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[NBA] there’s certainly some basketball being played
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And that slip at the end of the game. Just brutal.
it feels like the NBA is trying too hard to make people care, we just wanna see competitive games and less load management.
I said from the beginning that the in-season tournament being made up mostly of games already on the schedule was trying to make something out of nothing.
The sad thing is with all the discussion on expansion the most recent years, this season is making it look much more difficult. Can the NBA really justify more teams in the current climate?
Just say that to say I think the level of play overall has been higher in the Cup pool games. It's not a magic bullet and I think there's still really not much motivation for fans to care about who wins the NBA cup, which is a big ingredient for it to be a full on success, but I do think it has lead to overall a higher level of play for a group of games happening at a time of the season when there's a bit less motivation in general.
And if you hate it it's generally very unobtrusive (outside of hideous yellow courts in Golden State and LA) and still matters for the regular season, which I think was a good idea.
If the league doesn't want to cut games because it will cut TV and ticket revenue then the players also won't want to cut games because reducing that will reduce the total pot that their share comes from.
I think there's space between "not taking a team seriously" and "playing like it's a playoff game because you want to be recognized as the #1 team in the East against the defending champions". The first matchup with the Hawks is probably the former, but the second wasn't despite also not being the latter. Hawks are a weird team that play up and down to their competition too.
I'm wondering has the extra money been the main reason? Or just the competitive fire...I would hope the latter. Fuck the cup etc., but just going out there to WIN and say you won, I would love to be the main factor. Most of these players (sans Ben Simmons I guess) are pretty competitive and wanna win...hence wanting to win a championship. It's not a good look when the image of the league is getting multi-millionaires to care is hard.
I recall hearing somewhere that there are a lot of players who just show up to do the work and get paid, and that there's a pretty stark divide between the "hoopers" who are competitive and want to play all the time and want to win all the time, and the guys who treat it like a 9-to-5.
Honestly, I believe it. Everyone has different genetic gifts and upbringing. For every player that made it, there are literally thousands who put in just as much, if not more, work and didn't. It's also why you see so many players get drafted or get on the cusp of the bench/rotation and just flame out because they either overvalue their own contribution or never had to build in the work habits to step up beyond their natural gifts. And on the other end you get the Zions and the Ben Simonnses who have all the talent in the world but none of the drive.
I think if you looked at any given NBA roster you'd see as many as half of the players who are there largely just to collect a paycheck. It's not like they half-ass things, but they also maintain a healthy work-life balance/perspective and don't freak out over wins and losses.
Definitely seen the "I dominated at every level until the NBA" type guys (good example for me is Anthony Randolph). Treating it like a 9 to 5 though? That seems weird to me...to get to the highest league for a sport usually requires an insane amount of time and preparation even if you got athleticism and good genetics (I understand there are some anomalies, like say an Embiid who started playing very late comparatively). I'm sure they exist, some people are good at things they don't like for example, but seems weird to treat playing professionally as a 9 to 5 because that seems like a recipe to quickly exit. Heard it many times from former players reflecting after the fact. Maybe I am thinking too literal, it is indeed a job, that is for sure.
Maybe it's a matter of semantics and perspective, too. I've had jobs where the hours were weird and the days were long for particular seasons, including travel, but at the end of the day when I clocked out I was clocked out. It doesn't mean I didn't work hard or that I didn't put in full effort - just that my mental well-being and the rest of my life wasn't tied to the work itself. I can definitely see guys doing that kind of thing. A migrant worker likely puts in more mental and physical effort into their job than the vast majority of people, including NBA players, but that doesn't mean that NBA players as a whole are "lazy", just that they do less on relative and comparative terms.
Hell, Shaq was notorious for "playing into shape" when the season started. I'm sure there are guys all along the talent spectrum who do similarly, and the end result is that they are a rotation guy instead of a Hall-of-Famer.
you can put whatever bullshit label on regular season games you want with the cup or whatever but teams aren't going to take that shit serious until it helps them materially. especially when you're putting nba cup games on the second night of back to backs and shit, it's just comical how inept the nba is.
but instead the nba will just continue to do nothing as the viewers slowly leak out of the league.
I'm starting to think he and Knecht have some sort of "Space Jam Power Storing Basketball" arrangement where they draw from a shared power pool, because he had probably his worst game in the NBA so far.
so fucking done with this league
wow, 40 point drubbing by the Heat. Lakers looking quite cooked.
Because the bigger problem, beyond his 8 game really bad box score/shooting slump, is he has completely given up on defense. Obviously the dude is old AF and it's kind of understandable....but it's very much a thing.
I'm going to just steal this straight from r/nba because it's a pretty shocking stat -- LeBron has the 13th worst +/- in the league this season, and 9 of the people below him are on the Wizards and Pelicans.
Mark Cuban strikes again
Wiggins questionable too. Kuminga, if you ever wanted to take 20+ shots, here's your chance...
As much as Kerr had a right to be mad about the end of the Denver game, they lost it when Wiggins slipped in the paint almost entirely untouched and lost the ball.
I guess "ducking the Rockets" was actually "benching the olds to allow for True Team Basketball". The only issue with the 12 man rotation was that it wasn't deep enough into the bench.
I think, aside from Boston’s dark magic, the top-heavy roster construction approach is getting exposed. Teams are finding much more success rolling 10+ dudes out for 10+ minutes a game and keeping the pedal mashed to the floor on ball movement, transition (make a 3 or run after the team going the other way on a long rebound), and very aggressive close-out defense
We’ll see if teams stick to this in the playoffs where half-court tactics to hunt matchups have been key in recent years