Another awful 4th quarter performance.
NBA 2024-2025
- Thread starter Desert Eagle
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Jamie (@Vault Dweller) review both the Everton and Bodø/Glimt victories at Old Trafford. Listen to the guys discuss 2 wins and 7 goals in the last week, analyse of the Amorim formation, focus on Amad and how he is playing, and also take a look at Hojlund, Rashford & Zirkzee – who starts v Arsenal?
Watching the suns/lakers and booker just pulled a move that I am 100% sure was traveling, but the announcers are raving over. I don’t even know what’s what anymore apparently.
If it’s done by star player, it’s legal. If it’s done by anyone else, it’s a travel.
Welcome to the NBA.
Saw Giannis recently taking 4 steps before the dunk
Giannis gets away with travelling and ramming people when driving to the paint.
I know there’s probably lifelong NBA fans on here so this might be a weird statement, but:
I cannot get on board with the concept of tanking. I understand it obviously, but teams trying to do badly? feck that, the leagues set up wrong if that’s become an accepted concept
I cannot get on board with the concept of tanking. I understand it obviously, but teams trying to do badly? feck that, the leagues set up wrong if that’s become an accepted concept
Personally I think it's preferable to the way football works in Europe where there are entrenched elite clubs that win virtually everything.
Ensuring the worst teams have the best chances at the next wave of talent is one of the key reasons why there's more parity in American sports. It's a much better model where a team can develop and grow together instead of smaller clubs being poached for talent all the time by one of the 10 clubs in Europe that has a legitimate chance at a trophy.
That is what ya get when losing is incentivized. It used to be worse when the bottom team received the best pick. Now there is a lottery so the worst team might not get the best pick. It is something but not enough.
In American professional sports there is no concept of promotion and relegation. Relegation usually comes in form of financial reduction, thus pro teams in Europe try to avoid relegation at all costs.
In USA losing comes at a cost too. I used to go frequently to Celtics games during 2010s cause tickets were cheap. Tickets were cheap cause Celtics sucked back then. Now tickets are very expensive. So tanking does come at a cost too.
The football model isn’t perfect but there’s no way you should be 20% into a season and have teams fighting for the bottom spot. It’s crazy.
I’d also question the actual success of the NBA ‘parity’, when 10 teams have never won it and 2 teams have won it about as many times as everyone else? Seems like it doesn’t work particularly well?
I was reading a conversation between some nets fans on Reddit, some were advocating tanking….some were saying, “hang on, we’re actually ok, we should be going for the playoffs”. Bizarre conversation, hang on maybe we should try to win
But 20 other teams did win it. And out of those 10 teams, 5 made it to the finals. Aaand, out of the remaining 5, 4 are very young franchises.
The Celtics and Lakers have won a lot, but if you discount the 1950s and 1960s, when the league was quite different, their advantage isn’t as overwhelming.
I mean 7 teams ever have won the Premier League, and that includes a team that won it at 5000:1 odds. Since 1992 13 NBA teams have won the title. You're also comparing against the American sport with the LEAST parity - in the same period 17 teams have won the World Series, 16 teams have won the Super Bowl, and 17 teams have won the Stanley Cup.
It's always struck me as odd that Europeans have a far more socialistic society and football is a more socialistic sport where the collective matters more than the individual, yet it's run in the most corrupt & staggeringly arch-capitalistic manner. In contrast the US has a society where calling someone socialist is a pejorative, sports where one individual has a far greater impact on winning than football, yet the leagues are all set up to promote parity via the draft, literal socialism in the form of revenue sharing, etc.
America gets a lot of things wrong of course but the sporting model is vastly superior even if there are unfortunate downsides like tanking.
Franchising and cartels are very capitalist in nature.
And I can’t stand a model that rewards losing to a point where fans get angry when their team wins.
Sure but they're absolutely less capitalist than the completely unchecked free market that is football. There's not even a comparison here in terms of dark money, exploitation of vulnerable people, corruption, etc.
Also I'm just shocked to hear that a Bayern supporter is against a more level playing field! You're also overstating the phenomenon of fans getting angry over wins; there are nutcases everywhere (and that happens in football all the time at international tournaments where falling on one side or another of a bracket is preferable).
