Wednesday, May 01, 2013
OT: NBA Monthly Thread - May 2013
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posted 2 weeks ago by Athletic Supporter gangnam style to basketball, nba, off-topic
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930 comment(s)
I estimate only 10-12 Primates care about straight NBA players, but with our own thread, we won’t detract from what this site is really about: gay NBA players and craft beer.
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Page 5 of 21 pages
< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 > Last ›I don't even care who is on the team, I will not write off the Lakers. They are Jason Voorhees.
I dunno:
Was he ejected from the game? I'd say if you have a history of bumping/confronting officials, there is no such thing as a light bump.
Howard has a torn labrum!
High fives all around!
It's funny because #### you guys.
They could run 5 guys out there with Laker jerseys and still beat the Warriors.
Would you rather have your whole team get hurt and have no one bat an eye? We can compare notes.
Good players getting hurt is bad for the league as a whole, and anybody's getting hurt is unfortunate, even if they happen to be guys on the evil Lakers. You made a bunch of jokes about Bynum's injuries the last couple of years; my guess is that if I started doing that with Love and Rubio, particularly if these injuries really start dragging their careers down, as Bynum's have with his, you wouldn't be "happy" about that, either.
Huh, I never thought of that one. Well ... damn.
Nellie's idea of the perfect center was a lanky stiff though, Mutombo was probably too muscular even as a young guy for his taste. He coveted Shawn Bradley over Chris Webber at draft time ("luckily" ending up with Webber eventually), Manute Bol, Ralph Sampson. Alton Lister had some heft to him but he was broken down so that was okay. They most likely would have drafted Billy O over Mutombo regardless, but young Mutombo could have run with TC.
I still wouldn't count the Lakers out. How long is Pau out with the concussion? If they can limp into the playoffs record-wise but with everyone eventually mostly healthy (dubious yes), they'll still be dangerous. Picking the wrong coach is probably what's hurt them worse than anything so far, but I can still see them being a hassle for someone.
I agree, though the guys at the TBJ podcast pointed out today that the Lakers would have to go 30-19 the rest of the way to get to 45 wins, which is no guarantee to be good enough for the 8th seed in the West. With these injuries they could pretty easily lose another 6 or 7 this month.
I've been following the team. I know that Noah and Omer played on legs they never should have played on. I know Luol is playing the most minutes (or close) in the league. Thibs is a bit of a nut when it comes to injuries but I would hope everyone comes to their senses with Rose.
You're right, I don't know if Rose is on the timetable for an ACL injury but my default position, until I hear otherwise, is that he is. Because it's Derrick ####### Rose. If anyone has a little AP in him in the NBA, it's Rose.
Speaking as someone who lived in Philly from the Shawn Bradely draft and left just before the Allen Iverson draft, this made my head hurt.
though, I'm surprised that Sam Cassell ended up being the most high valued player of that draft, though I did remember watching him early in his career with the Rockets and keep thinking why they don't just start this guy, every time he gets in he completely lit it up.
I guess ppl hoped Shawn Bradley became what Yao Ming was (when healthy). but in the end the difference is huge. Yao racked up 3x the WS playing about half as many games in his injury shortened career.
Still, the thought of Bradley serving as a mormon missionary was amusing, how does he even ride around in those bicycles?
I guess this isn't a direct answer to your question, but I remember reading an article in the local paper a few years back that Bradley's $10,000 custom made bicycle was burglarized from his barn (it was later recovered by police). Bradley made a joke at the time that it must've been Mark Eaton, since he's probably the only other person in Utah tall enough to ride off with it.
Still, Bradely's career as a whole wasn't bad (he remained a useful role player for a long time), it's just that from a 2nd pick overall it simply was disappointing, then again, that year's draft wasn't entirely inspiring, starting from 1983 up until 2000 the 93 draft produced the worst top win share and overall win share (and a lot of the later once still have players playing!)
fluke side note: bradley did one thing on offense that yao never did ... shoot >90% from the line over a season, uh, of over 5 games ('01-'02 92.2%, career was 71.6%)
That and his poor shooting. Melo was a bit of a mess by the end.
The Boston perimeter D was great tonight. Lee is good but Bradley is incredible out there. The Knicks couldn't get much dribble penetration at all.
Would probably be a really fun playoff series.
I'd love to know what Garnett says to his opponents that makes them throw up all over themselves. If I did, I'd can it and sell it.
