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Official 2023-24 NBA Season Thread - Thunder/Mavs Game 6

broke: all-stars
woke: all-NBA
bespoke: the athletic anonymous poll
 
remember when Roy Hibbert made the all-star game on 10/6/1 with two blocks a night
 
A good reminder that the All-Star Game is a midseason honor. Hibbert averaged 12.2/7.9/1.4 with 2.6 bpg in the first 40 games and 9.3/5.4/0.9 with 1.9 bpg afterward.

I think now we can safely say the center position was dying because there weren't many good centers. The 2014 All-Star Game centers were F/C Kevin Love (EC starter), F/C Chris Bosh, C Dwight Howard, C Anthony Davis, C Roy Hibbert, and C Joakim Noah.
 
How many 2023-24 centers who didn't make the All-Star game are better than 2013-14 All-Star Joakim Noah?
 
not sure, but he won DPOY that year and was also first team all-NBA

he was so good in that Thibs defense -- the Thibs/Noah combo revolutionized modern NBA defenses and Noah was all over the court

hard to weight offense and defense importance -- Sabonis is definitely a lot better on offense than Noah was, but 2014 Noah was a baaaaad dude

averaged 5.4 APG that season too working from the elbow
 
It's a tough question. Wemby, Sabonis, and Sengun were my first thoughts. Like you said, it's hard to weight offense and defense.
I'll stick with Wemby because he's also an elite defender. Sabonis and Sengun are tougher.

The list of current centers better than Roy Hibbert is pretty long though.
 
PhDeac said:
A good reminder that the All-Star Game is a midseason honor. Hibbert averaged 12.2/7.9/1.4 with 2.6 bpg in the first 40 games and 9.3/5.4/0.9 with 1.9 bpg afterward.

I think now we can safely say the center position was dying because there weren't many good centers. The 2014 All-Star Game centers were F/C Kevin Love (EC starter), F/C Chris Bosh, C Dwight Howard, C Anthony Davis, C Roy Hibbert, and C Joakim Noah.
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still not all-star level imo
 
Kory said:
still not all-star level imo
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It was back then in the weak East. The big snubs that year were Kyle Lowry and Lance Stephenson.
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
mid-2010s Joakim Noah is one of my all-time favorite basketball players
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Those were some very fun Bulls teams. Since I'm not a Bulls fan it's kind of weird that one of my clearest sports memories was watching game 1 of the first round in 2012 when D Rose tore his ACL.

And after looking it up I had completely forgotten that was Jimmy Butler's rookie year. A fully developed Butler on a Thibs team today would be a nightmare.
 
Good summary of how the Suns messed up.
www.cbssports.com

Suns tried to build a superteam for an NBA that no longer exists

Talent no longer trumps all in the 2024 NBA, and the Suns have a bleak future because of it
www.cbssports.com www.cbssports.com

It might not seem like it considering their embarrassing first-round exit (a 4-0 sweep to the Timberwolves), but the easiest historical comparison for the 2023-24 Phoenix Suns, by far, would be the 2010-11 Miami Heat. Just consider the surface-level similarities
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You could argue about some of the finer points here. Miami's trio had fewer age concerns, more of a defensive track record and was probably considered a shade more talented at the time, but the basic philosophy that guided both organizations to their superteams was the same. On a fundamental level, it was an attempt to out-talent the rest of the NBA.

That was an achievable goal in 2010. Super-teams didn't fully exist as a concept yet outside of Boston, whose three best players were all in their mid-30s. The league wasn't nearly as deep, and it wasn't as smart, either. The 2011 Rockets had a top-five offense with Kevin Martin as their leading scorer because they were one of the few teams to optimize their shot-selection. Miami's fourth-leading scorer on the way to the 2011 Finals was Mario Chalmers at 7.8 points per game.

