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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!

    2019-2020 NBA Regular Season Thread

    This is where you can post general observations, thoughts, whatever that are not connected to specific Duke players in the NBA. In other words, your Lebron vs Kawhi debate goes here.

    I'll get the thread started with this interesting list I found of all the guys who are leaving the league to head overseas. More than a few productive players on this list... led by Nicola Mirotic who shocked the league when he chose to go overseas rather than stay in the NBA (he was going to be a hot free agent this summer, likely in line for a $10+ mil per year deal). And I did not know that Lance Stephenson and Greg Monroe had both opted to go overseas.

    Anyway, the list if useful if only so you will know where Bonzi Colson is getting paid to play this year.

    -Jason "now we can get that discussion about how Russ and Harden will play together going" Evans
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Steamboat Springs, CO

    Regular Season Starts October 22

    The regular season kicks off on Tuesday, October 22 with Zion and the Pelicans at the champion Raptors -- 8 PM EDT. Gee, imagine! The league is featuring Zion in the first game of the season. The second game will be Lakers and Clippers at 10:30 PM.
    Sage Grouse

    ---------------------------------------
    'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Mechanicsburg, PA
    I cannot think of a better representative of the US than Lance Stephenson. International relations are in good hands. Maybe the NBA can create the Dennis Rodman Ambassador Award for former players...

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by AGDukesky View Post
    I cannot think of a better representative of the US than Lance Stephenson. International relations are in good hands. Maybe the NBA can create the Dennis Rodman Ambassador Award for former players...
    Are you being sarcastic? Can't tell.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Outside Philly
    Quote Originally Posted by AGDukesky View Post
    I cannot think of a better representative of the US than Lance Stephenson. International relations are in good hands. Maybe the NBA can create the Dennis Rodman Ambassador Award for former players...
    Well, blowing in someone’s ear is a formal greeting in many parts of the world. And air guitar if is universal.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Mechanicsburg, PA
    Quote Originally Posted by SouthernDukie View Post
    Are you being sarcastic? Can't tell.
    Being too subtle has always been my problem 😉

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    Albemarle, North Carolina
    Quote Originally Posted by JasonEvans View Post
    This is where you can post general observations, thoughts, whatever that are not connected to specific Duke players in the NBA. In other words, your Lebron vs Kawhi debate goes here.

    I'll get the thread started with this interesting list I found of all the guys who are leaving the league to head overseas. More than a few productive players on this list... led by Nicola Mirotic who shocked the league when he chose to go overseas rather than stay in the NBA (he was going to be a hot free agent this summer, likely in line for a $10+ mil per year deal). And I did not know that Lance Stephenson and Greg Monroe had both opted to go overseas.

    Anyway, the list if useful if only so you will know where Bonzi Colson is getting paid to play this year.

    -Jason "now we can get that discussion about how Russ and Harden will play together going" Evans
    Honestly I think it will be an awesome fit. They've played together before and are good friends, Russ hasn't been surrounded by this much shooting before and that's really all he needs around him and it's been chronicled for awhile now how much Russ has been struggling in late games but I think thats mostly due to him being worn down. With Harden there to slow things down from time to time and let Russ take a breather I think we could see his efficiency spike.
    "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge" -Stephen Hawking

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by JNort View Post
    Honestly I think it will be an awesome fit. They've played together before and are good friends, Russ hasn't been surrounded by this much shooting before and that's really all he needs around him and it's been chronicled for awhile now how much Russ has been struggling in late games but I think thats mostly due to him being worn down. With Harden there to slow things down from time to time and let Russ take a breather I think we could see his efficiency spike.
    Why would Russell Westbrook play better with James Harden than he did with Kevin Durant? Harden is a more selfish player than Durant, has a much higher usage rate, and is just simply not as good overall. Plus, Westbrook is now four years older and has a lot more miles on his body than when he last played with Durant.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven43 View Post
    Why would Russell Westbrook play better with James Harden than he did with Kevin Durant? Harden is a more selfish player than Durant, has a much higher usage rate, and is just simply not as good overall. Plus, Westbrook is now four years older and has a lot more miles on his body than when he last played with Durant.
    Why would Russell need to play better than he did with Durant? Looking at his growth over those 4 years, I think he will do just fine with Harden. Yes Harden works best with the ball in his hands (as does Russ) but with both on the court, you can't focus on either. You double to cheat towards one and that leaves the other ready to attack as well as several shooters hangin' out at the 3 point line. When Russ has the ball in his hands, having Harden as an available shooter...deadly (note I'm not a real big fan of Hardens...)

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by elvis14 View Post
    Why would Russell need to play better than he did with Durant? Looking at his growth over those 4 years, I think he will do just fine with Harden. Yes Harden works best with the ball in his hands (as does Russ) but with both on the court, you can't focus on either. You double to cheat towards one and that leaves the other ready to attack as well as several shooters hangin' out at the 3 point line. When Russ has the ball in his hands, having Harden as an available shooter...deadly (note I'm not a real big fan of Hardens...)
    I don’t know, Elvis. His “growth over these 4 years”? Have you checked his shooting stats recently? He’s one of the worst-shooting guards in the entire league, possibly THE worst. Harden is going to hold the ball like he always does and dribble dribble dribble the shot clock down to almost nothing, then make a move towards the basket and pass to Westbrook for....a brick off the side of the rim. Get ready for it.

    Once Westbrook’s athleticism starts to wane a bit — it might well start happening very soon — he doesn’t have much else. Certainly not savvy, court vision, outside shooting, or FT shooting.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theringer.com/platform/amp/nba/2019/1/3/18167155/russell-westbrook-shooting-struggles

    I’m not a Harden fan nor a Westbrook fan nor a Rockets fan. Other than that I wish them well with this crazy experiment.

