can see going on a deep run that would/could still use hockey-line-style subbing, because I don't think their efficiency on either side of the ball would drop off that much. Consider that only Brogdon and Snell, of their big minutes guys, are really mediocre on defense... fuck. Fuck. This team would be a clear favorite over the Warriors if the finals was a 9-game series.

[The Real MPD]

why am I just now hearing about jokic?

why are the nuggets all of a sudden my favorite team?

[Toilet Fleet]

Jokic is stupid good, he's got video game skill set

Curry missing that dunk yesterday was fuckin everything; I don't hate the Dubs because I don't hate good basketball, and they are good basketball no matter what, but damn I love it when the best get kneecapped, and that's a self-kneecapping for the ages

[Toilet Fleet]

Both teams in LA are now legit finals caliber good just in time for me to move back, which owns and is good. I fundamentally get why the Lakers waited out Kawhi, but like, I also don't? The whole notion of "needing" a Big 3 is such a recent and bizarre construct, and completely ignores that the Warriors had their best season without that kind of tomfoolery: no matter how good you think Draymond is (answer: good), he's not the second-best player on basically any playoff team. They only became a Big 3 when Durant showed up—and their bench atrophied. It sorta makes sense to wait for Kawhi, but if the Lakers played their chips right, can they maybe land Redick in addition to Green? That team, even with load managing a high-mileage LeBron and essential AD, stays competitive when Kuzma has to be Option A.

OKC imploding is funny, but also they've got sick assets coming up. That team's going to be back to trouble the rest of the west in like four seasons.

[MPD]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiK1Pzq7v3M





had one, was too afraid to wear it to school in 8th grade.

also had Air Jordan walking shoes...

[Toilet Fleet]

I miss basketball so much

I miss Chuck talking about current basketball so much

[MPD]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiK1Pzq7v3M

because YO, DREAM TEAM VS. CROATIA SUMMER OLYMPICS 92.

[Toilet Fleet]

I'm going to take this time to talk about the New York Knickerbockers

The Knicks hitched their wagon to Thibs, which means the usual lineup construction—starters and a second unit—is a bad idea if you like the idea of basketball players having intact cartilage. Thibs will run a starter-caliber lineup into the ground. That's what he does. The interim solution is relatively straightforward: Dollar Store Rockets.

I say interim because te Knicks have 50something million on the books for 20-21. Team options on Gibson, Portis, Ellington.

1. Ditch Gibson. Try to enter the Christian Wood lottery or snag Bertans; save enough cash for Pat Patterson
2. Sign David Nwaba and Shaq Harrison, and if cap space allows, Malik Beasley
3. Justin Holliday for less than $10.5m is a decent deal
4. Trey Burke will be available at a good price
5. Can you convince anybody to take on Randle's contract? Probably not

Thibs' wholesale slaughter of player health can be overcome with hockey-style line change subs: full five swap in and out of the game so your first/second unit goes to something like a 28/20 minute split. He can continue to run everybody ragged on defense, but players will get adequate time for their ligaments to not turn into pudding. Perimeter shooting is the ultimate talent leveler. Four out, one in, lots of skip passes and corner pin down screens. If you can do five out (like a Portis lineup could maybe get away with), all the better. Let Barrett shoot. Reup Dotson and let him shoot. Let everybody shoot. Let Ntilikina shoot.

The Chuck City Knicks would be a marginal shot at the 8th seed, but at the very least, they would be fun to watch. On any given night, they could beat the Clippers by 40 or lose to the Long Island University Blackbirds.

[FVBTVS]

lol fuck boston

[Toilet Fleet]

Somebody on r/NBA posted a hypothetical all-Kentucky head to head and it reminded me of when the Pels had Rondo/AD/Cousins on the same team. So I asked myself: which teams have had the most alumni connections at once?

Looking at the past ten seasons, I made it a weighted scale, where the ratio of n alums to n+1 alums, n+1 alums to n+2 alums... were multiplied, with a baseline value of 1. Top teams were Pelicans, then a huge drop to Kings, Suns, and Grizzlies; bottoms were Spurs, Warriors, Jazz, and Nuggets.

Why? It kind of makes intuitive sense: teams that source more international players or competitive teams rounding out their squad with proven system guys would have fewer drafted blue chippers than a young/rebuilding/expansion team rolling the dice on elite raw talent and hoping their game catches up. Similarly, if you build around a star or stars from a smaller program (Curry, Dame), you are far less likely to roll doubles on a repeat program draftee; if your stud is international (Giannis, Jokic, Doncic), then it's zero.

