He sucks, although it is a bit funny that with Ayton people always repeat obsessively "he's not a bust 1st pick, he has 17 points per game, that's great career duh!!!", and the same with some other guys, while with Jordan Poole the ppg does nothing to save him lol.
Same with Wiseman btw. Warriors are like a death's kiss in that regard, maybe it's actually bad to play in a team that people actually watch.
It definitely was. The other three series were mainly "competitive" due to bench minutes, if you only count starters' score then Denver was basically dominating them all completely. With Wolves the starters were much much closer and Nuggets' bench did more to keep the score. That series' 1-4 was decided in bigger part by minutes of Kyle Anderson, Taurean Prince and Jaylen Nowell than Gobert and Edwards.
Ah, the daily "he's not a bust, he just [the dictionary definition of a bust]".
Matt Bonner used to be a cult icon but also actually a key role player at one point, showing the frightening value of a big who shoots. I saw his name today and was like "oh yeah, Matt Bonner existed".
I can't wait until the guy hears about what every other job looks like.
Why does that stat called "free throw rate" so thouroughly disparage the talented guard??????
I dunno, because he gets few free throws?
I'm really over all this NBA culture thing to treat "stats" like they're protagonists of some fascinating story.
Chris Paul is very useful. He's a plus with starters and a plus as the bench leader, Warriors have the best bench net rating in like forever.
Listing his "filling the boxscore" as an argument is pointless. If Warriors were thinking like that, they would have traded Draymond Green for a Zach LaVine a long time ago, and Kevon Looney for a Norman Powell or whatever.
We all know Klay Thompson is not worth the money he is making currently. But continuity apparently makes the team happy and with a feeling of purpose and class and prestige, and the possibilities of what they'd get in return are not so great anyway.
Trading several proven guys in your team for one guy is kinda risky, many teams failed on it. Now it looks good when they're all on, but Celtics are generally almost always good whoever they play with Tatum. That gives some luxury that other teams will never have anyway, so they don't care making the trade. But wait for injuries, bad form, a lost playoff series - people will suddenly remember that these guys are not as good as now lol.
It helps that they are already good and have a young leadership on court, so basically they can risk it like that. They can wait if a good move is available, no pressure. They could keep Smart, Brogdon, Rob, that helps to only move when someone is in that beneficial situation.
Look at Blazers - they got a nice return for Jrue, in their situation. Brogdon and Williams might still be game changers, many picks and swaps. Just wait until 2036, when guys drafted with those picks will reach their prime lol. Then let's judge.
That Wolves game was crazy, dude so hard to stop. He's really good to watch. So much fight, but also some real skills to go with it for a rookie. Dude playing like that and making three-pointers will always be good for GSW. Gathers so many fouls though that you can see the downside.
If Warriors' starting lineup doesn't get good, they might wanna change a lot through this season. For now it really looks like some bench guys are better than Klay or Wiggins are doing. I wonder if Steph with Podziemski might happen. I know bench minutes are generally much easier, but these moments of playing Curry with Kuminga, Payton, Moody were the best sign for Warriors this season for sure.
Also Estonia will likely play against the top teams in the play-offs, it's really weird but they can win twice and somehow qualify for Euro after getting 1 point in the qualifying group.
Something new and previously unknown is more interesting than something that is not? What the hell.
Spurs are actually still kinda watchable when Tre Jones plays, so of course Tre is playing like 25 minutes a game if at all so they can focus on tanking and being really bad. This team when playing Jeremy Sochan as PG is comfortably one of the worst offenses AND defenses in modern NBA history. Wemby is also already more in the "spooky youth development" than "show us the best you can" phase. He has to learn it's not Europe and what a "rebuild" really is.
Lakers are outscored by a ton this season when Davis plays without LeBron on court. I'd say one nightmare matchup in the league is far from the main issue here. Davis will just always need a specific, kinda-hard to get combination of players around, when Jokić needs guys that are easier to come by. Their skills when they stand next to each other are not some main problem for Lakers in my feel.