2024-25 NBA Season Discussion

[jalengreen]

Caruso has maybe been the second best player in this series thus far lol

[TheGOATRises007]

Halliburton is too passive sometimes

[Special_Puppy]

Caruso has maybe been the second best player in this series thus far lol

Meanwhile Bulls are going to pay Diddy $30 million a year to put up pretty PRA totals

[falcolombardi]

Halliburton is too passive sometimes

Is he passive or does he lack self created scoring repertoire?

He is incredible, but there is a reason he cannoy just try scoring like a shai or luka

[Elpolo_14]

Halliburton is too passive sometimes

Is he passive or does he lack self created scoring repertoire?

He is incredible, but there is a reason he cannoy just try scoring like a shai or luka

I think both things can be true at the same time. Hali being not great to make speration against tight coverage and his Scoring Versatility can be easy exploitable. All this make the defense Attention not on him as much as it could and he doesn't collapse the defense like a luka / JoKic / Giannis to Maximize his passing capacity

Also there moments when the defense is lacking on him or he in a advantage rotation he can be too passive to some extent

[OverAndOut]

It will be interesting to see where people rank the 2025 Thunder on the all-time greatest teams lists. 68 wins, highest MOV in NBA history, highest SRS in NBA history, 2nd highest net rating in NBA history. But I could see people holding the 5 (and possibly 6 or 7) postseason losses against them. And 2 of those 5 losses were basically buzzer beaters.

[ShotCreator]

It would be a fascinating matchup to see okc defense try to solve but i think calling the 2014 heat a "speed defense" may be a stretch

They used the most aggressive trapping scheme in the NBA and relied on speed, not length, rim protection or physicality on the glass to win possessions.

Can’t believe I actually got compelled to explain this. This is why Retro POY votes suck to me. The lack of size and the use of a pretty finesse guy in Bosh and how that actually looked in a 2014 NBA loaded with double big lineups is lost to time.

OKC is good all-around defensively but like the 14 Heat, forcing turnovers is their biggest strength.

That is true for 2011-2013 heat, 2014 heat was tired down, older and slower and their defense fell off that year. Lebron himself improved offensively while slowing down defensively and he was the player who made it all work before in the D end

They were a "speed defense" without any speed left

They went from a -2.2 defense to a -0.9.

They were #1 in the NBA in forced turnovers.

They had a slight decline that Wade load management made seem worse than it was. There was no fall off.

And LeBron turned his defense up in the playoffs.

[The-Power]

OKC has controlled much of the series, so it hasn't been too different from could have been expected. But there is something to be said about J-Dub and Chet not being consistent offensive co-stars to SGA (with J-Dub also having really rough shot selection too often). And Indiana's offense can never be truly stifled and also has the ability to explode at any point. So while I still clearly favor OKC, this series is far from over and OKC cannot solely rely on their elite defense to carry them through.

[eminence]

It will be interesting to see where people rank the 2025 Thunder on the all-time greatest teams lists. 68 wins, highest MOV in NBA history, highest SRS in NBA history, 2nd highest net rating in NBA history. But I could see people holding the 5 (and possibly 6 or 7) postseason losses against them. And 2 of those 5 losses were basically buzzer beaters.

*possibly 8

[tsherkin]

The Miami Heat were a small team. I'm not saying they weren't athletic, but they were definitely not 'long', especially in that NBA.

Small, yes. But they had guys with significant wingspans.

They ran a very taxing trapping scheme all year to make up for it. This would be a crazy thing to have to type in 2014.

Yes, I recall. There were some good animations of all the bonkers nonsense Lebron was doing to make that scheme work, and just watching how they played was pretty wild.

[Texas Chuck]

It will be interesting to see where people rank the 2025 Thunder on the all-time greatest teams lists. 68 wins, highest MOV in NBA history, highest SRS in NBA history, 2nd highest net rating in NBA history. But I could see people holding the 5 (and possibly 6 or 7) postseason losses against them. And 2 of those 5 losses were basically buzzer beaters.

I mean its impossible to state categorically which team is best. People are going to value different things statistically and definitely via narrative.

But win the title after that regular season? What more could they realistically do? Just like Boston was the best team all last year and closed the deal come playoff time, OKC will have done the same. Again they still have 3 more to get, but if it takes 5 or 7 I'm not going to look at them any differently at all.

[Dr Positivity]

I think their regular season probably overrates them but are still good enough to win with once a generation defense. I'd still rate a number of teams with multiple superstars higher for champions and imo there is an alphas tier above SGA who is not clearly better than Kobe to me.

[ShotCreator]

It will be interesting to see where people rank the 2025 Thunder on the all-time greatest teams lists. 68 wins, highest MOV in NBA history, highest SRS in NBA history, 2nd highest net rating in NBA history. But I could see people holding the 5 (and possibly 6 or 7) postseason losses against them. And 2 of those 5 losses were basically buzzer beaters.

Dominant but beatable.

I think I agree with GSP in saying they'd lose to the likes of 2023 Nuggets.

I think their offense not being as good in the PS is what hurts them.At some point they will have to invest in Chet Holmgren's talent offensively.

On a worse team, he would've been allowed to make more executive decisions and develop much more rapidly. At some point, they'll have to brute force his development, or the West will catch up to them relatively fast. I don't think the current offense is something teams won't be able to deal with.

