Game Day: Warriors (64-14) @ Suns (22-56), Wed 4/5/17

[Ring_Wanted]

Have you guys seen this site? http://www.tankathon.com/

No, but on my first lottery sim, the Phoenix Suns got the number one overall pick!

That web has been going strong since the '14 draft, when 'tanking for Wiggins' was all the rage. Tidy and gives you exactly what you are looking for if you are visiting it.

[Shabazz]

There's no excuse to play Bender 11 minutes when there are only 4 games left in the season. I don't care how badly he's playing.

[carey]

There's no excuse to play Bender 11 minutes when there are only 4 games left in the season. I don't care how badly he's playing.

He is on a minutes restriction I thought?

Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk

[djy2j]

I watched the 1st and 4th quarters. Looked like 2 different games. I really only set the DVR because it was the Warriors and I figured Curry would put on a show, which he did.

The best thing that happened to the Suns happened in San Antonio with the LAkers winning.

I really just watched part of this one to see what Curry would do. The Suns are doing what they need to do, which is lose. Hard mentality to embrace for me. So I really don't watch much lately. I'm happy for the young guys who are shining. I do not want to do this again next year however. No more tanking after this please.

[ShelC]

Have we witnessed any progress with Watson's coaching?

[In2ition]

Williams was great on the boards tonight and inside. Booker didn't shoot well tonight, just a lot of shots that were in and out or just didn't fall. He did have 5 assists, 3 steals and only 2 turnovers. Warren was practically invisible tonight. He would be a much better weapon if he could build some range on his shot and improve his rebounding. Jones was flying around tonight, and I would love to see him improve his outside shot and range.

Booker also played very good defense on Thompson.

You're right, he should be given the credit for locking Thompson down for the most part last night, which kept them in the game. He even stole the ball from him a few times, one where the ref was in the way and immediately forced a collision and turnover from Booker.

[In2ition]

Have we witnessed any progress with Watson's coaching?

Probably not. Might be a situation like the Warriors where they make a leap the next two years and then have to change coaches to get over the top.

[Split T]

And the Lakers managed to beat the Spurs in San Antonio tonight.

Pops saw the 1stQ and gave up the game. Part of me thinks he has lost the game on purpose to screw the Lakers. If the Lakers lose their pick this year it could be huge for the West going forward and he knows it.

The lakers were clearly trying to lose. They rested a healthy Russell(what are they resting him for?) Ingram, who was playing well, was benched for the 2nd half. Why? Clarkson, randle, and nance were all benched for the fourth quarter. The lakers played Tyler Ennis, David Nwaba, Corey Brewer/Metta World Peace, Thomas Robinson and Tarik Black for the fourth quarter in a close game.

Pop benched kawhi and Aldridge for the 2nd half. Then pulled mills and Parker for the 4th.

http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2017/4/6/15 ... oo&ref=yfp

[Hermen]

This tanking is so much worse than when good teams rest a few players. I'm disappointed that something like the wheel was not implemented instead of the lottery. Losing, like intentional fouling, should be something that is always bad for the team.

[Split T]

This tanking is so much worse than when good teams rest a few players. I'm disappointed that something like the wheel was not implemented instead of the lottery. Losing, like intentional fouling, should be something that is always bad for the team.

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/1907 ... -game-rule

Interesting article to avoid end game fouling.


Also, I hate tanking too. Here's my idea, it combines the wheel with a more traditional method. Each year, your division has a predetermined set of picks(1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20, 21-25, or 26-30) Then I'd take each teams record over the previous 3 years and the worst team gets the highest pick in their set. I think it'd eliminate tanking and still give bad teams a slight advantage in the draft.

[Split T]

Here's another crazy idea that could be interesting. We add two western teams to get to 32(Seattle and Vegas), create 4 8 team divisions. Play a 76 game schedule( 4 each against division opponents, 2 against non division opponents). We then have a 24 team tournament to get into the playoffs. The 4 division winners are guaranteed spots and the last place team in each division is already eliminated. Rank the remaining teams by record and 1 seed plays 24 seed for a spot and so on. The catch is the 24 seed plays on the road and has to win twice, while the 1 seed gets two chances to win 1 game at home. Once you get to 9 vs 16 I'd consider making it a winner takes all game on the higher seeds home court.

