Ongoing pro/college basketball thread (2023-24)
 

Celtics were favorites this year.



Today, the Milwaukee Bucks acquired Lillard.


Now?


(krustytheclown'sWHATTHEHELLWASTHAT.GIF)

Yeah not great for the Celtics that Yannis / Dame pick and roll will be tough. Sure the Bucks are taking a hit on the defense but if Yannis, Dame, Middl3ton and Portia stay healthy they will. Be tough out. I still like the Celtics matchup but I wish they had gotten some defensive help this offseason. I think for the Celtics there fortunes are tied to the heath of Kristin Porzingkis and Brogdon:banghead:

Celtics trade Brogdon and Timelord Williams, the 2024 1st rounder from Golden State and an unprotected 2029 first rounder to get Jrue Holliday.

Not sure I like it, but we'll see how it goes.

Are we sure Jrue is better than Brogdon? I know last year Jrue’s numbers were better but his numbers will be down next year playing with Boston just like Brogdon’s were down this year.

I think we need to give the Blazers GM credit: When Lillard did his "Miami or nothing ultimatum", it seemed like everyone expected them to take a puu puu platter for him. The equivalent of trading a dollar for 6 dimes.

This is what they actually got.

Deandre Ayton
Robert Williams (on a pretty team friendly contract!)
Malcolm Brogdon
Toumani Camara,

three first-round picks: 2024 (Golden State, Top-4 protected), 2029 (Bucks and Celtics unprotected)

2028 and 2030 Milwaukee pick swaps.

That's rather impressive.

Yeah basically Boston swapped Grant Williams, Derek Smart , Timelord,Brogdon, two first rounders and Galinari for Jrue and Porsingis. They are now very thin depth wise and a little older. There bugs are oft injured KP, 37 year Horford and Kornet. Good luck Celtics yikes.

Yes the Trailblazer's made out like bandits between this and the draft.

And the Portland haul will grow with whatever they trade Brogdon for

True.

Best line coming from last night's "Dillion Brooks gets ejected for punching an opponent in the groin

Dillion Brooks was ejected because of DEEZ NUTS Oh wait, he was ejected because of (Daniel) Theis's nuts. Never mind

Not really basketball-related but Calipari-related. And funny.

From Zillow in Lexington today… 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/rvoBzRjwlX

— Matt Jones (@KySportsRadio) October 10, 2023

Preseason thoughts: This Wembanyama seems like he will do okay in the NBA.

The look on that face!

Thomas Bryant’s reaction to Victor Wembanyama dunking on him�� pic.twitter.com/oZWv4ITF3f

— Tatum�� (@CookHimTatum) October 14, 2023

I understand the look. Wemby took off outside the restricted area which is four feet from the basket, dunked the ball and still landed with most of his body outside of the restricted zone. He barely moved forward. Game manufacturers get crushed for releasing games with glitches that allow stuff like to happen.

Celtics/Bucks in the East Finals.. God if I know who is making the West Finals, other than Denver.

Which one of you had Chuck asking Adam Silver the question about the league's response to domestic violence incidents involving its players on your opening night bingo card? Good on Chuck for bringing it up. I will probably rip him for something else he brings up later in the season but he gets a thumbs up today.

Weird Dwight Howard (gay) sex story developing. Seems Spacey-esque

Can we get Wemby to force his way to a better team yet?

Putting this over in this thread just to make Fozzie happy :)


I'm more of a casual NBA fan these days with Rik Smits long gone from the league, but how about the Pacers putting up 143 points in their first game? Been a long time since I could feel excited about their prospects for a season.

I was a huge Pacers fan back in the day. Somewhere I still have a Chuck Persons jersey.

24 hours into Wembymania and thanks to Twitter I'm already sick of his fanboys.

The guy is a physical/athletic wonder, no doubt about it but goodness gracious.

With the arrival of Wembanyama, I have consumed more Spurs games in the last two weeks than I have in the last two or three years combined. Given the discussion in the other thread about Jaden McDaniels, is Devin Vassell worthy of 5 yr(s) / $135,000,000? I don't know much about him at this point.

