AROUND THE NBA THREAD. Sept 2021 edition

This Rolling Stone artice about the nba antivax movement is gonna be a shitstorm

 

this one?

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/nba-anti-vaxxers-covid-1231988/

 

Ya. I posted some CDC vax rate data stratified by race in the OT thread earlier.

I think the correlation with anti vax and African American population is clear as day so the NBA having a larger fraction unvaccinated is not that surprising, being as it's the most Black pro sport in the US

But it's worrisome that Kyrie is so high up the food chain the players union. Isaac can scream all he wants but he's a role player on a shit team who is oft injured. Kyrie, otoh.... He's got a huge following and influence, while being immensely popular ( has one of the best selling shoes, etc). That could be a problem for spreading vaccine misinformation.

 

I dont think his comments will do a damn thing in this era unfortunately. We need guys like Lebron and KD to champion it. Steph did initially for the masking guidelines and trusting science thing, but is woefully absent for vaccinations. Need that. I wonder if CJ has approached players on this subject

 

I think the difference is: black people don't tend to doubt that there is a pandemic, unlike the crazy white people (who all seem to shop at my local grocery store), when black people are "vaccine hesitant" it's because of a lack of trust based on actual experience rather than watching "Plandemic" on Facebook. I see a much higher proportion of black people wearing masks at the grocery store, for example.

I dunno. Did a widespread belief in the Earth being flat break out because of him?

 

Hey, KAT's certainly out there spreading the word, and with good reason.

 

That is a good distinction and I think you're right.

 

Unfortunately, he doesn't have a big enough profile to make a bigger difference. Kareem all but calling out guys by name was interesting tho

 

Common misconception about Simmons' free throws, that they're inefficient. At 59.7% for his career and higher last season, when Ben goes to the line he gets 1.194 points per possession, the best team in the league last season had 1.147 points per possession. No one can live with how he shot free throws in the playoffs this year and there was obviously something going on there. I think the safer assumption is that he will give us what he has over a 275 game sample size or better, instead of a 12 game sample size that was incredibly bad.

 

C'mon now. Of the leagues top PGs, how many shoot 60% at the line? That's just bad.

 

Dude's been miscast, he's listed at 6'11" 240 lbs. In what world is that not considered a big. So how many of the leagues top bigs are around 60%. I wasn't asking for a comparison to other players though. I was comparing him on the free throw line to any other possession in a game. Him on the free throw line is not a liability, that's my entire premise and you asking how many small guards in the league shoot the same as Ben Simmons does nothing to disprove the fact that his free throw shooting while not at all good is also not problematic, for the most part. If he's shooting ~30% like he did in those last 12 games then it's a problem, otherwise it's just not. Also at 60% it's very easy to leave him in at the end of games because they can't foul him off the ball and he gets stops on defense.

 

just isolating on FT's doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Sure, that could mean some 'hack-a-Ben' possessions, but if he can improve on his career 60% rate on FT's, teams won't be doing that often

bottom line is that when Simmons shoots the ball, his career TS% is .579, and it's been a little higher than that after his rookie season. That's a really good mark

for his career, Simmons has averaged 1.37 points/shot. For comparison, CJ's average is 1.19 points/shot. That's a significant gap in efficiency. Cj has averaged 16 shots in his career and Simmons has averaged 12. If you split the difference and use 14 FGA as the baseline, Portland would average 2.8 MORE points/game with Simmons replacing CJ's usage and shot attempts. That's a huge difference and it makes the arguments about Simmons on the foul line seem kind of loopy, especially if it's used to justify keeping CJ over trading him for Simmons

and that doesn't account for size or defense

 

Lighten up son, it’s a joke.

 

"Lighten up, Francis", lol