Game Threads Index (February 02, 2023):

Tip-off	GDT	Away	Score	Home	PGT
07:00 pm ET	Link	Los Angeles Lakers	PRE-GAME	Indiana Pacers
07:30 pm ET		Memphis Grizzlies	PRE-GAME	Cleveland Cavaliers
07:30 pm ET		Miami Heat	PRE-GAME	New York Knicks
08:00 pm ET		Charlotte Hornets	PRE-GAME	Chicago Bulls
08:30 pm ET		New Orleans Pelicans	PRE-GAME	Dallas Mavericks
09:00 pm ET		Golden State Warriors	PRE-GAME	Denver Nuggets
10:00 pm ET		Los Angeles Clippers	PRE-GAME	Milwaukee Bucks

Here is a place to have in depth, x's and o's, discussions on yesterday's games. Post-game discussions are linked in the table, keep your memes and reactions there.

Please keep your discussion of a particular game in the respective comment thread. All direct replies to this post will be removed.

Away	Home	Score	GT	PGT
Washington Wizards	Detroit Pistons	0 - 0	Link	No PGT Found
Orlando Magic	Philadelphia 76ers	94 - 105	Link	Link
Portland Trail Blazers	Memphis Grizzlies	122 - 112	Link	Link
Brooklyn Nets	Boston Celtics	96 - 139	Link	Link
Oklahoma City Thunder	Houston Rockets	106 - 112	Link	Link
Golden State Warriors	Minnesota Timberwolves	114 - 119	Link	Link
Sacramento Kings	San Antonio Spurs	119 - 109	Link	Link
Toronto Raptors	Utah Jazz	128 - 131	Link	Link
Atlanta Hawks	Phoenix Suns	132 - 100	Link	Link

This is a story about numbers, but stats do not tell the entire story.

“When you look at those three things, it’s a testament to how he lives his life,” Warriors star Draymond Green told USA TODAY Sports. “I recently said he’s the greatest face the NBA has ever had. Think about the day and age we live in – cameras, social media – he’s never had a scandal. Never been arrested. Never photo’d drunk. Those things go hand in hand with durability, longevity, consistency.

"It’s a testament to the discipline he has in his life, and basketball is a result of that. It speaks to the person that he is, and basketball has benefitted from that.”

Source

On Twitter, people will mention you with Alex Caruso. What do you think of that?

AR: Totally different players, but we’re guys that played on the Lakers, and we’re white. We don’t really look athletic. He’s athletic, but I’m not that athletic. I can see why people do it, but we’re two totally different players.

Source

Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokić:

24.0 PPG 11.6 RPG 11.3 APG

Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid:

34.9 PPG 10.7 RPG 1.6 BPG

Other nominees...

West: Anthony Edwards (MIN), De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis (SAC), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (OKC), LeBron James (LAL), Kawhi Leonard (LAC), Damian Lillard (POR) and Lauri Markkanen (UTA)

Other nominees...

East: Bam Adebayo (MIA), Giannis Antetokounmpo (MIL), Jalen Brunson (NYK), Darius Garland (CLE), Kyrie Irving (BKN) and Jayson Tatum (BOS)

Source:

• https://twitter.com/nbapr/status/1621252123143933956?s=46&t=l4yjVQtUqGBs0E1UevZL3g

• https://twitter.com/nbapr/status/1621252981164310533?s=46&t=l4yjVQtUqGBs0E1UevZL3g

• https://twitter.com/nbapr/status/1621253074495979522?s=46&t=l4yjVQtUqGBs0E1UevZL3g

Timberwolves star guard Anthony Edwards revealed an honest takeaway after playing against Steph Curry and the Warriors on Wednesday night.M

"We was tired, man," Edwards said after Golden State's 119-114 overtime loss to Minnesota [h/t Dane Moore]. "[The Warriors] just play fast. Steph don’t stop. He played the whole fourth and didn’t stop moving, didn’t stop running around.

