in these, the waning days of stern: 2013-2014 NBA regular season thread (part 1)

I think you mean lucky that Blatche decided to cut Prokky a bargain deal

― Matt Armstrong, Monday, December 23, 2013 8:46 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark

What were his other options at the time? Kinda curious

Like I thought Swaggy P was proof that a gun first stats first guy couldn't get paid in the NBA anymore

Someone would've signed him for mid-level-- Blatche had enough strong games where you might wanna risk mid-level money on Blatche finding a consistent game. Think Blatche is more hot mess than just run-of-mill gunner.

Nick Young is making 6m this year

oh sorry you're right

had nick young had a good season before his deal though?

blatche knows how to contract push, gotta give him that

lance racking up the stats in trash time here

Other than PG splitting double teams, the ugliest thing for the Pacers this season has been Lance piling on in 4th quarters, esp when he's close to a triple double. A few times this season he's had his rbs/assists taken care of and then he'd just shoot every time down the floor until he'd get to double digits. Pacers fans lightly booed Vogel a few weeks ago for yanking him for chasing his last two points-- just really nagl. Surprised he hasn't been decked this season for it.

Oh hey btw Grangerover is back, making extra sure he has zero value on the trade market for the next two months.

surprising too that Vogel is into that stuff

yeah I was hoping Granger would have a stronger start to this comeback attempt

no one's trading for granger

serious dirking tonight

lebron be dunking

http://cdn1.sbnation.com/assets/3762597/ledestroyer.gif

way to chicken out, millsap

Granger is a perfect name for a guy who plays in the midwest

LeBron treated that charge-draw attempt with the proper contempt

yeah srsly milsap just stand aside

looooool you can really see the posterizing camera-flashes on that slowmo.

Happy Melo just sprained his ankle. If he were out for extended time + Chandler inevitably missing six more weeks at some point, Knicks instantly become most hate-watchable League Pass team.

Brian Mahoney ‏@briancmahoney 2m

Damning quote of the night, from Jason Kidd about the Nets: "I think it's getting very close to just accepting losing."

@ScottCacciola: "Pray for us," Raymond Felton said. "I'm serious."

YESSS THAT FELTON QUOTE

YESSSSSSSS

Hope someone finds vid of that, really want to savor "I'm serious" in a/v.

lol kidd is such a loser

Kidd still sharpest dressed NBA coach, has to count for something.

what are lebron's odds to win the mvp this year? 1:1?

lmao felton cheer up bud

if okc finfishes w a much better record than the heat and durant has a monster season maybe they will want to give it to him idk

dont look at this picture it will make you cry https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BcOJPbtCAAAACTe.jpg

...blood

POOR PAU

ouch

game winning free throws for super cool tonight

if beas put the heat over the top for another title i will lol into eternity

hey you know who hes having a better season than derick rose

hahaha

Even more astounding now that Rose somehow snagged an MVP since the start of LeBron's run in 2008.

Klay!

Nugs have already lost 2X home games as all of last season/

big win for the dubs imo, they've been bad against the west's playoff seated teams (like 2-9 before tonight iirc) and they havent really shown they can win when the splash bruvs both have bad games.

Christmas day game vs the Clips is must watch tv tho. Great rivalry.

u know, Sleep Train Arena is just not working for me as a basketball playing place name

wd prefer as a list of instructions for ball players.
sleep. train. arena. then food maybe. sleep again. go train again. go to a different arena.

sleep training arena for the fans more like folks the kings are just horrible

that Felton quote should be the board descrip for reals tho

the rudy gay effect xp

The McLemore pick hasn't worked out at all

Bradley Beal didn't look that great at first either but this is pretty extreme

Will probably just start another thread about this "stuff" so fun rolling reg season threads don't get bogged down with sad Debate Club vibe. Succinctly, I guess I'd say that team chemistry is an amalgam of interpersonal intelligence of the players and coaching staff and their ability to interact with each other in an effective manner that supplements whatever other talents they bring to the table.

In the context of Lance and the great start he's been off to this season, I'd say that "good chemistry" is what gives Vogel the confidence to leave Lance in the game after back-to-back turnovers and let him play through Bad Lance stretches when you'd expect a coach to pull him instead. Or that Lance's passing game has blossomed this year in part due to passing up decent looks in order to give other players better looks and maybe understanding that he's more valuable to the team with 10pts/10asts rather than 16pts/6asts. Not to mention he looks 100X more jazzed on the court this season when he's dropping a few crazy dimes each game.

But like, "this nebulous region called intangibles" is nebulous because they're mostly non-quantifiable, and, even if you believe they're real and not just "people telling themselves all sorts of stories about how things work," they still coexist with really obvious stuff like shooting, handle, XOs, etc. That's what I mean by a bad-faith reading-- if your counter-argument is lol kobe/shaq won and hated each other / Jordan won and he's psychotic / etc., then you're just massively missing the point. ie, even if this stuff exists, there are a bunch of other factors at play that might be way more important.

― Call me Shitmael (CompuPost), Monday, December 23, 2013 12:50 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is probably all i'll say on the topic but i think some of the things you've said in your posts are reasonable, but i think maybe what's going on is a type of ecological fallacy -- chemistry probably exists but it's kind of more a "team" or culture thing than it is the sum of individuals. lance fits into the pacers system well, but it's not like he can move to another team and use his chemicals to improve just any team's chemistry. so chemistry to me seems like a team-level thing rather than an individual thing. what's probably more important is FIT -- teams that have a good complementary set of players that fit into their system probably tend to win more games, teams that win probably tend to like each other more, which gets interpreted as chemistry, etc etc