Once the 16 teams are decided, I would reseed based on regular season record without regard for division(except 4 division winners get seeds 1-4) then continue playoffs as we normally do.

Divisions could be (Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, Golden State, LAL, LAC, Vegas, Phoenix) (Utah, Denver, OKC, San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, Memphis, New Orleans) (Minnesota, Milwaukee, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Indiana, Toronto, Philly) (Miami, Orlando, Charlotte, Atlanta, Washington, New York, Brooklyn, Boston)

[Superbone]

Have we witnessed any progress with Watson's coaching?

I have. They are moving the ball much better now and putting themselves in a better position to score. It also seems like the defense is improving little by little. A lot of it seems to do with the personel on the floor. Bledsoe is just too much of a ball stopper and not a natural point gaurd. Ulis is running the team much better and is a much better passer.

One of the biggest issues I see is youth related and how they have an issue digging a hole to start a game. I think that will get better with experience. I'm quite looking forward to seeing the growth of the team next year. I think they are all growing together including the coach. The thing I like most about Watson's coaching is that he has the guys playing hard and for each other with a never give up spirit. I'm hoping he can take the next step and start refining his in-game strategy and adjustments going forward.

[Hermen]

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/1907 ... -game-rule

Interesting article to avoid end game fouling.


Also, I hate tanking too. Here's my idea, it combines the wheel with a more traditional method. Each year, your division has a predetermined set of picks(1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20, 21-25, or 26-30) Then I'd take each teams record over the previous 3 years and the worst team gets the highest pick in their set. I think it'd eliminate tanking and still give bad teams a slight advantage in the draft.

I saw that article. I don't mind the idea but the league might not want to make a change so big. I believe a simpler solution would suffice: when a team is in the bonus and a non-shooting foul is called, the reward is a single free throw and they keep the ball. Shooting fouls still give you 2-3 free throws as normal. I might be missing something, but I see no downside to it.

As for the anti-tanking idea - it's a double edged sword. While it makes it harder to get a good pick with one bad year, one tanking season improves your pick for three years. Predetermined ranges make the improvement less significant in some years, but the bad season helps anyway. And every other season a few bad teams in the 1-5 division would decide it's time for them to see what d-league players can do I prefer the wheel system, which doesn't reward bad teams in any way. It would also make trading picks easier, none of this protection BS.

[Split T]

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/1907 ... -game-rule

Interesting article to avoid end game fouling.


Also, I hate tanking too. Here's my idea, it combines the wheel with a more traditional method. Each year, your division has a predetermined set of picks(1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20, 21-25, or 26-30) Then I'd take each teams record over the previous 3 years and the worst team gets the highest pick in their set. I think it'd eliminate tanking and still give bad teams a slight advantage in the draft.

I saw that article. I don't mind the idea but the league might not want to make a change so big. I believe a simpler solution would suffice: when a team is in the bonus and a non-shooting foul is called, the reward is a single free throw and they keep the ball. Shooting fouls still give you 2-3 free throws as normal. I might be missing something, but I see no downside to it.

As for the anti-tanking idea - it's a double edged sword. While it makes it harder to get a good pick with one bad year, one tanking season improves your pick for three years. Predetermined ranges make the improvement less significant in some years, but the bad season helps anyway. And every other season a few bad teams in the 1-5 division would decide it's time for them to see what d-league players can do I prefer the wheel system, which doesn't reward bad teams in any way. It would also make trading picks easier, none of this protection BS.

I think it takes away a lot of the incentive to tank though. The suns and lakers would be fighting over who gets the 1st pick(assuming the pacific division had the 1-5 group) but the loser gets the 2nd pick, not sure moving from 2 to 1 is worth the blatant losing that we see now. Sure, I guess in years where Lebron level talents are available, but that's once every ten years.

I agree about the fouling though. I'd prefer to just let the team that was fouled have the option of passing on free throws to take the ball out of bounds. I think we'd also have to eliminate the whole call a timeout to advance the ball to the front court though. Being able to trap the defense in the backcourt for 8 second violations would be crucial to comebacks.

[Cap]

The purpose of intentional fouling is to keep the offense from dribbling out the shot clock. The way to eliminate the reward is to give the fouled team the option of forgoing the free throws, dribbling out the shot clock and accepting the 24-second violation. (If the shot clock is off and the offense has the lead, this means a shooting foul would end the game.) With that change, the only way for the D to get the ball back before the shot clock expires is to find a way to force a turnover without fouling.

