I keep grinning at Luca fucking things up with his impressive Rookie year thus far. For reasons, I can't explain, why teams thought that a kid that has been playing professional basketball against grown men since age 16 would not be ready out the box to be an impact player in the league. Sure, maybe, others have more "upside" but Luca is a beast already! With weak conditioning and a ceiling still to hit physically with his body. The touch, vision, and pace with his game are already there so once his body catches up he will be at another elite level.
I bring this all up because the NBA will soon switch to letting 18-year-olds back into the league. I am against this because I don't think 18-year-old boys are ready to play a grown mans game. There should be a system set up where these 18-year-old prospects are seasoned in the G-League prior for 2 years, with the ability to get called up if they show they are ready. Many do not want this because grimy G-League men who live and die off these paycheques will make it hell for blue-chip babied prospects. For an extreme example, look how badly the young Ball brother (I get Lemello and Lianegelo names confused) struggled in Europe. He was supposed to "dominate" that fixed league and still, grown ass men put the guy to shame every night making him average and exposing his flaws in his fudenementals.
Luca is proving that taking the time to learn the game has its merits. In a perfect world, those who want to gamble to get paid can get seasoned in the G-League while the rest go and commit to College. It would be great to get kids doing 2-3 years at least in College while the rest go and explore an option with the NBA.
(12-09-2018 08:15 AM)Built to Fade Wrote: I think that Wilt Chamberlain would've thrived in any basketball era. Remember, he was so dominant on the court that the league had to change the rules in order to mitigate his on-court dominance.
_______________________________________________ "Men lie, women lie, but buckets don't."#225
I don't disagree, just really hard to compare him now, but realistically he's like Anthony Davis on steroids, the question obviously being could he develop the range the modern game asks of its centers? The rest of his game was proven and just imagine his athletic ability harnessed by modern training.
[...]
Interestingly, Wilt claimed he was reasonably good at free-throw shooting during high school, shooting 80%. I suspect that the free-throw issues were mainly mental, as was the case with Shaq.
The Video Description Wrote:"Wilt Chamberlain says he shot 80 percent from the foul line in high school. The stats say he was a 62 percent free throw shooter in college, 58 percent as an NBA rookie and a career-best 61 percent in 1961-62. For his pro career, he was a 51 percent free throw shooter and shot under 50 percent in six different seasons, his worst being 38 percent in 1967-68. In the NBA playoffs, he made only 46 percent. Yet he holds the NBA record for most free throws made in a game (28), which happened the night he scored 100. A Philadelphia Inquirer story of March 18, 1991, listed six reasons given by Chamberlain over the years for his poor free throw shooting: 1. Arthritic Knees. 2. Too much English on his shot. 3. Too tall, which ruins his shooting arch. 4. Lifting weights made him too strong. 5. His hands are too big. 6. It's all in his head." - Tall Tales: The Glory Years of the NBA
For more information and testimony from this book check out the links below:
The fade-away video is the only possible indicator of Wilt's potential shooting range. But he also did this:
_______________________________________________ "Where's all the game footage pre-1992? Maybe the league doesn't want the fans to know that there's nothing new in basketball (except for the 3-point shot)."#226
Those hook shots don't mean anything. And all that talk about being too strong and too tall is nonsense. There were players who were taller with bigger hands who could make free throws i.e. Yao Ming, Mutombo, Gheorge Muresan, Rik Smits. Being too strong would translate to many other things such as crushing hands by mistake, breaking things etc. All that stuff is just marketing hype. It boils down to something mental.
(12-09-2018 11:08 AM)kosko Wrote: I keep grinning at Luca fucking things up with his impressive Rookie year thus far. For reasons, I can't explain, why teams thought that a kid that has been playing professional basketball against grown men since age 16 would not be ready out the box to be an impact player in the league. Sure, maybe, others have more "upside" but Luca is a beast already! With weak conditioning and a ceiling still to hit physically with his body. The touch, vision, and pace with his game are already there so once his body catches up he will be at another elite level.
I bring this all up because the NBA will soon switch to letting 18-year-olds back into the league. I am against this because I don't think 18-year-old boys are ready to play a grown mans game. There should be a system set up where these 18-year-old prospects are seasoned in the G-League prior for 2 years, with the ability to get called up if they show they are ready. Many do not want this because grimy G-League men who live and die off these paycheques will make it hell for blue-chip babied prospects. For an extreme example, look how badly the young Ball brother (I get Lemello and Lianegelo names confused) struggled in Europe. He was supposed to "dominate" that fixed league and still, grown ass men put the guy to shame every night making him average and exposing his flaws in his fudenementals.
