> Thompson attempted 5.9 shots per game after two or more dribbles in his 32 regular-season games. He’s reduced that to 1.8 in four playoff games.
> More than 70 percent of Thompson’s playoff shot attempts have come within two seconds of touching the basketball. That was down at 63.2 percent in the regular season.
> Nearly 25 percent of Thompson’s makes in the regular season were unassisted. In the playoffs, only 13 percent of his makes have been unassisted.
> If you cut up Thompson’s offensive pie, only 36.8 percent of his regular-season attempts were catch-and-shoot 3s, his most dangerous tool. In the playoffs, he’s upped that to 49.8 percent. He’s taking 8.5 of them per game against Denver.
And I'm sorry, but the difference now is proper role and improved conditioning, not Klay deciding not to be a selfish egomaniac who is jealous of Poole's success. Always gotta be careful with the psychoanalysis stuff when physical explanations are available. Regardless, his current level of play is inspiring given his last few years.
This is great stuff TY! How much upside of the injury tradeoff do we think he will benefit by? (ie less wear and tear of 2 (prime 2 way) seasons potentially elongating his career?)
Hey everyone, I haven’t been following basketball since the experts made their pre-season predictions. Are will still headed to an inevitable Nets-Lakers finals?
Three hours later still laughing at that dude (or gal) that got banished with a swiftness
Also I’ve been at this last job for six plus years (15 years total with fed govt) and thoroughly enjoy what I do but I’m 42 and I’ve been wanting a midlife career change since I was 40 but held on because I was working from home full time. Now that I have been recalled back to the office I need some suggestions into what I can look into.
A). Do not recommend nursing or any hospital based position. My wife is an RN and she looks so miserable everytime she gets off work or heads to work
B). I have a B.A in Psychology but kinda steered away when i volunteered at the mental health division at a Veterans Hospital
C). My dream was to be a truck driver but I can’t drive anywhere without my anxiety going through the roof
D). I was also working on a math degree at the same time as my Psychology degree but had to move to Psych because my VA benefits we’re running out but was thinking of finishing a math degree and apply for an alternative crede tial teaching program for Math and teach it at HS level. Any teachers?
*EDIT - do not mean to sound like I’m denigrating a nursing position. Saw the hell my wife went through in college and see the stress now especially when she hits those CovID waves in the ICU. Jobs like that too far above me
If you don't mind doing a little bit more schooling (but wouldn't necessarily need to), with your psych degree it would be a good point to go into organizational psychology. Psychology is certainly a field much broader than just working in the medical field.
Organizational psychology is a fascinating (and growing) field. I don't know all the ins and outs of it, but might be worth looking into. The pay doesn't suck either.
And since education interests it leaves open the door to do child psychology (private or public practice). I wonder if there is a way to meld /use your interest in math, psychology and travel… that sounds fun
So it depends what state you live in whether it would be worth your while to teach. Cali and NY have decent wages and benefits (good unions). Math is actually a great subject - districts are always looking for math/science teachers. If you’re able to teach the higher math courses (Trig, Calculus, etc.) you’ll have fairly focused, motivated students.
When I went through a major career change, I asked myself: what do you really like to do? What really interests you? And……can you make a living doing it. Then I talked to people who were actually doing it. Then I kept my first job, but took a couple of courses in the new subject to see if I was still interested.
Former teacher. Don’t do it unless you like bringing home a barely minimum wage. Can make a meaningful difference in some kids lives but talk about overworked, underpaid and under appreciated
You should use your Psych career to figure out why you want to be a trucker, why you derive joy in other people's misfortune, and why you're having a mid-life crisis!
Not a mid life crisis lol I just want to do something that is more ‘technical’. Although my job pays well you don’t need a degree for it and I’ve been doing a variation of the same job for the last two years. Basically admin for the federal govt
I just want to second a lot of this excellent advice! I happen to work in technical writing and I can say technical writing is definitely a much-needed, often underlooked role, though you should only take it on if you enjoy getting your hands dirty with technical details of things.
