2020-21 NBA Season Discussion

[Goudelock]

Speaking of the Hawks, RealGM's inevitable swing back to LOVING Trae Young whenever Atlanta starts having success is going to be hilarious. We all know it's going to happen at some point, because these boards find a way to turn on their heroes (Luka/Giannis) and raise up their villains (LeBron/Curry) no matter who they are.

[penbeast0]

We love winners, what can we say?

[AdagioPace]

Speaking of the Hawks, RealGM's inevitable swing back to LOVING Trae Young whenever Atlanta starts having success is going to be hilarious. We all know it's going to happen at some point, because these boards find a way to turn on their heroes (Luka/Giannis) and raise up their villains (LeBron/Curry) no matter who they are.

villains? I thought Lebron and Curry were leading the all star vote??? I think Harden is a better villain (not saying deserving)

[Jaivl]

Yeah, LeBron and Curry are hardly villains here. ANDREW WIGGINS, on the other hand...

[HeartBreakKid]

What makes Steph Curry villainous?

[parsnips33]

What makes Steph Curry villainous?

Either you die a hero...

[Goudelock]

Yeah, LeBron and Curry are hardly villains here. ANDREW WIGGINS, on the other hand...

Perhaps RealGM has clouded my judgement, but I'd say that on this site in particular, LeBron and Curry had a bunch of people dislike them for being 'frontrunners' and playing on stacked teams. Curry seems to be back in RealGM's good graces this season, and LeBron has seemed to outlast a lot of his haters.

Maybe I'm just projecting, and I'm just tired of this site finding a way to crap on every single young player by year three.

[bondom34]

Lebron I can see. Curry is generally pretty well protected in terms of negativity, at least relative to other stars.

Heck a guy like Embiid or Simmons gets worse than Steph is say, let alone guys who really catch flak.

[HeartBreakKid]

Lebron I can see. Curry is generally pretty well protected in terms of negativity, at least relative to other stars.

Heck a guy like Embiid or Simmons gets worse than Steph is say, let alone guys who really catch flak.

So does Giannis...pretty much all the bigs without rings. Those guys have a bunch of wolves waiting to blow their losses out of proportion - if Jokic lost in round 1 last year we'd never hear the end of how he sucks and he can't get it done with his omega stacked team.

[theonlyclutch]

Speaking of the Hawks, RealGM's inevitable swing back to LOVING Trae Young whenever Atlanta starts having success is going to be hilarious. We all know it's going to happen at some point, because these boards find a way to turn on their heroes (Luka/Giannis) and raise up their villains (LeBron/Curry) no matter who they are.

Its pretty amazing that he can sustain a good scoring efficiency while shots still haven't been falling (eFG 5% lower than league avg). AND he's already a top-level facilitator at the age of 22.

Thats a damn good offensive player and a franchise centerpiece. I suspect the general board still wants to lol at Atlanta for the draft trade and Trae also being a good player doesn't fit the narrative.

[bondom34]

Lebron I can see. Curry is generally pretty well protected in terms of negativity, at least relative to other stars.

Heck a guy like Embiid or Simmons gets worse than Steph is say, let alone guys who really catch flak.

So does Giannis...pretty much all the bigs without rings. Those guys have a bunch of wolves waiting to blow their losses out of proportion - if Jokic lost in round 1 last year we'd never hear the end of how he sucks and he can't get it done with his omega stacked team.

Not just bigs. I think Dame is the only guy who's even borderline a top 10 player over the last like 5 years who hasn't had some bizarre slander.

Here's all the all NBA teams since 2016:



Honestly, other than Oladipo (he was only there a year) and Lillard think every guy on any of these teams has had some sort of irrational slander at some point.

[freethedevil]

Speaking of the Hawks, RealGM's inevitable swing back to LOVING Trae Young whenever Atlanta starts having success is going to be hilarious. We all know it's going to happen at some point, because these boards find a way to turn on their heroes (Luka/Giannis) and raise up their villains (LeBron/Curry) no matter who they are.

Giannis has consisntently been put below far less valuable players(cough, kd, cough) because no one seems to remembe there's more to basketball than jumpshots but he's a "hero"?

Lebron is literally the mvp favorite here. What narrative is there?

Older players are constantly "heroes" and newer players are constantly "villians" yet somehow the popual rnarrative is that its the reverse.

