Basketball from a fan’s perspective

An enigma

I cannot figure out this Laker team, they are not great however they are not as bad as they appear. On Thursday evening against the defending NBA champion Nuggets this occurred. After overcoming a lead by the Nuggets Austin Reaves hit a 3-pointer tying the game 104-104 with 2 minutes and seconds remaining. The final score read Nuggets 114 Lakers 106, I’m asking what occurred in between time? Maybe the Lakers would have lost anyway but to lose by 8 points. LeBron James commenting on the loss reflected on teammates injuries, D’Lo didn’t play, Max Christie got hurt during the game and didn’t return.

Jarred Vanderbilt the defensive specialist has been in and out of the lineup all season, in addition where is Gabe Vincent? It would be easy for me to agree with James and point toward missing teammates. The only problem is the injury bug manages to bite teams throughout the NBA. The Lakers are nothing special to guarantee they should go through the season injury free. In closing allow me to make this clear, I remain part of Laker Nation. I must say at this point I’m a disappointed member of Laker Nation. Sidebar here, I read this of Anthony Davis and I paraphrase, “The Lakers would have won the NBA championship with or without the bubble.” That was 2020 that team was NBA champions, if you don’t agree that’s okay, I don’t believe there is any reason for me to discuss this matter further.

NET v Top 25

I have complained about the accuracy of the Top 25 poll, especially the Coaches, being somewhat inaccurate. Teams lose yet fail to drop in the polls, the question is why. Coaches do the coaching thing, do you really believe they have the time or opportunity to sit down on a week-to-week basis to rate all the teams in a weekly Top 25? I don’t think that is the case, I believe the NET poll is much more accurate based on the criteria it reveals.

What is the NET about, this from ncaa.com: “The NET includes more components than just winning percentage. It takes into account game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the quality of wins and losses.” How does this look, through the first five the AP and Coaches poll have in this order. 1. UConn 2. Purdue 3. North Carolina 4. Kansas 5. The NET poll is quite different, as you can see the order is 1. Houston 2. Purdue 3. Arizona 4. UConn 5. Tennessee. It’s easy to see the difference in the two polls, what do you think? 

I love me some Luka…but

Luka Doncic is one of a number of NBA stars, guys I love to see play whenever possible. I had a rare opportunity two years ago, I had a chance to see Doncic in action in a regular season game. I was in the Dallas area and it was suggested it would be good to take in a Mavs game. As for Doncic the guy has shooting ability, he rebounds the basketball and is adept at distributing the ball…but. This is the interesting part, I’ve only checked ESPN’s website page, they list the 6-foot 7 230-pound Doncic as a point guard.

I guess unless a player is giving a coach trouble he must say good things about said player, that is the case for Jason Kidd. The Mavs coach went on record recently claiming “Luka Doncic is a better player for the Mavs than Dirk Nowatzki” or something similar. From time to time I have disagreed with the take of one Shaquille O’Neal but not this time. He indicated Doncic is not there yet and I’d have to agree. This has nothing to do with Dirk scoring 20,000 points, how about an NBA championship? The Mavs, through no fault of Doncic have only been good but not great. Great enough to lead his team to an NBA championship is not the only criteria there are other benchmarks in leading a team however a championship causes one to wake up and take notice.     

Hey, I’m here too

That’s the lament of Thunder rookie power forward Chet Holmgren. It seems Victor Wembanyama sucks all the oxygen out of the room, his numbers have been outstanding but Holmgren’s been steady too. The 7 foot 1 Holmgren does have two clear advantages over his counterpart in San Antonio. The Thunder are playing much better basketball than the lowly Spurs, which has allowed Holmgren to flourish. Heading into the season much of the skepticism about him revolved around his weight. Holmgren’s reported weight at the beginning of the season was 195 pounds which makes him thin for a guy his height. 

Since that time he’s bulked up to a hefty 208 pounds, despite his thin frame playing at the power forward position Holmgren’s managed to pull down 7.5 rebounds a game. In addition to his rebounding he’s scoring at a nearly 17 point a clip game with about 3 assists. Certainly outstanding numbers for a rookie, the one standout area for me is his field goal shooting. Holmgren is shooting 53.5% from the floor and 39.4% from the three line. It’s likely Holmgren will fail to win Rookie of the Year however he's gone a long way toward making the Thunder more competitive just by his presence on the team. It’s often been said former college players begin slowing down in January, they have played the equivalent of a college season, that’s not been the case for Holmgren.