Meanwhile, my partner is an occupational therapist, and my main takeaway is that the health field in the US is horribly broken: for-profit healthcare forces you into heartless choices between working off-the-clock or failing people in need. The vast majority of OT jobs are in either schools or nursing homes where you'll be overworked and underpaid; it's no coincidence that these types of jobs are chronically in-demand, because people get burnt out.
But yeah, IT with some cybersecurity knowledge seems like a promising route; there's also plenty of demand for people who know how to make simple websites (even if it's just helping people put up a Wix or SquareSite with a shop for their small business). Or, with a background in both math and psychology, I would say you should look into data scientist, data analystic, user testing, and UI/UX fields. There's a lot of demand for people who can design tests, analyze data, etc.
For me, it was contributing to open-source software. Almost every project needs documentation help, and that's something you can add to your resume & portfolio. It's nice because it's all out in the public so you don't need to get special permission to share your work or anything.
Might I suggest joining https://www.writethedocs.org/slack/ and checking it out? Lots of good people who might be able to lend a hand. (Also a jobs board.)
I appreciate the offer. I know I wish we could DM on here cause I was trying to figure out a creative way to get Abbadon my phone number to meet up in St Louis for a playoff game at a bar or restaurant BUT kinda hard to do that.
Maybe set up a new twitter account (or some such, facebook, etc) expressly for communication purposes. Post your Twitter handle here. Have Abbadon or whoever you want to communicate with create a similar account and likewise post the handle here. Then one party can send a twitter DM to the other and you can verify based on the sender's handle whether the DM is authentic, before exchanging personal info.
Good one. Join same Nextdoor group, if geographically feasible, then PM via Nextdoor. Will have to reveal names, though. But would have to reveal names anyway, if meeting.
It's not "easy" but one sure-fire way to communicate secret information via a public forum like this is through a public-key cryptography system like ECIES. Sadly I haven't found anything that actually makes this simple enough for ordinary people to use, but the process would be something like:
1. Generate a key pair (public key / private key).
2. Share the public key here
3. Have the other person use your public key to encrypt a message to you and post it
4. Use your private key to decrypt the message. No one else can read the message because they don't have your private key.
5. Use the contents of the message to establish an easier way of communicating back and forth
It's a lot harder if you don't have prior access to each other to establish some rules or something! If you have to explain publicly how it works, someone else who cared could follow along too.
Extremely! I’ll take a look at just that. I also speak Spanish fluently and was thinking of potentially trying to get into a certification program to become a court interpreter BUT I find that folks coming from other countries and learning English as their second language have a much easier time making that a career. English while my second language, has always been my dominant language
Jz - im a middle school teacher. Though i do agree with “overworked underpayed”, there is high demand for math and science teachers, so you would have a lot more choice of what school. So much depends on calleagues/admin and school culture. So: if you like being around kids and find a school you like it could be worth it. You do in theory get summer off (unpayed) and its important to be able to really take that time off (so many teachers have to get a second job and or work full time to make ends meet, and they burn out). I “stsrted” my
Teaching cAreer later than most (when i was 30), typically to retire with decent benefits you have to work 28 years. I do know people who have become teachers at 50, and love it. But as somemothers mentioned: a lot of variables to consider. But I say: defiently do something that you like to do, so, if youre not certain you enjoy being around young people? That gives you a pretty resounding “no” to teaching. You do like being around kids? Then maybe it is (after considering factors like pay etc). Lastly, and then ill shut up. I found tesching to satisfy my love of learning: from psychology to biology, to art, math, literature, history, economics. Everythings connected, and aside from teaching what I love about the profession is I get to learn and be creative. Okay,thanks for the real life post. Im always curious to find out more about who people are behind their warrior fan postings!
Some questions: do you really like high school kids? Have you been around a group of them for any amount of time? Planning lessons is fun, creative. Can you see yourself delivering those lessons to 25+ very different, often hormone-driven children? Do you know what is involved in getting that credential? Does it seem like it could meet your your desire for doing technical things?
Let us know when we should stop with all those hopefully helpful advice.
An interesting point to me about two small guard lineups against the Mavs, especially thinking about how the Warriors match up with them. Hopefully we find out because meeting the Mavs in the WCF would be great for a lot of reasons.
