The more you hear him talk, the more he seems disconnected from reality. I mean, I think it’s time to consider that he may have serious mental health issues or a substance abuse issue. Normal functioning adults don’t behave or act like him.
He loves to go on and on and preach about logic and reason, but he doesn’t make much if any sense at all or use facts to support his outrageous statements or arguments.
I really hope the Nets just put him on ice and let him sit until he tucks his tail between his legs and gets that big scary needle.
This billboard from a Nike campaign in 2016 is ironic. 
Ben Simmons doing the whole James Harden-Houston thing. Really increasing that trade value right now. Supposedly refused to a drill and Rivers kicked him out and suspended him for the opening game.
As if the Kyrie drama wasn’t enough
Allegedly, Ben Simmons was kicked out of practice for being insubordinate. Embiid was asked to comment, and this Is classic:
“At this point, I don’t care about that man, honestly. He does whatever he wants” and later said “I’m not here to babysit”
Ouch
Here's video of Simmons in practice. He didn't bother to take off his sweats and his cell phone is still in his pocket while he's doing drills.
https://twitter.com/JeffEisenb.../1450185217113825289
You have to wonder who leaked the video.
This sure seems to be another James Harden or AD or Jimmy Butler quit on your team type power play.
Only problem is I’m not sure Simmons is better than any of those three and certainly doesn’t have the leverage they did.
Sixers are a mess.
The Sixers tanked for several years (and traded good players like Vucevic and Jrue Holiday away for 25 cents on the dollar and sat Embiid and Simmons for several seasons with injuries) to set up getting a top 3 pick 4 years in a row. They ended up with Embiid, Okafor, Simmons, and Fultz.
2014- 3rd overall - Embiid
2015 - 3rd overall - Jahlil Okafor
2016 - 1st overall - Simmons
2017 - 1st overall - Fultz (the Sixers basically traded Jayson Tatum and a first round pick for Fultz)
if you assume you still draft Embiid and Simmons, the guys that came off in picks immediately after Fultz (Lonzo Ball, Tatum) and Okafor (Porzingis) would have been nice. Brandon Ingram and Jaylen Brown were the guys drafted immediately after Simmons.
They are about to end up with a center who is going to age fast with lousy feet and something like Andrew Wiggins or D'Angelo Russell to go along with an overpaid Tobias Harris. They might as well trade Embiid and start the tanking process all over again.
There were a lot of bad draft choices made my Philly.
In 2017, they took Fultz. The next 4 picks? Alonzo Ball, Jayson Tatum, Josh Jackson, DeAaron Fox.
Wow
The problem I see with Simmons is he’s not a hard worker and has no interest in getting better. And he’s not a game changer. People will put up with Harden because he can drop 50 on you. AD can give you 30/15+ healthy and motivated. Even Jimmy Butler can take over games.
That’s not Simmons or in his DNA. So what team is going to even give you 50 cents on the dollar for him? I mean, Golden State could. They could deal Wiggins and Wiseman. Or the Wolves could deal Russell and Beasley. But those moves will not make Philly better. The one obvious move - Dame or McCollum to Philly for Simmons would, but the Blazers would be morons to make those trades.
One game in and Zach Lavine is feeling it
“this ain’t last year”
Wow what a proclamation. You almost lost to an awful Detroit team but hey, the Bulls are back.
Honest question - do the improved Bulls even make the playoffs?
Oh oh - China's getting tough.
@Tschmack posted:One game in and Zach Lavine is feeling it
“this ain’t last year”
Wow what a proclamation. You almost lost to an awful Detroit team but hey, the Bulls are back.
Honest question - do the improved Bulls even make the playoffs?
It depends on whether the "improved" Bulls team decides they want to play defense (or whether they are even capable of playing defense). Vucevic can't really guard anyone. LaVine isn't really known for defense.
LaVine's excited because he'll probably average 30+ and get a max contract from someone.