And Sullinger played extremely well again. I think the Celtics have something in him. He has great hands and has a nose for the ball. There was one play where a jumper went up and it kind of got temporarily stuck between the backboard and the rim. It fooled everyone except Sullinger, who moved in and grabbed it, then laid it back in before anyone could react. You have to watch him awhile to get why he's so good because he doesn't blow you away with breathtaking athleticism or skills but he's a very smart and very strong and will take whatever you make the mistake of giving him.
It's funny because I was thinking of taking a shot at the 1993 draft in my original post but didn't because I didn't want to go through all the other drafts to confirm if it was indeed one of the weakest of that era. Not only were there a lot of washouts, but there were also a ton of injuries, malcontents, and lazy bastards: leaving aside Shawn Bradley, there was Penny Hardaway, Jamal Mashburn, Isaiah Rider, Bobby Hurley, Vin Baker. Alan Houston is remembered mostly for being the original cap-crippling contract. Webber had his issues and Bradley is most famous for being Shaq's favorite guy to dunk on (though he did block his share of shots).
Der K said on the previous page that one could argue Jeff Green has contributed more than Sullinger so far this season. I heartily disagree. Sullinger has the best rebound rate on the Celtics by a sizable margin, and while his defensive rotations could certainly improve, so could Green's. Sullinger will need to learn how to score inside a little despite being under-sized, given that he's generally at power forward. But it's not like Green has been able to shoot a good percentage from anywhere on the floor this year (33% from three, 41% overall).
Basically, Green's performance this year is a low bar to clear but Sullinger has done so with room to spare. And he's still a couple months from his 21st birthday.
82games
sullinger - per: 13.7, opp. per: 18.8
green - per: 11.1, opp. per: 11.6
also, just as a note: sullinger's efg% on j's is 28% (48% of shots), green's is 36% (63% of shots).
i think this overrates green (whose +/- numbers are quite a bit worse than sully's) but i thought he was a plus defender going into the year and 10 sec of research hasn't refuted that belief. also, as noted a bit earlier, the replacement level is higher at the four...
whats worse was that the best WS player in that draft was the 24th pick Sam Cassell, and to add insult to injury, Nick Van Exel was picked in the mid second round, and his career WS was #4 on that list only marginally behind Penny Hardway (of course, Allan Houston probably would have beaten him if his career wasn't shortened)
I also really liked using Burks as our PG in the 4th quarter. The kid knows how to get to the line.
luckily, portland has a really nice two-fer going with meyers leonard and luke babbitt.
and not to leave out various other mancrushes, i still have a thing for dajuan blair, reggie evans and joey dorsey.
My recollection of it: Both the Sixers and Nellie coveted Bradley. I'm not sure if Nellie would have taken Bradley over Webber, given the choice. Orlando had the first pick and, logically, felt that Webber was the best player, but didn't see him as the perfect fit with Shaq. So naturally, they wanted Penny +, and figured the way to do that was by drafting Webber. The Sixers, sitting at No. 2, were perfectly thrilled to get a chance at Bradley. There was minor scuttlebutt that the Magic might draft Bradley instead and trade HIM to Golden State, but the Sixers made it pretty clear that they were going to ruin any hopes of a Bradley to Golden State trade by taking Hardaway if that happened.
Essentially, the Sixers could have just shut their mouths and played it close to the vest, and possibly had a shot at getting Webber.
(Personally, I was optimistic, but felt at the time that Bradley was a HUGE reach. It occurred to me that Muresan, taken in the second round, was essentially the same type of player as Bradley, not really, from an athletic standpoint, but a gamble to get a possibly dominant big man.) Bradley had a useful enough career but was never going to live up to the hype of being called a game-changing athlete. He showed flashes of brilliance but never put it together. I don't think Bradley was ever really into being a basketball player, he was just forced into it because he was 7-foot-6 and athletic, and well, when people tell you you could make millions, you tend to do it.
Probably not the kind of mancrush you were referencing, but wasn't Evans the guy who literally put a crush on Chris Kamans manhood?
But yeah, Bradley didn't feel like much of a ball player, though he did have some games where he dominated. but far too many inbetween where opponents simply overpower or ran circles around him.
Of course, the Sixer made an even WORSE pick in the following year by picking Sharone Wright, who compiled a wooping 1 WS his entire NBA career. granted that was also not the most world beating draft class (espeically since Kidd and Hill were already off the table by the time the Sixer picked) but still, they passed up Eddie Jones and almost anyone behind him still had a better career. that was either a case of god awful talent evaluation or an even worse case of talent development.
