NBA 2020-2021 - v. 2021 Finals: Milwaukee and Giannis rule the basketball world

[black_biff_stadler]

Just found out that Wilt Chamberlain won 11 rebounding titles in his 14 seasons and that during those 3 years where he didn't win it (1963-65, 1969-70) he averaged 22.3 rpg. In 1969-70 he had a severe knee injury and missed 70 games causing him to not meet the minimum games played criteria. Otherwise his 18.4 rpg would've topped Elvin Hayes' 16.9 rpg and gotten the title. Sometimes a very small sample size can inflate numbers but this likely wouldn't have happened here since the 18.4 rpg was already a career low (at that point) and he never dropped below 18 rpg for any season during his career. During the 1963-65 stretch, he lost to the clear-cut second best rebounder ever, Bill Russell by 2.40 and 1.16 rpg respectively and was 2nd in the league both years.

It's also pretty funny that his 100 point game may not have been his best one since he "only" had 25 rebounds in that game but in his 78 point game (the all time record at the time of the game and only surpassed since then by his 100 point game and Kobe's 81) he also had 43 rebounds. So, if you look at how much either game bested the other one, you have Wilt's 100 points being 28.2% more points than the 78 point game but the 43 rebounds in the 78 point game is 72% more than the 25 he had in the 100 point game.

[jingle.boy]

Raptors setting another franchise record in lambasting the Pacers.  Man, at the start of the season, I thought they'd be battling the Pacers for 5th/6th.  This team has been impressive. 

Tomorrow will be their toughest test though - without Gasol to help defend the paint.

[Samsara]

Jimmy Butler can shove that right up his smug, arrogant, punk ass.

 

What a game. Go Wolves!

D.LO!

[Samsara]

You know it has been a long year when I'm ecstatic about the Wolves winning two in a row, and back-to-back to boot! Friday night against Orlando...we get that, we're on a legit WINNING STREAK baby! 

p.s. all you fantasy hoopers. Buy low on Naz Reid and Malik Beasley. NOW. Trust me.

[T-ski]

You know it has been a long year when I'm ecstatic about the Wolves winning two in a row, and back-to-back to boot! Friday night against Orlando...we get that, we're on a legit WINNING STREAK baby! 

p.s. all you fantasy hoopers. Buy low on Naz Reid and Malik Beasley. NOW. Trust me.

picked up Beasley last week. 

[Lonk]

Wth happened to the OKC-Jazz game?

EDIT: nvm CoronaVirus related.

[SystematicThought]

I wonder when they will resume the season

[TAC]

That blows. According to this:
https://www.espn.com/nba/

Seems a Jazz player is positive, hence the calling of tonight's game.

[Anguyen92]

Bad news bears.  Season has been postponed.  NHL is probably going to follow suit, right?  Dang it all.

[Lonk]

I hope it’s a single case and not multiple.

[jingle.boy]

I hope it’s a single case and not multiple.

I'd bet the rest of my pay for the year it's not a single case.  How long has Gobert been a carrier?  How many games has he played (Raptors just on Monday... so yay Toronto).  Oh, and there's also this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeT0dZNmGb4

Karma mother fucker.

[TAC]

Yeah, that's fucked.

[black_biff_stadler]

I sincerely hope the league suspends him no less than 20 games. You don't get a free ride in situations of this magnitude.

[Samsara]

Gobert will be sued up the ass by every person whose recorder he touched or coughed on. Mark my words.

Dude acted like a jackass, and now he's patient zero.

On an up note, the delay in the season means maybe Karl-Anthony Towns will return healthy for the Wolves final 18 games. Not like we're making the playoffs, but hey, I'd love to see the KAT/DLo combo for a quarter of the season.

[jingle.boy]

I'd say there's a greater likelihood that the season will not resume at all, vs starting back up in a month.

[T-ski]

this means the Bucks win the championship, right? 

[axeman90210]

Maybe Kyrie and Kevin Durant will be healthy in time for the season to resume

[Nekov]

If the season ends, will the playoffs still be on? The amount of money the NBA would lose would cripple them next year. And if that is the case, does that mean that Pop's record of 20 years in a row getting to the playoffs stays intact?

[black_biff_stadler]

I'd say there's a greater likelihood that the season will not resume at all, vs starting back up in a month.

I think it all depends on when they actually are cleared to resume. I think the least problematic approach would be to just start playing the games that were supposed to fall on the day they resumed anyway. Something like the following:

1. If it's before the season ends, just play whatever games were scheduled on those days to begin with and resume the normal schedule from then on.

2. If it's during the one week period between when the playoffs were scheduled to start and seven days after that point, maybe try to figure out what's most feasible out of:

a) Rescheduling games to salvage all (up to) seven games of the first round series.

b) Truncating the first round series to best of 5s or 3s depending on how much time is lost.

3. If it's after the first round would've ended, just repeat my solution for that depending on the current round (be it conference semis or conference finals but not necessarily the NBA Finals as I think that needs to be a full series). If any rounds have to be canceled, then whatever teams would've been the lower-seeded teams in that round based on traditional probability are disqualified from which ever round the playoffs start with.

Basically, if the playoffs resume with conference semis, then it's just seeds #1-4 in each conference qualifying for the playoffs. If it's conference finals, then just #1 and 2 from each conference. If it's the NBA Finals, then only the top seed from each conference.

If the season ends, will the playoffs still be on? The amount of money the NBA would lose would cripple them next year. And if that is the case, does that mean that Pop's record of 20 years in a row getting to the playoffs stays intact?

An argument could be made for it but it'd have to be heavily asterisked since they'd have to pick up at least four games on the #8 seed in less than 20 games plus there are three other teams ahead of them aside from #8.

