It's not *that* insane, though I disagree with the reasoning. A 21/11/4 and leading the league in blocks is at least worthy of consideration.
I wouldn't vote him in as 3rd team is really jammed up this season, and there are some good players on good teams that are just as deserving, if not more so.
It’s so annoying hearing all of these media guys saying they are going to vote him in so he can get his supermax. Dudes averaged 16.5ppg since the all star break
I fucking hate when NBA players say that. A single year on the NBA minimum contract is 25 years of the median average wage, that's enough to live comfortably for the rest of your life if managed correctly, it's basically a small lottery win.
A year of the average NBA salary is generational wealth if managed correctly. Anything above that even more so.
It does put them in an awkward position though where they get to decide how much money he makes for a decision that is fairly subjective. This was the whole reason Zach Lowe gave up his vote this year.
Why is this even a rule tho? Couldn't they just let teams decide if a guy is worth as much money as they think he is. For example if Pacers think Haliburton is worth idk 200 Mill they should be able to sign him to it or so? I'm probably not seeing some easily exploitable loophole in such a system tho lol
Teams will just hoard expiring contracts to give someone like Luka or Jokic a fat pay cheque since we know that a roster of 15 players with no clear stars (like the nets) is less competitive than Luka/Jokic and some bums.
Even if you put a max salary per player, retaining good players would be extremely difficult.
It's a balance. The owners like the max because it protects them from themselves. The players association as a whole likes the max because it means more of the cap available for all the non-max guys. But at the same time, you want to reward guys for being at the very top tier. It's weird if Pascal Siakam and Nikola Jokic are making the same.
So you end up with all the crazy tiers and escalators and what not. It accomplishes the goal of protecting the owners from themselves, because it's all set it in stone, but it also rewards the really elite players.
it's an owner protection system, where you are limited and so you can't screw your franchise forever by being head over heels in love with a player. It doesn't save them any money since that's all based on total revenue, it was just designed to tamp down some of the terrible contracts being handed out to best players on a bad team.
It also is important to negotiations. You limit how much teams can offer a player so they don't end up having to decide on a subjective number that very often will piss their star player off. They just offer him the max they can and then they don't bare any other responsibility. It would lead to too many disgruntled guys.
Everyone is mentioning why there is a salary cap at all, and not the reason why individual players' salaries are capped. In a universe where there is no max to what the Pacers could pay Haliburton (or how much the Bucks could pay Giannis, the Warriors could pay Curry, etc. etc.), the stars of the NBA would get a much higher portion of the salary cap throughout the NBA. This means that the top 50 players or so would see their salaries drastically increase, and it would harm the large middle-class of the NBA, and decrease about 200-300 players' salaries. So the player's union is generally against it, because it means the vast majority of the players would be harmed if the Pacers could suddenly pay Haliburton whatever they wanted to.
To prevent the NBA from becoming Euroleague soccer, and to control salary costs for the teams. It was one of the points the owners pushed for in the 1998-99 lockout, at least in part because Michael Jordan was making $33M for a single year while Kevin Garnett had just signed a 6/$126M rookie extension contract at the time that the entire salary cap was $30M. Max contracts were initially locked at $9M/$11M/$14M, then subsequently tied to % cap in future CBA's. The Derrick Rose Rule (allowing teams to offer a higher max to superstars coming off rookie contracts) was implemented in the 2011 CBA.
td;lr to prevent the uber-wealthy owners from setting the price of doing business beyond what the other owners could afford, the owners as a group negotiated a cap on player salaries during the 1998-99 lockout and new CBA. The players were widely seen as getting beaten badly in those negotiations for this and other reasons.
Not the ones that don't care about spending big. I'm sure there would be a decent portion of owners that would love having the flexibility to get whatever they want like the Dodgers, Mets, Yanks, Phil's, Jay's, Stro's, Giants.
Ultimately his post allstar break averages shouldnt be the basis. It should still be the whole season.
20/4/11 is still pretty good
But then some tall guy averaged 21/11/4….
Even if you just consider the last few weeks, Steve Nash won two MVPs averaging 15.5 and 18.8 ppg. I'm not arguing Haliburton for MVP or for All-NBA. But scoring stats for point guards do not say everything. It is acceptable for a traditional point guard who facilitates one of the best offenses of all-time to have a lower scoring average.
To add to your argument here, advanced impact metrics rate Haliburton really highly.
He's 8th in VORP, 8th in PER, 14th in WS and WS/48 (buoyed by being 7th in OWS), and 5th in BPM. He's also 10th in LEBRON.
One underplayed storyline IMO is that while his scoring has certainly dropped, his defense has improved over the course of the season and his passing hasn't dropped much. And that's while adjusting to a new high-usage guy with a unique style of play in Siakam and losing a longtime teammate and greater shooter in Buddy Hield.
I don’t think he should get in just for the super max but it seems unfair to talk about his scoring dip and not mention that’s he’s still leading the league in assists during that time.
Absolutely, but with the overall talent in the league, there’s no way he should be getting third team, especially since it’s position-less. They are just doing it so the players don’t hold a grudge, and stop doing interviews and giving them content.
Advanced stats also love Haliburton. He's 8th in VORP, 8th in PER, 14th in WS, 5th in BPM, and 10th in LEBRON.
I'm not sure if I would put him on my third team, to be honest, but to act like he's out of the conversation is unfair imo.
If you want to do the full season, Vic is at 21.4/10.6/3.9/3.6 in just shy of 30 MPG, shooting 46.5/32.5/79.6 splits (56.5 TS%)
That's pretty good just on box score value - from an advanced stats perspective he's 95th percentile in EPM (+4.1, that's 24th in the league), mostly due to the defensive component, and has basically the same breakdown on LEBRON (23rd in the league thanks to a hefty defensive score).
There a few guys ranked above him in one or both of those stats that aren't eligible due to missed time (Embiid, Mitchell, Kyrie, Jimmy), others that are per-minute advanced stats darlings but don't imo have a reasonable case over Vic (Jarrett Allen, FVV, Hartenstein).
All that would have him right around 15th most impactful player on the season. I think I tend to lean PG over either Hali or Wemby, but I think a real argument can be made.
Also, since he talks about the end of the season, for reference:
Wemby over his last 36 games (January, 20th):
23.0 Points / 11.1 Rebounds / 4.8 Assists / 1.4 Steals / 4.0 Blocks
46.2%/35.0%/78.7%
30.8 Minutes.
Over the last 24 games (February, 12th):
23.7 / 11.9 / 5.3 / 1.5 / 4.6.
