OFFICIAL AROUND THE NBA: APRIL 2023

Thing is, we knew this last September and it took the majority of this joint til February to realize it.

 

Don't forget that you couldn't decide if you were mad about that pivot or not.

 

How does Nick Nurse get fired??? He won them a championship! Fire Chauncey and bring in Nurse now.

 

There's a loud group of Blazers fans that don't watch other NBA teams and are so focused on the Blazers they convince themselves every year the team will be special and greatly exceed national expectations.

 

Toronto isn't trying to win right now.

If the Blazers were trying to win I might be onboard with getting Nurse over Billups.

But with how shitty this roster currently is, and the importance of developing youth trumping wins I don't think the coach matters as much and heck I might even prefer Chauncey.

But the biggest blocker might be Jody unwillingness to pay two coaches.

 

Seems like we've covered this already, ffs.

 

and then just a couple weeks to forget it again

STOMP

 

significant exaggeration

IIRC there was a prediction thread prior to the season and the average number of wins predicted was in the 42-44 range...maybe on the low side of that

 

https://8points9seconds.com/2023/04/21/pacers-raptors-desperate/

Pacers should look to capitalize after Raptors desperation move

The Pacers will be able to spend big money on player this offseason, but the question is, who should they go after? While many have speculated across many teams in the league, one name that is continuously brought up is our friends to the north in Toronto.

On Friday, the Raptors fired Nick Nurse as the head coach in a league-signaling move that big changes may be coming down the road. And because of this, the Pacers should be looking to potentially cash in on a Raptor rebuild.

There are two player in particular that many Pacers fans would be salivating to acquire, mainly, OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam. Both play a position of need for the Pacers and both are significantly better true power forwards than the Pacers have had in decades.

 

NBA player retires, saying anxiety from playing basketball led to 'the darkest times' of his life

https://www.insider.com/nba-player-tyrell-terry-retires-anxiety-mental-health

 

Cronin's iffy roster looked great to start the season! The 1st 15 games had Blazer playoff intensity. Blazer fans were happy, it was fun. Then a Lillard injury and a terrible December road schedule piled up enough losses to send management into scram mode. Let the starters get their stats, then full reset at the trade deadline.

 

It hasn't been good for 95% of over the last 2 decades. If this were a larger market, the fans would have a much shorter fuse. For some reason in Portland, many are okay with mediocre.

 

Joe's iffy roster was a known shitshow when the season began. No depth with size, too fucking small on the perimeter again. Two guards that aren't great defenders starting together in the back court again. Most of us weren't fooled by the strong start and were still talking about the trades we needed to make in order to just make the playoffs. Joe punted instead of making a big move and the team shut it down rather than scratching and clawing for a play in spot.

Joe said the roster was incomplete to begin the season and then said that they couldn't get it to a competitive place at the deadline. Winning is always fun but when the GM says it's not a winning team, you can expect things to balance out. If Dame doesn't get injured we might have been on place to make the playoffs, we might have just made marginal moves just to make sure we could get into and win a couple of games in the first round and that likely would have been a lot worse for the team's future than what actually happened.

 

Embiid is out for Game 4 against the Nets Saturday with a sprained knee, and before the game Doc Rivers’ comments on the injury raised a red flag.

“From my understanding, they checked his knee out right after the game because he was complaining about some soreness behind the knee, which is always a scary thing to hear about with players,” Rivers said. “There was swelling already, which is way too early, so we did the MRI. As a coach, I hate that word. I hate those three letters, because it never comes out well. It just feels like that, whenever they tell a coach you’re going to get an MRI, it doesn’t turn out well most of the time, and this time it did not.”

 

The team that needs to blow it up is LAC. They’re built around two guys who can’t stay healthy.

 

I had this thought 5 min ago, pg13 and/or kawhi may benefit from a change of scenery.

 

unfortunately for them, the highest payroll in the league and Plumlee is the only expiring contract