2024-25 NBA Season Discussion

[sp6r=underrated]

I'll say I probably overstated it, it's not a huge issue, and I'm more frustrated than Finch deserves due to me liking Rudy's play and having to hear so much of this over the years. It's only 15-20 extra minutes, certainly doesn't win them the series, and is unlikely to even get them to game 6, but I do think those were mistakes.

Good post and yes Gobert is on one of the most unjustly maligned players of my life

[sp6r=underrated]

I love basketball. It has been my favorite sport since I was a kid. The NBA has given me more entertainment value than any entertainment product bar none. I don't know how the NBA fan culture can get away from titles or bust, I'm as guilty as anyone, but it takes so much joy away from the sport. Basketball is a low variance sport and this is accentuated by the NBA's four rounds of best of sevens. It makes building a title contender extremely hard.

And the Minnesota Timberwolves thread on the GB is so dispiriting due to that mindset. I'm not a Wolves fan despite my Minnesota ties but the attitude in that thread is just awful. So many people want the team broken up because there wasn't any improvement over last year.

The sad truth in that NBA is most teams have no shot at a title in the NBA. lots of times teams will build a good club like Minnesota has and have no clear path to the title contention level unless one of their players makes the leap. This isn't baseball or hockey with fluky runs. Nor is this the NFL with a single elimination tournament. Good teams will only have a marginal shot at a title. If true contenders are the only teams worth rooting following the vast majority of teams will be miserable.

[frica]

Even though Rudy Gobert currently has a positive +/- (averaged out) during this finals I'll still use this result as a reason why you can't with a title with a center who's blah blah blah.

Doesn't matter if the team he's facing has statistically arguably the greatest RS ever.

Why are we blaming Gobert when the PF love child of Harden and DeMarcus Cousins in Randle is right there?

I'm not.
I'm just parodizing some sayings people tend to have.

Like the saying that it's not possible to win a title with a center defensively as bad as Jokic.

I've seen Gobert getting (imo) an unjust amount of flak for his lack of postseason success.
Not this season, but previous ones.
A different time and place and (a prime) Gobert could very well be the best player on a winning team. (That's my true opinion)

[falcolombardi]

I love basketball. It has been my favorite sport since I was a kid. The NBA has given me more entertainment value than any entertainment product bar none. I don't know how the NBA fan culture can get away from titles or bust, I'm as guilty as anyone, but it takes so much joy away from the sport. Basketball is a low variance sport and this is accentuated by the NBA's four rounds of best of sevens. It makes building a title contender extremely hard.

And the Minnesota Timberwolves thread on the GB is so dispiriting due to that mindset. I'm not a Wolves fan despite my Minnesota ties but the attitude in that thread is just awful. So many people want the team broken up because there wasn't any improvement over last year.

The sad truth in that NBA is most teams have no shot at a title in the NBA. lots of times teams will build a good club like Minnesota has and have no clear path to the title contention level unless one of their players makes the leap. This isn't baseball or hockey with fluky runs. Nor is this the NFL with a single elimination tournament. Good teams will only have a marginal shot at a title. If true contenders are the only teams worth rooting following the vast majority of teams will be miserable.

In other sports or competitions, namely individual ones, the idea of a big luck/fluckyness element adding variance is tantamount to a bad game or a bad sport

I have been into fighting videogame tournaments for a while and the element of randomness is avoided as the plague, videogames where results are too unpredictable get sometimes seen as lower skill games

And games where the same players win consistently is taken as a proof of the game quality and "high ceiling of skill one can reach"

Is a completely different approach to how people want team sports to have a luck element to add entertainment value by increasing upset odds

[Black Feet]

Even though Rudy Gobert currently has a positive +/- (averaged out) during this finals I'll still use this result as a reason why you can't with a title with a center who's blah blah blah.

Doesn't matter if the team he's facing has statistically arguably the greatest RS ever.

Why are we blaming Gobert when the PF love child of Harden and DeMarcus Cousins in Randle is right there?

I'm not.
I'm just parodizing some sayings people tend to have.

Like the saying that it's not possible to win a title with a center defensively as bad as Jokic.

I've seen Gobert getting (imo) an unjust amount of flak for his lack of postseason success.
Not this season, but previous ones.
A different time and place and (a prime) Gobert could very well be the best player on a winning team. (That's my true opinion)

Gobert is only 32 years old, even “prime” couldn’t make it past the second round with mitchell averaging over 30 pts in the playoffs. Nothing indicates he can lead a team as their best player.

[sp6r=underrated]

I love basketball. It has been my favorite sport since I was a kid. The NBA has given me more entertainment value than any entertainment product bar none. I don't know how the NBA fan culture can get away from titles or bust, I'm as guilty as anyone, but it takes so much joy away from the sport. Basketball is a low variance sport and this is accentuated by the NBA's four rounds of best of sevens. It makes building a title contender extremely hard.