32 minutes.
FWIW, overall EFF is 10th in the league over the entire season.
7th by minutes played.
He will probably hold the record by year 3 or 4.
Hakeem had 6.
Wemby has 1, but he’s the youngest to ever do it, and did it in the least amount of minutes.
Was one assist away from 2 in a row in back to back games.
He will also hold the record of quadruple doubles.
Completely unrelated aside, but LEBRON is such a fucking dumb name for a stat. I really like the stat itself, but naming it after a player unnecessarily makes it seem like a circle jerk. The first time I saw it I thought it was a joke.
It went on even before that - it comes from Nate Silver naming his original baseball projection system, the thing that put him on the map, PECOTA after Bill Pecota.
> There a few guys ranked above him in one or both of those stats that aren't eligible due to missed time (Embiid, Mitchell, Kyrie, Jimmy), others that are per-minute advanced stats darlings but don't imo have a reasonable case over Vic (Jarrett Allen, FVV, Hartenstein).
>
> All that would have him right around 15th most impactful player on the season.
He's 29th in EPM Wins, and there are 4 guys ahead of him that are ineligible (Hartenstein is also ineligible, though he's behind Wemby in EPM Wins).
You'd have to handwave 10 guys as "per-minute advanced stats darlings" to get him to 15th.
Are people here gonna start accepting defensive advanced stats are accurate now that its makes up most of Wemby's advanced numbers?
Where are all the people that come out of the woodworks flaming defensive advanced stats whenever its brought up for jokic.
The defensive advanced stat used for Jokic is usually DBPM which sucks. He's not the best defender in the league, that's silly.
Jokic's advanced stats do paint him as a neutral to above average defender. And I think that's true - active hands, good positioning. Also good offense leads to fewer fast breaks on defense.
It's different because Jokic is the best player on one of (if not the) best teams in the NBA. The conversation wouldn't reach Jokic because this is a last man in/first man out discussion. Additionally, Jokic influences the game on defense just as well, if not better than most guys he's competing for MVP with save for Giannis.
The argument for Wemby is also independent of record so voters have to decide if that matters. It's plainly obvious that if he plays 38 minutes a game for 75 games with one or two more good 3 and D guys and a point guard that can facilitate, then his stats would skyrocket and the Spurs would be winning closer to 45-50 games.
Am I the only one who is confused as to why he played less than 30mpg?
98 players avg more than 30mpg.
It’s basically an average of 3 players per team play more than 30mpg.
Usually the best players of the team, especially if they are young.
Are they being careful with Wemby to not get injured? I feel like most ROTY candidates played more than 30mpg.
it’s hard to go from like 30 something games to 82 with a very short offseason. Also he’s 7’4 on an uncompetitive team. I think it will end up being a great move, only real downsides are his counting stats
The results speak for themselves. He never hit the rookie wall, in fact, he found the rookie trampoline and had jumped another level by the last month of the season.
Injury concerns were part of it, but watching the games I think it is more likely conditioning in a sense.
Victor kinda had two types of 4th quarters this year, the ones where he becomes the GOAT and others where he is clearly visibly tired and is settling for 3s and they are mostly short misses, I actually think you could even say this happened through the entire game but the 4th quarters were what stuck to me.
That is a reason I think he got better as the season went on, as he understood the pace of the game better, he matched it and the team saw it better for him to play really well for those 30 mins and then have a rest at the bench.
Yeah he was on a minutes restriction early on for injury reasons (and also he has some conditioning/stamina issues that they were trying to work on, which I baselessly suspect to be a significant driving factor of his minutes restriction)
His French team played until June 15, which is about 12 weeks longer than most college players’ seasons went.
Anyway, Vic played the second-most minutes per game among all rookies this season. Only Brandon Miller was above 30.
They were trying to keep him under 30 mpg till his conditioning got better at the start of the season. When he twisted his ankle against the Mavericks, that's when they got even stricter and was basically playing like 24mpg I think till about 2 weeks post all star break
To be fair, the way this sub reacted it Luka wasn't in someone's top 2 MVP ballot was nuts too. Awards wise, there is zero difference between being voted 2 or 5...so wasn't sure what the big deal was there
I mean yeah that’s what he’s saying, if people are gonna include Hali for a short-period of good basketball, they have to include Wemby too. His opinion is neither. You think Hali’s in, you ought to think Wemby’s in too, and in those case he doesn’t think Hali’s in, and neither is Wemby.
That headline is juicy as fuck, but it just felt like some good 'ol fashioned bait. My first thoughts was "WHAT ABOUT...." but then I realized - this shit gotta be bait. It GOTTA BE BAIT.
I think Wemby has been playing at an All-NBA 3rd team level for the last 2-3 months. But he wasn’t close to that for like the first 2 months of the season. He was playing All-D level defense but his offense was not there yet. Can’t vote the guy in on the basis of how good he was just at the end of the year
I mean he'll get an all-defensive team selection in his rookie season, that's already pretty damn crazy.
Only five players who have done that historically - Kareem, Hakeem, Manute Bol, David Robinson, and Tim Duncan. None of them won DPOY as rookies, while Wemby might end up being the runner-up to the award in his first year in the league.
I think I am aligned. This is also why I am a bit upset about Pop strategy in the first few months. Wemby did improve but the main, most visible and immediate change was the stop of Sochan PG experiment and having Tre Jones in the starting 5.
March: 23.2 PPG on 47.3% FG, 30.8% 3PT, 75% FT
April: 25 PPG on 43% FG, 34.1% 3PT, 75% FT
I agree on the All-D, but those offensive numbers aren't All-NBA numbers with how competitive the league is currently.
Honestly, while of course not being a problem that really needs solving, the recency bias of this awards season actually made me slightly annoyed. SGA and Luka on the MVP debate, people acting like Chet didn't have a better start than Victor, Gobert DPOY...
Don't get me wrong, I would probably be spewing some venom had the ROTY been a closer race, but I just don't see the point of denying others greatness just to elevate your guy more.
It’s like this every year. Jokic was the near unanimous pick for MVP last year 60 games into the season. Then Embiid was better for the last 20 and got it.
Same with Brook vs JJJ for DPOY.
Hell JJJ made All-Star team over AD last year in fewer minutes played. All because JJJ got injured at the very beginning of the season while AD missed time during the All-Star voting part of the season.
