101 Comments
Feb 13, 2021Liked by Duby Dub Dubs

Morning boss, I'm going to prepare for and expect myself to be the most valuable employee in our industry. Have a great day.

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Feb 13, 2021Liked by Duby Dub Dubs

People gotta relax with this LaMelo>Wiseman stuff. You can't settle a debate about which 19 year old has a better career in a season, let alone 25 games.

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Feb 13, 2021Liked by Duby Dub Dubs

Nbcsports.com says DeAndre Jordan “reportedly out” for tomorrow nights game.

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Feb 13, 2021Liked by Duby Dub Dubs

Ugh some ugly stats from G-League (didnt see the game though). We had 26 TOs total, ouch!

Poole: 7/18 FG, 4/13 3P, 6 REB, 4 AST, 7 TO, 19 PTS

Mannion: 8/17 FG, 3/12 3P, 5 REB, 6 AST, 8 TO, 22 PTS

https://gleague.nba.com/games/20210212/SCWDEL/

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Feb 12, 2021Liked by Duby Dub Dubs

The MVP award is just for the media's most valuable player. It's not the player that generates the most value to his team but rather the player that generates the most clicks, views, retweets, and gives the media the most to write about and the _easiest_ storylines and narratives to promote. This shouldn't be all that much of a stretch given that the media essentially gets paid by those metrics and are the actual voters for the MVP award. Sometimes this aligns with a player's actual performance (eg. Unanimous) and sometimes it's questionable (Westbrook's 42FG%, 47% EFG... but omg triple doubles!).

I wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority of the media just loads up traditional stats on nba.com and sorts by fantasy points per game.

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/traditional/?sort=NBA_FANTASY_PTS&dir=-1&Season=2020-21&SeasonType=Regular%20Season

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Kurtenbach for the Mercury summed it up pretty well:

> In fact, it makes me wonder if the pundits, influencers and tastemakers out there — the folks who create national narratives about things like the MVP award — are watching the games at all.

>

> They should turn Curry and the Warriors on. They’re missing a great show.

Steph's not really leading the league in many categories (just, you know... points) so people who aren't watching the games are pitifully oblivious to what he's doing. The game speaks for itself... if you're listening.

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Some narratives I hope Curry’s stellar season is putting to rest:

* The notion that KD was the reason they won those last two Chips.

* The notion that KD was the best player on those teams.

To boot, I think it’s possible the Dubs would have won two or more Chips even if KD hadn’t signed on. Barnes was a good SF and has since improved. More importantly, the brass would have had a lot more money for the bench. Not saying that Barnes and a better beach would have been more productive than KD, but it would have been close enough. Also, we can see that with KD there, we missed out on three years of cheat-code Curry, like we’re having the pleasure of witnessing again now. Additionally, with a better bench in tow, the Dubs’ stars probably wouldn’t have had to play so many minutes during the season and especially in the playoffs, which, imo, largely led to all the injuries of the last couple of seasons.

So, not only do I think a hypothetical non-KD Dubs team could have won two Chips in those three years, but it’s also likely that Klay would not have been injured two years straight, potentially leading to another title in at least one of those seasons, culminating in three or four Chips rather than two. On the other hand, without the tank job from last season, the Dubs wouldn’t have landed Wiseman. So there’s that.

Anyways, my main point is that Steph is legendary and I enjoy watching him go supernova on a near-nightly basis.

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Feb 12, 2021Liked by Duby Dub Dubs

Great article. ❤️

I vaguely recall you mentioning something about the difficulty of Curry being an MVP when the Warriors are not amongst the top teams, and the MVP tends to be the best player in the best team (if it wasn't you, I'm sorry, I'm having an excess of Curry related information lately, so I might totally be mistaken. I was actually thinking about this after the game and with the MVP buzz all over twitter. I think that if the Dubs make the playoffs, Curry could totally have a chance at MVP. I mean, this is a team everyone (except dubnation) thought it was going to always be in the bottom. Everybody was talking so much about The Great Legacy Loss and all that. And now, the narrative is changing after every game. And while the Dubs are still irregular, they seem to become a little more solid every game, even when they loose (I might be totally partial and mistake, though).

I know it's a long season, and like you say, so many random factors enter on deciding the MVP, but I'm becoming increasingly hopeful...

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Feb 12, 2021Liked by Duby Dub Dubs

Yes, laughing out loud in delight watching Steph play is pure joy.

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you'll see some people floating around how Lillard has a higher shooting percentage than Curry from the looooong-long range areas of the floor. I would love to see how many of Curry's attempts from beyond 30 feet are his half-court/full-court heaves at the end of quarters that he loves so much. My gut instinct is that that's the only reason Lillard's percentage is higher, is that he hasn't taken nearly as many of those heaves as Curry has.

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Feb 12, 2021Liked by Duby Dub Dubs

Not only does he not have Klay or any other 40%+ 3pt-shooter to back him up, he's also a known quantity, scouted and famous. 29 coaches in the league have had all season, often multiple seasons, to craft a defense specifically tailored at stopping him from going off. Rookies in the league can hardly even remember a time when Steph *wasn't* playing for the Warriors.

And yet he's still doing (*gesticulates wildly*) THIS.

It would make sense if he were getting a halfway respectable number of points and had good +/- and assist numbers. Which he does. But he's actually just blowing up those defensive schemes that were specifically created to stop him. Not even just some of them. Every time! Can you even think of three games this season where he was "bottled up"?

I'm loving every game of this, and just crossing my fingers that his and everybody's health holds up long enough for this to continue.

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Feb 12, 2021Liked by Duby Dub Dubs

It's a privilege to watch him play. Was losing a year of Curry's prime "worth it"? Probably not, honestly. He makes every game feel like must watch basketball and we lost a year's worth of that.

Hope he plays with the Warriors until he's 40, and glad Kerr is pacing his minutes so he has a chance to get there.

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Feb 12, 2021Liked by Duby Dub Dubs

Great article! Also, definitely would not hate it if someone who had access to Zach Lowe's latest paywalled column copy and pasted the Curry section here...

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Feb 12, 2021Liked by Duby Dub Dubs

This analysis ignores that Steph has been significantly better on defense, setting screens and playing through contact this year. Maybe it's all that time lifting, some veteran savvy or both but he is playing better in almost every aspect versus the unanimous year.

The other thing is that this team has gotten so much better than they were to start the season and have so much potential to be even better when Wiseman and Looney return. The other starters learning to play Kerr ball and with Steph has a lot do with why Steph has looked so great these last 13 games.

The 2020-2021 warriors will not be better than the 2015-2016 club but at the current pace, Steph has a real chance to break his 405 3s record in a 72 game season.

14 3s in a game is at risk every time he steps onto the court. Saturday against Brooklyn would be a great time to break that one.

A few more signature performances, a few more broken records and going 24-12 down the back half of the season might be enough to get that MVP chant going across the country.

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Feb 12, 2021Liked by Duby Dub Dubs

Seeing SC30 go thermonuclear never gets old. It's like a cat playing with a mouse. The losing team sees a potential comeback, and then the Michelin starred Chef Curry grinds their hopes to dust, gives a good shimmy or two, and then dances on their charred remains, as opposing coaches scream in agony like Anakin on Mustafar.

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