I know Wiseman has flashed a lot of skill and been clueless on D so not a great comp. But with this group if he can just channel Orlando Dwight, he would be a tremendous fit. Obv developing into something like Embiid would be amazing but he doesn't need that deep of an offensive skillset with Poole and Kuminga developing. Arguably it will be hard to call plays for him later even if he does develop it.
I realize the rest of team is small by NBA standards but JW absolutely towers over everyone on the bench. It like his chin is over Looneys head. He’s a big boy!
This is one reason the FO is still willing to be patient with him. His ceiling is essentially Embiid. (Yes, I know they'll never be identical players, but by that I really just mean a dominant, skilled, athletic BIG man).
It’s similar to Harden in Houston. Spread the floor, Luka and shooters, and rely on Luka’s individual brilliance to create a shot or distribute if doubled. Like Houston, I think that can get you far, but hard to beat an elite team that way.
I don't know how scalable he is, but he provides such inelastic offense in that no defense is able to completely clamp down on him. Very hard player to evaluate.
KD takes a lot of flack for having left such a good situation to go play in Brooklyn but I will say this, you can tell he genuinely enjoys playing with Kyrie even tonight. That last season with the dubs seemed like a chore for him to get on the basketball court. Sometimes playing with your best nba friend (while still making max money) is probably slightly more important than playing for the Chip year in and year out (and I’m not trying to say that snidely)
His life, his decisions. Brooklyn seemed almost as jinxed as the Warriors were in their horrible 2019 season. Dramas and injury around almost everyone. Harden leaving midterm, Kyrie playing half of their games, KD injured off and on, trades, etc. Lots of drama there. Next season, they should be more focused and we'll finally see if Ben Simmons can fit into their world. They have a lot of upside, no doubt.
Yes, KD clearly didn’t leave GSW for a better shot at a ring. He wasn’t happy and like an artist, he wanted to build something new with his pals and not have to be a star on the team Steph built.
I’m still glad BRK lost… I believe it’s important for the league that superteams don’t win just through collecting overpowering talent and rolling the ball out
BRK didn't deserve to go further. There was speculation they could pull it together, but apparently, basketball requires a little more than the constant changing of players. They could be good next year, if Simmons actually shows up to play and Harris comes back.
I will admit to a small amount of schadenfreude at the Celtic sweep of Brooklyn.
And, to beat an old drum - the rules/penalties for exceeding the salary cap should be changed for a team's drafted and developed players.
Interesting, and I think I agree, but I’m not sure the NBA has any interest in neutering the “Lakers model” on the off chance that it succeeds(for the Lakers) and the millions come a-rolling on in to the merchandise division. That, and I think they’re still hoping the Knicks can somehow pull off competitiveness some day, and all options for that need to be on the table, lol.
I agree. These young men have lives, and KD was a solid citizen during his time with the Warriors, despite the total media circus. I don't resent him leaving at all. Glad to have been able to watch him up close for a couple of years. Hopefully, he's getting what he wants in his personal life. I don't mind that the basketball side isn't working out, although I think they would have won the title last year if they hadn't traded all those youngsters for Harden.
In the meantime, I love watching Steph, Klay and the rest of the Warriors play team basketball. If they happened to make it to and win the Finals, well, that will validate Kerr's approach as well as the brilliance of the Splash Bros.
I still remember KD being present at the groundbreaking of the Chase Center, taste-testing hot sauce, and taking less money on the table to sign other guys.
Not sure how all three of those go together, but they are reasons why I like the guy.
He could probably lay off social media a bit, but that's just me being an old fart...
All that said, yeah Tuckeeman, I agree, this team is so much fun to watch.
I don't know if this is a hot take but.... I don't think Donovan Mitchell is "that guy". He's a solid player but I'm not building a team around him. Maybe as the 2nd or 3rd option but that's about it
There's only like 5-10 players that are "that guy". Spida's really good and would be amazing as the #2 (especially if the #1 is a defensive guy like Giannis).
Scoring volume + efficiency (at least in the playoffs, regular season is meh). Defense is terrible (and getting worse), but his offense is very potent. Really good driver and really good pullup shooter means his game is very hard to take away.
I think high volume drivers like him (and Ja) really create high-level opportunities for their teammates.