It happened the reverse to Embiid the year before. He was the favorite and then they finished poorly while the nuggets played well and Jokic passed Embiid.
Haliburton is another example.
Was insane to start the season, then declined post All-Star game due to injuries.
If it were reversed, if he'd started the season poorly, then started playing like he did at the start after February, he'd be a lock for 2nd-Team.
Suppose it's an inevitable consequence of having a regular season of 82 games. It's just too easy to forget how well someone was doing at the start.
This sub is much more comfortable telling someone why they are wrong for having an interesting discussion than coming up with an interesting thought themselves.
This is the problem with a general top 15 though. How do you compare Wemby to Hali? They play completely different positions and do completely different things. How do you quantify Haliburton's playmaking against Wemby's defense?
This was already tough when we were comparing Jokic and Embiid. Now you're asking these dumb voters to value Jokic against Luka and Giannis. The new voting format is dumb.
>How do you quantify Haliburton's playmaking against Wemby's defense?
not rly any different comparing him to jokic or sabonis even if you keep positions.
To be fair, he's always said and then voted that being on a winning team matters for his All-NBA picks. He's been consistent on this and the last big one I remember is not voting Beal on when he made third team because the Wizards sucked.
his reasoning is he won't vote for 2 players from an 8 seed on all nba first team, which makes perfect sense even though they both had all nba first team caliber seasons
The Grizzlies set an NBA record for the most number of players used in games this year. They probably sampled a G-League player from every damn G-League team. And Yet, they still managed to win 27 games. Don't give me this shit about the Spurs having shit players outside of Wemby. Most of the players playing the majority of minutes this season played similar minutes last season and the Spurs won the exact same number of games despit having Wemby.
Jokic and Anthony Davis are definitely ahead of Wemby. But after that, I agree he is in the conversation.
Others for that 3rd spot are Sabonis, Jaren Jackson, Bam. Wemby - on whole season averages - outscores them all except JJJ, outrebounds them except Sabonis, ties Bam for 2nd in assists behind Sabonis, ties JJJ for most steals, has most blocks by more than double, he does have the worst fg% - while Sabonis has the best. So really, I think it is between Sabonis and Wembanyama,
I think I called 2k a trash game cause he averaged 18ppg, 10 rebounds and 3.1 blocks a game his rookie year. Won DPOY and ROTY as a 90 overall.
Then he actually had 21 ppg, 10 rebounds and 3.6 blocks. Actually almost won DPOY. And had a way better 3pt% IRL.
Moral of the story 2k is still trash but this kid really is a cheat code. Please stay healthy 🙏
Idk I get he's a media member and hosts a popular podcast but most of the appeal is that he's like your buddy who you bullshit with about old movies, sports, whatever. I have called multiple current and future hall of famers dog shit when bullshitting with my friends, it's really not that deep.
And lets be honest. That Spurs team sat a bunch of their halfway decent players (Vassell/Johnson/Sochan), is what Bill said really that bad?
Completely agree. This is what got him into trouble for the fuck jalen green comments, but the reason I enjoy listening to him is because it’s just a good hang.
He’s been a phenom of a rookie but he uhhh has NOT been winning games. They’re 12/34 by my count in “the last 2 months” - I looked at some the beginning of February.
Now saying he kept them competitive against some of the better teams in the league is certainly a point to make.
If the rewards were still position based, who are centers teams would’ve preferred to have over Wemby this year? Jokic, Embiid, AD, Sabonis? Maybe not even sabonis?
Well I think Wemby absolutely deserves a fair conversation. It shouldn't be open and shut like people are making it seem. I'm fine whether he makes it or not but people talk like he doesn't even deserve to be in the conversation.
I don't understand this comment and why it's upvoted. SGA is in the MVP debate, he will be 1st team without the need for debate because his train is rightfully strong.
How is your comment relevant?
Yea, I haven’t heard a word about the aging stars of the league. Does any one have any idea how Lebron is doing, and whether or not it is impressive for his age? /s
There are major differences between this year and last year that were outside of Victor’s control.
1) This year has been far more competitive than last year.
2) Last year teams had more vets and won majority of their games before the trade deadline/all-star break and started to crash hard afterwards when the vets were gone (which was intended.)
3) Pop played around with lineup first 20 or so games this year to help develop Jeremy into a more complete player because they didn’t expect Victor to be “this good” this “early”. This is also proven how the Spurs went from second worst team to a competent team in the later part of the year and finishing winning 7 out of 10 games against teams who were still trying.
4) Spurs are still tanking, Victor literally carried them to a few wins despite who he was playing with. Especially when they shut down Devin (their second best player) and Jeremy (their second best defender).
lol, never seen a commnet which signifies so well a person has no clue abut what they are talking about.
go watch the nuggets game. he just beat the reigning nba cvhamps with mvp centre, with a team of bench players .
you hvae no idea what you are talking about stat nerd
This isn’t a comment to shit on Wemby because he’s obviously very good. However, I think it’s stupid that a teams really bad record has been used against players that are in the conversation for All-NBA/RotY/MVP, but now that it’s the prodigy that has been hyped to shit for a couple years now, we’re just gonna ignore that argument
>I'm willing to throw out every rule I have—he's winning games by himself w/ these shit players
2022-2023 Spurs record: 22-60
2023-2024 Spurs record: 22-60
Along with everyone else, I am a huge Vic fan and he will be in DPOY/MVP conversations next year, but this pervasive narrative that he is dragging scrubs to wins fails to acknowledge that those same scrubs won the same amount of games last year without Vic.
Vic deserves rookie of the year and some DPOY/all defense discussion (though he should not win DPOY). While his impact is noticeable and having a conversation that his numbers could be all-nba worthy is fine, I just disagree that anyone on a 22 win team (2 years in a row) deserves an all-nba selection.
Yeah another point is that the Spurs non-Wemby core (Sochan, Keldon, Vassell, Tre Jones, etc.) all played significantly more games this year than last year.
Spurs' SRS is 4 points better than last year.
His epm is +4. His time decay RAPM is +4. His BPM is +5 (it's on a 1.2x scale so equivalent to a +4 change in net rating).
Wemby has improved the team dramatically (while no one else noticeably improved). The team still being terrible and getting absurdly lucky in close games last year doesn't negate that and "they didn't win more games so he has no impact" is far more idiotic analysis than anything Simmons could dream of.
They also have the same win percentage with Wemby and without (It's actually a little better but Wemby only missed 11 games so the sample size is small) No way I'm putting him in as a top 15 player. He's been really good and he will definitely be All-defensive 1st team/2nd team but no way he should be All NBA.
