Around the League - '23-24 Season

[davemang]

https://x.com/ShamsCharania/status/1737 ... 81150?s=20

The Cleveland Cavaliers and Ricky Rubio have begun discussing a potential parting of ways amid doubts about Rubio resuming an NBA career that has spanned 12 seasons, league sources say.

[Coolbreeze44]

DLO with a solid 2 point outing tonight in a loss to the Bulls. He's rounding into form to face his old team.

[Lipoli390]

The Thunder beat the Clippers tonight 134 to 115. They’re a heck of a team. And they’re so young! I’d consider OKC and the Nuggets to be the Wolves more dangerous rivals in the West.

Before we start can consider Edwards a superstar, in my view he’ll need to match SGA. Tonight SGA had 31 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 steals, 2 blocks and only 1 turnover. Edwards had 5 turnovers. Ant is younger and has less NBA experience than SGA. I’d like to believe that Ant will be at least as good as SGA in a year or two.

[davemang]

The Thunder beat the Clippers tonight 134 to 115. They’re a heck of a team. And they’re so young! I’d consider OKC and the Nuggets to be the Wolves more dangerous rivals in the West.

Before we start can consider Edwards a superstar, in my view he’ll need to match SGA. Tonight SGA had 31 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 steals, 2 blocks and only 1 turnover. Edwards had 5 turnovers. Ant is younger and has less NBA experience than SGA. I’d like to believe that Ant will be at least as good as SGA in a year or two.

SGA is so special. I think he's always played poorly (by his standards) against the wolves, so I feel like until I started watching him a bit more consistently I didn't realize how good he was. Definitely a good comp for the level Ant needs to be at before we use the "superstar" label, even though they get it done a little differently.

And Chet running away with rookie of the year has been fun to see (not that I'm a Wembenyama hater, just a little annoyed at people anointing him the savior already). Weird that losing vs winning culture impact on a players development could be studied here with San Antonio being the current losing culture and OKC being the winning culture. As great of a coach as he has been, I think it will be best for the Spurs and Pop to part ways as soon as they can.

[Lipoli390]

The Thunder beat the Clippers tonight 134 to 115. They’re a heck of a team. And they’re so young! I’d consider OKC and the Nuggets to be the Wolves more dangerous rivals in the West.

Before we start can consider Edwards a superstar, in my view he’ll need to match SGA. Tonight SGA had 31 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 steals, 2 blocks and only 1 turnover. Edwards had 5 turnovers. Ant is younger and has less NBA experience than SGA. I’d like to believe that Ant will be at least as good as SGA in a year or two.

SGA is so special. I think he's always played poorly (by his standards) against the wolves, so I feel like until I started watching him a bit more consistently I didn't realize how good he was. Definitely a good comp for the level Ant needs to be at before we use the "superstar" label, even though they get it done a little differently.

And Chet running away with rookie of the year has been fun to see (not that I'm a Wembenyama hater, just a little annoyed at people anointing him the savior already). Weird that losing vs winning culture impact on a players development could be studied here with San Antonio being the current losing culture and OKC being the winning culture. As great of a coach as he has been, I think it will be best for the Spurs and Pop to part ways as soon as they can.

Dave - I share your annoyance over the Wemby mania we’ve witnessed this season. Maybe he’ll turn out to be better than Chet when their respective careers are over. But right now, Chet is light years better. Although OKC is a major Wolves rival, I like their team.

[Q-is-here]

The Thunder beat the Clippers tonight 134 to 115. They’re a heck of a team. And they’re so young! I’d consider OKC and the Nuggets to be the Wolves more dangerous rivals in the West.

Before we start can consider Edwards a superstar, in my view he’ll need to match SGA. Tonight SGA had 31 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 steals, 2 blocks and only 1 turnover. Edwards had 5 turnovers. Ant is younger and has less NBA experience than SGA. I’d like to believe that Ant will be at least as good as SGA in a year or two.

SGA is so special. I think he's always played poorly (by his standards) against the wolves, so I feel like until I started watching him a bit more consistently I didn't realize how good he was. Definitely a good comp for the level Ant needs to be at before we use the "superstar" label, even though they get it done a little differently.

And Chet running away with rookie of the year has been fun to see (not that I'm a Wembenyama hater, just a little annoyed at people anointing him the savior already). Weird that losing vs winning culture impact on a players development could be studied here with San Antonio being the current losing culture and OKC being the winning culture. As great of a coach as he has been, I think it will be best for the Spurs and Pop to part ways as soon as they can.

Good stuff Dave. I completely agree on Pop. He needs to go...kick him upstairs and give him something to do in the front office, but he's way past his prime as a coach. I consider Bill Belichick his contemporary in the NFL and the Patriots should do the same thing.

[FNG]

Dave and Lip, the Holmgren/Victor ROY race is going to be very interesting. As Lip said, if you look deeply at the advanced stats, Chet is light years ahead of Wemby in performance this year. But not only is the hype mostly about Wemby, surprisingly he leads Chet in every raw statistical per game category: points, rebounds, blocks, assists and steals. But the advanced stats favor Chet, and it's not even close. And even more important, Chet has been a factor in helping a team win, while Victor has not.