  11. #11
    A really complicated situation to track here: the NBA, and, particularly, the Rockets, are huge in China. The other day, Daryl Morey, the GM of the Rockets, tweeted in support of the Hong Kong protestors, and, in response, the Chinese Basketball Association (and various Chinese broadcasting companies) are either cutting ties or otherwise banning the Rockets from broadcasts. Here's a quick tweet summary and a (not very informative) ESPN article. The Rockets owner sent out a tweet right away (and was roundly criticized in the US for doing so) distancing the Rockets from Morey's opinion, but it doesn't seem to have mattered much on the Chinese end of things.

    When this originally went down, it didn't seem like much to me and it seemed like a complete overreaction from the Rockets owner, especially because the NBA is almost always way out ahead of these types of things where the outside political world and the sports world intersect. But that's potentially a LOT of money. Morey might be the best known front-office guy in the NBA, and it would not go over well for the Rockets to do anything punitive here. Will be VERY interesting to see how the Rockets (and the NBA generally) reacts. The league has placed so much emphasis on the ability of players and other staff-members to speak their minds and to be involved in politics. But the other thing that the league has put a ton of emphasis on is growing the game worldwide and, especially, in China. This is the first time that those two major missions have collided. Something worth tracking as we move through the preseason.

    Edit: one more article on the situation.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by TheOldBattleship View Post
    Morey might be the best known front-office guy in the NBA, and it would not go over well for the Rockets to do anything punitive here. Will be VERY interesting to see how the Rockets (and the NBA generally) react.
    I don't want to keep spamming this thread with updates here, but hoo boy. This could get really complicated really quickly.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Deeetroit City
    Quote Originally Posted by TheOldBattleship View Post
    I don't want to keep spamming this thread with updates here, but hoo boy. This could get really complicated really quickly.
    "Tilman Fertitta [Owner of the Rockets] liked ... comments on Instagram of fans/commenters wanting him to get rid of Daryl Morey."

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Halifax, Nova Scotia
    Quote Originally Posted by BD80 View Post
    "Tilman Fertitta [Owner of the Rockets] liked ... comments on Instagram of fans/commenters wanting him to get rid of Daryl Morey."
    Ouch. Boy, that escalated quickly.

  15. #15
    Well, after a chaotic brief period, looks like everything is going to blow over without anything too major happening here. Over the course of the afternoon, multiple presidential candidates and members of congress commented on the issue, Daryl Morey gave a(n incredibly scripted and clearly dictated from above) apology, the NBA issued statements about the issue in English and Chinese (that may or may not have been phrased VERY differently), the new owner of the Nets made a long Facebook post giving his take on the whole situation, a die-hard Rockets fan in China may or may not have been arrested for writing angry protests against the Rockets blackout, and the Rockets brass (despite multiple people reporting differently) apparently is not considering firing Morey over this whole debacle.

    If this does all fade away and look like a storm in a teacup in retrospect, that's only because of a serious papering-over-the-cracks job by the Rockets and the NBA. The whole saga definitely exposes some serious issues in the combination of the NBA's commitment to the political free speech of members of the NBA community (especially as regards touchy political issues) and in the desire to continue to grow the fanbase in China. Judging from the rapid reaction from both team and league here, it looks like the latter priority is going to come first if the two priorities collide again.

    Edit: I didn't link anything here because I wanted to avoid just having a list of things for people to have to click through, but man, the Joe Tsai (Nets owner) statement is... worth reading. Bet Adam Silver didn't wake up this morning thinking he'd have to tiptoe through a near international incident.
    Last edited by TheOldBattleship; 10-07-2019 at 12:44 AM.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    I thought the NFL was the sport with the kneeling controversies, but man, way to genuflect to that Chinese money, NBA owners. (I'm getting a morning chuckle picturing owners like Fertitta and Cuban kneeling to the Chinese national anthem).

    Also FYI, Fertitta inherited D'Antoni and Morey when he bought the team, and this continues his history of making eyebrow-raising comments about them. I'm not sure he's happy with his coach and GM, and they might not be there long-term.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by TheOldBattleship View Post
    Well, after a chaotic brief period, looks like everything is going to blow over without anything too major happening here.
    Looks like I may have spoken too soon on this. While the Rockets/NBA clearly hoped that this wouldn't be a big deal, the backlash in the US to the response to the backlash in China has been pretty sharp. I've seen articles in sports places (SI, Deadspin, SBNation), but also in Slate (x2), Rolling Stone, and the NYTimes.

    Perhaps worse, this has become something of a cause celebre for US politicians (interestingly, across party lines). I've lost track of who has come out and said what at this point, but that says something in and of itself: there have been enough people to make me lose track of who all has commented. Meanwhile, China isn't backing off, either. Looks like a story that will have some legs.

    (Apologies if this is getting too off track for this thread; this whole saga is definitely one of the weirdest things that's happened NBA-wise that I can think of. If we'd rather keep this thread to the court, just let me know.)

  18. #18
    The Pelicans play the Hawks at 7:30 in Atlanta - NBA TV.

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by Indoor66 View Post
    The Pelicans play the Hawks at 7:30 in Atlanta - NBA TV.
    Already have the DVR set, can't wait. Hope all our guys get to play. It's preseason, couldn't we get Trajan a few minutes of PT too just for fun?

  20. #20
    Zion and Ingram starting for the Pels, alongside Ball, Holiday, and Favors. Zion already with a first couple of buckets (and a fairly smooth looking and-1 free throw!), including a blow-by thunder dunk. Just unfair when he catches on the move in space, even at the NBA level.

    Edit: Here's a Twitter vid of the first Zion dunk: https://twitter.com/WorldWideWob/sta...54962816770048

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