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Official 2021-22 NBA Offseason Thread - Warriors extend Poole and Wiggins

Maxey/Tatum/Bridges/Thuybulle/Embiid would probably be a pretty good lineup
 
plama said:
Maxey/Tatum/Bridges/Simmons/Embiid would probably be a pretty good lineup
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Maybe Simmons would be better as a switchable point forward.
 
PhDeac said:
He's a Villanova guy whose mom worked for the Sixers. It was the feel good story of the draft for about 15 minutes. If I was a Sixers fan, I don't think I'd ever get over them choosing Fultz over Tatum and Zhaire Smith over Bridges.
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If I recall, Philly gave Boston another first round pick in addition to the pick that became Tatum to get the overall #1 pick and get Fultz. Which made the Fultz pick that much worse. The destruction of "The Process" by the Colangelos.
 
PhDeac said:
Hot takes from October. Trae’s points, asts, and percentages went up, and his turnovers went down this season.

If Hunter can reach his potential, the Hawks will be dangerous. I think they’ll trade JC this offseason though.
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You omitted a couple key stats there. He shot 8.7 FTs in 2021 and 7.3 this year. In the playoffs last year he went to the line 7.88 times a game, this year 6.6.

And defenses change in the playoffs, as you know. He got more efficient overall, but a key part of his game was taken away too. You don't have to argue just to argue!
 
You could see how I would be sensitive to this as he shot 10 FTs a game against the Sixers in the second round with his bullshit head flop. He's still a dangerous player, arguably taking better shots and running a more efficient offense this season, but you've taken away a significant part of his game. Again, it's the same as with Harden, both players benefitted from being able to draw nonsense fouls before the rule change. Now they can get the swim call still but that is one that more benefits Embiid.
 
Official 2021-22 NBA Season Thread - Celtics sweep the Nets

Yet the end result is that Trae scored more and was more efficient. He lost one part of his game and compensated for it.
 
the playoffs beget a lot of small sample size arguments about players, especially narratives around clutch-ness

Giannis' game was never going to win a championship until he did; Middleton was a choker until he wasn't; Trae's game elevated in the playoffs until it didn't; and so on

the playoffs are indeed different and some of the trends are real -- e.g. the Thibs Bulls that won a ton of games in the regular season but never did anything in the postseason -- but a lot of playoff narratives are just noise
 
TownieDeac said:
Except when he couldn’t
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So your argument is that Trae didn’t torch the Sixers last season, the rules did. And the Heat didn’t shut down Trae this year. The rules did. That’s no better than Shoo and 2&2.

TenaciousKory said:
love the metaphor because one person's noise is another person's meaningful sound tho
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One could argue that playoff “noise” is the music that matters.
 
PhDeac said:
So your argument is that Trae didn’t torch the Sixers last season, the rules did. And the Heat didn’t shut down Trae this year. The rules did. That’s no better than Shoo and 2&2.
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Why you dragging me into this? I just complain about shitty NBA refs like everybody here does on Wake game threads.

But rule changes that take away Harden's and Trae's cheap floppy shit are good things.
 
Official 2021-22 NBA Season Thread - Celtics sweep the Nets

I agree they’re good rule changes. I disagree that they somehow stymied Trae when his offensive numbers went up. I also disagree that the rule changes are why he didn’t play well against the Heat. I think he didn’t play well because the Heat bottled him up and much of his offense depends heavily on having Capela and Collins as lob threats to give him space for his floater. Both clearly didn’t have their usual bounce coming off injury.
 
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Coming into this season, Trae deserved every bit of his reputation for drawing cheap fouls, taking advantage of referee tendencies, etc., but to his credit he legitimately improved this year and added new skills/tricks to his bag to make up for changes in the rules and how the referees were instructed to call fouls in certain ballhandler situations.

His total collapse against the Heat is remarkable in and of itself. He just had no answers.
 
It's almost like Clint Capela and John Collins were both playing injured (or not playing at all) and Trae's PnR game, which he is extremely effective in, suffered as a result.

Nah, he probably just flops a lot and sucks.
 
Lol I posted before actually reading Ph's post where he mentioned JC and Capela being injured.

Obviously that is not the whole reason Trae struggled against the Heat, Spo had a great game plan the whole series to defensively contain Trae and it largely worked. But saying we lost this series because Trae shot 3-4 less FTs per game than he did last season in the playoffs is silly and not at all a fair representation of what happened.
 
This dude needs to be on ESPN instead of most of their talking heads. Check that date. The Sixers suck so bad.

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I agree with all of you, Trae has vastly improved his game this season and the Heat did a good job against him. Just throwing my salt in the mix. I enjoyed watching him fail this series. The Heat should stomp the Sixers too. Spo >>>>>>> Doc.
 
deacon14 said:
But saying we lost this series because Trae shot 3-4 less FTs per game than he did last season in the playoffs is silly and not at all a fair representation of what happened.
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Wasn't really saying this, but while 3 or 4 different PPG doesn't capture the difference in his game, it is the difference between like 97th percentile of FTs taken (~10/game) to 60th at 7/game. It's not statistically insignificant.

But removing the space he can create when the PNR is working is a bigger deal. I also agree teams like the Heat and Raps and Cs who play physical, heavy switching, athletic team defense can really lock down individual scorers in the playoffs and frustrate them.
 
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