RealGM

I mistyped some URL and then it popped up some list of similar sites I had visited or bookmarked over the years. This one caught my eye and I clicked on it.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-53-best-franchise-players-in-the-nba/

I went looking to find a contemporary thread about it, but struck out. This article is from October 2015 looking at projecting the best players over the next 6 seasons.

It starts at #53 with a hadn't-played-a-game-yet Joel Embiid "CARMELO still harbors dreams about how Embiid’s shot-blocking could make him the next Joakim Noah. But given Embiid’s injury history, the Greg Oden comp looks increasingly scary."

The top-10 are pretty solid in retrospect. LeBron clocks in at #4. "Even on the downward slope of his career, the King is still the King and projects to have several good years left. ... The only other 31-or-older player to make our long-term value list is Marc Gasol, and LeBron projects to have almost as much career value remaining as three Gasols put together."

There are some hilarious things in this list, like Elfrid Payton at #14, but it's mostly just fun to look back at something from a decade ago and see that so many of these guys are still playing now. I miss 538. They only briefly forayed into the NBA and I have no idea if their efforts were every quanitified in a way to determine if they were good or bad at it, but I appreciated the effort.

"The sky’s the limit for the Greek Freak. Antetokounmpo has an unusually well-rounded skill set for someone who’s about to turn 21 years old, including certain skills (he’s already a good defender and excellent at drawing fouls) that are usually associated with more mature players. He’s still working out what sort of player he wants to be on the offensive end — he dramatically cut down on his 3-point shot last year (but, oddly enough, took a lot of long twos)."
That is strange, but actually its a good idea for a someone who isn't a natural shooter to just shoot the ball without caring about the 3-point-line.
They have a better chance of making the shot if they aren't thinking about where their feet have to be...
BTW why do they call it a time capsule, isn't a capsule that thing you swallow?

bonita_the_frog wrote:BTW why do they call it a time capsule, isn't a capsule that thing you swallow?

That would be a Time Pill. They do call those capsules sometimes too, but a capsule is just a small container.

I'm trying to find cumulative stats from those years to see how they did.

VORP leaders year by year to check out that range.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/vorp_top_10_c.html

bonita_the_frog wrote:"The sky’s the limit for the Greek Freak. Antetokounmpo has an unusually well-rounded skill set for someone who’s about to turn 21 years old, including certain skills (he’s already a good defender and excellent at drawing fouls) that are usually associated with more mature players. He’s still working out what sort of player he wants to be on the offensive end — he dramatically cut down on his 3-point shot last year (but, oddly enough, took a lot of long twos)."
That is strange, but actually its a good idea for a someone who isn't a natural shooter to just shoot the ball without caring about the 3-point-line.
They have a better chance of making the shot if they aren't thinking about where their feet have to be...
BTW why do they call it a time capsule, isn't a capsule that thing you swallow?

It's called a time capsule because it's something you can have reflect on from the past.

Ruma85 wrote:

bonita_the_frog wrote:"The sky’s the limit for the Greek Freak. Antetokounmpo has an unusually well-rounded skill set for someone who’s about to turn 21 years old, including certain skills (he’s already a good defender and excellent at drawing fouls) that are usually associated with more mature players. He’s still working out what sort of player he wants to be on the offensive end — he dramatically cut down on his 3-point shot last year (but, oddly enough, took a lot of long twos)."
That is strange, but actually its a good idea for a someone who isn't a natural shooter to just shoot the ball without caring about the 3-point-line.
They have a better chance of making the shot if they aren't thinking about where their feet have to be...
BTW why do they call it a time capsule, isn't a capsule that thing you swallow?

It's called a time capsule because it's something you can have reflect on from the past.

But what's a capsule got to do with time and reflecting on your past?

EDIT:

granger05 wrote:

bonita_the_frog wrote:But why is it a figure of speech and not a sound of speech

Goddammit.

I promise i didn't say that, granger fudged it in.

bonita_the_frog wrote:But what's a capsule got to do with time and reflecting on your past?

It's just a figure of speech. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_capsule

Pretty interesting list, honestly. There's a lot of praise for DLO, back when hype was more consistent for him. The 2013, 2014, 2015 draft class has a few players that are pretty solid and currently on rosters, but were excluded here. It would be interesting to see if their projections vs reality in exact #s, because the graphs aren't that accurate from what eventually occurred lol Biggest oversight is Jokic, and many other players in today's game had not been drafted yet. I think I actually read this article when it came out haha

bonita_the_frog wrote:But why is it a figure of speech and not a sound of speech

Goddammit.

bonita_the_frog wrote:

Ruma85 wrote:

bonita_the_frog wrote:"The sky’s the limit for the Greek Freak. Antetokounmpo has an unusually well-rounded skill set for someone who’s about to turn 21 years old, including certain skills (he’s already a good defender and excellent at drawing fouls) that are usually associated with more mature players. He’s still working out what sort of player he wants to be on the offensive end — he dramatically cut down on his 3-point shot last year (but, oddly enough, took a lot of long twos)."
That is strange, but actually its a good idea for a someone who isn't a natural shooter to just shoot the ball without caring about the 3-point-line.
They have a better chance of making the shot if they aren't thinking about where their feet have to be...
BTW why do they call it a time capsule, isn't a capsule that thing you swallow?

It's called a time capsule because it's something you can have reflect on from the past.

But what's a capsule got to do with time and reflecting on your past?

You're overthinking it my guy.

It's a time suppository. For you and your dog on the assfault courts.

Black Jack wrote:It's a time suppository. For you and your dog on the assfault courts.

That might be the greatest typo I've ever seen.

It was only a matter of time before that Ben Simmons guy went full-blown obnoxious.

Iwasawitness wrote:

bonita_the_frog wrote:

Ruma85 wrote:
It's called a time capsule because it's something you can have reflect on from the past.

But what's a capsule got to do with time and reflecting on your past?

You're overthinking it my guy.

She is a woman.

azcatz11 wrote:

Iwasawitness wrote:

bonita_the_frog wrote:But what's a capsule got to do with time and reflecting on your past?

You're overthinking it my guy.

She is a woman.

Oh.

You're overthinking it my girl.

i have no idea what this list all means,,,,,,,but i stopped @#2

Man, some of these names... Mirotic made the list, and he is far from the worst player here, but it is funny to think like a year later he left nba and never came back.

An entertaining read. In an an alternate universe where Hayward doesn't leave for Boston (and doesn't break his leg), a lineup of Gobert, Favors, Hayward, Mitchell, and Rubio would have been fun for a bit.

granger05 wrote:

bonita_the_frog wrote:But what's a capsule got to do with time and reflecting on your past?

It's just a figure of speech. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_capsule

A time capsule is an actual item though. Buried or hidden somewhere for a look into the past a generation or two ago.

This will be like if they keep the first ever nba cards and dig it out on the 100 year of the nba anniversary.

LeBron at #4, expecting him to decline with perhaps a few good seasons left..