NBA Thread 2022-23 Season | Page 165 | Syracusefan.com

NBA Thread 2022-23 Season

Hopefully Wemby likes BIG ole' women

charles barkley eating GIF by NBA on TNT
 
There was a legit argument to be made that Carmelo deserved ROY in 2004. He averaged more points (barely) and rebounds than Lebron. Shot better from the field, from 3 and from the line. Similar steal and block numbers. Lebron doubled him up on assists, but Melo led a team that won 17 games the prior season to 43 wins and the 8th seed in a loaded Western Conference while the Cavs won 35 games and finished 9th in a super weak East (literally half of the playoff teams were .500 or below). Now that I've typed that all out, I DEMAND A RE-VOTE!

They did have pretty similar numbers as rookies, Melo was ever so slightly more efficient (50.9 true shooting with a 12.7% TO on 28.5% usage vs 48.8 with 13.9% TO on 28.2% usage)

The one thing I will say about Denver improving, and I know because I've looked this up before, is that Denver really turned over their team from 03 to 04. Here are the top 8 players in minutes on the 2003 team that was horrible

1) Juwan Howard
2) Nene
3) Junior Harrington
4) Donnell Harvey
5) Rodney White
6) Vincent Yarborough
7) Nikoloz Tskitishvili
8) Ryan Bowen

I promise you I didn't make up even one of those names. Here are the top 8 in minutes in 2004
1) Melo (duh)
2) Andre Miller
3) Nene
4) Voshon Leonard
5) Marcus Camby
6) Earl Boykins
7) Jon Barry
8) Chris Andersen

The only guy in the top 8 in minutes from the 03 team who was on the 04 team was Nene, who was a 20 year old rookie in 2003. My point being was they almost totally overhauled their roster in addition to adding Melo, which helped them go from 17 to 43 wins.

Here is the top 8 in minutes for the Cavs in 04
1) Lebron
2) Carlos Boozer
3) Big Z
4) Kevin Ollie (gross)
5) Eric Williams
6) Ira Newble
7) Jeff McInnis
8) Tony Battie

That cavs team improved by 17 to 35 wins, granted there are some differences in the strengths of the two conferences, but the rosters after Bron/Melo in 2004 werent even a contest.

For whatever this is worth (meh, I don't know how much stock I am putting into it), the Cavs were -2.6 per 100 with Lebron in 04 and -4.7 per 100 when he was out while the Nuggets were +.8 when Melo played and actually a little better at +1.6 when he sat.


This is all a long way of me saying I do think there's a reasonable case either way in 03 but I would've voted for Lebron

 
I agree he's an incredible prospect, I think in the one and doneish era it's between him and Lebron for the top spot. But I would be pretty surprised if he were an all star as a rookie. There will probably be some growing pains.

I was looking at Lebron, I forgot he averaged 27-7-7 in his second year in the league. Even more impressive than it seems because pace was about 10% lower that year than now, you're probably talking closer to 29-8-8 as a 20 year old in todays environment

Luka, Lebron AD; all these guys were AS in year 2. So I will stand by what I said above, I would be pretty surprised if Wemby was an AS in year 1 (especially since the team is still gonna be really bad in all likelihood) but I will be less surprised than I was 2 paragraphs ago
I'm not saying it's probable, but if he made it to the All Star game as a rookie I really wouldn't be surprised. He led the French league in points, rebounds, and blocks this year as a teenager (and in the case of blocks, had nearly twice as many as the #2 guy lol). I know there are NBA scouts out there that legitimately think he'll be a star from Day 1.

Edit: To further put things in perspective, Wemby's team attempted 61.6 shots per game this past season. The Spurs attempted 92.6 per game this year. If we assume Wemby will be San Antonio's #1 option (which, barring a trade, feels pretty likely), let's assume he takes 18-19 FGA per game (which is what their leading scorer did this past season). With the rate that Wemby was scoring in France, you'd expect him to land around 24-26 points per game. With the way teams funnel their rebounds nowadays, it feels like maybe a > 50% chance that he's putting up 20/10 per game as a rookie.

Just for fun, if we assume Wemby's usage and scoring efficiency carried over perfectly to San Antonio's FGA per game, you'd project Wemby to average 32.3 PPG and 12.1 RPG as a rookie lol
 
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They did have pretty similar numbers as rookies, Melo was ever so slightly more efficient (50.9 true shooting with a 12.7% TO on 28.5% usage vs 48.8 with 13.9% TO on 28.2% usage)

The one thing I will say about Denver improving, and I know because I've looked this up before, is that Denver really turned over their team from 03 to 04. Here are the top 8 players in minutes on the 2003 team that was horrible

1) Juwan Howard
2) Nene
3) Junior Harrington
4) Donnell Harvey
5) Rodney White
6) Vincent Yarborough
7) Nikoloz Tskitishvili
8) Ryan Bowen

I promise you I didn't make up even one of those names. Here are the top 8 in minutes in 2004
1) Melo (duh)
2) Andre Miller
3) Nene
4) Voshon Leonard
5) Marcus Camby
6) Earl Boykins
7) Jon Barry
8) Chris Andersen

The only guy in the top 8 in minutes from the 03 team who was on the 04 team was Nene, who was a 20 year old rookie in 2003. My point being was they almost totally overhauled their roster in addition to adding Melo, which helped them go from 17 to 43 wins.

