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Official 2023-24 NBA Season Thread - The greatest words in sports, Game 7! Pacers/Knicks and T-Wolves/Nuggets

There was a question about Lebron’s what? Competitiveness? Gtfo.
 
I’d probably eat the table if I was rich in new orleans
 
Sixers performing well at home tonight vs the Wiz
 
Wemby on triple double watch with 7/6 and 5 blks at the half.
 
Strickland33 said:
Why do the Spurs suck so bad?
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A few reasons:

#1 is the refusal to optimize the roster based on a desire to play Wemby at the 4, try Sochan at PG, and keep Tre Jones on the bench. The obvious starting lineup was:
PG Tre Jones
SG Devon Vassell
SF Keldon Johnson
PF Jeremy Sochan
C Victor Wembanyama

Five players playing their natural position (yes, 7-4 Wemby is a C). That lineup has a +41.3 net rating but they've only played 21 minutes together, the best of any lineup with 10+ minutes.

Lineups Advanced | Stats | NBA.com

Ability to view statistics and advanced analytics for any combination of 5-man, 4-man, 3-man, or 2-man lineups that a team has played throughout the season. Lineup information dates back to the 2007-08 season.
www.nba.com www.nba.com

#2 is related. While Wemby is a fine ball handler and creator for his size, he really needs a true PG to get him the ball in his unique spots. But this team is mostly bunch of scorers who generally create for themselves. Wemby is a cheat code only a few of teammates can figure out how to work.

#3 is talent. I fear these guys may not be as good as I thought they'd be. I figured this team would be good for at least 30-35 wins and just needed a veteran PG and star wing to make them a legit contender. Wemby may be the only one who is a legit top 3 option for a contender. Vassell may be a limited streaky shooter and not much of a playmaker. Keldon Johnson seems like a more all-around player. Collins is a good complementary big. He's a good heavy to pair with Wemby and he's a good interior passer. Pop is trying to turn him into the stretch 5 he was at Gonzaga, but it's not really happening. It's hard to judge Jones without giving him full-time PG minutes. It's hard to judge Sochan as a PG rather than a high ceiling big wing. The bench is decent.
 
Sounds like poor player evaluation and acquisition as well. Any idiot would've drafted Wemby #1. After that, what does the rest of the roster look like?
 
Too add to that, it is amazing how similar Pop and Belichick are. Oh shit, you each had a GOAT player fall into your lap that made you look like one of the greatest coaches of all time and revered as such for almost 20 years. Shocking. Then said player leaves/retires and you look like a below-average coach for the remainder of your tenure. In Pop's case it may be even worse as he was gifted a potential second GOAT by Silver as his rigged retirement gift, and he is still managing to screw it up to an epic degree.
 
Simultaneous with the semifinals and finals of the in-season tournament in Vegas. They should have a three team tournament played at the nastiest Casino in Mississippi, requiring the Pistons, Spurs and Wiz to play. The team that finishes DFL loses their 2024 NBA draft pick. If the the three teams go 1-1 (which would be likely), the loser is based on point differential. Incentivize the dreg teams to run it up.
 
2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
Too add to that, it is amazing how similar Pop and Belichick are. Oh shit, you each had a GOAT player fall into your lap that made you look like one of the greatest coaches of all time and revered as such for almost 20 years. Shocking. Then said player leaves/retires and you look like a below-average coach for the remainder of your tenure. In Pop's case it may be even worse as he was gifted a potential second GOAT by Silver as his rigged retirement gift, and he is still managing to screw it up to an epic degree.
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who are the GOAT coaches that didn't have GOAT players?
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
who are the GOAT coaches that didn't have GOAT players?
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That is a tough question because I think you'd only have to look at modern coaches to get a realistic assessment, as older coaches in smaller leagues usually all had really top level talent so outliers like what you're looking for would be tough to find.

Off the top of my head, you can exclude the LeBron era and what Spo has done since then should put him in the conversation. Nurse could be on that level too, Kawhi has proven to be useless, we'll see what he does in Philly. On the NFL side, my man Coughlin has to be in the conversation with how much y'all rag on ELIte.
 
Pilchard said:
Sounds like poor player evaluation and acquisition as well. Any idiot would've drafted Wemby #1. After that, what does the rest of the roster look like?
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It's a mixed bag:

The Spurs have a lowkey bad draft history aside from the obvious #1 picks and great late 1st round picks. The current roster has roster holes left by taking Lonnie Walker (#18), Luka Samanic (#19), Devin Vassell (#11) and Josh Primo (#12) with their first 1st rounder from 2018-21. Literally the next guy taking after all of them has been more productive. Walker was a decent player who played out his contract. They cut Samanic and Primo. Vassell is a good player they resigned but they passed on Haliburton at a point in their draft where people were wondering why Haliburton had dropped so far.

But on the positive side, they balanced those picks by taking Keldon Johnson (#29) and Tre Jones (#41) with their second picks in 2019 and 2020 and having a solid 2022 draft with Jeremy Sochan (#9) and Malaki Branham (#20).

In terms of player acquisition, they traded their two best late round picks of the decade in Dejounte Murray and Derrick White for more draft capital. Those were probably good moves in that they have a bunch of picks and if they didn't get Wemby, they'd have more cracks at a transformative player. But this roster needs to get older, not younger. Otherwise, they risk putting Wemby on someone else's timeline instead of letting the team grow with Wemby. Right now, the Sochan PG experiment stunted Wemby's growth. They should be putting players around Wemby instead.

All in all, it's hard to criticize past moves like waiting so long to rebuild post-Kawhi because it got them Wemby. Right now, they're experimenting and taking inventory. That's fine but Wemby is better than I expected at this stage, so it feels like they're wasting a season. At least, play him in optimal lineups.
 
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