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

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

McLemore not off to the hottest start but he's a rookie who is instantly playing like 23-30 minutes a game and already looks like a passable NBA player, which is a net positive for now. Plus he's doing this on the Kings. Always tough to accurately gauge rookies since dudes who end up being amazing players might need at least a season to really transition. Like McLemore will be fine; way more worried that Bennett is serious flameout material. Would probably be a big ego blow for Cavs to D League him for a while, but honestly seems like the best decision atm.

xp Heh, not gonna wade back into this but yeah, that makes total sense to me / approaches what I was trying to get at. When people talk about players being good fits, usually it has to do with complementary styles of play (like Aimless' pg and defender-rubber), which is almost a truism when it comes to team-building. I guess w/ Lance, it's less that his skill set happened to complement other players well; rather, it's that Lance, hypothetically, wouldn't have become the player he is now w/o a shitton of smart interpersonal maneuvering to help get him there.

Unrelated to that, it's just really cool to see an end-of-bench player and think damn, this person has something nobody else has, would be a shame if he could never put it all together. Cool that Lance entered the league as a one-dimensional scorer and, a few years later, his skill set probably goes passer > defender > rebounder > scorer.

Finally reading that Lowe piece ... using a team's combined record over multiple seasons is probably the sanest idea I've heard, although two seasons makes more sense than three.

Timmy with the handles
http://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/photos/thumb/829314134.gif

nice

lol the first three christmas games have been rendered irrelevant by injuries and reality cant we just have the heat play the thunder why not

i dunno personally i'm interested in seeing if the nets can manage to beat a team that can't score at all and am even more interested in watching the thunder slaughter the knicks

the west coast games are gonna be amazing tho

pray 4 the knicks

man, I was thinking I could at least get some cheap knicks tickets out of this misfortune, but stubhub is still ridiculous

i know, right? damn you knicks fans. hell, even Nets tickets are still too expensive

man, I was thinking I could at least get some cheap knicks tickets out of this misfortune, but stubhub is still ridiculous

― signed, J.P. Morgan CEO (Hurting 2), Tuesday, December 24, 2013 11:59 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i know, right? damn you knicks fans. hell, even Nets tickets are still too expensive

― Nhex, Tuesday, December 24, 2013 12:02 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This. Still holding out hope that one of them will for sure be out of playoff contention during the 2nd half of the season and some supercheap tix will pop up on CList. Only problem is that I really want to find something near the front rows and those tickets are impossible to find for any reasonable price, no matter how sucky Nets/Knicks are. I've even started browsing Sixers prices.

The absolute cheapest ticket you can get right now is like $40 for shittiest seats in the house to see them play the bobcats. Any decent team (other than the Blazers for some reason) and you pay like $90+

maybe if they stay sucky for long enough, prices will start to come down

nets tix are actually a comparative bargain, from what I see

didn't the knicks sell out the garden even in the isiah days? those tickets never fluctuate

if you really wanted to go to a knicks game just vulture stubhub on a weeknight vs a non-marquee team, the tickets usually go down pretty close to game time

cant we just have the heat play the thunder why not

if you're looking for a finals preview you'd ask for pacers -- thunder.

youll be able to get some ok tix at the end of the season, still over priced but w/e, really the path of least resistance is to hit up friends, acquaintances, strangers who have corporate tickets, thats the thing that keeps them so expensive even more in new york than other places cause of all the capitalism and whatnot, the entire lower bowl is owned m/l by companies who really could really care less whether the knicks are good or not

didn't the knicks sell out the garden even in the isiah days? those tickets never fluctuate

