Thunder are 0-6 in games that would get them to .500 in 2023, so head down to your local cigar bar and tell your bookie you're putting all your money on the Raptors tonight.
Can we talk about this Tatum shooting thing? He's taking 9-10 three pt shots per game and hasn't made more than 35% of his takes in a month since October 0-8 last night
Tatum attempted 132 FT in January (14 games) and 65 in February (10 games) so maybe the crazy minutes/usage is wearing him down
It’s almost as if they should’ve hired a real head coach. I wonder if they thought they could just bring back Udoka eventually
They suspended him for a year instead of firing him back in September, so it would seem that was the plan until the good start to the season.
I always figured the suspension was just getting their legal ducks in a row to 100% ultimately fire him
That might have been the intention, but by not firing him then they made it tough to go out and bring in a qualified outside guy with experience to take the job for a year.
Was looking at the standings this morning, and that whole "tanking for Wemby is going to be crazy!!" stuff from the summer/fall never came close to happening. Four teams suck because some teams have to suck every year, but there's a massive gap right now between the bottom 4 and everyone else. People were talking after those high profile games from him like 8-10 teams were going to be tanking.
never under-estimate the ping pong balls but yeah...every conversation I've seen/heard has now shifted to where do you want VW to end up? Detroit, Houston, Charlotte, or SA?
Yeah there was a lot of hand wringing over the shamelessness of tanking strategies we were going to see and it has not materialized at all. The play in and flattening the lotto odds are having the intended effect.
And even the teams at the bottom haven't really gotten there by shamelessly doing it. At least until very recently with Detroit. Detroit and Charlotte lost their best players for most of the year.
as a guy who lives within 2 hrs of both houston and SA, wenbanyama ending up in texas would be lit. SA in particular has lacked star power for a while now
Yeah fuck Houston forever. SA and Detroit would both be good situations. That Detroit core would be scary.
Detroit core would be by far most fun and it would be funny to see what they do with the 3 old school centers on their roster San Antonio for sentimental reasons bc Pop
The Pistons with Wemby would be the best young core the league has seen since at least OKC with Durant/Westbrook/Harden. The bar for that core would be 1.5 championships in his first 6 years. I don't think that's hyperbole. Casey is probably getting fired and every coach currently out of work would be fighting for the chance to coach that team at the ground floor. It's also why I won't allow myself to believe it can happen.
More than 1 championship as the floor expectation in the first 6 years of Wemby's career is indeed hyperbole. Good vibes towards Detroit rescinded, go to San Antonio, Victor.
With the other young players around him, that would indeed be the expectations for a generational prospect walking into a roster that already has the recent lotto picks Detroit has. Doesn't mean it would happen. Young teams don't win and Cade is already missed a season with injury. But the expectations would be enormous.
Portland with a Wemby/Sharpe/Simons core carrying Dame to retirement would be fun Orlando doesn't deserve him after getting the best player in both 2021 and 2022
lets be real though for a minute, If Portland defied the odds and landed VW, he'd probably end up with a devastating knee injury or 3 and would be out of the league in < 6 years
Even the best prospects over the last 30 years or so haven’t had championship or bust expectations in that short of a timeframe. Maybe by the Skip Baylesses of the world. But most rational nba fans and pundits like the universally beloved Ben Taylor, would probably temper expectations.
Fair. It was kind of a throwaway line and you guys are probably right. Point was more that I don't think most of the prospects we're talking about have entered a scenario that already had guys on it viewed the way people view Cade (and to a lesser degree Ivey), which I think raises expectations early on because he wouldn't have to be MVP level right away in order to win more than 25-30 games. And that raises the expectations for what might be possible going into that second contract compared to guys who enter roster grave yard situations where it takes 4+ years just to put some players around them.
I love bogi but he couldn’t stay in front of Dump on the perimeter. When his 3 is falling he’s so much fun but what the fuck are we doing