Idea: fraction of a game penalties to franchises. So, for example, let's say blatant tanking like Dallas did is .25 of a game. Other infractions by the owner and front office such as tampering have values as well. If a team accumulates 1.0 in a season, the team's record is altered to reflect that. Because fining billionaires half a million does absolutely nothing to them.
I like the overall concept but am confused as to how it would work. So Dallas decides to blatantly tank for the final 4 games of the season. The penalty is one game. But is that a win or a loss? Since the Mavs were /trying/ to have a worse record, it seems like taking away a win or adding a loss only rewards them. Maybe they should just take lottery balls away (2-3 per tanked game?). Then Adam Silver could tell Mark Cuban, "You have no balls."
Or, let the team that opposes them the night they sit players choose a future game in the next three years where the tanking team is forced to sit the same players.
If the rosters change, then they can choose anyone to sit to take that player's place. I bet that would cure these teams of sitting 8 or 9 players at a time.
It can't just be in the next season, because a team could still be tanking the following season.
Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry is completing the sale of his Bucks stake to Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam and Haslam Sports Group for a $3.5 billion valuation on Friday.
Assume 100 points is the perfect Warriors center, 0 is the worst possible. Award the following individuals the points you think they were worth within the Warrior system of the Dynasty Era, how much they contributed toward winning. Points are awarded for work done as a Warrior, not overall career. “Center” is loosely defined. Rate as many as you feel like. Justification and argumentation encouraged.
Bogut, Speights, McAdoo, Jordan Bell, Looney, Pachulia, Javale, Ezeli, Varejao, Damian Jones, David West, Boogie Cousins, Willie Cauley-Stein, Omari Spellman, Wiseman, Bjelica (Don’t look at me, he’s listed as C on basketball-reference, )
You should add Ognen Kuzmic to that ... I wonder if he ever recovered from that accident.
Edit: He did recover, though it looks like he never played basketball again.
There was a guy on one of the early Warriors teams that figured out the counter to the defense of the old Dubs Steph/Green action (Steph up high, Green ready to take the pass and distribute). Once the league started guarding Draymond, too, he figured out that one of the other players needed to come up and make himself available for Steph's initial pass out of the double team. He might have been a center (trying to find him on the old rosters).
Edit: Maybe Hilton Armstrong (2013-2014 team)? I don't even remember him.
Damn, forgot him, too! I put him on the 20-point tier with Jones and Spellman … although maybe he should get bonus points for going into hiding for five years, growing out his hair, and coming back into the league under the pseudonym Anthony Lamb?
Boogie gets a 50? I don't remember him doing anything for us. Wasn't he basically injured his whole time he was on the Warriors? I must be forgetting something. I'd say JaMychal Green has done more (based on my feeble recollection) just because of that nice 3-4 week stint he put together before the all-star break.
You could be right. I guess I gave him a 50 based on “theoretical talent level” but in some ways he could be the most negative guy on the list, in that he (1) took over JaVale’s roster spot; (2) represented a shift in team building philosophy from prioritizing fit and character to pure name brand star-f*cking; and (3) necessitated booting Damion Lee from our 2019 playoff roster, which may have low key prevented us from three-peating.
I would put Bogut at 90 and Looney at 80. I was watching some old highlights and Bogut was a real force. Defensive monster, set crushing picks, very crafty passer, excellent lob threat. Got exposed as unable to switch but other than that I think the best C of the era.
I guess it depends on if we’re averaging out their contribution over their Warrior careers or doing peak level. I’d put the peak Loon of the ‘22 playoffs and the ‘22-23 season slightly above peak Bog’z, especially when you factor in availability.
Seriously: very different players in very different roles, but I’m super excited to watch this matchup. Similar sizes and weights (Domas slightly higher head height, Loon way longer reach), both strong as bulls, both the same age (born three months apart), with elite hoops IQs. Can’t remember the last time as a Ws fan I was this intrigued by a *center matchup*…
And, if Sabonis was on the Warriors somehow, I'm not sure how you could beat them. Other than Jokic, he's probably the perfect offensive center for the Dubs (yeah, stop the presses on that one).
I had an idea about doing a nba playoff 2023 bracket challenge. Some friends and I have been doing this for the last few postseasons and it's been a blast. anybody who wants to play can just submit their bracket for the playoffs after the play-in stage and predict how many games the winner will take. It could do a small buy-in or just for fun and bragging rights.
Scoring is simple: 2 points for getting a prediction right in the first round, 4 points for semi-finals, 6 points for conference finals, and 10 points for the championship. Plus if you guess the number of games and the winning team for a specific match-up, you get a bonus multiplier of 1.5 times the points total.
