NBA Off Topic Thread

[ojandpizza]

Re: NBA Off Topic Thread

So good luck with that. Players are playing fewer and fewer games every season, and that isn't changing.

But who though? Which players? This gets regurgitated ad nauseam but there is never any context or data to support any claims whatsoever. What players that don’t have some sort of injury related issue are just randomly sitting games for no reason?

Obviously it’s league practice now that if you tweak something, or coming back from injury things like sitting back to backs or managing minutes for a couple weeks is just default practice. Excluding situations like that, how many games are players actually missing?

Even in the Joel example someone posted above, he barely missed any games last year that were singular games. Mostly nagging injury related time off where he missed 3-4 straight. He only missed 4 stand-alone games all season long. Of those 4 games only 2 of them happened to be back-to-back situations. So maybe he sat 2 games all year long that could be considered actual “load management”, worst case scenario 4 games?

LeBron sat like 3 back-to-backs, he’s 50 years old. Curry sat 3.. all 3 of these dudes were also dealing with actual nagging injuries as well, so the missed time could also be completely warranted.

My point is we are causing this giant stir over most these dudes missing like 2-3 games lol. Like it’s ridiculous to me that this has become THAT big of a deal over what is essentially nothing.. my point is if in every example of this these guys are otherwise healthy so they play like 75-80 games does anybody actually care? If the answer is no then people are randomly upset because they missed other extended time with actual injuries? That’s stupid lol.

And I realize people will pull the “well if you take the top 20 players and they are all missing 2-3 random games that’s like 40-60 games and it’s a HUGE issue because it’s compounded league wide”… ok but if we are talking league wide we are no longer talking about just 82 games either. We are talking 2,460 games.. and 40-60 games out of the whole league is 1-2%… 1-2% of games isn’t a problem, it isn’t an issue, it isn’t hurting revenue, this whole giant complaint is a joke in the grand scheme of things..

[l3ulvl]

Re: NBA Off Topic Thread

I'm tired of this being such an exhausting talking point

But who though? Which players? This gets regurgitated ad nauseam but there is never any context or data to support any claims whatsoever. What players that don’t have some sort of injury related issue are just randomly sitting games for no reason?

Obviously it’s league practice now that if you tweak something, or coming back from injury things like sitting back to backs or managing minutes for a couple weeks is just default practice. Excluding situations like that, how many games are players actually missing?

Even in the Joel example someone posted above, he barely missed any games last year that were singular games. Mostly nagging injury related time off where he missed 3-4 straight. He only missed 4 stand-alone games all season long. Of those 4 games only 2 of them happened to be back-to-back situations. So maybe he sat 2 games all year long that could be considered actual “load management”, worst case scenario 4 games?

LeBron sat like 3 back-to-backs, he’s 50 years old. Curry sat 3.. all 3 of these dudes were also dealing with actual nagging injuries as well, so the missed time could also be completely warranted.

My point is we are causing this giant stir over most these dudes missing like 2-3 games lol. Like it’s ridiculous to me that this has become THAT big of a deal over what is essentially nothing.. my point is if in every example of this these guys are otherwise healthy so they play like 75-80 games does anybody actually care? If the answer is no then people are randomly upset because they missed other extended time with actual injuries? That’s stupid lol.

And I realize people will pull the “well if you take the top 20 players and they are all missing 2-3 random games that’s like 40-60 games and it’s a HUGE issue because it’s compounded league wide”… ok but if we are talking league wide we are no longer talking about just 82 games either. We are talking 2,460 games.. and 40-60 games out of the whole league is 1-2%… 1-2% of games isn’t a problem, it isn’t an issue, it isn’t hurting revenue, this whole giant complaint is a joke in the grand scheme of things..

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[illwill10]

Re: NBA Off Topic Thread

Yeah, if the details about Bridges is true, he doesn't need any more chances..

[Majingir]

Re: NBA Off Topic Thread

Here's random news you weren't expecting.

Shaq named president of basketball and Iverson named his VP for Reebok.

[ojandpizza]

Re: NBA Off Topic Thread

Here's random news you weren't expecting.

