Odin

So, how far do you all think Croatia can get into the knockout rounds? Odds on the coach actually letting Hezonja play before they get knocked out? (I will define that as playing 25+ minutes, not in and 10+ shots) I'll put it at 1:4.

I think if he was allowed to play through missing two shots in the second half vs Nigeria, his shooting numbers would look even better. It is just criminal that he has two games where he only took 3 shots. Statistically, it would also be nice to see him filling out the box score more. 2 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game is not very much for a player as talented as he is.

The thing is Hezonja has actually been playing decently this summer. No, he may not be putting up superstar numbers, but he is pulling his own weight. It is a bit frustrating to watch, when their other young player in Saric is allowed to play through shooting problems and etc. while Mario, even though he is shooting is very strong, is given iffy minutes and not played in a way that takes advantage of his strengths when he is on the floor.

They really need to fix whatever algorithm they use to create the schedule. If they do not have an algorithm creating the schedule, they need to create one. 1. They should limit the amount of games per a length of time. Maybe no more than 6 games in 10 days. (with somewhere around 170 days in which to schedule the matches, you could even go 5/10) 2. Limit the traveling by making sure all trips are at least two games. One game road trips are stupid. 3. For similar reasons, all home-stands should be for at least two games. 4. Matches cannot be between two teams that met each other within their last 5 games. That keeps away the who "didn't I just watch that match?" feeling that sometimes occurs. There guys, I fixed the scheduling. Someone call the NBA front office. :gold_cup:

They have won using that method, so I doubt they change. Saric has been given a chance to shoot his way out of bad percentages though and both he and bogdanovic turned over the ball horridly this game so it doesn't make great sense. This croatia team should be scary in a couple of years though, as long as they get a smarter coach. Saric, Mario, Bender, and Bogdanovic should be good.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/team-usa-isnt-getting-better-world-basketball-is-getting-worse/ Fivethirtyeight is arguing that international basketball is getting worse. I think this may be somewhat true- but the idea that international basketball has peaked, or that US basketball has stagnated seems either dishonest or willfully ignoring a bigger picture. I will ignore the US team, as they obviously are not full of the absolute top talent of the league this year (though the players who are on the team are no smucks), but there are two reasons why other international teams seem to be sliding: 1. the stars that allowed teams to challenge the US are getting older- Pau Gasol, Tony Parker, and Manu are all older and they helped their teams challenge the US. While still good, they are on the decline. 2. There has been an influx of young international talent into the NBA in recent years. Yet many of these players are still young, having not yet hit their primes. These players are not yet ready to challenge the US team. I would not be surprised if the US continues to be the best team, but the level of international competition rises as players like Mario, Wiggins, Simmons, and Porzingis continue to improve and become capable of lifting up their international teams.

Green and red look good on pretty much everyone- yellow does not. It may just be because I am biased, but I feel the Lakers jersey is considered "good" just because it is old and they have won a lot. It is the prestige of having "won a lot", which means it is seen a lot and worn by a lot of people. This does not make it a "good" design, just a popular jersey because, again, the team that has worn it has won a lot. I also tend to think that boston's jersey is a little overrated. It is almost always at the top of the rankings of best jerseys. I think their design is clean and classic in a way that will never be out of style, but I can't help but think that it is more the prestige of the jersey that helps carry it. The Bulls jersey is nice though- especially the red jersey and the black jersey.

So, I looked up how people rank our jerseys and found that, for some reason, people don't seem to rank our jerseys very highly. I was confused at first, but then I realize that pretty much none of these people know anything since the lakers jerseys keep getting ranked high, even though they have to have some of the ugliest jerseys in the world. Yellow and purple look good on next to no one, and pretty much everyone looks good in our jerseys (besides the grey pj's, but I am just going to pretend those don't exist).

It is clean. The logo's positioning doesn't look ideal to me though. Hopefully they are not getting rid of the pinstripes though- the pinstripes are what really make our jerseys some of the nicest in the league. Edit: I think it would have looked better with Magic where the logo is and the logo smaller and somewhere else.

Their fournier # is wrong.

Couldn't watch the game. How did Mario look? Edit: looks like Mario didn't get much burn from the box score. Really don't care for this croatian coach.

Yep. Brooklyn is sort of my go to example of bad ownership and bad team building. I live in NJ, and actually am friends with a Nets fan. (I didn't even know they existed when I lived in Orlando). One time a group of us were talking about our respective teams and how they were all not going to be all that good, and he said something along the lines of "at least they aren't the Nets". Poor guy.

A little jealous of Boston right now where they have the Nets to do their losing for them. I hope the Nets are surprisingly mediocre this year, maybe just missing the playoffs so Boston doesn't get a good pick.

Ok, that last year/ year and a half.

Basically, Otis did a pretty good job until the last two or so big moves.

I mean, I could have named pretty much every team in the league if you wanted me to, since pretty much every team in the league has, at one point, tanked. Does that mean every situation was similar? That there is a singular path for us to the top? No. Does it mean that tanking will guarantee success? No. But you cannot at the same time discount tanking when every successful team in the past 10 years has tanked. If it builds this losing cuture that you claim it does, then where is the proof? Why did tanking not destroy the spurs when the tanked a year to get Duncan? Why did Cleveland just win the championship when most of their players were gotten when the team tanked? There are plenty of teams that have tried not to tank, have tried to bring in vets to win, like the Knicks and the Nets. Where is their success? The truth is that the draft is one of the only ways to bring in young, top tier, cheap, and controlled talent. The best talent is normally at the top of the draft. Unfortunately, this means you have to suck, unless you are like Boston who has the Nets to suck for them, if you want a chance at that top talent. Were we successful in getting that top talent? We will have to see. But us trapped to suck forever because we tanked? Give me a break.

I so agree with this sentiment. tanking teams just build up a loser mentality that can never be overcome- they just get stuck in loserville. This is why teams like San Antonio, cleveland, golden state, okc, miami, and the clippers will never be any good- you cant tank and win.

I know the feeling. The magic are my #1, but the team Lowest on my fan list has had the most recent success. 1. Magic 2. Steelers 3. Penguins

Very strange phrasing, how can we frind someone to be (future tense) a top 40 scorer in the PAST 4 years? Looking at per game #, we have had at least 1 player in the top 40 (weird cut off place, but whatever) every year but 2012-2013, with three players in the top 40 in 2014-2015. We will most likely find a way to have at least 1 player there next season too.

This rising cap is crazy. In no logical universe is Biyombo worth 1/2 of Davis.

We should have three elite defenders next year, with a couple of average to above average guys to round out the team. (And who knows, Hezonja might actually be a pretty good defender too.) If our team is not a top ten D next year under Vogel, something will have gone terribly terribly wrong. I think our D should work well functioning as a take on the Van Gundy D, where the perimeter players force the opposing players off the 3 point line into our (hopefully) upgraded big men.

Agreed completely. Just making that statement because some posters seemed to be concerned about our perimeter D- seeming to forget that we have Gordon. Fournier just needs to be adequate (and I think his size advantage over almost all other SGs will help him), and Payton needs to be more consistent and work on his P&R D and we should be fine.

If we are talking about perimeter D, Gordon was actually better at defending small forwards than PFs. (Held opposing SFs to 13 PER, while opposing PFs put up 16 PER). He will be the guy getting the tough cover most nights for most of the minutes. The problem was that, according to 82games, he put up his worst # at SF.

Points Per Game, either for or against, is a somewhat meaningless statistic as it does not take into account pace or efficiency.

I just want to point out that Gordon might end up being the best player from his draft class.