I.E. if you predict that the Suns will beat the Clippers in 7 games and they actually do, you would get 3 points in the first round, 6 points in the second round, 9 points in the third, and so on.
I wanted to break down the Kings historic offensive rating this year, compared to the Warriors, and see where the gap came from. Using Basketball Reference, Sacramento finished scoring 119.4 points per 100 possessions (1st) and Golden State scored 116.1 points per 100 possessions (T8th). [Sidebar: this is higher than I expected from the Warriors].
Breaking down where the points gap comes from; +7.2 pp100 from two, -7.8 pp100 from three, +4.0 pp100 from the free throw line. Sacramento shoots 4.4 more two pointers and makes them at a +2.2% clip, Golden State shoots 5.3 more three pointers and makes them at a +1.5% clip, and the math of 3>2 turns that into a very slim 0.6 pp100 advantage for the Warriors. That slim advantage is overwhelmed by Sacramento's +4 pp100 from the line driven by +4 attempts per 100 and shooting a basically identical percentage.
So... what else is new this year... the Warriors ability to not foul on defense and draw fouls on offense relative to their opponent is likely to be the biggest swing factor in this series.
Do we know where the +4 FTA comes from? Does BR show and-one vs 2pt FTA vs 3 pt FTA vs tech/special FTA?
From the numbers, it seems likely the Kings have around 2 extra possessions that end in 2pt FTA, which means over one extra possession that ends in a scoring opportunity vs turnover.
Reporting undercover from Memphis (family trip to Civil Rights Museum / Graceland). Carefully left all dubmobilia at home, so had to buy hat. In depth analysis: they really like basketball here, but it’s the music that will survive.
I’m in Paris doing the math on what time the game will be and…yikes, 2:30am! Don’t know how our euro friends do it.
On a related, but off-topic note, our two day/two night stay in Munich was great, despite the severest jet lag imaginable (30 hours travel, 12-hour time difference from Hawaii). Here’s a 9:30 video for those that are interested: https://youtu.be/ZJF7lZE9csA
Thanks! I brought one Warriors shirt, but it’s been reeeeally cold here in Germany and France, especially for a couple climatized Hawaii residents, so it will b3 buried under at least two layers 😁
I know what you mean. When I first moved back to the bay from Kauai i spent my all my time for a while bundled in the biggest puffiest jacket I could find (and worse, i was still a skinny teen . Nowadays I got a little - ok a lot - more insulation ;p). Still, I feel like a true warriors fan would send us a picture in just the t-shirt (on top. I mean, wear pants) with one of those big München beer steins - filled, of course - in each hand. I don't know why. It's very juvenile. (do it. do it. do it. do it. ... ;p)
Nice! The town of my birth. Those three churches with all their ornateness and gold, my one visit the Munich as an adult, seemed to each have been on a quest to each outdo the other. But after a while, all I could think of was all that gold came to Europe at a tremendous cost to the people of the new world. But beautiful, if you like the look of gold.
Great video! And I even learned something: I had no idea that there is an elevator up to the tower of City Hall! I could have gone up there instead of huffing and puffing up the stairs of the tower on the other side of Marienplatz, the Alter Peter. Enjoy the rest of your trip!
Well, this nice reprieve between the regular season and the playoffs proper seems like a good time to revisit my predictions from before the season started and see how everything went wrong. I only predicted the Western Conference because I don't pretend to understand what's going on out east, so here.
Nuggets (My prediction: 3→Actual: 1). The Nuggets were every bit as good I expected them to be and then some, with the league's easiest schedule and best home-court advantage on their side. Their final placement is partly about the teams I had above them underperforming and partly about them having fewer hiccups than expected (Jokic 69 games, Murray 65, MPJ 62 ain't bad in terms of availability).
Grizzlies (4→2). Credit where it's due, they played better as a team than I anticipated even despite major setbacks like Morant's off-court issues and Steven Adams missing half the season with a knee injury.
Kings (11→3). Hot damn, good work, Mike Brown. I questioned their roster choices at the start of the season, but they found a way to make their roster choices work out and amped up Sac's offense to the point where the as-expected lackluster defense (25th overall!) was not a showstopper. I expected them to come up short in an "absolutely stacked Western Conference" but they went pedal to the metal and made it over the top of the pack instead, with a little help from unusually good health.
Suns (6→4). I was actually almost more wrong here, because I was expecting the grumbling with Ayton and distractions of ownership to erode the team entirely. Between Dec.5 and Jan. 16 when they went 5-12 including a lot of blowout, it looked like that might come true, but instead they endured and really went all-in with the Kevin Durant trade at the deadline. With a slightly top-heavier team healthy going into the postseason, we'll have to see how things shake out, but it's looking pretty hot in Phoenix.