That number only looks crazier when you remember that the 2023 champion Nuggets had six players average double figures in the postseason. The Suns tried a 13-year-old trick in an older, wiser league. Miami's investment in three stars was unprecedented at the time.
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Today, you could argue that one-third of the league is as all-in as the Suns are. Heck, every team in Phoenix's division has tried the super-team gambit in the last few years except for Sacramento. There are teams today like Boston that practically have entire lineups filled with All-Star-caliber players, and theirs were much more thoughtfully united with skill-set diversity in mind.

The league's collective basketball IQ is lightyears ahead of where it was in 2011. Phoenix has one of the most talented offensive trios in NBA history. Its offense barely snuck into the top 10 because the Suns ranked second in the NBA in mid-range shot attempts, but 24th in 3-point attempts and 28th in restricted area attempts. As valuable as contested mid-range shot-making is late in games, we now know offenses fare far better when they avoid tough shots most of the time rather than make them. The modern NBA is simply too smart and too deep to be out-talented by three players who all do the same things.
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The nuclear option for most teams in Phoenix's situation is a true blow up. Doing so when you don't control your own picks, as Phoenix won't for the rest of the decade, is an incredibly scary proposition. Sure, the Suns could get picks back for Durant and Booker... but those teams would have Durant and Booker, which would probably prevent the picks they send back from becoming all that valuable.

Even the distant future picks that actually might amount to anything of note leave you in purgatory while you wait. Imagine being the current Brooklyn Nets... only without Mikal Bridges or a glamour market with which to attract more stars. That's probably the likeliest outcome for a Suns team that blows it up. Even if they get it right, half a decade of irrelevance is on the table while the pick up the pieces of this failed roster.

If this all sounds grim... well... yeah. It should. This is bleak. It is one of the bleakest sets of circumstances facing any team in the NBA right now. It's only going to get bleaker. Just look at the bottom of the Western Conference this season. The Memphis Grizzlies are younger, better and more thoughtfully constructed than the Suns are. If they are healthy and whole next season, they're passing Phoenix. Houston's young roster finished eight games below the Suns, and the Rockets could easily make a significant trade this offseason if they so choose. In that case, the Rockets might leap the Suns as well. If the Spurs choose to go all-in? Well... you've seen Victor Wembanyama. If he isn't already good enough to take a team into the playoffs by himself, he soon will be.




There just isn't a good answer here. There's no an obvious pivot or strategic approach that can fix this for the Suns. They misunderstood where the league was when they traded for Beal and they misunderstood where it was going when they traded for Durant. Sure, it's possible that they nail minimum-salary free agency this summer. Maybe they unearth their undrafted equivalent to Austin Reaves or Naz Reid this summer, or someone makes an unexpected deal for the meager assets the Suns have left.

But the most likely outcome here is that the Suns were simply wrong. They built a team for an era that has ended and now they're doomed to ride this one out as a fringe contender before eventually collapsing without reaching the height that the Heat did when they tried this 14 years ago. Pat Riley understood the league he was competing in. Mat Ishbia didn't.
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i've occasionally ranted about this, but ppg is so overrated. these teams with great individual scorers who just alternate possessions where they get to run the offense kind of defeats the purpose since you have a limited number of possessions.

thinking basketball did an interesting piece on luka that touches on it a bit, and the ineffectivess of him and kyrie taking turns with the offense.

 
are you saying PPG is overrated full stop? like not a good tool in player evaluation/comparison?

or that PPG is overrated when constructing a roster?


I agree with the latter, but not sure about the former

I'm sure the stat exists somewhere, but in soccer they track "key passes" and I'd love to see how good analytics measure good passing within the flow of an offense
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
are you saying PPG is overrated full stop? like not a good tool in player evaluation/comparison?

or that PPG is overrated when constructing a roster?


I agree with the latter, but not sure about the former

I'm sure the stat exists somewhere, but in soccer they track "key passes" and I'd love to see how good analytics measure good passing within the flow of an offense
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ppg in a vacuum when it comes to evaluating individual players, which i do think is heavily related to roster construction though
 
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