NBA 2018-2019

Kasper said:
Both Curry and Harden are miles better at involving their teammates and running an offense. Curry is also not as bad on defense as always made out, he is shit in 1on1 situations but a decent team defender.

Have to agree with Sarni that although he has a great skillset I'm very wary of Booker's value on a contending team. The positive thing about him is that his efficiency has constantly gone up since in the league with a very good TS% now at over 58.
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I feel like Booker would be a good 2nd or 3rd option on a contending team, let him do more catch and shoot which he's great with, make him a facilitator on some offensive plays. Just don't make him the focal point of your team because you are not winning if you do.

Ayton has the potential to be a great scorer and is not as bad on defense as he was supposed to be. If they get Ja or Zion in the draft, they might be able to build something out of that trio, I just don't think Booker can be their best player when they are winning.
 
Sarni said:
A dreadful defender like him is very rarely a part of a great team. I can't think of many awful defenders who were no. 1s on successful team, can you?

On offense, he's a good scorer and a decent facilitator but those 50-point games are not the reason. Usually I prefer him in lower scoring games where he gets his teammates involved. I don't really think scoring 59 points in a 33-point blowout where your team struggles to score 92 points is all that impressive, all things considered.

It's not even like he's average or slightly below average. He's rock bottom tier.
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Iverson
 
Sarni said:
A dreadful defender like him is very rarely a part of a great team. I can't think of many awful defenders who were no. 1s on successful team, can you?

On offense, he's a good scorer and a decent facilitator but those 50-point games are not the reason. Usually I prefer him in lower scoring games where he gets his teammates involved. I don't really think scoring 59 points in a 33-point blowout where your team struggles to score 92 points is all that impressive, all things considered.

It's not even like he's average or slightly below average. He's rock bottom tier.
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The best one (or worst one as the case may be) I can come up with from recent memory is Isaiah Thomas. For a couple of years he was definitely Boston's go to guy (especially the year they won the East) but he was absolutely dire as a defender.
 
charlton66 said:
The best one (or worst one as the case may be) I can come up with from recent memory is Isaiah Thomas. For a couple of years he was definitely Boston's go to guy (especially the year they won the East) but he was absolutely dire as a defender.
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Yeah but they weren’t really that good in the playoffs at the time. His fall has been spectacular though, from being tipped to get a max contract or close to not even playing.
 
Kasper said:
Both Curry and Harden are miles better at involving their teammates and running an offense. Curry is also not as bad on defense as always made out, he is shit in 1on1 situations but a decent team defender.

Have to agree with Sarni that although he has a great skillset I'm very wary of Booker's value on a contending team. The positive thing about him is that his efficiency has constantly gone up since in the league with a very good TS% now at over 58.
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Of course they are better at running an offense. They are both point guards hence that's their job. He isn't so they need someone who is. Not sure why nowadays people think players should be able to do everything. He's from the bloodline of Jordan, Kobe, and Wade. Players who've won plenty because of how valuable the skill set which he has is.

Both Harden and Curry are poor defensively especially in 1 and 1 situations and can be catastrophic for their own teams defence. If somehow their deficiencies can be masked than so can his.
 
Sarni said:
But the opposition did not even have a proper incentive to stop him, they were down by 19 at half. Of course Utah are one of top 5 defensive teams in the league but the reason why he scored so much on them was mostly because they were running every single play through him to pad his stats. They did the same in his 70-point game at Boston, which they lost by a million too. There's always an asterisk over a 50+ point performance in a game where your team does not compete.

I mean he's rock bottom tier defensively. Offensively he's top tier and on his day one of my favourite players to watch.
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There's no asterisk on 50+ point performance especially when his buckets are unassisted. When a player goes for that much the defence simply didn't have a clue on how to deal with him. In these games he generally takes over(when they get torched) like all great ISO players tend to do which makes sense. No matter how you paint it he's a wonderful 2 guard offensively. He gets buckets and has improved his decision making a great deal to elite levels in the position.
 
RooneyLegend said:
Of course they are better at running an offense. They are both point guards hence that's their job. He isn't so they need someone who is. Not sure why nowadays people think players should be able to do everything. He's from the bloodline of Jordan, Kobe, and Wade. Players who've won plenty because of how valuable the skill set which he has is.

Both Harden and Curry are poor defensively especially in 1 and 1 situations and can be catastrophic for their own teams defence. If somehow their deficiencies can be masked than so can his.
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That bloodline you're mentioning, they were all solid to great defenders. Maybe Booker will develop that aspect of the game with time but he's just so far from them. He's a scorer and that's about it, his stats don't even help his team win much games. The Suns have gradually been losing more games with each passing season since his draft and of course when I say that I'm not singling him out at all. Those 3 monsters aren't often talked about for their defence for liking.
 
kouroux said:
That bloodline you're mentioning, they were all solid to great defenders. Maybe Booker will develop that aspect of the game with time but he's just so far from them. He's a scorer and that's about it, his stats don't even help his team win much games. The Suns have gradually been losing more games with each passing season since his draft and of course when I say that I'm not singling him out at all. Those 3 monsters aren't often talked about for their defence for liking.
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The notion that a player that's poor defensively is impossible to fit in to a winning team is crazy.
 