Shaq named president of basketball and Iverson named his VP for Reebok.

I saw that, good move on Reebok.

[Speedy]

Re: NBA Off Topic Thread

I loved my I3 shoes back in the day.

[dubcity]

Re: NBA Off Topic Thread

But who though? Which players? This gets regurgitated ad nauseam but there is never any context or data to support any claims whatsoever. What players that don’t have some sort of injury related issue are just randomly sitting games for no reason?

Obviously it’s league practice now that if you tweak something, or coming back from injury things like sitting back to backs or managing minutes for a couple weeks is just default practice. Excluding situations like that, how many games are players actually missing?

Are you disagreeing with my comment that players are playing fewer games? Because that data is out there and easy to find. The number of players playing 75+ games is like half of what it was 10 years ago. That's across the league, not just superstar players.

Why is that happening? If it's not a mindset of increasing rest to better manage injuries (both past and present) and fatigue, then what is it? My point is that that mindset exists, and the players benefit from it. Teams have bought into it, so it's here to stay. And the NBA thinks it's dumb.

If we're going to debate what qualifies as load management, and try to nail it down to some super specific parameters, that feels like a pointless argument. When has load management ever meant sitting a 100% healthy player for no reason? There is always some injury or fatigue related logic to it. Whether that logic makes sense or not, that's a question.

[tru11]

Re: NBA Off Topic Thread

But who though? Which players? This gets regurgitated ad nauseam but there is never any context or data to support any claims whatsoever. What players that don’t have some sort of injury related issue are just randomly sitting games for no reason?

Obviously it’s league practice now that if you tweak something, or coming back from injury things like sitting back to backs or managing minutes for a couple weeks is just default practice. Excluding situations like that, how many games are players actually missing?

Even in the Joel example someone posted above, he barely missed any games last year that were singular games. Mostly nagging injury related time off where he missed 3-4 straight. He only missed 4 stand-alone games all season long. Of those 4 games only 2 of them happened to be back-to-back situations. So maybe he sat 2 games all year long that could be considered actual “load management”, worst case scenario 4 games?

LeBron sat like 3 back-to-backs, he’s 50 years old. Curry sat 3.. all 3 of these dudes were also dealing with actual nagging injuries as well, so the missed time could also be completely warranted.

My point is we are causing this giant stir over most these dudes missing like 2-3 games lol. Like it’s ridiculous to me that this has become THAT big of a deal over what is essentially nothing.. my point is if in every example of this these guys are otherwise healthy so they play like 75-80 games does anybody actually care? If the answer is no then people are randomly upset because they missed other extended time with actual injuries? That’s stupid lol.

And I realize people will pull the “well if you take the top 20 players and they are all missing 2-3 random games that’s like 40-60 games and it’s a HUGE issue because it’s compounded league wide”… ok but if we are talking league wide we are no longer talking about just 82 games either. We are talking 2,460 games.. and 40-60 games out of the whole league is 1-2%… 1-2% of games isn’t a problem, it isn’t an issue, it isn’t hurting revenue, this whole giant complaint is a joke in the grand scheme of things..

The issue is not players missing games.

The issue is the reason players are missing games.

Players would used to play if they where able to.

Nowadays a back to back apparently is good enough to sit out.

Yet people wanna argue that these soft *** players would last under far worse circumstances …


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[jeebs9]

Re: NBA Off Topic Thread

Random by Dirk

https://youtu.be/HYv6tPWPrGM?si=nuGwm4pO3RKyO_kp

This might be the most favorite of this series. Every really good player goes thru phases.

[illwill10]

Re: NBA Off Topic Thread

Based on Harden's post practice presser, I'm just glad that he is taking the professional route and does seem intent on playing(how serious he plays is the quesition). You can see it in his face that he is in good physical shape. But, it still feels he's not holding himself accountable for the situation. Morey and front office isn't excusable either. But, it feels like he expected to be taken care of and didn't like being ghosted before FA and panicked and opted in to secure the most money he could get. I do think if he opted out, Sixers would have gave him a Kyrie type deal. But I'm not buying the whole "It's like a marriage, when you lose trust in someone, it's like, oh. It's pretty simple" and how he wanted to retire a Sixer and the front office had other plans. The Houston rumors started on Christmas day and didn't die down. If it wasn't for Udoka, Harden would be a Rocket. In the end, Harden is mad because the one person who was his biggest defender/enabler for over a decade finally said no and tried to eff him over.

