****2018-2019 Official NBA Regular season thread****
 

Didn't see anybody starting this thread so I guess I will.

Anti climatic season starts tonight and my prediction is GS vs Boston in the NBA Finals.




First 2 Games tonight on TNT with Philly vs Boston and OKC vs GS. Westbrook is out tonight so that game will be a blowout most likely.

Simmons still doesn’t have a shot and Fultz’s looks awkward

Gordon Hayward looks better than he did last year

He looks pretty decent. That was a good first half but Kyrie’s new afro isn’t helping his shooting

Damn Jaylen Brown posterizes Embiid lol

OKC ready to shock the world without Westbrook tonight. Keep doubting Dennis ****ing Schroder. Deutschland!

Any chance Melo contributes and Paul stays healthy in the playoffs?

Paul healthy? Yeah.

Melo might contribute - but it will be a detriment to whoever's minutes he's taking. Melo is a shell of a player he once was. And all he is is a volume inefficient scorer. He automatically makes every team he goes to worse at this point in his career.

Yup.

Melo butted heads with D'Antoni in NY so this will be interesting to see how he handles coming off the bench.

Shocking Melo is still the ball stopper

Pathetic effort by the Rockets

The melo effect

That's what I was thinking. Get the deficit down 17 then give up 3 uncontested buckets just lol

Man I was laughing so hard when Harden passed to Melo, and he started sizing AD up then tried a long 2 and got stuffed. Typical Melo.

Yeah this isnt the Olympics strangely enough Melo would be the GOAT in the international game.

Off topic but did Davis bulk up? Holy shit dude is Brolic. When he teams up with LeBron they'll end the Warriors run.

Anthony Davis is my pick for MVP this year. He’s taking the next step to being a truly generational talent. Needs out of New Orleans though.

New Orleans will be better.

Minnesota isnt making the playoffs.

My Suns looked pretty decent tonight. Booker just went off in the 4th quarter. Too bad the wins probably won’t last.

Needs to stay the **** healthy.

The finals will be Golden State vs it doesn’t matter.

They'll sure as hell be more fun to watch this year though. Booker is a straight beast. That 4th quarter was a thing of beauty. Josh Jackson also had his best game as a pro, I thought. Ayton looked the part as well.

Spurs and DeRozen off to a good start!

Oh yeah, Jackson was deadly from the perimeter, which is a pleasant surprise. So happy with Ayton, I think he will definitely live up to the hype. Also, Ariza had an amazing all around game. I don’t know how they’ll end up, but it’s going to be fun!

Lebron time

As a Lakers fan, so far, im entertained! lol This is awesome.

Very nice start by the Lakers. LeBron must have taken about 22 steps on that and-1 but hey, it's LeBron.

Is this LeBron's worst supporting cast yet? Whatever it is, it's interesting viewing. LMAO

Not if you ask Colin Cowherd

Nothing new for Lebron, he goes to the bench and team gives up big lead

There's not even an above average NBA player on that team other than Javale McGee (and he was primarily a bench warmer for GSW). I suppose one or more of Ball, Ingram, or Kuzma could become that but they could just as easily not.

sauce castillo heating up

Loved seeing the Lakers flop on their opening night.

LeBron will fail hard in LA

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">That classic LeBron defense in the 4th <a href="https://t.co/iJsru638YK">pic.twitter.com/iJsru638YK</a></p>&mdash; KUNG FU JRUE fan account (@RyanJatho) <a href="https://twitter.com/RyanJatho/status/1053150316005339136?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 19, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Got to conserve that energy to rack up stats!

The Lakers were one of the worst 3 pt shooting teams last year and they aren't going to be any better this year.

Welcome to the Western Conference Lebron.

It was the 1st game of the season...the Lakers will be alright in the long run. No way they shoot that poorly from 3 going on.

They will still win 50 games.

Their efficiency on 2's and fast break is where they're going to hurt most teams. They will struggle with teams that can consistently shoot 3's....like the Blazers.

Need that lottery pick will help with a sign and trade for AD

I’m not sure they are going to be OK. They’ve built a team of non-shooters around LeBron in the new NBA, it was exactly the opposite of how they should have done it.

Raptors didn’t even play well and still knocked off the overrated Celtics. They should make the Finals this year.

This Jazz/Warriors game has been incredible.

Don’t understand what role Lonzo Ball has for the Lakers. Lebron is the point forward and he maybe a worse shooter then Ben Simmons

Watching the Lakers first two games, I don't see one for him. Rondo and Lebron are more efficient players who play a similar role to Ball in distribution/tempo.

Unless he can start shooting 3's all of a sudden, they should try to dump him for a shooter who can play D.

Going be tough for the Lakers to find a buyer for him at this point though.

Sell tickets and be trade bait when that time comes.

WTF? He's not anywhere close to a worse shooter than Ben Simmons. He's made 4/7 threes tonight. That's three more than Ben Simmons has made in both college and the NBA combined.

He actually fits with LeBron's game much better than just about anybody on that trash Lakers roster, especially Rondo (who needs the ball in his hands to have any value whatsoever and has been a pretty poor NBA player for almost a decade now). I doubt they're trading him.

And the Rockets and Lakers are gonna play the feud!

CP3, Rondo, and Ingram all getting suspended for their part in that, as they should be.