― le goon (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, December 24, 2013 12:21 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, it seems like "knicks tickets" has had the ring of "precious item" for years

def interest waned in the isiah days, i bought tickets day of game and secondary market was sometimes below list price iirc

one time i bought super cheap scalped tickets and they were fake rip $50

yeah, but if you get the $40 nosebleed seats, you might as well just watch the game home, frankly. i'm with CompuPost, but damn those front-ish seats usually go for $300 even for the shittiest games

otm id rather go to one game with good seats than three w shitty ones, ive sat in the very back row and its like wow i can watch the entire game w/o moving my head

youll be able to get some ok tix at the end of the season, still over priced but w/e, really the path of least resistance is to hit up friends, acquaintances, strangers who have corporate tickets, thats the thing that keeps them so expensive even more in new york than other places cause of all the capitalism and whatnot, the entire lower bowl is owned m/l by companies who really could really care less whether the knicks are good or not

― lag∞n, Tuesday, December 24, 2013 12:31 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Heh last time I got my front row seats a friend was set up to do some post-game interviews and I got to tag along as his "photographer." Honestly had on my 2013 Goals list: "see if I can sort out media credentials to get some press passes to games." Was super irritated being there surrounded by press people who didn't even look like they wanted to be there-- they were doing their job and all, and I'm sure the shine wears off once you've been to like 200 games, but still.

Idk maybe time to look into B school, give corporate raidering a try, get those sweet tix.

Yeah, you really need to be close enough to hear some trash talk is my thing.

the baseline is a p incredible obvs you only see half the game what what you do is p rad, also theyre less expensive than comparable center court seats, im p much happy w anything in the lower bowl tho

but i mean there are so many corporate seats out there just start asking around youd be surprised friends of friends on off nights where no one wants to go

assuming were all friends of the ruling class here

im much more open to the team dynamic chemistry type of arguments about intangibles, especially on court chemistry, then i think once youre winning its pretty easy to like each other and be happy, winning feels really good, but again its pretty hard to get good information past the on court level where you can observe team basketball chemistry with good ball movement and whatnot

im much more suspicious of the whole enterprise at the individual level, like the idea that some players are great leaders, they might be great leaders with the right group of players and coaches where on another team theyre just a blowhard malcontent, eg kg presided over some pretty dysfunctional teams in minny, then once he got to boston the story was that everyone played hard because he did, obvs you had a group of players who were open to the idea of playing hard which is the important part

― lag∞n, Monday, December 23, 2013 1:33 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ha i hadn't read this post before making mine btw, mind meld

*hi5*

feel like its just a habitual thing they all do from being around basketball their whole lives when theres dead air, get more rebounds play defense run hard, theyve already conveyed the strategic info they want to at that point and theyre just waiting for the game to start again, i mean its prob not totally valueless like maybe the coach says westbrook youre coasting today play harder and westbrook goes oh hey i guess i am or w/e but mostly it seems like no one cares that much and the coach is really just freaking out and talking to himself, can you imagine being around people who yell that all the time yr whole life, at some point it must not really make that much of an impression

― lag∞n, Monday, December 23, 2013 1:53 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also been thinking about this recently, and yeah i think there might be some value in reinforcing the basics in the heat of the moment like this. when you're in the middle of an enormously complex task (playing NBA basketball), you tend to neglect the obvious things. it's like a brilliant surgeon who forgets to wash his hands -- that's why there's such a push for checklists now. get the little stuff right so you can focus on what you do best

maybe they should contract the bulls?

K.C. Johnson ‏@KCJHoop 23m
Jimmy Butler on lingering turf toe: "It's bothering me a little. But I feel like it’s going to bother me like that for the rest of my career

maybe just stay away from turf idk

do the bulls play on turf? or natural wood

"you've got wood toe" -- bulls trainer

you got literally a wooden toe is yr problem here *pops toes off and throws it in fire*

Trade Rose straight up for the Suns training staff imo

otm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjV7hvO8v6U

Matt Armstrong happy

lol

Reputation ejection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMHBpn7XbQ0
Funny to see Cap Jack escorting him out tho

Interesting to see how, right after slamming Love with his body and bringing his whole arm down across Love's head, Barnes is all "hah! take that, buster", but when the official review is going on his look is all, "geez, maybe I'm gonna get busted".

http://i.imgur.com/wMfS3vH.jpg

XD XD XD