> Thompson attempted 5.9 shots per game after two or more dribbles in his 32 regular-season games. He’s reduced that to 1.8 in four playoff games.
> More than 70 percent of Thompson’s playoff shot attempts have come within two seconds of touching the basketball. That was down at 63.2 percent in the regular season.
> Nearly 25 percent of Thompson’s makes in the regular season were unassisted. In the playoffs, only 13 percent of his makes have been unassisted.
> If you cut up Thompson’s offensive pie, only 36.8 percent of his regular-season attempts were catch-and-shoot 3s, his most dangerous tool. In the playoffs, he’s upped that to 49.8 percent. He’s taking 8.5 of them per game against Denver.
https://theathletic.com/3271858/2022/04/26/klay-thompson-warriors-nuggets/
And I'm sorry, but the difference now is proper role and improved conditioning, not Klay deciding not to be a selfish egomaniac who is jealous of Poole's success. Always gotta be careful with the psychoanalysis stuff when physical explanations are available. Regardless, his current level of play is inspiring given his last few years.
Yea lmao right back to old klay like he never left, Ngl though the regular season stuff was wild lol
To me this just says that Klay, Curry, and Green are back together again.
Yup. The defensive fit is a bit rougher now with Klay's reduced lateral quickness, but the offensive fit is still "like a glove".
This is great stuff TY! How much upside of the injury tradeoff do we think he will benefit by? (ie less wear and tear of 2 (prime 2 way) seasons potentially elongating his career?)
Hey everyone, I haven’t been following basketball since the experts made their pre-season predictions. Are will still headed to an inevitable Nets-Lakers finals?
Final tally (incl. their one total playoff series): 77 wins, 91 losses
I'll say this much... Neither one of those teams is going to lose another game for the rest of the playoffs!
Ought-ought-ought-ought just doesn’t have the same … ring
Lol!
Finals going to 7.
Did Dray get any technical fouls in G1/2/3?
He had offsetting technicals with Gordon in game 2, I think? Don't remember if he got any others
Three hours later still laughing at that dude (or gal) that got banished with a swiftness
Also I’ve been at this last job for six plus years (15 years total with fed govt) and thoroughly enjoy what I do but I’m 42 and I’ve been wanting a midlife career change since I was 40 but held on because I was working from home full time. Now that I have been recalled back to the office I need some suggestions into what I can look into.
A). Do not recommend nursing or any hospital based position. My wife is an RN and she looks so miserable everytime she gets off work or heads to work
B). I have a B.A in Psychology but kinda steered away when i volunteered at the mental health division at a Veterans Hospital
C). My dream was to be a truck driver but I can’t drive anywhere without my anxiety going through the roof
D). I was also working on a math degree at the same time as my Psychology degree but had to move to Psych because my VA benefits we’re running out but was thinking of finishing a math degree and apply for an alternative crede tial teaching program for Math and teach it at HS level. Any teachers?
*EDIT - do not mean to sound like I’m denigrating a nursing position. Saw the hell my wife went through in college and see the stress now especially when she hits those CovID waves in the ICU. Jobs like that too far above me
If you don't mind doing a little bit more schooling (but wouldn't necessarily need to), with your psych degree it would be a good point to go into organizational psychology. Psychology is certainly a field much broader than just working in the medical field.
Organizational psychology is a fascinating (and growing) field. I don't know all the ins and outs of it, but might be worth looking into. The pay doesn't suck either.
And since education interests it leaves open the door to do child psychology (private or public practice). I wonder if there is a way to meld /use your interest in math, psychology and travel… that sounds fun
So it depends what state you live in whether it would be worth your while to teach. Cali and NY have decent wages and benefits (good unions). Math is actually a great subject - districts are always looking for math/science teachers. If you’re able to teach the higher math courses (Trig, Calculus, etc.) you’ll have fairly focused, motivated students.
When I went through a major career change, I asked myself: what do you really like to do? What really interests you? And……can you make a living doing it. Then I talked to people who were actually doing it. Then I kept my first job, but took a couple of courses in the new subject to see if I was still interested.
This, i really agree with this, and wish i had been better at doing this earlier in my life
Coulda, shoulda…..happens to all of us.
Tell me about it....
