NBA - squeaky bum time

[DMC]

1 minute ago, baxus said:

This was the case with Drazen Petrovic, a Yugoslav and later Croatian national team player, who played a couple of seasons in the NBA.

Yeah I remember Petrovic, and I remember his death quite well.  It was kinda one of the first major tragedies I do remember.

The difference there is he died in the middle of his prime.  Indeed, he was arguably still improving as a player.

[baxus]

Not trying to take anything away from him. As I said, he was one of if not the best European player of his generation. And yes, he was only 28 years old when he died, and could've still improved a fair bit. But if you heard what people in the Balkans are saying about him you wouldn't recognise who they were talking about.

[DMC]

5 minutes ago, baxus said:

But if you heard what people in the Balkans are saying about him you wouldn't recognise who they were talking about.

Yeah that makes sense.  He also gets well deserved credit for being the first to open the doors for European players in the NBA.

[baxus]

That's exactly what I'm talking about. He wasn't the only one. He was drafted in the same year as Sabonis and came to the NBA in the same season as Vlade Divac. Both of them had better NBA careers than Petrovic (might be different if Petrovic played as long as they did, of course, but we can't know that) and Petrovic is still getting the credit.

EDIT:

Even if we only look at Croatian (and Yugoslav) players, I'd say Kukoc was better, and yet he's not getting anywhere near as much credit as Petrovic.

Edited March 30 by baxus

[BigFatCoward]

2 hours ago, DMC said:

The difference there is he died in the middle of his prime.  Indeed, he was arguably still improving as a player.

Dying just as he had his breakthrough year also gets you some extra 'what might have been' points. 

3rd team nba with extremely efficient scoring that year. 

Edited March 30 by BigFatCoward

[DMC]

6 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

with extremely efficient scoring that year. 

Especially back then.  The percentages don't look quite as impressive today, but compared to league average at the time...

[A Horse Named Stranger]

18 hours ago, DMC said:

As for Jeter's personality, him being the golden boy always annoyed me.  And yes, a huge part of that was intentionally being as boring as possible. 

Boring and Baseball in one sentence. Now way.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

I have no memory of Petrovic, but his shooting percentages are pretty insane for the time period. With a higher usage rate who knows what he could have averaged. Not sure how much the rest of his game would improve, but in today's era it's not crazy to think he could average 30 in a season, plus he'd be a great floor spacer for others to get better looks even if he wasn't a great passer.

4 hours ago, baxus said:

He was drafted in the same year as Sabonis and came to the NBA in the same season as Vlade Divac.

Sabonis took a lot longer to get to the NBA though. I've always heard old heads say how he would have been so much if he could have come when he was drafted. 

Interesting that Portland was ahead of the curve on scouting international players. Spurs before the Spurs. 

[DMC]

4 hours ago, baxus said:

That's exactly what I'm talking about. He wasn't the only one. He was drafted in the same year as Sabonis and came to the NBA in the same season as Vlade Divac. Both of them had better NBA careers than Petrovic (might be different if Petrovic played as long as they did, of course, but we can't know that) and Petrovic is still getting the credit.

EDIT:

Even if we only look at Croatian (and Yugoslav) players, I'd say Kukoc was better, and yet he's not getting anywhere near as much credit as Petrovic.

Sorry I missed this earlier.  Yes, Divac came over at the same time, but Petrovic was a much more prominent player while he was alive.  And as Ty mentioned, Sabonis didn't come over until he was 31.  Petrovic absolutely deserves credit for being the first European player that gained anything close to "stardom" in the NBA, and that opened a lot of doors.

As for comparing them all as players, yeah, Sabonis was probably better during his prime - which wasn't in the NBA.  While Kukoc was more versatile, I think Petrovic was the better player - albeit I agree it's close.  Petrovic was definitely better than Divac though.

[DireWolfSpirit]

On 3/26/2024 at 1:13 PM, Maithanet said:

I actually wonder if organized crime might place a bunch of money on a player and then drug him or have some goons fight with him outside a club.  Wouldn't take much to get him out of tomorrow's game, and if you have a few million dollars in bets placed across the country, that is quite the haul. 