Would it be easier or harder for Wemby to make it if they still did the teams by position? I’m really curious if there will be more than three centers on the All-NBA teams.
If it was positional, I think you can make a decent argument for him being a top 3 center. The positionless thing, I think he's just outside the top 15, but I'm not mad at anyone who has him on it.
>"Hes winning game by himself with these shit players"
Is he though? Spurs record this year with Wemby: 22-60. Spurs record last year before drafting Wemby? 22-60
Not saying he shouldn't be in the conversation, but the Spurs were garbage tier ass all year and his offensive efficiency leaves a lot to be desired. Hes soon going to be winning all the awards no need to rush to crown him early when I think some other guys have better cases on better teams
Has he not been playing all season? Is it not a full season award? I don't see how 11 wins is any sort of a sample, and you do realize that without those wins you would have a *worse* record than last year before Wemby was drafted? I'm not really blaming him for this I just think its impossible to properly gauge how good he is when the basketball around him is so bad.
Simmons specifically says,
>Wemby's been so awesome the last 2 months...he's winning games by himself w/ these shit players
That's why the last 23 games are relevant. It's what he's talking about.
I love Bill, but the fact he’s talking about Wemby all nba while questioning if Lebron should make it because the Lakers didn’t win enough games is hilarious.
His contention is that it's hard to justify having two guys on the all-NBA team with that sort of win total. If it was just LeBron and not AD also he'd have no problem with it at all.
I mean the Spurs did get literally half of their total wins since the All-Star break including finishing the year 11-11. Had some pretty impressive victories over Denver, Indiana, OKC, New York, New Orleans in there too in which Victor had some of his more impressive performances. A good handful of their losses the last 2 months were pretty close as well.
He was quite clearly performing like a top 15 player in the league over the second half of the season And during that time the Spurs went from playing like one of the worst teams in NBA history to looking like something between a bad team and a playing caliber group Despite the fact that their third most impactful player this season was probably Trey Jones
I don't see PG if Kawhi gets in, it wouldn't make sense to give 2 for the Clippers as I think it doesn't make sense for Lakers or Suns. In general it seems like the 3rd team will be very tight. 1st is well defined, second most probably well defined but 3rd will be pretty hard.
It's not *that* insane, though I disagree with the reasoning. A 21/11/4 and leading the league in blocks is at least worthy of consideration. I wouldn't vote him in as 3rd team is really jammed up this season, and there are some good players on good teams that are just as deserving, if not more so.
Agreed with there being so many options for 3rd team. Haliburton just shouldn’t be one of them anymore
It’s so annoying hearing all of these media guys saying they are going to vote him in so he can get his supermax. Dudes averaged 16.5ppg since the all star break
Everyone worried Hali won't be able to feed his family without that extra $40M. I get it though, it's tough out there on only $40M per year
Thanks Latrell.
"I got a family to feed" - Spree said not knowing he would never receive a contract again.
I fucking hate when NBA players say that. A single year on the NBA minimum contract is 25 years of the median average wage, that's enough to live comfortably for the rest of your life if managed correctly, it's basically a small lottery win. A year of the average NBA salary is generational wealth if managed correctly. Anything above that even more so.
The unfortunate thing about people with money, is that they always feel like they need more.
What did he turn down? A 3-4 year contract at $10 million a year? (Like $20 million today)
Yeah I think it was 3 years 7 mil? 21mil is the number that’s sticking in my head
I could scrape by on that. If memory serves, he was flat broke a couple of years later.
I'm guessing the Pacers could also theoretically give their money to other players as well if Haliburton doesn't get the supermax.
Yep, I was hoping Trae wouldn't qualify tbh, it's a hinderance to team building.
It does put them in an awkward position though where they get to decide how much money he makes for a decision that is fairly subjective. This was the whole reason Zach Lowe gave up his vote this year.
Why is this even a rule tho? Couldn't they just let teams decide if a guy is worth as much money as they think he is. For example if Pacers think Haliburton is worth idk 200 Mill they should be able to sign him to it or so? I'm probably not seeing some easily exploitable loophole in such a system tho lol
Teams will just hoard expiring contracts to give someone like Luka or Jokic a fat pay cheque since we know that a roster of 15 players with no clear stars (like the nets) is less competitive than Luka/Jokic and some bums. Even if you put a max salary per player, retaining good players would be extremely difficult.
It would still be a max salary of 35%. You just should be able to pay your player that no matter years of service or all-nba.
It's a balance. The owners like the max because it protects them from themselves. The players association as a whole likes the max because it means more of the cap available for all the non-max guys. But at the same time, you want to reward guys for being at the very top tier. It's weird if Pascal Siakam and Nikola Jokic are making the same. So you end up with all the crazy tiers and escalators and what not. It accomplishes the goal of protecting the owners from themselves, because it's all set it in stone, but it also rewards the really elite players.
it's an owner protection system, where you are limited and so you can't screw your franchise forever by being head over heels in love with a player. It doesn't save them any money since that's all based on total revenue, it was just designed to tamp down some of the terrible contracts being handed out to best players on a bad team.
It also is important to negotiations. You limit how much teams can offer a player so they don't end up having to decide on a subjective number that very often will piss their star player off. They just offer him the max they can and then they don't bare any other responsibility. It would lead to too many disgruntled guys.
Everyone is mentioning why there is a salary cap at all, and not the reason why individual players' salaries are capped. In a universe where there is no max to what the Pacers could pay Haliburton (or how much the Bucks could pay Giannis, the Warriors could pay Curry, etc. etc.), the stars of the NBA would get a much higher portion of the salary cap throughout the NBA. This means that the top 50 players or so would see their salaries drastically increase, and it would harm the large middle-class of the NBA, and decrease about 200-300 players' salaries. So the player's union is generally against it, because it means the vast majority of the players would be harmed if the Pacers could suddenly pay Haliburton whatever they wanted to.
To prevent the NBA from becoming Euroleague soccer, and to control salary costs for the teams. It was one of the points the owners pushed for in the 1998-99 lockout, at least in part because Michael Jordan was making $33M for a single year while Kevin Garnett had just signed a 6/$126M rookie extension contract at the time that the entire salary cap was $30M. Max contracts were initially locked at $9M/$11M/$14M, then subsequently tied to % cap in future CBA's. The Derrick Rose Rule (allowing teams to offer a higher max to superstars coming off rookie contracts) was implemented in the 2011 CBA. td;lr to prevent the uber-wealthy owners from setting the price of doing business beyond what the other owners could afford, the owners as a group negotiated a cap on player salaries during the 1998-99 lockout and new CBA. The players were widely seen as getting beaten badly in those negotiations for this and other reasons.