In some ways it's not fair to compare the two, because Chet is almost a full two years older than Victor! Not to mention Chet had an entire year to travel with OkC and learn the NBA game...it's different than college or European ball, and there's no question in my mind that Chet became more NBA ready watching every Thunder game last season. My guess is that Wemby is a once in a generation player, and will end up being the better pro player. But right now, 21-year-old Chet is performing better than 19-year-old Wemby.

Here's my prediction. As long as Wemby continues to put up raw numbers like he has for the first 1/3 of the season, he will be named ROY...even if Chet's advanced numbers are better. Wemby came into the league with an enormous amount of hype, and his 18.5/10.7 is impressive for a rookie and has met expectations. I'll be cheering for the home town kid, but if he continues at this pace, the ROY race will go to Wemby.

[Lipoli390]

Dave and Lip, the Holmgren/Victor ROY race is going to be very interesting. As Lip said, if you look deeply at the advanced stats, Chet is light years ahead of Wemby in performance this year. But not only is the hype mostly about Wemby, surprisingly he leads Chet in every raw statistical per game category: points, rebounds, blocks, assists and steals. But the advanced stats favor Chet, and it's not even close. And even more important, Chet has been a factor in helping a team win, while Victor has not.

In some ways it's not fair to compare the two, because Chet is almost a full two years older than Victor! Not to mention Chet had an entire year to travel with OkC and learn the NBA game...it's different than college or European ball, and there's no question in my mind that Chet became more NBA ready watching every Thunder game last season. My guess is that Wemby is a once in a generation player, and will end up being the better pro player. But right now, 21-year-old Chet is performing better than 19-year-old Wemby.

Here's my prediction. As long as Wemby continues to put up raw numbers like he has for the first 1/3 of the season, he will be named ROY...even if Chet's advanced numbers are better. Wemby came into the league with an enormous amount of hype, and his 18.5/10.7 is impressive for a rookie and has met expectations. I'll be cheering for the home town kid, but if he continues at this pace, the ROY race will go to Wemby.

Hoping your ROY prediction will be wrong, FNG, but I’m pretty sure you’ll be right.

[TheFuture]

Dave and Lip, the Holmgren/Victor ROY race is going to be very interesting. As Lip said, if you look deeply at the advanced stats, Chet is light years ahead of Wemby in performance this year. But not only is the hype mostly about Wemby, surprisingly he leads Chet in every raw statistical per game category: points, rebounds, blocks, assists and steals. But the advanced stats favor Chet, and it's not even close. And even more important, Chet has been a factor in helping a team win, while Victor has not.

In some ways it's not fair to compare the two, because Chet is almost a full two years older than Victor! Not to mention Chet had an entire year to travel with OkC and learn the NBA game...it's different than college or European ball, and there's no question in my mind that Chet became more NBA ready watching every Thunder game last season. My guess is that Wemby is a once in a generation player, and will end up being the better pro player. But right now, 21-year-old Chet is performing better than 19-year-old Wemby.

Here's my prediction. As long as Wemby continues to put up raw numbers like he has for the first 1/3 of the season, he will be named ROY...even if Chet's advanced numbers are better. Wemby came into the league with an enormous amount of hype, and his 18.5/10.7 is impressive for a rookie and has met expectations. I'll be cheering for the home town kid, but if he continues at this pace, the ROY race will go to Wemby.

The biggest issue for the Spurs is they do not have a starting level PG. Tre Jones is a fine backup, and far better than Sochan, but for some reason they continue to force Sochan as the starter over Tre.

They also cannot shoot at all. Their team sucks, which is why they were in the position to get Wemby. They need 2 years to build everything around him.

Switch Wemby and Chet, and I'd bet the advanced stats swing 180.

Also rooting for Chet though.

Personally, I don't like watching SGA. He is very smooth, extremely talented on both ends, but I hate watching any foul baiting players. His head whiplash on every drive annoys the hell out of me. Wish ANT and KAT could both average 8-10 FTs a game like they actually deserve with the contact they play through.

[Lipoli390]

Kevin Durant frustrated with situation in Phoenix

Trevor Booth: Woj on ESPN talks about the #Suns and speaks about frustration from Kevin Durant with Brad Beal out and an “underwhelming supporting cast.”

Durant is is one of the League’s more annoying whiny players in the League. He’s part of what I call the whiny class - a group of NBA players who never take responsibility for their own situations but instead blame others and look for the easy path to success. Durant has either left or effectivelhy forced his way out of every team he’s been on. No team or set of teammates has been good enough for him in his mind. After signing with the Warriors for an easy path to his only championship, he ended up getting whiny and leaving the Warriors. Last season he wanted out of the Nets and got traded to one of the team’s on his short list. Now he’s not happy with his new team one-third of the way into his first full season there. He’s a great player, but I wouldn’t even think trading for or signing him.