This is the most ass backwards thread. Ja and Shai aren’t that far off from eachother like people are making it seem. Bane is WAAAAAY better than Giddey and JJJ is a proven DPOY. Absolute recency bias and I don’t give a damn about the Grizzlies but I would bet anything they put the Thunder out of the playoffs every year with those cores.
this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2023
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Shai, Chet and J-Dub.
thunder
younger
less trigger happy
Better? Cmon nephew, grizzly was a top team in the west they have more longevity to prove. Yall are crazily biased smh
One group has better players. The other has a guy who wants to fight 12 year olds. Tough choice.
Definitely the thunder. Shai will be a better player than Morant in their 30s. Fast twitch guys don't age well.
He’s a better player now and it’s not really up for debate lol
Chet will be the best player of them in 2-3 years, so OKC
Biased for sure and this might hurt but that Grizzlies core might literally be a worse version of the Thunder core
As of right now Memphis has the advantage with 2/3 of those guys. SGA > Ja no question but Bane and JJJ > Williams and Chet for now, although that can obviously change as Chet develops.
Well yeah its biased but I really thought the question was nuanced because Jdub could be better than Bane in the future and Chet is pretty similar to JJJ already and he's a 21 year old rook
I don’t think what you said is biased at all and I definitely agree both could be better than their Memphis counterparts.
We still have picks to go so I will say I would say us but I am being biased
JJJ is the most overrated player in the league. Grizz won't win anything significant if he is a core piece on that team
25 teams would line up around the block to trade for him
He's underrated, probably even by himself. Plays like he's much smaller than he is for a lot of the game and then realizes he's longer and more athletic than 99 percent of the people on the court for a few minutes and turns into a god. Frustrating to watch, honestly his biggest knock, like most of the young grizzlies, is how quickly he starts to visibly pout when the game goes south early. The whole team really needs a mentality check.
Thunder but the gap isn’t huge by any means
The Grizzlies are clearly more proven and better right now, but JJJ's inconsistent offense and bad rebounding annoy the hell out of me and I worry about Ja's health so OKC does have more upside. Memphis rn but by season's end it should be OKC core passing them at this right.
Chet rebounds like shit also
If you asked me this last year I would have said the grizzlies easily but it’s crazy how fast things seem to change. Now I would say OKC easily because of how crazy Chet and J Dub look.
Just play the Lakers and Warriors in three consecutive post seasons and watch how your team is character assassinated by NBA media
Dog did the lakers make Ja beat up a kid during a pick up game? Were the warrior players dressed up as Jas entourage after the pacers game?
Shai is the best player in the group so, OKC by default. A true superstar is always the hardest thing to find and Shai is simply better than Ja
As evidenced by Shai being the top usage option on a team that has won a playoff series and has made the playoffs or playin game every game of his career right?
SGA Genesis
OKC has more ceiling. I think Memphis young already hit their ceiling.
Basing on projections it's easier to say OKC. SGA is very very good already, Chet is obviously a hyper efficient big man with loads of potential on both sides and Jdub already looks like a stud. That's not to mention Giddey, Dort, Joe and the other Williams'es plus like 300 picks in the next 5-10 years (I know that's not the question but thunder is stacked and will be able to build around these guys very easily).
In saying that, progression is never linear, the NBA is unpredicatble and who knows how each of these players pans out. Jaren is younger than Ja and both are still a few years away from "prime". Des is currently taking on 1st option responsibilities and although the team around him is mostly ass due to injuries and lack of depth, he has been very good so far and getting solid run that will only improve him for when he needs to revert back behind Ja. Ja, dumbassery aside, is an absolutely electric player who has shown that top 10 potential already and single handedly carried us to many a win.
I think Jaren probably has the highest ceiling of the Grizz 3, if he can reach it, same with Chet in OKC. The "right" answer is going to be OKC 9/10 times but obviously I am biased and will back my guys being the 1/10 to say Grizz. The real positive here for us fans is, with a bit of luck, we should hopefully see some must watch playoff series between these teams in the next decade.
Ja Morant's peak so far is all-nba 2nd team. Shai's peak is all-nba 1st team, and honestly so far he looks even better this year. Ja has an edge in playmaking, but Shai is quite a bit more efficient. Shai is 4 inches taller than Ja which is another advantage for him. When you take into account off-court issues, it isn't really close.
