April 22, 2024 Time to pick the winners of the annual NBA Awards. Naturally, I won’t select a Most Clutch Player, as it is a stupid award & I refuse to recognize it. Additionally, I will include my predictions doomed to fail from back in October.  MVP Finalists Nikola Jokic (Favorite) (My Pick) – He undoubtedly deserves his 3rd, entrenching him in the conversation for a spot on the Top 20 All-Time List. Amazing 4-5 year run he’s on. If he manages to repeat and win a second championship, we need to begin speaking about Joker in a historical context. Is he a future Top 10 player eve ..read more

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NBA All-Star Selections – ’23-’24 Though it’s probably overdue to expand the official all-star selections from 12-15 players (ya know, the size of actual active NBA rosters), I’ll stick with the current format as is: The 10 starters – two guards and three frontcourt players per conference – are chosen by a combination of fans (50% of the vote), current players (25%) and media (25%). The 30 NBA coaches select the 14 reserves, voting for two guards, three frontcourt players and two players at any position in their respective conferences. Commissioner Adam Silver selects the replacement for any ..read more

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December 19th, 2023 Now that we’re a third of the way through the season, I’d like to take a look back and evaluate what I originally predicted the standings to look like in the East & West compared to where it is today. Per usual, I was way way way off on several of these projections (coughchicagocoughbullscough). EASTERN CONFERENCE PRESEASON PREDICTIONS                                     STANDINGS AS OF 12/19/23 Boston                    &nb ..read more

Defending Karnisovas and Eversley is no easy task. They were hired in April 2020, with the promise of fast-forwarding the ongoing rebuild the Bulls seemed perpetually stuck in. In the 3.5 years since, the Bulls have made the playoffs once, and won a single playoff game. They were recently voted dead last in the NBA in combined value of team assets. They aren’t exciting to watch. Their best players don’t play well together. Their young players haven’t developed as quickly as we hoped. And in a world where Ws (125) & Ls (133) are the only categories that matter, it’s hard to argue with the ..read more

We’re a quarter of the way through a roller-coaster of the season. Storylines are in abundance – the Pacers Offense, the Wolves Defense, the Celtics Everything, In-Season Tournament Success, In-Season Tournament Courts Failure, Kenny Smith’s beard, etc. But for this exercise, let’s hand out some awards! To provide some clarity, these are my picks for who deserves these awards IF the season ended today. They are not my end of year predictions, which I’ve already written about. Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert Defensive Win Shares: Ranked 1st in the NBA – 1.5 Total Reb%: 6th – 19.7 Re ..read more

Top 10 best players at each position *For this exercise, though nearly every player in the league plays multiple positions or redefined positions or nontraditional positions or positionless basketball, we’ll be basing this list on the standard roles of Point Guard, Shooting Guard, Small Forward, Power Forward, & Center. *This list is fluid. It will change each season, and often midseason. *Also important to this exercise, we need to define what “best” actually means. So let me first explain what it does NOT mean. Most valuable player to their team Most physically talented player Best all ..read more

In the same way that “Remember when…” is the lowest form of conversation, coming up with trade proposals is the lowest form of basketball fandom. First off, whatever idea you’ve thought up while on your lunch break or chatting with your friends, pro-sports organizations have entire departments consisting of really smart people whose job is literally to study the team, league, numbers, trends, analytics, contracts, and salary cap to come up with ways to improve the squad, often via trade. And they’ve surely discussed your idea months ago and likely poo-poo’d it. So, believe me when I tell you ..read more

CHI 104   TOR 103 ;lkj;lkj ;lj;lkj ..read more