More like Dante Exit, amirite?

not bad. I think i'll go with Dante Exbum.

That's what the Jazz were hoping for when overpaying him.

My early picks for 2018-19 individual awards: (runner-up)

MVP: Giannis (Harden)
Rookie: Doncic (Ayton)
Defensive: Gobert (Giannis)
Most Improved: Kawhi* (George, Gallinari)
6th Man: Lou Williams (n/a)

* if injury in prior year justifies "most improved"

Kinda surprised the dubs didn’t have a game where they were down 20 and won by 15+. There was a period where they had a ridiculous record in games they trailed by 20+, like maybe ~.500. Before halftime maybe

This exchange has earned Dodger +1500 TZ Points

X-posting from NCAA thread:

+1500 TZ Points for the online dating guru!

Imagine if ATL gets ZION. Trigga Trae running the show with Huerter splashing 3s and John Collins and ZION cleaning up the rest. Future championship team if so.

lol priz... again.

Here are my End of Year award picks.

MVP - 1. Giannis 2. Harden 3. Jokic

I think this is pretty easy. Harden has been awesome, but Giannis has just been better all year and takes more of the load defensively. I think there's a gap between the top 3 and #4.

ROY - 1. Luka 2. Young 3. Ayton

Less easy. I think Ayton has been better than Trae overall and possibly even better than Luka, but considering what's been asked of Luka I'd give it to him. I don't think it's a runaway like most are saying, however.

DPOY - 1. Gobert 2. PG13 3. Giannis

Gobert seems like a lock, and I think PG13 is pretty clearly #2. I'd give the final slot to Giannis because he's been so good defensively for one of the best defenses, although he may not actually be the third best defender ITL.

MIP - 1. Giannis 2. Nurkic 3. Siakam

I know Pascal is the sexy pick, but Giannis' jump is just mind-boggling when you look at the advanced numbers. The same is true from Nurk, who went from bottom-tier starter to somewhere in the neighborhood of top 25/30 player (and top 10 asset tyvm).

COY - 1. Bud 2. Malone 3. Rivers

This is another runaway for me. When you look at how everyone is having career years AND they are playing elite defense, I don't know how anyone in their right mind would pick anyone over Bud. It's a shame for Malone because in normal years what he's done would be enough to nab COY, but what the Bucks have done this year under Bud has been truly special.

6MOY - 1. Lou 2. Sabonis 3. Trez

I despise this award because it seems like it can be manipulated by coaching, but Lou has just been that good this year. Ironically this might be the most deserving he's been of an award he's already won twice.

EOY - 1. Jon Horst 2. Masai Ujiri 3. Lawrence Frank

I think Jon Horst will be slept on, but hiring Bud, signing Brolo to a dirt-cheap deal, and everything that has happened with Bledsoe is more than enough for me. That FO has taken a team with a middling future and in one year have positioned themselves for a sustained run of contention.

[edit] I totally brainfarted not including Sabonis.

Cool page on Inpredictable that covers high-leverage shots, or shots that effect a team's win % by ~>20%

It's all small sample stuff obviously, but there are some interesting things I see.

1) OKC's close-game struggles are probably due to Russ and PG13 shooting godawful on high-leverage shots.

2) Luka is a freaking animal.

3) Donovan Mitchell for all his reputation, has been terrible, , even going back to last season.

4) After sucking his first 3 years on big-time shots, Joker has absolutely crushed as of late.

Malone deserves some credit for just creating a switch and giving Joker the ball on the block late in games. Most centers just aren't offensive threats when the game is on the line, Embiid yeah but he's been pretty bad at it.

stop bullying me

AiM with the rampant TZ points inflation as the season goes on + TZ points for non-TZ posts.

It's like in NBA Jam when you'd be down a lot and the 3's would drop at a much higher clip

How is DeAaron Fox not in the M.I.P category? Dude has been really good & i'd actually give it to either him or Pascal. Giannis has been better mostly because of coach Bud putting more shooters around him & not because his game greatly improved.

Also, what Nate Mcmillan is doing for the Pacers needs to be mentioned, he's an elite coach that gets no love on TZ.

Well Nate mc’s fan base thinks he’s overrated so that might be some of the rationale.

If anyone on the Pacers is being slept on it's Bojan Bogdonovic. 50/40/80 and shouldering a lot higher usage with Dipo down. Having a great year after being a major reason the Pacers took LeBron to 7 last playoffs.

https://www.basketball-reference.com...cavaliers.html

Bojan’s stats aren’t all that pretty in that series. He had a 7.5 per and 51% TS%.

He’s been good this season though.

I'm against giving MIP to guys going from year 1 to 2 and partial against year 2 to 3 guys, or while we are at it guys who's numbers took a massive jump due to more playing time. I also think it's a lot harder to go from elite to BPATL than from ok to good.

Afa Nate is concerned, the results have been very good but they were also very good last year, and while the Dipo injury is massive Denver's had more injuries in a tougher conference, and Doc has had his team flipped whilst still going 10.4.

Add me to the list of people that think Nate should be in the Top 3.

I'd have

1) Bud (easily)
2) Nate
3) Doc

Malone would be next.

I also think COY is the hardest award to get right. It's hard/impossible to tell how much influence on winning a coach actually is.

Bud
Doc
Atkinson

Nate talk is lol.

Yeah, leading a team to a top 5 record, being currently better than both the Celtics and 76ers, while your best player has missed half the season and currently running with a team that the casual NBA fan would struggle to name one player is lol?

smh.

As always the Nyets get no credit. Dinwiddie for MIP and 6moy

FYP

Btw if Knicks sign Durant and Kyrie, I'm NOT trading Zion for AD. AD is a punk ***** who's always hurt. Zion gets hurt when his shoe blows up and his first 2 games back he has 60 points on 26-32 FG.

AD doesn't like playing center, while you can have Kyrie as the "scoring guard" with Zion leading the point from center.

Fair enough, it's well within your rights to hate on Zion massively.

Mea culpa, I apologize.



In all fairness that posting quality really has gone up the last few weeks. Y'all are some great posters.



Dinwiddie SHOULD be a strong candidate for both awards.

I got Giannis for MVP
Gobert for DPOY
Doncic/Trae tie for ROY
Bud clear as day COY

My guess is if the Knicks get #1 that trading the pick for AD would go a long way towards KD signing.

Even if Zion is a beast, doubt playing with a 19 year old is all that attractive to KD/Kyrie compared to 1 of the best players in the league.

If KD/Kyrie don't recognize Zion's greatness then I don't want them anyway.

Zion won't just be your regular 19 year old. He'll be positive on offense AND defense from day 1. There's even strong arguments that he'll easily be *better* in the NBA than in NCAA, with more open lanes created by 3 point shooters. No double teams either when you have to leave a 40% 3pt shooter wide open to do it. It's going to be an endless game of "pick your poison".