No idea why the Lakers surrounded LeBron with these bunch of clowns this year. He can't possibly have more than a few elite years left to play with.

That was awesome lol

Rondo can hit a few threes when they give him like 10 ft which the ones lonzo was making. He air balled his first 2 attempts. He may not as bad as Simmons but he still is bad.

Yup

It’s got to be. Maybe those early cavs teams. They were garbage.
And everyone they added can’t shoot. Like at all. Except for Svi and I’m not sure he’s suiting up.
Exactly.

Harden is so good.

Rondo and Ball are basically equivalent shooters right now, except Rondo has proven he's a bad shooter for over a decade whereas Ball is only in his 2nd year and could clearly still improve. Simmons is on a completely different level from both.

At least the awful Cavs teams had some shooters. It's not going to make a huge difference, but they should really at least try playing Svi. One of the few on that roster who actually fits with the style of basketball that LeBron plays. I don't know what Magic was doing there this offseason (Rondo, Lance, Beasley, KCP, Javale...WTF?) and I'm not sure anybody else does either. It's like he completely ignored what the NBA is in 2018.

The Lakers can still make the playoffs but if they do it will have to be with a different group of guys than those around LeBron right now. This team just isn't good.

Svi played well in preseason so I would think they would put him in just to space the floor some. Hell part of this game they had the lineup of Lebron-ball-rondo-McGee-lance. That is ****ing stupid

All that's going to happen this season is the defenses repeatedly selling out to completely collapse on LeBron and forcing him to kick out to guys who are going to brick threes unless they either play the few 3PT shooters they have or bring in other guys that can actually shoot.

I mean, did they really think LeBron was going to play off ball? Apart from the fact that he hasn't done it in his entire 15 year career, it makes no ****ing sense at all to not have one of the best playmakers in the history of basketball with the the ball in his hands.

Totally agree with your last 2 posts. I don’t think anyone has any idea what Magic was thinking when building this roster other than get a bunch of 1 year rentals and hope Leonard signs with them next season.

Unlike in the East when Lebron’s teams could sleep walk through 3/4 of the seasons and still make the Finals/playoffs the West is stacked. Outside of Sacramento and maybe Phoenix there are no gimmes

They also have him play center sometimes on the defensive end LOL

I think he was thinking LeBron being there would mean dudes would show up and they didn’t. So they had to fill out a roster.

OR

They’re flaming ****ing idiots.

One or the other

They focused too much on the whole "positonless team" thing instead of finding good players IMO.

Big time win for the Celts vs OKC after playing like shit and down double digits most of the game.

OKC is still winless at 0-4

Westbrook and PG went a combined 12 for 42 in that game. LMAO

Glad I wasn't watching that shitfest.

Definitely a brick fest.

Btw Mykhailiuk is getting a nice run here with the Lakers. He fits so much better with Lebron than Ball.

Ball just fits fine with LeBron, especially if he makes his threes (over 40 percent entering this game). The team as a whole has been much better to watch without Rondo on the court using up possessions for no good reason.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="cy" dir="ltr">rondo wyd <a href="https://t.co/VPFFJXBaRn">pic.twitter.com/VPFFJXBaRn</a></p>&mdash; Sam Vecenie (@Sam_Vecenie) <a href="https://twitter.com/Sam_Vecenie/status/1056378727989276672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 28, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Rondo's basketball IQ leaves much to be desired.

JFC Another year of doing nothing but shitting on Lebrons team mates?

We can talk about how awesome Kawhi is too, if you'd prefer. I suppose that's even more obvious than the state of the Lakers though.

What in the actual ****?

Klay Thompson with 52 points and an NBA record 14 3 pointers at the end of the 3RD! Quarter!

Wow

He had been in a slump shooting like 15% from 3. Just an incredible performance tonight

That’s filthy.

**** him

How bout dat der Lake Show?

Luka Doncic looking like the real deal so far. Trae Young chucking up shots - we'll see if he can shoot above 35% for the year. Rookie of the year going to come down to Doncic, Young and Ayton.

Rockets are 1-5. Carmelololol.

Milwaukee appears to be embracing the chuck up as many threes as possible philosophy and is 7-0 in doing so.

Joel Embiid still thinks he can shoot threes for some reason.

Kawhi is balling out - but Derozan has been super efficient for Poppovich so far.

The T-Wolves are probably kicking themselves for trading LaVine instead of Wiggins.

Buddy Hield is going to have a big year - Sacramento looks much improved with Bagley in there - still not a playoff team though.

Ben Simmons has yet to launch a three this year.

Dude can get hotter than anyone else in the NBA. When he's hitting shots - he can score as much as he wants.

Derrick rose with a 50 point game. So happy for him. First ballot hall of famer if he didn't have eggshells for knees.
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He was so humbled by the experience. I remember interviews during his injuries with the bulls where he said he needed to save some of himself for his retirement. He kept cashing checks but didn't want to be sitting in a business meeting in 2030 with busted knees. I want to hate him but he seems like a different person after the last few years. Ego definitely checked.

Me too! Do you think he can stay healthy and average 20 ppg?

Running trains on bustacious skanks will do a number on your knees

I don't think Philly can beat Toronto or Boston if Ben Simmons can't shoot at all. In the playoffs teams will just play completely off him and they won't be able to score effectively.

In this day and age, he needs to gain a jump shot if that team is ever going to do anything.