Luca is proving that taking the time to learn the game has its merits. In a perfect world, those who want to gamble to get paid can get seasoned in the G-League while the rest go and commit to College. It would be great to get kids doing 2-3 years at least in College while the rest go and explore an option with the NBA.
I love Luka, he looks like that fat 35 year old guy at the pickup games in the worst fitting clothes who gets picked last and then just kicks everyone's ass.
I don't know how you can be a professional athlete for 3 years and honestly look that out of shape, it's crazy, I know there are plenty of guys who are even worse but it's not like these guys have anything else they should be doing.
(12-09-2018 01:31 PM)debeguiled Wrote: Wilt shooting a basketball is like you or me shooting a volleyball. Think you couldn't adapt to shooting free throws with a volleyball?
It's like a tennis ball, which actually is pretty damn hard to control. It's certainly a mental thing though, plenty of guys with hands the same size were fine. Lack of work on it is step one, the belief that because they're tall they'll suck that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy is certainly involved. There's probably a bit of mechanics involved but I also think it's mostly mental. There's been more than a few guys who worked their butts off to become better or even good FT shooters, Karl Malone shot 48% as a rookie but by the end of his career he was a 74% guy, Chris Webber went from the 40s to almost 80%, Baron Davis went from the 50s to the 80s in his career. Dale Davis, Vin Baker and more than a few others have also been able to do it. Funnily enough a lot of those guys were players with "mental" issues at times in their career also that were able to overcome it.
12-10-2018 08:59 AM
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Moma
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(12-10-2018 08:59 AM)JimBobsCooters Wrote: I love Luka, he looks like that fat 35 year old guy at the pickup games in the worst fitting clothes who gets picked last and then just kicks everyone's ass.
I don't know how you can be a professional athlete for 3 years and honestly look that out of shape, it's crazy, I know there are plenty of guys who are even worse but it's not like these guys have anything else they should be doing.
Well, he's paid to play not to model clothing. Ultimately if he's effective, he could be a fat bastid for all they care. Charles Barkley came in the league fat and Glen Davis (Big Baby) was always a tubby lad. Those guys were fat and effective. The only issue with being fat is that it can affect longevity (durability of knees etc). But that even boils down to weight itself and not even fat. However on the upside, a 'fat' guy can wreak more havoc in the paint due to that weight especially if their game weighs more significantly on bodying people.
[/quote]
(12-10-2018 08:59 AM)JimBobsCooters Wrote: It's like a tennis ball, which actually is pretty damn hard to control.
Bruv, it's nothing like a tennis ball, what NBA have you been watching hahahah! I can practically get my fingers to touch when holding a tennis ball, which NBA player have you ever seen been able to glove the ball like that? But regardless, it's marketing hype, these guys do nothing but play ball every day. It's not just some weekend hobby. Large hands are not an excuse.
(12-10-2018 08:59 AM)JimBobsCooters Wrote: I love Luka, he looks like that fat 35 year old guy at the pickup games in the worst fitting clothes who gets picked last and then just kicks everyone's ass.
I don't know how you can be a professional athlete for 3 years and honestly look that out of shape, it's crazy, I know there are plenty of guys who are even worse but it's not like these guys have anything else they should be doing.
Well, he's paid to play not to model clothing. Ultimately if he's effective, he could be a fat bastid for all they care. Charles Barkley came in the league fat and Glen Davis (Big Baby) was always a tubby lad. Those guys were fat and effective. The only issue with being fat is that it can affect longevity (durability of knees etc). But that even boils down to weight itself and not even fat. However on the upside, a 'fat' guy can wreak more havoc in the paint due to that weight especially if their game weighs more significantly on bodying people.
(12-10-2018 08:59 AM)JimBobsCooters Wrote: It's like a tennis ball, which actually is pretty damn hard to control.
Bruv, it's nothing like a tennis ball, what NBA have you been watching hahahah! I can practically get my fingers to touch when holding a tennis ball, which NBA player have you ever seen been able to glove the ball like that? But regardless, it's marketing hype, these guys do nothing but play ball every day. It's not just some weekend hobby. Large hands are not an excuse.