Yeah I get he's kinda of a freak of nature, so I get why they are talking about him all over, but so far I think the only place I've seen talking about what the Pacers did was on their own team Twitter. Guess they need to score more than 140 points every game before people start talking about them

I don't know if I have done a good job filtering the noise at this point but I have been pleasantly happy with most of the Wembanyama takes so far this morning. Pretty reasonable takes for a pretty reasonable debut.

Yeah I followed Smits from Marist College near where I grew up to the NBA and the Pacers, so yeah Chuck Persons, Reggie Miller and the like

I feel like Zach Collins is on the all NBA first team punchability list. He’s been injured quite a bit, and I had forgotten how much distaste I had for him

The NBA should force the Sixers to play Harden tonight. Let him come off the bench but he definitely needs to play 25-30 minutes.:lol:

NBA investigating if 76ers, James Harden violated participation policy - ESPN

I support the spirit behind the load management rules but I hate the idea of the central office deciding when a team's players should or should not play. Everyone knows why James Harden is still in Philadelphia and not with the team. It has nothing to do with load management. Hopefully I am jumping the gun and this is more the league telling both the Sixers and Harden to cut the bullshit and resolve this dispute. At the very least I hope this is the league figuring out if the Sixers are preventing Harden from playing for "disciplinary" reasons and the NBAPA should file a grievance or if Harden is refusing to play for which he should be disciplined in accordance with existing rules that govern those things.

I think Philly is trying to manage the load coming out of his mouth, so I think it fits within the spirit of the rule.

And do you really want to see James Harden the way he would look after the offseason with 10 more days off after having played only 1 preseason game?

Took the family to the Bucks/Sixers game last night and had a great time. Ironically this was the same matchup my older son & I saw last winter/spring when the Sixers came back to win.

Much the same this time, with the Bucks taking a lead through the 3rd quarter. Then Embiid did his thing where he does a step-back jumper from the foul line which appears impossible to stop. Maxey was also having his way with the defense, increasingly.

But the difference for the Bucks was absolutely Dame. Last year when they fell behind they just started giving it to Giannis and he'd dribble into 4 people and see if his athleticism could get him a bucket or a foul. Last night about mid-way through the 4th quarter it looked like it was going to be the same, and then the coach took Giannis off for about 90 game seconds (longer due to timeouts). When he came back on they went back to running actual plays, and it looked like the difficulty of having to deal with both Dame & Giannis at the same time was too much for the Sixers.

Hilarious to hear the Bucks fans around us. They're clearly not used to someone who can consistently pull up from 3 and sink it. In the last 2 minutes every time Dame crossed midcourt they were yelling "Shoot it!"

No NIT automatic bids for regular-season conference champs - ESPN


Instead, the NIT will guarantee two teams -- based on the NET rankings -- from each of major six conferences, the Atlantic Coast, the Big East, the Big Ten, the Big 12, the Pac-12 and the Southeastern.

The top two teams in the NET rankings not qualifying for the NCAA tournament from each conference, regardless of win-loss record, will be selected. Additionally, the 12 teams automatically selected will be guaranteed the opportunity to host a game in the first round of the NIT.

Kind of weird. Thought the old system provided some interesting matches on campuses that normally don't get the attention. Just don't have a ton of interest in watching the 10th best Big 10 team play the 9th best ACC team.

Context Alert!

Here are the teams that received the automatic bids last year.


And the teams that would have received automatic bids using the 2024 criteria.


I am not sure how significant this will be tbh. This policy only became a rule in 2017 from what I can tell so this is not breaking with longstanding tradition. All of the schools that would have gotten automatic bids in 2024 made the tournament in 2023 with the exception of Texas Tech which was 16-16 (5-13 Big 12) and Ohio State which was 16-19 (5-15 Big Ten). I get why it sucks for the mid major schools but maybe Texas Tech or Ohio State would be too embarrassed to take the invitation in the same way UNC did last year.

