2012-2013 NBA thread

[LittleHurt05]

your whole argument loses steam when you use 3 ugly women as your comparisons

 

He basically said the '94-'02 drafts were ugly & old, while the '03-'12 drafts were ugly & young.

[RockRaines]

He basically said the '94-'02 drafts were ugly & old, while the '03-'12 drafts were ugly & young.

I am getting a huge disconnect between people calling college bball watered down and talentless today and there apparently being head and shoulders more talent in the NBA. What is happening between the college season and the draft?

[Boogua]

I am getting a huge disconnect between people calling college bball watered down and talentless today and there apparently being head and shoulders more talent in the NBA. What is happening between the college season and the draft?

Exactly. Jim Boeheim was on PTI last week and he said that both college and the NBA are suffering because players aren't developing like they were in the past. He sees first hand that the game is worse. It starts at even the high school level now with AAU basically playing like all star games where fundamentals aren't emphasized and it's just a showcase of talent.

 

Could this era be better than the early 90s? For sure. If fundamentals were emphasized and players stayed longer in college it probably would be. As a whole, the league is probably more athletic than the early 90s (although the 90s had good athletes too). I've thought about it and you have scrubs like Gerald Green and other freak athletes that are on the bench, but just suck. The difference is overall skills. That's what separates the early 90s from today. I'd say the majority of the league had some sort of post game. Hell, the guards used to have their back to the basket on the top of the key sometimes because of all the ball pressure (hand checking).

 

eFG% jumped from .471 in 03-04 to .482, .490, .496, .497, .500, .501.... PPG jumped from 93.4 to 97.2, 97.0, 98.7, 99.9, 100.... All the high school players going to the NBA started to kill the NBA. They had no fundamentals and the league had to change the handcheck rule because it was getting brutal. It's not like they changed the rule for no reason. The results are clear as day. I just don't understand how someone argues otherwise. Kobe Bryant at the age of 34 is having a better statistical season than he did at 25 (the year before the handcheck rule was instated). Just another example. There are tons.

[ZoomSlowik]

You throw a silly Bills Simmons quote at me stating that Kevin Johnson would average 30/15 in today's game and you want to talk about substance? Rightttttt. And these one or two game outliers you reference mean nothing. I've seen Dana Barros score 50 in a game. I've seen Tony Delk score 50 in a game. I've seen Muhammad Abdul Rauf, or whatever his name was, go on insane scoring binges. These guys weren't even borderline all-stars. it's quite simple:

 

Bulls fans won't admit this, and I sure didn't at the time, but the 90's was watered down as s***. You don't add 6 new teams in 8 years, as the league did from '87 through '94, and not see the league take a big hit overall. That's basically a new team a year. The drafts from '94 through '2002 were ugly. I'm talking Kirstie Alley ugly. Just f***ing Awful. The 2000/2001 particularly were the worst ever. It's taken a while, but the league has finally caught up to all that expansion from the late 80's, early 90's. Look at the drafts from '03 through last year and compare them to '94 through '02. it's like comparing Joyce Dewitt to Snookie. The talent is simply better now. Nothing to do with a few rule changes 8 years ago.

 

I don't think you've looked at the drafts very closely. 1996 was a stellar draft and several other ones over that stretch produced quite a few All-Stars.

 

On the flip side, the 2004 draft was Dwight and a few fringe stars (several of which were high schoolers in the teens), the top-10 in the 2005 draft was horrific outside of Paul and Williams, Adam freakin' Morrison went in the top-5 of the 2006 draft, and though it's early, 2010 looks pretty crappy and 2011 looks okay outside of Kyrie (a lot of good role players now, we'll see if we get another star).