Also, they barely beat a Pistons team that wasn't even playing their best player (top overall pick Cade Cunningham).
You look at the top teams in the East and it starts with the Bucks, then probably Brooklyn, Miami, Boston, Atlanta, Philly, the NYK and Indiana. Could Chicago sneak in there as a 7 or 8 seed? Maybe. But I think so could a team like Toronto or maybe even Charlotte.
The Pistons, Magic, Cavs, and Wizards should be awful. Like 20-25 win at best awful.
So I see Enes Kanter is wearing “Free Tibet” shoes. I think it’s wonderful when NBA players get involved in human rights and social justice causes. Will LeBron be joining him? 😀
James Harden isn’t having a lot of fun with the new rules.
For a guy that was critical of Giannis and his skill set, maybe JH should STFU and play? His gimmicky style of initiating contact is no longer being rewarded. Too fucking bad.
15 FT attempts through 5 games is awesome. Keep it up refs!
The Nets are in trouble
@Tschmack posted:James Harden isn’t having a lot of fun with the new rules.
For a guy that was critical of Giannis and his skill set, maybe JH should STFU and play? His gimmicky style of initiating contact is no longer being rewarded. Too fucking bad.
15 FT attempts through 5 games is awesome. Keep it up refs!
The Nets are in trouble
In the opening Nets game this season, there was a play where Giannis drove the length of the court with his left hand against Durant, went into the air, leaned away from Durant, and spun the ball high off the glass with the perfect English on it to have it drop through high off the backboard. It reminded me of something Larry Bird would have done. It was a highly skillful play and barely generated a blip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T1PAqlWkSg
Also, and I keep going back to this play which will end up as one of the top 5 plays of Giannis' career. Giannis blocked this alley-oop from this position when the pass was let go. The footwork required to do this is unbelievable. It's something that is probably the result of years of work on defensive drills. He's not just standing under the rim and reaching 12 feet into the air.
Sauce for the goose…
Phoenix Suns stealing some media attention away from the Packers.
Cade Cunningham went 4 for 17 from the floor and 1 for 7 from three tonight (he did make a bunch of FTs) and actually dramatically improved his season percentages.
He's now
7 for 39 overall from the floor and 1 for 21 from three to start his career.
It was a loss for Miami tonight, but PJ Tucker put up a 23-9-5 line tonight on 5 for 8 from deep. It still irritates me the Bucks ownership let him walk just to save money after you won a title. They must need it to buy bigger yachts?
So, DDV comes back on Wednesday and Middleton is now likely to miss at least a couple of weeks (that's being optimistic). If everyone was healthy this year, the Bucks would have started Giannis, Middleton, Holiday, Lopez, and DDV. Other than the opening game, they've not had more than 3 of those guys available for any of the last 28 games this year. It looks like it will be at least another 6-8 games (if they are lucky).
I understand the frustration about Tucker, but even with that effort the Heat still lost. Granted, they are without Bam and Jimmy Buckets but personally i think Miami playing him as much as they are (now) is a huge mistake. He’s had 15 games over 30 minutes and since Thanksgiving he’s been averaging almost 30 mins per game. The guy is 36. You need him for the playoffs, not 35 minutes against the Cavs.
The 23 points was impressive, but for the season he’s had 8 games in double figures. Big deal.
On the other hand, Grayson Allen has had 21 games in double figures and Portis is averaging 16/9 a game. Milwaukee chose to pay those two instead of Tucker.
What’s frustrating to me is all of the injuries this year. We see how good this team is when healthy, and the Bucks just need to weather the storm.
@Tschmack posted:I understand the frustration about Tucker, but even with that effort the Heat still lost. Granted, they are without Bam and Jimmy Buckets but personally i think Miami playing him as much as they are (now) is a huge mistake. He’s had 15 games over 30 minutes and since Thanksgiving he’s been averaging almost 30 mins per game. The guy is 36. You need him for the playoffs, not 35 minutes against the Cavs.