Here is the top 8 in minutes for the Cavs in 04
1) Lebron
2) Carlos Boozer
3) Big Z
4) Kevin Ollie (gross)
5) Eric Williams
6) Ira Newble
7) Jeff McInnis
8) Tony Battie

That cavs team improved by 17 to 35 wins, granted there are some differences in the strengths of the two conferences, but the rosters after Bron/Melo in 2004 werent even a contest.

For whatever this is worth (meh, I don't know how much stock I am putting into it), the Cavs were -2.6 per 100 with Lebron in 04 and -4.7 per 100 when he was out while the Nuggets were +.8 when Melo played and actually a little better at +1.6 when he sat.


This is all a long way of me saying I do think there's a reasonable case either way in 03 but I would've voted for Lebron


The Nuggets may have had an overhaul from 02/03 to 03/04 but that was still a pretty blah roster. Melo, Andre Miller and a bunch of role players/NBA journeymen. Big Z was an all-star the prior season and Boozer was developing into an all-star talent.

26 win improvement year over year in the West at that time is far more impressive than a 17 win improvement in the East. Per this, the Nuggets had the 7th toughest SOS that year. The Cavs had the 5th easiest. I think when everything else was fairly equal, that should have carried more weight than it appears it did. I'm sure there were plenty of voters that crowned Lebron ROY before the season started, and their vote wasn't going to be swayed.
 
The Nuggets may have had an overhaul from 02/03 to 03/04 but that was still a pretty blah roster. Melo, Andre Miller and a bunch of role players/NBA journeymen. Big Z was an all-star the prior season and Boozer was developing into an all-star talent.

26 win improvement year over year in the West at that time is far more impressive than a 17 win improvement in the East. Per this, the Nuggets had the 7th toughest SOS that year. The Cavs had the 5th easiest. I think when everything else was fairly equal, that should have carried more weight than it appears it did. I'm sure there were plenty of voters that crowned Lebron ROY before the season started, and their vote wasn't going to be swayed.

I am sure this was a factor. Like I said, it seems reasonably close, and it probably ended up being a tie goes to the assumed pre season winner deal

Again though, the Nuggets outscored opponents without Melo on the floor, and in fact played better without him on the floor. (This is not evidence that he hurt them or they were better off without him, this is evidence the rest of the roster was decent and better than what was in Cleveland)

The Knicks have been out of the playoffs for less than a week and I'm relitigating the 2003 ROY vote. Things are going well
 
I'm not saying it's probable, but if he made it to the All Star game as a rookie I really wouldn't be surprised. He led the French league in points, rebounds, and blocks this year as a teenager (and in the case of blocks, had nearly twice as many as the #2 guy lol). I know there are NBA scouts out there that legitimately think he'll be a star from Day 1.

Edit: To further put things in perspective, Wemby's team attempted 61.6 shots per game this past season. The Spurs attempted 92.6 per game this year. If we assume Wemby will be San Antonio's #1 option (which, barring a trade, feels pretty likely), let's assume he takes 18-19 FGA per game (which is what their leading scorer did this past season). With the rate that Wemby was scoring in France, you'd expect him to land around 24-26 points per game. With the way teams funnel their rebounds nowadays, it feels like maybe a > 50% chance that he's putting up 20/10 per game as a rookie.

Just for fun, if we assume Wemby's usage and scoring efficiency carried over perfectly to San Antonio's FGA per game, you'd project Wemby to average 32.3 PPG and 12.1 RPG as a rookie lol

Yeah I looked at a bunch of stat lines that some of the more hyped prospects put up; 20/10 doesn't seem out of play at all. There have been 10 rookies to average 20 points a game since 2000: Blake Griffin, Zion, Luka, Melo, Lebron, Mitchell, Durant, Embiid, Tyreke Evans, and Paolo. If I was to guess a statline I would say something like 19-11-2.5 blocks a game. Hold me to this. I insist!

Blake actually did make the AS game as a rookie. Most of the other highly touted prospects almost all universally made it in their second year, which I found interesting. Almost like clockwork. Luka, Zion, Lebron, AD. took KD 2 years but he wasnt even a top pick. Slacker.
 
I am sure this was a factor. Like I said, it seems reasonably close, and it probably ended up being a tie goes to the assumed pre season winner deal

Again though, the Nuggets outscored opponents without Melo on the floor, and in fact played better without him on the floor. (This is not evidence that he hurt them or they were better off without him, this is evidence the rest of the roster was decent and better than what was in Cleveland)

The Knicks have been out of the playoffs for less than a week and I'm relitigating the 2003 ROY vote. Things are going well

Meh, it's more interesting to me than speculating what the Knicks are going to do about Randle.
 
have to wonder if Wemby can stay healthy long term but if anyone can manage him effectively it will be Pop.

I mean a 7-5 guy who plays like a wing what could possibly go wrong?
 
Meh, it's more interesting to me than speculating what the Knicks are going to do about Randle.

I've already created a few fake trades. I have him and Mitch and some firsts for Embiid and I'm working on something with Randle and Paul George.
 
Like Round 1, the Celtics are playing down to an inferior opponent. Their defense has also been porous as hell. Need Horford to wake up.
 
Vintage Celtics defense. Miami at 58% from the field, 53% from beyond the arc
 
Not great. Why is Pritchard playing? Watched the first half from the bar.
 
lol...45 points surrendered in 3Q to the offensive juggernaut that is the Miami Heat.

Unserious, soft team.

The entire 4th quarter will be Butler hunting fouls, and shooting FTs.
 

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