27 thoughts on “November 6, 2015: Live Basketball”

  1. I watched a little of the Wolves last night. Unfortunately, I missed most of the first half because Miss SBG wanted to go to McDonald's with her skating friend. The little I did see was... Not. Good.

    1. In fact, if I was going to review that game like an album, I'd be leaning toward "For Completists Only". Part of it might have been the veteran club they were playing, but the Wolves had zero offensive flow. I didn't see any sets for KAT, Wiggins was throwing up bricks, and LaVine was playing point. I did see Wade hit that three from 60 feet right after stealing the ball from (Ricky?). Not a fun game to watch at all.

      1. I'm getting a little worried about Wiggins. It's so frustrating to watch him settle for mid range Js when he has so many good moves to get to the basket. I was thinking about it on my drive into work today, and wondering how much of it is the "take what they give you" philosophy installed by the coaching staff. They're going to give you long jumpers because they're inefficient. After watching KAT clang a couple, when he pump faked and made a move to the basket I was giddy.

        Prince and KG look terrible offensively so far, and having them in the starting rotation is basically playing 3 on 5 on offense. I'm glad they're going to Professor Big Shots pretty quickly, but I'd really love to see Bazz get some burn with Ricky, Wiggy, and KAT. Or at least Bazz and Wiggy on the floor together. Or, if Wiggins' issues are that he's hurt, Bazz needs to be on the floor with the rest of the starters.

    2. I saw someone mention that it was the first game of 6 in 9 days, and I thought it was crazy, but sure enough, they have 6 games from the 5th to the 13th. That is so brutal. I know they want more games for more revenue--and the NHL isn't any better--but I have to believe they are hurting the on-court product by playing so many games. Baseball could probably back off a bit, too. Six games a week there would still give you the grind of the regular season while giving players a chance to keep the nagging injuries from getting out of hand.

      Six games in nine days. I guess I just didn't realize how insane the NBA schedule is. It looks like they average 14-15 games a month. It's amazing they aren't all dead by the time playoffs roll around.

      1. The league has taken steps THIS YEAR to make the schedule more palatable by limiting back-to-backs and 4 games in five nights scenarios. Four NBA games in five nights, all in different cities. Now that is brutal.

        1. Still seems crazy to me. Even if you just played every other day and never had back-to-backs, it doesn't seem like you could really have productive practices while you're recovering from the game (and potentially the travel) from the day before.

            1. In the NFL, they go to work more than 5 days a week, but they only have one game a week. Funny how that works.

              1. So you're suggesting what? That the NBA needs more practice time between games? Your original point seemed to be something to the effect of "more time between games would be good because the players must be physically exhausted."

                My point is simply that I have problems sympathizing with players who are tired. If the schedule is really too grueling, performance will suffer too much, and the league doesn't want that. I doubt they'd push things too far. What's more, I'd suggest that "too tired" is a strange concept in a world where people work grueling physical labor (let's say field laborers, or construction crews, etc.), day after day.

                1. That's interesting. I know guys who have worked grueling physical labor jobs (every day!) well into their 50s and beyond. My Dad held one of those jobs until he was 62! And yet, not a single NBA basketball player has ever played that long. And look, Kobe Bryant, who is one of the greatest players of all time and also some sort of monomaniacal lunatic when it comes to basketball, is all done at age 37. It's almost as though the game of basketball, played at the highest level, is not really comparable to the typical physical labor job.

                  1. Of course they aren't perfectly comparable. Sports require more specialized abilities and are competitive (let's not forget, it's usually the competitive nature that ends a career at 37 instead of 62... not complete inability. I gaurantee you Kobe can still play better than 99% of the 27 year olds out there... it's that other 1% pushing him out). But to complain about too many games because players are tired? That kind of sympathy seems misplaced to me, particularly since I believe the league will protect its product (and as you pointed out, has already taken steps to do so).

                    1. Yeah, professional basketball players are precious assets. If you are the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, you pray every night that LeBron is healthy. If you are the owner of the Golden State Warriors, you hate to contemplate the idea of losing Steph Curry. These guys need to be protected and if it sounds crazy to the average Joe, well, it's because it's not the same thing. If playing more often results in fatigue and then in injuries, then everyone involved, from the players to the owners to the fans have a vested interest in making sure that they aren't playing too much.

                      Kobe Bryant can play better than 99.99999% of 27 year olds in the world (at least!) (assuming about 120,000,000 people in the world are 27 years old). When you can do that and are still washed up, well, different rules apply to you.

                  1. I have no idea how taxing the travel is. The more of it that happens, the more taxing it is, I assume. But also, it is on private charters... so that should help?

                2. My point is that the game suffers from having them play so often. It's like if you had a track and field league and you expected guys to race a 5K every other day. They would be forced to give less than 100%, and their times would get worse throughout the season because they wouldn't have any time to actually train for the race, which would require running longer distances for endurance and shorter intervals for speed. No one does this because 1) everyone in track knows it would be a good way to wreck your performance and 2) it would immediately become obvious that performance was deteriorating because the clock would tell us.

                  And yeah, if they are playing every other day, I would suggest that the teams could be even better if they had more time to practice, more time to prep for specific opponents.

                  We see this really clearly in baseball. Guys end the season 10 pounds or more lighter than they started not because they lost some spare tire, but because they lose muscle mass from not being able to lift properly during the season. Or we see catchers get beat into the ground--regardless of how much physical pain they are willing to endure, their performance suffers.

                  Yeah, some people work ridiculous hours--both at physical labor jobs and other jobs--and I would argue that their performance suffers for it. The human body has limits and you don't get around those limits just by claiming that you're not tired. If you're doing anything all day long, you're either pacing yourself or you're burning yourself out.

                  To me, the whole point of having a pro basketball league is that it's a freak show where you get to see the best of the best. Except if they are jetlagged and not recovered from the day before, you don't get to see them at their best. Or if Gregg Popovich--probably one of the most demanding coaches out there and a graduate of the US Air Force Academy--is coaching the team, maybe you don't see them at all, because he knows that strategically resting his players during the season keeps them performing better.

  2. I was boycotting before boycotting was cool.

      1. For sure. I've been more and more evangelistic about my football hate as things keep happening and high school is keep dying.

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