Clippers (2→5). Whaddaya know, the Clips underperformed again. They've been killer when PG and Kawhi are both in the lineup, which hasn't happened often enough for LAC and still won't be the case for the start of the postseason. But the problems go deeper here, and I'd want to examine the coaching and team philosophy to figure out why this team always seems to be less than the sum of its parts.
Warriors (1→6). I knew this prediction was going out on a limb: I said, "Last year I accurately predicted the Dubs at #3, so it's weird to rank them higher when I feel like the team is, currently, slightly worse." But I thought that the young guys (Poole, Kuminga, Moody, maybe even Wiseman) would pop off and I wasn't expecting Wiggins to play only 37 games, DDV took longer than expected to fit and JMG ended up being a lot worse than expected. The home/road splits were as mystifying as the free-throw disparity, and lots of guys (Klay & Poole in particular) started the season hilariously cold. But on the other hand, the team course-corrected pretty well and despite being 6th seed I don't think many opponents are looking forward to facing the champs in the post-season.
Lakers (9→7). I was right that they'd end up in the play-in tournament but I am really shocked at how much their trade-deadline overhaul improved the team. GM Pelinka deserves almost as much credit for working that miracle with a box of scraps as he does for putting them in the predicament to begin with. Aside from AD finally getting healthy, the most underrated contributor to their resurgence has to be acquiring Vanderbilt from Utah for a distant-future pick and some Minnesota nonsense (lol).
T-Wolves (7→8). I pretty much hit the nail on the head here: "Gobert is iconic and Anthony Edwards is electric, but…this will be Gobert's worst defensive season [per DBPM, this was true] because the rest of the slackers on the team won't be on the same page. Even then, this team has enough proven guys to win some regular season games before flaming out in the playoffs or even the play-in." With DLo shipped to LA and the Gobert punch, the flaming-out-in-progress is even more dramatic than expected.
Pelicans (10→9). I questioned if Zion would play 50+ games. Turns out: only 29. With Ingram also only on court for 45, their hot start didn't hold up and left them looking decidedly mediocre as the postseason rolls around. Still, they ended up 1 spot above where I expected due to a couple other more dramatic bomb-outs...
Thunder (15→10). I lamented, "by rights, this team should have the ability to rank above the absolute bottom by now," and it turns out management finally gave Shai G-A and crew enough leeway to do just that. Giddey has had a hell of a sophomore campaign, and Jalen Williams is a serious ROY candidate, and they have Chet and Poku getting healthy again. In short, the process is finally working.
Mavericks (5→11). Welp. They had a winning record when they decided to trade Dinwiddie & Finney-Smith for Irving and Morris. They went 9-16 after that, missing the postseason altogether and not at all dissuading me from being "unconvinced [Luka]'s quite the winner that he's made out to be" without a more dependable co-star. Partly, they were a victim of the West being uber-packed, but it's still baffling that last year's WCF opponent dropped this far.
Jazz (14→12). Utah started off hotter than expected, and rookie Walker Kessler is a big part of that, stepping into Rudy Gobert's oversized shoes and doing an admirable job. Still, they finished blowing it up and ended up in the Wemby sweepstakes, as promised.
Trail Blazers (8→13). Their roster construction made some sense, but the defensive schemes didn't, and despite getting 52, 58, and 62 games from Nurkic, Lillard, and Simons respectively they didn't actually score in the top half of the league, either. They spent the time after the all-star break getting regularly whomped and if I were a Portland loyalist I'd be calling for Chauncey Billups to be replaced ASAP.
Rockets (13→14). Before the season, I was thinking Houston had a chance to exit the panzer battle sooner than OKC with a handful of intriguing but incomplete young players like Jalen Green, Jabari Smith Jr., and Alperen Sengun. As of right now, it looks like they still have quite a ways to go—notably, the dropoff from Portland at 33 wins to Houston/San Antonio at 22 each is as big as the gulf between LAC/GSW (5th/6th) and Portland (13th).
Spurs (12→15). As expected, the Spurs ended in the "deep ocean aquarium" part of the conference, but even Pop's magic could get them out of dead last. Sure, they traded away basically every positive player but even if you accept that they're retooling for the future, I don't think the Spurs faithful will be happy with how things ended up this season.
Biggest misses: Kings, Mavs
Overall, the season had plenty of surprises—maybe more than last season—but I don't feel that I made any systematic or foolish misses. One lesson is that the Blazers and especially the Kings, and perhaps to a lesser extent the Mavericks, are a good reminder that coaching makes a big difference in a team's results…but as a counterpoint, the Spurs are a reminder that the roster itself is still more important, so I'd do well not to over-index on coaching.
