Having only been in the US for 6 years, he will have had little exposure to the idea that one can be a millionaire, selfish turd with low effort. Demarcus likely grew up aspiring to that, being an American bball prodigy since his youth. I think Jojo is still in the honeymoon phase with being liked everywhere he goes and taking photographs and holding babies and tweeting jokes that go over well with the basketball marks, which may last indefinitely.

It was just for this year. I share some of the other concerns for Embiid, but he would definitely be up there even with injury risk if we are talking going forward.

Yeah assuming it's a draft Team B made some enormous mistakes to not end up with Giannis, Harden, or Butler.

But for your team, I'd flip Gobert out, get Wall, and slide everyone else down a spot to go small. Wall is really quietly having a monster year.

There's really no way Love as a 5 is good to face super elite team A and B over a full game, the elite slashers would be 80% at the rim

If you want the skilled big man shooting 3 and playing small, you're better with Al Horford, than Kevin Love, but I don't think it's important to have 5 elite offensive players in those conditions, it's a waste to play 5 30ppg players together

If they are playing each other I'm pretty sure you'd want a team of 1 PG and 4 big wings to allow maximal switching. If you can get Lebron, skip the PG even. I think Team A could be improved by replacing CP3 and Gasol with Giannis and Klay. What are you going to do, try to post up Lebron with a big? His pass out of a double team is gonna get stolen by your team of long armed freaks.

These all-star teams get weird, because rim protection matters less. A contested shot over a shorter guy at the rim is still a contested shot at the rim, they should never be settling for that when you've got elite shooters everywhere.

you want complimentary skillsets, but it's easy to fall into the trap of these guys are all scorers, therefore it's better to grab support players. a number of scorers would also excel in supporting roles


edit: embiid's temperament is nothing like cousins, wtf

I agree 4 big skilled wings is the core of a super elite team, but all those elite wings don't really need a PG

I disagree about the 2nd point, from what I can remember, a guy like Lebron struggled for example when Chicago was playing Asik, he was forced on his jumper, and lost a lot of efficiency at the rim. An elite rim protector will force you to take more 40/45%ev midrange shot, and the FG% at rim probably drop by at least 10 points

Bosh would be the perfect fit of the last 10 years to play with 4 wings,

I think with all star teams 4 Wings 1C > 5 Wings > 1PG 4 Wings > 1PG 3 Wings 1 C

Pretty sure the best 5 man squad you could form in the current NBA is

Giannis / Harden (not sure on this one)
Lebron
Durant
Kiwi
Gobert

Durant/Gobert is probably the best SF/C pairing in the nba to create an unbreakable rim protection

Everytime the offense manage to remove Gobert from the rim there's a roaming 7 foot KD who is a monster at protecting the rim this season

I kinda like Klay here.

seconded - and thanks for the Gobert + Embiid articles

Ya I like klay in these super teams

LBJ
KLAY
kiwi
Durant
I guess gobert


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My 1-5

Curry
Kiwi
LeBron
Durant
Giannis

Lol at having any Point Guard over Russ.

Lol, we aren't picking all NBA teams here, we're picking teams to actually play matches. Russ might be the best PG in the league, but his skills clearly don't mesh that well with other superstars. We have years of empirical evidence of this.

cosigned.

Russ may be the best player in the world not named Lebron at getting your team to 50 wins despite a terrible roster, but there are many PGs ahead of him when it comes to playing with other superstars.

It's obviously impossible to pick a team that would be favoured to beat CP-Kiwi-Durant-LeBron-Gasol, but I think the best hope would be Harden-3 of PG, Butler, Giannis and Klay-Gobert, so that CP3 can only really guard Harden. Probably Giannis the one who is cut so you have more shooting.

"After suffering a challenging, 115-107 loss to Milwaukee, Ezeli, in street clothes, addressed the team in the locker room with a stern speech centered on playing with urgency, sources told ESPN. Then two games later, after a crushing defeat in Memphis, Ezeli once again started giving a team speech, but he was cut short. McCollum interrupted Ezeli in midsentence and told him that was enough, sources told ESPN."

I've never met the guy, Festus seems like a nice person, I'd like for him to be playing. But LOL at showing up to a new team on a bum wheel, not playing a single minute, most likely out for the season soon, and thinking you can just insert yourself into some leadership role lecturing the team after losses on how to play "with urgency."

Seems like things are good in Portland.

Maybe Stotts can sport a hipster stache and flannel shirt to lift spirits.

These super teams are massive aids.

Curry
Harden/Kiwi depending if you want more O or D
Durant
LeBron
Whatever the best C is

Is the clearly correct roster. Lol anything else.

Harden
Kawhi
Lebron
Durant
BOOGIE

He could pose for a brilliant picture with Steve Kerr tonight and I would know what to get if I drew you for SS next year. We can all hope.

real lol is on the rest of the blazers if the environment was such that he could do it to begin with

There is a lot of talk about Blazers talks: the Lillard-helmed team-only meetings we've heard about, and now this. I think at some point they have to accept that they aren't good, and that it's not for lack of trying. I think McCollum is doing the right thing by spearheading this stfu movement.

If I had to guess what happened it would be that Ezeli's first talk came totally out of the blue and players were kind of dumbstruck and then polite enough to let him finish. Then he starts another one and people are probably thinking, "Oh no, is this going to be a thing now? And who is this guy again?" and CJ shut it down.

What's weird with POR struggling is even the best, most connected beat writers can't pinpoint what the issue is. There aren't any clear conflicts between players or coaches, tons of fans want to blame it on ET and the team insists he's not the problem, nobody's clearly loafing. They started out fine and really struggled when Aminu got hurt. Seems to me that they are just so ****ty defensively and as the season continues other teams are going to find more and more ways around whatever makeshift defensive patches POR throws out there. If they can find a way to move Leonard and/or Crabbe for defensive help (particularly interior) I'm all for it. So yeah, ****ty defense makes your team ****ty. I'm here to solve problems.