I'm not convinced that the game-extending intentional fouls are such a detriment to the game that we need a radical rule change to eliminate them, but if you want to eliminate the reward for the practice, that's the simplest and most direct way to do it.

[In2ition]

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/1907 ... -game-rule

Interesting article to avoid end game fouling.


Also, I hate tanking too. Here's my idea, it combines the wheel with a more traditional method. Each year, your division has a predetermined set of picks(1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20, 21-25, or 26-30) Then I'd take each teams record over the previous 3 years and the worst team gets the highest pick in their set. I think it'd eliminate tanking and still give bad teams a slight advantage in the draft.

I saw that article. I don't mind the idea but the league might not want to make a change so big. I believe a simpler solution would suffice: when a team is in the bonus and a non-shooting foul is called, the reward is a single free throw and they keep the ball. Shooting fouls still give you 2-3 free throws as normal. I might be missing something, but I see no downside to it.

As for the anti-tanking idea - it's a double edged sword. While it makes it harder to get a good pick with one bad year, one tanking season improves your pick for three years. Predetermined ranges make the improvement less significant in some years, but the bad season helps anyway. And every other season a few bad teams in the 1-5 division would decide it's time for them to see what d-league players can do I prefer the wheel system, which doesn't reward bad teams in any way. It would also make trading picks easier, none of this protection BS.

I think it takes away a lot of the incentive to tank though. The suns and lakers would be fighting over who gets the 1st pick(assuming the pacific division had the 1-5 group) but the loser gets the 2nd pick, not sure moving from 2 to 1 is worth the blatant losing that we see now. Sure, I guess in years where Lebron level talents are available, but that's once every ten years.

I agree about the fouling though. I'd prefer to just let the team that was fouled have the option of passing on free throws to take the ball out of bounds. I think we'd also have to eliminate the whole call a timeout to advance the ball to the front court though. Being able to trap the defense in the backcourt for 8 second violations would be crucial to comebacks.

Moving from 2 to 1 by blatantly losing isn't normally a great idea with one outstanding pick, but I think it's the best way to go when you have 3 great picks and then a bit of a drop off like this year. Almost as important as getting better chances at the first pick is eliminating falling past the 4th pick and having a much greater chance at staying in the top 3 this year. At least that's my opinion, for what's it's worth.

In 2 years there should be 1 and maybe 2 transcendent talents available, then you just hope it falls your way without making sure you are the very worst.

[Hermen]

I agree about the fouling though. I'd prefer to just let the team that was fouled have the option of passing on free throws to take the ball out of bounds. I think we'd also have to eliminate the whole call a timeout to advance the ball to the front court though. Being able to trap the defense in the backcourt for 8 second violations would be crucial to comebacks.

Yeah, that rule hits a nerve in me. I mean, why change the rules for the last two minutes? Are they more important than the other 46? Just a horrible rule IMO. And there's also way too many timeouts in general, a timeout should not be allowed if one was already called in the last minute or two.

[Hermen]

The purpose of intentional fouling is to keep the offense from dribbling out the shot clock. The way to eliminate the reward is to give the fouled team the option of forgoing the free throws, dribbling out the shot clock and accepting the 24-second violation. (If the shot clock is off and the offense has the lead, this means a shooting foul would end the game.) With that change, the only way for the D to get the ball back before the shot clock expires is to find a way to force a turnover without fouling.

I'm not convinced that the game-extending intentional fouls are such a detriment to the game that we need a radical rule change to eliminate them, but if you want to eliminate the reward for the practice, that's the simplest and most direct way to do it.

I don't really think my proposal is a radical change and I don't even mind the fouls all that much. But like I said I just don't think a foul should ever be considered a good play for a team.

[Split T]

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/1907 ... -game-rule

Interesting article to avoid end game fouling.


Also, I hate tanking too. Here's my idea, it combines the wheel with a more traditional method. Each year, your division has a predetermined set of picks(1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20, 21-25, or 26-30) Then I'd take each teams record over the previous 3 years and the worst team gets the highest pick in their set. I think it'd eliminate tanking and still give bad teams a slight advantage in the draft.

