OT: 2024-25 NBA and NCAA Basketball Thread

[NJDevs26]

Looked around three times for one, haven't found it...guess there isn't the local interest here to keep up a thread despite the Knicks doing well (to be fair I'm not a hardcore NBA fan either). But man this Luka-Davis trade is wild. It would be like us trading Jack for Kucherov, like what's the point of shortening your window to a microscopic level AND doing the opposite for a quasi-rival?

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[Clam Jensen]

Looked around three times for one, haven't found it...guess there isn't the local interest here to keep up a thread despite the Knicks doing well (to be fair I'm not a hardcore NBA fan either). But man this Luka-Davis trade is wild. It would be like us trading Jack for Kucherov, like what's the point of shortening your window to a microscopic level AND doing the opposite for a quasi-rival?

Literally one of the craziest trades of all time. Luka didn’t ask for it, LeBron and AD didn’t know…Apparently there were concerns over his “conditioning” which is such BS considering how AD is one of the most injury prone players in the league.

Absolutely insane. Just brought his team to the finals, 25 years old, potential franchise GOAT and top 20 player OAT…and this is the return?! Makes him ineligible for the super max too next year.

Candidly I don’t watch any NBA, but I do loosely follow NBA Reddit.

 

[Ripshot 43]

Looked around three times for one, haven't found it...guess there isn't the local interest here to keep up a thread despite the Knicks doing well (to be fair I'm not a hardcore NBA fan either). But man this Luka-Davis trade is wild. It would be like us trading Jack for Kucherov, like what's the point of shortening your window to a microscopic level AND doing the opposite for a quasi-rival?

This is one of those trades that conspiracy theorists would say the league helped happen so that big market LA could have their next Superstar lined up. Crazy trade for Dallas.

 

[NJDevs26]

This is one of those trades that conspiracy theorists would say the league helped happen so that big market LA could have their next Superstar lined up. Crazy trade for Dallas.

Except David Stern actually did nix the Chris Paul trade way back, of course it's a different guy in charge now.

 

[Mgd31]

Awful trade for the Mavs. Not sure I see the point of it unless they worry Luka is going to be chronically injured for the rest of his career

At least open it up to a bidding war.

 

[My3Sons]

AD did ok for himself but the apparent belief he had that Rich Paul cared about him as anything other than a foil for LeBron is still sort of sad.

 

[Brodeur]

New documentary coming next week about the Dream Team 'losing' to top college guys. In 2012, the NBA did a 20th anniversary documentary on the Dream Team and released (I believe) unseen footage of those games.

To my surprise, the scrimmage happened in a tiny gym that's a five minute walk from where my freshman year dorm was at UC San Diego. I forget where I read it, but San Diego was chosen because Michael Jordan wanted to golf at Torrey Pines.

Looks like they recycled some of the interviews from the 2012 doc but the focus will be on the college guys. The story goes that Chuck Daly accidentally on purpose threw the first scrimmage (didn't make adjustments, sat Jordan out for most of it) just to bruise the egos on the Dream Team.

I never realized the angle about the college kids having a chip on their shoulder since they basically got bumped from the Olympics for the pros.

 

[Brodeur]

Documentary was alright as they seemingly recycled a lot of the talking head segments from the 2012 Dream Team doc. Probably more enjoyable for me to see more clips/pictures from the UCSD scrimmages. Still crazy to see 11 Hall of Famers (and Christian Laettner) playing on this meager court that is virtually unchanged to this day. I used to play inline/ball hockey in an adjacent gym.

Naturally the college kids wanted to dispel the notion that the first scrimmage was intentionally thrown by Chuck Daly as they rightfully point out that even if Michael Jordan didn't play much, the Dream Team had plenty of talent at its disposal. It maybe ended up being an exercise in semantics that perhaps Chuck Daly didn't expect the college kids to do well and then decided as it was happening that the Dream Team getting humbled wasn't the worst outcome.

Bummer to see that Rodney Rodgers was paralyzed after he retired.

 

[TheBeerNerd]

This is one of those trades that conspiracy theorists would say the league helped happen so that big market LA could have their next Superstar lined up. Crazy trade for Dallas.

I have a hard time believing that isn't the case, plus it's been a constant for the Lakers for their entire time in the NBA. When they first made the jump to the BAA (the direct predecessor to the NBA) as the Minneapolis Lakers, they got George Mikan. That was followed by Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson, Kareem-Abdul Jabar, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal, LeBron James, and now Luka Doncic. There are other problems with the NBA's on-the-court product, but the usual suspects being the same year-in year-out is a big complaint I have.

Truthfully, the NBA was the first sport I got into. I understand the game wasn't the prettiest in the 1990s, but I look back upon it fondly. Of course it was dominated by Jordan's Bulls, but they were no superteam. I'd argue that the players having big egos actually helped its competitive balance. You had one superstar and a bunch of solid players supporting them. The Knicks had Ewing, the Rockets had Olajuwon, the Suns had Barkley, the Pacers had Reggie Miller, the Magic and then Lakers had Shaq, the Blazers had Clyde Drexler, and so on. Then the 1998 lockout happened and Jordan retired, and the Lakers dominated, and by that point I was all in on the NHL. Now everyone likes each other and they form superteams at the drop of a hat. It's why I respect Giannis so much- he refuses to play that game.

I've also noticed a lot of negativity in the NBA discourse. Kevin Durant replied to someone on TwiXter knocking the superstars' lack of loyalty by saying "stop watching the NBA for your health, hockey's got that aggression that you clearly want." If Adam Silver had hair, he'd be pulling it out.