NBA 2020-21 reg season 1st half thread

quit copying us

Good lord what are they doing. This seems like a pretty big overreaction. The young kids have developed really well under him. I’m not sure how great he in the technical aspects but damn you signed a bunch of injured vets to accelerate this thing so wtf are you blaming the coach for. The core group is really solid. Jordan mostly otm other than the hunter shade. Ppl get hurt occasionally it’s not like he lost a leg

maybe trae hates him

I don’t get any bad vibes from the team but maybe they’re good at hiding it. Or maybe I suck as seeing it as I am am a good vibes kinda guy

the hawks should trade collins to the spurs is how i break it down

another good reminder that bad ownership is the main impediment to success in most cases.

― J0rdan S., Monday, March 1, 2021 2:59 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

― lag∞n, Monday, March 1, 2021 4:43 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

zion casually putting his shoulder into rudy gobert and throwing him into the basket support for an and 1

yeah thats the good stuff

he was just shredding the jazz in his last stint. they had no answers.

i watched a zion highlight video earlier and there was a play where he was triple teamed and got a dunk

not the most highlight worthy play but i loved it when he got into the paint, got doubled by gobert and another guy, and dropped it off to hernangomez coming from the corner for an easy layup. it's amazing to me that he's so good at not forcing things.

yeah a lot of the time it seems like hes not doing that much but he has 30-7-5

i don’t remember ppl talking about his first step when he was coming out of college. we knew he would be able to bang bodies in the air and finish but he blows by bigs like they’re chained to the floor. first step quickness feels like the most underrated attribute when it comes to evaluating prospects, luka and harden are two others

his drive game altogether prob wasnt showcased like it shouldve been at duke

his handle is really good too

yeah he's really good at making a quick first move to get an advantage but staying in control after that. he just dropped his shoulder and blew past gobert, but ended up in no mans land directly under the rim, so he said ok, no big deal, and got it back out to someone on the perimeter

to summarize he plays a very easy game for one of the most violent athletes of his generation

he basically has the off the bounce game of an elite wing except hes the strongest man in the world and weighs 300 pounds so any contact is completely in his favor

eric bledsoe two airballs off open looks in the quarter

did not know steven adams was the worst free throw shooter in the nba this year, but that's what the jazz announcers just said

adams doesn’t really do a lot out there

neither does bledsoe. weird team.

league pass browsing. had to look up the large white on the cavs who runs up and down the floor without ever doing anything and now i know who dean wade is.

bledsoe i at least understand insofar as he was the price of doing the jrue trade and you want to play him to try and wring or value from the deal. adams remains confounding

dejontae murray just made one of the most ridiculous game tying buzzer beaters in a while

dean wade swishes a corner three to shut me up

aw i did not select the spurs game because it looked like it was pretty much over

the spurs are scrappy, never count them out

lesson learned!

well I'm counting them out

the pistons trading bruce brown for no reason for a guy they cut like a month later is “stuff bad franchises do”

Adams is the only defensive anchor on the entire Pelicans roster, sets screens for guys like JJ and Zo to shoot off of, boxes out and rebounds defensively (Zion for all his hops is underwhelming at that at this stage in his career), and is a good passer for his position too. Lot of fans and commentators have been trying to gaslight him into being the worse offseason acquisition of any team because he doesn't shoot 30% from 3 on under 3 attempts a game like Myles Turner, but in reality has like the most lopsidedly positive on/off ratings of anyone on the Pelicans roster, is a big part of why they're generally the #1 or 2 rebounding team in the league, and his net rating with their starters is excellent. Saves Zion from a ton of punishment and wear and tear checking opposing 5s too. I get that "FLOOR SPACING" is the buzzword on every twitter analysts fingers when it comes to building around Zion but the reality is he's already the league's leading paint scorer, putting up 26 a game on an absurd 60+% TS. Him and his team's issues as a whole are almost solely on defense; guys like Adams and Hart are what their roster is in most pressing need of.

'preciate the 'nalysis

i don't object to the pelicans playing a true 5 next to zion, it's obvious he can't hold up there on defense and there aren't very many starting caliber 5s who can bang down low and shoot. players zion's age usually get paired w/ bigger vets who can save them from wear and tear, i don't think it's very surprising that the pelicans targeted center as a position of need. but they're paying adams an awful lot money to set screens and rebound... just doesn't seem like those are skills that are extremely difficult to find elsewhere. no advance numbers i'm looking at rate adams as bad by any stretch, more just like pretty decent, maybe like the 12 or 15th best center in the league, which i feel like lines up w/ what i'm seeing on the court. the overall impact at that level is pretty minimal most nights. taking up space, throwing weight around... it's not nothing but, you know

dean wade is the most “my name is on a tractor dealership” ass name I’ve heard in ages

it's really weird to see a D. Wade in the box score and have it be a guy named dean

I get that "FLOOR SPACING" is the buzzword on every twitter analysts fingers when it comes to building around Zion but the reality is he's already the league's leading paint scorer, putting up 26 a game on an absurd 60+% TS. Him and his team's issues as a whole are almost solely on defense; guys like Adams and Hart are what their roster is in most pressing need of.

― Sabre of Paradise (trevor phillips), Monday, March 1, 2021 11:00 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

genuine question--do you think you're calling into a talk radio show or something? no one was talking about floor spacing. steven adams is posting career lows in a bunch of scoring categories so i think it's reasonable for everyone to wonder what exactly he is doing out there. if the answer is.....screens and boxing out it's fair to ask why that is worth $27M this year and $17M each for the next two years.

trevor came into the paint swinging elbows like steven adams himself

otm, i’d say he’s committed a few offensive fouls in his time here.

Adams doesn’t even get under the skin of his opponents like he used to seemingly every game.

the meeting of melo minds

THE MELO x MELO SHOW

Carmelo Anthony: 29 PTS
10/19 FG, 6 3PT, 5 STL, 2 BLK

LaMelo Ball: 30 PTS
10/18 FG, 8 AST, 6 REB, 5 3PT, 4 STL pic.twitter.com/pVA6F0h6ib

— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) March 2, 2021

i still hate lamelo's jump shot and i can't believe it's been going in so much. i'm still kinda skeptical. i just can't believe anyone in the NBA shoots like that. i'm trying to be open minded

hes been awesome since they started starting him

melos shot is def really weird but might not actually be fundamentally bad, it kind of makes sense as the culmination of a lot of the current trends in shooting/challenging of shooting orthodoxy, like if having a low release point and barely jumping is ok since that gives you a shot that is easier and quicker to get off why not have a really low release point and jump one inch, and if thumbing is ok and has been going on all along then whats wrong with shooting with two hands however you want, the really weird thing to me tho is that he doesnt straighten his legs when he shoots cant say ive ever seen that

i feel like he can make threes now primarily bcuz nobody is guarding him out there but can you make a contested shot when you shoot from your chin? maybe i'm overthinking it

i think the idea is that you make up for the low release point with quick release and ability to get the shot off in more situations because it demands less effort, so rather than taking contested shots you design your shot with the ability to get open, trae shoots from his chin too, and steph has a way lower release point than kobe

trae shooting from his chin is even crazier because he is short

"the really weird thing to me tho is that he doesnt straighten his legs when he shoots cant say ive ever seen that"

it is weird, he does a pretty big dip but then just never comes fully out of the dip.

all those players you're talking about have the one motion shot so they can get it off real quick. doesnt matter as much where their set point is.

yeah ascendancy of the one motion shot is really at the heart of the shifting of shooting mores