And the Minnesota Timberwolves thread on the GB is so dispiriting due to that mindset. I'm not a Wolves fan despite my Minnesota ties but the attitude in that thread is just awful. So many people want the team broken up because there wasn't any improvement over last year.

The sad truth in that NBA is most teams have no shot at a title in the NBA. lots of times teams will build a good club like Minnesota has and have no clear path to the title contention level unless one of their players makes the leap. This isn't baseball or hockey with fluky runs. Nor is this the NFL with a single elimination tournament. Good teams will only have a marginal shot at a title. If true contenders are the only teams worth rooting following the vast majority of teams will be miserable.

In other sports or competitions, namely individual ones, the idea of a big luck/fluckyness element adding variance is tantamount to a bad game or a bad sport

I don't buy the analogy to video game design. And I reject the idea sports with greater randomness are inherently inferior or in need of design change. I wouldn't consider hockey inherently inferior to basketball even though the former has way more luck.

Anyway my primary point is the NBA need to find a way to change fans attitude towards the "good team/can't win title group" more than the "NBA needs to add more chance."

[tsherkin]

The sad truth in that NBA is most teams have no shot at a title in the NBA.

Very true.

And there are franchises which have still not won one, even ones which weren't 90s-or-later expansion teams. Or haven't won in like 75 years.

Atlanta hasn't won since the 50s. Brooklyn hasn't won in the NBA, Charlotte has never won. Chicago had a great run but it's been almost 30 years since they were in a Finals series. Denver hasn't won in the NBA. It's been 30 years since Houston was in a Finals series. Indiana hasn't won in the NBA. The Clippers haven't won, Memphis hasn't won, Minnesota hasn't won, New Orleans hasn't won, it's been a quarter century since the Knicks made the Finals, OKC is about to change that it has never won, Orlando has never won, it's been a quarter century since Philly made a Finals appearance. Phoenix has never won. Portland hasn't seen the Finals since 92 and has only one title from the 70s. Sacramento hasn't won. Utah has never won and it's been almost 30 years since they were in the Finals. Washington hasn't been in the Finals or won since the 70s.

So yeah, it's unfair to judge team quality on the basis of title-or-bust, because that isn't typically how the NBA has worked. Now that they appear to be assassinating the ability for teams to stay together, it looks like this might change a bit potentially, but I think that'll mostly just impact quality of the game. We'll see.

Either way, teams that go deep in the playoffs regularly are still quite good, and this contemporary take of titles or bust isn't good at all.

[TheGOATRises007]

The sad truth in that NBA is most teams have no shot at a title in the NBA.

Very true.

And there are franchises which have still not won one, even ones which weren't 90s-or-later expansion teams. Or haven't won in like 75 years.

Atlanta hasn't won since the 50s. Brooklyn hasn't won in the NBA, Charlotte has never won. Chicago had a great run but it's been almost 30 years since they were in a Finals series. Denver hasn't won in the NBA. It's been 30 years since Houston was in a Finals series. Indiana hasn't won in the NBA. The Clippers haven't won, Memphis hasn't won, Minnesota hasn't won, New Orleans hasn't won, it's been a quarter century since the Knicks made the Finals, OKC is about to change that it has never won, Orlando has never won, it's been a quarter century since Philly made a Finals appearance. Phoenix has never won. Portland hasn't seen the Finals since 92 and has only one title from the 70s. Sacramento hasn't won. Utah has never won and it's been almost 30 years since they were in the Finals. Washington hasn't been in the Finals or won since the 70s.

So yeah, it's unfair to judge team quality on the basis of title-or-bust, because that isn't typically how the NBA has worked. Now that they appear to be assassinating the ability for teams to stay together, it looks like this might change a bit potentially, but I think that'll mostly just impact quality of the game. We'll see.

Either way, teams that go deep in the playoffs regularly are still quite good, and this contemporary take of titles or bust isn't good at all.

I presume you had a brain fart and forgot about 2023?

[tsherkin]

I presume you had a brain fart and forgot about 2023?

I totally did. I was in an old response mode where I was thinking about ABA titles and totally spaced on Jokic.

The perils of getting old, my man!

[sp6r=underrated]

I presume you had a brain fart and forgot about 2023?

I totally did. I was in an old response mode where I was thinking about ABA titles and totally spaced on Jokic.

The perils of getting old, my man!

I had one of those moments when I realized the 2011 Finals to today HSers seem as far away as the 70s finals seemed to me when I first started watching. Yikes

[tsherkin]

I had one of those moments when I realized the 2011 Finals to today HSers seem as far away as the 70s finals seemed to me when I first started watching. Yikes

Man. It's worse, because I'm a huge Jokic fan, lmfao. But yeah, it happens. Old Timers'. xD

I keep thinking the LA three-peat wasn't that long ago, but like, it started just two years after Jordan's second three-peat, and that was 27 years ago and... ach. I'm turning into dust as we speak...

