Topic: NBA Thread: Brought To You By The Tampa Bay Raptors Of Toronto

[BlackNMild2k1]

I feel like commentators these days don’t do as much play-by-play as they did in the past. You can’t really put a game on in the background and still follow what’s happening.

TV commentators.
I also listen to lots of games on the radio. If they didn't play-by-play, I'd be lost.
TV commentators are relying on the fact that they assume you are also watching the game, or are withing visual range of the TV that way if they have a reaction to something in the game, you'll know to direct your eyes towards the TV quickly. Otherwise, they are usually just shooting the **** and occasionally commenting on on big things like buckets, fouls and turnovers.

[ejamer]

...
I also listen to lots of games on the radio. If they didn't play-by-play, I'd be lost.
...

Is that local radio, or streamed, or..?

I used to listen to games, and miss the play-by-play. It's perhaps more difficult for basketball than some other sports, as there is a lot going on, but can be very enjoyable when done well.

[Adrock]

I also listen to lots of games on the radio. If they didn't play-by-play, I'd be lost.
TV commentators are relying on the fact that they assume you are also watching the game, or are withing visual range of the TV that way if they have a reaction to something in the game, you'll know to direct your eyes towards the TV quickly. Otherwise, they are usually just shooting the **** and occasionally commenting on on big things like buckets, fouls and turnovers.

What’s a radio?

[BlackNMild2k1]

sorry, XM Radio.

can catch all the games on the go.
From my car or my phone.

[broodwars]

*sigh* I see the Jazz, as usual, are playing down to their competition. I'm honestly surprised we beat the Warriors the way we're playing the Nets right now.

[Adrock]

Lakers win even though they seemingly forgot free throws are a part of basketball. Kuzma hit some big threes in the closing minutes. This game should not have been this close.

Damion Lee, on a two-way contract with the Warriors, broke his hand and is out for two weeks. At this point, I’m half expecting someone on the team to spontaneously combust (then break their hand).

[broodwars]

Meanwhile, despite some godawful officiating (including a flagrant foul that's sure to get reviewed), the Jazz managed to come back from 15 points down to defeat the Nets (thanks largely to a 13-0 run at the beginning of the 3rd).  We remain undefeated at home.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Damion Lee, on a two-way contract with the Warriors, broke his hand and is out for two weeks. At this point, I’m half expecting someone on the team to spontaneously combust (then break their hand).

LMAO. the last man from the active roster of last years team got his injury!!!!

Can we be spared any further punishment from the Basketball Gods!!
have we not yet suffered enough!? Was the new stadium just doing a little too much!?

Is this some hoodoo voodoo from across the bridge!?
or is this just another "rush suffering sacrifice" for a few more years of future glory?

if it's the later..... I fear for Kerr's back. O_O

[BeautifulShy]

I gotta say that the Suns are legit now.  They kept in the game for the longest time and if not for the last 3 minutes of the game and a Laker player named Kuzma scoring 23 points off the bench then the Suns could of closed it.   

I love that Kuzma went off in the first quarter for 13 points and then closed the game to secure the win. 

It was a back and forth game but Lakers won it.

[BeautifulShy]

Danny Green has a show that he started in Toronto called Inside the Green Room and he has just released his first episode while under the banner of the purple and gold.  He is talking about season expectations and he interviews Dwight Howard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2RiMh0x_rk

[Adrock]

I like the idea behind teams wearing different jerseys even if some of them are... not great. The Lakers wearing purple at home while the Warriors were wearing yellow had to be intentional trolling.

[BeautifulShy]

Some surprising wins tonight. Knicks beat the Mavs. Knicks spoil Porzengis return to the Big Apple.
 Pels beat the Clippers.  Paul George had his first game of the season but Jrue Holiday was key versus him for stretch's of the game.  Also the Pels had Zion, Lonzo, Ingram, Hart and Okafur out for the game.

[broodwars]

Some surprising wins tonight. Knicks beat the Mavs. Knicks spoil Porzengis return to the Big Apple.
 Pels beat the Clippers.  Paul George had his first game of the season but Jrue Holiday was key versus him for stretch's of the game.  Also the Pels had Zion, Lonzo, Ingram, Hart and Okafur out for the game.