Jalen Williams so far has been a very efficient scorer. He'll clearly be a very good player. However, Bane has proven he's an efficient 20+ PPG scorer who shoots 42% from 3 and can defend well. Jalen Williams has the potential to develop into a Bane level player, or even better, but for now I have to give the edge to Bane.
It honestly feels weird saying this given that JJJ is an all-star and DPOY, and Chet has only played 13 games, but I'd really rather build around Chet than JJJ. Despite Chet just barely starting out his career, he's already a better player on offense than Jaren. Chet is no slacker on defense either. 1 steal per game and 2.2 blocks per game. Jaren Jackson Jr.'s ceiling isn't much higher than how he's playing right now. Chet's ceiling is all-nba/MVP level player.
Bonus stat: I know game score isn't a very good stat, but I just thought it was funny that Chet's 32.5 GmSc last night is higher than JJJ's career high GmSc of 30.8. Just goes to show how efficient Chet was while stuffing the stat sheet.
tl;dr: Shai > Ja, Bane > Williams, Chet > JJJ. Overall I'd take the Thunder for sure.
Of course Bane is our player that gets respect. This sub is so comically biased towards shooting %
This sub also just hates Ja, all offseason they tried to argue that JJJ was better than him lol.
Better is so subjective. JJJ is a perennial DPOY candidate while Ja is a self-sabotaging mentally ill person. It’s not crazy for someone to say JJJ is better or you’d rather build around him.
That’s a dishonest characterization of Ja. You’re omitting that he’s a 2 time all star and 1 time all-NBA player lol.
I’d take the Thunder but a couple things. It seems easily forgotten how good Ja actually is. He may do stupid stuff, SGA is better, but Ja is still a force on offense. Second, Chet isn’t a great rebounder right now either. He has been fantastic so far, but hasn’t been in the playoffs yet which is where the Grizz shortcomings have been exposed
I’m tired of pretending the Memphis core isn’t overrated. Mainly because Ja is overrated. He’s 22/7 with 3 TOs per game and a bad shooter if he’s away from the rim. He’s not even on the same tier as SGA/THog/Fox.
Thunder easily.
My brother the popular thing on this sub for about 500 days is to say Memphis is overrated. I’m tired of people pretending that that isn’t the normative opinion.
He’s not even on the same tier as SGA/THog/Fox.
Y'all just love saying stupid shit
He’s not though. He averages the same or less points, less assist, more turnovers, and he can’t shoot. He’s a career 32% 3 point shooter. That is awful. His entire game is predicated on getting to the rim which doesn’t work near as well in the playoffs. Stats don’t lie
I mean it really depends on how well JJJ's ability to create shots fares.
The thunder have at least 6 guys who could be starters on most NBA teams, some teams barely have 4. Thunder have a million picks. Younger group too.
Their future is much brighter than the Grizz. JJJ is mind broken after he sucked ass at FIBA, Ja is Ja, Bane has tiny arms.
I would absolutely take OKC over Memphis anyway, but one thing I have yet to see in the comments is that OKC also has the assets to get better whereas Memphis doesn’t have anywhere near as much. OKC has a cupboard full of first rounders ready to deploy for anyone they deem to be a great fit. There’s a strong likelihood at some point JDub is their 4th or 5th guy, and maybe Chet even becomes the 3rd (though that may be a long shot cause he’s going to be damn good).
The Grizzlies have been a top 3 seed the last 2 seasons, has everyone forgot about that or something?
That regular season success has been driven by depth much more than top end talent though - highlighted by their excellent records with stars injured.
I wouldn’t say everybody forgot that. More like everybody is intentionally trying to act like it didn’t happen.
The DeMar-Lowry Raptors and Coach Bud Hawks were regular season tanks. Both teams have to show they can make noise in the playoffs, still, before anyone is going to give them too much respect.
But I think Memphis definitely got their flowers last year.
Thunder one looks better to choose rn cause two of them are just starting their development so we can only imagine how they’ll pan out.
Grizzlies one we already know what they are about, and they’re crazy good.
Basically there’s no bad pick there.
i’ll take the one that doesn’t get suspended
How is this a real question haha