I don't think its fair to say that the Clippers are "less than the sum of its parts". Kawhi not only took some time to get back into basketball rhythm coming back from injury, he also missed thirty games this year. Paul George missed 26 games this year. Norman Powell missed 22 games this year. Thats three of their top players missing a considerable portion of the year . . . and they still won 44 games.
Great analysis! Very fun to look back and see where the paths ended up for each team. I appreciated your description of the tankfest as "panzer battle" too
Out of curiosity, what's your reasoning behind this? I've heard and read both in different contexts, so is it more a style thing since the US was colonized east to west?
This gave me a teary with a lump in my throat feeling from beginning to end. No ego but yet a strong, steady presence off and on the court. Marcus Thompson excels in these kinds of write-ups. We are so very lucky to have Looney.
Huh, with that high of a ranking I would’ve expected us to do better than 15-9 (0.625) since the ASB. Like, 18-6 or 19-5 good (which would’ve been enough to catch the Kings).
In the West. Celtics and Cavs squeak in in the East. But it is interesting to note that the Kings were #1 offense with a bullet regardless of split. Get stops and you win the series.
Idea: fraction of a game penalties to franchises. So, for example, let's say blatant tanking like Dallas did is .25 of a game. Other infractions by the owner and front office such as tampering have values as well. If a team accumulates 1.0 in a season, the team's record is altered to reflect that. Because fining billionaires half a million does absolutely nothing to them.
I like the overall concept but am confused as to how it would work. So Dallas decides to blatantly tank for the final 4 games of the season. The penalty is one game. But is that a win or a loss? Since the Mavs were /trying/ to have a worse record, it seems like taking away a win or adding a loss only rewards them. Maybe they should just take lottery balls away (2-3 per tanked game?). Then Adam Silver could tell Mark Cuban, "You have no balls."
Or, let the team that opposes them the night they sit players choose a future game in the next three years where the tanking team is forced to sit the same players.
If the rosters change, then they can choose anyone to sit to take that player's place. I bet that would cure these teams of sitting 8 or 9 players at a time.
It can't just be in the next season, because a team could still be tanking the following season.
Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry is completing the sale of his Bucks stake to Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam and Haslam Sports Group for a $3.5 billion valuation on Friday.
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1646878618503778306
I'm sorry, Bucks fans.
Assume 100 points is the perfect Warriors center, 0 is the worst possible. Award the following individuals the points you think they were worth within the Warrior system of the Dynasty Era, how much they contributed toward winning. Points are awarded for work done as a Warrior, not overall career. “Center” is loosely defined. Rate as many as you feel like. Justification and argumentation encouraged.
Bogut, Speights, McAdoo, Jordan Bell, Looney, Pachulia, Javale, Ezeli, Varejao, Damian Jones, David West, Boogie Cousins, Willie Cauley-Stein, Omari Spellman, Wiseman, Bjelica (Don’t look at me, he’s listed as C on basketball-reference, )
No love for Dragan Bender or Alen Smailagic? Cornerstones of the end of the bench?
None
Haha, thanks, I needed a “zero tier” for my list!
You should add Ognen Kuzmic to that ... I wonder if he ever recovered from that accident.
Edit: He did recover, though it looks like he never played basketball again.
There was a guy on one of the early Warriors teams that figured out the counter to the defense of the old Dubs Steph/Green action (Steph up high, Green ready to take the pass and distribute). Once the league started guarding Draymond, too, he figured out that one of the other players needed to come up and make himself available for Steph's initial pass out of the double team. He might have been a center (trying to find him on the old rosters).
Edit: Maybe Hilton Armstrong (2013-2014 team)? I don't even remember him.
JM McAdoo? More of a PF, though.
Damn, forgot him, too! I put him on the 20-point tier with Jones and Spellman … although maybe he should get bonus points for going into hiding for five years, growing out his hair, and coming back into the league under the pseudonym Anthony Lamb?
Damn, how could I forget the Cosmic Onion???
Ha, fun game. I’ll go…
100 Dray, Loon
90 Bogut
80 DWest, Zaza
70 JaVale, Ezeli
60 Speights, Bjelica, DLee
50 Boogie, JMyke, Quese
40 Bell
30 Varejão
20 McAdoo, Jones, Spellman
10 Wiseman, WCS
0 Smailagic, Bender, Kuzmic (thanks TuringTest!)
Poor McAdoo, can't even make the list. Can I put him in at 30? It's hard to believe he's any worse than Varejao. it's hard to believe anyone is
Boogie gets a 50? I don't remember him doing anything for us. Wasn't he basically injured his whole time he was on the Warriors? I must be forgetting something. I'd say JaMychal Green has done more (based on my feeble recollection) just because of that nice 3-4 week stint he put together before the all-star break.