RooneyLegend said:
There's no asterisk on 50+ point performance especially when his buckets are unassisted. When a player goes for that much the defence simply didn't have a clue on how to deal with him. In these games he generally takes over(when they get torched) like all great ISO players tend to do which makes sense. No matter how you paint it he's a wonderful 2 guard offensively. He gets buckets and has improved his decision making a great deal to elite levels in the position.
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Of course there is an asterisk over a 50-point performance when it comes in a 33-point loss, come on. If Phoenix are happy with that kind of thing then they will not even get to .500 with him.

You are down by a million and get the ball to one player constantly so he can score. The whole team ends up scoring 92 points on the night when their opposition gets 125, the game is high pace and you deliberately foul Utah players so that Booker can get an extra few possessions to get more points. Bruno Caboclo could get 45 under similar circumstances, it means little.
 
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RooneyLegend said:
Of course they are better at running an offense. They are both point guards hence that's their job. He isn't so they need someone who is. Not sure why nowadays people think players should be able to do everything. He's from the bloodline of Jordan, Kobe, and Wade. Players who've won plenty because of how valuable the skill set which he has is.

Both Harden and Curry are poor defensively especially in 1 and 1 situations and can be catastrophic for their own teams defence. If somehow their deficiencies can be masked than so can his.
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Harden is not really a point guard, he’s a shooting guard of a very similar type to Booker except much, much better than Booker is ever likely to be, at pretty much every single thing.

Jordan, Kobe and Wade have also won plenty because they were good leaders and all three were elite defenders. Booker can’t even dream to be 50% as good as they were defensively and does not really have anything on them offensively to compensate. It’s a joke to even compare him to those three, if you take away defense they played they wouldn’t have come near winning what they did.

Harden and Curry are miles better defenders than Booker even if they are not good, same Lillard. Booker is honestly one of the worst defenders in the league and will always be targeted by opposition unless he addresses it.
 
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RooneyLegend said:
The notion that a player that's poor defensively is impossible to fit in to a winning team is crazy.
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Actually, it’s the notion that one of the worst defenders in the league can be a leader of a winning team and it doesn’t matter that is crazy here.
 
BTW is Morant as bad defensively as they say? I can’t say I’ve watched him that much.
 
Zion is actually someone that could help Suns win something. He’s going to be elite defender, a line up of Booker, Bridges, Jackson, Zion and Ayton could be very good and could mask how ridiculously bad Booker is on defense.
 
RooneyLegend said:
Step Curry ffs
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That's just not true. Curry led the league in steals twice in the last 5 years and is an outstanding systems defender. He also happens to play with some of the best defenders in the NBA so often gets targeted not because he's a poor defender but because targeting him is the lesser evil.
 
RooneyLegend said:
Step Curry ffs
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Curry is nowhere near as bad defender as Booker. Not even close. He’s a good team defender, he gets steals and is adequate for the system they played. Warriors have been a very good defensive team for the most part over the last 5 years. He’s usually the worst defender on his team but that’s not really a shame when he’s always been surrounded by at least three of the top 15-20 defenders in the league.

Curry is at worst a below average defender. Booker is one of the worst defenders in the league.

Also worth noting Curry is better at everything than Booker offensively too, and has been surrounded by the best players in the league so it’s natural he has been successful. Booker is not likely to become as good as him, or to be surrounded by the same level of talent to compensate for his shortcomings (which are far beyond Curry’s).
 
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Booker has bottom 5 defensive rating and the worst defensive players impact plus minus in the league. He’s extremely bad and you can not compensate that by scoring 59 in a blowout loss to Utah.
 
Capela is such a wonderfully simple player who just does his job right. Perfect fit for Houston right now.
 
RooneyLegend said:
The notion that a player that's poor defensively is impossible to fit in to a winning team is crazy.
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I never said that. All I refuted is you talking about Booker being a Jordan/Kobe/Wade type of player
Sarni said:
Actually, it’s the notion that one of the worst defenders in the league can be a leader of a winning team and it doesn’t matter that is crazy here.
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Spot on
 
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mav_9me said:
What's that about?
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So the Mavericks played at the Heat last night. Apparently 2000 Slovenian fans travelled all the way to Miami to watch Dragic and Doncic play. That video was from after the game. You don't see that kind of crowd energy at any basketball game in the US (outside of Duke/UNC games)
 
adexkola said:
So the Mavericks played at the Heat last night. Apparently 2000 Slovenian fans travelled all the way to Miami to watch Dragic and Doncic play. That video was from after the game. You don't see that kind of crowd energy at any basketball game in the US (outside of Duke/UNC games)
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That's pretty awesome. I didn't realize they were slovenian, just never thought of it. Just figured they were serbian in my ignorance. Slovenia should be good with those 2 playing for them. And just now realized they did win the European championship 2 yrs ago.

Thanks for posting that.
 
With his 7-23 three point effort tonight James Harden has now attempted more threes than any TEAM in the entire NBA during the 1998-99 season. Admittedly it was a shortened season at 50 games, but it is still pretty mind boggling to see how much the game has changed in the last 20 years.
 
bucky said:
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Considering the Mavs issues with sexual harassment, stunned they were willing to trade for a guy they knew had this allegation being investigated. Suddenly the Knicks look like they made a great trade.
 
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