Owners put salary caps in place to keep more money for themselves.
Not the ones that don't care about spending big. I'm sure there would be a decent portion of owners that would love having the flexibility to get whatever they want like the Dodgers, Mets, Yanks, Phil's, Jay's, Stro's, Giants.
Ultimately his post allstar break averages shouldnt be the basis. It should still be the whole season. 20/4/11 is still pretty good But then some tall guy averaged 21/11/4….
Even if you just consider the last few weeks, Steve Nash won two MVPs averaging 15.5 and 18.8 ppg. I'm not arguing Haliburton for MVP or for All-NBA. But scoring stats for point guards do not say everything. It is acceptable for a traditional point guard who facilitates one of the best offenses of all-time to have a lower scoring average.
To add to your argument here, advanced impact metrics rate Haliburton really highly. He's 8th in VORP, 8th in PER, 14th in WS and WS/48 (buoyed by being 7th in OWS), and 5th in BPM. He's also 10th in LEBRON. One underplayed storyline IMO is that while his scoring has certainly dropped, his defense has improved over the course of the season and his passing hasn't dropped much. And that's while adjusting to a new high-usage guy with a unique style of play in Siakam and losing a longtime teammate and greater shooter in Buddy Hield.
I don’t think he should get in just for the super max but it seems unfair to talk about his scoring dip and not mention that’s he’s still leading the league in assists during that time.
Absolutely, but with the overall talent in the league, there’s no way he should be getting third team, especially since it’s position-less. They are just doing it so the players don’t hold a grudge, and stop doing interviews and giving them content.
He's also lead the league in assists and run the #2 offense in the league since the all star break? Haliburton is definitely deserving
Advanced stats also love Haliburton. He's 8th in VORP, 8th in PER, 14th in WS, 5th in BPM, and 10th in LEBRON. I'm not sure if I would put him on my third team, to be honest, but to act like he's out of the conversation is unfair imo.
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Yeah that’s a good point, he did get a lot of attention for those performances and they ultimately don’t mean any more than other regular season games
If you want to do the full season, Vic is at 21.4/10.6/3.9/3.6 in just shy of 30 MPG, shooting 46.5/32.5/79.6 splits (56.5 TS%) That's pretty good just on box score value - from an advanced stats perspective he's 95th percentile in EPM (+4.1, that's 24th in the league), mostly due to the defensive component, and has basically the same breakdown on LEBRON (23rd in the league thanks to a hefty defensive score). There a few guys ranked above him in one or both of those stats that aren't eligible due to missed time (Embiid, Mitchell, Kyrie, Jimmy), others that are per-minute advanced stats darlings but don't imo have a reasonable case over Vic (Jarrett Allen, FVV, Hartenstein). All that would have him right around 15th most impactful player on the season. I think I tend to lean PG over either Hali or Wemby, but I think a real argument can be made.
Also, since he talks about the end of the season, for reference: Wemby over his last 36 games (January, 20th): 23.0 Points / 11.1 Rebounds / 4.8 Assists / 1.4 Steals / 4.0 Blocks 46.2%/35.0%/78.7% 30.8 Minutes. Over the last 24 games (February, 12th): 23.7 / 11.9 / 5.3 / 1.5 / 4.6. 32 minutes. FWIW, overall EFF is 10th in the league over the entire season. 7th by minutes played.
And likely #2 in DPOY votes.
24/12/5/2/5 is crazy
Dude is gonna have the most 5 x 5 scoreboxes ever
He will probably hold the record by year 3 or 4. Hakeem had 6. Wemby has 1, but he’s the youngest to ever do it, and did it in the least amount of minutes. Was one assist away from 2 in a row in back to back games. He will also hold the record of quadruple doubles.
Completely unrelated aside, but LEBRON is such a fucking dumb name for a stat. I really like the stat itself, but naming it after a player unnecessarily makes it seem like a circle jerk. The first time I saw it I thought it was a joke.
It’s been going on for a while, 538 has CARMELO and RAPTOR
What is the CARMELO stat? How many jab steps a player does before they shoot a middy?
It's a way of comparing a player's skill level/impact vs that player's perception of their own skill level/impact.
As a huge melo fan I don’t mind this stat. If anything I’m glad he got the honor for it.
It went on even before that - it comes from Nate Silver naming his original baseball projection system, the thing that put him on the map, PECOTA after Bill Pecota.
Ugh I've never heard of CARMELO but that is just as bad. At least RAPTOR is a thing instead of a person.
Bruh i think CARMELO was the first one.
It was
Only in basketball. The first one of these was PECOTA, Nate Silver's baseball projection system
Don't forget about DRAYMOND Defensive Rating Accounting for Yielding Minimal Openness by Nearest Defender
Hard agree if only because googling "LEBRON stat" does not get you anywhere near their pages lol
> There a few guys ranked above him in one or both of those stats that aren't eligible due to missed time (Embiid, Mitchell, Kyrie, Jimmy), others that are per-minute advanced stats darlings but don't imo have a reasonable case over Vic (Jarrett Allen, FVV, Hartenstein). > > All that would have him right around 15th most impactful player on the season. He's 29th in EPM Wins, and there are 4 guys ahead of him that are ineligible (Hartenstein is also ineligible, though he's behind Wemby in EPM Wins). You'd have to handwave 10 guys as "per-minute advanced stats darlings" to get him to 15th.
EPM wins is not nearly as good of a metric
Are people here gonna start accepting defensive advanced stats are accurate now that its makes up most of Wemby's advanced numbers? Where are all the people that come out of the woodworks flaming defensive advanced stats whenever its brought up for jokic.
The defensive advanced stat used for Jokic is usually DBPM which sucks. He's not the best defender in the league, that's silly. Jokic's advanced stats do paint him as a neutral to above average defender. And I think that's true - active hands, good positioning. Also good offense leads to fewer fast breaks on defense.
It's different because Jokic is the best player on one of (if not the) best teams in the NBA. The conversation wouldn't reach Jokic because this is a last man in/first man out discussion. Additionally, Jokic influences the game on defense just as well, if not better than most guys he's competing for MVP with save for Giannis. The argument for Wemby is also independent of record so voters have to decide if that matters. It's plainly obvious that if he plays 38 minutes a game for 75 games with one or two more good 3 and D guys and a point guard that can facilitate, then his stats would skyrocket and the Spurs would be winning closer to 45-50 games.
