2017-18 NBA REGULAR SEASON THREAD PART 1 ALL OF AMERICAS FAVORITE TEAMS ARE BACK

a thing about the lebron experience is that he basically never plays with young players. it's been a constant of all his teams -- the heat were a unique situation bcuz they had to dump a lot of draft picks to put the big 3 together, but still the only young player who ever saw significant minutes on that team was norris cole. meanwhile guys like ray allen, battier, mike miller, haslem whose careers were basically over are the players lebron wanted around. i don't blame the cavs exactly... having lebron on your team is still worth it obv. but clearly they're nervous about it too as the kyrie trade indicated.

cavs seem pretty resigned to bron leaving, they traded for the nets pick and they wldnt include an unrestricted pick in a trade for fn paul george, they shd prob just trade bron already

#tradelebron

i guess they could fire lue in the classic "can't fire the player" move

also lebron's heat never cared about playoff seeding. they only got first in the east 1 of those 4 years. even when the pacers seemed like a legit threat they ceded home court and beat them in 6. i think they're playing with fire given the state of their team this year but i don't expect them to push it just to get the top seed.

bron shd be player coach

probably worth noting they are missing 3 rotation players (and their 2nd best player ((even tho he wont help them defensively))

thompson returning to some sort of form seems like the thing that cld really help them

yeah their defense could get worse when IT gets back hah

i still think they could have a slightly better or at least deeper/more versatile lineup for the playoffs this year if everyone is healthy and stop playing rose

with IT they cld get bron some rest and maybe he cld play some D idk theyre in a tough spot on that end, theoretically a lineup of IT-jr-jae-bron-tristian has 3 plus defenders

rose would be an ok backup for 18 minutes a game

ive never seen bron look as tired as i did today he was sucking air after normal runs down the court made me wonder if he has another utterly dominant playoff run in him, also why i was wondering (along w love going to the hospital) if the cavs have the flu

lowe & windhorst were both blowing this off on lowe's latest podcast, saying that it doesn't really matter because the cavs aren't trying and aren't going to try until the playoffs. i sort of buy that but idk this team didn't solve any of its problems from last year... lebron is basically the only player on the team who is a plus on both sides of the court

― J0rdan S., Sunday, November 5, 2017 10:35 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tbf to windy he pointed out on this pod (and he's done so consistently) that failing to build good defensive habits during the season results in being unable to get stops when it matters he was talking about the finals, but it's becoming a legit question whether the cavs are capable of making the finals.

interesting discussion about cavs roster and whatnot but i feel like people need to understand this is what having lebron does, ultimately you agree to strip mine your organization in return for making the finals every year b/c you'll start winning, get capped out, trade low first-rd picks for roster help, sign some vets to friendly deals, re-sign some of those for $$$ when the only alternative is losing the talent for nothing, dry up your young talent pipeline, and eventually run out of ways to improve the team.

the only ways to mitigate this scenario are to have coaching stability and a strong developmental program surprise surprise the team owned by dan gilbert has neither

they better nail that nets pick

melo got called for the most bogus flagrant 2 i've ever seen against portland tonight, i am kind of irate on his behalf

at this pace their own pick will be more valuable haha xp

the refs have kinda been wilding out so far this year

yeah its pretty dramatic, i still haven't seen anyone successfully pump fake without getting called for travelling. feel like the celtics got rid of kelly o just in time

I’m pretty sure Chalmers is playing games stoned this year

Ingram has been really effective lately just driving and forgetting about jumpshots

this season is so weird

here's an anomoly: russ is shooting 63% from the line this year. he was over 85% last year and pretty much every other season was at abt that number.

still a lil early for that one

yeah but he was 2-7 at the stripe tonight and totally melted down shooting fts in the crunch it was odd

Gallo has been bad and now he got a very Gallo injury, bruised left hip

lol ejected for this is madness refs gone wild

No idea how this is a flagrant 2 and ejection on Melo pic.twitter.com/YDZsj1oG0h

— CJ Fogler (@cjzero) November 6, 2017

i think that's arguably not even a personal foul on melo. it was called a foul on nurkic on the floor then reversed and assessed a flagrant 2 in review. i was losing it, atrocious call, hope the league rescinds it entirely.

idk, i cant see why he would take the ball way out from the basket like that

he was trying to draw contact, i could see it being an offensive foul but a flagrant?

i assume the rationale was it looked like he moved his arms deliberately so that they got in the way of nurk's face, a foul sure but flagrant 2 is too much.

He's trying to go up and under a block attempt that ends up coming in at a weird angle but both their movements are totally normal they just happen to be on weird trajectories and Melos elbow ends up in his face. Melos not even looking that way so idk how that ends up a flagrant! If you green screened out nurkic melo would look exactly how he does on thousands of similar moves. Refs wilding out for sure

Yeah I don't get this pump fake = traveling thing either I think they're trying to crack down on the harden style get a man in the air and get fouled by leaning under him and throwing up a trash shot but they've overcorrected and destroyed a useful offensive move

i would need to see some examples but in theory i would be for calling more travels when ppl switch pivot feet on pump fakes

theyre calling it mostly on extremely minor and often phantom shuffles on the perimeter when guys pump in prelude to a drive, its pretty lame, tho one wld think its just one of those early season things theyll forget about

feel like theyve been calling that one super tight for the last couple years tbh. annoying, most of the time it's not a travel.

would much rather see them use that energy to watch the switching pivot feet kev mentions

just finished that hawks/cavs game and yeah, the cavs look atrocious. the hawks were just getting to the rim with no problems.

cavs are last in defensive efficiency, celtics are first

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DN9yE3aVQAANREi.jpg

i finally looked at what tpa is and its based on box plus/minus smh i still like the faces on the graphs tho

i was like how is jason tatum scoring 14 on 50/50/80 and grading out as average offensively... oh of course

i think the regression based BPM stats are legitimate if that's what TPA is

ah it's not

the appeal of the stat to end all stats is obvious but its also kinda a fools errand

i like PER cuz i understand what it means

per is good cause its based on box score stats so u cn be like this guy is the best at the box score and u already understand the context of that

did you guys know kevin love is a banana republic model now

yeah we knew