[NBA] Comments that don't warrant a thread (JUL)
- Thread starter Tetsujin
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The US team might not get beat for real this time since most of the big time international teams are in the stage of in between too young and old but the game the NBA is playing right now will not bode well for them in time. Players are missing an entire side of the floor in the NBA when it comes to development.
That team didn't even have less talent: the entire tweet is objectively wrong. I can only guess that dude is conflating "star power" with talent. That team was better built, with a clear hierarchy, and better balance. They had Olympic!Melo, Prime!Cousins and Peak!Draymond, as in "If he doesn't kick LeBron in the nuts, he's probably Finals MVP that year" Draymond.
From a spotlight/attention perspective, I can't imagine a worse time for USAB to lose a game, exhibition or otherwise. Nothing else is happening on the sports calendar: no Finals game to talk about, last night or tonight. No baseball, hockey is done, no football. Euros are done, Wimbeldon's done, Olympics haven't started, yet... not even the WNBA played last night. This might be the entire A-block on every radio and debate show in the country, all day. Hell, this might be some people's entire show.
From a spotlight/attention perspective, I can't imagine a worse time for USAB to lose a game, exhibition or otherwise. Nothing else is happening on the sports calendar: no Finals game to talk about, last night or tonight. No baseball, hockey is done, no football. Euros are done, Wimbeldon's done, Olympics haven't started, yet... not even the WNBA played last night. This might be the entire A-block on every radio and debate show in the country, all day. Hell, this might be some people's entire show.
Maybe this will be a wake up call to the NBA. We've had enough of these clown rules that allow the players to utilize the refs as basically teammates to get themselves to the line every other time down the court. That stuff ain't flying so far in these exhibitions. If you want to score, you better put the ball in the bucket and then race down to the other end and defend. These refs aren't your teammates just because you got a name on the back of your jersey.
It's an interesting question! The obvious rule of thumb is that you never trade a superstar in his prime, not unless there are mitigating circumstances or irreconcilable differences that result from a trade demand, locker room toxicity, career-jeopardizing health concerns, etc. And with Embiid, there are legitimate concerns about his health and longevity. Honestly, the Sixers give themselves a better shot at a title with Joel Embiid across the next few seasons than without him. But, hypothetically speaking, what if Morey were to look at the market for Ben Simmons, blanch at trading a strong asset just entering his prime for pennies on the dollar, then pivot to the extremely risky maneuver of trading Joel Embiid instead?
Given the terrible fit between Embiid/Simmons and their peak result of multiple second round exits, do the Sixers ultimately look better with a lineup that features Embiid + whatever you can get for Simmons at rock-bottom-value, or with a lineup that features Simmons + the haul you would presumably get for Joel Embiid coming off an MVP-caliber season? Setting aside the ludicrousness of shipping out your best player to accommodate your second-best player, I think it's still a reasonable question. Simmons is younger and healthier than Embiid, and your window would get considerably longer if you could find a way to build a contender around Simmons. It's psychotic, of course. Again, who the hell trades a superstar in his prime when there's no internal or external pressure to do so? Even a notoriously trigger-happy GM like Morey wouldn't entertain such a notion. But what a pivot that would be!
Given the terrible fit between Embiid/Simmons and their peak result of multiple second round exits, do the Sixers ultimately look better with a lineup that features Embiid + whatever you can get for Simmons at rock-bottom-value, or with a lineup that features Simmons + the haul you would presumably get for Joel Embiid coming off an MVP-caliber season? Setting aside the ludicrousness of shipping out your best player to accommodate your second-best player, I think it's still a reasonable question. Simmons is younger and healthier than Embiid, and your window would get considerably longer if you could find a way to build a contender around Simmons. It's psychotic, of course. Again, who the hell trades a superstar in his prime when there's no internal or external pressure to do so? Even a notoriously trigger-happy GM like Morey wouldn't entertain such a notion. But what a pivot that would be!
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