NBA 2018-2019 Season

[Pooker]

The Lakers have put Lebron on a minutes restriction and won't play him in back to backs from here on out.

Never seen that done for a player that is healthy. Usually just players coming off injury. 

[Maxx]

Playoff mode deactivated

[Pooker]

I'm calling it now, the Lakers "win" the lottery for the number one draft pick. 

[JasonM]

1 hour ago, Pooker said:

The Lakers have put Lebron on a minutes restriction and won't play him in back to backs from here on out.

Never seen that done for a player that is healthy. Usually just players coming off injury. 

I wonder if the league office will threaten the Lakers with fines just like they did with the Pels when they were thinking about 'resting' Anthony Davis.

Or when Pop rested his starters.

Or when the Grizz and Mavs were doing the same last year...

Me thinks the Lakers will magically avoid the same punishments.

[Pooker]

I doubt it. Different circumstances. Pels wanted to rest Davis cause he didn't want to play there. Pop got threaten cause he did it during a major prime time game. I don't remember the Grizz or Mavs doing anything last year.

 But I don't think the Lakers putting Lebron on a minutes restriction or not playing him in back to backs really warrants a  punishment. With the miles on Lebron's age and them not able to make the playoffs this year, it does kinda make sense to limit what LeBron does the rest of this year. It just makes me laugh cause of what Lebron said last week and because you would never have seen Jordan or Kobe do this.

[Your Mom]

4 hours ago, Pooker said:

The Lakers have put Lebron on a minutes restriction and won't play him in back to backs from here on out.

Never seen that done for a player that is healthy. Usually just players coming off injury. 

MJ wouldn't quit like that! He would play every minute of every game!

[DMN in the House]

I'm putting myself on limited minutes for the rest of the season.

[Benjamin]

18 hours ago, Pooker said:

I doubt it. Different circumstances. Pels wanted to rest Davis cause he didn't want to play there. Pop got threaten cause he did it during a major prime time game. I don't remember the Grizz or Mavs doing anything last year.

 But I don't think the Lakers putting Lebron on a minutes restriction or not playing him in back to backs really warrants a  punishment. With the miles on Lebron's age and them not able to make the playoffs this year, it does kinda make sense to limit what LeBron does the rest of this year. It just makes me laugh cause of what Lebron said last week and because you would never have seen Jordan or Kobe do this.

I mean, none of those actions warrants any sort of punishment.

[Pooker]

Personally, as a fan, if I paid money to go to a game between two high profile teams, only to find out an hour  before that one of those teams was resting its star players, I would be pissed. So, I don't see a problem with the NBA handing out punishments in that case.

[JasonM]

2 hours ago, Pooker said:

Personally, as a fan, if I paid money to go to a game between two high profile teams, only to find out an hour  before that one of those teams was resting its star players, I would be pissed. So, I don't see a problem with the NBA handing out punishments in that case.

Without bringing up fallacies, it's a big slippery slope to start punishing teams for resting their players, because not even Pop does it to piss people off or to rile up the league office or fans. He's doing it to make sure that his players are healthy when the playoffs come around.

What if a player is working through some injuries, maybe a suspect ankle, and the coach wants to rest him for the next game, technically he's capable of playing but the smart coach/player wouldn't. You rest him, you get fined. So you play him and his suspect ankle buckles, he tears a ligament, and he's out for the season.

Of course a singular player being rested isn't that controversial, and it was mostly a critique from the league to Popovich for sitting down 2-3 players or even the entire starting unit whilst the team was going into a top billing match (most of those they still won with their bench unit too). And if I had been a fan, i'd also be pissed off that I just spent a shitload of cash and not even get to see my star player play.

But I feel punishing teams for doing it is sending a very bad message, one that basically has the league office saying that 'Money is more important than player health'. 

And if you're going to punish teams, don't just throw 50000 bucks into the league's pockets. Either have the fines go to charity, or even better, comp tickets for those fans that feel like they got robbed. It would be a lot fairer.

Finally, it's just bullshit that Pop is basically getting punished for being truthful. Because if he decided to DNP-Injury three players, he wouldn't be fined, but because he DNP-Old it's a problem.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Jasonmufc

[gunnar hendershow]

I can't count the number of baseball games I've gone to where one of the players I was really excited to see is getting a day or night off. Plenty of hockey games, on the 1st or 2nd night of a back-to-back you'll see a star goaltender benched. These sports are a grind and in basketball, especially as players get older, they need to take time off.