You could be right. I guess I gave him a 50 based on “theoretical talent level” but in some ways he could be the most negative guy on the list, in that he (1) took over JaVale’s roster spot; (2) represented a shift in team building philosophy from prioritizing fit and character to pure name brand star-f*cking; and (3) necessitated booting Damion Lee from our 2019 playoff roster, which may have low key prevented us from three-peating.
So ….. Boogie -100?
I'll buy that ... did you see that he signed with a team in Puerto Rico to try to rebuild his value and to catch on in the NBA again?
Boogie at -100 seems generous
I would put Bogut at 90 and Looney at 80. I was watching some old highlights and Bogut was a real force. Defensive monster, set crushing picks, very crafty passer, excellent lob threat. Got exposed as unable to switch but other than that I think the best C of the era.
I guess it depends on if we’re averaging out their contribution over their Warrior careers or doing peak level. I’d put the peak Loon of the ‘22 playoffs and the ‘22-23 season slightly above peak Bog’z, especially when you factor in availability.
I still remember that Smailagic dunk attempt. First time I ever thought a rebound might put a hole in the ceiling of the arena.
This is pretty close to me. I would move Javale, Chriss and Spellman up, Festus, JMG, and Verajao down one tier each.
DLEE??? Come on Sleepy. Bend it don't break it.
ohhhhhhh. I thought you meant Damion. Carry on
Haha. Also added Quese and WCS in what I felt were their appropriate tiers.
I think peak D Jones might be a 40 or 50
Rebounds per 36:
NBA Rebounding Leader Sabonis: 12.8
LoonGod 14.0
====
Assist-to-Turnover Ratio:
Elite Big-Man Passer Sabonis: 2.5 to 1
LoonGod 4.6 to 1
Seriously: very different players in very different roles, but I’m super excited to watch this matchup. Similar sizes and weights (Domas slightly higher head height, Loon way longer reach), both strong as bulls, both the same age (born three months apart), with elite hoops IQs. Can’t remember the last time as a Ws fan I was this intrigued by a *center matchup*…
And, if Sabonis was on the Warriors somehow, I'm not sure how you could beat them. Other than Jokic, he's probably the perfect offensive center for the Dubs (yeah, stop the presses on that one).
I had an idea about doing a nba playoff 2023 bracket challenge. Some friends and I have been doing this for the last few postseasons and it's been a blast. anybody who wants to play can just submit their bracket for the playoffs after the play-in stage and predict how many games the winner will take. It could do a small buy-in or just for fun and bragging rights.
Scoring is simple: 2 points for getting a prediction right in the first round, 4 points for semi-finals, 6 points for conference finals, and 10 points for the championship. Plus if you guess the number of games and the winning team for a specific match-up, you get a bonus multiplier of 1.5 times the points total.
I.E. if you predict that the Suns will beat the Clippers in 7 games and they actually do, you would get 3 points in the first round, 6 points in the second round, 9 points in the third, and so on.
Nobody else has done this yet, but I'm intrigued. Here's my prediction:
Bucks over Chicago/Miami in 5
Celtics over Atlanta in 4
Sixers over Nets in 5
Cavs over Knicks in 6
Nuggets over Min/OKC in 5
Memphis over LAL in 6
GSW over SAC in 5
PHX over LAC in 6
MIL over CLE in 6
BOS over PHI in 5
PHX over DEN in 5
GSW over MEM in 6
BOS over MIL in 7
GSW over PHX in 7
BOS over GSW in 6
Let's run it back. Boston is still the most talented team in my book. And MEM/PHX/BOS is brutal. I could see any of the three taking out our heroes.
We could also just post them under this comment, restack it, and come back to it each end of round.
I wanted to break down the Kings historic offensive rating this year, compared to the Warriors, and see where the gap came from. Using Basketball Reference, Sacramento finished scoring 119.4 points per 100 possessions (1st) and Golden State scored 116.1 points per 100 possessions (T8th). [Sidebar: this is higher than I expected from the Warriors].
Breaking down where the points gap comes from; +7.2 pp100 from two, -7.8 pp100 from three, +4.0 pp100 from the free throw line. Sacramento shoots 4.4 more two pointers and makes them at a +2.2% clip, Golden State shoots 5.3 more three pointers and makes them at a +1.5% clip, and the math of 3>2 turns that into a very slim 0.6 pp100 advantage for the Warriors. That slim advantage is overwhelmed by Sacramento's +4 pp100 from the line driven by +4 attempts per 100 and shooting a basically identical percentage.