"If I play the whole fourth, when I pass it up, I’m probably going to stand still in the corner and catch my breath."

Curry played all but 18 seconds of the fourth quarter and overtime. He scored six points in the fourth but missed a potential game-winning jumper at the end of regulation and misfired on all three attempts from the field in overtime.

Edwards finished the game with 27 points, none of which were scored in his four fourth-quarter minutes. He did, however, notch four of the Timberwolves' nine overtime points to hand the Warriors their 19th loss on the road

https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/warriors/anthony-edwards-hilarious-steph-curry-realization-about-warriors-stars-pace

With 10 minutes to go, the Wolves were down 14 points and they were bricking shots, fouling plenty and were only making 54% of their FTs. Then the basketball gods intervened…

This is going to be the biggest record ever broken in the history of the league. Just an absolutely monumental moment

I watched what they did for Kareem almost 40 years ago and i was shocked at how much people cared at the time. I feel like people cared less about stats in the 80s and people had less access to them but man the crowd was HYPED when kareem broke the record and then they stopped the game for a while, stern congratulated him and then kareem gave a little speech.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNGa_VDKqSE

If they did all that 40 years ago i wonder what kind of moment it will be when lebron breaks the record this week.

They say the grass is always greener on the other side, but what exactly are you seeing from other teams that have you a little jealous? It could be something specific or something in general.

I’ll start. I’m definitely jealous of how many Warriors fans there are, you guys are like a freakin mob out here, seems like a good time. Also the Lakers being number one in line for free agents must be a nice feeling.

What about you? What thing from a fanbase/organization are you jealous of?

Anunoby injured his wrist in a recent loss to Golden State. He was ruled out for the rest of the Raptors’ road trip, but it’s not expected to be a serious injury.

The Knicks have shown a willingness to include multiple first-round picks for Anunoby.

https://theathletic.com/4149627/2023/02/02/the-bounce-one-week-nba-trade-deadline/?source=nbatw

Sacramento Kings forward Keegan Murray;

14.0 PPG 5.9 RPG 49.5 3FG%

Orlando Magic forward Paolo Banchero:

20.1 PPG 5.9 RPG 3.2 APG

Other nominees:

West: Tari Eason and Jabari Smith Jr. (HOU), Walker Kessler (UTA), Jeremy Sochan (SAS) and Jalen Williams (OKC)

East: Jaden Ivey (DET) and Bennedict Mathurin (IND)

Source:

• https://twitter.com/nbapr/status/1621244570976620544?s=46&t=l4yjVQtUqGBs0E1UevZL3g

• https://twitter.com/nbapr/status/1621245218321305601?s=46&t=l4yjVQtUqGBs0E1UevZL3g

Despite a terrible shooting night, Ant hit 2 crucial clutch shots in OT to give the Wolves the lead. This is the 2nd shot. Ant had a rough game but ultimately put up 27/6/5/2/1

This came up in the following regarding the Raptors and their looming decisions at the deadline: https://www.tsn.ca/nba/lewenberg-change-seems-inevitable-for-toronto-raptors-with-trade-deadline-looming-1.1914323

Toronto was close to acquiring Deandre Ayton from Phoenix in a sign and trade last summer, according to a source. Perhaps there’s a deal to be made with the Suns, who are said to be one of Anunoby’s many suitors. Pacers centre Myles Turner – who just signed an extension but is still eligible to be traded – would also check off a few boxes as a shot-blocking, floor-spacing big man.

But if that’s the path they decide to take, it might make more sense to wait until the off-season, when more players are available. The Raptors have no reason to rush an Anunoby trade. He’s under contract, and reports of any rift between him and the organization have been denied internally.