It's also worth noting that the Clippers had Kawhi out on the good 'ol "Load Management." Considering how many games they've lost already due to that (plus the game they lost to the Rockets where he actually played), you have to wonder how much longer the Clippers are going to let him keep pulling that. I understand that it's a contractual thing, but "Load Management" disgusts me. It shouldn't be allowed in the NBA. You'd never have seen Stockton, Malone, Barklay, Jordan, etc. pulling that crap. Hell, Stockton only ever missed 8 games his entire career outside the season he was out with surgery. And the league back then was much more physical than today's touch foul-driven play.

Today's players are coddled.

[BeautifulShy]

Some surprising wins tonight. Knicks beat the Mavs. Knicks spoil Porzengis return to the Big Apple.
 Pels beat the Clippers.  Paul George had his first game of the season but Jrue Holiday was key versus him for stretch's of the game.  Also the Pels had Zion, Lonzo, Ingram, Hart and Okafur out for the game.

It's also worth noting that the Clippers had Kawhi out on the good 'ol "Load Management." Considering how many games they've lost already due to that (plus the game they lost to the Rockets where he actually played), you have to wonder how much longer the Clippers are going to let him keep pulling that. I understand that it's a contractual thing, but "Load Management" disgusts me. It shouldn't be allowed in the NBA. You'd never have seen Stockton, Malone, Barklay, Jordan, etc. pulling that crap. Hell, Stockton only ever missed 8 games his entire career outside the season he was out with surgery. And the league back then was much more physical than today's touch foul-driven play.

Today's players are coddled.

Yeah Leonard was out on the second game of a back to back and Beverly did have an injury.  I was looking up some stats and Leonard hasn't played in a 2nd game of the back to back since 2017. I guess the Clippers figure once PG gets back, which they did tonight, they can slowly implement both players into the lineup and then they figure no one can beat them. So I guess it is worth it right now in the Clippers management.   The Clippers are calling it "Right Knee Injury Management" now so at least it isn't like how Popovich held out their stars back then but it is a problem for the league in many ways.   

Here is the highlights from the Clips/Pels game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPE25L08624

[BlackNMild2k1]

Some surprising wins tonight. Knicks beat the Mavs. Knicks spoil Porzengis return to the Big Apple.
 Pels beat the Clippers.  Paul George had his first game of the season but Jrue Holiday was key versus him for stretch's of the game.  Also the Pels had Zion, Lonzo, Ingram, Hart and Okafur out for the game.

It's also worth noting that the Clippers had Kawhi out on the good 'ol "Load Management." Considering how many games they've lost already due to that (plus the game they lost to the Rockets where he actually played), you have to wonder how much longer the Clippers are going to let him keep pulling that. I understand that it's a contractual thing, but "Load Management" disgusts me. It shouldn't be allowed in the NBA. You'd never have seen Stockton, Malone, Barklay, Jordan, etc. pulling that crap. Hell, Stockton only ever missed 8 games his entire career outside the season he was out with surgery. And the league back then was much more physical than today's touch foul-driven play.

Today's players are coddled.

they should take that salary, and break it down into an 82 game season.
for every game you miss while not on injury aka "Load Management" you don't get paid for that game. After 5 missed games due to "LM" you start to lose 5% on a per game basis.

You gonna start to see that paycheck start to dry up real quick.

Now we may start to see a bunch of manufactured "injuries" that are hard to prove, but we have the technology to see if joints, tendons, muscles, etc etc are inflamed or irritated. Too much money on the line to let the product aka "the game" be affected by players manipulating the system while still expecting to get paid when the reason they get paid like that is because people love the "product".

[broodwars]

The stat I kept seeing bandied about by ESPN is that Kawhi signed that contract with the Clippers because they were willing to offer a contract where he only played 65 games a season, spread out throughout the year (most notably back-to-backs). That's why we keep seeing the "Load Management". It's unfair to the rest of the players; the fans; & the spirit of the game to have Superstars sitting out games NOT risking injury & normal wear & tear like everyone else "just because".

[broodwars]

The Corpse of Dante Exum is slated as "probable" for tonight's game against the Grizzlies. IT HAS RISEN AGAIN!