Edited March 7, 2013 by ZoomSlowik

[Boogua]

You throw a silly Bills Simmons quote at me stating that Kevin Johnson would average 30/15 in today's game and you want to talk about substance? Rightttttt. And these one or two game outliers you reference mean nothing. I've seen Dana Barros score 50 in a game. I've seen Tony Delk score 50 in a game. I've seen Muhammad Abdul Rauf, or whatever his name was, go on insane scoring binges. These guys weren't even borderline all-stars. it's quite simple:

 

Bulls fans won't admit this, and I sure didn't at the time, but the 90's was watered down as s***. You don't add 6 new teams in 8 years, as the league did from '87 through '94, and not see the league take a big hit overall. That's basically a new team a year. The drafts from '94 through '2002 were ugly. I'm talking Kirstie Alley ugly. Just f***ing Awful. The 2000/2001 particularly were the worst ever. It's taken a while, but the league has finally caught up to all that expansion from the late 80's, early 90's. Look at the drafts from '03 through last year and compare them to '94 through '02. it's like comparing Joyce Dewitt to Snookie. The talent is simply better now. Nothing to do with a few rule changes 8 years ago.

The KJ thing was just something I read the other day that I found funny. I was using it as an example that a guy who probably knows more about basketball than both of us combined thinks that this era is soft on perimeter players. Most logical people agree.

 

You didn't really explain the explosion in wing scoring. At all. But I enjoyed the Kristie Alley reference. That's what I look for in basketball debates.

 

And those isolated incidents happened to those players once. Crawford, Redd, and Arenas (3x) all did it multiple times. I mean, just look at Arenas' jump. Look at Michael Redds, Iversons, Vince Carter, etc.

Edited February 28, 2013 by Boogua

[whitesoxfan99]

You throw a silly Bills Simmons quote at me stating that Kevin Johnson would average 30/15 in today's game and you want to talk about substance? Rightttttt. And these one or two game outliers you reference mean nothing. I've seen Dana Barros score 50 in a game. I've seen Tony Delk score 50 in a game. I've seen Muhammad Abdul Rauf, or whatever his name was, go on insane scoring binges. These guys weren't even borderline all-stars. it's quite simple:

 

Bulls fans won't admit this, and I sure didn't at the time, but the 90's was watered down as s***. You don't add 6 new teams in 8 years, as the league did from '87 through '94, and not see the league take a big hit overall. That's basically a new team a year. The drafts from '94 through '2002 were ugly. I'm talking Kirstie Alley ugly. Just f***ing Awful. The 2000/2001 particularly were the worst ever. It's taken a while, but the league has finally caught up to all that expansion from the late 80's, early 90's. Look at the drafts from '03 through last year and compare them to '94 through '02. it's like comparing Joyce Dewitt to Snookie. The talent is simply better now. Nothing to do with a few rule changes 8 years ago.

 

The 94 through 2002 drafts would have almost no impact on the Bulls dynasty. Not to mention that a lot of those drafts except from 2000-2002 (which impacts the current era, not the 90s) were pretty damn solid. The 96 draft produced Kobe, Iverson, Ray Allen, Marcus Camby, Nash, Jermaine O'Neal, Peja Stojakovic, plus other solid players like Abdur-Rahim, Walker, Marbury (before his head got in the way of what should have been a great career) and Ilgauskas. I'd put that draft up against any draft from 03-present including the James, Wade, Anthony and Bosh draft. I'm not seeing this great talent gap in the 03-present drafts against the 90s drafts. The 2010 draft looks f***ing awful by the way. Paul George and Greg Monroe as the best players from a draft? Gross. And while its early, aside from Kyrie Irving, there are no true impact players in the 2011 draft class (although I do love Faried) and this years class isn't setting the world on fire.

[ZoomSlowik]

The 94 through 2002 drafts would have almost no impact on the Bulls dynasty. Not to mention that a lot of those drafts except from 2000-2002 (which impacts the current era, not the 90s) were pretty damn solid. The 96 draft produced Kobe, Iverson, Ray Allen, Marcus Camby, Nash, Jermaine O'Neal, Peja Stojakovic, plus other solid players like Abdur-Rahim, Walker, Marbury (before his head got in the way of what should have been a great career) and Ilgauskas. I'd put that draft up against any draft from 03-present including the James, Wade, Anthony and Bosh draft. I'm not seeing this great talent gap in the 03-present drafts against the 90s drafts. The 2010 draft looks f***ing awful by the way. Paul George and Greg Monroe as the best players from a draft? Gross. And while its early, aside from Kyrie Irving, there are no true impact players in the 2011 draft class (although I do love Faried) and this years class isn't setting the world on fire.

