160 Comments

In my 76 years, I've had 3 shoulder injuries. Nothing else has ever hurt that bad. Your arm just hangs there uselessly with no comfortable position. Even after the acute pain is gone, the shoulder will be weak. My injuries were different from Steph's & he's still relatively young, so perhaps he'll heal faster than I did.

My injuries. ~age & recovery time.

40: R shoulder bursitis (RSI) from playing volleyball. Cortisone shot ended the pain, but a few weeks to regain strength

71: Burst calcium deposit in R shoulder, possibly from earlier injury or from slamming into walls on the racket ball court decades earlier. Had to suck it out with a needle, then weeks of strengthening work.

74: Tripped & jammed my R shoulder (possible subluxation?) when I fully extended my arm to catch myself against a wall. Less painful than the others. Didn't seek treatment for a few months. Once I did, a couple months of PT. It's still not 100%, but I'm lazy about continuing the work & not a pro athlete.

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We've lost at full strength to weirder rosters than the ones Golden State will be using. My preview: https://dubnationhq.com/p/time-to-tank-or-tread-water

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We'll win the classic "Wtf? Did that really just happen?" game tonight. Calling it now.

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Dec 16, 2022·edited Dec 16, 2022

Underdog NBA

"@Underdog__NBA

Draymond Green (quad) listed out Friday."

I saw he was questionable, but now Draymond is out tonight. When did the quad injury happen?

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the 'quad injury' happened right about after Steph got injured and did not return in the game and finally after he got ejected. it was a long drawn out injury.

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Might as well just sit Klay (and Wiggs, if he was going to be available tonight).

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So Klay is questionable and all of the other all-stars are out.

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Has anyone else been watching "Last Chance U" on Netflix, about East LA Community College? Intense series. I haven't finished but I have some strong opinions about the coaching.

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Kind of weird to think that after tonight the road trip will be half over. Starting off with a B2B sort of moves things along.

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Dec 16, 2022·edited Dec 16, 2022Author

Preview will be coming in a bit folks

Thanks for your patience. Work-life balance currently out of balance

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Entertaining article from The Ringer on the 2020 draft: https://www.theringer.com/nba/2022/12/16/23511791/nba-draft-2020-james-wiseman-anthony-edwards

>> This chart of the top players in the 2020 draft demonstrates two patterns. First, the order of this draft class doesn’t really matter—in fact, the correlation between pick number and WAR for players selected in the first round in 2020 is 0.08, which means no discernible relationship. (If anything, the slight positive correlation means players picked later in the round have more value than players picked earlier so far.)

Second, the five players from this class with the most career WAR to date are all guards.

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Doesn't account for the Nico Mannion Revenge Tour when he's age 27

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Red Curry!

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Shows what they know! Wise is playing tonight baby!

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On the Sunny side ...

Steph gets his days off for the season early.

This should unlock Poole as he can settle into his starter mentality and production.

This should get Donte up to 28-30 min a game and who can complain about that.

Moody is sure to get 1-2 more minutes a game as Kerr runs out of cards to play.

Draymond sure to get kicked out of 10 games while Curry sits as we all know he doesn't like to play without him and this should lead to some fun 4th qtr Kuminga time.

Klay is gonna break his single game 3 pt record. Unfortunately, it will span 5 games.

We will continue to get 5 min per press conference of Kerr talking about the value of 4 year college players and another 5 minutes talking about what a good person Wiseman is and how he is doing everything required of him in the G League to get him back into the NBA ... in 2026.

The down side. Despite more minutes over the next 4 weeks, we still won't know who JMG is.

Ahh Hell, the truth is, we were all getting tired of Curry, right? Being so despicably good all the time. Gimme a TY/Lamb PNR any day.

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His 30 point games were too "quiet." /s

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I went back last night and watched a couple of recent SC games. Wiseman is looking MUCH better but in SC he's like a man among boys. The NBA will be a whole lot tougher, and he has a ways to go for sure. Still, he is far ahead of where he was when he first went down there. I am much encouraged.

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“You know you’re a fan if…”

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That sure is going to tank the Christmas day ratings.

