just watched the other isiah game geo posted.

its all star game defense

LOL olds

yeah it's pretty funny how supported this narrative is, those old slow chuckers also got blocked more than anyone else and scored the least efficiently

also thought the higher % of assists in the 80s/90s at least lends some credence to the idea that play was more selfish around the late 90s

encouraging to see that fta is at an all time low and continuing to fall - still plenty of headway to be made there tho as there are still heaps of bs shooting fouls called

99-04 really was the dark ages for the NBA.

The 2003 draft was an enormous infusion of talent that changed everything.

He's a rook on a team trying to win. Check out his shooting numbers after he missed his first 18 shots, and look at his numbers in college. Like Steph, he's almost equally good off the dribble as C&S. Plus he is two years younger than Steph was as a rookie.

He has legit top 3 shooter equity once Korver ages out. (Steph and Wiggins being #2 and #1 ofc)

Fair point, I forgot to look at his productivity after pretending 1/3 of his missed shots never happened.

Anyways, 6.7 and .465 after tonight! Moving on up!

In all seriousness, kid may be just fine, but you gotta lol at the hype.

Free throws are down now pretty much just due to increased 3s, right?



Also I got Jamal Murray trivia. The only college freshman to hit more 3s than him is Steph. Kid can shoot.

WTF is your definition of superstar? I think there's less than 15 people in the league with a superstar ceiling (including current superstars) so if you have one, no way you're trading him away if you actually believe that. I can't imagine you'd be making that claim if he weren't a Nugget.

What does someone rebounding one of his free throw misses have to do with his true shooting percentage?

For anyone new to TZ, this is an annual practice for d00d

Convince himself and all of you whoever the nugs drafted is the next great superstar (last year 1000 posts about this with jokic now apparently with jamal murray?!?!)

Jokic is a good player, but likely never to be a superstar. jamal murray is REALLY likely to never be a superstar but it def makes me smile to hear d00d casually throw out he's got a ceiling of steph curry, who is yanno one of the greatest players in NBA history

my thoughts on the the truth about the nugs since TZ invariably talk about them more than any other non woyas team again

- You could argue Will Barton might actually be their best player (uh oh)
- They are a 4-7 team with a SRS in the bottom third of the league, their schedule hasn't been that bad regardless of what d00d says. They have one good win @ BOS, who hasn't looked great so far. the rest of their wins are garbage
- Jokic, the next great C in our league if you read this thread last year, looks not at all improved playing again largely vs second units
- Danilo is a good player but definitely not getting better anymore
- They are probably a 30-35 win team again and their next 5 years ceiling probably isn't much greater than 50

Other than Philly does any team have a worse "our best player is x" situation than Denver?

If you're talking about future outlook, I don't think Philly is close to the bottom because of Embiid and Simmons. Nets are probably the worst. Magic, Suns, Lakers, Mavs, Grizzlies, Heat, Pistons, and Hornets are all probably worse as well.

If you're talking about best player currently, Sixers are probably the worst, depending on how you value Embiid in his current situation. Magic and Lakers are pretty close too.

Obviously meant current or woulda said otherwise

Magic a good add

Who's the nugs best player this year and would you take him or DAR, Serge Ibaka?

Going forward I'm not sure the nugs best player situation is great either. id def rather have whiteside or Drummond or kemba than anyone on DEN

I'm just going to go ahead and say ed malloy is the worst, like laughably bad at his job

If it's just 15 then that's where we are apart. What is a superstar to you? I would say thats someone who drifts between a top 15 to 5 player, Which is why I have probably 30 youngins with superstar potential.

Sooooo much wrong in your post, but glad to see that my one day of Nuggets posting in the last three weeks brought you out CVig. I'm not even going to explain how results oriented and wrong it is (here's a hint, SRS ignores H/R splits). Instead I will offer up a bet that Denver exceeds your 35 win ceiling this year, I'll even go up from my usual small amount. I can understand if you don't want to though because you know of your own wrongness.

Also maybe you should post about other things than your disdain for anything I write about the Nuggets, there are plenty of other homers here for you to go after.

When we discussed this a month ago, I defined superstar as #1 on a championship team. I think there are 8 in the league now (Curry, Durant, Lebron, CP3, Harden, Westbrook, Kawhi, George) with another 3 that look likely to get there (AD, Cousins, KAT) and another 3 that look possible but are way off (Giannis, Embiid, Simmons). I might consider moving Davis to that first group given how dominant he's been this year.

I would not define second tier guys like Lillard, Draymond, Aldridge, Blake, Lowry, etc as superstars but as stars that would likely be #2s on a championship team.

how far back are you looking? Doesn't seem that far if you're including Jordan who was crushing in the late 90s still. I'm pretty sure plenty of prime bigs from 15-25 years ago would still crush. Talking Duncan circa 1999-2004, prime Shaq/Hakeem/DRob

Lol giving Cousins the benefit of the doubt

Ok then we agree then, just have different definitions of superstars. Damn you're tough on stars! If it's the best player on championship team I would have to narrow my list down a TON, it would be like KAT/Embiid/AD, not sure who else out of the young guys can even get there.

I would say Jordan and before. There would be good players and I'm sure Jordan would be around top 5, but he wouldn't be sniffing LBJs jock if you magically transplanted him into today's NBA. And MJ was far and away the best player of his generation, I think Hakeem would be good if not great, but a most of the "normal" players probably don't even make it in the league.

It's a dumb argument anyway since you should only be compared to your peers. Not as dumb as saying the NBA was tougher or harder back then though.

@MS it's his overall body of work that I'm talking about, in particular what he did in college and whether or not that can be replicated in the pros. There seems to be this leak that we compare 40% college 3pt shooters similarly, when there is a huge difference between a guy who's hoisting up 8 attempts a game and a guy who's getting 2. The knock on Murray was that he didn't have the athleticism to get his own shot in college (he came off screens for much of it as Ulis was the PG), and he would struggle even more in the pros. What is exciting guys like myself and the Dunc'd on guys are that he not only can get his shot off alone, but his PG and "other" skills that he came into college with, things he didn't do at Kentucky because he was made the SG, have translated thus far.

That Michael Jordan, I'll tell you what, he's no nurkic

Embiid's usage is 40% lol. That is incredible, esp for a big. Super efficient shooting too, though he has a boatload of tovs. And only playing half the game but still

Edit: I think superstar includes non-basketball related criteria. Someone like Blake is more of a star than Kiwi