 

For once I had the SHORTER version of a post saying the same thing.

[RockRaines]

I just want to know where this superior talent is considering I am told repeatedly that college bball has no superstars and not top tier teams. Where the hell is all of this outworldly talent?

[RockRaines]

The 2010 draft looks f***ing awful by the way. Paul George and Greg Monroe as the best players from a draft? Gross. And while its early, aside from Kyrie Irving, there are no true impact players in the 2011 draft class (although I do love Faried) and this years class isn't setting the world on fire.

John Wall isnt awful and Turner is finally contributing. But clearly no talent that is head and shoulders above anything we've seen.

[whitesoxfan99]

John Wall isnt awful and Turner is finally contributing. But clearly no talent that is head and shoulders above anything we've seen.

 

John Wall still has some upside but he isn't a good basketball player and Turner is still really bad on offense.

[RockRaines]

Oh and the 2013 draft is considered by everyone to be weak.

[ZoomSlowik]

I just want to know where this superior talent is considering I am told repeatedly that college bball has no superstars and not top tier teams. Where the hell is all of this outworldly talent?

 

I would say a couple of things...

 

1) I would guess that 90% of your pro prospects are gone before the start of their junior year. The guys that are left are guys that play their way into a big-time prospect like Evan Turner. Not only do you lose the sure-fire studs, but you lose guys that might have developed into actual studs by their junior year but left because their potential put them in the lottery.

 

Because of this, guys do more development in the pros than in college.

 

2) Because of that last one, the upside of the elite programs is strongly tied to the caliber of the freshman class. Of course any talent pool is going to be cyclical, so that creates peaks and valleys. There was some very good talent in the 2008 tournament, but of course it was all gone the next year. Some of the recent classes haven't been that strong. 2013 is a great recruiting class, so next year should be better.

 

3) IMO, zone defenses make it harder for elite athletes to show off their abilities in college. An example I like to use is the 2009 Kentucky team. They had amazing raw talent, but none of them can shoot and their guards didn't know what to do if they couldn't drive to the rim. Because of that, teams would pack the paint and force them to shoot, so they didn't always dominate like they should. In the NBA, you see 98% man-to-man D and the pace is faster so they can get up and down the floor.

 

I think this especially hurts big men because most good ones will get doubled immediately before they have a chance to use a post move (of course most of them don't have post moves, especially early in their college careers, but that's another topic).

 

 

[ZoomSlowik]

John Wall still has some upside but he isn't a good basketball player and Turner is still really bad on offense.

 

David Falk agrees with you.

 

 

I'll pick out a few quotes...

 

A Wizards season ticket holder, Falk added: “You guys are in dreamland. Because this team [stinks] so bad you guys want John Wall to be someone he will never be.

 

“Before Wall becomes Nene, I would trade him and get rid of him.”

 

Come on, really?

 

“I’m serious. He doesn’t have a feel for the game,” Falk said. “He only knows how to play one speed. Magic Johnson had a great feel, a court sense, by the time he was a sophomore in college. Chris Paul had it by the time he was a sophomore in high school.

 

“You can develop your jump shot all you want, but if you don’t know how to play more than an up-and-down game by the time you’re about 20 as a point guard, the chances of learning are very slim. I don’t see it happening.”

 

 

Another choice section that seems relevant to this discussion...

 

“Let me ask you a question,” Falk said, maybe 28 times over 30 minutes, often answering for you. “Who’s bigger, Kyrie Irving or John Wall? John Wall. Who’s a better athlete? John Wall. Who’s faster? Who’s stronger? John Wall.

 

“Now, who’s a better player? Kyrie Irving,” he said of Cleveland’s all-star point guard who was rookie of the year in 2012. “John Wall will never be as good as Kyrie Irving was in his first week in the NBA.