I mean the semis and finals are not even going to be in MSG this year. It will be held in Hinkle Fieldhouse on the Butler campus in Indianapolis. WTH?

Last year had 3 mid majors make the semis so I'm guessing they want to avoid that. Problem is that the big schools don't seem to really care as much about the NIT.

They can lose money in some cases just by hosting, I'm not sure this is going to up their enthusiasm much.

It's still the NIT. They are already doing everything they can to get the Power Five schools into the field of 68. There is only so much they can do to get undeserving P5 teams into the NIT. As much as it bothered people last year, I sort of respected North Carolina's decision to decline the NIT invitation. Not because I think North Carolina is too good for the NIT but because given all the advantages that are provided to a basketball program like UNC, they did not earn a NIT bid with the season they had.

Trust me, the NCAA knows they were already scrapping the bottom of the P5 barrel and it showed. I think this will cost a team like Washington State its spot before one of the mid major schools.

I'll note that the NIT television deal with ESPN is due to expire, best I can tell, at the end of the 2023-24 season.

And it was ESPN who had pushed for name programs to try to keep the tournament viable for television back before the NCAA bought it. (Led the way in removing the must-be-.500-or-more eligibility requirement)

I suspect this latest change is being made to try to find a way to get some sort of TV deal renewal.

I don't know what the hell the NBA is doing, but their in season tournament courts and city jerseys are god awful.

In case you were wondering if Louisville basketball could be worse this year than last year... they just lost an exhibition game to Kentucky Wesleyan, 71-68. Wesleyan is a DII school picked to finish 8th in its conference.

This is one of those times when Twitter is entertaining.

They just had to one-up St. John's I guess.

Kenny Payne in his presser said that he needed more than 2 rebounds out of guys like Emmanuel Okafor.

He did not play Okafor for a single minute tonight.

Louisville basketball ladies & gentlemen.

Trying to make sense of this Harden trade. Basically just picks and a lot of salary fodder?

Unlike Ben Simmons, James Harden was definitely going to blow that entire situation up if he was not traded. As long as Harden was away from the team, Morey could wait for the best deal. Once Harden is willing to sit on the bench and remind everyone of how dysfunctional the team is, Morey has to get him out of there ASAP. Morey now has to turn the salary fodder into an actual team built around Embiid and that Maxey maintains his early season form for the entire season.

That 2028 unprotected first may have a lot of value. kmart Jr is a decent rotational piece. The expiring contracts either open the door for them having some cap space or gives them ammo for a trade.

Considering that the Clippers were really the only team that interest in Harden I think Philly did well here. It was clear Maxey hated playing with him and getting him away from the team had value in itself.

Isn't the plan to flip those picks into a quality player to join Embiid and Maxey, and sooner rather than later?

That's what I read earlier anyhow.

Oh Chris Broussard, we hardly knew ye.

I'll let y'all find it on Twitter, just {shakes head} damn

edit to add: (No, he ain't dead or nothing ... just probably his career is lol)

That is a name I haven't heard in years. I forgot he existed. And now he probably won't.

Ok, Philly moved off of a guaranteed year of Tucker. Also by doing it now, those guys can be reallocated together or with other players before the trade deadline. It’s a 60 day waiting period. I guess if they waited too much longer, they couldn’t spin them off(deadline was something like 12/8-12/10)

RIP Bob Knight at age 83. Sounds like he had been battling Alzheimer's. No matter what you think of his personality, he's probably one of the top basketball coaches of all time.

I haven't even looked yet but there have been so many opportunities for him to lose his job because of his Twitter rantings. Let's see what he has done now.

Dola,

Nah, I think he is gonna be all right with that one. He may not spend a lot more time on Nick Wright's show but he can hang strong on some of the other shows on FS1.

Speaking of commentary that would definitely cost people their careers, I heard something today that I can not un-hear so I will burden you with it as well. Given his tweets and commentary followed all the educational meetings he was involved in over the last 12-18 months...

has anyone asked Kyrie Irving his thoughts on current world events?