Ok, so there’s a bit more going on than just looking at tanking in a vacuum purely from a sporting perspective….though that is really weird. Just as an analogy, I was a season ticket holder at Hull City for many years. And god I’ve watched some shit. Freezing to death watching tumescent football. But there is no way I’d have gone to support the club if I didn’t think the team was 100% committed to winning the games.
As for the cultural differences - don’t know, to be perfectly honest. I can’t have an opinion on US sport in general as I only (recently) follow the NBA. You raise the point, maybe in an earlier post actually about power being locked in by the top teams in football. But with no promotion and relegation, surely that’s the case in the NBA? Theoretically at least in football Accrington Stanley can over a few years compete with United….though there’s obviously a few practical steps in the way.
I think it's a valid point overall to say that tanking is a problem - certainly wouldn't disagree with you there. I suppose I just feel that it's more of a side effect from the league being designed with parity in mind - and personally that's a trade-off I'm willing to make.
I'd also say that most players will continue to try very hard even if they find themselves in losing situations - this is one way a young player can accelerate their development and form a bond with the fans, and whereas in football a club like Chelsea can vulture in and grab someone like Romeo Lavia off Southampton when they were struggling, in the NBA that player will most likely get to continue to grow and develop within a more comfortable environment.
I wouldn't say that the top teams in the NBA have more power - the league has a collective bargaining agreement between the players' union and the owners. The dynamic is less "team X vs team Y" and more "all the billionaire owners" vs "all the players". And again, while the NBA isn't perfect here, the NBA players' union does a whole hell of a lot more than the PFA does.
Well I certainly find the game fun from a viewing and entertainment perspective, so I can’t have that many objections with it.
One thing that is hard work is getting your head around trades, cap limits, pick swaps etc etc. That genuinely takes a bit of effort for the new fan.
Oh don't feel bad, you aren't alone! It's so complicated that teams have dedicated salary cap experts on staff at this point. Definitely can appreciate the steep learning curve - and hope I didn't say anything to dissuade you from being a fan!
No not at all and thank you for the discourse - it was good to get some alternative viewpoints
I’d honestly rather watch the bulls try and tank and try and get some star young rookie rather than being constantly middle of the road, no chance of winning anything but not bad enough to get a top pick either.
When you have a smaller pool of players to choose from generally, given you only have a starting 5, getting a top rookie pick means a lot.
When you have a smaller pool of players to choose from generally, given you only have a starting 5, getting a top rookie pick means a lot.
Teams can try to tank, but players and coaches don’t tank.
Coaches are the first to get fired if results don’t go their way.
Players have even less reason to tank. It literally affects the contract they can get and tanking for a lottery pick just means the team gets in another competitor for their playing time which again affects their stats and their money.
Yeah players will always try to win but orgs who commit to the tank typically end up trading away all the good players for draft capital and young talent with untapped potential. The players can try as hard as they want but they usually won’t be good enough to win many games.
The Rockets were nothing more than a young undisciplined AAU team playing NBA teams for 3 years while they were stockpiling young talent. The early draft picks like Green and Sengun couldn't do anything to impact winning on their own. They needed vets in the locker room and a coaching change. Even when a team drafts a generational prospect in Wemby, Spurs were right back in the lottery the next year with a top 5 pick.
I don't really mind the concept of tanking. I see why people would be turned off by it but sometimes teams get to a point where they have no championship window and they're too good for a lottery pick, so they're not winning anything and they're not really getting to pick one of the top talents coming out of college. Being in the mediocrity treadmill for years is a depressing existence. Calculated tanking, as long as it isn't prolonged more than a few years, is more interesting and entertaining to watch than being in a situation like the Bulls, who have basically stood still for a decade.
Blame the conference disparity.
Majority of the Eastern teams are mediocre that front offices refuse to commit to the tank because all they need is one player to get hot and they’ll be making a playoff run.
Another Eastern team will probably make the playoffs this year with 40 wins. Meanwhile teams in the West can miss the playoffs with 50 wins.
End result is Western teams get way stronger through the draft while the East is stuck.
Good win against the Warriors.
How did we pull off signing Tyus Jones on a vets min
How did we pull off signing Tyus Jones on a vets min
#1 vs #2 in both conferences last night and in both games the pretenders beat the contenders. Good night for the NBA.
Plot twist, that scout was from the Spurs.