2024-25 NBA Season Discussion

[Peregrine01]

Steph was 6/20 from 3. When you’re shooting this badly and in this bad of a shooting slump, it’s pretty unfathomable to keep gunning like this.

[Peregrine01]

It seems like LA is by far the most popular offseason place for NBA players.

I don't get the appeal. There's probably more wealthy private enclaves than anywhere else but you spend half the day in traffic.

These people aren't spending the day in traffic. They have people to get whatever they need, and all the places they wanna go are nearby. It's set up that way so they aren't constantly hounded by regular people in the street—that's a huge appeal for the celebrities that live there.

Just imagine how annoying this would be to deal with everytime you wen't out.

Watch on YouTube

Yeah I get that. But if you want privacy and quiet, there’s many, many places better than friggin LA. The truth is that they like the limelight and being in the center of everything.

[jalengreen]

Steph was 6/20 from 3. When you’re shooting this badly and in this bad of a shooting slump, it’s pretty unfathomable to keep gunning like this.

Was their best option down the stretch tbh

[Peregrine01]

Steph was 6/20 from 3. When you’re shooting this badly and in this bad of a shooting slump, it’s pretty unfathomable to keep gunning like this.

Was their best option down the stretch tbh

Lakers had no rim protection…maybe try to get to the rim? Over-reliance on the 3 has always been a bit of Curry’s weakness.

[The High Cyde]

I mean, he’s Steph Curry. Even when his shots don’t fall his threat of catching fire and blowing up is very real. It was a good effort, Lakers were just better and well LeBron is flat out better too.


I’m not sure I like Jimmy trade, Wiggins I think is a better player now. But we’ll see.

[itsxtray]

I don't get the appeal. There's probably more wealthy private enclaves than anywhere else but you spend half the day in traffic.

These people aren't spending the day in traffic. They have people to get whatever they need, and all the places they wanna go are nearby. It's set up that way so they aren't constantly hounded by regular people in the street—that's a huge appeal for the celebrities that live there.

Just imagine how annoying this would be to deal with everytime you wen't out.

Watch on YouTube

Yeah I get that. But if you want privacy and quiet, there’s many, many places better than friggin LA. The truth is that they like the limelight and being in the center of everything.

LA gives them the best of both worlds. There are private places where they won’t be hounded by people, but they can also step into the limelight when they want. Sometimes, you're tired and just can’t deal with it; other times, you want to be seen. LA is built to provide that balance for celebs.

[jalengreen]

Steph was 6/20 from 3. When you’re shooting this badly and in this bad of a shooting slump, it’s pretty unfathomable to keep gunning like this.

Was their best option down the stretch tbh

Lakers had no rim protection…maybe try to get to the rim? Over-reliance on the 3 has always been a bit of Curry’s weakness.

7 of those 20 3s were attempted in the last five minutes of the game where Steph 3s were legitimately their most reliable source of offense, and their best chance of making the comeback.

It's just not a good team. I don't see getting to the rim as any more reliable for him, nor as effective & sustainable for him at this age, and when he did attack the rim they collapsed pretty hard and his teammates didn't do anything with it.

His FG% (FGA/g off of drives) on drives by season:

- 2013-14: 48.6% (3.2)
- 2014-15: 50.0% (3.3)
- 2015-16: 56.7% (3.6)
- 2016-17: 55.2% (3.1)
- 2017-18: 56.7% (2.6)
- 2018-19: 50.0% (3.0)
- 2019-20:
- 2020-21: 55.5% (4.9)
- 2021-22: 51.4% (4.0)
- 2022-23: 51.4% (4.0)
- 2023-24: 49.0% (3.9)
- 2024-25: 42.9% (3.3)

So it's pretty easily been his worst tracked efficiency on drives.

He passes it on 44.9% of his drives, the 2nd highest rate in this span. 20.5% of those passes turn into assists, 2nd lowest in this span. 8.3% of the drives result in turnovers which is the highest in this span.

Steph getting to the rim just feels like a less viable option than ever before. And they're the worst layup shooting team in the league last I saw so it's not just him. I dunno, maybe Butler will turn things around, but it just feels cooked right now. Might as well let it fly when not much else is working.

[tsherkin]

Was their best option down the stretch tbh

Lakers had no rim protection…maybe try to get to the rim? Over-reliance on the 3 has always been a bit of Curry’s weakness.

7 of those 20 3s were attempted in the last five minutes of the game where Steph 3s were legitimately their most reliable source of offense, and their best chance of making the comeback.

It's just not a good team. I don't see getting to the rim as any more reliable for him, nor as effective & sustainable for him at this age, and when he did attack the rim they collapsed pretty hard and his teammates didn't do anything with it.

