NBA 2017-2018 Season

[Benjamin]

28 minutes ago, Malenko said:

In my opinion Simmons has been better. Donovan Mitchell is having a very good season on a team that's having a surprisingly good season, even though I think a lot of it has to do with Gobert as well. I feel his season is overlooked because Mitchell is the nice story on the team this year, but when you look at their record since he came back, you can't help but feel he doesn't get enough praise.

As for being a rookie or not, not everyone wins RoY in their draft year. While it's true that most of them were different situations, such as Larry Bird or David Robinson who just didn't go to the NBA immediately, you also have Blake Griffin who got it exactly in the same situation as Simmons.Also, I don't think anyone doubts Joel Embiid would have won it last season had he played enough games.

If you're playing your first games in the NBA, you are a rookie. Simple as.

To be fair to Mitchell, though, the same can be said about Simmons with Embiid on his team. The thing is that everyone knew Simmons was going to be super special, almost game-changingly special, and that just isn't as exciting as the thought of Mitchell appearing out of nowhere to be better than him. 

[Malenko]

To be fair to Saric (who you haven't mentioned but still) he's unlucky to be in a team with Simmons and Embiid, both extremely popular players. Midway through the season, when Embiid was dealing with injuries and Simmons was in a (slight) slump he was playing great and no one took notice. I feel he'll be a sixth man by the time Fultz is 100% fit (next season) and I feel he's so much better than that.

Regardless, the Sixers were fun this year, but they'll be a ton of fun next year if management doesn't mess up.

[Benjamin]

50 minutes ago, Malenko said:

To be fair to Saric (who you haven't mentioned but still) he's unlucky to be in a team with Simmons and Embiid, both extremely popular players. Midway through the season, when Embiid was dealing with injuries and Simmons was in a (slight) slump he was playing great and no one took notice. I feel he'll be a sixth man by the time Fultz is 100% fit (next season) and I feel he's so much better than that.

Regardless, the Sixers were fun this year, but they'll be a ton of fun next year if management doesn't mess up.

Pfft, Saric. B+ player 

[gunnar hendershow]

There was a debate over ROY? Ben Simmons in a runaway. Unless you want to redefine rookie beyond its traditional definition of being the first year someone plays in competitive NBA games.

[Benjamin]

Man, Wolves / Nuggets tonight is going to be fun. Pels / Spurs also face off for 5th place (or is it 4th? I have to check the head-to-heads again), so I'll probably be watching that.

Crazy to look at the East now, though. What a force a bunch of those teams are, and 4 teams with 50+ wins, something the West didn't achieve this season.

[Pooker]

9 hours ago, Benjamin said:

How do they both deserve it? Simmons is trailblazing his way to being a bonafide star. Mitchell didnt perform as well as him. It's a pretty simple debate.

Mitchell is leading all rookies in scoring, just set the all time record for most three pointers made by a rookie, lead an amazing turn around, taking the Jazz from 10th to hopefully 3rd in the West, and is doing it all with his next two best offensive players being Rudy Gobert and Ricky Rubio. He's in the debate for rookie of the year and it's going to be a lot closer then people think.

I actually had forgotten that Blake Griffin had been injured his first season as well, kinda funny people are making a fuss about Simmons now, I don't remember it when Griffin won the award.

Don't get me wrong, I think Simmons deserves the award as well. I just don't consider him a true rookie. He's been in the league for a season, even if he wasn't playing. Like @Benjamin said, he's on his way to becoming a bonafide superstar.

I'm actually thinking of watching the Wolves/Nuggets game tonight. Doesn't get much better then watching two teams fight for that last spot. With them, and the Jazz/Blazers playing for 3rd tonight, this is a great way to end the regular season.

[Meacon Keaton]

I like that he said he doesn’t care about awards but he wore a sweatshirt in direct response to award talk. That’s some Russo level contradiction right thur.

[Pooker]

Agreed. Was funny and awesome as I found it, it was a bit complexing.

[Meacon Keaton]

I hate that we're, most likely, going to be 28-54, which is like a .340 win percentage, to end the season and we're still only the 9th worst record. I just have no motivation to watch, care, or spend a cent on the Knicks anymore. 

[gunnar hendershow]

The tankapalooza was wild to close the year. Every team out of the playoffs had horrendous closing stretches. If they played a playoff team they almost definitely lost.

The only viable fix with the current structure is to have the best team that doesn't make the playoff have the best lottery odds. Or give everyone the same odds.

[Benjamin]

Agreed. Next seasons flat lottery odds will do very little to dissuade teams from tanking, IMO.

[Meacon Keaton]

In ten minutes Markelle Fultz has 9 points, 6 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals. 

I hate how good this team is going to be for the next several years.

[Pooker]

4 hours ago, Meacon said:

I hate that we're, most likely, going to be 28-54, which is like a .340 win percentage, to end the season and we're still only the 9th worst record. I just have no motivation to watch, care, or spend a cent on the Knicks anymore. 

How do you like Hornacek as a coach? I had high hopes for him in the Suns and had hoped that he would have been the one to replace Sloan. But he seems to be getting the short staffed in New York.

[Meacon Keaton]

33 minutes ago, Pooker said:

How do you like Hornacek as a coach? I had high hopes for him in the Suns and had hoped that he would have been the one to replace Sloan. But he seems to be getting the short staffed in New York.

We could regenerate the corpse of Red Auerbach and he couldn't do anything with this franchise at the moment. Hornacek is fine. I don't think he's the issue. But I honestly couldn't tell you what the hell the issue is anymore. 

[gunnar hendershow]

1 hour ago, Benjamin said:

Agreed. Next seasons flat lottery odds will do very little to dissuade teams from tanking, IMO.

It might encourage more teams to tank or at least start earlier since they'll be tantalizingly close to the best odds in the draft for most of the home stretch.

I think a flat odds for everyone with the top 4 spots being determined by lottery might dissuade teams from really going into tank mode. Bad teams are always gonna phone it in at the end of the year, you don't want your best players to pick up a career-ending injury, and you do want to give some G League and deep bench guys reps to see how they perform. But I think the goal should be to keep teams from doing this until the last dozen games, as opposed to now where some start tanking by December.

[Tyrone]

Nuggets

[Benjamin]

It's not the post-season yet, but has Giannis' regular season been the most disappointing performance this season? 

[Pooker]

As a player, I would say no. He still stands out and he's fourth in the league in scoring. But as for the Bucks, I think people were expecting them to finish higher then 7th in the east.

[Benjamin]

I don't mean he didn't have a very good season, it's just that expectations for him were really high and he really seems to have underperformed in line with those expectations.

I mean, to be fair to him, he was never expected at the beginning of his career to be a major superstar. But this season, he was touted to have the best season in the league, and that didn't really happen. Him getting Bledsoe and a healthy Jabari Parker in the second half of the season helped his team, but in a way, didn't help his personal performances. I thought he was going to have the monster season that AD is having now.

[Twist]

We live in a world where the Sixers won 16 in a row to close the season.