Dub Nation HQ Comments of the Week & Open Thread

A whole week of good observations smashed into a single post

Did The Warriors Ruin The Dynasty By Blowing…

GSW upset victory over the Spurs, the absolute gold standard for drafting late in the draft

• tempprofile (1 ♡):

  The great picks for the Spurs were pre-sortof-dynasty; Tony Parker with the 28th pick and Manu Genobili with the 57th pick. Pair those guys with David Robinson and Tim Duncan and you've got a pretty good team.

• DFiB (1 ♡):

  This is true, But not quite the point of the series. All dynasties are built on getting some picks really, really right.

  The series is about examining the idea that the front office has failed to “restock” to keep the dynasty going. The Spurs dynasty was so long primarily because they had a great team before falling into some bad injury luck and won the lottery to get #1 pick with a true generational talent available.

  Secondarily, they had the vision to take advantage of a market inefficiency in draft evaluation of international players. Then they kept Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili together for 15 years.

  The Warriors seem to have drafted well enough with Looney and Poole especially (though Poole didn’t play during the dynasty), and hopefully we get a cornerstone star and a key player from Wise, Kuminga, and Moody picks that can carry forward through the next 15 years. With a long tail for Steph, and hopefully Klay, they should be a great team going forward unless they blow it up for salary reasons.

'21 Season E1P Review: Steph Curry early…

The vultures circled but had to leave starving, heh heh

• Andre SC (5 ♡):

  Thanks for putting in the work to put out content like this. Watching Steph always seems to make me smile. Sometimes it even brings on some allergies and makes the eyes get a bit watery. Something about that level of combination of excellence and creativity while still being a team player

• mDuo13 (4 ♡):

  That Bulls one just reminds me how relieved I am we didn't bring back Oubre. Start of season KO in particular was an absolute nightmare.

Honorary Warriors For Life? Webber and West…

And yes, you can now vote directly on HWFL status

• Strawman Curry (8 ♡):

  Definitely yes on David West. He, along with Iguodala, was the wisdom of the dynasty.

  Definitely no on Webber. For those of us who are old enough to have been Dubs fans long before that, he was our savior after years of misery in the basketball desert. I literally cried when we got him on draft day. He then proceeded to crush all hope I had for the future. He then returned when his knees were shot, played like 10 minutes, and left.

  I met him once in Oakland. Nice enough guy, but screw that dude. He lives in my mind next door to Spreewell as a shining light at the end of the tunnel that turned out to be the headlight of an oncoming train.

• Run_TMC (8 ♡):

  Hey I don't usually vote in these things because I don't really care about the vote (though I always thoroughly enjoy reading the articles because of the fun -or not so fun - walks down memory lane) but I love, love, love David West. I know he didn't play that long but he's one of those guys I want on my team. period. exclamation point! Put in my vote for him, please.

• jzalvarado (6 ♡):

  This is like a 1 vs 16 matchup tbh with 1 being David West. And yeah let me show my age, i saw Tim Hardaway play in college (grew up in El Paso) and became a diehard fan once hw was drafted by the Warriors so this isnt recent fandom talking here. Andre Iguodala, Sean Livingston, David West all need a statue outsodr Chase for being the pillars in that lockerroom. When i think of CW I think of the Kings everytime. Let Kings Herald enshrine him there.

'21 Season E1P Review: Our Guy Juanito…

Juanito is so smart at the game

• crusty quips (13 ♡):

  I am not generally someone who wears jerseys of players on my favorite teams. Nothing against people who do, I just personally see it as something more for kids than adults. I've got my Dubs hat, shirt, and sweatshirt so I can show my support during games and I usually feel like that's enough.

  However, I bought a JTA jersey for the upcoming season. He's a true son of Oakland and I wanted to support him directly even beyond my support for the team. Keel balling out, Magic Juan. You're a perfect fit for this team and this organization.

• Run_TMC (11 ♡):

  Less OT: I am one of the original JTA stans because I love how he plays Warrior basketball.

  I found the pre-season last year to be very frustrating because he didn't have a very good pre season and I knew they were going to choose Mulder over JTA for that last spot. While I liked Mulder fine, it was evident that JTA really fit the team from his play the previous (non Steph) year and I had been looking forward to seeing him play with the core.

  I can't remember exactly when all the changes from GSOM->LGW->DNHQ happened but I had been pretty new to GSOM so I just kept reading all the sites. It became pretty evident that the best writers (and commenters) had migrated to LGW (so now to here).

  Anyway, my pain about knowing that JTA was perfect for the dubs and they might be blowing it (they didn't, as we know) was assuaged by all the shared Our Guy Juanito love here, so even though I've already seen alot of this video, I just enjoy the JTA repping going on. I am super curious to see how he does this season, assuming he has earned more of Kerr's trust and will get some important minutes,

• mDuo13 (10 ♡):

  I remember my first impression of Juan Toscano-Anderson being, "Wow, among all the random g-league call-ups, this guy alone really *gets* how to play in the big league." Like, yeah, he didn't score many points or even that many other counting stats but he was constantly making smart and impactful plays.