[MPD]

[MPD]

[FVBTVS]

[Toilet Fleet]

It's free agency! The most exciting time of the year (because the finals was a fuckin snooze)

It's actually cool and good that two dynastic teams in the west got fuckin zero so far. Warriors and Lakers need to not be relevant for a few minutes to counteract all the oxygen they soaked up the last few years. I still really like Curry and acknowledge LBJ as the goat but come on, let's get it moving

WEST

• Disappointed that Denver got appreciably worse in losing KCP
• Dallas getting not-insignificantly better after a finals run is intriguing (I think Klay is overvalued as a pickup, he's nowhere near the guy he was during the title years, but shooting is shooting)
• OKC were poised to improve just through experience but now adding Hartenstein makes them that much tougher re: rim protection
• Spurs will still be well outside playoff caliber but even a 7000 year old CP3 will get Wemby the ball in rhythm and this'll for sure be his first all star bid
• Jizz remain in no man's land: dealing Markkanen nets not enough to go full rebuild, and they lack the assets to rebuild with him
• Rockets moves to clear a runway for Durant are idiotic; current team plus Durant isn't Finals-ready, and any assets they'd need to include in a deal with Phoenix is paying with blood

EAST

• Knicks still aren't there; I like the Bridges pickup, but that wasn't the piece that gets them top in the East, and losing Hartenstein is not insignificant in a conference where the top teams will abuse you at the rim
• 76ers are probably the most dangerous team to knock off the Celtics if Embiid can stay healthy into the playoffs, PG13 is precisely the kind of player that slots in well alongside Maxey and Embiid, and now it's a question of how long that window lasts
• Orlando was figuring things out last year and now with adding some more perimeter shooting in KCP and returning their core, you gotta think this team can fight into the middle of the playoff standings (four seed????)
• Bucks hinted they wanted to make big moves, have done nothing, and are now just a year older, window is probs closed for another chip with the Dame crew; Rebuild 2025
• Pacers didn't get better as such but stayed pretty constant with emerging player talent, so through attrition they will climb the charts

[godofdeadlydeath]

The Finals fucking ruled because the Celtics finally did what we've all expected them to do for the last 2 seasons. KP was a much needed missing piece during the season and his performance in Game 1 really got them going good. I'm excited for this season and I think the Celtics will repeat. Glad they locked up White and Tatum for 4-5 years.

The Sixers, I don't really think Paul George is the answer. He feels like yet another Harden-like move by that team, thinking "Well, let's just get the biggest name available and throw him in with Embiid and we'll be great!" and then it just doesn't pan out. I think the Knicks will get farther into the playoffs than the Sixers. Orlando will be solid. Bucks' window for greatness is closing and Giannis is gonna try and get Doc fired midway through the season when they're at 55% win PCT. Pacers will be ridiculously prolific on offense but they need to collectively get better on defense or else they're gonna get eliminated easily again. Cleveland I think will be a tough team again.

WEST

I don't care, I just always want to see it messy and competitive and I think it will be close this year. Klay on Dallas will either be the piece they need or he's gonna ruin whatever rhythm Luka and Kyrie had together and there's no middle ground there. Spurs with CP3, I like. Suns are gonna be a joke, Denver will still be very good, OKC will be scary. I think if Houston gets KD they'll be tough because I think Udoka would be a good coach for him, but I don't really know.

[Toilet Fleet]

Re: Thrilladelphia, key differences in PG v. Harden is that PG plays his absolute best off-ball, Harden on-ball. Maxey and Embiid are already taking up the lion's share of possession time, so having a star that plays plus defense and is a solid perimeter shooter without needing to create off the dribble is a great pickup. I'd bet that PG's defensive stats improve year over year just by having Embiid in the low post (whose defense is somehow underhyped just because everybody's focused on him being a flopper). I think the Knicks/Sixers matchup is gonna be great again, so the question is whether the rotation Knicks that overperform can outdo a clearly better core on the Sixers in a seven game series.

I forgot that OKC picked up Caruso too, lol. They dealt a genuine headache of a player for Caruso straight up, signed Hartenstein clean, and didn't lose any other assets? Fuckin insane. Too soon for a KD back to OKC whisper campaign? Would require dealing Hartenstein and Dort after October to make the math work but if OKC is in win now mode, that's a soft landing spot where he doesn't have to be The Guy and would be prohibitive favorites to meet the Celtics in the Finals.

[godofdeadlydeath]

Definitely agree with you about OKC. And you make a good point about PG in Philly, I hadn't really considered his style of play and how well it might fit in there.