Men's Basketball NBA 2022 - 2023

[owenp_23 564]

The Denver Nuggets win the NBA Finals!

[nenad 443]

  On 6/13/2023 at 3:03 AM, Monzanator said:

Denver Nuggets are NBA champions for the first time in history. 4-1 series over Miami Heat. Totally deserved and also shut down all the negative media narrative. 

 

Nikola Jokic has moved himself over Luka Doncic as the best European player right now?

Expand  

 

Jokić is at the moment the best player in the world, this year and this playoff run cements that. Giannis is a close second. Embiid, Curry and Durant are probably other players in top 5. 

[thepharoah 2,405]

[thepharoah 2,405]

 

Appreciation Post for Serbia 

[ChandlerMne 1,090]

  On 6/13/2023 at 11:49 AM, nenad said:

 

Jokić is at the moment the best player in the world, this year and this playoff run cements that. Giannis is a close second. Embiid, Curry and Durant are probably other players in top 5. 

Expand  

Even though Luka is great player, Nikola is way ahead of him. He is out of this dimension. Nikola isnt interested in numbers, but i am certain that he could achieve even higher numbers than now.

[owenp_23 564]

The NBA finally brought the hammer down on Ja Morant, suspending the Grizzliesʻ franchise player for 25 games after a second video was released of him showing a gun.

[Monzanator 4,610]

  On 6/13/2023 at 1:55 PM, ChandlerMne said:

Even though Luka is great player, Nikola is way ahead of him. He is out of this dimension. Nikola isnt interested in numbers, but i am certain that he could achieve even higher numbers than now.

Expand  

It's also part of a bigger picture IMO. With every team seemingly playing the 3pt small ball these days, a team that actually fields an old school center as #1 player can have a clear advantage. There are some good defenders left but most teams apply the "we can outscore then rather than stop them" logic. It's clearly the case with Mavericks. We'll see if more teams will try to copy the Nuggets concept but the center basically has to play like a few inches taller Larry Bird (which Jokic does IMO) to find such success...

[nenad 443]

I wouldn't call Jokić an old school center because he does the thing old school centers did, but also much more than that. We never saw a player at that position with those kind of passes and court vision who can also start a fastbreak of rebound, push the ball and also play on the low post to score when his team need it. I mean he can play on low post, on high post, he can shoot, he can pass, his conditioning has gotten to a point where he can play regularly 40+mins. He's not top notch defender but he's big and has quick hands. My point being Jokićs won't grow on threes in the future but the game has involved in some sort of positionless basketball and I agree with the notion of few inches taller Larry Birds dominating. Look no further than Wembenyama who's going to be the next big thing for the NBA. 

 

Also, while I'm at it, this USA team for World Cup has a lucky draw because Canada and Brazil are in the same part of the bracket essentialy so it will be next to impossible to both those team reach QF. Without that luck USA would be in serious jeopardy of missing the Olympics. But it's not like they care. 

[Monzanator 4,610]

Well, US media have speculated already some teams will overpay a few centers now and try to find a poor man's Jokić for lack of better word. And we'll see if scouting European leagues becomes trendy again now that more & more March Madness "one & done" heroes just don't hit out of the gate anymore.