So... what else is new this year... the Warriors ability to not foul on defense and draw fouls on offense relative to their opponent is likely to be the biggest swing factor in this series.
Obviously, this is only looking at offense...
Do we know where the +4 FTA comes from? Does BR show and-one vs 2pt FTA vs 3 pt FTA vs tech/special FTA?
From the numbers, it seems likely the Kings have around 2 extra possessions that end in 2pt FTA, which means over one extra possession that ends in a scoring opportunity vs turnover.
I don't believe so. NBA.com might, and that would be an interesting place to look next.
[EDIT] Looked, and can't find that data on NBA.com.
Reporting undercover from Memphis (family trip to Civil Rights Museum / Graceland). Carefully left all dubmobilia at home, so had to buy hat. In depth analysis: they really like basketball here, but it’s the music that will survive.
Nice. No Justins, No Peace!
Points / Rebs / Assists / Steals / Blocks (per 36mins/game)
Player A: 12.9 / 9.6 / 2.6 / 1.9 / 1.3
Player B: 12.9 / 6.2 / 4.8 / 1.8 / 0.2
Who do you think these two players are from the Dubs?
GP II and Donte
TS%
Player A: .701
Player B: .593
Exactamondo! Pretty sure we got Donte as a GPII replacement so it's crazy we've now got them both at our arsenal.
Bonus 3pt% stats: GPII 44.4% Donte 39.7%
I’m in Paris doing the math on what time the game will be and…yikes, 2:30am! Don’t know how our euro friends do it.
On a related, but off-topic note, our two day/two night stay in Munich was great, despite the severest jet lag imaginable (30 hours travel, 12-hour time difference from Hawaii). Here’s a 9:30 video for those that are interested: https://youtu.be/ZJF7lZE9csA
Always enjoy your videos. (A little disappointed I didn't see any warriors gear as a shout out to us here at DNHQ :P)
Thanks! I brought one Warriors shirt, but it’s been reeeeally cold here in Germany and France, especially for a couple climatized Hawaii residents, so it will b3 buried under at least two layers 😁
I know what you mean. When I first moved back to the bay from Kauai i spent my all my time for a while bundled in the biggest puffiest jacket I could find (and worse, i was still a skinny teen . Nowadays I got a little - ok a lot - more insulation ;p). Still, I feel like a true warriors fan would send us a picture in just the t-shirt (on top. I mean, wear pants) with one of those big München beer steins - filled, of course - in each hand. I don't know why. It's very juvenile. (do it. do it. do it. do it. ... ;p)
Nice! The town of my birth. Those three churches with all their ornateness and gold, my one visit the Munich as an adult, seemed to each have been on a quest to each outdo the other. But after a while, all I could think of was all that gold came to Europe at a tremendous cost to the people of the new world. But beautiful, if you like the look of gold.
Agreed! We’re not religious, and visit churches simply for the history, architecture and curiosity.
If you’re in Paris, you’re doing the maths
Great video! And I even learned something: I had no idea that there is an elevator up to the tower of City Hall! I could have gone up there instead of huffing and puffing up the stairs of the tower on the other side of Marienplatz, the Alter Peter. Enjoy the rest of your trip!
Thanks for all the tips!
Math schmath. You watch the game when it's on and let the freedom fries fall where they may.
If McDonalds is open, I’ll get a Royale with cheese
Or a Le Big Mac.
Get a beer with that too
Any one have a forward time machine on hand? I wouldn't mind skipping a work day for game day.
I wonder if I could give the singer $50 tomorrow to sing 'O Canada' rather than 'The Star Spangled Banner'.
Well, this nice reprieve between the regular season and the playoffs proper seems like a good time to revisit my predictions from before the season started and see how everything went wrong. I only predicted the Western Conference because I don't pretend to understand what's going on out east, so here.
Nuggets (My prediction: 3→Actual: 1). The Nuggets were every bit as good I expected them to be and then some, with the league's easiest schedule and best home-court advantage on their side. Their final placement is partly about the teams I had above them underperforming and partly about them having fewer hiccups than expected (Jokic 69 games, Murray 65, MPJ 62 ain't bad in terms of availability).
Grizzlies (4→2). Credit where it's due, they played better as a team than I anticipated even despite major setbacks like Morant's off-court issues and Steven Adams missing half the season with a knee injury.