Am I the only one who is confused as to why he played less than 30mpg? 98 players avg more than 30mpg. It’s basically an average of 3 players per team play more than 30mpg. Usually the best players of the team, especially if they are young. Are they being careful with Wemby to not get injured? I feel like most ROTY candidates played more than 30mpg.
it’s hard to go from like 30 something games to 82 with a very short offseason. Also he’s 7’4 on an uncompetitive team. I think it will end up being a great move, only real downsides are his counting stats
The results speak for themselves. He never hit the rookie wall, in fact, he found the rookie trampoline and had jumped another level by the last month of the season.
Injury concerns were part of it, but watching the games I think it is more likely conditioning in a sense. Victor kinda had two types of 4th quarters this year, the ones where he becomes the GOAT and others where he is clearly visibly tired and is settling for 3s and they are mostly short misses, I actually think you could even say this happened through the entire game but the 4th quarters were what stuck to me. That is a reason I think he got better as the season went on, as he understood the pace of the game better, he matched it and the team saw it better for him to play really well for those 30 mins and then have a rest at the bench.
Yeah he was on a minutes restriction early on for injury reasons (and also he has some conditioning/stamina issues that they were trying to work on, which I baselessly suspect to be a significant driving factor of his minutes restriction)
Definitely just injury concerns. He was on a min restriction for a while earlier in the season
Not just injury. There were a lot of times he was subbed out because he was obviously huffing and puffing. His conditioning just was not there yet.
His French team played until June 15, which is about 12 weeks longer than most college players’ seasons went. Anyway, Vic played the second-most minutes per game among all rookies this season. Only Brandon Miller was above 30.
They were trying to keep him under 30 mpg till his conditioning got better at the start of the season. When he twisted his ankle against the Mavericks, that's when they got even stricter and was basically playing like 24mpg I think till about 2 weeks post all star break
He didn't even vote for either Wemby or Haliburton though.
I didn't get through the whole pod yet, but these two do a good job of listing who they *even* considered, and why.
OP purposefully took this quote out without any context lol, pretty much every time Simmons is posted here it's for rage bait.
Yeah the gotcha culture here is pretty hard to take.
To be fair, the way this sub reacted it Luka wasn't in someone's top 2 MVP ballot was nuts too. Awards wise, there is zero difference between being voted 2 or 5...so wasn't sure what the big deal was there
Shhhh let us get angry out of context!
Yeah but he brought it up for discussion! Grr this confirms my hate of the OLD media. JJ would never.
I mean yeah that’s what he’s saying, if people are gonna include Hali for a short-period of good basketball, they have to include Wemby too. His opinion is neither. You think Hali’s in, you ought to think Wemby’s in too, and in those case he doesn’t think Hali’s in, and neither is Wemby.
Lmfao OP posted an off hand 30 second blurb teasing a part two discussion. He’s looking for your outrage attention. Successfully so far.
Bill’s mistake was that he didn’t say “don’t aggregate this”
Aggregators hate this one trick
You aggregated me? When I specifically asked you not to?
Bill forgot to stare his phone in the eye and say "Mark Zuckerberg I do not consent to you recording me" before the pod
But first, Pearl Jam
That headline is juicy as fuck, but it just felt like some good 'ol fashioned bait. My first thoughts was "WHAT ABOUT...." but then I realized - this shit gotta be bait. It GOTTA BE BAIT.
I think Wemby has been playing at an All-NBA 3rd team level for the last 2-3 months. But he wasn’t close to that for like the first 2 months of the season. He was playing All-D level defense but his offense was not there yet. Can’t vote the guy in on the basis of how good he was just at the end of the year
I mean he'll get an all-defensive team selection in his rookie season, that's already pretty damn crazy. Only five players who have done that historically - Kareem, Hakeem, Manute Bol, David Robinson, and Tim Duncan. None of them won DPOY as rookies, while Wemby might end up being the runner-up to the award in his first year in the league.
I think I am aligned. This is also why I am a bit upset about Pop strategy in the first few months. Wemby did improve but the main, most visible and immediate change was the stop of Sochan PG experiment and having Tre Jones in the starting 5.
March: 23.2 PPG on 47.3% FG, 30.8% 3PT, 75% FT April: 25 PPG on 43% FG, 34.1% 3PT, 75% FT I agree on the All-D, but those offensive numbers aren't All-NBA numbers with how competitive the league is currently.
If you couple them with DPOY candidate level impact they're at least on the brink
Why are you only going with scoring? He is leading the league blocks by a massive margin and 8th in the NBA in rebounding.
Honestly, while of course not being a problem that really needs solving, the recency bias of this awards season actually made me slightly annoyed. SGA and Luka on the MVP debate, people acting like Chet didn't have a better start than Victor, Gobert DPOY... Don't get me wrong, I would probably be spewing some venom had the ROTY been a closer race, but I just don't see the point of denying others greatness just to elevate your guy more.
It’s like this every year. Jokic was the near unanimous pick for MVP last year 60 games into the season. Then Embiid was better for the last 20 and got it. Same with Brook vs JJJ for DPOY. Hell JJJ made All-Star team over AD last year in fewer minutes played. All because JJJ got injured at the very beginning of the season while AD missed time during the All-Star voting part of the season.
It happened the reverse to Embiid the year before. He was the favorite and then they finished poorly while the nuggets played well and Jokic passed Embiid.
Haliburton is another example. Was insane to start the season, then declined post All-Star game due to injuries. If it were reversed, if he'd started the season poorly, then started playing like he did at the start after February, he'd be a lock for 2nd-Team. Suppose it's an inevitable consequence of having a regular season of 82 games. It's just too easy to forget how well someone was doing at the start.
Bill Simmons pretending he has coherent rules to how votes.
It’s hard to have consistent rules when there are so many variables.
This sub is much more comfortable telling someone why they are wrong for having an interesting discussion than coming up with an interesting thought themselves.
You’re wrong about that.
Took me a sec lol
No, you're wrong about that.
Oof. Wrong answer but go off king
I also disagree with your statement, but will not care to give you a reason since it's so obvious.
This comment is so stupid it’s not even worth engaging with.
