Basketball (NBA/ FIBA)

Yeah I’m aware that Westbrook wasn’t even meant to go top 15 in the draft halfway through his final college season.

He doesn’t need to be the next Steph Curry, but an overall FG% of 29% (2- and 3-pointers) is just really bad.

Golden State is great, because Kerr is a brilliant defense-mind. Not just because of that backcourt. D’Antoni, as frontrunner of the pace-and-space era, would not have the same success with that roster. But that’s a different discussion.

Yeh but very small sample size. Only 12 games in the guys career and if you’ve watched the games, a good amount of his shots have been stuff at the rim that’s just not falling for him atm. He will not continue to shoot that poorly he’ll finish the season slightly below 40%. Lonzo is an athlete he gets to the rim with ease.

@Aussiegooner Lonzo Ball, youngest player in NBA history to record a triple double. :grin: Beat Lebron James by 5 days.

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Hahahahaha was waiting for this notification, he even went 3-5 from 3 :eyes:. Didn’t watch it though, was watching the warriors coast to another win, seriously who’s their biggest threat ? Maybe Houston ? They simply won’t be beaten.

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Main man Jokic is carrying Denver to a 3rd seed. It’s inevitable they are going to drop, but they have seem to recovered from a slow start. 7-3 in the last 10 games.

Who have they beaten in this stretch? Feels like it’s been a relatively favourable schedule.

Yes. You’re right only proper teams are probably Toronto and OKC, and they are struggling, I do think that for a team fighting for the lower seeds every win matters. You can better have those on the books already. But the next two/three games are against teams who could be/are direct competitors.

12 wins in a row for the C’s with Irving out injured vs the Raptors.

East is shit though.

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Boston are currently a little over 3/1 to win the Eastern at 12-2 while their biggest competition and favourites to win Cleveland are at 6-7. Seems very overpriced to me.

Don’t feel like the west is that much better this year. There is still a gap, but not so big as it was.

Lot of up-and-coming teams in the East; Philadelphia, Milwaukee, New York and Atlanta and Chicago will have high draft picks in a very talented draft. I wonder if we’ll see a change in perception about the east/west in five years or so.

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I’m very excited to see where Philadelphia ends up being at in 3 years time. I’m also concerned for my blazers who seem to be in absolute no mans land, neither a chance of doing anything more than 1st round or bad enough to get a decent lottery position.

Yes. And rebuilding whilst staying competitive for the play-offs is also a fiction in my opinion. Even Boston who are lauded for that had a bad year. The draft that year just sucked (2014). Houston could acquire a top tier talent through trade, but that too is an exemption. If you’re going nowhere you have to start losing.

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1st Simmons vs Lonzo matchup, Simmons went 18-9-10 whilst Lonzo went 1-9 from the field and sat the 4th. Embiid 46-15-7 & 7 blocks, if he stays healthy he’s a generation big man.

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Bledsoe, personally, extended the career of Jason Kidd as a Milwaukee Bucks head coach for a few years. Although it has to be said they could really do with a proper point guard. Brogdon and Dellavedova were not going to cut it. Really glad Giannis got help. It’s going to be very interesting to see if Milwaukee and Philadelphia already surpassed Washington and Toronto to beat them in the play-offs or that they’ll need a little bit more experience.

Milwaukee remain incredibly inconsistent. Now on a 2-game losing streak. I reckon they’ll make the play-offs by default, but at some point they have to make the next step. They are not that young (Henson, Snell, Middleton 26, Bledsoe 27).

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Bledsoe doesn’t play defense though, it will be ok enough in the east to make the playoffs but they won’t go very far.

Meanwhile Lonzo with his second triple double on the anniversary of LeBrons first. Only two Lakers rookies to have multiple triple doubles? Lonzo and Magic :grin:

You didn’t have to say about Lonzo and Ben facing off for the 1st time ?

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Kyrie lighting up the East conf with the mask on, what a player.