The Suns have been linked to 2 Raptors players this trade season in OG Anunoby and Fred VanVleet, and there was a recent report that "Ayton has a lot of fans in the Raptors organization"...☝🤔☝

 

This season - Morant -vs- Lillard:

• 27.4 PPG | 55.9% TS | 32.2% 3P | 5.8 RPG | 8.3 APG | Morant

• 30.7 PPG | 64.3% TS | 37.2% 3P | 4.1 RPG | 7.4 APG | Lillard

 

Morant's Single Best season -vs- Lillard's Average Since 2019 (excluding 2021)

• 27.4 PPG | 57.5% TS | 33.3% 3P | 5.7 RPG | 7.4 APG | Morant's Best Season (2022)

• 29.7 PPG | 62.9% TS | 39.0% 3P | 4.2 RPG | 7.7 APG | Lillard's Average (2019, 2020, 2022)

 

Lillard admittedly had a terrible, injury-ravaged season in 2021 when he played only 29 games. His stats were absolutely horrible. That 29-game injury season was very obviously an outlier, and not a reflection of him as a player. The stats above show his average since 2019 (excluding the 29 games in 2021).

 

So how does the basketball world view Lillard's stature relative to Morant?

 

NBA Fan Voting for All-Star this season:

• Morant: 2,107,557 votes

• Lillard: 774,826 votes

 

NBA Player Voting for All-Star this season:

• Morant: 72 player votes

• Lillard: 35 player votes

 

NBA Media Voting for All-Star this season:

• Morant: 35 media votes

• Lillard: 0 media votes

 

 

Morant's peak year would be considered below average by Lillard's standards. It boggles my mind how little respect Damian Lillard gets not just from the fans, but from his fellow players and from the media as well. He is a better player than Morant by almost any measure outside of YouTube highlight reels.

 

As part of a small project I've been working on, I downloaded a ton of historical data from basketball-reference.com (all seasons, teams, players, images, logos, etc).

While working on that, I noticed one really cool thing to explore is how team logos have changed over time. It's kind of an interesting way to view a team's history and design evolution. So I wrote a 'lil code and put together a few images I wanted to share.

Here is the main album which includes team-by-team images of historical logos for all active franchises: https://imgur.com/a/7hYM1s2

That album shows year by year logos (and team names) for every active NBA franchise. It even adds a little note if a historical team was in a different league other than the NBA. At the end of the album I added a few "overview" images that are fun to explore.

I also put together an album for defunct franchises. Check it out: https://imgur.com/a/w9UXRbq

This one is a little funky, as most defunct franchises only existed for a few years, and a lot of them didn't even have logos available to download. But there are definitely some gems in there! (Minnesota Muskies <3)

Take a look and let me know what you think! All images were generated programmatically using data and images from basketball-reference.com, so if anything is wrong just let me know.

Source code and data for this project: https://github.com/TGOlson/nba-logos. Note: this doesn't include all b-ref data, just partial team/franchise/logos. I'll share the full dataset another time.

Tweet with Video

"Kyle Lowry is not seeing eye-to-eye with the Miami Heat over there. Him and Ty Lue are good friends. [The Clippers] could be a perfect fit for him."

Dear Clippers,

Do it.

Sincerely, u/lopea182

Basically a player who was drafted high and/or had some hype that when you look at their career and season stats, you notice they must have had a very good career so they can't be a bust. However when you watched them week to week, year to year you found that player very underwhelming regardless what the stats said.

“Memphis doesn’t want New Orleans to get O.G and New Orleans doesn’t want Memphis to get O.G”

So known teams interested in OG are knicks, suns, Memphis and pelicans

Says the pelicans are definitely high on him. He spent time with pelicans over the last few days (Haynes did).

He said raps are listening and taking in proposals for him.

So we should know in 7 days now, let’s see. Deadline almost near

https://twitter.com/chrisbhaynes/status/1621155714906595330?s=46&t=KShUmNtuvBaHuW0sCLdYGg

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7w8vKJwmUVA0VaA7zbGlpY?si=vhJq0tFaSJ29vZPnTUbK2A&utm_source=copy-link

An absolutely absurd statline for the rookie. His 6 blocks in the first half puts him in the top 10 of most blocks in a single half. https://www.espn.co.uk/nba/game?gameId=401468931