[Dr Positivity]

Wondering if we're going to see rule changes because of the ratings (like after Spurs-Pacers)? Guess it will depend on how the series finishes out.

EDIT: Spurs-Pistons

The play style is fine, it's just Okc and Indy isn't a marquee matchup city wise, and cores and stars that are making their name popularity wise. I think having a big stage for two North American star guards in SGA and Haliburton is good for them.

There are many factors going into the ratings right now including overall Gen Z relationship with sports and watching things on tv, imo.

[falcolombardi]

It will be interesting to see where people rank the 2025 Thunder on the all-time greatest teams lists. 68 wins, highest MOV in NBA history, highest SRS in NBA history, 2nd highest net rating in NBA history. But I could see people holding the 5 (and possibly 6 or 7) postseason losses against them. And 2 of those 5 losses were basically buzzer beaters.

Dominant but beatable.

I think I agree with GSP in saying they'd lose to the likes of 2023 Nuggets.

I think their offense not being as good in the PS is what hurts them.At some point they will have to invest in Chet Holmgren's talent offensively.

On a worse team, he would've been allowed to make more executive decisions and develop much more rapidly. At some point, they'll have to brute force his development, or the West will catch up to them relatively fast. I don't think the current offense is something teams won't be able to deal with.

Brute force his development through 1 and half injured seasons out of 3 he has played?

[ShotCreator]

It will be interesting to see where people rank the 2025 Thunder on the all-time greatest teams lists. 68 wins, highest MOV in NBA history, highest SRS in NBA history, 2nd highest net rating in NBA history. But I could see people holding the 5 (and possibly 6 or 7) postseason losses against them. And 2 of those 5 losses were basically buzzer beaters.

Dominant but beatable.

I think I agree with GSP in saying they'd lose to the likes of 2023 Nuggets.

I think their offense not being as good in the PS is what hurts them.At some point they will have to invest in Chet Holmgren's talent offensively.

On a worse team, he would've been allowed to make more executive decisions and develop much more rapidly. At some point, they'll have to brute force his development, or the West will catch up to them relatively fast. I don't think the current offense is something teams won't be able to deal with.

Brute force his development through 1 and half injured seasons out of 3 he has played?

...What does that have to do with how he is used on offense?

[Texas Chuck]

Why would OKC be more interested in "development of Chet's offense" over winning a title? And this is like that silly thread we had going back to 14-15 where people were legit criticizing Lebron not for dragging a shell of a team to 2 wins from a championship like an absolute boss but no he wasn't actually very good because Kevin Love somehow didn't put up the same stats as a 3rd option on a contender as he did as the first option on a bad team lol.

Our priorities get all out of whack sometimes. Win games. Chet's development is right on track. Yes, OKC's one weakness is reliable shot creation outside of SGA. Even with that, 3 wins away. I think they have no real regrets at how they went about this season.

[eminence]

The '14 Wolves weren't particularly 'bad', though obviously well short of contention. 40 wins, +3 SRS.

[tsherkin]

The '14 Wolves weren't particularly 'bad', though obviously well short of contention. 40 wins, +3 SRS.

Yeah, I mean, they were 9th on O, 12th on D, a shade under .500. They were the definition of mediocre, not outright bad. Corey Brewer started 81 games, Kevin Martin missed 14, Pekovic only played 54 and their bench was JJ Barea, 30 games of Ronny Turiaf and Dante Cunningham.

With K-Mart and Love starting, I'm a little surprised they were as good as 12th-overall on D, but Ricky Rubio was putting in work.

[ShotCreator]

Why would OKC be more interested in "development of Chet's offense" over winning a title? And this is like that silly thread we had going back to 14-15 where people were legit criticizing Lebron not for dragging a shell of a team to 2 wins from a championship like an absolute boss but no he wasn't actually very good because Kevin Love somehow didn't put up the same stats as a 3rd option on a contender as he did as the first option on a bad team lol.

Our priorities get all out of whack sometimes. Win games. Chet's development is right on track. Yes, OKC's one weakness is reliable shot creation outside of SGA. Even with that, 3 wins away. I think they have no real regrets at how they went about this season.

Titles are overrated, they’re practically meaningless after they happen.

And that’s a false choice anyway. The OKC Thunder are not a Chet Holmgren usage increase of 10% away from winning a title or not winning one. They’re flat out better than everybody by far this year. They can afford to experiment for the long-term.

Actual player and team development is almost everything.

Alex Caruso and Cason Wallace won’t be fringe-DPOY guys forever. And when that time comes hopefully for OKC, Chet has developed a lot of confidence and skill on both ends.

Chet Holmgren has a lot of potential on the table. He’s 23.

Love was past-peak with a changing body by the time he was in Cleveland. And funny enough, a big reason Blatt was fired was because of Love’s sub-optimization in the offense. Which Lue changed and the Cavs went on ferocious offensive runs with LeBron + Love lineups, that outperformed anything involving Kyrie.

But even that is irrelevant for the simplicity of what I’m saying and how obvious it is.

Imagine if Giannis was on the Warriors in the mid to late 2010’s and they just used him as a lob catching defensive big until the end of the decade.

By the time Iguodala, Bogut, Thompson and Livingston broke down around 2020, what would they have left?

And let me be clear about something, Chet Holmgren’s talent level is much closer to Giannis’ than it is to Love’s. If you disagree then maybe this whole ignoring his development for games that won’t matter in just a year thing makes more sense.