NBA 2021: 3rd Time's the Charm

[Bourgeois Zee]

It's not likely that MIN finishes out of the Bottom-3, therefore losing their 1st Round pick to the GSW, so with that pick, who do the T-Wolves add,...Jalen Suggs, Cade Cunningham, Jalen Green, Davion Mitchell or someone else?

I'd go:

1. Cade Cunningham
2. Jalen Suggs
3. Davion Mitchell
4. Jalen Green
5. Evan Mobley

That said, I haven't done much analysis. That could well change.

I do think Cunningham's a no-brainer number one pick. At 6'8" (and thick), he can play across at least three positions. (Eventually, I suspect four.) He's not all that gifted defensively, but he'll try, at least. (That's more than Towns will often give, and it's way more than Russell has ever done.) It'll be interesting to see where teams play him-- he reminds me of Shaun Livingston pre-injury (but with a much better jumper and a bit more bulk). I like Suggs, Mitchell, Green, and Mobley too (much more than I liked any player last year, in fact), but Cunningham is clearly the best player in the draft.

The advantage of Cunningham is that he can play across the backcourt (and, I suspect, as a small-ball four). The Clips could make him a PG, the Lakers a SG, and the Jazz a combo wing. Every team in the NBA could use him in one of those spots. If Minnesota gets the pick, I want to see them draft him to go with Russell (who's already a sunk cost at this point), Beasley, Edwards, and Towns in a true five-out offense.

[M2]

All I've seen of Cade Cunningham is some clips, so my knowledge of him is at best germinal. Yet I keep getting a Tyreke Evans vibe whenever I read about him.

[Bourgeois Zee]

All I've seen of Cade Cunningham is some clips, so my knowledge of him is at best germinal. Yet I keep getting a Tyreke Evans vibe whenever I read about him.

Later career Evans with a jumper, maybe.

Cunningham's a shooter and a scorer. He's going to be turnover-prone, for sure, but that basketball IQ will play.

I'm fascinated with where Jalen Johnson, late of Duke, will be picked. Big-time talent. Really questionable season.

[Kingspoint]

POR 1-7 against teams ahead of them in the West and all 7 losses complete blowouts. Stotts has never been able to inspire his teams to play Defense, and NBA players just won't do it on their own (see ATL). POR is playing UTA, a team at two levels above them. They actually give effort for a whole game instead of 5 to 10 minutes like POR.

Once again, POR should get blown out if they give their normal effort. The only hope is that the Clippers embarrassed them so much (and Dame needs to be embarrassed from his nightly efforts), that they actually take some pride and give some effort Defensively. Will believe it when I see it.

Looks like Nurk will be stuck at 20-min limits for the next couple weeks while not playing back-to-backs.

[Kingspoint]

POR @ UTA is the free game on nba.com .

[Kingspoint]

Man, Lillard sucks. He single-handedly lost this game for us. Our team Defense always sucks because Lillard always sucks defensively. UTA has scored more than half their point because of a Defensive mistake by Lillard, while Dame, from the opening tip, has jacked up bad shot after bad shot not even trying to get his teammates involved. He's also spent 80% of the game whining to the officials. Melo hasn't been any better, neither has Nurk.

Stotts sets the tone Defensively for the team because he lets Dame set the tone.

[M2]

Man, Lillard sucks. He single-handedly lost this game for us. Our team Defense always sucks because Lillard always sucks defensively. UTA has scored more than half their point because of a Defensive mistake by Lillard, while Dame, from the opening tip, has jacked up bad shot after bad shot not even trying to get his teammates involved. He's also spent 80% of the game whining to the officials. Melo hasn't been any better, neither has Nurk.

Stotts sets the tone Defensively for the team because he lets Dame set the tone.

Portland's a go-go team. They're fun. On any given night they can run up the score. It's not any real revelation that Melo can't/doesn't defend. He's notoriously bad at it. And Nurkic isn't the same since his leg break. I can't blame Dame for his lack of defense. His job is to be a high usage scorer. Humans only have so much energy to burn. Dame burns his when they have the ball. He's why they've overachieved their Net rating. I wouldn't be too mad at him.

And it doesn't help that CJ isn't the killer he was before his injury. That's a shame, because he was on his way to a career-best season. You might not care about the defense if CJ was still dropping all his shots. The guy I'm curious about is Jones. They've throttled his minutes, but he gives them a different dimension. Gets to the rim, runs the floor, harasses shooters.

[Revering4Blue]

Oh, why not?

A very early lottery mock draft.

T-Wolves - Cade Cunningham

Bourgeois Zee is spot-on with his analysis of Cade.

Rockets - Jalen Suggs

Pistons - Jalen Green

Magic - Evan Mobley

Wizards - Davion Mitchell

Cavaliers - Jonathan Kuminga

Thunder - Jalen Johnson

Raptors - Moses Moody

Kings - Scottie Barnes

Magic (from Bulls) - Franz Wagner

Pacers - Corey Kispert

Warriors - Keon Johnson

Spurs - Kai Jones

[Kingspoint]

Portland's a go-go team. They're fun. On any given night they can run up the score. It's not any real revelation that Melo can't/doesn't defend. He's notoriously bad at it. And Nurkic isn't the same since his leg break. I can't blame Dame for his lack of defense. His job is to be a high usage scorer. Humans only have so much energy to burn. Dame burns his when they have the ball. He's why they've overachieved their Net rating. I wouldn't be too mad at him.

