NBA

Westbrook was never one of my favorite players during most of his prime, but seeing how Westbrook has handled his last few years helped me gain a lot of respect for him.

Sure he never was the lead guy on a championship team, but his competitiveness is amazing. He played his best through all the Lakers drama. Westbrook also put up 37 in a playoff game in the most recent playoffs. I'm quite a huge fan of this late-career Westbrook.

Kobe - when I first started following the NBA as a kid, Kobe was the player I liked to root against. Near the end of his career I had nothing but love for him.

1. Tyrese Haliburton

2. Anthony Edwards

3. Zion Williamson

4. LaMelo Ball

5. Darius Garland

6. Tyrese Maxey

7. Alperen Sengun

8. Tyler Herro

9. Chet Holmgren

10. Scottie Barnes

11. Evan Mobley

12. Victor Wembanyama

13. Paolo Banchero

14. RJ Barrett

15. Cam Thomas

16. Jalen Williams

17. Franz Wagner

18. Cade Cunningham

19. Jalen Green

20. Josh Giddey

I feel as if 25 Under 25 is a little too broad and most of those guys are already established monsters like Luka so 23 and under really gives us the fresh, young talent and future.

Alright, any time you make a subjective list like this your gonna get torn to shreds no matter what the list is, go on tell me why I am wrong and why your favorite player should be higher.

Important:

- considers all components of the game: offense, rebounding, passing, efficiency, defense, etc.

- the ranking is based off: 60% this season, and 40% previous years and previous success and accolades (i.e if one guy is slightly worse than the other this season but has some really good previous accolades, he gets a higher rank, like Josh Giddey hasn't been good this year, but he makes it over someone like Ausar Thompson because he was really good last year and Thompson's only played a couple games)

- yes, this is a edited version of a list I posted yesterday due to the fact that I realized I had totally forgot to update and tweak the middle part of my list from the beginning of the season and it was weighted too heavily on the start of this season and the fact that I need to get a life

Interesting read.

An excerpt I thought provoking was:

And of course, how could we write an article about NBA scandals without name-dropping Ja Morant. The Grizzlies star is currently serving a 25 game suspension for “conduct detrimental to the league”, spurred by his repeat offense of waving a gun around on IG Live. Morant’s off the court issues not only spell trouble for the Grizzlies ($159M brand value, lowest in the league), but also for the NBA as a whole. Recent issues such as Giddey’s allegations are now being evaluated in the context of Ja’s suspension. On social media, accusations of racism are being thrown towards the league as an explanation for Giddey facing no consequences yet, while Morant was immediately made to give an apology for his conduct. This is a terrible look for a league that already has character concerns of its own after kicking off games in the UAE (where homosexuality is illegal) and standing by China during the Daryl Morey controversy.

In a league full of young, fresh-faced superstars, branding should be the last concern. Yet, as these issues continue to arise, and seemingly become more common, one can only wonder what lies ahead for the NBA.

In my opinion, the NBA does have somewhat of a branding problem. Like the article suggests, it's hard for casuals, outsiders, and prospective new fans to take the league serious when it can't take care of itself. This is obviously anecdotal, but I had a really interesting conversation with older family members on Thanksgiving, who viewed the league as "not really legitimate", out of control, and having no real direction. The NBA, which is in somewhat of a limbo zone of being much less popular than the NFL and CFB, but only a bit more popular than MLB and college basketball, really cannot afford to take many more hits to to its brand and standing.

Another problem? With faces of the league like LeBron and Curry soon aging out (I mean Lebron's witchcraft fuckery has to end eventually right?) the NBA doesn't have even close to a generation of fun, likeable stars to replace them. Ja sort of was becoming that guy, but all of his gun issues, regardless of where you stand on the whole thing, undoubtedly tarnish his reputation and I seriously doubt the league will make any moves to make him the face of the league. Guys like Tatum and Booker aren't as fun to root for, and are plagued by their lack of championships (which I think is completely unfair and a symptom of the modern-day ring culture). Then you have the internationals like Giannis, Embiid, Jokic: all of these are obviously elite franchise players but are still are not taken serious in one way or another, leading to their inability to carry the NBA brand (Giannis supposedly having no talent and only running and dunking, Embiid's lack of playoff success and reliance on fouls, Jokic seemingly not caring about the NBA after the conclusion fo the season).

Finally, with the introduction of the NBA cup and all of its wacky courts, it comes across like the NBA is throwing out everything possible in order to prevent their slide into irrelevancy (sort of like what's happened to the MLB).

Then again, you could make the argument that the NBA is too big to fail in such a manner, and that with time, we will have our new generation of universal superstars. Interested to see what you guys think.