  Then he went and improved to being a 40% 3P shooter and we found out that putting him next to Steph Curry was actually... kind of spectacular?? As demonstrated in some of the excellent E1Ps above. Still laughing at him running circles around Vucevic and then doing air guitar poses while Steph Curry shoots wide-open threes.

  Honestly the only time I think I've ever doubted Juan's decision-making was when he dove over the scorer's table to save a ball (resulting in an open 3!) but missed the ending of the game because he injured his head in the process. Like, yeah, that save was awesome, but we really wanted you for the rest of the game there, Juanito.

• Emmerick (10 ♡):

  Juanito mi amigo , michoacano como yo , he is like the mix of Livingston , Iguodala and a little bit of Rodman but in mexican.

  Keep going amigo 🇲🇽🥳

• Captain Jack (8 ♡):

  How did we manage to snag a hometown built mini Draymond for pretty much free lol

The undying Ben Simmons rumors

reluctantly, I click the Publish button

• crusty quips (10 ♡):

  He's the kind of monster that refuses to work on improving the part of his game year in and year out, even when the team he plays for begs him to do so and offers to provide him with coaching and support to get better (which he repeatedly refuses). Pretty monstrous from a good teammate perspective. You can blame the teammate chemistry at PHI, but this is across multiple coaches and front offices and playing with a teammate in Embiid that has actively made changes to his game to accommodate Ben's deficiencies (by playing further away from the basket and shooting more threes to space the floor better because Ben won't shoot them at all).

  As far as the recency bias go, I disagree with that. If we look at the numbers from each of the three ECF series Simmons has played, which to date have been the most important playoff moments of his career, you can see that this is a trend and not a blip. I don't see why thus somehow changes suddenly if he comes over to GSW.

  Per Game FG% 3P% FT% PTS TRB AST

  Regular Season Career: .560 .147 .597 15.9 8.1 7.7

  2018 ECS: .475 n/a .696 14.4 8.2 6.4

  2019 ECS: .600 n/a .563 11.6 7.3 4.9

  2021 ECS: .600 n/a .333 9.9 6.3 8.6

  What do you see? I see a player that has decreased his scoring in every eastern conference championship series he has played in, has completely refused to work on his free throw shooting since he broke into the league, and has completely given up shooting 3's entirely. Even Draymond, who gets maligned frequently for his 3P shooting woes, is more of a threat to shoot (and make) a 3 in the playoffs vs Ben.

  This team doesn't need a regular season MVP, it needs reliable playoff performers. Simmons ain't that.

• g8tgod (8 ♡):

  Can't see a scenario where Simmons goes to the Ws. It just doesn't add up. The Ws, despite having many attractive pieces for a potential trade, don't have the kind of win-now assets to give up that the Sixers crave. And because Morey seems to have a very high value on Simmons as trade bait, he's unlikely to be enticed by what the Ws would actually give up.

  All of that is before the questions about fit (my personal take is that Simmons /could/ fit but that his mindset makes it unlikely that he /would/).

  It is a tale

  Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

  Signifying nothing.

• Goofus (7 ♡):

  Good interview with Kris Weems. He’s high on Moody, Kuminga and Wiseman, but is seems to be most confident in Poole being ready for a very prominent role this season.

• (Weems’ part starts about 10 minutes in)

Explain One Play: Jonathan Kuminga, Offense…

Two urns stand in Zeus’ palace containing the bag he grants mortals, one holds sick moves, the other holds clunkiness

• Abaddon (5 ♡):

  On topic, great to get a deep dive in a Kuminga game for those of us (probably most :)) who haven't watched him at all except for summer league. Thanks!

• Arash (2 ♡):

  Whooaaaah, I completely disagree that Kuminga’s shot mechanics look “pretty reasonable”.

  Firstly, Kuminga’s form finishes out rather than up (aka the slingshot mechanic) which probably is a result of his lack of power that he generates from his legs (instead emphasizing wrist/forearm use). Secondly, Kuminga shoots the middle of his face (an indication that he might be a left eye dominant shooter) which results in a slight hitch in his shot. That is not even mentioning his absolutely abysmal footwork where there is zero consistency jumping from Left/Right to Right/Left, to Hop. He has no consistent footwork pattern which is anathema to a good jump shot.

• Arash (5 ♡):

  His shot isn't broken, but it definitely requires a crapton of tweaks to fix. I'm no shot doctor either, I just did a crapton of research/training when I was in high school because I desperately wanted to get off the bench in Varsity.

  I was that uber defensive PG who can pass (I watched a lot of Rondo) but who wasn't the best shooter and I worked insanely hard to improve my jumpshot.

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