Former teacher. Don’t do it unless you like bringing home a barely minimum wage. Can make a meaningful difference in some kids lives but talk about overworked, underpaid and under appreciated
Teacher friends of mine say the exact same thing.
You should use your Psych career to figure out why you want to be a trucker, why you derive joy in other people's misfortune, and why you're having a mid-life crisis!
Comments like this is why you sound like iguadulashands/poolesmip. Yuck.
Not a mid life crisis lol I just want to do something that is more ‘technical’. Although my job pays well you don’t need a degree for it and I’ve been doing a variation of the same job for the last two years. Basically admin for the federal govt
Beware jobs that n 10-15 years can be cheaply done by robots😣
I just want to second a lot of this excellent advice! I happen to work in technical writing and I can say technical writing is definitely a much-needed, often underlooked role, though you should only take it on if you enjoy getting your hands dirty with technical details of things.
Meanwhile, my partner is an occupational therapist, and my main takeaway is that the health field in the US is horribly broken: for-profit healthcare forces you into heartless choices between working off-the-clock or failing people in need. The vast majority of OT jobs are in either schools or nursing homes where you'll be overworked and underpaid; it's no coincidence that these types of jobs are chronically in-demand, because people get burnt out.
But yeah, IT with some cybersecurity knowledge seems like a promising route; there's also plenty of demand for people who know how to make simple websites (even if it's just helping people put up a Wix or SquareSite with a shop for their small business). Or, with a background in both math and psychology, I would say you should look into data scientist, data analystic, user testing, and UI/UX fields. There's a lot of demand for people who can design tests, analyze data, etc.
Hey - I didn't know there was another tech writer here!
For me, it was contributing to open-source software. Almost every project needs documentation help, and that's something you can add to your resume & portfolio. It's nice because it's all out in the public so you don't need to get special permission to share your work or anything.
Might I suggest joining https://www.writethedocs.org/slack/ and checking it out? Lots of good people who might be able to lend a hand. (Also a jobs board.)
I appreciate the offer. I know I wish we could DM on here cause I was trying to figure out a creative way to get Abbadon my phone number to meet up in St Louis for a playoff game at a bar or restaurant BUT kinda hard to do that.
Email addresses are free. Just create a new one, say "email me here" and then just abbadon... Errr... Abandon it after you're done.
Go to an old post from like two weeks ago that no one will look at any more.
Post new comment
After confirmation, delete comment
👍🏼
E,g. Post new comment to abbadon so he can answer you. Simpler and simpler.
Maybe set up a new twitter account (or some such, facebook, etc) expressly for communication purposes. Post your Twitter handle here. Have Abbadon or whoever you want to communicate with create a similar account and likewise post the handle here. Then one party can send a twitter DM to the other and you can verify based on the sender's handle whether the DM is authentic, before exchanging personal info.
Good one. Join same Nextdoor group, if geographically feasible, then PM via Nextdoor. Will have to reveal names, though. But would have to reveal names anyway, if meeting.
Or not :P DNHQ Handles are Tight!
It's not "easy" but one sure-fire way to communicate secret information via a public forum like this is through a public-key cryptography system like ECIES. Sadly I haven't found anything that actually makes this simple enough for ordinary people to use, but the process would be something like:
1. Generate a key pair (public key / private key).
2. Share the public key here
3. Have the other person use your public key to encrypt a message to you and post it
4. Use your private key to decrypt the message. No one else can read the message because they don't have your private key.
5. Use the contents of the message to establish an easier way of communicating back and forth
Or just use the first letter of every third word, etc. or refer to words in a book you both share. Basic simple spy stuff.
It's a lot harder if you don't have prior access to each other to establish some rules or something! If you have to explain publicly how it works, someone else who cared could follow along too.
Yes your method is much safer. Given how carefully it’s explained, I doubt anyone else is going to care. But then I’m a very trusting person.
Devise a simple code. Embed the info in a posting using the code. Send the key to the code to abbadon. Easy peasy.
Extremely! I’ll take a look at just that. I also speak Spanish fluently and was thinking of potentially trying to get into a certification program to become a court interpreter BUT I find that folks coming from other countries and learning English as their second language have a much easier time making that a career. English while my second language, has always been my dominant language
So many doors opened to my daughter because she was bilingual. Such an advantage.