If a player is a scratch all side bets will be cancelled, they have to have entered the game for any of these sort of "over/under" type bets to be in play.

Or so Dan Patrick is saying on his NBC sports show.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Imagine how pissed Jontay's brother must be with him right about now?

[BigFatCoward]

11 teams in the west possible to finish above .500, the play in tournament seems to have achieved its objective of keeping more teams interested for longer, but the teams below seem to give up even earlier. 

Apparently this year will almost certainly be a record for overall numbers over .500.  

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

The cop is on the take from Silver.

-300 odds sound fair? 

[BigFatCoward]

If VW had played 40 minutes he would probably have got a quadruple double.  Its not long now. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

If VW had played 40 minutes he would probably have got a quadruple double.  Its not long now. 

Yet he's not impacting when it comes to wins. Kind of odd. The team isn't very good, but they shouldn't be this bad. I'm curious to see what happens with DPOY and ROTY. Gobert is the core of the best defense in the league, but he doesn't have Wemby's silly block numbers, and Chet also doesn't have similar stats, but he is a key piece on a top team. It will be interesting to see what happens with those two awards. Same goes for first team all-defensive too. 

[BigFatCoward]

8 minutes ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

Yet he's not impacting when it comes to wins. Kind of odd. The team isn't very good, but they shouldn't be this bad. I'm curious to see what happens with DPOY and ROTY. Gobert is the core of the best defense in the league, but he doesn't have Wemby's silly block numbers, and Chet also doesn't have similar stats, but he is a key piece on a top team. It will be interesting to see what happens with those two awards. Same goes for first team all-defensive too. 

Maybe he's being super smart and playing well enough for individual laurels, but not well enough to stop them potentially drafting a running mate for the next 10 years. 

Either way, if he avoids injury, and bulks up even slightly (he should be straight on the phone to Giannis's trainer) he can do whatever he wants. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

13 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Maybe he's being super smart and playing well enough for individual laurels, but not well enough to stop them potentially drafting a running mate for the next 10 years. 

Either way, if he avoids injury, and bulks up even slightly (he should be straight on the phone to Giannis's trainer) he can do whatever he wants. 

I don't think there's a running mate in this class. Watching sports media here I've heard a shit ton about Clark and a handful of the top women's players. I can't name a men's player without Google. This draft class is probably going to be as forgettable as the tournament has been so far.

Wemby does look like he could add 10-20 of muscle mass and that's a scary thought. I have no doubts about his future, sans injury, but I'm not sure if he should get the awards when the other two's teams have had great seasons while the Spurs suck. 

[BigFatCoward]

Just now, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

I don't think there's a running mate in this class. Watching sports media here I've heard a shit ton about Clark and a handful of the top women's players. I can't name a men's player without Google. This draft class is probably going to be as forgettable as the tournament has been so far.

 

Loads of drafts look strong in advance, and tend to be the opposite, and vice versa.  Maybe they get a strong role player this year, but still suck again and get someone decent the year after, he has plenty of time to develop, doesn't need to win now.

 

[Proudfeet]

The Spurs look like they have lost confidence. They were bad at the start of the season, but at least it looked like they were trying things. Now, they just look to Wembanyama and hope he bails them out. 

Besides that, their roster seems a little small outside of Wembanyama. Size doesn't necessarily translate but it usually helps especially on the defensive end. 

Also, I can't think of anyone else on the Spurs roster they should keep long term. Maybe its because they reflect the team they are on and would look better on a better team, but its hard to find any positives.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

22 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Loads of drafts look strong in advance, and tend to be the opposite, and vice versa.  Maybe they get a strong role player this year, but still suck again and get someone decent the year after, he has plenty of time to develop, doesn't need to win now.

 

Sure. It's all random. People weren't sold on Ant, thought Ball was the better prospect and that the top three picks in the next draft would have gone ahead of him. Shows what the experts know now that Ant is cracking the top 10 as a 22 year old.