I'm just hoping this will be resolved. I'm not buying Terance Mann being a sticking point. Sixers want 2 firsts so they can later flip that for a star player either around deadline or offseason

[ojandpizza]

NBA Off Topic Thread

Are you disagreeing with my comment that players are playing fewer games? Because that data is out there and easy to find. The number of players playing 75+ games is like half of what it was 10 years ago. That's across the league, not just superstar players.

Why is that happening? If it's not a mindset of increasing rest to better manage injuries (both past and present) and fatigue, then what is it? My point is that that mindset exists, and the players benefit from it. Teams have bought into it, so it's here to stay.

Not disagreeing with your comment but more so the notion that whatever data is out there isn't provided with any context or the extent of it actually mattering isn't even attempted to be quantified. Who cares if only x amount of players play 75 games if the difference between the two is because they played 73 games or 74 games? It's no different than the "player X had to beat 8 60-win teams in the playoffs and player Y only beat 6" but player Y beat two teams that won like 58-59 games so we are just at that point pretending in our minds that a 60 win team is drastically better than a 58 win team by default of any context outside of 60>59..

I've seen data around this that didn't try to exclude outliers like Kawhi, Kyrie, Ben, Zion, AD, from everyone else. Using averages with them included to skew the data. I've seen data that didn't at all factor in that the covid year was shorter so nobody played 80+ games anyways. People don't truly care about what goes in to any of this data, they just want whatever their point is to "technically" be true.

We ignore any other circumstances. Past players and older fans love to point out that "advances in medicine" make it so much easier now. They want to completely ignore that advances in medicine even exist when it comes to stuff like this where better imaging might catch something we couldn't see in years past, or getting a player back to the locker room for imaging immediately mid-game rather than hours later, or next day when there is too much swelling to even get a good look. New advances on understanding recovery is more than just "does it feel ok", etc..

Players sitting for playoff seeding, for minor injuries, all of that.. Everyone will be quick to use Jokic missing some games at the end of the year for this data, do they care that it assured he was healthy when it matter and it resulted in a ring? Had nothing to do with load management as its portrayed, or him being soft.

It's the optics of it all in general. So many variables play a role in this but we know it's ignored. This entire issue is presented as "today's players are soft" rather than having someone actually point out why they might miss and if it actually makes sense or not. It doesn't really matter if it's a mindset or not if the mindset has reasoning.

And the NBA thinks it's dumb.

I actually don't believe for a second the NBA truly thinks this is dumb. I think they are pandering to the loudest because those who complain the loudest create the biggest false narratives around how they "feel".. And you can apply that to anything context be damned. But I see this as the exact same as the minimum games for MVP award thing. We haven't had an MVP winner under that threshold in 46 years. The rule essentially already existed even if it didn't actually "exist". But putting it in writing shut up those who bitch about games played every year, "it's about time this is a requirement" because they are too ignorant, or just don't care enough, to apply any context at all that it's essentially been that way for the past 50 years..

This is just to appease all the old fans and the old players.. Having old NBA players as hosts on NBA radio, every NBA talk show, all these podcasts, etc.. It's a negative in some sense because they beat this **** into the ground. They don't care about context either, they are just salty they didn't make 200m and can't understand something being done differently than how they did it. Again apply this to anything in life..

"We never sat games with a rolled ankle now dudes miss 5 games" - yeah MFer and your career lasted 11 years instead of 15.. Which do you think the players, owners, league want more?

Part of the actual objectives in this new rule is literally "Improve fan and public perception" because they know that issue is the actual issue. There are so many exceptions lumped into this that you've only got a handful of games that even apply to this last year. I think the Clippers are literally the only team that have more than one game.

So again to my original point all this outrage over what would probably be single digit games out of like 2,400 games. It's pointless.