75 in the first half. EIGHTY in the second half. That's nuts.

They look good 4 games in and the Bucks do not.

My daughter was in disbelief when she read this. She was like, in high school girls basketball, we would have worked on multiple defenses and offenses prior to the weekend before the season starts. WTF?

Also - Calipari noted afterwards that he forgot Friday was an off day, so they'll be working on zone defense/offense on Saturday, but then they have to get into game prep on Sunday so Saturday will be it.

John Calipari says on pregame radio that he asked Kentucky State to not play zone tonight.

Said he hasn't had time to focus on that aspect yet with this 2023-24 team.

Sounds like UK's Friday practice will have a big focus on zone offense and zone defense.

— Cameron Drummond (@cdrummond97) November 2, 2023

Totally agree that it's surprising they don't have a basic zone offense in. I can see not having the wrinkles added, but a simple 3 out 2 in or 4 out 1 in where they find the gaps in the defense should be in.

Maybe it's due to all of the new players, a lack of veteran leadership, and a severe skill deficiency that's causing them to work on drills a lot more than expected, but still, they should have a basic shell offense in.

Wait…Memphis had a 27 year old senior who they were trying to gain an additional year of eligibility for? Looks like he was a 23 old freshman when he played. Theres gotta be some crazy story here.

First, it's Cal so all the grains of salt with anything he says. That being said, my guess is this may be more of a controlled scrimmage than a game. Yes, there will be refs and everything will look like a normal preseason game. But the coaching staffs may have discussed certain sets they are trying to run or they want to see how their team defends a certain set of plays. It could also be something like Kentucky will be playing Kansas in next week and Cal would prefer not to show them anything zone related.

I honestly just think it is just Cal lowering expectations/getting his excuses in early.

I'd buy that except Cal's been lowering expectations in Lexington for a number of years in a row and it's getting stale. So either he's sticking with the same media playbook or he doesn't know how to read the room (or doesn't care, I guess).

Cliff Notes.

- As an 18 year old (Oct. birthday, reclassified), he transferred to a basketball version of Bishop Sycamore for his senior year in HS, played basketball but none of the classes he took counted towards graduation. Then had to skip a year of basketball to take the right classes to graduate from HS.

- Played at one of those post HS academies for one year.

- Went to Evansville at 22. Was a partial qualifier so was not allowed to play his first year in school. Then played one.

- Transferred to Memphis for his final two years of eligibility.

Now that everyone has caught on with one and done's, the transfer portal, NIL etc., everything comes down to Cal as an X and O coach and well that has never been Cal's strong suit. He is not like Rick Pitino who could go to a school like Iona and be successful.

Kentucky has the #1 recruiting class according to ESPN last year. The question is whether or not Cal can make the class specifically and the team in general better by the end of the season then they are right now.

He didn't graduate high-school till he was 22. Nothing explains why, but his first year of college in 2019 he would have been 23.


Edit: I'll take that back. He was 20, then played for a prep academy till he was 22.

Only 70 in the first half for the celtics. Slowing down ;)

They'd have 150 against USC's D.

WVU went 4-32 from the floor in the first half of their opener. I don't think I've ever seen so many easy shots missed.

First time I’ve gotten season tickets in 10 years. Feeling some regret…

2nd half was a little better

I like this group. Playing without Krisa, Battle, and Akok for a while will help in the long run. We're definitely getting Krisa back in a few games. Hopefully we get both Battle and Akok back at some point, but at least 1 of the 2 would be huge.

Heat 108, Lakers 107 with 3 minutes remaining. Final score? 108-107.

Lakers cut IIRC a 12 pt deficit to 1 with 3 minutes to go in the game. Last three minutes they never attempted a shot inside the 3 pt line. Closest was one time LeBron was called for a charge on a drive. They got the ball with 8 seconds left and the opportunity for the last shot, also a drive and kick out 3. WTF?

