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By the way, I don't know if anyone noticed it, but this game turned when Curry shot one of his three point shots while turning his head the other way a la Lebron. The NBA gods will let you get away with that nonsense in blowouts but send seriously bad karma your way when you do it in a close game. This ain't the 2017 Golden State Warriors, these guys are only .500. Poorly played Steph.
Disregarding his play, which actually isn't particularly good still, just why?
We have a 19 year old PG that needs minutes. We have NAW, who is a combo guard, will need minutes. Bledsoe will probably still be on the roster and God Knows he'll get minutes - if he's gone, it'll probably be in a trade that brings back another guard. And then Lonzo may end up still on the team, eating up minutes at guard.
If you still have at least 3, possibly 4 guards who all need minutes on the roster why would you pay to bring in another 33 year old guard who isn't a difference maker? What's the role? Where's the fit? Obviously if he was a super star you make it fit, but I would hope that even if he's ''not actually awful'' you don't think he's a star.
Basketball.
Pelicans are 30-36 with 6 games to play.
— Andrew Lopez (@_Andrew_Lopez) May 5, 2021
Spurs are 31-33 with 8 games to go.
Spurs own the tiebreaker - so they are really 3 games up on NOLA.
If Spurs go 3-5, Pels have to go 6-0 to grab the 10th spot.
Pels have a 5-game road trip then finish the year at home vs Lakers.
Spurs only need to go 4-4 over their last 8 to make it impossible for us to make the play in.
The hot takes. Dear god the hot takes.
Lonzo with the game of his career. Just means he'll go 1 - 27 against the 76ers Friday.
Still happy for him. He helped his future pay check.
This was nice. But with multiple players going back and forth for locker room treatment, including Zion...this just ain't worth it.
Also with the Spurs remaining schedule, it's highly probable they win only 2 more games. It's just as brutal.
Spurs got a brutal schedule. I'll be surprised if they go 4-4 especially with White's injury. The Pelicans schedule is tough as well. Either way, I'm just happy they'll likely improve on last season's record.
You know, if 6'0'', Fred VanVleet just signed for 21MM a year for four years (26 yo when he signed), Lonzo will get at least that much. In my mind, Lonzo has more game than FVV. The question then boils down to....
Is he a fit for the Pelicans?
If not, do we roll the dice...match...and attempt a sign and trade?
It will be an interesting story to follow this summer.
The Spurs could be lined up to play Jazz, Jazz, Jazz, Nets Net, Nets and I still wouldn't be confident this team will make the play-in.
So the win tonight sucks from that standpoint. Zion might be nicked and will continue to play. BI is definitely nicked and might continue to play.
Last thing this team needs is a very late season Quincy Pondexter serious injury chasing this nonsense.
Oh well.
Last edited by luckyman; 05-04-2021 at 10:24 PM.
Oh no, I absolutely agree.
We're doing this really annoying thing (that we've done in seasons before this one, as well) where we make a late push that gets us just far enough to hurt our draft pick badly without actually quite making the playoffs (or the play in, in this case).
It's extremely annoying. If you're going to make the playoffs, make the playoffs. If you're not, don't, and get the max value from your pick. Don't do this annoying ''we're a 12th seed all year but right at the end we'll ruin our draft pick to no actual tangible benefit'' nonsense.
Pelicans are 30-36 with 6 games to play.
— Andrew Lopez (@_Andrew_Lopez) May 5, 2021
Spurs are 31-33 with 8 games to go.
Spurs own the tiebreaker - so they are really 3 games up on NOLA.
If Spurs go 3-5, Pels have to go 5-1 to grab the 10th spot.
Pels have a 5-game road trip then finish the year at home vs Lakers.
numbers corrected in this tweet
Spurs will go 1-7 in the last 8.
Pels need to go 3-3.
Spurs
Wed, May 5 @ Utah
Fri, May 7 @ Sacramento
Sat, May 8 @ Portland
Mon, May 10 vs Milwaukee
Wed, May 12 @ Brooklyn
Thu, May 13 @ New York
Sat, May 15 vs Phoenix
Sun, May 16 vs Phoenix
Pels
Fri, May 7 @ Philadelphia
Sun, May 9 @ Charlotte
Mon, May 10 @ Memphis
Wed, May 12 @ Dallas
Fri, May 14 @ Golden State
Sun, May 16 vs LA Lakers
AUS dates
Last edited by AUSSIE_PELICAN; 05-04-2021 at 10:40 PM.