If we're going to debate what qualifies as load management, and try to nail it down to some super specific parameters, that feels like a pointless argument. When has load management ever meant sitting a 100% healthy player for no reason? There is always some injury or fatigue related logic to it. Whether that logic makes sense or not, that's a question.

The whole thing is a pointless argument, that's my exact point. I'm not trying to define load management because you and I (and probably most everyone in here) knows there is different logic applied to it. But that's not how it's portrayed from those who complain the most about it. It's not the imagine they are trying to fix. "These players are too sawft sitting games for no reason at all".. That is the general argument, regardless of what the true definition should be that is how it is presented. And regardless of if those players even want to sit. We literally just got reports saying Dame was basically forced to sit, guarantee that context is left out of this "data" to show how many players randomly miss when healthy though... And the NBA does a **** job of trying to explain, or getting their former players to shut the **** up and ruining their product over **** they are frankly not even correct about.

The issue is not players missing games.

The issue is the reason players are missing games.

Players would used to play if they where able to.

Nowadays a back to back apparently is good enough to sit out.

Yet people wanna argue that these soft *** players would last under far worse circumstances …


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The issue is nobody actually cares why players miss, if it was even their decision to miss, how much they actually miss, etc. they just want to call them soft. And the even bigger issue is comments like yours.

Players sitting back to backs for no reason happens like maybe 2-3 times a year? Missing two games makes you too soft to play in another era? You realize how ignorant that sounds right? Those comments are the ones that start this whole mess. Because it's those types of comments that then lead to the current fans getting defensive and calling past players plumbers and ****. Then the older generation is up in arms all over again for their generation being disrespected, completely ignoring they just started the whole mess over some ignorant *** comment that was a result of like THREE ****ING GAMES.

"players would use to play if they were able to" - yeah and they weren't' told to miss, and their owners didn't have 200 million dollars invested in them and their health, and their next contract wasn't going to jump 30 million a year if they stay healthy, and they were retiring after 12 years instead of 15, and the biggest of them all playing 68 games vs 71 games shouldn't actually ****ing matter anyways lol. The whole optics around this is a prefect example of making a mountain out of a mole hill.

We've got people implying these dudes are all sitting 20 games a year just because they feel like. Why does there need to be that much exaggeration and misinformation from how many games these dudes are actually missing and why.. So damn silly.

Need someone to put up a graphic of Giannis next to Brent Barry telling us how soft Giannis is in comparison because he sat a back-to-back and Barry played all 82.. GTFOH lol

[VDusen04]

Re: NBA Off Topic Thread

That is a whole lot of writing.

Now I know how other people feel when I respond to certain topics.

The crux of the issue for me is the same as it ever was. People are paying real life money for these performances and they're having the rug pulled out from underneath them now more than ever. That's a problem for a game as star-centered as basketball.

There's nothing that says that load management was in its final form either. It's unknowable now but I personally have little doubt that it would have gotten worse, to the point that some people would eventually have cornered themselves into the the position of, "Star players don't have an obligation to play any regular season games at all if their team can technically make the playoffs without them."

In essence, when you're being paid to do a job, especially one so heavily dependent on your appearance and presence, I think it's okay to have an expectation that you fulfill your contractual requirements.

And from a fan's perspective, I wouldn't accept buying tickets to my favorite band only to find they're load managing when they come to Detroit on account of the drummer having a sore calf and not being terribly enthused about the venue. Just the same, I don't willingly accept someone like Steph skipping out on his one trip to Detroit as a precautionary measure after playing in Chicago the night prior.

[dubcity]

Re: NBA Off Topic Thread

The crux of the issue for me is the same as it ever was. People are paying real life money for these performances and they're having the rug pulled out from underneath them now more than ever. That's a problem for a game as star-centered as basketball.

Yeah, that's key to me as well. And it's why I'm not going to just laugh off the NBA having issues with this. It sucks for fans. Something can be bad for the bottom line of a huge corporate entity like the NBA, and also be bad for fans spending money.

[ojandpizza]

NBA Off Topic Thread

I’m not saying every time a player missed its ideal and acceptable, I’m saying the reality of the situation and what it’s made out to be are about a million miles apart.

