Except that year Sheed was the best player

shoulda just kept my mouth shut

when kuzma's shot isn't falling- and it hasn't been for a while now- he's borderline unplayable. think his legs are completely shot cuz not only is his arc flat as fuck but he's driving to the basket much less frequently. he's obviously an awful defender and not a good rebounder.

He should be. George has fallen off a bit without Roberson. Horford does have the league's best defense, but I don't think he's been as impactful defensively as Embiid. Draymond's been good, but not elite. I keep expecting him to turn it on. Gobert might still be the best defensive player in the league, but (ironically) has played less than Embiid.

i know its bad to gloat during the good times and this is very early on in all their careers: but i just want to say i've never once in the past few years wavered on Anthony Davis as the best young guy in the league, and i'm feeling really good about it right now. fuck Towns, fuck Porzingis, fuck Embiid, hell fuck Giannis while i'm at it (i might regret that last one). AD coming through for me recently.

You can praise players with trashing others.

AD has been pegged as one of if not the best young guys in the league literally since he came into the league. Fuck you can take it back to college. I'm pretty sure there has been more of a consensus there with him than with anyone since/other than Lebron. It'd be like gloating about never wavering from your stance that the Warriors are the best team in the league since they signed KD.


I dunno what truly separates Davis from Embiid (or Giannis) really. Davis plays more minutes than Embiid, and that matters, but health has been nearly as big an issue for AD as it has for Joel. AD has a full year on him in age and 300 more games (and many more wrt high school, aau etc) so I'd expect his game to be a bit more refined wrt fouls and turnovers. Scoring, rebounding and defense are basically a wash.

1a - Davis
1b - Embiid
1c - Giannis
^
Simmons, KAT, Porz, Jokic etc.

A full year in age with 300 more games? And health has been nearly as big an issue?

Obvs Embiid has maybe biggest health concerns of any player in the league, tho I think how big a step this year has been toward assuaging those concerns has been a little understated tbh. Davis has already missed 1/5th of his teams games since he was drafted, he's a hyper athletic high usage 250lb 7 footer that plays a ton of minutes in today's up and down game.

In my opinion, if one were to weigh health so heavily in favor of Davis as to declare "fuck Embiid," then you have to have Giannis over AD, given the gap in health/projected health between Giannis and AD.

Performance wise, Embiid (and again Giannis imo) are every bit the player AD is/was at their age, and that is to say they're legit superstars and all belong in the conversation of top 5ish players leaguewide, when healthy*********************************

Dang guys I was just being hyperbolic for effect. Never meant to be taken seriously on that one. I have giannis in my top 10 and Embiid somewhere between 10th and 15th in the league. Both are amazing. Just throwing some jabs at the smart nba crowd who are generally in love with Giannis and Embiid more than any other players in the league.

I'm bored and I thought about re-balancing divisions to make them more geographically-consistent. This will take years, so there's no point in competitive balance. Some rivalry thoughts need to be taken into consideration, but new rivalries will form naturally. The idea was to make sure that each team had the team geographically closest to it in the same division.

I'm adding three expansion teams--Seattle, Las Vegas, and Vancouver. I'd add more, but I ran out of cities that make sense.

Southwest (6):
* Denver
* Utah
* Las Vegas
* Los Angeles
* Los Angeles
* Phoenix

Northwest (5):
* Vancouver
* Seattle
* Portland
* Oakland
* Sacramento

Gulf (5):
* New Orleans
* Houston
* San Antonio
* Oklahoma City
* Dallas
The top three group and the bottom two group, but I thought I'd just include them together to not break up Texas.

Midwest (6)
* Minnesota
* Milwaukee
* Chicago
* Indianapolis
* Detroit
* Cleveland
Toronto should be here. But then there would be seven teams in a division.

Atlantic (6)
* Toronto
* Boston
* New York
* Brooklyn
* Philadelphia
* Washington

Southeast (5)
* Memphis
* Atlanta
* Charlotte
* Orlando
* Miami
It's probably not a surprise that the top three group and the last two group.

blazers rockets western conference finals calling it now

Huge improvement from earlier in the season. His off-ball/awareness was always good, but he seems to have some sense of how to navigate screens and execute a controlled closeout now.

Hey, Lakers, I need you to lose more than the Pistons. Maybe the Hornets too, but I think it's ok. I need one of the Bridges and I don't know if they'll be there at 12. I think one will be there at 11, even if they shouldn't necessarily fall that far.