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Anyone else picturing Steph playing in a sling like nothing's wrong?

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There is no ''next man up'', on this team, when Steph goes down....

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Sure there is: Jordan Poole.

Obviously, there will never be another Steph (and JP ain’t close), but a minor-ish Steph injury worked out okay for the team last year, when they won five straight going into the playoffs, then their first two playoff games with Steph coming off the bench as the greatest 6th man ever and JP crushing it as the starting PG.

I think that stretch gave Poole, Klay, Wiggs and the others a ton of confidence and momentum at the start of the 16-6 playoff run. Here’s hoping they can make lemonade out of lemons this season in similar fashion.

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Did someone say tank for Victor?

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More accurately, that would be tanking for an outside chance at getting Victor and meanwhile totally pissing off the OGs. Not gonna happen.

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One more lotto pick would help the bench. That may be a necessity given the current difficulty with the salary cap.

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If you mean you trade it for a vet that you wouldn't otherwise get with a vet min. Sure

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> One more lotto pick would help the bench.

I'd probably go the opposite way.

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Lotto picks aren't cheap. $10M/yr with 3 year commitment for Pick #1. Not a solution for Steph timeline.

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We could have two simultaneous timelines. Yeah, that's the ticket...

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Just two of the existing five kids blossoming (as talented kids in their early 20s often do) solves the bench issues. We may be seeing signs of that with Kuminga and Moody already.

Adding another kid to the playpen in 2023-24 just further strains the team’s developmental bandwidth and imho starts to feel a little disrespectful to Steph’s late prime.

Lottery picks cost money, too. Keeping Wiseman on the roster next season (v a vet min guy) will cost the team on the order of $90-100M in luxury taxes.

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OMG. Memphis punched the Bucks with a 141-101 win. The only silver lining I can think of for our Christmas Day showdown with Memphis is that we play at home.

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Wow. Suns up 64-37 against the Clippers at halftime.

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DLee highest+/- in the game, 45% on threes on the season. Letting DLee walk was possibly the most harmful of the miserly offseason FO moves. I've spilled a lotta keystrokes on OPJ and GP2, but am beginning to see my blind-spot: familiarity.

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It wasn’t miserly — he was available on a vet min. Biggest reason he was let go imho was to clear rotation minutes for Moody and Kuminga. Which I get, even though, yeah, added to the losses of Payton, Porter, JTA, and Bjelly (and with Andre being unavailable), it did contribute to a bit of a “brain drain” or “experience drain.”

Worth noting, tho: Otto, GP2, Bjelly, and JTA have a combined 75 NBA points scored this season. That’s 40 less than Anthony Lamb.

I was a big Lee fan, but I don’t see replacing his sporadic minutes with some combo of Lamb, Moody, and Kuminga as a problem in and of itself.

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And Are we even sure he wasn’t offered a spot?

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My guess is that they said “You can come back at a minimum, but honestly we want to develop these kids so we don’t see anything resembling consistent minutes for you.” and he decided to go somewhere where he could advance his career.

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Sounds spot on.

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Samesies

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His 3 pt shooting is up, his 2 pt shooting is down, and the rest of his numbers are about as usual. He's a good player but I'll take OPJ or GP2 every time.

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Looks like no PG or KL

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Also no Zubac, Jackson, and Powell

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I guess the Clippers aren't letting PG and Leonard play on a second night of a B2B.

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We’d still have Steph today had we followed that rule. 😔

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Those guys are returning from injury, so Klay is a better comparison than Steph. Steph didn't get hurt because he was getting back in shape or healing an injury and shouldn't have played the second game of a B2B. It was just one of those things that could happen in any game.

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Totally. Just playing the 20:20 hindsight game.

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Somewhere on one of these boards, I saw some stats about injury frequency on second night of B2B. Much higher. So while it "could" happen in any game, it was "more likely" (though perhaps improbable) to happen on the second game of a B2B

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Well okay so we should rest all of our stars on the second game of all B2Bs and take the losses? I know you don't mean that but it's where that logic leads. If guys are healthy and aren't too tired, you play 'em.

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