The frustrating thing about the 90s Sixer was that there were a lot of players that on their own were useful to even very good players, Bradley, Weatherspoon, Stackhouse, Iverson etc.. but put together they were a complete train wreck. there seem to have been no plan to put together a team, and simply grabbed random pieces that fit horribly with each other. I still think picking Iverson was a mistake, even if you do it without the hidesight of Kobe being Kobe, the Sixer certainly built a team with great top talent individually but completely sucked together.
Consider this was the starting lineup of Iverson's rookie season
Derek Coleman
Clarence Weatherspoon
Jerry Stackhouse
Allen Iverson
A rotation of oook center (mainly Scott Williams)
On paper you'd think team would be good, in reality they were terrible.
This had to be a classic example of how NOT to put together a team.
I always wondered what if the Sixer picked Malbury (which was widely rumored before the pick) or Nash instead of Iverson in that draft, and maybe retained Bradley, as maddening as Bradley can be, Derek Coleman was basically the same thing on a different level. Sure the Sixer eventually got better with Iverson and trading Stackhouse for Ratcliff but really the period between Barkley's departure until the team finally built a reasonable support cast around Iverson was simply god awful, and it's not due to the lack of talent, but actually made worse BECAUSE the talent was evident.
-- Stackhouse developed after leaving the Sixers, but even at his best he's overvalued as a bad 20 ppg guy. I thought the guy was hopeless; he was a scorer who couldn't shoot or dribble. The Sixers would have improved by trading him for a bag of sweatbands; instead, they got a 1st team all-defensive type guy in Theo Ratliff, and a good swingman in McKie.
-- Spoon was miscast with the Sixers, being drafted to fill Sir Charles' shoes. Spoon would have been a terrific forward off the bench for a good team.
-- If you had a time machine and just wanted to tinker a bit with history, go back and put Larry Brown on the Sixers a couple years earlier.
Surprise, surprise. It was only a matter of time. Jim Boylan is rumored to be the interim. He's TERRIBLE as a head coach. Once again, Bucks are likely to miss the playoffs.
The fact that Stackhouse is still in the NBA blows my mind.
in no way, shape (height is not a shape), or form was mursean like bradley.
muresan, btw, was a ton of fun.
incidentally, didn't bradley also play hs baseball and golf? don't mean that as a critique of his athleticism, just that it's interesting.
I think I read that Skiles tenure in Milwaukee was only 8 days longer than in Chicago. He gets defensive results, but the players wear out quickly. I guess if you can get the defensive improvement to stay he's worth it.
I once did a very rough calculation of how many 7-footers there should be based on probabilities and population distribution. I don't remember exactly how the numbers came out, but once I accounted for the NBA, NBDL, and the very top European leagues, something like 75% of the theoretical 7-footers between ages 20-35 were playing high-level pro basketball. By that reasoning, there are some guys (especially those farther above 7') who would be below average athletically in the population at large.
I went to a Wizards playoff game a few years ago where they were offering to give away free pizza coupons to everyone in the crowd if one of three people from the stands could dunk. The first two failed, then the third one pulled up lame (obviously a work) and asked to be replaced, so they started asking if anyone in the crowd could substitute for him. Muresan, naturally, emerged from next to the tunnel to one of the biggest ovations I ever heard at a DC sporting event, and he walked the ball up to the rim and dunked without leaving the floor. The Wiz lost the game, but everyone went home happy.
I will say that I was surprised by the timing. I figured he would finish out the year and see if they could sneak into the playoffs since they were playing fairly well to start the year. I know they lost four in a row before the separation, but they still seem like a possible low-end playoff contender to me.
I got free tickets in a suite at a Wiz game a couple years ago, and they brought Muresan into the box to shake hands. It was both awesome and slightly sad, because other than my friend and I, I don't think any of the other 10-12 people had any idea who he was.
Also: he is huge. I'm a pretty big guy, and his hand absolutely swallowed mine.
Meh, it's what he does. He quit on the Bulls on Christmas, he quit on the Suns when they were 1 game under .500.
I'm trying to read between the lines on the tweets about it, they're saying it was mutual, that he wasn't coming back next year, and it was the last year of his deal. To me, that sounds like he asked for an extension, was told to play out the season and/or they'd talk about after the year, he said he won't come back if he's not extended now, and neither side blinked. Kind of a Riggleman with the Nats situation.
Page 5 of 21 pages
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