And it doesn't help that CJ isn't the killer he was before his injury. That's a shame, because he was on his way to a career-best season. You might not care about the defense if CJ was still dropping all his shots. The guy I'm curious about is Jones. They've throttled his minutes, but he gives them a different dimension. Gets to the rim, runs the floor, harasses shooters.

....and Jason Quick addressed that to Stott's: "I'm not trying to be critical, but I have a real question I'm curious about. DJJ is one of the team's best Defenders, but since Powell got here his minutes have dropped to 11 to 12 per game. With Defense being the team's problem, it doesn't seem to make sense to have Jones' minutes reduced to an afterthought."

Stott's: "We were 29th with Jones Starting. We're 29th with him not."

OK.

For 8 years, the elephant in the room has been, "How is it physically possible for a team to play Defense at an elite level (the problem winning games is against the elite now, and now they don't even compete, except the one game against PHI when Dame sat and the reserves played with energy and dominated) with two small guards (where one, Dame, is a poor Defender) and the other is average for his size? When Stotts wears both of them out during the regular season, they have even less energy to play Defense. It's really all Stotts, who learned from Carlisle, who has rarely taught Defense himself.

If you watched the 1st Qtr, Dame was responsible for giving up 15 of UTA's first 30 points. He wasn't tired. He was lazy. He was late on a switch or he gave up an open look because he wouldn't get in their face. Stotts let Aldridge do it, too. He let Trent do it. Tonight, Trent had 1 Rebound, 0 Steals, 0 Blocks, and 1 Assist. That's effort. He was a -22 while a couple of fellow starters were +10. Trent also put up bricks and just stared at them.

It's Stotts.

Supposedly, Dame and C.J. were supposed to be able to get up closer to Defenders once they got a rim-protector (Nurk, Whiteside), but it never happened. C.J. actually got a lot better, but from the opening game against UTA in Dec., Dame's Defense has been the worst of any season he's ever had, so that's pretty bad. I mentioned it in December, in January, and what's bad about it, it's what he was supposed to have worked on the most the off-season of 2019. Perhaps not having an off-season this year hurt him a lot. But, they are broken, and Stotts doesn't know how to fix it. They talk the same talk after every game, but it's plain and simple to see the problem...it's the same problem every year...Damian Lillard doesn't care about Defense (see James Harden), and as the team's leader, it sets the tone, first to C.J., then the combination of the two, without Stotts doing something about it (Dame and C.J. are untouchable critique-wise from Stotts), poisons the rest of the team Defensively.

Could you imagine Jerry Sloan letting a Star player dictate how the team plays Defensively if it's not anything other than excellent? Pops? Spoelstra? Snyder? Stevens? Nate? Vogel? Monty Williams?


Dame is injured and needs 10 days off. Stotts won't rest him. We'd be better off now and in the playoffs if he did. It's not like he doesn't have someone to replace him. DJJ back in the Starting lineup for two weeks with Powell and C.J. at Guard.

And Stott's love of the Melo/Kanter combo is insane. Defensively, they put any lineup in the bottom-10% Defensively. Leads disappear and close games become double-digit holes and if they are already down 10, it becomes a rout.

[Kingspoint]

Post-game with Dame. He whined about the calls. That's not Dame. Something is wrong with him mentally....probably frustration with his physical condition as he can barely walk every single day, yet he's out there. Stotts won't do anything about it.

[texasdave]

Houston jumped out to a 40-26 lead over the Clippers before the planets realigned themselves with a 29-4 Los Angeles run. Armageddon has been pushed back for at least one night.

[adkindo]

"And once I won a championship [with Golden State], I realized that, like, my view on this game is really about development. Like, how good can I be? It's not about, you know, let's go get this championship. I appreciate that stuff and I want to win to experience that stuff, but it's not the end-all, be-all of why I play the game."

Kevin Durant

I can't tell if he is serious or he is trying to sound smart but it coming out as idiotic. Winning and team success is all that matters in the game....but that is all secondary to him? So a Lakers team without AD, Kuzma and Lebron curb stomped the Nets last night, but if Durant felt good about his "development" he should pop champagne in the locker room?

[Betterread]

The Celtics are playing very entertaining basketball. They played the Twolves on Friday and won an awesome defense optional game 145-136. Tatum was magnificent, scoring 53 pts in a variety of ways, all involving great skill and quickness. He was unguardable, and he had to be because no one on the Celtics likes to play defense. At least I thought so, until they just beat the Nuggets 105-87. How can a team give up 136 points to a 22nd ranked offense and hold one of the top 5 offenses to 87. It makes no sense, and that is superentertaining.

[Bourgeois Zee]

The Celtics are playing very entertaining basketball. They played the Twolves on Friday and won an awesome defense optional game 145-136. Tatum was magnificent, scoring 53 pts in a variety of ways, all involving great skill and quickness. He was unguardable, and he had to be because no one on the Celtics likes to play defense. At least I thought so, until they just beat the Nuggets 105-87. How can a team give up 136 points to a 22nd ranked offense and hold one of the top 5 offenses to 87. It makes no sense, and that is superentertaining.

They're one of two or three East teams who are extremely Jekyll and Hyde.

It'll be a blast to watch the playoffs.

[adkindo]

I am sure everyone saw the story about Shaq picking up the tab on an engagement ring for the random guy at Zales. Cool story....and remember if you ever encounter Shaq in a store, stay near him in case he is feeling like making someone smile.

But the thing I noticed is how good Shaq looks. Dude looks in better shape than he did the 2nd half of his playing career.