His FG% (FGA/g off of drives) on drives by season:

- 2013-14: 48.6% (3.2)
- 2014-15: 50.0% (3.3)
- 2015-16: 56.7% (3.6)
- 2016-17: 55.2% (3.1)
- 2017-18: 56.7% (2.6)
- 2018-19: 50.0% (3.0)
- 2019-20:
- 2020-21: 55.5% (4.9)
- 2021-22: 51.4% (4.0)
- 2022-23: 51.4% (4.0)
- 2023-24: 49.0% (3.9)
- 2024-25: 42.9% (3.3)

So it's pretty easily been his worst tracked efficiency on drives.

He passes it on 44.9% of his drives, the 2nd highest rate in this span. 20.5% of those passes turn into assists, 2nd lowest in this span. 8.3% of the drives result in turnovers which is the highest in this span.

Steph getting to the rim just feels like a less viable option than ever before. And they're the worst layup shooting team in the league last I saw so it's not just him. I dunno, maybe Butler will turn things around, but it just feels cooked right now. Might as well let it fly when not much else is working.

Steph was 2/11 from 3 until the 4th quarter, so yeah, he was definitely chucking a bunch. But as you say, this is the biggest sign of his decline. He's been struggling to operate inside the arc, and especially finishing in close, for sure.

The hope surely is that Butler commands enough attention to open things up more for Steph, which makes sense. This season looks kind of similar to the 2022 regular season, when they were similarly-ranked on offense (17th then, 19th now) and the operating environment wasn't awesome for him. No Klay, lots of other meh shooters, no one really demanding other attention. He's 36, 37 years old and isn't Lebron, so this is all pretty normal. Getting Butler there, even in somewhat reduced form, should help alleviate some of the pressure and get him some better looks. He's shooting poorly inside the arc when defenders are tight on him (which is like a third of his total shooting volume right now), much worse than he was last year (45.9% last year on 6.1 FGA/g, 38.9% this year on 6.0 per game), which is causing him some trouble. And yeah, he's having trouble right at the rim.

Hopefully, Butler stays heathy enough to give them some room to move, some life on offense.

[ronnymac2]

We've just seen the Chargers, Rams, A's, and Coyotes use the "Major League" strategy to justify moving their teams over the past decade. If it can happen in other sports, there's nothing goofy about the idea of it happening in the NBA.


The Mavs have been flooding the media with excuses for what they've done.


They are literally coming off a Finals appearance.


If they weren't on board with this idiotic move, they could have told him no, or fired him if he refused to back down.

Obviously teams can and have moved...but that doesn't seem like what's going on here.

The Mavs excuses are awful and not thought-out well. They're doing nothing to quell the (deserved) backlash they are receiving from Mavs fans and others.

RE: Finals Appearance...That assistant front office guy who I think is in Detroit now seems to have had a real influence. Left to his own devices, Harrison seems lost.

The owners are obviously culpable in this move, too. But there's no evidence that they are the ones who put Harrison in a corner and forced him to make a desperation move. Maybe I'm wrong and something new comes out though.

You think Nico Harrison (who's won ZERO championships) is both so powerful inside that organization and so secure in his job that, on his own, he decided to do an after-hours side quest to trade Luka without telling ANYONE? How could he be so great at convincing his boses of this deal but so bad at explaining it publicly?

To me it makes way more sense that this came from his bosses. They told him to do it "quickly and quietly." That's why he's struggling to find a narrative to explain why they traded him.

https://www.dallasnews.com/sports/mavericks/2025/02/09/mavericks-governor-patrick-dumont-makes-first-public-comments-after-luka-doncic-trade/?outputType=amp

In the interest of fairness, it appears we now have evidence that ownership was more directly active in generating this trade than I previously thought. Based on the evidence we had, I thought their involvement was more passive/neglectful. This Dumont muppet makes it pretty clear that responsibility can now be shared.

[MartinToVaught]

Yeah, there was never any way that an owner, no matter how much or how little they care about basketball, would just let the GM make a trade like that on their own.

The only surprise is that Dumont was dumb enough to make a public statement when the previous strategy of letting Nico be the fall guy to protect the owners and league from blame was working about as well as it possibly could. He's now fueled the dumpster fire and made it worse than before.

Notice how Silver and the other teams' owners are still quiet about this BS trade. Quite the contrast to how publicly butthurt they were over the Norm Powell trade (one of the only times I can remember the Clippers not getting fleeced in a trade, btw). They're smart, Dumont is not.