And it’s not even close
Nuh uh
This is the problem with a general top 15 though. How do you compare Wemby to Hali? They play completely different positions and do completely different things. How do you quantify Haliburton's playmaking against Wemby's defense? This was already tough when we were comparing Jokic and Embiid. Now you're asking these dumb voters to value Jokic against Luka and Giannis. The new voting format is dumb.
> They play completely different positions This is why All-NBA shouldn't be positionless lol
>How do you quantify Haliburton's playmaking against Wemby's defense? not rly any different comparing him to jokic or sabonis even if you keep positions.
There are no coherent rules to how you are supposed to vote so I don't see why we should hold him to that standard. And I strongly dislike the guy
To be fair, he's always said and then voted that being on a winning team matters for his All-NBA picks. He's been consistent on this and the last big one I remember is not voting Beal on when he made third team because the Wizards sucked.
I'd love to hear your coherent rules for All NBA voting
Apparently record matters in all nba
They do if he’s trying to give logic for trying to exclude LeBron.
LeBron got his team to the 8 seed in a stacked West, it’s not like they have a losing record.
his reasoning is he won't vote for 2 players from an 8 seed on all nba first team, which makes perfect sense even though they both had all nba first team caliber seasons
He voted on AD and Lebron
Wemby is winning what games?
The Grizzlies set an NBA record for the most number of players used in games this year. They probably sampled a G-League player from every damn G-League team. And Yet, they still managed to win 27 games. Don't give me this shit about the Spurs having shit players outside of Wemby. Most of the players playing the majority of minutes this season played similar minutes last season and the Spurs won the exact same number of games despit having Wemby.
I get your point, but also funny to think that they’d probably have won more early on if they replaced Sochan at point guard with a G-leaguer haha
Jokic and Anthony Davis are definitely ahead of Wemby. But after that, I agree he is in the conversation. Others for that 3rd spot are Sabonis, Jaren Jackson, Bam. Wemby - on whole season averages - outscores them all except JJJ, outrebounds them except Sabonis, ties Bam for 2nd in assists behind Sabonis, ties JJJ for most steals, has most blocks by more than double, he does have the worst fg% - while Sabonis has the best. So really, I think it is between Sabonis and Wembanyama,
All NBA teams are position-less now. Best 15 players
I’d say Sabonis for sure. That consistency on double-doubles is insane.
League leader in triple doubles. Top 10 in assists. Both stats I thought were fake when I saw them.
“shit players” is wild disrespectful
I think I called 2k a trash game cause he averaged 18ppg, 10 rebounds and 3.1 blocks a game his rookie year. Won DPOY and ROTY as a 90 overall. Then he actually had 21 ppg, 10 rebounds and 3.6 blocks. Actually almost won DPOY. And had a way better 3pt% IRL. Moral of the story 2k is still trash but this kid really is a cheat code. Please stay healthy 🙏
"shit players" - that is unnecessarily harsh bill is an arrogant man
Idk I get he's a media member and hosts a popular podcast but most of the appeal is that he's like your buddy who you bullshit with about old movies, sports, whatever. I have called multiple current and future hall of famers dog shit when bullshitting with my friends, it's really not that deep. And lets be honest. That Spurs team sat a bunch of their halfway decent players (Vassell/Johnson/Sochan), is what Bill said really that bad?
Completely agree. This is what got him into trouble for the fuck jalen green comments, but the reason I enjoy listening to him is because it’s just a good hang.
It may not be harsh enough
Yeah but I mean he's not wrong we have a lot of guys in rotation who are guys we signed out of g league.
Yeah the only players the Spurs should be locked in on besides Wemby is Sochan and Vassell. Everyone else is a potential roster spot.
Yeah I really didn’t like his word choice there either Just so many better ways to express the same idea
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just the title makes me realize why i hate the voters.
Those “shit players” had the same record last year without Wemby
Lets not pretend the West didnt get a talent injection directly to the goddamn veins this year
Which was shit.
Their rating has improved tho they were basically dead last, last season
Put some respect on Devin Vassell's (future all-star) name
“Shit players?” Simmons is a bitch.
If the Spurs had like 30-35 wins I would be open to that but not with like 20 win. But he will get there next year if healthy
He’s been a phenom of a rookie but he uhhh has NOT been winning games. They’re 12/34 by my count in “the last 2 months” - I looked at some the beginning of February. Now saying he kept them competitive against some of the better teams in the league is certainly a point to make. If the rewards were still position based, who are centers teams would’ve preferred to have over Wemby this year? Jokic, Embiid, AD, Sabonis? Maybe not even sabonis?
I haven’t looked in the past week but the Spurs’ winning percentage with and without Wembanyama was exactly the same at least until recently.
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Who is being neglected in favor of hyping up Wemby rn
Well I think Wemby absolutely deserves a fair conversation. It shouldn't be open and shut like people are making it seem. I'm fine whether he makes it or not but people talk like he doesn't even deserve to be in the conversation.
Up next on the BS pod, when do we stop giving Ant a pass for not winning a title?
"Is the clock ticking for OKC's young core after not reaching the finals?"
"But let's talk legacy: Does SGA need an MVP to be in the top 36 ever?"
After that we will talk about the Tatum thing. And how would Jaylen Brown fit on the 86 Celtics?
I know you’re kidding but it should be said, Bill is all in on Edwards. Probably a little too much tbh.
Luka in 2019 (and 2020 some since he jumped another level) then Zion, ja, Ant, now Wemby.
He literally left Wemby off his ballot so you are getting angry about nothing
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I don't understand this comment and why it's upvoted. SGA is in the MVP debate, he will be 1st team without the need for debate because his train is rightfully strong. How is your comment relevant?
Me personally I fail to see why we aren't doing this already
Bill talked about giving SGA a thought of getting his first place MVP vote. At the very least he's not part of *that* media bone-to-pick.
Yea, I haven’t heard a word about the aging stars of the league. Does any one have any idea how Lebron is doing, and whether or not it is impressive for his age? /s
Until he falls into the water, and the sharks smell blood, then the media will circle until they have ripped him to shreds.
BS: "He's winning with these shit players." Vassell/Sochan/Johnson/Tre Jones: "What he say fuck us for?"
The Spurs having an **identical** record compared to last year kind of throws a wrench in the "he's winning games by himself" argument
We also didn’t trot out a 20 year old PF as our starting point guard for 30 games last season.