Several different matchups have good cases.

Celtics vs. Heat:

Played each other in 2020 playoffs (Heat won), 2022 (Celtics won), 2023 (Heat won)

Celtics vs. Bucks:

Played each other in 2018 playoffs (Celtics won), 2019 (bucks won), 2022 (Celtics won)

Celtics vs. 76ers:

Played each other in 2018 playoffs (Cs won), 2020 (Cs won), 2023 (Cs won)

76ers vs. Heat:

Played each other in 2018 playoffs (76ers won), 2022 (Heat won)

Heat vs. Bucks:

Played each other in 2020 playoffs (Heat won), 2021 (Bucks won), 2023 (Heat won)

Showed up to the game expecting Butler and Bam, but got Jovic instead. Honestly not that mad, Jovic minutes are few and far between.

One of my favorite chapters of Bill's book was this one, and he did an updated 21st century-only one like 5 years ago. Create the best possible lineup, starters and reserves, based on each player's best season (or, more specifically, their season most conducive to winning with the rest of the roster).

Bill's roster 5 or so years ago:

Starters: Curry (2016), Kobe (2006), LeBron (2013), KD (2017), Duncan (2003).

Reserves: Kawhi (2017), KG (2004), AD (2018), Ray Allen (2001), CP3 (2014), Klay (2016), Shaq (2001), Nash (2007), Wade (2009), Iverson (2001)

Feels like Curry (updated to 2023) and LeBron (2013) are the only two locks as starters, though you can argue both KD and Duncan shouldn't be up for debate either. I just view Jokic (2023), Giannis (any year 2020-present lol), and Kawhi (2019) as legitimately complicating the non-Lebron/Curry other starting spots.

Do you swap Jokic for Duncan and create a super-offense at the expense of your defense? Do you swap Kobe for Kawhi? KD for Giannis? Am I missing another guy who has been so insanely good to actually warrant replacing one of the starters? Is 2019 AD (bubble title) worthy of even a brief conversation for the center spot?

Rounding out the rest of the roster, who else may have an argument to replace one of the reserves? I am not kicking off KG, CP3, Shaq, or Wade... each of them was too good. They just were.

IMO there are three serious options to replace one or more of Klay, Nash, Ray, or Iverson: Embiid (2023), Luka (any year 2020-present), and Tatum (2023). Other at least arguable players include Lillard (2023), SGA (2023), Booker (2023), and Harden (2019) and I think that's it, unless I'm forgetting someone obvious.

My roster:

Starters: Curry (2023), Kawhi (2019), LeBron (2013), KD (2017), Duncan (2003).

Reserves: KG (2004), AD (2019), CP3 (2014), Shaq (2001), Wade (2009), Jokic (2023), Giannis (2022), Luka (2022), Ray (2001), Kobe (2006).

Thoughts?

We consider Nikola Jokic from Serbia as the best player in the nba right now.

Nikola Jovic is still a very young player who has high potential. He already showed glimpsed of it.

But do you know Serbia have another 2 Nba Big Guard Prospects (Named Nikola)

Who are they?

Nikola Djurisic and Nikola Topic!!!

Both 6'6 - 6'7 Guards!!!!

In the Future Serbia might produce more than 5 Nba Players named Nikola!!!

(Nikola Vucevic and Former Nba Player Nikola Mirotic are from Montenegro. Not Serbia)

There are certain things that will most likely never change simply because "that is how it's always been". No matter how much it would improve the game, it's just too late to change now. It would make it impossible to compare stats between eras and it would completely destroy the record books.

Examples include changing the number of games in a season, changing number of minutes in a game, recording assists the way hockey does it, etc. You could argue all day about how much these changes would improve the game, and I might agree with you, but I doubt they ever happen simply because it's too late to change those things now.

However, let's say you can go back in time and make it so that your ideal rule has always been in place. What do you change and how does it affect the game?

What I would change: I would make it so that the NBA has always played games to 100 points, with breaks when a team reaches 25, 50, 75, and (if the lead is within 2) 100 points. 1st team to reach 100 and be up by 3 points wins.

How it would affect the game: I think basketball is more entertaining and more fun to play when playing to a target score rather than for a certain amount of time. If a team is winning a close game they can't just rely on clock management and waste time as a strategy. They still have to score to finish their opponent off. They'll need to play the same way they've been playing all game. On the other hand, a team that is losing a close game can't just foul, let the other team shoot free throws, and get the ball back. There would be no benefit to giving them free points. The only way to come back would be to play good defense. Playing to a target score forces both teams into simply playing ball rather than playing the clock.