Jz - im a middle school teacher. Though i do agree with “overworked underpayed”, there is high demand for math and science teachers, so you would have a lot more choice of what school. So much depends on calleagues/admin and school culture. So: if you like being around kids and find a school you like it could be worth it. You do in theory get summer off (unpayed) and its important to be able to really take that time off (so many teachers have to get a second job and or work full time to make ends meet, and they burn out). I “stsrted” my
Teaching cAreer later than most (when i was 30), typically to retire with decent benefits you have to work 28 years. I do know people who have become teachers at 50, and love it. But as somemothers mentioned: a lot of variables to consider. But I say: defiently do something that you like to do, so, if youre not certain you enjoy being around young people? That gives you a pretty resounding “no” to teaching. You do like being around kids? Then maybe it is (after considering factors like pay etc). Lastly, and then ill shut up. I found tesching to satisfy my love of learning: from psychology to biology, to art, math, literature, history, economics. Everythings connected, and aside from teaching what I love about the profession is I get to learn and be creative. Okay,thanks for the real life post. Im always curious to find out more about who people are behind their warrior fan postings!
Some questions: do you really like high school kids? Have you been around a group of them for any amount of time? Planning lessons is fun, creative. Can you see yourself delivering those lessons to 25+ very different, often hormone-driven children? Do you know what is involved in getting that credential? Does it seem like it could meet your your desire for doing technical things?
Let us know when we should stop with all those hopefully helpful advice.
> Jazz are scoring 1.04 with Conley ON and 1.23 with Conley OFF at what point do they think about a lineup change?
> Jazz scoring 1.22 and giving up 1.04 with House ON the floor.
> With Luka back in the lineup can you really get away with playing two tiny guards in Conley and Mitchell?
https://twitter.com/haralabob/status/1518812748095705088
An interesting point to me about two small guard lineups against the Mavs, especially thinking about how the Warriors match up with them. Hopefully we find out because meeting the Mavs in the WCF would be great for a lot of reasons.
What are some reasons?
1) Warriors beat Nuggets/Wolves/Grizzlies
2) Suns lost
3) Homecourt advantage
Conley has been soooo bad this series - looks washed
Random question: is JW still 7’ tall?
I know Wiseman has flashed a lot of skill and been clueless on D so not a great comp. But with this group if he can just channel Orlando Dwight, he would be a tremendous fit. Obv developing into something like Embiid would be amazing but he doesn't need that deep of an offensive skillset with Poole and Kuminga developing. Arguably it will be hard to call plays for him later even if he does develop it.
I realize the rest of team is small by NBA standards but JW absolutely towers over everyone on the bench. It like his chin is over Looneys head. He’s a big boy!
This is one reason the FO is still willing to be patient with him. His ceiling is essentially Embiid. (Yes, I know they'll never be identical players, but by that I really just mean a dominant, skilled, athletic BIG man).
Heard he was closer to 7’1 he’s defn taller than Javale
Mavericks rout the Jazz 102-77 and are up 3-2 in the series.
Ah, there's Marquese Chriss. Seems like Mavericks didn't play him much due to injuries during the regular season. Glad to see that he's healthy.
Come back Quese!
Jazz have raised the white flag.
I thought they did that last month
This made me crack up on Twitter (https://twitter.com/GoIdenState/status/1518769182053220353?cxt=HHwWgoC-gceh4JMqAAAA):
"KD in the parking lot calling Draymond right now 😂".
That is funny. Theyre should be one of Lebron calling steph
🤣 For everything else there's Mastercard
Not sure Whiteside did much of anything...
It looked like Whiteside was throwing down Doncic to the ground at first.
Mavericks up 81-55 after 3 quarters.
They really turned up that Brunson Burner on Utah.
They're heating up and not just Luka warm anymore
Yuk yuk
Jazz are getting punked. Mavericks aren't even playing any set basketball right now, they're just dancing and doing whatever the hell they want
It’s similar to Harden in Houston. Spread the floor, Luka and shooters, and rely on Luka’s individual brilliance to create a shot or distribute if doubled. Like Houston, I think that can get you far, but hard to beat an elite team that way.
