NBA 2020-21 reg season 1st half thread

the timberwolves should be contracted

ridiculous

JOEL EMBIID.

That's it. That's the tweet. pic.twitter.com/frTyyQuy08

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) March 4, 2021

watching game 7 of the 1987 ECF finals between pistons and celtics on NBA TV right now. rookie dennis rodman just ran the fast break and posterized larry bird for an and 1 in the fourth quarter. crazy to me to see him playing big minutes in an ECF vs bird and mchale, feels like two totally different eras to me.

in some ways the game hasn’t changed that much ... a lot of this game is kicking the ball out for jumpers (except the guys are all taking 16 foot shots instead of threes), drawing fouls... game 7s nowadays are still about tightly wound offense leading to mid range Js. this game finished 117-114, high scoring game 7 in any era.

This weekend, the NBA All-Star Game will take place in Atlanta, Georgia. The NBA, in partnership with More Than A Vote, a voting rights organization founded by LeBron James, plans to use the event to fight voter suppression.

More Than A Vote, the group launched by James, said Tuesday that it was partnering with the NBA, the NBA Players Association and the state chapter of the NAACP to draw attention to attempts in Georgia and other battleground states to roll back voting rights.

The groups intend to use the attention surrounding the All-Star Game, which will be played Sunday in Atlanta, to amplify concerns about legislative proposals that would make it harder for Black people to vote in future elections...

“The attacks on voting rights in Georgia are egregious, but they’re just one example of what is a nationwide effort to strip Black voters of our power,” said Addisu Demissie, the executive director of More Than A Vote.

“Given that we’ll have a national audience tuning in to watch the All Star Game this weekend in Atlanta, we have a unique opportunity to work together with our partners to shine a spotlight on these voter suppression efforts that target the league’s most loyal fan base and provide fans with the tools they need to fight back.”

One of the All-Star Game's top sponsors, AT&T, is a top donor to the sponsors of Georgia's voter suppression bills. The company has donated almost $100,000 to sponsors of the bills since 2018.

Embiid put up 40 and 19 against "the best defensive center in the NBA". At this point, I don't see how he's not MVP given how bad the team is without him. I didn't think he had it in him, but he's been nearly all business this year with much less drama and antics.

having an amazing year def top tier mvp candidate

tho how bad the team is without him is awarding an mvp based on the quality of his backup

lol

https://i.imgur.com/uNpQW8D.png

thats nba champion dwight howard to you

Dwight's been fine for what he is and what he's making. The entire bench outside of Milton is weak. If they do anything good, the Sixers usually win big. They rarely do anything good.

I think Danny Green is cooked. He's 39/38/65. He goes off once every 3 weeks and does nothing the rest of the time. I am hopping they can move him at the deadline to fill in salary on another starter or bench piece, but I dunno.

i wld ordinarily say its almost for sure embiids shooting will come back to earth but with how the whole league is snapping the nets this year who knows

the secret about danny green is he was never that good so once he has a lil age related decline it makes him cooked

tho how bad the team is without him is awarding an mvp based on the quality of his backup

This is a hilarious 5d chess take/inversion of the usual argument, which is "his numbers are really good but the +/- tells a different story" "they're just as good/bad when he's off the floor". Normally when the team sucks when a player is off the floor that bolsters their MVP case!

but it was worth it to see Dwight's goofy mug shining out at me in the thread

Normally when the team sucks when a player is off the floor that bolsters their MVP case!

― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Thursday, March 4, 2021 3:07 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes the normal way is dumb, if embiids backup was jokic would that mean he was having a worse season, it would not, the award was clearly intend for the guy having the best season, instead we get all these sportwriterly arguments about what the world valuable means

the most valuable player is dwight just look at him

xp i agree with that but it also doesn't detract from what embiid is doing that dwight is his backup. as far as valuable goes, it's pretty comical when sportswriters twist and turn over the verbiage that various sports leagues use to define awards criteria. very antonin scalia originalist shit

lagoon & lavator otm

if all sports just called it the "best player award" would save so many headaches

it's actually worse in football because it makes it so hard for a non QB to win

would be a lot easier if the nba gave awards for the tallest and shortest players and left it at that

everyone would get a free taco if Tacko Fall just happened to win

embiid seems pretty well set up to win MVP imo. no one from the clippers, jazz or nets is going to win it, the lakers are slipping, nuggets won’t finish high enough. feels like the narrative is going to coalesce around him unless the lakers rip off like 10 of 12 out of the break or something

or if tony snell keeps playing so well

most snelluable player

Embiid and Jokic are clearly the best players and the one who wins more regular season games should win ‘VP

:) how many games has embiid missed?

btw the athletic nba show today had the exact same discussion about shaq and inside the nba with the same talking points as we did a few weeks ago it was p funny

we shd start a subscription service for our services

show yourselves, cowards from the athletic

mvp discussion aside, its a regular season award, id take joker over embiid just cause ive witnessed embiid do too many untrustworthy things, you cant unsee someone getting owned by al horford over a continuum of years

ok lebron and durant making mitchell and gobert the last picks in the draft is an extremely good bit

brutal lol gotta respect it

The ASG is not the place to go all in on picking a DPOY, baby.

Jrue Holiday baby

good player imo

I am so used to Middleton missing that exact shot in that exact situation

:) how many games has embiid missed?

― k3vin k., Thursday, March 4, 2021 9:23 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Sixers are 23-7 with Embiid and 1-5 without him.

mvp discussion aside, its a regular season award, id take joker over embiid just cause ive witnessed embiid do too many untrustworthy things, you cant unsee someone getting owned by al horford over a continuum of years

― lag∞n, Thursday, March 4, 2021 9:58 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

This is fair. He's been owned by Mark Gasol and a couple of others as well, but this year he's dominated pretty consistently regardless of opponent. I've been plenty critical of Embiid's mental makeup, but he seems a lot more focused than in the past.

Embiid has had like 5 objectively bad games and Jokic has had 1. That’s a real difference tbh

Jokic is just a different animal this season. None of those lazy backcourt fouls off turnovers, pretty much always has a motor on defense. And obviously a scoring machine.

gotta say that all star draft last night was truly hilarious. the end was just perfect.

For all his faults MPJ appears to just be a guy who shoots 42% from three, with a lot being difficult quick release shots. So I’m just gonna live with everything. There’s never more than a handful of 6’10” guys like this in the league

doesnt help their defensive issues.

The Brooklyn Nets are believed to be leaders to sign six-time All-Star Blake Griffin, sources tell me and @JLEdwardsIII. Rival teams with interest are expecting Griffin to choose Nets as a title favorite for chance to win a championship.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) March 5, 2021

ok!

wolves schedule coming out of the break:

pelicans
blazers
blazers
lakers
suns
suns

when will our new coach win his first game? stay tuned to find out!

TIL that the Houston Rockets have lost 13 games in a row! their last win corresponds exactly to the last game Christian Wood played in lol. They are really primed to be stripped for whatever parts are left to strip.

yah they clearly are looking to make moves, i was wrong

feel like it's really tanking oladipo's trade value bcuz i can't imagine a single team feeling like he's a threat to resign there. he hasn't been playing well either, someone will prob be able to get him for a protected pick and some trade value

Yah i think they missed their window on getting anything in return for PJ too

Oladipo needs to fucking decide what team he’d be happy on