Around the NBA: Week 9 (12/15 - 12/21)

[ShelC]

Nationally televised games this week
Monday, Dec 15th
Pistons @ Celtics at 7:00PM EST on Peacock
Rockets @ Nuggets at 9:30PM EST on Peacock

Tuesday, Dec 16th
Spurs @ Knicks at 8:30PM EST on Amazon Prime - NBA Cup Final

Friday, Dec 19th
Sixers @ Knicks at 7:00PM EST on Amazon Prime
Thunder @ Timberwolves at 9:30PM EST on Amazon Prime

NBA News
Starting 5: Wild finishes Sunday & a look ahead to what's trending this week
https://www.nba.com/news/starting-5-dec-15-2025

NBA trade deadline: The big questions facing all 30 front offices
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/472 ... l-30-teams

Rivalry Rising: Spurs deliver warning shot to Thunder with Emirates NBA Cup win
https://www.nba.com/news/rivalry-rising ... ba-cup-win

[Mori Chu]

Thank you for making the threads, Shel!

[Mori Chu]

Anybody else watching this NBA Cup final? Spurs have a 7-point lead over the Knicks in the 3rd.

[Mori Chu]

Anybody else watching this NBA Cup final? Spurs have a 7-point lead over the Knicks in the 3rd.

Aaaand the Knicks come back and pull out the Cup win after a huge 4th quarter. Well, that's that. Another amazing Cup come and gone.

[Superbone]

Congrats to Landry Shamet and the Knicks for their NBA Cup win.

[pickle]

I still think they should start the season with a mini tournament and separate it from the regular season altogether.

[Kryptonic]

I still think they should start the season with a mini tournament and separate it from the regular season altogether.

actually I think you're on to something... scrap the 82 game season and break it up into 3-4 tournaments, then in the summer you have one for the league championships where the winners of those play for the championship? Give them little breaks in-between to help with load management.

[Split T]

I imagine their plan is to ultimately include the new nba Europe league into the midseason tournament.

I think there are a lot of things that could be fixed in it. They need to make it mean something more than it does. I’d even support making the games count double in the standings or something.

[Mori Chu]

I have seen some good ideas for improving the Cup. I don't think it is hopelessly bad, but it needs some tweaking.

- Make the divisions relevant: NBA divisions have become almost meaningless. Make the divisions matter for the Cup. Have one team from each division advance to the single-elimination round (and maybe +1 more on a bye, so that there are 4 on each side of the bracket).

- Don't spread the Cup games out so much: On a given night I never know which games might be Cup games. I turn it on and the court has a fugly color all over it and I go, oh, okay, a Cup game, whatever. But they're so spread out that you don't really know what you're in for. I can't imagine anybody carefully tracking this and going out of their way to watch every Cup qualifier game. Condense these games so that over a span of 1-2 weeks almost every game is a Cup game. Give me a reason to tune in to a lot of games in that span and get hyped up.

- Give a more interesting reward for winning the Cup. The players get some $$$ for winning; big whoop. They can keep that, but, I think they should give the team SOMETHING related to the game, the season, etc. I have heard some people suggest that the winner should be guaranteed a playoff spot. Eh, maybe. Maybe guarantee them at least a play-in spot? Not sure what a good reward would be. You can dream up all kinds of weird things (a free 2nd round pick! $5m in cap space!) that probably don't make sense in practice. But give more of a reward so that the teams will all really care about this Cup, so they'll go all-out to get there and fight like hell to win it.

[sunshoopjunky]

NBA trade deadline: The big questions facing all 30 front offices
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/472 ... l-30-teams

I really think Bobby Portis would help us in so many ways. Anyone else agree or disagree? I would be willing to do a Grayson Allen, Nick Richard’s, for Portis and filler player preferably not a shooting guard. I would throw in Oso if we could get back a pick. I’m not sure it’s enough to keep being Giannis happy though. Although it would make both teams more competitive. Sorry to keep bringing it up, but I really just wanna get other people’s opinions and with Portis being trade eligible after the 15th rumors are he could move soon.

[SunsRIt]

NBA trade deadline: The big questions facing all 30 front offices
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/472 ... l-30-teams

I really think Bobby Portis would help us in so many ways. Anyone else agree or disagree? I would be willing to do a Grayson Allen, Nick Richard’s, for Portis and filler player preferably not a shooting guard. I would throw in Oso if we could get back a pick. I’m not sure it’s enough to keep being Giannis happy though. Although it would make both teams more competitive. Sorry to keep bringing it up, but I really just wanna get other people’s opinions and with Portis being trade eligible after the 15th rumors are he could move soon.

Portis 5 years ago maybe. Not Portis today.

[Superbone]

NBA trade deadline: The big questions facing all 30 front offices
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/472 ... l-30-teams

I really think Bobby Portis would help us in so many ways. Anyone else agree or disagree? I would be willing to do a Grayson Allen, Nick Richard’s, for Portis and filler player preferably not a shooting guard. I would throw in Oso if we could get back a pick. I’m not sure it’s enough to keep being Giannis happy though. Although it would make both teams more competitive. Sorry to keep bringing it up, but I really just wanna get other people’s opinions and with Portis being trade eligible after the 15th rumors are he could move soon.

Portis 5 years ago maybe. Not Portis today.

Agreed. Dude is 30 years old. He'd be a short term bandage. I'd rather just roll with what we've got. If a younger PF comes along then sure, let's explore.

[Wally_West]

[Mori Chu]

Everyone should have bet the "under" the moment he signed there.

[Wally_West]

[Mori Chu]

Uhh ... Why did he do that?

[Wally_West]

Uhh ... Why did he do that?

Boys will be boys

[pickle]

I still think they should start the season with a mini tournament and separate it from the regular season altogether.

actually I think you're on to something... scrap the 82 game season and break it up into 3-4 tournaments, then in the summer you have one for the league championships where the winners of those play for the championship? Give them little breaks in-between to help with load management.

Yeah... My idea is a little simpler than that. Just start the season with the current IST, do a soccer world cup style where the teams are divided into groups to play a few group games, and then go to single game elimination. Try to get the total games played to about 20 per team, and take that through Christmas.

Thereafter start the regular season, which you have home and away for each team, making a total of 58. That way a team can decide for example if their stars are injured to start the season to just give up on that and play young players, to ramp up for the regular season, or a team like this year's Thunder could try to go for the hat trick / triple crown or whatever you call it in that particular season.

[pickle]

NBA trade deadline: The big questions facing all 30 front offices
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/472 ... l-30-teams

I really think Bobby Portis would help us in so many ways. Anyone else agree or disagree? I would be willing to do a Grayson Allen, Nick Richard’s, for Portis and filler player preferably not a shooting guard. I would throw in Oso if we could get back a pick. I’m not sure it’s enough to keep being Giannis happy though. Although it would make both teams more competitive. Sorry to keep bringing it up, but I really just wanna get other people’s opinions and with Portis being trade eligible after the 15th rumors are he could move soon.

I'm not against Portis per se, but I don't think he's going to help us that much, and I really like Grayson. Before he got injured Grayson demonstrated an ability to attack the basket and become a legitimate secondary playmaker, which is a skill we desperately need right now. If Green comes back and takes over that role, maybe we can then send Grayson to another team for another piece, but I'd rather not, as he's a potent shooter who can plug in to either back court spot and the team barely misses a beat, and I think he is far more valuable to today's game than Portis. Portis has never been known for his defense, and I would hesitate to start him in our current playing style that is moderately controlled chaos on the defensive end and drive and kick and quick twitch threes on the offensive end.

[Wally_West]