[sp6r=underrated]

Yeah, there was never any way that an owner, no matter how much or how little they care about basketball, would just let the GM make a trade like that on their own.

The only surprise is that Dumont was stupid enough to make a public statement when the previous strategy of letting Nico be the fall guy was working for them.

Like you I assume ownership was involved, GMs just don't have this level of unilateral power. Unlike you I don't think this is a Major League thing. I think this is really billionare arrogance.

The PR spin of "Nico as the fall guy who hoodwinked the owner" was working and I'm floored the owner was stupid enough to talk to the press.

[eminence]

I don't think the deal is going to work out for the Mavs, but damn, if Stein's reporting is accurate they may never even get a chance.

[Fadeaway_J]

This is yet another element of why the deal made no sense. You're worried about Luka's conditioning (valid concern), but you trade him for a much older player who gets hurt all the time? And given his age, losing one bite at the apple is a lot more damaging with AD than it would be with Luka.

[MartinToVaught]

The PR spin of "Nico as the fall guy who hoodwinked the owner" was working and I'm floored the owner was stupid enough to talk to the press.

The most charitable explanation is that he's seen all the flak that Nico is taking and feels bad enough to take some of that burden off him, but somehow I doubt that's the case. This Dumont guy comes across as a huge douchebag.

It's telling that in his whole rant about who deserves to be a Mav and the Mavs' culture, he never mentions Dirk. I wonder if Dirk has distanced himself from the Mavs under these clowns or if Dumont is just that oblivious.

[Fadeaway_J]

The PR spin of "Nico as the fall guy who hoodwinked the owner" was working and I'm floored the owner was stupid enough to talk to the press.

The most charitable explanation is that he's seen all the flak that Nico is taking and feels bad enough to take some of that burden off him, but somehow I doubt that's the case. This Dumont guy comes across as a huge douchebag.

It's telling that in his whole rant about who deserves to be a Mav and the Mavs' culture, he never mentions Dirk. I wonder if Dirk has distanced himself from the Mavs under these clowns or if Dumont is just that oblivious.

I'm casting a vote for "oblivious" considering the guy also mentioned Shaq as some paragon of work ethic...

[sp6r=underrated]

The PR spin of "Nico as the fall guy who hoodwinked the owner" was working and I'm floored the owner was stupid enough to talk to the press.

The most charitable explanation is that he's seen all the flak that Nico is taking and feels bad enough to take some of that burden off him, but somehow I doubt that's the case. This Dumont guy comes across as a huge douchebag.

It's telling that in his whole rant about who deserves to be a Mav and the Mavs' culture, he never mentions Dirk. I wonder if Dirk has distanced himself from the Mavs under these clowns or if Dumont is just that oblivious.

I'm casting a vote for "oblivious" considering the guy also mentioned Shaq as some paragon of work ethic...

I thought you were mistaken. Good god.



Honestly, Shaq being in the quote of hard workers isn't the craziest thing about that quote. He left out Dirk.

[sp6r=underrated]

How this will impact the business of Mavericks basketball?

Read on Twitter

This trade could be as bad for the business of Mavericks basketball as the Baby Bulls were for the Chicago Bulls. The terribleness of the Baby Bulls destroyed the national Bulls fanbase. They weren't able to turn any of the 90s national Jordan fans into perm Bulls fans given the way they dismantled the team and were awful instantly.

1 week in and the only valuable thing they got is injured. Management is ragging on Luka with some really awful statements that make them look like jerks and morons. The Mavericks fanbase is very much at risk.

[Peregrine01]

That inclusion of Shaq…

This owner might not know anything about basketball. Brutal for Mavs fans.

[tsherkin]

This trade could be as bad for the business of Mavericks basketball as the Baby Bulls were for the Chicago Bulls. The terribleness of the Baby Bulls destroyed the national Bulls fanbase. They weren't able to turn any of the 90s national Jordan fans into perm Bulls fans given the way they dismantled the team and were awful instantly.

Yikes, forgot about that duo. Chandler turned out all right. Eddy Curry, on the other hand...

[CKRT]

This trade could be as bad for the business of Mavericks basketball as the Baby Bulls were for the Chicago Bulls. The terribleness of the Baby Bulls destroyed the national Bulls fanbase. They weren't able to turn any of the 90s national Jordan fans into perm Bulls fans given the way they dismantled the team and were awful instantly.

Yikes, forgot about that duo. Chandler turned out all right. Eddy Curry, on the other hand...

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/articles/eddy-curry-nba-the-truth-was-way-worse

Eddy ended up alright too. Just not as an NBA player. I think the NBA does a lot more these days for players that Eddy would've benefitted from.