[penbeast0]

...
Honestly, other than Oladipo (he was only there a year) and Lillard think every guy on any of these teams has had some sort of irrational slander at some point.

What do you consider an "irrational" slander? Is Harden not working hard on defense or off ball an "irrational" slander? Is Kawhi Leonard taking a lot of games off "irrational?" I agree that sometimes you get some crazy views and the more takes you get on a player the higher likelihood that some of them will be strange, but sometimes the takes are legit criticism as well . . . "yes, this person is a great player but . . . "

[penbeast0]

...

Older players are constantly "heroes" and newer players are constantly "villians" yet somehow the popual rnarrative is that its the reverse.

I don't think it's anywhere near as simple as that. I think Luka came into this league a hero and Dwight Howard or Kevin Durant get much more vilified as older players than they were when they were younger. It's about a narrative that gets established about a player and those narratives can change over time.

[Texas Chuck]

Its pretty amazing that he can sustain a good scoring efficiency while shots still haven't been falling (eFG 5% lower than league avg). AND he's already a top-level facilitator at the age of 22.

Thats a damn good offensive player and a franchise centerpiece. I suspect the general board still wants to lol at Atlanta for the draft trade and Trae also being a good player doesn't fit the narrative.

Yeah I think not being Luka Doncic is going to shadow him with certain people forever despite how stupid that narrative is.

The other thing hurting him right now is that he is shooting a billion FT's and the General Board cannot stand any player who shoots a lot of FT's and blames the players rather than the league for how the game is called.

[bondom34]

...
Honestly, other than Oladipo (he was only there a year) and Lillard think every guy on any of these teams has had some sort of irrational slander at some point.

What do you consider an "irrational" slander? Is Harden not working hard on defense or off ball an "irrational" slander? Is Kawhi Leonard taking a lot of games off "irrational?" I agree that sometimes you get some crazy views and the more takes you get on a player the higher likelihood that some of them will be strange, but sometimes the takes are legit criticism as well . . . "yes, this person is a great player but . . . "

Harden is a playoff choker who can't win under pressure. Only good because he gets foul calls, otherwise he's just a nobody.

Kawhi has been on stacked teams his whole career, only won b/c his teams are always incredibly deep. Only won in 14 because of the Spurs system and in 19 because the Warriors were injured and the Raptors team depth (they had a winning record without him).

Etc.

The Harden takes are definitely really out there, he's been labeled a ton of things that aren't fair (and I'm saying this as someone who's not a fan of his in general). Pretty much all these guys barring those two have had it that I can recall in some form. Kawhi's has been maybe weaker, but still there at times. Generally, if you open the general forum or most forms of social media and anything around most of these players it's pretty prominent. Seemed like it mainly came up here when it went to Curry.

Heck Luka's catching a ton of it now too in his 3rd year. AD's not a winner, Lebron carried him. But Lebron's not a winner and needs stacked teams for a title shot. Jokic had the goalposts shifted so many times from he can't get his team to the playoffs to can't get them out of the first round to now can't get them to a finals. Gobert is played off the court in the playoffs, Embiid injury prone and not a winner, Simmons by some people's accounts may be a fringe starter. And those guys are some of the bunch who take some of the "least" criticism relative.

Edit: And this is before getting to guys like Paul George or Westbrook. I still see stuff about Westbrook that's pretty irrational and has been for years and PG can't say anything without taking heat and despite having overall a decent playoff record both of them get no pass while a more liked star gets one. Most social media isn't rational and acts as if nothing happened before yesterday. Like, heck I'll make a Playoff P joke but he's overall been very good and people act like he's been a poor playoff performer and ignore Westbrook's career.

As I said, it's why I took a little social media break, this subforum is a bit better but on the whole... NBA discourse is kind of bad.

[eminence]

Butler's got a pretty generous shake (relatively) I'd say.

[bondom34]

Yeah, he was a 3rd who kind of came to mind but he was taking some heat when he was with the Wolves. Now he's become a bit of a folk hero though. Some guys go through cycles, some have been more consistently negative or positive (heck CP3 finally got some positive attention last year!).

This seems like a thing w/ NBA banter that I don't know if exists in other sports. At least I haven't noticed it, but again guess it's a more player-centric league.

[GSP]

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[GSP]

Mike Conleys Mvp candidacy dropping by the day. 3-0 without him now wins over Indiana, Boston and Milwaukee