[/quote]
Charles Barkley got himself in shape pretty quickly though and that was a major reason why he was as good as he was, on the flipside Davis never could play more than a backup role because he was so unfit his entire career.
Shaq's best seasons were his first few before he got fat and then the couple where he actually made an effort to get in shape. Even the greatest players get better by being in better shape.
Simply put the number of players who are better and more effective by being out of shape is somewhere around zero and the percentage of players who improved by getting into better shape is pretty close to 100%. Luka has all the skill in the world but he needs to spend an offseason with Tim Grover and get himself into elite shape, I hope he does because he's awesome fun to watch as it is but if he starts to have the physical side on lock as well he'll be even better. Although I have to admit, I do enjoy watching him school people while looking like he should be bagging your groceries, there's something poetic about that still.
12-11-2018 09:31 AM
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TigerMandingo
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I can't get enough of Steph Curry. So fun to watch and how he comes back from injury and drops 38 like it was nothing. I was also thinking - is this the first time in NBA history that a team's shortest player is its BEST player?
Where does he rank among the greats?
12-11-2018 10:16 AM
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(12-11-2018 10:16 AM)TigerMandingo Wrote: I can't get enough of Steph Curry. So fun to watch and how he comes back from injury and drops 38 like it was nothing. I was also thinking - is this the first time in NBA history that a team's shortest player is its BEST player?
Where does he rank among the greats?
No. In recent history Isiah Thomas & Allen Iverson both were the undisputed best players on their respective squads. Going back further I would say Pistol Pete was as well (New Orleans/Utah). By the way, Maravich avg. 44 pts a game in college.
As far as where Curry fits among the all-time greats, I'll let someone else answer that. When I evaluate a player I look at both sides of the ball not just scoring, and IMO Curry would be a defensive liability against a number of the old school cats.
(12-11-2018 10:16 AM)TigerMandingo Wrote: I can't get enough of Steph Curry. So fun to watch and how he comes back from injury and drops 38 like it was nothing. I was also thinking - is this the first time in NBA history that a team's shortest player is its BEST player?
Where does he rank among the greats?
Kevin Durant is still the best player on the Warriors. As we have seen the past 2 playoffs Durant will be the go to guy when it matters the most.
(This post was last modified: 12-11-2018 11:32 AM by Kish.)
(12-11-2018 10:16 AM)TigerMandingo Wrote: I can't get enough of Steph Curry. So fun to watch and how he comes back from injury and drops 38 like it was nothing. I was also thinking - is this the first time in NBA history that a team's shortest player is its BEST player?
Where does he rank among the greats?
Not even sure he's their best player but Jordan is the obvious answer to this anyway, I have to assume we're only talking starters as if we're not then Curry isn't the shortest player on his team anyway.
Plenty of times this has been the case anyway though...
Curry is a great player, I think he gets the best shooter in history title, which is a pretty damn good start.
12-11-2018 11:47 AM
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TigerMandingo
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This may be an unpopular opinion but KD is NOT their best player. Case in point: the team struggled when Curry was injured and KD just couldn't carry them. He lacks leadership. Curry is a great motivator and his presence makes all the difference.
12-11-2018 12:49 PM
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(12-09-2018 11:08 AM)kosko Wrote: I keep grinning at Luca fucking things up with his impressive Rookie year thus far. For reasons, I can't explain, why teams thought that a kid that has been playing professional basketball against grown men since age 16 would not be ready out the box to be an impact player in the league. Sure, maybe, others have more "upside" but Luca is a beast already! With weak conditioning and a ceiling still to hit physically with his body. The touch, vision, and pace with his game are already there so once his body catches up he will be at another elite level.
I bring this all up because the NBA will soon switch to letting 18-year-olds back into the league. I am against this because I don't think 18-year-old boys are ready to play a grown mans game. There should be a system set up where these 18-year-old prospects are seasoned in the G-League prior for 2 years, with the ability to get called up if they show they are ready. Many do not want this because grimy G-League men who live and die off these paycheques will make it hell for blue-chip babied prospects. For an extreme example, look how badly the young Ball brother (I get Lemello and Lianegelo names confused) struggled in Europe. He was supposed to "dominate" that fixed league and still, grown ass men put the guy to shame every night making him average and exposing his flaws in his fudenementals.