Sorry if it ruins a primetime game, but that's reality.

[Benjamin]

On 9 March 2019 at 05:29, Pooker said:

Personally, as a fan, if I paid money to go to a game between two high profile teams, only to find out an hour  before that one of those teams was resting its star players, I would be pissed. So, I don't see a problem with the NBA handing out punishments in that case.

That's a problem the NBA created by having way too many games. These sports seasons are a fucking brutal toll on the human body, no matter how in shape these people are. The NBA has an 82 game season, all just so they can get a bigger TV deal and sell more tickets, merchandise, fucking soda. Out of those 82 games, teams have to face each other three or four times a season for no reason whatsoever. If you were a championship caliber team, would you be risking your best players against the championship level teams, who you're sometimes only playing twice a season, or are you going to rest them against the more bearable teams, which you play more against and have more games with, which means you rack up more wins and get a higher seeding come playoff time?

Not to mention, the NBA nor the fans really care about these players, they just want to see the best play against the best. Which is understandable, but also why they should just do home and away games for the regular season. Until then, the NBA should be the ones punished, not the teams, because that will trickle down and punish the players.

Even the playoffs are ridiculous. A best of seven series? There's no point, other than to churn out more content for TV. 

[gunnar hendershow]

I don't mind best-of-seven as it's a way to typically guarantee the best teams actually move on. Too much is left up to chance with one-game playoffs or best-of-five series. All my problems stem from how brutally long the regular season is. How few of the games feel like they matter until you get to March is telling. And then once you're in March it's apparent only a handful of teams have a shot, so the meaningful matchups typically revolve around seeding for the upcoming playoffs.

[completeunknown]

Kobe played limited minutes all the time during the twilight of his career.

[GhostMachine]

I'd be more pissed if I paid good money to go see a favorite team play and they intentionally tank than if I went and they rested a star player, as it is possible to rest a star without intentionally tanking in certain cases. And at times it does make sense to rest a star. The team intentionally  tanking would royally suck, because going to see them play would mean travel and hotel accomodations. I believe a team intentionally tanking should require partial ticket refunds to fans who came to see them play as part of any punishment. Hitting the team in the pocket book would hurt more than just about any other punishment besides stripping draft picks.

Leagues should do something to prevent intentional tanking, even if it means stripping first round picks and not allowing them to trade other picks to get back into that round.

And I probably won't get my wish, but I hope Lonzo is in another team's  uniform next season. Preferrably a team that doesn't play the Lakers much, so LaVar won't  have as much of an opportunity to run his mouth.

Edited March 11, 2019 by GhostMachine

[Benjamin]

I probably haven't heard a LaVar quote in a year or so. Blessed.

[Pooker]

Kinda of an intense moment in Utah last night. A fan was taunting Russell Westbrook all night, at one point telling him to get back on his knees where he belongs. Westbrook confronted the fan, telling him that he would fuck up both him and his wife. Pretty classless from both sides. The "fan" needs to be banned for life and Westbrook should be handed down a fine.

Edit: The so-called fan has been banned for life and Westbrook has been given a $25,000 fine. The fan has threaten to sue Westbrook and is claiming he did nothing wrong. 

Edited March 12, 2019 by Pooker

[DMN in the House]

On 12/03/2019 at 03:27, Benjamin said:

I probably haven't heard a LaVar quote in a year or so. Blessed.

Neither has GhostMachine. Lonzo and Ingram are the two most important guys to keep, IMO.

On 12/03/2019 at 08:16, Pooker said:

Kinda of an intense moment in Utah last night. A fan was taunting Russell Westbrook all night, at one point telling him to get back on his knees where he belongs. Westbrook confronted the fan, telling him that he would fuck up both him and his wife. Pretty classless from both sides. The "fan" needs to be banned for life and Westbrook should be handed down a fine.

Edit: The so-called fan has been banned for life and Westbrook has been given a $25,000 fine. The fan has threaten to sue Westbrook and is claiming he did nothing wrong. 

Russ should get fined because a racist jackass yelled racist shit at him? GTFOH.

[Pooker]

Umm...no...he should and did get fined because he threaten to beat up to fans. Yes, what the fan said was wrong, but threatening to beat up a fan is wrong too.

And since he did get fined, guess I'm right.

[Maxx]

21 minutes ago, Pooker said:

And since he did get fined, guess I'm right.

Yeah that’s not how that works.