[DragonAttack]

If the season ends, will the playoffs still be on? The amount of money the NBA would lose would cripple them next year. And if that is the case, does that mean that Pop's record of 20 years in a row getting to the playoffs stays intact?

Sure.... just like they did with Ripken's streak during the strike.  You discount the stoppage.

And, man, Gobert Pyle sure is an axe hat.

[Lonk]

Kevin Love is donating 100K to cover the salary for the arena’s employees, I hope more players follow.

[black_biff_stadler]

If the season ends, will the playoffs still be on? The amount of money the NBA would lose would cripple them next year. And if that is the case, does that mean that Pop's record of 20 years in a row getting to the playoffs stays intact?

Sure.... just like they did with Ripken's streak during the strike.  You discount the stoppage.

And, man, Gobert Pyle sure is an axe hat.

Apples and oranges. Cal never failed to play in any games where he had the opportunity to but the Spurs have failed to have one of the top 8 records in the western conference as of this point in the season. If the NBA ends up eliminating the rest of the season, then they will have been stripped of their chance to break into the top 8 so it's a grey and muddied area but it's 100% not something for which he should be grandfathered in automatically since he had 60+ games to get his team into playoff contention and they didn't do so.

[jingle.boy]

And, man, Gobert Pyle sure is an axe hat.

One segment on TSN tonight... a high ranking NBA executive said "Rudy Gobert is the man that saved America".

Look, what he did (touching mics & recorders, and other players possessions) was complete negligence.  But ...

Whether it was Gobert or someone else, the fact is that the NBA - a multi-billion dollar organization - completely shut down operations in a matter of minutes from the diagnosis.  And now virtually all sports leagues/organizations have followed suit is an incredibly strong indicator of how serious this needs to be taken.  At a time when our politicians and governments seem hell bent on cluster skull-fucking the response, the sports world - with Gobert's diagnosis being the catalyst - is providing the shock to our social system to properly address this.

[TAC]

Kevin Love is donating 100K to cover the salary for the arena’s employees, I hope more players follow.

Great move!

[jingle.boy]

Kevin Love is donating 100K to cover the salary for the arena’s employees, I hope more players follow.

Great move!

Yeah... that's classy as fuck.

[Samsara]

Good on my former Wolf. That's how it's done. These players have WAY more than enough.

[black_biff_stadler]

Zion Williamson did the same thing too. Hopefully more players will soon too but I'd be even happier to see owners doing it since they have way more money than the players do.

[Indiscipline]

Lost in the CoVid shuffle was Vince Carter's probable last game.

Love him or not, Carter's career has been pretty unique and the epitome of self re-invention.

At different times he has been the poster boy for 1) the 2000's new breed of high flyers 2) the 2000's spoiled stars who wanted franchise money, refused franchise responsibility, and broke a franchise's heart 3) morphing from a high usage all star into the quintessential quality minutes role player.

I never liked him, but his career was quite interesting.

[black_biff_stadler]

He played very well for a very long time and, as far as I know, never did anything that was actually bad in the real world plus he holds the record for longest NBA career so I think his positives outweigh his negatives.

[Samsara]

The sad thing about Vince Carter is that he was a mediocre role player for almost as long as he was a perennial all star. I think he really took a lot away from his "legacy" if that term is appropriate.

Had he retired after the 2013-2014 run with Dallas (making it three full seasons as a sixth man with the team), he would have done himself a big favor. Instead, he kept playing for SIX MORE SEASONS as this very low-minute bench player. My daughter was wondering what the big deal was with Vince Carter (she began watching hoops with my wife and I a few years ago). We had to go back and show her just why he was so amazingly gifted, because all she has seen is this dude loping up the court and chucking 3s coming off the bench.

Sure, he's a Hall of Famer based on his 12 years with the Raptors and Nets. But honestly, when you look at his career averages, they've been so negatively impacted by his morph to a role player, it's pretty sad. Just hanging on, hanging on, cashing that check.

You can't blame him for it, making money is good. But I gotta say, I really wish he would have called it a career after Dallas.

[black_biff_stadler]

Nerds like us that crunch numbers are in the vast minority among NBA fans. The only reason career averages seem like they matter to the average fan is because a lot of NBA TV analysts are old dudes over 40 (I'm 39 so I'm close enough that I'm allowed to call 40 old) so we see a lot of it on TV. The majority of NBA fans are probably in the 12-35 range and will probably put more trust in the glory stories they've heard from fellow NBA players about his dunking and athleticism than they will in his stat lines leveling out. The only people for whom his legacy will be tarnished are the analytical types. Hell, I'm super nerdy with numbers and don't think the final third of his career matters in the big picture. I see a dude who played really well for over a decade and then found a way to keep contributing and was still making NBA rosters in his mid 40s.

I'm not saying his last several years don't count because they obviously do. I'm solely talking legacy which only refers to the way people remember someone, not what they actually did. The way some people remember him will definitely be impacted by his mediocre late-career stats but someone's legacy is basically just the average, if you will, of how all people think of someone once they've concluded the thing upon which their performance is being judged whether it be a career, life itself, or something else.

[jingle.boy]

Four Nets players test positive.  Were they one of the last few teams that the Jazz played.  I know Detroit, Boston, and Raptors were, but can't remember if the Nets were (and too lazy to look it up).

[Lonk]

Four Nets players test positive.  Were they one of the last few teams that the Jazz played.  I know Detroit, Boston, and Raptors were, but can't remember if the Nets were (and too lazy to look it up).

Doesn’t look like they played recently, but KD is one of those players.

[Indiscipline]

I believe the season is toast.

[jingle.boy]

I believe the season is toast.

Anyone who believes otherwise - for any sporting event in the next few months - is fooling themselves.