NBA 2020-21 reg season 1st half thread

The Cavs are fun in transition. pic.twitter.com/pH4ThU4yIt

— Dave DuFour (@DaveDuFourNBA) December 28, 2020

Kevin love is hurt again btw

Jokic has 18 assists tonight

ugh that ja injury looked really ugly.

Is Kyle Anderson good now

Concerned about Hartenstein as the backup center... Really forcing things

The Pistons are the strangest NBA team to me, the strangest I’ve experienced

just the roster or the way they play? or the vibes?

gary trent jr have yourself a game

taht ja morant ankle roll was nasty

jokic with a casual 24-12-14 on 62%/43%/73% through 3 games

just the roster or the way they play? or the vibes?

Jokic is better than ever, the physical fitness improvement really jumps out in a lot of ways. More able to contest at the rim, faster off the dribble, just better at everything.

yeah i watched the highlights from that game and he was noticeably active on D

I was gonna post about how trae young is becoming one of the most underrated players in the league, but then noticed some dude on espn calling him the leader of the mvp race after beating the bulls, grizz and pistons

yeah the pendulum definitely swung too far last year, it was his second year and he didn't have enough help around him yet. he'll probably be an MVP candidate soon

let’s wait and see if he can cease being literally the worst defensive player in the NBA before start going that far

He’s playing better than luka so far this season

trae was amazing last year, were ppl really hating on him that much, obvs the defense is awful but he was nuts last year

the thing that cld take him to the next level is just better 3pt shot selection / refining his technique on that part of his game, hes so good at driving and passing theres really no need to be taking all these crazy 3s, and if he is going to take them they shd be more fundamentally sound, same thing as luka actually, both of them should watch a bunch of harden tape and maybe a lil less steph

they both also have the team/coaching issue where they dominate the ball too much, and they were traded for each other, crazy

hawks have really used a lot of high draft picks on guys who are not playmakers

Trae's not a playmaker?

...

or are you just talking about Hunter

trae was amazing last year, were ppl really hating on him that much, obvs the defense is awful but he was nuts last year

so

dame hasnt gotten an mvp is trae gonna be better than him

theres getting an mvp and theres being an mvp candidate

probably not xp

If we’re going off 3 game samples Terry Rozier is in the mvp race

That was kind of the point of my post.

Anyway Hawks are gonna trade Collins sooner or later

he was on a team that was 27 games under .500 lol
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, December 29, 2020 1:08 PM (twenty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

he was 20. what’s the track record for 20 year olds who put up his numbers? what’s his floor, kyrie irving?

Anyway Hawks are gonna trade Collins sooner or later

if we're gonna do a three game mvp, i think 29/15/14 kinda wins it

well 29/12/14, but still

he was 20. what’s the track record for 20 year olds who put up his numbers? what’s his floor, kyrie irving?

― k3vin k., Tuesday, December 29, 2020 1:39 PM (six minutes ago)bookmarkflaglink

yeah it's just simply impossible to imagine trae young having a career worse than kyrie irving

kyrie really shouldve been one of the prime beneficiaries of the game getting called ridiculously tight the last few years but hes been injured the whole time

I would argue that trae has superior court vision than kyrie or dame

need a larger sample size unless you mean "right now" in which case i think kyrie has the edge there

comparing trae's stats across eras is useless given his insane usage rate, his style of play, and the style of play of the league in general. his floor is a good stats high usage point guard who makes some all star games and whose teams don't win anything. take your pick of these sorts of players from years past -- stephon marbury, gilbert arenas w/o the knee problems, baron davis...

his ceiling is a good stats high usage point guard who makes a lot of all star games and whose teams don't win anything so... chris paul hehe

Comparing him to someone like Marbury or Gil insane to me. Those guys were straight up ball hogs that hurt their teams

i mean, trae young's *floor* is definitely that of a ball hog player whose teams don't accomplish much. whether his assist numbers would superficially paper over the ways in which his play "hurts" his team would be a matter of interpretation. in his age 23, 24 and 25 seasons gilbert arenas made 3 all star teams averaging something like 27/6/5 on .500ish teams that made the second round once and got bounced out of the playoffs in the first round twice. that general level of individual value and team success is well w/in the range of outcomes for trae young -- he could also transcend that up to the level of dame lillard or whoever.

That kind of points to the impossibility of comparing across eras. Marbury was definitely ball dominant, but he averaged around 8 assists/game almost every season of his career, right up until the final Knicks phase. He couldn't shoot though, and I kind of doubt he would've learned to be a significantly better shooter in the modern game. Trae as that player, but with the shooting capacity he already has, is pretty damn good. Remains to be seen whether it can translate to team success. I think he's a good enough passer that he can rebalance his arsenal enough for that elusive winning formula, in the right context. Will be fun to watch either way, though, and doubly so if he can hover close enough to Luka to generate barstool arguments and think pieces about the draft day trade for years to come.

xp similar to what J0rdan said. J0rdan, love your bball insights and much respect for your take on the game

atm trae is more or less singlehandedly making watching hawks games fun for the first time since like 2014

xp ha thanks :) i love chatting ball w/ my guys

just looked up trae's player projection page on 538

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2021-nba-player-projections/trae-young/

performance of the 10 most comparable players

1. chris paul
2. stephon marbury
3. russell westbrook
4. devin booker
5. kyrie irving
6. gilbert arenas

this seems entirely reasonable to me as a range of outcomes. devin booker showing up is interesting for better or worse

having watched most of the guy's games, the chris paul comparison is the only one that fits. he has superb court vision which i would not attribute to the rest of that group. i'm not arguing that his teams will outperform any of those other players (or even that he'll have a better career than a few of those guys), just that stylistically, he's much different