[frica]

Why are we blaming Gobert when the PF love child of Harden and DeMarcus Cousins in Randle is right there?

I'm not.
I'm just parodizing some sayings people tend to have.

Like the saying that it's not possible to win a title with a center defensively as bad as Jokic.

I've seen Gobert getting (imo) an unjust amount of flak for his lack of postseason success.
Not this season, but previous ones.
A different time and place and (a prime) Gobert could very well be the best player on a winning team. (That's my true opinion)

Gobert is only 32 years old, even “prime” couldn’t make it past the second round with mitchell averaging over 30 pts in the playoffs. Nothing indicates he can lead a team as their best player.

I think we'll likely disagree on eyetest forever.

But looking at advanced stats, there's no reason why Ben Wallace or Isiah Thomas could win titles but Gobert somehow can't.

Gobert led Mitchell in winshares, ws/48 and played more minutes anyway.
If we blame someone, I think it'd make more sense to blame Mitchell.

[Texas Chuck]

Is a completely different approach to how people want team sports to have a luck element to add entertainment value by increasing upset odds

I used to play poker professionally. And believe wholeheartedly its a skill game(or else what a terrible idea to pay the mortgage/feed the kids this way) and the best players consistently win. But in short-term(and in online poker short-term can be 6 figures worth of hands) variance good and bad absolutely enters into it. Doesn't make the game unskilled, but it does invite in the dead money need to keep the game afloat by giving them shots to compete against much better players.

Basketball with this much 3-pt shooting is going to have variance. And college teams learned this well before the NBA did. You would see less skilled, less 5 star recruit teams try and increase the variance to give them chances to compete in one off tournament games, often to some real success.

Now the NBA playoffs tries to mitigate this by having to win four 7 game series along the way. We get some upsets still with the variance that is just part of life and almost every game(Go and Chess probably the most notable exceptions), but the NBA tends to have "true" champions basically every year.

I know you are probably more sensitive to this right now as a fan of the best team and heavy favorite. I get in. My little Mavs only have the one title, and they are one of the more disrespected champions despite going a very respectable 16-7 against teams where all of them save Portland had 3 of the 4 best players in the series and many would say Kobe/KD were individually better than Dirk(I disagree in that specific year) and most say Wade was better than year too (again I disagree, but whatever).

My Mavs were a worthy champion. They beat those other teams. When OKC wins the title this year they will be a worthy champion. More worthy even than my little Mavs considering the dominance they have shown.

But the sport definitely has some elements of variance(or luck if you will).

[falcolombardi]

Is a completely different approach to how people want team sports to have a luck element to add entertainment value by increasing upset odds

I used to play poker professionally. And believe wholeheartedly its a skill game(or else what a terrible idea to pay the mortgage/feed the kids this way) and the best players consistently win. But in short-term(and in online poker short-term can be 6 figures worth of hands) variance good and bad absolutely enters into it. Doesn't make the game unskilled, but it does invite in the dead money need to keep the game afloat by giving them shots to compete against much better players.

Basketball with this much 3-pt shooting is going to have variance. And college teams learned this well before the NBA did. You would see less skilled, less 5 star recruit teams try and increase the variance to give them chances to compete in one off tournament games, often to some real success.

Now the NBA playoffs tries to mitigate this by having to win four 7 game series along the way. We get some upsets still with the variance that is just part of life and almost every game(Go and Chess probably the most notable exceptions), but the NBA tends to have "true" champions basically every year.

I know you are probably more sensitive to this right now as a fan of the best team and heavy favorite. I get in. My little Mavs only have the one title, and they are one of the more disrespected champions despite going a very respectable 16-7 against teams where all of them save Portland had 3 of the 4 best players in the series and many would say Kobe/KD were individually better than Dirk(I disagree in that specific year) and most say Wade was better than year too (again I disagree, but whatever).

My Mavs were a worthy champion. They beat those other teams. When OKC wins the title this year they will be a worthy champion. More worthy even than my little Mavs considering the dominance they have shown.

But the sport definitely has some elements of variance(or luck if you will).

Is not that i think is a good or bad thingh as much as i am pointing out the difference in perspective

People in the basketball sphere have also wrote in worry of basketball adding too much variance with the usual phrasing "is a make or miss league"

[frica]

Is a completely different approach to how people want team sports to have a luck element to add entertainment value by increasing upset odds

I used to play poker professionally. And believe wholeheartedly its a skill game(or else what a terrible idea to pay the mortgage/feed the kids this way) and the best players consistently win. But in short-term(and in online poker short-term can be 6 figures worth of hands) variance good and bad absolutely enters into it. Doesn't make the game unskilled, but it does invite in the dead money need to keep the game afloat by giving them shots to compete against much better players.