 

“You want to know the reason why just nine teams have won an NBA title in 40 years? Because if both of them came out today, 99 percent of all general managers would still take John Wall instead of Kyrie Irving. They’d take the athlete over the ballplayer. And they’d be wrong.”

 

[RockRaines]

I would say a couple of things...

 

1) I would guess that 90% of your pro prospects are gone before the start of their junior year. The guys that are left are guys that play their way into a big-time prospect like Evan Turner. Not only do you lose the sure-fire studs, but you lose guys that might have developed into actual studs by their junior year but left because their potential put them in the lottery.

 

Because of this, guys do more development in the pros than in college.

 

2) Because of that last one, the upside of the elite programs is strongly tied to the caliber of the freshman class. Of course any talent pool is going to be cyclical, so that creates peaks and valleys. There was some very good talent in the 2008 tournament, but of course it was all gone the next year. Some of the recent classes haven't been that strong. 2013 is a great recruiting class, so next year should be better.

 

3) IMO, zone defenses make it harder for elite athletes to show off their abilities in college. An example I like to use is the 2009 Kentucky team. They had amazing raw talent, but none of them can shoot and their guards didn't know what to do if they couldn't drive to the rim. Because of that, teams would pack the paint and force them to shoot, so they didn't always dominate like they should. In the NBA, you see 98% man-to-man D and the pace is faster so they can get up and down the floor.

 

I think this especially hurts big men because most good ones will get doubled immediately before they have a chance to use a post move (of course most of them don't have post moves, especially early in their college careers, but that's another topic).

BUt still, every draft is considered weak for some reason. I just dont get the disconnect.

[ZoomSlowik]

BUt still, every draft is considered weak for some reason. I just dont get the disconnect.

 

That's a bit of an exaggeration. Teams were salivating over the Oden/Durant class (07) before the season even started. The 2008 class wasn't quite as hyped early, but they loved the talent at the top and the depth that developed. Barring injuries/significant underachievement, the 2014 draft is probably going to be considered the best since 2003.

 

Even in an "average class" (which is what I'd call most of the recent ones, though 2010 needs to get their s*** together), there's at least some hype/belief in the #1 pick. Even before Noel got hurt, that wasn't really the case. Now that he tore his ACL, yikes. There's still going to be a few solid players (even the s***tiest drafts have a few), but good luck figuring out who those guys will be.

[MexSoxFan#1]

I get that the PG position is deeper than ever but prime Tim Hardaway, KJ, Mark Jackson, Penny Hardaway, Gary Payton etc would still be causing major damage in today's NBA (maybe even more so).

 

Mark Jackson would be considered a top 5 post up player nowadays and that's not a slight at Jackson, just goes to show you how much the post up game has sucked in recent years.

[RockRaines]

I get that the PG position is deeper than ever but prime Tim Hardaway, KJ, Mark Jackson, Penny Hardaway, Gary Payton etc would still be causing major damage in today's NBA (maybe even more so).

 

Mark Jackson would be considered a top 5 post up player nowadays and that's not a slight at Jackson, just goes to show you how much the post up game has sucked in recent years.

Magic+Isaiah would still be dominant today.

[MexSoxFan#1]

Magic+Isaiah would still be dominant today.

No doubt, I think that goes without saying.

[soxsoxsoxsox]

KC Johnson - Bulls can sign 15th player under hard cap FRI. Lou Amundson said teams in mix to sign him: Chicago, NY, Boston, Miami.

[Dick Allen]

I predict DRose is in the line up within 1 week

[soxsoxsoxsox]

I predict DRose is in the line up within 1 week

 

sure seems like it. can't wait.

[Balta1701]

sure seems like it. can't wait.

I'd say it seems like much more than 1 week.

[Steve9347]

I'd say it seems like no one has a f***ing clue when that kid is playing again.

[Boogua]

Not sure if this is the right thread, but the Miami Heat did the Harlem Shake. Pretty good too.

[Chisoxfn]

Reggie Rose continues to diss the Bulls front office (and in turn, any Bulls player not named Derrick Rose).