1-7 is a bit optimistic, don't you think? Wouldn't be a shock if they managed to pip Portland and Sacramento both (Sacramento are bad this year and Portland hasn't been great, they've suffered losses to Memphis (twice) and Charlotte in the last two weeks. At that point we need to go 4-2, and with our schedule plus us being on the road, that's it for us.
Basically as long as the Spurs don't absolutely collapse, they're making the play-ins and we aren't. Yes, they play better teams than us but we're playing almost all of ours on the road (and we suck on the road) and it's not like our schedule is a cakewalk either, given that we play Philly, Lakers, Dallas, and Golden State again.
What’s the word on the injuries to Adams and BI? I assume BI was pulled in the second half because of injury?
Ehhhhh... I think I air my frustration with that about every year. I'm glad that I already got it off my chest. Short sighted organization issues,, I suppose.
Still don't understand what a play-in berth even accomplishes besides being embarrassed. It doesn't establish a winning culture. I hardly call getting swept valuable experience. It doesn't make players better. I don't see the point of making it extremely difficult to improve a very mediocre team that needs to be a contender in like 4 years. But watch us suck in a stupid weak draft, but be big head stubborn this year in what could be a high tier class.
I did not mind it last year, but I'm a bit ticked off this year. Especially, the guard situation not presenting any answers.
It's a difficult situation because on the one hand, from a fan's outside perspective, it seems so straightforward. Obviously for the actual team it's not that simple. Coaches aren't actively trying to lose, players only control so much, GMs can't magic up trades that don't exist, and even if you do suck all year that's no guarantee of a top 3 pick anymore. So I get that on paper it's not as easy to control as the fan's exasperation would hope.
But it does seem like our path this year has, in a way, almost actively sabotaged the future of the team Either we're building for the future, in which case having a subpar roster this year and using the Jrue trade to gather assets is fine but in that situation we should be aiming for a high pick. Or we're not building from the future and we're really trying to win now, in which case all the auxiliary moves we've made or off and the roster is clearly fatally flawed.
That's the problem with trying to rebuild while staying good. It's very very easy, when trying to play both sides, to just lose on both fronts.
Yeah there are no excuses. Stan said it best- ?They asked me how many fouls Zion has on him, and I said really guys? Does that really matter?? They have a quota and for some reason it?s less than others when in reality Zion is probably fouled as much as anyone in the league. I?m not saying they should go nuclear and give him 20 a game, but he should be at the top of the list with those mentioned. It?s embarrassing and speaks poorly of the officiating in the NBA.
And BI gets hacked a lot too for that matter
I saw this posted in another forum and thought it was interesting:
It’s different with Williamson, who doesn’t plant his flag on the block like O’Neal did. Instead, often moonlighting as a point guard, he’ll either drive the ball from the perimeter or catch a pass 15 feet out and then rumble in from there. By the time he reaches the basket, more than one defender will in all likelihood have had a chance to slow him down, complicating what officials have to deal with before a point of contact is made.
That uncanny combination of size and speed impacts the anticipatory decisions officials normally make. The three basic elements of refereeing are location adjustment, position adjustment and vision adjustment. There’s a lead official (somewhere along the baseline, ideally on the strong side), a slot official (free throw extended, near the sideline), and a trailer. Possessions involving Zion tweak their individual responsibilities a bit and force all three to focus on spots they otherwise don’t.
“When [the Pelicans] swing it back to the weak side, and Zion puts it down going to the basket, the lead doesn't have a chance to get there,” Vaden says. “And the slot is basically trying to referee that play by himself—with help, but there's a lot more pressure on [them] that way.”
In these spots, the lead official often has no choice but to observe from the opposite side of the lane, which isn’t preferable. Even still, referees don’t stare at Williamson so much as they focus on different defenders who appear on his path to the rim.
...“When he dunks the ball, you or I can reach out and hit him as hard as we want to, he's not even gonna feel it. He's going to be able to finish with power. And from a referee standpoint, they're trying to get their eyes to the point of contact, but he goes through it so powerful that you can't tell if he's hit or not,” Vaden says. “Most of the time, you're not gonna see it until you go to replay or go to the film session later and look at it in slow motion to see if there is actually contact or not.”
ETA: it was from an interview with a former ref.
Not sure that I buy it, but I thought this take was interesting. So what do you think? Is Zion attacking the basket so fast and so powerfully that the refs can't tell if he's being fouled?
ETA again: It also makes me think that the refs have gotten so conditioned to the over exagerated reaction that certain other basketball stars make, that they start to rely on it to decide if a foul occurred. Zion's lack of overexagerated reaction to contact is probably hurting him.
Last edited by Freyfamilyreuni; 05-05-2021 at 12:05 PM.
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