Basketball with this much 3-pt shooting is going to have variance. And college teams learned this well before the NBA did. You would see less skilled, less 5 star recruit teams try and increase the variance to give them chances to compete in one off tournament games, often to some real success.

Now the NBA playoffs tries to mitigate this by having to win four 7 game series along the way. We get some upsets still with the variance that is just part of life and almost every game(Go and Chess probably the most notable exceptions), but the NBA tends to have "true" champions basically every year.

I know you are probably more sensitive to this right now as a fan of the best team and heavy favorite. I get in. My little Mavs only have the one title, and they are one of the more disrespected champions despite going a very respectable 16-7 against teams where all of them save Portland had 3 of the 4 best players in the series and many would say Kobe/KD were individually better than Dirk(I disagree in that specific year) and most say Wade was better than year too (again I disagree, but whatever).

My Mavs were a worthy champion. They beat those other teams. When OKC wins the title this year they will be a worthy champion. More worthy even than my little Mavs considering the dominance they have shown.

But the sport definitely has some elements of variance(or luck if you will).

And this is exactly why Omaha Hold 'm with low limits is the one true Poker variant.

On a more serious note, both Chess and Go have variance too.
The better player doesn't always win, especially if the difference isn't that big.

[Texas Chuck]

On a more serious note, both Chess and Go have variance too.
The better player doesn't always win, especially if the difference isn't that big.

There is no element of luck or chance though. Obviously even great players sometimes make a mistake. But its "pure competition" much like who runs the fastest, lifts the most.

Omaha 8 was actually my best game, but mostly because people are so bad at it lol. Players chase 1/4 of the pot far too often and its printing. My favorite was Razz just because its such an incredible bluffing game, made more difficult by it being a limit game. And of course mixed games were good too if you could identify what variants were player's weak spots and knowing your own and playing super super tight in those to avoid mistakes. For instance I just never did get 2-7 triple draw or Badugi strategy. So I needed nutted hands or I was folding.


But back to the NBA, the 3-pt shot does increase variance. I strongly disagree its just a make or miss league and thats mostly just lazy talk by lazy analysts, but it is true you can shoot yourselves into or out of a win in any single game. But you can also win games when you shoot worse than your opponent.

And back to the Thunder, that defense means your shots are harder and SGA means their shots are easier.

[OhayoKD]

Why are we blaming Gobert when the PF love child of Harden and DeMarcus Cousins in Randle is right there?

I'm not.
I'm just parodizing some sayings people tend to have.

Like the saying that it's not possible to win a title with a center defensively as bad as Jokic.

I've seen Gobert getting (imo) an unjust amount of flak for his lack of postseason success.
Not this season, but previous ones.
A different time and place and (a prime) Gobert could very well be the best player on a winning team. (That's my true opinion)

Gobert is only 32 years old, even “prime” couldn’t make it past the second round with mitchell averaging over 30 pts in the playoffs. Nothing indicates he can lead a team as their best player.

Considering the significantly worse Ben Wallace did

[Black Feet]

I'm not.
I'm just parodizing some sayings people tend to have.

Like the saying that it's not possible to win a title with a center defensively as bad as Jokic.

I've seen Gobert getting (imo) an unjust amount of flak for his lack of postseason success.
Not this season, but previous ones.
A different time and place and (a prime) Gobert could very well be the best player on a winning team. (That's my true opinion)

Gobert is only 32 years old, even “prime” couldn’t make it past the second round with mitchell averaging over 30 pts in the playoffs. Nothing indicates he can lead a team as their best player.

Considering the significantly worse Ben Wallace did

I don’t know about significantly I don’t see Gobert getting as many DOPY in Duncan/Garnett era, but anyway i would consider Chauncey as their best player would even say Sheed was better.

[OhayoKD]

Gobert is only 32 years old, even “prime” couldn’t make it past the second round with mitchell averaging over 30 pts in the playoffs. Nothing indicates he can lead a team as their best player.

Considering the significantly worse Ben Wallace did

I don’t know about significantly I don’t see Gobert getting as many DOPY in Duncan/Garnett era, but anyway i would consider Chauncey as their best player would even say Sheed was better.

Yet it was Wallace that the team collapsed without, not Billups.

Maybe it's time to rethink how much you value scoring.

[Black Feet]

Considering the significantly worse Ben Wallace did

I don’t know about significantly I don’t see Gobert getting as many DOPY in Duncan/Garnett era, but anyway i would consider Chauncey as their best player would even say Sheed was better.

Yet it was Wallace that the team collapsed without, not Billups.

Maybe it's time to rethink how much you value scoring.

pretty sure Rip was their leading scorer in both regular season and playoffs so no it’s not about who scored the most, also Billups was Finals MVP.