Luca is proving that taking the time to learn the game has its merits. In a perfect world, those who want to gamble to get paid can get seasoned in the G-League while the rest go and commit to College. It would be great to get kids doing 2-3 years at least in College while the rest go and explore an option with the NBA.
When High School kids were coming out, they were more successful then you're average asshole out of college.
But but but Kwame Brown....Kwame Brown was picked by worst GM/Owner named Michael Jordan
Most of these kids should be playing against grown men when they're 18. The whole system of forcing kids to go to college is not right. We need a system more like Europe.
12-11-2018 06:43 PM
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(12-10-2018 08:59 AM)JimBobsCooters Wrote: I love Luka, he looks like that fat 35 year old guy at the pickup games in the worst fitting clothes who gets picked last and then just kicks everyone's ass.
I don't know how you can be a professional athlete for 3 years and honestly look that out of shape, it's crazy, I know there are plenty of guys who are even worse but it's not like these guys have anything else they should be doing.
Well, he's paid to play not to model clothing. Ultimately if he's effective, he could be a fat bastid for all they care. Charles Barkley came in the league fat and Glen Davis (Big Baby) was always a tubby lad. Those guys were fat and effective. The only issue with being fat is that it can affect longevity (durability of knees etc). But that even boils down to weight itself and not even fat. However on the upside, a 'fat' guy can wreak more havoc in the paint due to that weight especially if their game weighs more significantly on bodying people.
(12-10-2018 08:59 AM)JimBobsCooters Wrote: It's like a tennis ball, which actually is pretty damn hard to control.
Bruv, it's nothing like a tennis ball, what NBA have you been watching hahahah! I can practically get my fingers to touch when holding a tennis ball, which NBA player have you ever seen been able to glove the ball like that? But regardless, it's marketing hype, these guys do nothing but play ball every day. It's not just some weekend hobby. Large hands are not an excuse.
Charles Barkley got himself in shape pretty quickly though and that was a major reason why he was as good as he was, on the flipside Davis never could play more than a backup role because he was so unfit his entire career.
Shaq's best seasons were his first few before he got fat and then the couple where he actually made an effort to get in shape. Even the greatest players get better by being in better shape.
Simply put the number of players who are better and more effective by being out of shape is somewhere around zero and the percentage of players who improved by getting into better shape is pretty close to 100%. Luka has all the skill in the world but he needs to spend an offseason with Tim Grover and get himself into elite shape, I hope he does because he's awesome fun to watch as it is but if he starts to have the physical side on lock as well he'll be even better. Although I have to admit, I do enjoy watching him school people while looking like he should be bagging your groceries, there's something poetic about that still.
[/quote]
Shaq bulked up in his Lakers years as he was taking so much of a beating inside he needed the extra heft. He could bring the ball up and go coast to coast in his Orlando days let us not forget.
12-11-2018 09:41 PM
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Even as a fat fuck, Shaq was deceptively fast and had an incredible first step. Very similar to those giant defensive linemen who still run sub 5 second 40 times
If Shaq were playing in today's pittypat NBA he simply wouldnt have gained the extra weight and would still have dominated.
Luka just has a natural feel for the game that even decades of playing can't teach most people. I don't even care how his career shakes out, his game is already a great to watch even in his rookie season. Even if he is out of shape, he also gets by based on his height. But that should be a non-issue as nearly every NBA player gets in better shape after a year or two of being on the NBA training/diet regimen.
1/3 through the season, Toronto and Denver are the 2 best teams from each conference. Toronto is currently on a tough west coast trip (beat Clippers and Warriors thus far; should beat Portland too) and Denver has 4 difficult games coming up (OKC, Toronto, Dallas and Clippers).
Toronto @ Denver on Sunday Dec. 16th is the game of the week -- possible NBA finals match-up in May/June 2019
12-13-2018 12:20 PM
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My respect for Steph Curry just skyrocketed. Dude called the moon landings a hoax haha. I predict in a few years he will talk about NBA (((ownership)))
12-13-2018 07:08 PM
NoMoreTO
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Raptors beat Golden State 113 - 93 last night in Oracle Centre (Golden State)
23 - 7 (#1 in East)
6 -1 (Without Kawhi)
The sad city of Toronto needs a championship, not like the NBA would ever let it happen. The Raps never help themselves either, but this might be a new team.
“Where the danger is, so grows the saving element.” ~ German poet Hoelderlin
(This post was last modified: 12-13-2018 09:33 PM by NoMoreTO.)
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