145 Comments

Holy Crap this is not good at all.

12/07/2021, 5:27 PM

CJ McCollum: Has collapsed right lung

McCollum has a collapsed right lung and needs to undergo further evaluation, Shams Charania of The Athletic reports.

Expand full comment

I think KD is playing too much. It's december, there are 5-6 months to go and he will be 34 next year

Expand full comment

Lakers are 8-5 with LeBron in the lineup. If they win against the Grizzlies on Thursday they are a half game back from fourth.

It shouldn't have been that easy for them to get back to the top 4 of the West but there's just too much fraudulence in the West this season.

Expand full comment

Dray (live podcast) is predicting Steph will put up 30 3PA tomorrow lol...

Expand full comment
Dec 8, 2021Liked by Daniel Hardee

I'm afraid Wiggs and I are going to have to part company. Lately, people are saying he's so much more than a tuna sandwich. I'm offended.

Sorry, Charlie.

Expand full comment
Dec 8, 2021Liked by Daniel Hardee

"I enjoy every single day, because finally I found a spot where I feel comfortable and very happy."

- Nemanja

Expand full comment
Dec 8, 2021Liked by Daniel Hardee

The West is trash outside of the top 3 teams.

Expand full comment

Nets down by 11 going into the 4th. Only scored 75 points thus far. Is the East actually surprisingly deep as people are claiming or just surprisingly mediocre from top to bottom?

I think the Nets are better than they've shown thus far this season, but to date, it really just feels that the entire conference is underperforming as a whole.

Expand full comment

Have the refs backslid in their fouls calling? Seeing lots of offensive created contact getting calls again. Don’t love the trend.

Expand full comment

My favorite go-to stat to look at is in the "Per 100 Poss" section of bbref, ORtg and DRtg. I find that they usually tell a pretty decent story of a player if you can only look at one thing. This is the first year of Wiggins' long career that he is showing a positive differential, offense over defense: 112 ORtg to 104 DRtg, vs. career numbers of 104 to 113, respectively. It's also the first season his DRtg has been under 110 and the first season his ORtg has been over 110.

Expand full comment
Dec 8, 2021Liked by Daniel Hardee

I was delighted at the Wiggins trade, never had much love for Russell. Then the Warriors immediately stank and I had to look away.

It is awesome to see Wiggs improve. Sometimes players get better, sometimes they get worse, sometimes they get banished to Croatia. Once in a while they listen to coaches. The unexpected happens. The wished for huge steaming bowl of awesome you ordered comes out and is delicious.

Myers, Kerr and company have already served us many treats. I will bask in the glow.

Expand full comment
Dec 8, 2021Liked by Daniel Hardee

Charts and graphs and stats! Excellent focus on Wiggins.

Expand full comment
author

Substack is having some impact from a broad AWS server issue (thanks for nothin' Jeff Bezos!!).

So if you're running into weird site issues right now, just know that:

1) it's us not you, and;

2) the people who know what to do are aware of the problem.

Expand full comment

I really love that you can pinpoint the exact moment Wiggins elevated his game as the moment he dunked on KAT. It's like he exorcised a demon and was free to start using his athleticism like nature intended.

Hope he keeps it up because if Wiggins is going to shoot 42% from three on 5 attempts a game, no one is beating the Warriors.

Expand full comment
author

No one deserves to take victory laps on Wiggins resurgence more than Daniel. Great article. I'm a Wiggins convert, though they keep stamping "denied" on my application to visit Wiggins island.

I'm pretty shocked, but not so delusional that I've got anything bad to say about Wiggins at this point. He's doing so well here! I just can't wait for the full squad.

Expand full comment
Dec 7, 2021Liked by Daniel Hardee

Feel good article - just what the doctor ordered. Two thoughts:

- How dare Wiggs not get better in FT%? Trade him I say /s

- Steph-Poole-Klay-Wiggs-Dray would be an offensive juggernaut especially with Poole getting better and better with passing. They are going to be good defensively as well if Klay is anywhere close to what he used to be.

Expand full comment