You take the number of players who played 70+ games last year, 122 players. Compare that to 10 years ago (12/13) and 10 more years (02/03) 181 games, and 186 games… sizable difference right? And assuming those last two numbers are consistent I’m just guessing it’s ball-park accurate for most years in between..

But here is my issue with this whole argument. There is another 46 players who played between 67-69 games.. so from this year to 10 years ago, 20 years ago what’s keeping these numbers from being almost identical is 1-3 games.. that’s my entire point. A chunk of those games could even be late season sitting for seeding/tank, could be for ankle soreness guys used to play through but are required to sit now.. regardless of the reason its TINY, the difference is so small it doesn’t matter. People are making this a huge ordeal over 1-3 games.

I understand what you’re getting at, but under this new rule Steph can still miss his random game in Detroit. So long as Dray and Wiggins don’t also miss. Under these new rules I think the Clippers are the only team who would have gotten multiple fines last year. One team. Nothing changes in the grand scheme of things with this, and the amount of difference to begin with was already tiny in comparison to how large of a talking point it’s made out to be.

And as much as we want it to be worded as players just “not showing up and doing their job”.. that’s just a massive exaggeration… it’s more like me taking two sick days at work from a cold when maybe I could have toughed it out… if I missed two weeks with a cold, that’s a problem. If a player misses 10 games he should have played, that’s a problem.

People are treating this like players are missing tens of games for no reason. That’s just not the reality and they shouldn’t be thrown into the fire the way they have been because of it either.

I’m not going to disagree with using this as a measure to keep things from getting worse.. I don’t believe we were headed that direction personally with as much **** as guys like Ben and Kawhi get, or even AD and Zion with actual injuries, but if that’s the purpose of this then that should be the talking point. Not “players are just too damn soft, back in my day, they sitting half the season and they’re healthy” and whatever other toxic BS is spewed that actually makes up about 90% of the discourse on this topic.

Hell even in the Kawhi examples, and he’s one of the most extreme.. have it these old heads way and he would have likely already been retired and ran those legs into the ground at this point. For now he’s still making millions, still giving his team at least a better shot at winning playoff series, still making them money.. that’s literally better for him, for the team, for the league, but people still can’t get out of their hurt feelings and acknowledge that..

And still rambling lol.. for all these posts I take it back to my original post. If it’s all these players missing all these games.. point them out. Specifically. Which players, how many games, and how were they games that weren’t justifiably missed???.. that’s rhetorical, I’m not asking anybody here to answer.. but these people who get paid to talk about the league on TV, that get on NBA radio every day to discuss stuff like this, these former players, they should be able to provide that info. They’ve aided massively in blowing this up into something it isn’t and giving the players/league a worse imagine than they deserve. At the very least they could be specific. They won’t, because they can’t, because their point doesn’t hold when they find out there is like 10 players who missed 2 games they shouldn’t have and they’ve thrown dirt on the whole league for the last 5 years..… but that’s basically my point. All these current players “soft” but they are the grown *** men whining on TV/radio most likely out of jealously that their contracts weren’t 200m [emoji2371][emoji23]. It’s stilly…

[ojandpizza]

Re: NBA Off Topic Thread

I could probably sum up my entire issue with it with a TLDR version…

- I don’t disagree with any rule they have put in place. There will a small amount of games this helps. There is no bad to come from this. Perhaps it also stops it from becoming a bigger issue in the future too.

- it does suck for fans who buy tickets, I’ve been one. I have friends and family who have been in that position too. Tickets for birthday/Christmas gifts even.

- I absolutely despise the way it’s been covered, over exaggerated, and I believe you could even say lied about for how extreme the issue actually is.

- there is not reason the league should have allowed ignorant fans to run with the narrative that some of these dudes who sat 2-3 away games missed 10-20 games for no reason, calling them soft, back in my day, etc.. that’s going to happen obviously, but when you have former players and journalists getting on air and doubling down on that instead “actually Steph only missed 2 games this year for non-injury related reasons” (just making up an example).. letting NBA media bury the NBA product with “feelings/fake news” instead of actual context was ****ing dumb.