Around the League - Curry Out "A few weeks"

[Profound23]

Warriors were like 22-22 at the midpoint and Celtics were much worse. It's ok to make predictions but for anyone to say they know for sure ---------- is the MVP based on (approximately) 30 games is ridiculous.

The Warriors were at one point 21-5 last season

Sorry, you are right....I was going off of the previous season. Still last year I remember watching the Celtics go on a huge losing streak and people questioning if they would even make the playoffs for a while.

There was a spurt of games around when Curry was going for the record that GS started declining, Curry was shooting like crap, and people were questioning if GS would decline and Curry was too worried about the record to make an impact.

[Antinomy]

This board would be on fire right now if we lost back to back at home vs Orlando — including losing 4 of our last 5 games.

With the only win coming in a game we blew a 20+ point lead & scraped out a win due to the Lakers choking.

[greekbuck34]

This board would be on fire right now if we lost back to back at home vs Orlando — including losing 4 of our last 5 games.

With the only win coming in a game we blew a 20+ point lead & scraped out a win due to the Lakers choking.

This board is too spoiled.

We win the first 9 games = Easy schedule
We start losing a few = Offense sucks, Middleton is not that much of a factor to be a reason.
We start winning again = We are plain lucky with the way Giannis is playing. It doesn't matter anyway because Boston is unbeatable.
We take the first seed. = We are not as good as we think we are. Giannis sucks, Khris sucks, defense sucks, rebounding sucks, shooting sucks.

All of that with Middleton missing most of the games, Giannis having knee issues and missing 5 games and Jrue missing 7 games.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

Kevin Durant....still good

[MickeyDavis]

Raps need to blow it up

[jschligs]

Williams/Horford/White/Brown are starting to shoot as expected. They were red hot the first 20-25 games.

Banchero is a baller.

[Pachinko_]

Worst thing that could happen to Dallas was that early momentum success with Jkidd. All it did was delay the inevitable.

[VooDoo7]

Worst thing that could happen to Dallas was that early momentum success with Jkidd. All it did was delay the inevitable.

Worst thing that happened to DAL was hiring the toxic sludge known as Jason Kidd in the first place.

[Milbucks96]

Jokic won’t win it but he’s most likely the mvp again this year.

[AussieBuck]

Best team in the association baby!

[Perseus1966]

Stunned that the Celtics having like 6 of their main rotation guys shooting over 45% from 3 wasn’t sustainable.

Actually Houser,Pritchard,White and Al regressed,the other shooting the same or better

[Perseus1966]

Grant has take flop to a new level he will be better ot equal to Smart

[Sigra]

Raps need to blow it up

Bulls too

[ReasonablySober]

Best team in the association baby!

Ha, I had no idea the Bucks were that close, let along in 1st.

[Ron Swanson]

If the season ended today I'd be hard-pressed not to make Jokic my MVP again, but man, Denver being a putrid defense (28th) despite the offseason upgrades and sporting just a mid 40-win net-rating is probably a fair criticism for his credentials at this point. When Bird won his three in a row, the Celtics won 62, 63, and 67 games. At some point I do think you have to wonder why the insane box and efficiency metrics (he's on pace to break his own PER record) don't ever translate to dominant team success.

[BigO]

If the MVP should go to the best player on the best team, then it would be between Tatum and Giannis.

But I think it should go to the best player, no matter what team they're on. In that case, Tatum would be 9th or 10th on my list and it would be between Doncic, Giannis, and Jokic.

[paulpressey25]

If the season ended today I'd be hard-pressed not to make Jokic my MVP again, but man, Denver being a putrid defense (28th) despite the offseason upgrades and sporting just a mid 40-win net-rating is probably a fair criticism for his credentials at this point. When Bird won his three in a row, the Celtics won 62, 63, and 67 games. At some point I do think you have to wonder why the insane box and efficiency metrics (he's on pace to break his own PER record) don't ever translate to dominant team success.

Just can't go Jokic anymore. He's an amazing player, but the team has to make the Finals at least.

[Turk Nowitzki]

If the season ended today I'd be hard-pressed not to make Jokic my MVP again, but man, Denver being a putrid defense (28th) despite the offseason upgrades and sporting just a mid 40-win net-rating is probably a fair criticism for his credentials at this point. When Bird won his three in a row, the Celtics won 62, 63, and 67 games. At some point I do think you have to wonder why the insane box and efficiency metrics (he's on pace to break his own PER record) don't ever translate to dominant team success.

Just can't go Jokic anymore. He's an amazing player, but the team has to make the Finals at least.

Hard disagree with this. Making the NBA Finals has nothing to do with a regular season award.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

Great Irony of the 2022-23 season is if this Pelicans team had Jrue, I'd have them as pretty heavy title favorites. But hey, enjoy the 29th pick in both the 2024 and 2025 drafts Griffin. Hope it was worth it (not really, though).

I'm not really sure you can just rewrite history and say it was just those picks for Jrue. Jrue makes a **** of money and I don't think DG had the green light for $170m payroll for that roster especially with Zion's injury concerns being that bad at the time. You probably have to choose between CJ and Jrue. Even now, you want $65m for 2 31+ year old guards to go along with Zion?

Also, not sure they have the ammo for JV if they didn't increase the value of their draft picks by trading Jrue.

Why, and why not? They didn't give up any of the Jrue assets for McCollum, and I can't imagine a better complimentary back court pairing than those two. Instead they're paying Devonte Graham and 36-year old Garrett Temple nearly $18 mil per year combined to collect DNP-CD's while they start a rookie (Daniels) or Naji Marshall as an oversized SG. They won't even be in the luxury tax until next year when Zion's extension kicks in, so it was pretty much the perfect window to still keep a guy like Jrue before they enter repeater tax territory.

Griffin simply, like a lot of these GM's nowadays, overrated the value of those picks/swaps with the gamble that Giannis wouldn't sign the super-max. And now only 2 years later has a roster that's ready to contend and Holiday would fit perfectly into. Unless that 2027 1st ends up a Top-5 pick, I'd say that he quite clearly bungled the Jrue asset.

moved to ATL.

How do they avoid luxury tax this year and last? They were only $6m under last year and like $4m(?) This year. How are they shaving off $25m? Most likely they would be starting the luxury tax clock two years, right or am I missing something? Idk it is a blunder in highsight but locking in max salaries for 2 aging guards and an injury prone big man last year as a play in team sounds risky as hell to me.

[Ron Swanson]

Playoffs don't matter but again, at what point do you factor in the effect on winning in the regular season? Because Jokic has largely gotten a pass based on the Murray and Porter injuries last season. This year he's gotten 25-games from Murray and 16 games from MPJ. We can quote PER and on/off all day but the Nuggets are currently playing at a level worse than the mid-2000's Nash Suns defensively even when he's on the court, despite them going out and acquiring good perimeter defenders like Brown and KCP.

Just think you can only play the poor supporting cast argument so much before you kinda have to prove you can put up these kind of numbers while leading a dominant RS team. Guys like Lebron and Giannis (pre-Jrue trade) were arguably doing more with the same kind of talent around them and leading 60+ win, 8+ SRS teams to 1-seeds.