FWIW Miami didn't score in those last 3 minutes either. Again WTF?

Well you know that was gonna make ME curious lol

LBJ completes an and-one with a FT at 2:39, cuts it to one.
Herro turnovers, LBJ misses a 3
Butler misses a driving layup at 2:01
LBJ called for a charge
Butler misses a 3, offensive rebound, Lowry jumper blocked by LBJ at 1:27
Reaves misses a 3
Herro misses a 3 at 0:51
Reaves misses a 3 at 0:30
Adebayo travels at 0:08
Reddish misses from 21 feet at 0:04
Butler defensive rebound at 0:02 and that's the end

So after the free throw cuts it to one point
Miami has 2 turnovers, 4 misses( 1 blocked)
LAL has 3 missed threes, an offensive foul turnover, and a missed two

Brandon Rechsteiner got some quality PT for Virginia Tech last night, looked great.

Normally he'd have a 33 1/3 percent chance of being good ...

Celtics fans, guess what happened?

Sources - Blazers' Robert Williams III to have season-ending surgery - ESPN

I don't mean that Celtics fans are happy that Timelord got hurt. It is more about the Celtics fans I know being fully aware that it was a matter of when not if his knees would end his season if not his career.

I admit that I only saw a highlight clip but I find it hilarious that the league office brought in rules against load management especially when it comes to the player's team's only regular season game in that city only for the refs to toss the most recent Finals MVP and former regular season MVP out of his team's only game in Detroit.

Finally! Cliff Ellis retires as head basketball coach at Coastal Carolina. I liked the hire when it was announced, but man he just didn't have it in him anymore. So grats on a mostly good career and enjoy your retirement:


Coastal Carolina men's basketball coach Cliff Ellis retires | Myrtle Beach Sports | postandcourier.com

Man, the Pistons are absolutely terrible. Adam Silver needs to step in and force Tom Gores to sell this team. It’s beyond atrocious.

Still have 11 games to lose before they break the record. Or 9 more if we are only going for single season record.

In case you missed it, Rutgers bagged the #2 recruit in the country somehow. They now have the #2 and #3 recruits in the country, and Harper chose RU over Duke and Kansas.

Rutgers lands PG Dylan Harper, No. 2 recruit in Class of 2024 - ESPN

My kids are so pumped for this NBA cup. I’m so happy for the pacers so far giving them something to root for.

Twitter blowing up with rumors of Juwan Howard's impending dismissal.

Same rumors suggest that he got in a physical altercation of some sort with a staff member.

It's Twitter, so take that all fwiw I guess

The Celtics will be tired of the Cavaliers, with two games in three nights. I know, I'm already tired of them.

And little known fact: The Celtics and Cavaliers game from January 16th, 1987 is the subject of one of the best books about basketball of all time. Forty Eight Minutes (By Bob Ryan).. even though the title isn't strictly true.. ;)

(believe it or not, you can look up the stats for that game on Google. Today's stars sprained several body parts looking at the minutes played by DJ, McHale, and Larry Legend during a semi-meaningless January game.)

January 16, 1987 NBA - Google Search

Jokic has been ejected from his only game in Chicago with 1:08 remaining in the 2nd quarter. 16 minutes played is all you get Chicago.

Meanwhile we have Draymond straight up committing assault on the court.

Seems like it's only a matter of time until Juwan Howard blows up in a way that can't be forgiven.

Iowa Men and Women play a double header in Des Moines today. Men play at 3:30, Women at 6. I love how the Womens program has eclipsed the Mens.

Wins since Halloween:

2 — Texas Rangers
0 — Detroit Pistons

Rangers won the World Series 45 days ago. pic.twitter.com/ZzAzHtSl54

— StatMuse (@statmuse) December 17, 2023

The Pistons need three to tie the record, four to break it. Next five games on the schedule are at the Hawks, Jazz at home, road/home back to back against the Nets and at the Celtics.