The 23 points was impressive, but for the season he’s had 8 games in double figures. Big deal.
On the other hand, Grayson Allen has had 21 games in double figures and Portis is averaging 16/9 a game. Milwaukee chose to pay those two instead of Tucker.
What’s frustrating to me is all of the injuries this year. We see how good this team is when healthy, and the Bucks just need to weather the storm.
My frustration with the Tucker situation isn't that I didn't think they needed to continue to try to improve by adding guys like Allen (who they got for basically nothing). The frustration was that there were no cap rules that prevented them from keeping Tucker at the 2 years and 14 million that Miami gave him and making all these other moves.
If you asked me would I trade Tucker for Grayson Allen and Bobby Portis, my answer would be "absolutely, that's a no brainer." But that wasn't the choice. Tucker's situation didn't directly affect those other moves at all. The choice was to let him go to save money. They just came off a title and it was clear they wanted to reduce the luxury tax bill. Are they really losing money owning the Bucks right now?
Even if Tucker declined, it was a modest contract by NBA rotation standards. At worst, it becomes a DJ Augustin-like contract that you can use as salary cap filler to get someone at the trade deadline (like they did with Tucker last year). They just threw away that 7 million dollar slot (which adds to the total of what they can pay for the roster).
It's possible he's going to wear down, but you know Bud wouldn't be playing him those minutes. But it would have been nice to put him out there last night for 15-20 minutes and let Jason Tatum work a bit more for his shots. Instead of, you know, Javonte Smart.
I guess we will have to agree to disagree
For this season, the Bucks are paying 212MM in player salaries. That includes almost 54MM in luxury tax.
Adding Tucker back in the mix would have quadrupled his 7MM annual salary to another 29MM in luxury tax on top of the 54MM in tax they are already paying this year. Thanks but no thanks.
@Tschmack posted:I guess we will have to agree to disagree
For this season, the Bucks are paying 212MM in player salaries. That includes almost 54MM in luxury tax.
Adding Tucker back in the mix would have quadrupled his 7MM annual salary to another 29MM in luxury tax on top of the 54MM in tax they are already paying this year. Thanks but no thanks.
I guess we don't disagree as much as we don't have enough information to make an informed judgement.
If the Bucks would have paid Tucker, the calculations you referenced would mean that they'd be paying out 248 million in player salaries this year. Now, if the Bucks gross 200 million in revenue, I can see where even billionaires don't want to lose 50 million a year. If, however, total revenues are more like 300 million a year, then it comes down to whether the owners are "only" making 50 million instead of 100 million. I know it's 50 million difference either way, but it's a very different perception.
From what I could find, the Bucks revenue last year was 212 million, so I guess they would be losing money this year if these are the real books, so that supports your argument.
The other way to look at this is the owners bought the Bucks for 550 million in 2014 and they are now valued at almost 2 billion dollars. If Giannis ever leaves that number drops dramatically. Maybe keeping Tucker didn't matter to him.
The Nets are thinking about allowing Kyrie to play road games
Fuck that team and fuck Irving
This is probably the most bush-league thing ever.
@TheNBACentral: Jerry West destroys Lakers franchise for revoking his lifetime season tickets the late Dr. Buss promised him
“It was a cold phone text to my wife. No one had the nerve to call me, but that’s how petty they are, OK?”
Anyone watching the HBO series Rise of the Lakers Dynasty?
Just discovered it this week. Pretty entertaining so far.
Can’t afford H.B.O. like you swells can.
Nets lost to the Hawks despite 55 from Durant. Now they are the 10 seed and will likely have the play in game.
@Tschmack posted:Nets lost to the Hawks despite 55 from Durant. Now they are the 10 seed and will likely have the play in game.
Durant and Irving combined to score 86 points in 86 minutes, were 31 for 60 from the floor, and 15 for 24 from three.
The other Nets were 11 for 39 from the floor and 2 for 13 from three.
I guess depth matters.