I saw that article. I don't mind the idea but the league might not want to make a change so big. I believe a simpler solution would suffice: when a team is in the bonus and a non-shooting foul is called, the reward is a single free throw and they keep the ball. Shooting fouls still give you 2-3 free throws as normal. I might be missing something, but I see no downside to it.

As for the anti-tanking idea - it's a double edged sword. While it makes it harder to get a good pick with one bad year, one tanking season improves your pick for three years. Predetermined ranges make the improvement less significant in some years, but the bad season helps anyway. And every other season a few bad teams in the 1-5 division would decide it's time for them to see what d-league players can do I prefer the wheel system, which doesn't reward bad teams in any way. It would also make trading picks easier, none of this protection BS.

I think it takes away a lot of the incentive to tank though. The suns and lakers would be fighting over who gets the 1st pick(assuming the pacific division had the 1-5 group) but the loser gets the 2nd pick, not sure moving from 2 to 1 is worth the blatant losing that we see now. Sure, I guess in years where Lebron level talents are available, but that's once every ten years.

I agree about the fouling though. I'd prefer to just let the team that was fouled have the option of passing on free throws to take the ball out of bounds. I think we'd also have to eliminate the whole call a timeout to advance the ball to the front court though. Being able to trap the defense in the backcourt for 8 second violations would be crucial to comebacks.

Moving from 2 to 1 by blatantly losing isn't normally a great idea with one outstanding pick, but I think it's the best way to go when you have 3 great picks and then a bit of a drop off like this year. Almost as important as getting better chances at the first pick is eliminating falling past the 4th pick and having a much greater chance at staying in the top 3 this year. At least that's my opinion, for what's it's worth.

In 2 years there should be 1 and maybe 2 transcendent talents available, then you just hope it falls your way without making sure you are the very worst.

I agree if we're talking about the current lottery rules. My comment was in regards to a hypothetical draft scenario without lottery balls.

[In2ition]

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/1907 ... -game-rule

Interesting article to avoid end game fouling.


Also, I hate tanking too. Here's my idea, it combines the wheel with a more traditional method. Each year, your division has a predetermined set of picks(1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20, 21-25, or 26-30) Then I'd take each teams record over the previous 3 years and the worst team gets the highest pick in their set. I think it'd eliminate tanking and still give bad teams a slight advantage in the draft.

I saw that article. I don't mind the idea but the league might not want to make a change so big. I believe a simpler solution would suffice: when a team is in the bonus and a non-shooting foul is called, the reward is a single free throw and they keep the ball. Shooting fouls still give you 2-3 free throws as normal. I might be missing something, but I see no downside to it.

As for the anti-tanking idea - it's a double edged sword. While it makes it harder to get a good pick with one bad year, one tanking season improves your pick for three years. Predetermined ranges make the improvement less significant in some years, but the bad season helps anyway. And every other season a few bad teams in the 1-5 division would decide it's time for them to see what d-league players can do I prefer the wheel system, which doesn't reward bad teams in any way. It would also make trading picks easier, none of this protection BS.

I think it takes away a lot of the incentive to tank though. The suns and lakers would be fighting over who gets the 1st pick(assuming the pacific division had the 1-5 group) but the loser gets the 2nd pick, not sure moving from 2 to 1 is worth the blatant losing that we see now. Sure, I guess in years where Lebron level talents are available, but that's once every ten years.

I agree about the fouling though. I'd prefer to just let the team that was fouled have the option of passing on free throws to take the ball out of bounds. I think we'd also have to eliminate the whole call a timeout to advance the ball to the front court though. Being able to trap the defense in the backcourt for 8 second violations would be crucial to comebacks.

Moving from 2 to 1 by blatantly losing isn't normally a great idea with one outstanding pick, but I think it's the best way to go when you have 3 great picks and then a bit of a drop off like this year. Almost as important as getting better chances at the first pick is eliminating falling past the 4th pick and having a much greater chance at staying in the top 3 this year. At least that's my opinion, for what's it's worth.

In 2 years there should be 1 and maybe 2 transcendent talents available, then you just hope it falls your way without making sure you are the very worst.

I agree if we're talking about the current lottery rules. My comment was in regards to a hypothetical draft scenario without lottery balls.

Oh, interesting. You get a top 5 to 10 pick every 3 years? I am not opposed to this idea.