A brawl on the floor between the Timberwolves and Magic ended up with five players ejected. Mo Bamba and Austin Rivers got into it when Bamba came off the bench and threw a punch, and the rest of them jumped in. Hate to see that shit going on.
On the other hand, the Nets just got a couple of pretty good players for him plus draft picks they can package for more talent. He’s the Mavs’ headache now.
The Raptors look like they will lose to Memphis, three minutes into the first quarter.
Irving to the Mavericks, apparently.
I find this mystifying; I cannot imagine why anyone would want Irving. 99% of the time I don’t believe news stories about a guy being a locker room distraction but in Irving’s case, I’ll make an exception.
As to the Raptors, it’s a lost season, a shocking disappointment - maybe the most disappointing regular season in team history - and massive changes will happen. I’ll be very surprised if Fred Van Vleet and OG Anunoby are still here at season’s end.
Raptors came back to win. And for the first time in franchise history they had a winning record (4-3) in a seven game road trip.
Their next five games are at home. They will make the playoffs, probably, though are a game back of the running presently. But they have stunk on the road, and need to be more consistent. They can’t be down nearly ten points in the first few minutes, as happened last game too.
Wolves won in a walk over Denver, who had their stars benched for a rest. Their coach was whining about them having to play two games in 22 hours, plus a plane ride. He’s right about the schedules, but it’s a bit insulting to play your bench against the other team’s starters.
As you said in the MLB thread:
It’s in Irving’s best interests to avoid upheaval for the rest of the season, in hopes of getting a long-term no-strings-attached max contract. Bizarre behavior and absences will probably manifest after that point, fulfilling his obsessive need for attention. So the Mavs’ window for winning it all, unlikely as that seems, is 2023.
I don’t follow the NBA, but I’m surprised no-one has mentioned LeBron beating Kareem’s all-time official point-scoring record last night. As with most records of this kind, it’s a testament to longevity as much as greatness - but I note from the table in this BBC article that his points per game is significantly ahead of most others, including Kareem. The exceptions of course being Michael and Wilt. And if you go by points per minute, Michael beats Wilt hands down.
I just watched the clip on youtube. Yikes, did they pause the game to make a presentation out of this or was the majority of the presentation after the game? The edit on Youtube made it look like they paused the actual game to have Kareem and so forth come out.
It…had to be after the game, right?
Has anyone ever calculated if any players would be close to Lebron if they had played in the three-point-shot era? Kareem must have been unaffected since he didn’t shoot from that far.
I believe Pete Marivich, at least in college, would have been even more impressive had he had a 3-point shot option. But his NBA career was not long enough or injury-free enough that he could have scored as much as Lebron even with a 3-pointer, which was added his final season only.
Edit: Here is Kareem’s only 3-pointer in his career. He missed…barely any since he never did this:
I don’t know the answer to that question, but Zach Kram touches on it in these two Ringer pieces:
The BBC article strongly implies it interrupted the game. Would never happen in Europe! I see it as a very American acknowledgement that sport is just another form of theatre. Can’t stand it myself but that’s just me, I don’t think it’s objectively bad. It did have the advantage of being a proper climax - had they waited until after the game, it would have been in the context of a Lakers loss.
To punt it bluntly. LeBron’s new record means absolutely nothing to me. Teams are commonly scoring 130 to 150 points a game now. It’s a run-and-gun, defense-is-a-joke league that resembles playground ball as much as it resembles organized basketball.
His career shooting percentage is basically 50% which, although solid, is nothing remarkable. He just shoots and shoots, and he’s done it in the NBA since he was 18 years old. Unlike Jordan, his other major talent isn’t defense, it appears to be the art of flopping.
Yes they paused the game. Commissioner Skelator and Kareem came out along with family and various flunkies to congratulate him. The best part was the Thunder having no part of this “joyous” occasion and beating the Lakers.
ps, I like James, intelligent and active in current affairs outside of the kid’s game.
I, too, have zero problems with LeBron. He came into the league with unbelievable hype and he delivered. As with Russell, Kareem, Magic, and Michael, King James was/is a winning machine, regardless of whether you liked his career management or how much others talked about him.
I still think MJ is the greatest, even though many of us forget that MJ made some odd career management decisions too and, speaking of hype, you couldn’t go an entire decade without hearing of or from MJ at least once a day.
I would still list Michael Jordan as the greatest of all time as well, though I do see a case for Lebron James, I guess. It just felt like while Larry Bird and Magic Johnson began elevating the game to a new level, Jordan absolutely launched it into the stratosphere.
Lol, I didn’t think about the fact that there were two MJ’s on my list - to clarify, I mean Jordan.
As great as Magic was, it never occurred to me to confuse him with Jordan.
Greatest of all time is basically down to Michael Jordan, Lebron James…maybe Kobe? Is there any other real contender? Michael, Magic, Larry, and the other “showtime” guys really made the game so much better, it’s hard to consider anyone before them as superior to today’s players.
No, I know you understood to whom I was referring, I just made the correction for the casual reader.
Meanwhile, Durant to Phoenix?
You really have to break it down into eras, that is true. But I don’t mind arguments for Kareem or Russell, given the proper caveats.