AllOutRaptors

Recently I made a post about how you can watch a Grizzlies game for $2. The biggest pushback I had was "Grizzlies players were injured so who would want to go watch?"

Well, the Pistons and Wizards are currently battling it out for the title of worst NBA team in NBA history, and not only that have been 2 of the most hopeless teams for the past decade or so. As it turns out, the cheapest ticket to their thrilling rematch in January is $17, or an 850% increase over the cheapest Grizzlies ticket sold.

It's also over 3x cheaper to watch Luka Doncic play in Memphis than it is to watch Jordan Poole vs Killian Hayes

Say it with me folks: Grizzlies live in Vancouver, not Memphis

All pro sports fans have a vendetta against refs, but the NBA has by far the least competent group of refs in any sport. Not only are they incompetent, there has already been a massive betting scandal years back that lead to prison time, and yet some refs who were involved were not punished and still ref in this league to this day. Scott Foster, who is currently in controversy for ejecting Chris Paul for what seems like the 200th time, called Tim Donaghy 134 times while the scandal was taking place.

But here's the problem. It's not just the fact that the referees seem to still be involved in some sort of back alley betting, it's also the fact that they are WAY too sensitive. This year seems to be the worst in recent memory, and their quick elections are ruining the game.

Jokic was tossed in the 2nd quarter recently after 2 quick techs, Giannis got thrown out for simply staring down a player for about 2 seconds after a nasty dunk, as referenced before Chris Paul was given a quick ejection for arguing a call, and even more examples of this already and it hasn't even been 15 games yet.

Scott Foster has a clear rivalry with a player, and has a direct connection to a betting scandal, and yet he's still allowed to ref meaningful games.

How many other sports do you see star players get ejected so fucking easily? When was the last time McDavid got tossed from an NHL game for arguing with a ref? How many times has Patrick Mahomes gotten ejected for arguing a call?

I don't give a fuck that there's a refs union, something needs to be done because no one is paying hundreds of dollars to watch the ref toss the star players before Halftime. Either hold them accountable or start allowing ticket refunds when the refs inevitably throw out the star players for soft ass shit.

Fuck Scott Foster and Fuck the rest of the NBA Refs

With the next round of expansion being an almost foregone conclusion that it will be Seattle and Las Vegas, that leaves Vancouver on the outside looking in for the foreseeable future. However, this shouldn't be the end of Vancouvers professional basketball dreams.

The NBA has been testing out the market in Mexico City by way of the G League. The NBA has a chance to do the same for Vancouver, and possibly even Montreal as Adam Silver did also mention them recently as a place that's interested in NBA basketball.

With Seattle coming into the league, it makes a ton of sense to put their G League affiliate in Vancouver as it's just a short drive away. This would allow Vancouver to show their reignited desire for basketball, and give Seattle a super accessible developmental program.

The G League team could play at a few different arenas. Obviously Rogers Arena would be too big, but the Pacific Coliseum is a bit smaller and could allow for easy access to the downtown core. Or they could go another route and play at UBC at the Thunderbird Sports Arena. Langley Events Center is a bit further out but also a viable venue.

Vancouver is starving for basketball, and this could at least be a good consolation prize if we aren't getting an NBA team for a while.

The Memphis Grizzlies are currently selling tickets for as low as $2 per seat. They are averaging the 5th worst attendance in the league at 16, 833 which is worse than half of the Vancouver Grizzlies seasons almost 30 years ago when average attendance league wide was much lower than now.

Am I still petty that Memphis took our team? Absolutely.

But I can also guarantee you'd be hard pressed to find tickets to a Vancouver NBA game for the price of a quarter of a water at Rogers Arena. Not to mention I'm positive that Vancouver could do better than the 5th worst attendance in the league.

I look forward to seeing salty Memphis fans in my DMs, but just remember you would be frustrated too if a worse market stole you're NBA team, and then showed poor support to an actually talented team.

The Magic picks Suggs 5th overall, yet Franz is clearly the much better player and was picked later.

The Rockets also drafted in the top 5, with Jalen Green going 2nd overall. Sengun was drafted later in that same draft, and is the better player of the two.

Just thought it was a funny coincidence and certainly not something anyone would've expected post draft especially considering the hype these 2 received

This year's ROTY race is very likely going to come down to Chet and Wemby. However, some of the discourse around this is confusing. An argument that's being made against Chet is that his team is too good, and that he's benefitting from that. While I don't disagree, I'm looking back on the 2021 RoTY race, and the discourse was literally the complete opposite.

Evan Mobley was leading the race for most of the year, and a big reason for that is because his team was winning, and he was having a huge impact on it. The thing that seemingly flipped the race in Scotties favour was when the Raptors hit their 2nd gear and ended up passing the Cavs in the standings, which made the decision partly because Scottie was winning more. So why was team success one of the top swing factors in 2021, but is suddenly a negative this year to be on a winning team?

You see this with things like the MIP, DPoY etc where one set of criteria applies for certain players, and then is completely disregarded for others. Why is that the case? I know it's human nature to flip flop on things like this, but in the end the constant shifting goalposts hurt the consistency and relevancy of these awards.

This man just keeps getting better. He thoroughly outplayed Giannis in a game that was never even close.

Final Stats
21/12/5/2/1 on 8/16 from the field and 4/6 from 3