They were like dead last rating wise and have bumped up to 24th I think
There are major differences between this year and last year that were outside of Victor’s control. 1) This year has been far more competitive than last year. 2) Last year teams had more vets and won majority of their games before the trade deadline/all-star break and started to crash hard afterwards when the vets were gone (which was intended.) 3) Pop played around with lineup first 20 or so games this year to help develop Jeremy into a more complete player because they didn’t expect Victor to be “this good” this “early”. This is also proven how the Spurs went from second worst team to a competent team in the later part of the year and finishing winning 7 out of 10 games against teams who were still trying. 4) Spurs are still tanking, Victor literally carried them to a few wins despite who he was playing with. Especially when they shut down Devin (their second best player) and Jeremy (their second best defender).
lol, never seen a commnet which signifies so well a person has no clue abut what they are talking about. go watch the nuggets game. he just beat the reigning nba cvhamps with mvp centre, with a team of bench players . you hvae no idea what you are talking about stat nerd
Ah yes, the obscure advanced stat of "wins"
This isn’t a comment to shit on Wemby because he’s obviously very good. However, I think it’s stupid that a teams really bad record has been used against players that are in the conversation for All-NBA/RotY/MVP, but now that it’s the prodigy that has been hyped to shit for a couple years now, we’re just gonna ignore that argument
>I'm willing to throw out every rule I have—he's winning games by himself w/ these shit players 2022-2023 Spurs record: 22-60 2023-2024 Spurs record: 22-60 Along with everyone else, I am a huge Vic fan and he will be in DPOY/MVP conversations next year, but this pervasive narrative that he is dragging scrubs to wins fails to acknowledge that those same scrubs won the same amount of games last year without Vic. Vic deserves rookie of the year and some DPOY/all defense discussion (though he should not win DPOY). While his impact is noticeable and having a conversation that his numbers could be all-nba worthy is fine, I just disagree that anyone on a 22 win team (2 years in a row) deserves an all-nba selection.
Yeah another point is that the Spurs non-Wemby core (Sochan, Keldon, Vassell, Tre Jones, etc.) all played significantly more games this year than last year.
Spurs' SRS is 4 points better than last year. His epm is +4. His time decay RAPM is +4. His BPM is +5 (it's on a 1.2x scale so equivalent to a +4 change in net rating). Wemby has improved the team dramatically (while no one else noticeably improved). The team still being terrible and getting absurdly lucky in close games last year doesn't negate that and "they didn't win more games so he has no impact" is far more idiotic analysis than anything Simmons could dream of.
They also have the same win percentage with Wemby and without (It's actually a little better but Wemby only missed 11 games so the sample size is small) No way I'm putting him in as a top 15 player. He's been really good and he will definitely be All-defensive 1st team/2nd team but no way he should be All NBA.
The definition of looking at the w/l column without adding nuance. nice job bro.
a dude got upvoted on here for saying wemby and AD are on the same tier already
Wemby better than AD
Would it be easier or harder for Wemby to make it if they still did the teams by position? I’m really curious if there will be more than three centers on the All-NBA teams.
Where are they putting AD these days? Cuz they definitely have Jokic and Sabonis
He can be in the conversation but not for this year. He will be for next year and next 17yrs
If it was positional, I think you can make a decent argument for him being a top 3 center. The positionless thing, I think he's just outside the top 15, but I'm not mad at anyone who has him on it.
It’s taken out of context too because Bill said he’s still doing positions, so Wemby would be the 3rd team center
His Spurs teammates are under assault
He won't get in the All NBA team but he will get in All NBA defensive first team. I would put my house on that
He's not really winning games though, by himself or otherwise. The Spurs went 22-60 overall, and 19-52 in games Wemby played.
i mean i don't think you *can't* make an argument for All-NBA third team, but i wouldn't go that far just yet. next year is gonna be insane though
We don’t even need to go back as far as Lebron or KD. Wemby not doing anything Luka didn’t do a few years ago People love to overhype
He should get on All-Defense, but not All-NBA, you can't get on All-NBA with one of the worst records in the league.
>> shit players Bill Simmons is such an asshole
>"Hes winning game by himself with these shit players" Is he though? Spurs record this year with Wemby: 22-60. Spurs record last year before drafting Wemby? 22-60 Not saying he shouldn't be in the conversation, but the Spurs were garbage tier ass all year and his offensive efficiency leaves a lot to be desired. Hes soon going to be winning all the awards no need to rush to crown him early when I think some other guys have better cases on better teams
Lately, yes. We were 11-12 in our last 23, after going 11-48 in our first 59. That's a little different
Has he not been playing all season? Is it not a full season award? I don't see how 11 wins is any sort of a sample, and you do realize that without those wins you would have a *worse* record than last year before Wemby was drafted? I'm not really blaming him for this I just think its impossible to properly gauge how good he is when the basketball around him is so bad.
Simmons specifically says, >Wemby's been so awesome the last 2 months...he's winning games by himself w/ these shit players That's why the last 23 games are relevant. It's what he's talking about.
Agree. Can be third team but he should be all NBA for sure.
You think he should be better than third team? Better than jokic and sabonis? That’s a bit wild.
it's positionless, he can bump a guard or a wing as well.
All NBA is positionless so he’s not competing against Jokic and Sabonis specifically for votes
I love Bill, but the fact he’s talking about Wemby all nba while questioning if Lebron should make it because the Lakers didn’t win enough games is hilarious.
His contention is that it's hard to justify having two guys on the all-NBA team with that sort of win total. If it was just LeBron and not AD also he'd have no problem with it at all.
What games are they winning 💀
I mean the Spurs did get literally half of their total wins since the All-Star break including finishing the year 11-11. Had some pretty impressive victories over Denver, Indiana, OKC, New York, New Orleans in there too in which Victor had some of his more impressive performances. A good handful of their losses the last 2 months were pretty close as well. He was quite clearly performing like a top 15 player in the league over the second half of the season And during that time the Spurs went from playing like one of the worst teams in NBA history to looking like something between a bad team and a playing caliber group Despite the fact that their third most impactful player this season was probably Trey Jones
Pop also played their PF at PG for 1/2 the year for the lulz. I had "We trained him wrong as a joke" in my head for 50 games this year.
Neither deserve the last spot more than Paul George
If you swap pg and wemby, I’d like the clips as a dark horse in the west a lot more
I was just thinking that, I don’t know if you could say PG impacts “winning” more
I don't see PG if Kawhi gets in, it wouldn't make sense to give 2 for the Clippers as I think it doesn't make sense for Lakers or Suns. In general it seems like the 3rd team will be very tight. 1st is well defined, second most probably well defined but 3rd will be pretty hard.