Kings (11→3). Hot damn, good work, Mike Brown. I questioned their roster choices at the start of the season, but they found a way to make their roster choices work out and amped up Sac's offense to the point where the as-expected lackluster defense (25th overall!) was not a showstopper. I expected them to come up short in an "absolutely stacked Western Conference" but they went pedal to the metal and made it over the top of the pack instead, with a little help from unusually good health.
Suns (6→4). I was actually almost more wrong here, because I was expecting the grumbling with Ayton and distractions of ownership to erode the team entirely. Between Dec.5 and Jan. 16 when they went 5-12 including a lot of blowout, it looked like that might come true, but instead they endured and really went all-in with the Kevin Durant trade at the deadline. With a slightly top-heavier team healthy going into the postseason, we'll have to see how things shake out, but it's looking pretty hot in Phoenix.
Clippers (2→5). Whaddaya know, the Clips underperformed again. They've been killer when PG and Kawhi are both in the lineup, which hasn't happened often enough for LAC and still won't be the case for the start of the postseason. But the problems go deeper here, and I'd want to examine the coaching and team philosophy to figure out why this team always seems to be less than the sum of its parts.
Warriors (1→6). I knew this prediction was going out on a limb: I said, "Last year I accurately predicted the Dubs at #3, so it's weird to rank them higher when I feel like the team is, currently, slightly worse." But I thought that the young guys (Poole, Kuminga, Moody, maybe even Wiseman) would pop off and I wasn't expecting Wiggins to play only 37 games, DDV took longer than expected to fit and JMG ended up being a lot worse than expected. The home/road splits were as mystifying as the free-throw disparity, and lots of guys (Klay & Poole in particular) started the season hilariously cold. But on the other hand, the team course-corrected pretty well and despite being 6th seed I don't think many opponents are looking forward to facing the champs in the post-season.
Lakers (9→7). I was right that they'd end up in the play-in tournament but I am really shocked at how much their trade-deadline overhaul improved the team. GM Pelinka deserves almost as much credit for working that miracle with a box of scraps as he does for putting them in the predicament to begin with. Aside from AD finally getting healthy, the most underrated contributor to their resurgence has to be acquiring Vanderbilt from Utah for a distant-future pick and some Minnesota nonsense (lol).
T-Wolves (7→8). I pretty much hit the nail on the head here: "Gobert is iconic and Anthony Edwards is electric, but…this will be Gobert's worst defensive season [per DBPM, this was true] because the rest of the slackers on the team won't be on the same page. Even then, this team has enough proven guys to win some regular season games before flaming out in the playoffs or even the play-in." With DLo shipped to LA and the Gobert punch, the flaming-out-in-progress is even more dramatic than expected.
Pelicans (10→9). I questioned if Zion would play 50+ games. Turns out: only 29. With Ingram also only on court for 45, their hot start didn't hold up and left them looking decidedly mediocre as the postseason rolls around. Still, they ended up 1 spot above where I expected due to a couple other more dramatic bomb-outs...
Thunder (15→10). I lamented, "by rights, this team should have the ability to rank above the absolute bottom by now," and it turns out management finally gave Shai G-A and crew enough leeway to do just that. Giddey has had a hell of a sophomore campaign, and Jalen Williams is a serious ROY candidate, and they have Chet and Poku getting healthy again. In short, the process is finally working.
Mavericks (5→11). Welp. They had a winning record when they decided to trade Dinwiddie & Finney-Smith for Irving and Morris. They went 9-16 after that, missing the postseason altogether and not at all dissuading me from being "unconvinced [Luka]'s quite the winner that he's made out to be" without a more dependable co-star. Partly, they were a victim of the West being uber-packed, but it's still baffling that last year's WCF opponent dropped this far.
Jazz (14→12). Utah started off hotter than expected, and rookie Walker Kessler is a big part of that, stepping into Rudy Gobert's oversized shoes and doing an admirable job. Still, they finished blowing it up and ended up in the Wemby sweepstakes, as promised.
Trail Blazers (8→13). Their roster construction made some sense, but the defensive schemes didn't, and despite getting 52, 58, and 62 games from Nurkic, Lillard, and Simons respectively they didn't actually score in the top half of the league, either. They spent the time after the all-star break getting regularly whomped and if I were a Portland loyalist I'd be calling for Chauncey Billups to be replaced ASAP.
Rockets (13→14). Before the season, I was thinking Houston had a chance to exit the panzer battle sooner than OKC with a handful of intriguing but incomplete young players like Jalen Green, Jabari Smith Jr., and Alperen Sengun. As of right now, it looks like they still have quite a ways to go—notably, the dropoff from Portland at 33 wins to Houston/San Antonio at 22 each is as big as the gulf between LAC/GSW (5th/6th) and Portland (13th).
