Kyle Lowry is putting up really big numbers, his best year ever. he turns 30 in march. he always seemed younger to me since he sort of came along slowly, being 24 before he became a starter and averaged over 25 min a game.

he is shooting the lights out. .419 from 3. .880 FT.

anyways, he had a lot of time to develop.

Mike Conley is now into his third consecutive year of decreasing ws/48 , BPM and RAPM (prior informed) , It would be strange if it turned out he peaked at 25

i don't think relatively minor dropoffs on those stats like what conley shows are strong evidence of an actual decrease in ability, his per has been basically the same from 25-now and that gels with the normal aging curve just fine

it might have more to do with his team slowly getting crappier as zbo/allen age

Gotta disagree. I think a lack of a first step is what holds Exum back. He has a graceful quickness, but no burst/explosiveness.

Although people all over the internet get furious at me when i say this.

Yeah, I'm most definitely not like that guy, but there are plenty of them around. I like Portland because it's a cool city and I can go nearby to do all sorts of outdoors stuff, I'm not here to ride around ridiculous hipster bicycles or go to Voodoo Doughnut and wait in line having an American Spirit lung dart or any of that jagoff crap.

wouldn't expect you to run with hipster filth

heals i turn my cheek to no-one as a modern member of the global village

unrelated; i got the scoop on exum and simmons from a person who has played with both: exum is an awesome dude and simmonss is a total see you next tuesday. i noticed in a recent interview simmons basically sounds american despite only moving to the us like 2yrs ago. changing your accent is a telltale sign of a being a lifelong pathetic beta to the core so i'm officially disowning him on behalf of australia

The drop offs aren't that minor though , BPM has fallen to 40% of its 12-13 value, RAPM (actually just noticed I only have two years of falls on it as this years isn't the same version as the previous years) halved between 12-13 and 14-15 and ws/48 is down close to 20%.

It might be a statistical anomaly or team related but they are fairly large falls over a long period of time

yep, it could be something, possibly worth looking into since the grizz have sucked so badly on d this yr so far and it'd be good to assign some blame

i personally assume it's mostly stats weirdness, for most players those metrics can oscillate wildly over even large samples unless specifically constructed not to (which affects integrity iyam). my feeling is that the really elite players seem to maintain their ranks more consistently (which would happen for obvious reasons)

Simmons dad is a yank so that might have lessened the accent.


Not sure about the Conley stuff, but was definitely thinking about him signing with Utah while watching the Jazz game today. Not really any other PGs on the market this summer besides Clarkson who is a RFA. Rondo too I guess, but even if you like him I dont think he fits well with Utah and Hayward, Hood and Burks who can all handle the ball and 2 true bigs.

this is good stuff anatta.

Yeah, i like Conley to the Jazz too. Is it likely he leaves Memphis tho?

He and Marc supposedly had an agreement that they would both stick it out and resign.

If Memphis can comfortably put out another 55 win season it seems unlikely, but I dont think they will do it and when Conley gets to free agency and he sees a team in Utah that could very easily have a better record than Memphis this year and a team that will be able to keep their whole young team together and have a bunch of cap space to add him and other stuff in free agency I think it becomes a lot harder to come back to Memphis. Despite Memphis being 10-8 they have a -2.07 SRS and are seen as just a 1 point favourite over a random team in a neutral location on inpredictable.

Utah is still Utah, but its gotta be easier to go from Memphis to Utah than Miami or LA to Utah too. Memphis does seem like an under the radar, dope city though.

Ben Simmons seems perfect for the positionless and the Draymondafied NBA. If the Warriors go on to crush everyone's soul with Draymond at the 5 lineups I think its gonna be hard to see teams passing on this guy at 1. Seems like he could be a supercharged Draymond Green. Don't care if hes a douche, the kid looks ****ing great.

Also dont see the pure bust potential. He already seems to be able to do everything that someone like Dwight Powell can do as a good small framed backup big without even getting to Simmon's elite ball skills.

That said Ive only seen the draftexpress vids on him and seen him in the Worlds vs American game in the summer.

was talking to osis. you congregating with such folk comes as no surprise. no doubt you swapped some icy tales over an unnecessarily bitter beer

i'm more of a hoegaarden man tbh

Conley is probably going to make too much for the Jazz to consider with Gobert and Hayward being due for new deals after next season and then Favors the year after that.

Favors/Gobert are locked for 2 years after this season, Gobert on a cheap deal, Favors twice under his value. Burks is locked on a good deal, Hayward could opt out but deal seems at his right value

They also have some potential efficient role players locked for 3 years Exum, Lyles, Hood

Honestly Utah is in one of the best position regarding salaries for the next offseason, they have plenty of super value deals, and will still have some space to sign Conley

The team really only needs a good PG and maybe 1 good 3+D guy for the wing to be a top 5 contender

It's the only team in the league that can say **** you small ball eat my bigs, and just for that reason we need Conley in jazz uniform to happen, because that would be an epic battle with GSW

and dont forget shipping a bunch of cash to jarret jack

fwiw, im pretty sure grant didnt want any part of that trade, nor did he want jack. and my sauces are positive there was a trade in place that he preferred rather than drafting bennett but gilbert overruled that.

Gobert is only locked in for 1 season after this one. Then he's a RFA.

Next year they are fine after that they aren't.

There is no way barring injury Hayward isn't opting out in a year with a $108m projected cap where his max will be close to double what he will be earning

He's like AD he'll get his max deal without negociations, but they are at 55m$ for next year with most of the key players locks in, they'll have 60 millions cap space,and something like 80/90m under luxury tax. That's enough money to resign gobert hayward and Conley
Then they'll see how they do with cap space in 3 years, but that's still a 2 year title window, for a team that hasn't got any top picks except Exum that's amazing

its pretty obv why no one is willing to bet with you on something that wont materialize for 6 years. i mean cmon.

but still, 4 to 1 is just an epically bad handicap on the sixers titling in 6 years. you gotta be looking at like 50:1 or so.

Last year I'm pretty sure it was up to 8 years and everyone told him the same thing. No ones going to sit on a bet for 6-8 years bro

Eta: now see that was like hundreds of posts ago. Victor you clicking random pages or something?