Merrimack & Sacred Heart are leaving the Northeast Conference after this year for the Metro Atlantic. Chicago State, independent for the past two years (but it's felt like a decade) are finally getting back into a league, replacing them in the NEC next year. NEC was going to be short of the minimum of 6 non-reclassifying programs so they needed somebody to fill that spot, so a no-brainer to take the only independent left in college basketball.


Merrimack just moved to D1 and aren't even fully eligible yet, NEC bent over backwards even letting them play (and win) the conference tournament last year, so I'm sure they're displeased but these minor conference moves are always fascinating as it's not about TV money.

Iowa plays at 5 today on BTN. If you want to see the best college BB player, mens or womens, watch thhis. Clark has scored 35 plus the last 4 games.

Why exactly would the Bulls put Jerry Krause’s widow through that ceremony?

Yeah, what did they think was going to happen? I feel bad for her, and the people booing were pretty classless if they knew she was there, but he's not exactly a beloved figure in Chicago.

Danilo and Muscala going from the 2nd worst team in the NBA to possibly the worst team in NBA history is kinda funny.

It only took the Pistons until Mid-January to realize they need bigs that can shoot instead of a collection of under the basket bigs that can't play together.

Dang. Clark and crew made IU look bad. Good game, tarc. That team should go far.

So Josh Giddey is innocent? Hmm.

All right then.

OH MY, ANT 🤯

(via @NBATV)pic.twitter.com/cteerMFCNh

— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) January 19, 2024

I don't think that's necesarily a completely accurate statement.

So, youtube seems to think I need to see more clips of Caitlin Clark, and I guess youtube in its infinite wisdom is correct because holy moley that's a hell of a player. I know enough about sports to know that when someone makes it look that easy they are just that much better than anyone else.

She is a beast, from what I saw when Iowa played IU this year.

Here's a thought exercise for folks:

Each team is solely built out of the draft class for one season. (so, the Draft Class of say, 2020, becomes a team going forward, then a team made of the Draft Class of 2021, no trades, no free agents from other draft classes).

How soon before a team SOLELY made up of one draft class could become title contenders, and how late in their careers would you write them off as no longer title contenders?

Fun thought-

First thing I noticed was oof! Some major bad choices. Fultz over Tatum! and Fox.

I think the 2015 or 2018 would have the best shot.

2015 has- KAT, Russell, Porzingis, Myles turner, Trey Lyles, Booker, Payne, Oubre, Rozier (picked late first in a row), Portis, Looney, Nance Jr.- They have size and really good outside shooting with depth and solid role players.

2018- Ayton, Bagley, Luka, Jackson Jr, Trey, Carter Jr, Sexton, Bridges, Shae Gilgeous, Porter Jr, Huerter, Grayson Allen, Simons, Vanderbilt.- They would struggle with size but the guard play, oof. Good luck with Luka Trey, and SGA on the floor at the same time. Jackson Jr would be a nice defensive anchor.

I wonder who in the Bulls organization made a deal with the devil for the 90s run. Because it seems like since then the bill has come due.

Eddie Curry/Tyson Chandler, Jay Williams, LaMarcus Aldridge, Derek Rose, Lonzo Ball all were various instances of bad luck and just bad front office work. Now Zach LaVine is out for the year before he could be moved and likely tanks any chance of trading him for another year or more.

It is a moot point now but I just did not see a team signing up for three more years of LaVine.

On a related note, are shooting guards the most overpaid position in the league? I know, position-less basketball etc. but I think everyone knows what I am saying. Here are the top ten shooting guards in the league according to the cap hit.

1. Bradley Beal, $46,741,590
2. Paul George, $45,640,084
3. Klay Thompson, $43,219,440
4. Zach LaVine, $40,064,220
5. Devin Booker, $36,016,200
6. C.J. McCollum, $35,802,469
7. James Harden, $35,680,595
8. Donovan Mitchell, $33,162,030
9. Jordan Poole, $27,455,357
10. Tyler Herro, $27,000,000

Only George, Booker and Mitchell made an All Star team this year.