Arena The NBA Thread

LMA with 19 boards too, didn't watch but damn. And if they semi-tank with so many dudes out and nab a high draft pick a la Robinson/Duncan, that team could be loaded for Pop.

 

It’s about that time...



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Love having that buzz back... its been sorely missed.

 

Frakking TNT didn’t show the Paul Allen tribute. Instead we all got treated to Shaq and Ernie yapping about meaningless stuff.

I like that this game is fast paced. Which team will play defense first?

 

Liking Rondo & McGee’s efforts thus far.

 

A great opening win for my Blazers. Dame and CJ were their usual stellar selves, but the real standout star was Nik Stauskas. I wasn’t expecting that out of him.

 

Needless to say, the Lakers need serious work on their 3-point shooting. Not surprised at all by the Blazers effort.

 

blazers looked good. still possibly the most intriguing jimmy butler destination.

 

Which is why many NBA pundits were questioning the Lakers' off season moves. Many felt that the Lakers should have picked up some three point shooters to surround LeBron. And as C-Web pointed out last night in the broadcast like every other minute, the Lakers will have to rely on defense and getting points in the paint, but they can't get down in double digits late in the game because it's unlikely they'll be able to come back.

It was awesome to see LeBron and Lillard exchange dunks in like 19 seconds. That was like a dunk contest with the mean mugging going on by both. Too bad they called a timeout after LeBron threw down his second dunk.

I thought it was an interesting stat shown at the end of the game, which was LeBron is 0-4 in his debut game with a new team. Saturday night's game at home for the Lakers against the Rockets should be fun.


As for the G League signing select high schoolers for around $150K and it's effect on the college game? Good. It's about time. I mean, baseball has been doing this forever. The G League allows kids to stay in the US instead of chasing a paycheck overseas, and will get proper training, development and coaching to play in the NBA. It's been very rare for a kid to go overseas and make it to the NBA. And of course, it helps those kids coming from poor situations to help their family, by putting money in their pockets rather than some university.

And I think the college game will be the better for it, as you'll probably see more players stay long than the one and done. So you'll get players that want to be in college and develop there and with the school. Basically, I don't the NCAA will suffer all that much.

 

Sometimes I miss the tighter scheduling. Detroit played on Wednesday, and I was excited for another game...but they don't play again until Saturday, and until Tuesday after that. I kinda feel like, let's play two. I know its for their health, though, so I'll wait. Two days off isn't that long. It's not like the extra week before the Super Bowl.

Plus, they do have several back-to-backs this year, and only one day off between most games. So it's not that bad, just a bit of a slow start at the start of the season.

 

HELLO MINNESOTA KEVIN

(including the not-winning-of-games but still)

 

jerebko!

 

Mitchell brought the offense to a grinding halt in the second half. I thought they shouldn't have been going to him down the stretch. He was playing with blinders on. I think it's important for him to develop into a playmaking point guard, because despite his long arms he's still only 6'3", and its tough to play shooting guard at that height in the NBA when you have guys like Klay at 6'8" guarding you. If 6'6" Exum stays healthy and stops disappearing, maybe the future could be those two playing together.

I'm pretty tired of Draymond flop crashing after every difficult layup attempt.

Watching Toronto tonight, I think Kawhi has lost a step. He's just not as quick. His running looked bad at times. He had a great game anyway, but maybe he never fully recovered from whatever injury he had.

 

Tell me again why every other team in the league decided to take a pass on him and let Golden State sign him and pay him less than Amazon pays seasonal warehouse employees?

 

Ouchers! . Kevin Knox took an ugly fall earlier. But they said the x-ray was negative so hopefully he won't be out long.

 

A win's a win. Hornets have been looking good, even in their opening loss. Kemba is looking lethal.

 

whoa. this is game 2? what the hell is brandon ingram doing? this is gonna be a crazy season.

 

It's annoying-ish, but it's not the Lakers lost to chump teams here, so yeah, there's 80 goddamn games left to go. They'll sort it out.


Got to think that Ingram & CP3 will be out a game or two; Rondo too, maybe.

 

ICYMI

Last night the Joker put up a ridiculous triple double with 35/12/11, but even more impressive was his perfect 11-for11 night from the floor, including three triples, only slightly stained by the fact that he missed a free throw, going "only" 10-for-11 from the charity stripe.

 

Ingram just needed to establish a place on the Meme Team