Luka doing anything he wants
I don't know how scalable he is, but he provides such inelastic offense in that no defense is able to completely clamp down on him. Very hard player to evaluate.
KD takes a lot of flack for having left such a good situation to go play in Brooklyn but I will say this, you can tell he genuinely enjoys playing with Kyrie even tonight. That last season with the dubs seemed like a chore for him to get on the basketball court. Sometimes playing with your best nba friend (while still making max money) is probably slightly more important than playing for the Chip year in and year out (and I’m not trying to say that snidely)
His life, his decisions. Brooklyn seemed almost as jinxed as the Warriors were in their horrible 2019 season. Dramas and injury around almost everyone. Harden leaving midterm, Kyrie playing half of their games, KD injured off and on, trades, etc. Lots of drama there. Next season, they should be more focused and we'll finally see if Ben Simmons can fit into their world. They have a lot of upside, no doubt.
Yes, KD clearly didn’t leave GSW for a better shot at a ring. He wasn’t happy and like an artist, he wanted to build something new with his pals and not have to be a star on the team Steph built.
I’m still glad BRK lost… I believe it’s important for the league that superteams don’t win just through collecting overpowering talent and rolling the ball out
BRK didn't deserve to go further. There was speculation they could pull it together, but apparently, basketball requires a little more than the constant changing of players. They could be good next year, if Simmons actually shows up to play and Harris comes back.
I will admit to a small amount of schadenfreude at the Celtic sweep of Brooklyn.
And, to beat an old drum - the rules/penalties for exceeding the salary cap should be changed for a team's drafted and developed players.
Interesting, and I think I agree, but I’m not sure the NBA has any interest in neutering the “Lakers model” on the off chance that it succeeds(for the Lakers) and the millions come a-rolling on in to the merchandise division. That, and I think they’re still hoping the Knicks can somehow pull off competitiveness some day, and all options for that need to be on the table, lol.
Seems like the ‘overpowering talent ‘ didn’t do much overpowering.
I agree. These young men have lives, and KD was a solid citizen during his time with the Warriors, despite the total media circus. I don't resent him leaving at all. Glad to have been able to watch him up close for a couple of years. Hopefully, he's getting what he wants in his personal life. I don't mind that the basketball side isn't working out, although I think they would have won the title last year if they hadn't traded all those youngsters for Harden.
In the meantime, I love watching Steph, Klay and the rest of the Warriors play team basketball. If they happened to make it to and win the Finals, well, that will validate Kerr's approach as well as the brilliance of the Splash Bros.
I still remember KD being present at the groundbreaking of the Chase Center, taste-testing hot sauce, and taking less money on the table to sign other guys.
Not sure how all three of those go together, but they are reasons why I like the guy.
He could probably lay off social media a bit, but that's just me being an old fart...
All that said, yeah Tuckeeman, I agree, this team is so much fun to watch.
I don't know if this is a hot take but.... I don't think Donovan Mitchell is "that guy". He's a solid player but I'm not building a team around him. Maybe as the 2nd or 3rd option but that's about it
That’s a snowball of a take.
Anyone who thought he was a #1 even last year hasn’t been paying attention for a while and probably still thinks he’s 22.
There's only like 5-10 players that are "that guy". Spida's really good and would be amazing as the #2 (especially if the #1 is a defensive guy like Giannis).
Is his ceiling Bradley Beal? And if so is that really “really good”?
I think he's substantially better than Bradley Beal ever was right now.
He's the lead option on the best offense in the league (or close to it) for like 2 years in a row. Beal can't do that.
I’m not seeing it, why do you say that? Scoring, efficiency, defense, anything?
Scoring volume + efficiency (at least in the playoffs, regular season is meh). Defense is terrible (and getting worse), but his offense is very potent. Really good driver and really good pullup shooter means his game is very hard to take away.
I think high volume drivers like him (and Ja) really create high-level opportunities for their teammates.
I guess I’ll have to look at those playoff numbers, agreed his RS numbers are “meh”.
Healthy Victor Oladipo-ish?
Yeah. I think if both are healthy and in their prime, I think he's in that same tier.