[Adrock]

I don’t particularly like load management, but I don’t hate it either. It has clearly worked. And it’s a decision that has to be approved by ownership who are writing the checks. They know what’s at stake. They’ll take the hit with player salaries because they stand to make so much more if the team wins a championship (i.e. merchandising, ads, TV contracts, season ticket sales etc). If a team is bad, their best player isn’t getting the green light to sit out (unless it’s like Kobe’s retirement tour or something).

Additionally, I don’t like the league fining teams for load management because it shouldn’t be valuing some players over others. When a completely healthy non-star player rides the bench for seven straight DNP-Coach’s decision, no one sheds a tear (and rightly so). If ownership wants to shoulder the burden of resting players in both dollars and fan goodwill, that’s on them. That said, the idea of the league trying to dictate who plays doesn’t sit well with me because it isn’t applied indiscriminately, and it should if this happens at all. What we may see is players like Kawhi Leonard suiting up for games then never checking in. Then what do you do?

Resting players extends their careers. You have to weigh whether it’s worth a player missing fifteen to twenty games a season if it means they may play four or five more seasons. Manu Ginobili was 39 when this happened:

For BNM

broodwars brought up Stockton, Malone, Jordan and Barkley. Stockton is an edge case. Malone may have a championship ring if he had some DNP-rest for some games in his lone Lakers season. Jordan sat out almost two seasons. Barkley’s body broke down so he is one of the worst examples. I was a huge Barkley fan back in the day. He talked about retiring when he was on the Suns.

[broodwars]

Malone may have a championship ring if he had some DNP-rest for some games in his lone Lakers season.

Or to more accurately put it, he would possibly have had a championship ring if the Lakers' medical staff wasn't completely incompetent.

There's a difference between a player sitting because they're not healthy & a player sitting because they don't want to play, and to me Load Management favors the latter more than the former. It just doesn't sit well with me, especially since Stockton is my all time favorite player. He had no business playing as many games as he did, but he did and he's a Legend for it.

[Adrock]

There's a difference between a player sitting because they're not healthy & a player sitting because they don't want to play

I don’t agree with this. There are certain implications to saying players “don’t want to play.” They do this for a living. Of course they want to play. When players rest, everyone in the organization is on the same page because there are built-in incentives for winning. Teams are deciding whether some players play when games “don’t matter” vs. when they do.

I completely get where you’re coming from. As a basketball fan, I want to see the best players play all the time. However, I can’t really argue with the results. Fans are upset until it’s their team having a parade rolling through their city. Who would trade a championship for those DNPs? Ideally, you’d get both, but we don’t live in that world. We live in a world where the Spurs built an entire culture around DNP-rest and have five championships to show for it.

[ejamer]

Having watched Leonard play (and sit) a lot last year while he was on the Raptors... I think some load management is reasonable. Maybe he was still healing or maybe something else was going on, but it looked like he's got chronic issues his knee that justified taking some games off to stay healthy.

It's ridiculous for us to be second-guessing the contracts he's given. The man has proven his worth time and again and had a bunch of teams fighting for his services. I understand that some fans value game-to-game entertainment more than actually winning a championship; obviously the stakeholders who offered Kawhi his contract feel differently. That's their business.


One funny article I saw recently was talking about how much less load management was in the news last year when Kawhi was on the Raptors. People here were like "hey, whatever it takes" and people in the US usually don't seem to care what happens north of the border. But this year, living in L.A.,  it's nearly a crisis.  That might be a lot of exaggeration... or not.  It was funny though.

[Shaymin]

They could just call it DNP - Old.

[Adrock]

They could just call it DNP - Old.

Gregg Popovich, in 2012: Tim Duncan missed Sunday night’s Spurs game because he’s ‘old,’ officially

[broodwars]

Well, the Corpse of Dante Exum earned himself a "DNP - Dante Exum". Shame, too, because we could have used SOME bench performance tonight in a tough 1 point loss to the Grizzlies.

[BeautifulShy]

Last two games of the night were nail biters.

The Kings went to the last play to possibly extend the game into overtime versus the Lakers but AD got the block of the year.

The other game was the Celtics versus the Warriors.   Celtics have the best record in the league going into tonights game at 9-1 and Warriors have struggled but the Warriors stayed in it for most of the game.  Tatum was too much for the Warriors and the Celtics ekked out a win.


Here is the highlights for both games.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTUJ5xnB-d0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WfB6pE5Yo8