Spurs (12→15). As expected, the Spurs ended in the "deep ocean aquarium" part of the conference, but even Pop's magic could get them out of dead last. Sure, they traded away basically every positive player but even if you accept that they're retooling for the future, I don't think the Spurs faithful will be happy with how things ended up this season.
Biggest misses: Kings, Mavs
Overall, the season had plenty of surprises—maybe more than last season—but I don't feel that I made any systematic or foolish misses. One lesson is that the Blazers and especially the Kings, and perhaps to a lesser extent the Mavericks, are a good reminder that coaching makes a big difference in a team's results…but as a counterpoint, the Spurs are a reminder that the roster itself is still more important, so I'd do well not to over-index on coaching.
I don't think its fair to say that the Clippers are "less than the sum of its parts". Kawhi not only took some time to get back into basketball rhythm coming back from injury, he also missed thirty games this year. Paul George missed 26 games this year. Norman Powell missed 22 games this year. Thats three of their top players missing a considerable portion of the year . . . and they still won 44 games.
Great analysis! Very fun to look back and see where the paths ended up for each team. I appreciated your description of the tankfest as "panzer battle" too
Great predictions and summary. Very honest and fair. And not a bad year when Sacto over-performs and Mavs bomb.
One important correction, and I refuse to compromise on this. It’s “back East.” Never “out East,” always “back East.”
Also great retrospective!
Back East is everything east of the Cascades/Sierra Nevada.
"out west" and "back east". I don't make the rules, I just enforce them.
Out of curiosity, what's your reasoning behind this? I've heard and read both in different contexts, so is it more a style thing since the US was colonized east to west?
Honest answer is that it just feels right, but my rationalizations are:
1. Direction of colonization like you said
2. Probably connected to this, the East coast is culturally more conservative/backwards (as a gross generalization).
For context, I was born in Berkeley but spent a lot of time back East.
Impressive work
Nice feature story about Loon in TABA if you're paying for that: https://theathletic.com/4400314/2023/04/13/kevon-looney-warriors-playoffs?source=user-shared-article
Great article. For those who can't afford to pay:
https://pastebin.com/YEUY7TtM
(will get auto deleted in a week)
Thank you for sharing. I literally read it twice. What a gem Looney is!!!
I remember a similar kind of write up about GP II before last year playoff. Get me very emotional everytime.
This gave me a teary with a lump in my throat feeling from beginning to end. No ego but yet a strong, steady presence off and on the court. Marcus Thompson excels in these kinds of write-ups. We are so very lucky to have Looney.
Must be nice to have Andrew Wiggins to come off your bench... oh wait. It is nice. Nice.
Canadians make the best benches.
Offensive and defensive efficiency for playoff and play-in teams in the West post-ASB:
Nuggets: #17 offense, #15 defense
Grizzlies: #11 offense, #11 defense
Kings: #1 offense, #23 defense
Suns: #13 offense, #9 defense
Clippers: #7 offense, #20 defense
Warriors: #6 offense, #7 defense
Lakers: #15 offense, #4 defense
Timberwolves: #23 offense, #12 defense
Thunder: #20 offense, #16 defense
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/nba-team-best-offensive-rating-since-all-star-break
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/nba-team-best-defensive-rating-since-all-star-break
Huh, with that high of a ranking I would’ve expected us to do better than 15-9 (0.625) since the ASB. Like, 18-6 or 19-5 good (which would’ve been enough to catch the Kings).
I expected the Thunder to have a higher rated offense than #20.
Great to see the Dubs with top 10 in both!!
This is as I suspected. Dubs the only team with top 10 in both.
In the West. Celtics and Cavs squeak in in the East. But it is interesting to note that the Kings were #1 offense with a bullet regardless of split. Get stops and you win the series.
This is telling. When you add Wiggins to the mix, hoo boy…
I’m so excited to see GPII, Wiggs, DDV & Dray in the same line up
Add Curry and you get: The LockDownTown Lineup
Defensively, better yet, add Loon or JK.
Offensive and defensive efficiency for playoff and play-in teams in the East post-ASB:
Bucks: #5 offense, #14 defense
Celtics: #9 offense, #1 defense
76ers: #3 offense, #17 defense
Cavaliers: #10 offense, #8 defense
Knicks: #4 offense, #18 defense
Nets: #24 offense, #13 defense
Hawks: #2 offense, #27 defense
Heat: #14 offense, #24 defense
Bulls: #16 offense, #2 defense
Hmm… both Celtics and Cavs with top10 in both.